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Notes -
Electric cars existed for 120 years before Tesla. Why should I care that Musk made them popular? They’re not particularly better than ICE cars; there is no great improvement to the consumer.
He didn’t make them popular. He got them to the point of being economically competitive and profitable to sell which is a huge step forward.
We did nuclear fusion decades ago. We still can’t do it economically.
This seems to be the motte and Bailey. People say things like Jobs or Musk didn’t invent XYZ so they are no big deal.
But inventing things are easy! Scaling and explaining to people why they need or want XYZ is much more difficult.
We as a society praise investors way too much and discredit business builders.
Very few people invent things any more. I think someone can claim they invented mRNA. Everyone else builds on the backs of others. Products are too complex now for one person to invent a rocket. Which of course already existed by Musks rockets seem a big leap forward from what existed before. The process of creating a new tech today is having a lot of domain knowledge on what is now possible (Theranos not possible but reusable rockets were possible), hyping enough to finance (or being rich from last product), capability of hiring/inspiring enough of the .5% IQ to work with you on the project. Musks didn’t invent AI, but he had enough domain knowledge to make a play when certain techs were ready to create the product. It seems as though he has a much better ability to step in at the right time than others.
He seems a lot like Ken Griffin. Who has a good feel for building out organizations that win. He also shares a trait with Ken of firing a lot of people.
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