Are there any other examples of successful companies with explosive growth like Tesla and SpaceX despite the founder/CEO being a complete megalomaniac idiot?
Most companies in the US stay afloat even despite the incompetent, self-sabotaging geniuses at the top. Only because the employees are hard-working little bees saving the companies from themselves. We can't get fired - need health insurance and all that.
Tesla is substantially reliant on the promise that full self-driving is just around the corner when it's likely not. Between lawsuits about it, rumors that they're abandoning a vision-only strategy in newer models and the threat of regulatory action due to growing safety concerns. That haphazardness that seems to be characteristic of Musk is coming home to roost for tesla.
SpaceX is a different beast entirely and one might consider the contributions of Gwynne Shotwell and Thomas Mueller.
The grand majority of Tesla buyers don’t purchase the FSD package. At the same time, Tesla grows revenues by 50% every year. Yet somehow Tesla’s death is just around the corner?
It’s not doing so well as it used to and billions of dollars of investment were lost while the founders were kicked off the company. Doesn’t seem a good comparison imho.
< When Musk or the goons ask questions, employees are torn between giving the right answer and the safe answer.
Musk has created a culture of fear. And he's not as charismatic as Jobs was. I don't see how this can possibly end well unless he changes himself quickly.
This is not new. It has been well-known that the surefire way to get shitcanned with Musk is to utter any remote synonym of "no" or "not possible". The best thing is to just completely avoid meetings where he is present.
What happened to replacing himself as CEO? The best move Musk could make right now, for Twitter and his own mental health, would be to put some distance between Twitter and himself. It's a mistake to make his hobby his career. He needs to appoint an engineer-friendly CEO (read: someone who will open the API) and focus on his rockets and cars.
He will get his money back when he takes it public for $50+ billion.
The market is full of idiots. Remember when TSLA did a 5x stock split and then hit the exact price from before the split, effectively increasing value by 5x for no discernible reason? That was about as rational as the value added by the hard fork to BCH (when anyone holding BTC instantly got the same value of BCH, which shortly became tradeable on Coinbase, during a time when IIRC some Coinbase employees were later charged with insider trading).
Anyway, the market will go up again, and it will probably go irrationally high. After all, that's what's always happened... ;) ... So, Twitter will benefit from this, pretty much regardless of their actual revenue - if anything, the $40bn Musk paid for it will serve as an anchor for the IPO, meaning it will be almost definitionally unlikely to go public for less than Musk paid for it, assuming Twitter can survive long enough to credibly go public.
Musk portrays himself as many things. Free speech absolutist who's removing content about himself. Centrist who's hanging out mostly with far-right nuts. Pro environmental guy flying private jet around the world just to see the world cup. Workaholic, working every waking hour, who's constantly shitposting and often talks about games he plays. And many, many more.
If Musk says something, it's very likely that it's not true.
"‘this one person says they can’t do this one thing on the platform,’ and then we have to run around chasing some outlier use case for one person"
I've been in a similar situation. The whole company jumps every time this one Special customer says so. The whole company folds when the Special customer stops using the product after all the other customers have left because none of their concerns were ever addressed.
There are probably cases where, for better or for worse, one Very Special Customer _can_ dictate to a company. However, and this is important, unless you are actually in the kitty litter industry, that customer should not have the words "cat" and "turd" in their name.
It's probably an urban legend, but I read somewhere that at Amazon, they had a secret, special frontend just for Bezos's account. Whenever he went into a fit of product micromanagement, they'd add his requested feature to the "Bezos frontend" to mollify him, but without polluting the working (public) product. Like I said, probably an urban legend, but I've seen the pressure at other companies that would incentivize this kind of activity.
I'm old enough to remember the insanity of the brilliant engineer Howard Hughes, who (to myself) I often compare with Musk. So far Musk's mental decline and erratic behavior seems to be right on track. If this continues, a decade from now he'll be living in a darkened luxury hotel growing out his finger nails not seeing anyone because germs.
Is it really erratic if it's predictable? Seems like he has a regularly reoccurring manic episode every few months. Those are probably also when he's done his best work throughout his career, so you gotta take the good with the bad. But I hope he's introspective enough to recognize this pattern in himself, because otherwise he'll go crazy.
As someone with bipolar, I've learned that it's possible to have several problems at the same time: Bipolar, autism, schizophrenia, etc... He should probably turns his duties over to others and take a long sabbatical to figure out his personal life.
