RichVR
4745
So who is more batshit insane? Musk or Kanye?
Does Musk think himself a new John Galt who will eventually be begged to fix everything? Or does he just like to stir up the muck because it’s amusing and/or it increases Twitter traffic?
More importantly, he’s Trump without a state, army or nuclear arsenal, so I can just laugh at him without having to fear for my life at the same time.
Well, as long as you can avoid the Teslas anyway.
ShivaX
4752
The Fourth Reich without a military is a take, I guess.
Timex
4753
I’d be hard pressed to come up with something analagous to Rearden Steel that Musk produces.
That’s he thing, for all of his insane wealth, if Musk didn’t exist at all, how would the world be different? I’ll save you the trouble… It wouldn’t be.
Someone like Bezos is also a rich douche, but he legitimately did change the world with what he did. Musk didn’t. His wealth stems almost entirely from a speculative stock market where people dumped money into the 20th largest car manufacturer in the world, and somehow gave it one of the largest market caps in the world.
abrandt
4755
SpaceX could still lead to pretty significant change in the world(already has for what was stagnant space launch) if Musk doesn’t burn that to the ground next. Tesla likely ultimately led to an acceleration of electrification of cars, which is at least a tangible move towards getting rid of the reliance of fossil fuels. I won’t dare guess how much of an acceleration it was, but it did lead to public buy-in and forced the big companies to make serious offerings to keep up. They’ve played their part now so I guess it really only is a harm to Musk and the stockholders these days that the wheels seem to be falling off that one.
But yeah, neither of those are earth shattering at present even if both are important contributions to progress.
EVs and launch systems are undoubtedly significant achievements. In both cases though, Tesla and SpaceX, they were more advances in degree rather than kind. Electric cars existed before Tesla. Launch vehicles existed before SpaceX. Both companies significantly enhanced the viability of their respective products, and in the case of Tesla at least did the lion’s share perhaps of work tipping the balance of public perception towards embracing electrification of cars.
Amazon though fundamentally and irrevocably changed the very nature of what we consider retail, and of consumer economics across the board. The impact of Amazon and all of the other companies, systems, and habits that came in its wake cannot be overstated. Daily life in the USA–maybe the world–today is radically different than it was only a generation ago due to the vast changes in how we shop and get our stuff.
ShivaX
4757
I definitely put Bezos in the camp of “changed the world” at the end of the day.
Like Gates and Rockefeller. Trains, personal computers and Amazon made the world a fundamentally different place.
He also did most of the legwork instead of being a PR man who bought into existing entities.
ShivaX
4758
In a related note, Twitter is starting to fail on me.
Like clicking a post will randomly not bring up the thread. This has been intermittent all day long and completely random.
Maybe Elon should plug that server he randomly unplugged the other day back in.
JoshL
4759
You guys are crazy. Catalog shopping has existed for 100 years. Putting it online was one of the most obvious applications of the web, and there were probably hundreds of companies competing to do it. Amazon just happened to be the one that won, probably through a combination of luck, timing, and being the most willing to engage in anti-competitive practices. However, there’s already another whole thread for that, I believe, so, I’ll just leave it at that.
I’d say the feat of logistics required to allow me to order most any item available in this US and have it delivered to my door in no more than two days (usually one) is several orders of magnitude better than “catalog shopping”.
There’s a usual confusion in these threads between “CEO of a company” and “the person who did these things”. If I pay a builder to build me a house, I do not say that “I built this house”. Similarly, Elon Musk did not create electric cars and Bezos did not create an online-shopping-logistics-network. They just handled the money, they did not do the actual work. A quick way to double check this is to watch how when Bezos goes on a cruise on his $.5 billion dollar yacht, packages still arrive on your doorstep. He’s not the one doing the actual work.
Anyway! Every billionaire a policy failure, tax them out of existence, yadda yadda.
Timex
4762
Putting a catalog on the web isn’t what made Amazon change the world.
Amazon fundamentally changed the way we engaged in commerce. Not because of a web site, but because it fundamentally recognized logistics.
Remember how you bought things before Amazon? Because it damn well wasn’t how we buy them now.
You either bought things from a local store, or you waited a MONTH to get them. I feel like lots of folks forget how things used to be.
Either way though, the point here isn’t about Bezos… the point is that Musk definitely didn’t change the world.
Timex
4763
This seems like a good fit.
Narrator: “He did not invent email.”
Also, lol if that’s his actual cell number
jpinard
4764
Another narcissist who wants to run Twitter. What a surprise.
