[ein0p]

Karpathy knows Musk better than the vast majority of people - he worked for him for an extended period of time when he was head of AI at Tesla. We're likely talking personal phone number and getting invited to dinner kind of "knows", it was early enough. He also spoke about Musk and his management style favorably in various public talks. But when it comes to feedback on the model - if you read Karpathy's post, it's not all positive. It is a strong model (eval scores attest to that), but it is still deficient in some niches, and he points that out.

[niceice]

Karpathy, Carmack, Andreesen, Jensen, Dawkins and others who know him IRL say the same. It's endlessly curious how people who don't know him are confident they know better.

[cheema33]

> Karpathy, Carmack, Andreesen, Jensen, Dawkins and others who know him IRL say the same.

Most of these people know that there is a price to pay for bruising Elon's ego. We all know he is vindictive. Not unlike his new friend.

[blackeyeblitzar]

Yep. This came out in that recent issue with him hiring someone to play a game. As I recall, he got called out for it by some streamer, and Elon ended up blocking him.

[archagon]

Many people who work under him say he’s the worst kind of seagull boss imaginable: swoops in, understands nothing, fires people for funsies, gives unreasonable orders, and leaves. Don’t be around when Musk is at the office is a common refrain.

But yeah, I’m sure he presents himself well to his C-suite “peers.”

[ein0p]

Who specifically? Could you name names? Or are you going to ask us to believe without evidence that the guy who got FIVE mega-Unicorns off the ground (3 of them "impossible") "understands nothing"?

[lesuorac]

That's actually pretty good evidence he understands nothing.

Either he's the faster learner in the history of mankind or he actually knows very little about his _10_ companies, 14 children, and countless other video game accounts.

[johnthewise]

He seems to understand more than you suggest.

https://www.astralcodexten.com/i/136923606/is-musk-smart-doe...

He could be one of the greatest learners of all time as he is likely the greatest entrepreneur of all time.

[Manabu-eo]

He has a degree in Physics, that is like half of any engineering curriculum. Before funding SpaceX he hired several industry consultants to educate him, indicate aerospace engineering textbooks to study, etc. And then he had about 6 years of experience as almost full time CTO and CEO of SpaceX, until he had to divide his attention with Tesla. And somehow, after he and the SpaceX team achieved what dozens of other teams with more funding failed, he "understands nothing"? No need to be "the faster learner in the history of mankind".

Someone being capable in one field doesn't means he isn't a insufferable jerk or a moron in other fields. I don't understand this impulse to paint someone as completely black or completely white.

[pqtyw]

> He has a degree in Physics

Consensus seems to be that he has some kind of a dual degree (obtained simultaneously) which includes B.S. in economics and a B.A.(!) in physics. That A would imply that he probably took the easier physics related classes (and probably not that many in total given the 2 degrees for 1 thing).

Regardless, a bachelor degree hardly means much anyway...

Is there any indication that he's a particularly (or at all) talented engineer (software or any other field)? I mean, yeah, I agree that it doesn't really matter or change much. Just like Jobs had better/more important things (not being sarcastic) to do than directly designing hardware or writing software himself.

[lesuorac]

> he had about 6 years of experience as almost full time CTO and CEO of SpaceX, until he had to divide his attention with Tesla

So, by your own admission, he knows a lot about 2/10 of his companies.

20% is a F not a passing grade.

[amazingman]

Can confirm via anecdata: some people have always seen him as the narcissist child he is, and have proactively avoided reporting to him in any capacity. A few years ago I found this perplexing and hyperbolic. Boy was I wrong.

[SilverBirch]

You can list lots of people who haven't suffered his wrath. But that's not evidence, that's lack of evidence. I can provide you with someone who does have his phone number and does know him and says something quite different[1]. There's a litany of examples of Musk deliberately endangering people he's decided to go to war with - whether that's spurious accusations of pedophilia or forcing a former employee to go into hiding.

[1]:https://samharris.substack.com/p/the-trouble-with-elon