[marcoamorales]

Jobs was never a cool guy in my book. For me, Steve Jobs was an egocentric and self-centered. Elon is a visionary, just read this quote:

“I came to the conclusion that we should aspire to increase the scope and scale of human consciousness in order to better understand what questions to ask. Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.”

Steve isn't even near to the impact of what Elon will have on humanity.

[luriel]

And unlike Jobs, Elon is behind much of the engineering and research his companies work on.

And also unlike Jobs, you can sense a certain humility in how Elon talks both about himself and about others.

When Neil Armstrong spoke against private space companies, Elon didn't come out and demonize him, I remember watching him cry on camera when asked about it, and said he wished he'd come to Space X to see the work they were doing.

You don't see Elon going "thermonuclear" on his competition and trying to bury them, even when they are huge mega-corporations like Boeing that used all their government connections and lobbying to try to bury him.

[DeepDuh]

Well, you're comparing two visionary entrepreneurs at different stages right now. Jobs wasn't quite as arrogant after he fell from the throne and had to start from scratch (Pixar, NeXT). That's about where I'd put Elon right now, even though the circumstances of his departure from PayPal was of course entirely different. I'd like to see him once SpaceX or Tesla becomes a megacorporation like Apple - the judgement is still out on that. You can't compare the way SpaceX acts towards Boeing with Apple towards its competitors - one is an underdog that has nothing to loose, one is a goliath with the world to loose.

[geekam]

But Jobs wasn't as humble and polite even when Apple was an underdog and was competing in the world of IBM. Weren't those interviews where he calls out Microsoft as "they have bad taste" the same time period?

[DeepDuh]

It was 1996 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upzKj-1HaKw). No, Jobs was certainly never as humble as Musk and I never said that, they definitely have different characters. My point was that we still have to wait on Musk, this man and his companies are far away from their goals and it remains to be seen whether they can afford to keep being idealistic.

And don't get me wrong, I'm a space freak, I root for that guy as much as anyone.

[pork]

What you can surmise from that is that they've both probably taken some acid in their lifetimes. If Jobs were alive and younger, he too would probably have been at Burning Man, place of many a revelation to the technologically inclined.

[nitrogen]

You don't need acid to say things like that, just Star Trek.

[psbp]

Coming to this conclusion on acid is much more gripping and powerful than while watching star trek.

[shasta]

In other words, acid doesn't produce profound thoughts, it just makes you think your thoughts are profound.

[jlgreco]

I think the value of that should not be misunderstood. Imagine the reverse: it would be quite damaging if something made you think that your ideas were less profound or worthwhile than usual.

(I am saying this as someone who has never taken LSD, so take my take on it with a grain of salt I guess.)

[stcredzero]

He did too much LDS in the 60's.

[pork]

He was too Mormon?

[nitrogen]

In Star Trek IV, Kirk says to a marine biologist that Spock is strange because he did a little too much "LDS." This was paricularly amusing to viewers who grew up in Utah.

[ryan]

In this video Elon states he came up with his idea for an electric plane at Burning Man http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-s_3b5fRd8#t=20m19s

[wololo]

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3099574

[sampo]

I think Steve Jobs' "bicycle for our minds" metaphor for computers, was quite nice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob_GX50Za6c#t=0m25s

[marcoamorales]

There's definitely a notorious difference from the young Steve Jobs to the older Steve Jobs.

[raverbashing]

Yes, but I suspect it's backwards from what you're implying

Young SJ was (from multiple sources) much less humble, less forgiving, and more B.O.

[richcollins]

I respect Elon's ambition and the perspective he shares in that quote but both Space X and Tesla only continue to exist by feeding at the government trough.

Personal and mobile computing have lead to massive productivity increases that affect almost everything that we do on this planet.

I'd also argue that the desire to improve space and ground transportation aren't the result of an enlightened human consciousness that discovered the right questions to ask. Using less energy to move around isn't going to improve the persistent suffering humanity experiences.

Jobs appears to have understood this fact but was unfortunately resigned to it rather than determined to fight it:

What's the biggest surprise this technology will deliver?

The problem is I'm older now, I'm 40 years old, and this stuff doesn't change the world. It really doesn't.

That's going to break people's hearts.

I'm sorry, it's true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We're born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It's been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much - if at all.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.02/jobs_pr.html

[zem]

one man's "feeding at the government trough" is another man's "putting taxpayer's money to good, productive use in projects too long-term for the perennially distracted market to care about them"

[richcollins]

The market is the best way to gauge how useful people find things. The fact that they can't make a profit within the market is a sign that they're spending more wealth than they are creating.

[loceng]

I believe that quote was his conclusion to the question of what is the purpose of life.