• @Clent@lemmy.world
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      1211 year ago

      His only talent is convincing the wealthy to invest in his schemes. I don’t understand how he does it, hearing him speak is painful.

      He got lucky with Tesla becoming a meme stock.

      SpaceX is being run by a competent engineer while its competitor, Blue Origin is being run by a megalomaniac. This is possibly Musks only competent move in business.

      The rest of his ventures have been failures. To any one not blinded by greed, it’s clear he long ago peaked. He’s playing a shell game now but people will happily invest hoping luck will strike again.

      • @glimse@lemmy.world
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        721 year ago

        There’s an old tweet that explains it well, I’m sure you’ve seen it.

        (Paraphrased) “Elon Musk talked about cars. I don’t know anything about cars so when people said he was a genius, I figured he must be a genius”

        Investors don’t know shit about the stuff they’re investing in and Musk sounds really smart when you don’t know anything about the thing he’s speaking on.

      • @Wrench@lemmy.world
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        671 year ago

        For Tesla and SpaceX, they attracted the top engineers because they were cool bleeding edge problems to solve that actually aligned with idealist goals in the industries.

        Musk used that genuine motivation and overworked people into burnout, and took credit for others hard work.

      • @seaQueue@lemmy.world
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        381 year ago

        His only talent is convincing the wealthy to invest in his schemes. I don’t understand how he does it, hearing him speak is painful.

        That’s not fair, he’s also really good at making promises to the public to secure incentives and public funding and then fucking everyone over

        • @Clent@lemmy.world
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          121 year ago

          The real trick there is how he didn’t get sued.

          The SEC has held him more accountable than the share holders

      • @spacesatan@lemm.ee
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        141 year ago

        To his credit SpaceX was at least a correct recognition that the dominant space launch companies were just a cartel milking federal funding for as much as possible. That sector is so stagnant that ULA still hasn’t blinked at the massive success of first stage reusability.

        • @someguy3@lemmy.world
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          191 year ago

          When you’re a government agency, you have to play things super safe. When you’re an independent company, you can do whatever you want. And if you fail, no one cares. If the government agency fails, it’s hell to pay.

        • @postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
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          21 year ago

          Well with SpaceX, there are now 2 big launch companies for the USA.

          and given how the gov likes to spread contracts around there isnt a real existential incentive to do much.

      • @jabjoe@feddit.uk
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        351 year ago

        Maybe they mean pigeon to make it sound like he isn’t able to be a seagull manager. Like he’s trying to be a seagull manager, but only managed pigeon manager. A quiet insult.

          • @DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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            1 year ago

            Seems more like he’s combining it with a quote:

            “Arguing with idiots is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good you are, the bird is going to shit on the board and strut around like it won anyways.”

    • @lemmyingly@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Steven management?

      Edit: I was joking around. Since Seagal sounds very similar to seagull.

  • @gasgiant@lemmy.ml
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    851 year ago

    Anyone remember when he spent all his time talking about colonising mars? That was his big thing and the future. Whatever happened to that?

    Then spacex got government funding. Now AI is the big thing.

    I’ve still yet to see any of his great visions he’s actually delivered on.

    • @bitwaba@lemmy.world
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      661 year ago

      Whatever happened to that?

      He took all the money he was going to use to do that, put it in a duffelbag with X written on the side, and burned it.

    • @nytrixus@lemmy.world
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      261 year ago

      He’s one of those people who’ll pop around a corner and proclaim his credit of something he had next to no involvement in.

    • Flying Squid
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      61 year ago

      Notice he has never actually volunteered to go up in a SpaceX rocket. I don’t think he’ll be going to Mars.

      • @JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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        81 year ago

        Tis a shame, Musk would be perfect to colonize Mars. Send him there. But forget to send women.

        • Flying Squid
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          51 year ago

          I can think of some women who could go with him. Elizabeth Holmes, for example.

          • @JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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            1 year ago

            Can we send Marjorie Taylor Greene, too? I really think they’d hit it off and I’d really like for her to be marooned, too.

            • Flying Squid
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              21 year ago

              See? I’m sure we can make up a list of women we can also send on the submarine down to the Titanic rocket to Mars.

      • @epat@lemmy.world
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        21 year ago

        On the other hand, Starship is not fast enough, if I recall correctly, SpaceX claimed to Nasa that they’d be landing on the moon by now

          • @foggenbooty@lemmy.world
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            11 year ago

            Starship is a terrible idea and vehicle. The fact they keep trying to make the thing work is just because Musk is burning government funds. It has no chance of making it to the moon, let alone mars.

              • @foggenbooty@lemmy.world
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                11 year ago

                Anything can make progress if it’s within the realm of possibility and you throw enough resources at it.

                My issue with Starship is that it’s not really good for any of the things Musk has promised it for. It’s a heavy lift rocket that has not yet proven capable of surviving flight. Best case it can be used to get materials up to space, but used as a lander or a long distance ship? No way. It’s just not designed that way. Too heavy, too unsafe, too inefficient, too complicated.

  • Flying Squid
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    641 year ago

    I’m picturing him walking into Tesla’s offices, going over to the engineers, saying, “make the horn make a fart noise,” and leaving, thinking he’s brilliant.

  • @WaxiestSteam69@lemmy.world
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    501 year ago

    I’ve never heard of pigeon management but I have heard something similar described as playing chess with a pigeon as someone who “knocks all the pieces over, shits on the board then struts aroind like they’ve won”.

  • @BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world
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    331 year ago

    Can’t we all agree to just ignore him? Like stop posting about him and quit Twitter? He thrives off negative attention.

    • Flying Squid
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      211 year ago

      As much as I hate them, I would wager that the majority of CEOs are more educated, smarter and have a better understanding of their business than Elon “Failed Upward” Musk.

      • @masquenox@lemmy.world
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        61 year ago

        CEOs are more educated, smarter and have a better understanding of their business

        You haven’t met that many of them, have you?

        I have - the difference between the ones I met and the likes of Elon is that none of the ones I met had any interest in being celebrities. That’s the only difference - their institutionalized incompetence was the exact same.

        • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          11 year ago

          Yeah, they only want to be well-connected with other CEOs and big investors so they can jump between orgs.

          That said, some CEOs are decent. We just got a new CEO, and they seem decent. They have industry experience, not just an MBA from a prestigious school, and they asked the right questions when visiting recently. We’re not a huge org though (a few thousand people), but we are publicly traded (not in the US).

  • @Grass@sh.itjust.works
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    221 year ago

    There’s a picture this makes me think of where a bunch of birds are sitting on a tree in typical pyramid hierarchy diagram positions, and each level of birds starting from the second is covered in more shit than the previous.

  • @Veedem@lemmy.world
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    191 year ago

    We called this the “swoop and poop” in a previous job of mine. Definitely not something encouraged or enjoyed.

    • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      11 year ago

      I brought it up w/ my team and we all got a laugh. We even shared some war stories about bad bosses.

      I’m a boss now, so hopefully I’m not like that. I ask my employees to report me to my boss if I do something stupid.