Social WTF Elon ????????????????

[west42]

Exactly.

I'm not sure what role Musk actually played in Paypal. It looks like he was President of a company that did something else and merged with Paypal, and he was "replaced" by Thiel (fired possibly) before they even had an IPO.

 

[lifelessheap]

Sorry bud your ignorance is showing. I've got my money where my mouth is on this and have been both buying and shorting TSLA for months. The Prius was the archetype for what Musk is trying to achieve: getting people hyped about the perception they are saving the environment while paying above-market price for a metal box they drive around to get to and from the place they spend their day trying to make money to pay for said box.

Both care companies have Panasonic to thank for pushing battery tech to the point where they had something usable to base their manufacturing around.

Or people like electric cars because they can charge at home and never go to a gas station. Or they buy them because of the instant torque and incredible acceleration.

 

[MicroBrew]

You need to research what a Prius is as its not an electric vehicle and none of the other Auto makers felt compelled to put out competing products to the Prius. The Prius was not driving market change.

Your ignorance is showing.

The Prius did more than any other hybrid to mainstream hybrid vehicles, and the aura from that vehicle rubbed off onto electric only vehicles. Tesla is to electric only cars what the Prius is to hybrid cars.

 

[brackis1]

PayPal was a massive success.

These are the top guys who were part of that Paypal acquisition who took that money and win and spun it into new enterprises.



Individuals whom the media refers to as members of the PayPal Mafia include:

Spoiler: Paypal Mafia

• Peter Thiel, PayPal founder and former chief executive officer who is sometimes referred to as the "don" of the PayPal Mafia
• Max Levchin, Founder and chief technology officer at PayPal sometimes called the "consigliere" of the PayPal Mafia
• Elon Musk, is founder of X.com which acquired the company Confinity. Musk later co-founded Tesla Motors, SpaceX, OpenAI, The Boring Company, and is the Chairman of SolarCity
• David O. Sacks, former PayPal COO who later founded Geni.com and Yammer
• Scott Banister, former Ironport CTO and PayPal board member
• Roelof Botha, former PayPal CFO who later became a partner of venture capital firm Sequoia Capital
• Steve Chen, former PayPal engineer who co-founded YouTube.
• David Gausebeck, former PayPal Technical Architect, co-creator of the Gausebeck-Levchin test, co-founder of Matterport Inc., a digital 3-D modeling company.
• Reid Hoffman, former executive vice president who later founded LinkedIn and was an early investor in Facebook, Aviary, Friendster, Six Apart, Zynga, IronPort, Flickr, Digg, Grockit, Ping.fm, Nanosolar, Care.com, Knewton, Kongregate, Last.fm, Ning, and Technorati
• Ken Howery, former PayPal CFO who became a partner at Founders Fund
• Chad Hurley, former PayPal web designer who co-founded YouTube
• Eric M. Jackson, who wrote the book The PayPal Wars and became chief executive officer of WND Books and co-founded CapLinked.
• Jawed Karim, former PayPal engineer who co-founded YouTube.
• Rod D. Martin, former special counsel to CEO Peter Thiel whose 10X Capital took over Galectin Therapeutics in 2009 and who founded Advanced Search Laboratories in 2012.
• Dave McClure, a former PayPal marketing director, a super angel investor for start up companies and founder of 500 Startups which has hit 500+ investments.
• Andrew McCormack, co-founder of Valar Ventures
• Ken Miller, original vice president of risk management at PayPal, and is now a venture capitalist at Omidyar Network as well as an original board advisor to Square and Eric Jackson's company, CapLinked.
• Luke Nosek, PayPal co-founder and former vice president of marketing and strategy, became a partner at Founders Fund with Peter Thiel and Ken Howery
• Jason Portnoy, former vice president of financial planning and analysis who later became CFO at Peter Thiel's Clarium Capital, CFO at Palantir Technologies, and founding partner at Subtraction Capital.
• Keith Rabois, a former executive at PayPal who later worked at LinkedIn, Slide, Square, and currently Khosla Ventures, and personally invested in Tokbox, Xoom, Slide, LinkedIn, Geni, Room 9 Entertainment, YouTube, and Yelp.
• Jack Selby, former vice president of corporate and international development at PayPal who co-founded Clarium Capital with Peter Thiel, later becoming managing director of Grandmaster Capital Management.
• Premal Shah, former product manager at PayPal, became the founding president of Kiva.org.
• Russel Simmons, former PayPal engineer who co-founded Yelp Inc.
• Jeremy Stoppelman, former vice president of technology at PayPal who later co-founded Yelp, Inc.
• Yishan Wong, a former engineering manager at PayPal, later worked at Facebook and became the CEO of Reddit.