> several problems at the same time: Bipolar, autism, schizophrenia, etc...
Curious if you could expand on this. I think a BP/schizophrenia diagnosis would be very hard to make, as most of the schizophrenia symptoms could be attributed to BP1. If you don’t mind sharing, is this how you’ve been diagnosed?
Only reason I ask is because I know someone with BP1 and I’ve wondered if they could be schizophrenic, but my research caused me to conclude the BP1 diagnosis explained the symptoms.
I'm bipolar without the psychotic episodes. I get unrealistically enthusiastic about life when I'm up and suicidal when depressed. These periods have lasted years, making a correct diagnosis only possible after years of suffering. With mistakes along the way - don't take SSRI's if you think there's a possibility that you might be bipolar.
I can't remember where I got the bipolar/schizophrenia idea, but I read an account of someone who was diagnosed this way. If I can find it, I'll come back and post it here in a comment. It was interesting.
I don't know how else to answer your question, so I used ChatGPT AI to give me a general answer.
Can a person be bipolar and schizophrenic at the same time?
Yes, it is possible for a person to have both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. This co-occurrence is known as "schizoaffective disorder." People with schizoaffective disorder experience symptoms of both bipolar disorder (such as mood swings and manic or depressive episodes) and schizophrenia (such as hallucinations, delusions, and disordered thinking).
It's important to note that schizoaffective disorder is a separate diagnosis from both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and it can be challenging to diagnose because the symptoms can overlap. Accurate diagnosis is important because it can impact the treatment plan and prognosis.
If you or someone you know is experiencing symptoms of mood swings, psychosis, or other signs of mental illness, it is important to seek help from a mental health professional. Early diagnosis and treatment can improve outcomes and quality of life.
> and it can be challenging to diagnose because the symptoms can overlap.
Yes, this part has me the most curious. Seems like BP1 and schizoaffective are very close, but reading more about schizoaffective, I am starting to think the diagnosis of BP1 could be off. This might be the key:
"Keep in mind that one of the primary criteria for a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder is the presence of delusions or hallucinations for two weeks in the absence of a mood disorder (such as depression or mania)."
Thanks for the help! The worst part about this is convincing the patient about the hallucinations. The doctors don't know about them because they aren't reported as symptoms by the patient, since they are believed to be real.
I had a girlfriend who believed she was going to live forever thru veganism and Yoga so her main concern was how to replenish the sun with hydrogen. When I realized after awhile she wasn't joking, I started thinking about schizophrenia but there was no way to talk about it with her because she really believed what she was saying, so I had to break it off.
Bipolar mania on the other hand looks like, "hey the sun is going to burn out and we're all going to die anyway so I'm cashing out my retirement account to see what I can do with it in Las Vegas!"
No, you do not need to take the good with the bad. People ought to start drawing better lines and turning individuals away when they display such characteristics. Refer them to therapy, not the boardroom or the podium or any other seat of power. It's a horrible failure that we don't more readily do so. Elon Musk should be pushed out of public life.
That seems a little too obvious to be fake. My guess is that views =! impressions, so while he's got millions of views, he's looking at something more accurate.
People are posting on locked accounts with zero followers and they have 59 "views" as soon as they post, whatever that means.
It was an issue that he spotted and replied to multiple accounts about it, then tested it on his own account.
It's really unfortunate to see so many people here in lockstep with the Musk is Tech Hitler media corps. I thought this place was different. I think I saw someone say Musk isn't as charismatic as Jobs was. Hilariously revealing. They're both difficult bosses in the extremis, but neither are Tech Hitler.
This never had anything to do with Google Trends, this was a really silly suggestion if someone made it. Telling your boss that you and hundreds other users are simply imagining a bug is a bad idea.
As much as I hate Musk and want this story to be true, it smells awfully fishy to me. It's all based on a story told by a single unverifiable source to Platformer, not exactly the pinnacle of journalistic integrity. It could easily be a yarn spun by somebody who read Musk's tweets and invented a emperor's new clothes story around it. Or even somebody who does work at Twitter and exaggerated the situation.
This just seems like the free market at work? Not sure why so many of my fellow HNers have a problem with this. As a fellow user, kamaal, once said to me, I'd love to be there working for Musk and experiencing all he has to offer.
His companies have succeeded despite him, because they have the right people at the helm leading operations (example: Shotwell at SpaceX).
Musk at Twitter gives you a glimpse as to why he was fired from PayPal 2 decades ago.