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.
I knew about Korolev, never dug too deeply on the finance side of his dealings. And a lot of news just slipped past me, like his uninformed view of COVID and opposition to lockdowns. I legit forgot he's behind PayPal. That one I remember, but I also remember throwing the towel after reading five different sources that presented different takes on the story while (probably all) being technically correct. Now I'm torn between retracting my "there's a lot to admire" statement entirely or rectifying it into something essay-length. :/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
a guy who has used billions in tax breaks to Brand X the longstanding institutions of Western life.
LOL Elon Musk has made radical changes to the American and World economy. He made electric cars cool which is why everyone knows Tesla but everyone has forgotten the EV1. But he did so because he was the one winner in the Goldilocks Zone between outsider and aristocrat who got to take full advantage of the inequalities in the field. The principle problem with implants is that flesh is not bound by Moore's Law. An electrode that was rejected by the body 40 years ago is going to be rejected by the body today, doesn't matter how much more information we throw down it. There is no part of Musk's expertise that covers this, nor is there likely to be. He's just the richest transhumanist so we listen to him the most.