Underlying points you're ignoring:
-The total wealth of future talent indicates many people could actually be behind Paypal flourishing besides Musk.

-PayPal won a first-mover-advantage and has since bought out superior products (e.g. venmo) and people routinely hate their product and hated it a ton back when it was at its bubble peak (I started using it in 2001 for eBay and it was routinely used by people committing fraud)

-Silicon Valley is extremely credentialed (thus the Mafia reference) and historically hires leaders who are built on generations of hype. So when the next generation of startups was trying to gain legitimacy, folks waved huge equity offers at ex Paypal folks to "co-found" because they're absurdly rich and respected, not because they had some amazing underlying skill or programming ability. Notice how many cashed out and become venture investors after they could rid themselves of actually working at a company. Take Stoppelman for example: Yelp is fucking garbage. They abuse small businesses and have a terrible sales methodology and have taken forever to integrate modern services like reservations and takeout that they had to get via buying other companies (I again have put my money where my mouth is on this, plus have lived with people who work at Yelp).

And just to show you how much I believe this shit

 

[Ruprecht]

Your post is 3 barely connected half-sentences.
The federal government pushed us toward EV's with a massive subsidy and the objective reality that fossil fuels are bad. Musk has done an excellent job convincing you he is at the forefront of these issues, when he is really the equivalent of Justin Bieber walking into the ring with Mayweather. Let me guess, Steve Jobs is the reason we have smartphones too?

You're taking a very one sided approach. Musk both popularises issues and pushes towards their realisation as an entrepreneur.
He's done it with Tesla and he's doing it with SpaceX and Starlink.
Buying into his own "Tony Stark" hype and daft gimmicks like selling novelty blow torches not withstanding.
Of course he's not the first person to recognise the needs, not one of the anonymous employees actually developing the technology, nor responsible for the legislative framework (although he does both personal advocacy and donates towards it).

 

[brackis1]

You're taking a very one sided approach. Musk both popularises issues and pushes towards their realisation as an entrepreneur.
He's done it with Tesla and he's doing it with SpaceX and Starlink.
Buying into his own "Tony Stark" hype and daft gimmicks like selling novelty blow torches not withstanding.
Of course he's not the first person to recognise the needs, not one of the anonymous employees actually developing the technology, nor responsible for the legislative framework

What entrepreneur ever in the history of pitching ideas, good or not, has ever deviated from the shtick of "here's a problem and i've got the solution!"
I would argue it is you who are taking the one-sided approach, and I'm somewhere in the middle: he should be rewarded handsomely for betting early on the technology. Giving him full reign over a 60 billion dollar firm plus tons of government contracts for unrelated projects is batshit insane and a massive overleveraging of our society's real and social capital.

There is some ungodly levels of hubris, greek tragedy level shit, in thinking one dude who runs 3 companies, goes on twitter rants, and has 5 kids all in some secret homeschool should be given anywhere near the authority people want to hand over to him. Not to mention completely mocking financial regulators.

 

[Ruprecht]

What entrepreneur ever in the history of pitching ideas, good or not, has ever deviated from the shtick of "here's a problem and i've got the solution!"
I would argue it is you who are taking the one-sided approach, and I'm somewhere in the middle: he should be rewarded handsomely for betting early on the technology. Giving him full reign over a 60 billion dollar firm plus tons of government contracts for unrelated projects is batshit insane and a massive overleveraging of our society's real and social capital.

There is some ungodly levels of hubris, greek tragedy level shit, in thinking one dude who runs 3 companies, goes on twitter rants, and has 5 kids all in some secret homeschool should be given anywhere near the authority people want to hand over to him. Not to mention completely mocking financial regulators.

Of course that's the entrepreneurial approach, and he thrives on public funding, but you're downplaying Musk's obvious success at it.
To the point where claiming you're "in the middle" is ridiculous.

 

[INTERL0PER]

I still find all the Musk hate bizarre.

Of all the CEOs/entrepreneurs in the world, he seems like an odd choice to hate. There's so much worse out there than him.

 

[brackis1]

Of course that's the entrepreneurial approach, and he thrives on public funding, but you're downplaying Musk's obvious success at it.
To the point where claiming you're "in the middle" is ridiculous.

Where am I downplaying his success?
He went from having zero involvement in cars to being hailed as the auto industry messiah.
One can admire Icarus for his ingenuity while also pointing out the weather.

