Changing the World

Elon Musk is a man who wants to change the world. Through his companies. As Google founder Larry Page said, here’s what Musk seeks to do:
“Solve cars, global warming, and make humans interplanetary.”
(The car + global warming fix is electric cars, via his company Tesla. The let’s-settle-in-Mars attempt is via his other company, SpaceX). It’s his successes at revolutionizing Internet payments via PayPal first and making electric cars sexy via Tesla that makes Page wonder:
“Maybe it’s not luck. He’s done it twice… Maybe we should get him to do more things.”

But wait a minute: colonizing Mars? Is Musk delusional? Then consider what his friend Jim Cantrell said on Quora:
“I am going to suggest that he is successful not because his visions are  grand, not because he is extraordinarily smart and not because he works incredibly hard.  All of those things are true.  The one major important distinction that sets him apart is his inability to consider failure.  It simply is not even in his thought process.  He cannot conceive of failure and that is truly remarkable.  It doesn’t matter if its going up against the banking system (Paypal), going up against the entire aerospace industry (SpaceX) or going up against the US auto industry (Tesla). He can’t imagine NOT succeeding and that is a very critical trait that leads him ultimately to success.”

As Shane Parrish wrote, Musk is a “guy with an IQ of 190 who thinks it’s 250”! So ok, he’s super-smart (in IQ terms), he’s created multiple companies and become a billionaire, and his space and electric ventures are definitely making waves.

But is Charlie Munger’s point (in a different context) valid?
“Smart, hard-working people aren’t exempted from professional disasters from overconfidence. Often, they just go aground in the more difficult voyages they choose, relying on their self-appraisals that they have superior talents and methods.”

So yes, it’s quite possible that Musk won’t succeed on the scale he is aiming. Then again, isn’t Page right when he says:
“Good ideas are always crazy until they’re not.”
Or as that famous Apple ad from a long time back said:
“Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Comments

  1. Ramiah KumarOctober 9, 2016 at 2:11 PM

    I am taking about only one dream of Elon Musk. Don't know is Mars will support life (or, has life there already) and humans can colonize Mars. My prayer is that humans do not colonize any other planet. Human beings are great ones to decimate life forms (including existing human societies) wherever they go (wherever they live too). This has happened many times in earth's history. With what we see as pollution of kinds and degrees around here, we seem to be nearly suicidal too.

    So, I sincerely pray we remain on earth and not colonize another planet. If we are good and capable, let's reverse the damage we are doing here. If not, we do not deserve another planet!

    ReplyDelete

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