The more I learn about the engineering side of everything Elon Musk has been involved in, the more truly shocking it is that anyone thinks he or any tech bros are anything other than grifters.
Musk's angle here is that his degree included Physics. He leverages this via PR to present himself as some sort of inventor or engineer, like calling himself "Chief Engineer" and "Product Architect", as if he's making any significant design decisions. I'm not sure he's ever invented or designed anything (in an engineering sense, anyway). He talks about engineering philosophy, but how much this really means from a man with no practical experience of engineering and qualifications far below many of his relevant employees is extremely dubious. One has to suspect any wisdom he has to offer in this area is mostly borrowed from others, or reformulated business tropes. And let's be clear, someone running a large company (several companies, really) obviously doesn't have the time to develop the knowledge and expertise in that area.
Tech bros float on a cushion of extreme investment, where they don't need to make so many good decisions or profit because they're sitting on so many billions. All they really need is a solid base idea and investor overenthusiasm for it. That almost irrational investment is fantastic for Tesla, but the side effect of it is the likes of Theranos and WeWork. Has Uber ever made a profit yet? In fact, how did Tesla first make a profit? Not by selling products. It made its first profit through some form of clean car credits under government regulation, and selling those credits to other car companies. Nice wheeze. Tesla cars are known to have serious quality control issues... yet still people buy them because of the image, even if chances are they'd be better off with an electric car from a traditional carmaker.
www.theguardian.com