 

[MikeMcMann]

Sorry bud your ignorance is showing. I've got my money where my mouth is on this and have been both buying and shorting TSLA for months. The Prius was the archetype for what Musk is trying to achieve: getting people hyped about the perception they are saving the environment while paying above-market price for a metal box they drive around to get to and from the place they spend their day trying to make money to pay for said box.

Both care companies have Panasonic to thank for pushing battery tech to the point where they had something usable to base their manufacturing around.

Hell, Nio has been around for a fraction of the time and already has a much cheaper SUV available.

No you are ignorant and you better put your $10 in the sock drawer with that type of analysis skill.

The Prius was not a driving force in the market prompting all other manufacturers to make huge bets on Electrics. Tesla prompted that. And great if you hate Tesla and want people to hate it to since you have a short position on it and need it to burst. I now get your irrational hate.

 

[brackis1]

No you are ignorant and you better put your $10 in the sock drawer with that type of analysis skill.

The Prius was not a driving force in the market prompting all other manufacturers to make huge bets on Electrics. Tesla prompted that. And great if you hate Tesla and want people to hate it to since you have a short position on it and need it to burst. I now get your irrational hate.

So I'm either ignorant, or I'm informed and bias. Pick one bud.
I think Tesla should be worth about half its current value and needs to be damn sure it has its manufacturing on-point because they're built and invested like a high growth tech company, but have yet to deal with anything like a recall or model missing sales marks, which are things traditional automakers are focused on. (I hate traditional autos too and have had to deal with a major Ford recall).

I'm bullish on Nio since it isn't as overvalued and has similar tech. Not coincidentally, their stock surged when people found out the biggest institutional Tesla investor was also the biggest investor in Nio. It's almost as if other people are just as capable and rich investors don't give a shit which wins as long as one hypes up their bet.....

 

[Ruprecht]

Where am I downplaying his success?
He went from having zero involvement in cars to being hailed as the auto industry messiah.
One can admire Icarus for his ingenuity while also pointing out the weather.

Almost every post you've made in this thread is downplaying the role of entrepreneurs (both in general and Musk specifically) in pushing towards technologically determined social progress.
Do you also have a problem with Public-Private Partnerships, or just Musk's involvement in them?

 

[MikeMcMann]

Xcon (elon) and confinity (not elon) focused on two diff services. The service that paypal provides today is comes from what confinity was doing before the merger.
He's not a founder of paypal, he's the founder of a company that merged with it and focused on the merged company's service.
It's somewhat subjective and i really dont care enough either way to continue arguing

it is not subjective. You are factually wrong.

X.Com merged with (acquired) Confinity. At that point the continuing entity under a reorganization was called X.Com and that entity owned all the IP including everything prior developed by Confinity. That merged new org built out and focused on the Confinity product that would later become PayPal and they changed the name of the entity to Paypal. But X.Com and Elon do not lose any ounce of Founder status in X.Com (later changed to Paypal) because the product that new entity owned was one of the primary products of the company they acquired or merged with. That is not how things work.

Just as if the joint new company had instead focused on the X.Com product Peter Thiel and Co would still have been founders of the joint entity. You don't lose that status based on which of the products lines from which of the companies ends up being the focus. Founder status does not work that way.

 

[brackis1]

Almost every post you've made in this thread is downplaying the role of entrepreneurs (both in general and Musk specifically) in pushing towards technologically determined social progress.
Do you also have a problem with Public-Private Partnerships, or just Musk's involvement in them?

There is no public-private partnership with Tesla. They get subsidies, we get....???
SpaceX I'm down for as long as the profits aren't tilted away from the public.
BoringCompany shit sucks a fat one as evidence by the OP

 

[MikeMcMann]

The Prius did more than any other hybrid to mainstream hybrid vehicles, and the aura from that vehicle rubbed off onto electric only vehicles. Tesla is to electric only cars what the Prius is to hybrid cars.

The Prius established a working model but did very little to nothing to spur the industry to massive investment and change. other manufacturers felt no need to rush to catch up to jump into that market as the Prius represented a very niche market opportunity that was not looking at big growth.

The Tesla absolutely changed the game in terms of where man manufacturer R&D dollars and priorities went with many manufacturers now saying they are heading towards all electric in the future.

Tesla is similar to Napster in a way that even if it does not succeed it has forever changed the industry.

 

[Rematch]

Is it a solution to a problem? Yes? Then what's the issue?

 

[MikeMcMann]

Underlying points you're ignoring:
-The total wealth of future talent indicates many people could actually be behind Paypal flourishing besides Musk.

