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kleinbl00  ·  1306 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Musk Insideā„¢

There comes a point where everyone around you says you're a genius and none of your assumptions are questioned anymore. That's about where Kevin Smith's movies started to suck, about where M Night Shamalyan's movies started to suck, and about where the Kindle went through three sets of designers because Bezos insisted it needed a keyboard.

Elon Musk is at the place where he can build a piece of shit golf cart, sell it for $140k, make $80 profit and get awarded billions from a credulous investors. He's at a place where he can ape the Korolev Design Bureau circa 1975 and be hailed as the original visionary of spaceflight. You're talking about a guy who had the first personal computer in Africa being referred to as a rags-to-riches immigrant story, and a guy who was one of dozens who said "let's ignore banking laws and put that shit loosey-goosey on the Internet" being hailed as the father of the Internet economy.

Our myths are now so warped around the myth of individualism and bootstrap entrepreneurship that we refuse to acknowledge a guy who has used billions in tax breaks to Brand X the longstanding institutions of Western life.