Comment by leesec
3 years ago
Any Elon or Tesla related topic on hackernews is such a cesspool these days. Any support of him even with actual true statements is downvoted. Somehow the technologist board has become the least friendly to actual technological innovation. Any statements like the one I just made will get countered with attacks on his person.
He's clearly responsible for more innovation across multiple sectors than anyone alive. Maybe he's an asshole too, but no one get's the same level of scrutiny.
How about this article from 2018 suggesting GM will have a wheelless car in 2019? https://www.wired.com/story/gm-cruise-self-driving-car-launc...
Nobody cares to follow up and hate on Mary Barra everytime there's an AV or EV conversation. It's absurd
> Nobody cares to follow up and hate on Mary Barra everytime there's an AV or EV conversation. It's absurd
This is the cost of the kind of marketing Elon engages in. By making himself a very prominent public individual and the face of Tesla, he's inextricably tied to the brand. No one knows who Mary Barra is because she's not on Twitter replying to AOC with sick memes. Unfortunately the knife cuts both ways and now that Elon is regarded with a lot of suspicion by many that's transferring to Tesla as well.
> He's clearly responsible for more innovation across multiple sectors than anyone alive.
Responsible in what sense? In the sense that he bankrolled his engineers? If that's the case then couldn't we draw the line all the way back to his father who bankrolled him?
It's hard to see Elon as a visionary these days. Most of his businesses already existed before he took the helm, including Tesla. Twitter has been a shitshow to say the least. The only remaining thing in my eyes is SpaceX, and we shouldn't fall into that trap of giving the billionaire all the credit.
>Responsible in what sense?
In the sense that without him the innovation would not exist or become mainstream. Don't be fooled into thinking he only has cash to offer. John Carmack himself has stated that he thinks Elon is in his wheelhouse in terms of engineering.
>Most of his businesses already existed before he took the helm, including Tesla.
Tesla was a concept car at the time, not a mass production vehicle with no intentions of ever making millions of cars, if you don't see why they are different I don't know how to help you. The production is at least as hard as the innovation.