-PayPal won a first-mover-advantage and has since bought out superior products (e.g. venmo) and people routinely hate their product and hated it a ton back when it was at its bubble peak (I started using it in 2001 for eBay and it was routinely used by people committing fraud)

-Silicon Valley is extremely credentialed (thus the Mafia reference) and historically hires leaders who are built on generations of hype. So when the next generation of startups was trying to gain legitimacy, folks waved huge equity offers at ex Paypal folks to "co-found" because they're absurdly rich and respected, not because they had some amazing underlying skill or programming ability. Notice how many cashed out and become venture investors after they could rid themselves of actually working at a company. Take Stoppelman for example: Yelp is fucking garbage. They abuse small businesses and have a terrible sales methodology and have taken forever to integrate modern services like reservations and takeout that they had to get via buying other companies (I again have put my money where my mouth is on this, plus have lived with people who work at Yelp).

And just to show you how much I believe this shit
View attachment 490609 View attachment 490611 View attachment 490613

I am not ignoring that as I never said that. You are stuffing strawmen.

In fact I believe the opposite. Elon was one of a group of massively talented guys who founded Paypal, and did not even end up being the key guy or driver after amalgamation.

So while I do not think Musk is a god I can however give him credit where credit was due. Even the newly merged entity that became Paypal that Elon was the biggest Shareholder in, struggled to survive right up until the day EBay bought it out. Neither entity might have made it alone and him solely having the foresight to do that deal is a big thing. He had the power, more than any to not do it. Foresight is not always being the creator, you can also recognize and support.

 

[Ruprecht]

There is no public-private partnership with Tesla. They get subsidies, we get....???
SpaceX I'm down for as long as the profits aren't tilted away from the public.
BoringCompany shit sucks a fat one as evidence by the OP

Infrastructure. There's no way the charging stations in the US would be anywhere near as broadly available without those subsidies, and the overall shift would be much slower.
SpaceX is a more direct and exclusive PPP, but it's a similar operating principle.
Of course subsidising Tesla's also less risky. There's no effective way to cost out something like Starlink and determine whether it'll be cost effective in delivery.

 

[brackis1]

The Prius established a working model but did very little to nothing to spur the industry to massive investment and change. other manufacturers felt no need to rush to catch up to jump into that market as the Prius represented a very niche market opportunity that was not looking at big growth.

The Tesla absolutely changed the game in terms of where man manufacturer R&D dollars and priorities went with many manufacturers now saying they are heading towards all electric in the future.

Tesla is similar to Napster in a way that even if it does not succeed it has forever changed the industry.

Sure bud. How old are you?
In 2007 there were 181,000 Prius sold in the US alone on total car sales on 14-15 million.
That's almost 1.5% of all cars.
At its peak there was a huge waiting list and they sold 110k in a single month in Japan alone.
Tesla has about 250k in total sales over its lifetime in the US.

Read this article and tell me Tesla got auto manufacturers into the idea of batteries in cars.
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/13/business/global/13prius.html

 

[MikeMcMann]

So I'm either ignorant, or I'm informed and bias. Pick one bud.
I think Tesla should be worth about half its current value and needs to be damn sure it has its manufacturing on-point because they're built and invested like a high growth tech company, but have yet to deal with anything like a recall or model missing sales marks, which are things traditional automakers are focused on. (I hate traditional autos too and have had to deal with a major Ford recall).

I'm bullish on Nio since it isn't as overvalued and has similar tech. Not coincidentally, their stock surged when people found out the biggest institutional Tesla investor was also the biggest investor in Nio. It's almost as if other people are just as capable and rich investors don't give a shit which wins as long as one hypes up their bet.....

Your ignorant with bias. How's that.

And I don't think Tesla properly valued. I never have. It has been way over valued based on the cult of personality built around Elon. I am not even sure ultimately if Tesla will survive as they strive to go truly mainstream. They may end up like bought out by a GM or other for pennies on the dollar.

But unlike you I don't have a short position so I am not illogically passionate about it and can give him credit where he is due. he is a FOUNDER of these various entities and the attempt to spin around that just shows how irrational hate makes people feel the need to deny anything and everything that might be perceived as a positive. He has been the biggest influencer on Electric Vehicles and had Tesla dies a few years back, before Elon went all-in with all his money when no other investors were writing cheques, much of the Electric car hype would have been put back in the box.

The reason why other manufacturers now feel the need to play catch up as Elon has proven the car can be built, at least to this stage reliably and consumers will buy it, even at a premium. the big manufacturers would have been very happy to not pursue this line and cost if no one else was. Tesla put them to the test of ignore it at your peril and they all scrambled seeing he might actually get enough money to complete this mission.