Common denominator: both smart, both a$$holes
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Steve Jobs' Biographer Walter Isaacson Is Writing a Book About Elon Musk
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This will be an interesting read. Yes, Isaacson wrote the Jobs biography, but he also wrote The Innovators which is by far and away a better read. And also a MUST READ for anyone that enjoys technology and how it was made. I think that book alone makes him the best choice to take on Elon's biography.
Musk isn’t a fraudster. His cars are silently and cleanly zipping up and down my street, and will soon be charging in my own garage. His rockets are delivering to orbit and landing oriented the same way they launched. This is a future I didn’t think I’d see even in my old age, and I’m hardly 40. When Elon says we’re going to Mars, I now believe him.
The only issue here with the biography is that it is premature. Elon’s story has a lot of chapters still unwritten...
Let's hope it's better than the SJ book - that thing read like a Wikipedia page.
The best book I've read is Becoming Steve Jobs, which is really fleshed out.
The best book I've read is Becoming Steve Jobs, which is really fleshed out.
Agreed, but I didn't speak to accuracy. Just the fact that the book might be written prematurely.
Can anyone give me a quick rundown as to why MR members seems to have a negative view of Elon Musk? I remember the article with the Tim Cook CEO thing but it appears to be false. Is there anything else that I am missing?
I think it had something to do with Musk not being hostile enough with Big Orange {not a political post, don’t whack me for it}
However, some of the tech-bro and Silicon Valley types also seem to have a deeper bone to pick with him over being an outsider or too much of a disruptor. I simply detect a bunch of Hotel reservation API developers who seem jealous.
A cardboard box is more interesting that Tim Cook.
His cars based on ideas that have been around for decades using battery technology that was not his, and rocket innovation that was mooted decades ago. His cars might be silently zipping, but not cleanly, as you forget conveniently the resource cost of the vehicle, which is greater than an ICE. As far as the charging, yes, no doubt massive subsidy for infrastructure and charging points will be put in, again not calculated into the clean resource scenario, let alone how the extra electricity will be supplied, or the extra copper, the extra plastics, lithium etc., where an EV requires significantly more plastics to make up for the massive battery weight, along with the titanium shield over the battery which if water penetrates is a recipe for an explosion or fire that cannot be contained and where existing fire services are ill equipped to deal with, and God knows what happens when motorways and highways get clogged up with EV's that have run out of charge? The original resource cost of an EV was based on batteries lasting 10 years or more, and they are failing in that respect, where a report by independent Finnish researchers suggested resource cost of the EV battery alone was equivalent to driving a diesel for 8.2 years. Once an EV gets to holding just 80% charge performance is affected and range, and where the specs for EV's didn't account for colder climates where heater use, wipers and even radio affected range. We are already seeing many batteries that lasted nowhere near the 10 year, so now many are only claiming an 8 year guarantee (limited at that) which makes it more resource costly than the ICE, where the battery alone is so resource dependent, let alone the car itself.
Emergency services are not prepared for the EV situation, let alone dealing with solar installations, but with the EV, fire trucks are often the first to be used...which if unprepared may be equivalent to adding petrol to a fire. Similar dangers can occur with solar panels operating on DC.
At present they are not even geared up to recycling these batteries and an EV uses up to 150lb more copper than an equivalent ICE and where if we get to the larger vehicles, an EV bus would use 700lb. more copper.
Even 'Elon's' vacuum tunnel is something thought of decades ago, and implemented as a transport system decades ago.
All anti-Tesla shorter talking points. Ok fine, Elon didn’t invent the battery or the electric motor. But we wouldn’t have viable EV without him and his dream. Elon enabled the world’s top talent to work for him relatively unrestrained.
Agree that EV is simply outsourcing the ICE. But my interest is not environmental. I want to watch the oil economy die, and I want to watch an American auto company make innovative products and kick GM/Ford/Pasta-Chrysler in the nuts.
First responders will be fine. They have been dealing with hybrids for a quarter of a century now. Entire firefighting careers from academy to retirement have occurred while partial EV’s have roamed the street.
No worries about batteries. Lots of technological progress occurring. Recycling and new chemistries are coming (it’s going to be a huge business)
Well aware of the silly hyper loop tunnel proposals not being original. But I’m not laughing Elon off anymore.
At the end of the day, it’s all happening because Elon made EV cool. Steve Jobs made personal computers and computer phones cool too. Elon is doing it, and you’re sitting back hoping that some guy in Finland can poke a hole in some attic edge case. Lame!
This guy must be some official gatekeeper. Who in their right mind would let that man near their legacy? Let the public humiliation ritual begin.
The turning point for "viable EV" would have just happened 5 years later without him.
Wether that would a point in the past or the future is another 5000 post flamefest.
Back to your regular scheduled fanboy circle####.....
I thought his Steve Jobs Bio was a masterpiece, & have read the first 1/2 of it many times !
Disclaimer: grew up in the Cupertino area, NOT too far from De Anza College, so much of it hit home.
Disclaimer: grew up in the Cupertino area, NOT too far from De Anza College, so much of it hit home.
I don’t believe that 5 year figure. Maybe 50 years would be believable.
Too much pressure from ICE legacy companies. You need massive disruption to enter auto market, let alone differentiate.
but yeah, back to the cult of personality circle jerk 👨🏿🔬
Thats just as plausible as:
- without the iPhone we would still use keyboards on feature phones
- without the Mac we would still be typing into command line interfaces
- without the Model_T cars would still be just toys for the 1%
In reality all these happened because the tech it is based on was developed shortly before and someone smart&lucky managed to piece them together before anybody else.
As for EV those existed long before as real products. I used to "putter" around Dortmund in an electric MicroVan almost 30 years ago, Toyota and Honda brought hybrids to market in the late 90s. Noone knows how that would have developed till today but it was above critical mass long before Elon started retrofitting the Lotus Elise to an EV as a 10th car for filmstars and proto hipsters.
My search skills are failing me, and don't know where it is in my house anymore, but I had a hardback couple hundred page book with monkeys painted on it, called something like the Anthropologist's Guide to the Super Rich... or something of the sort. Published I think about twenty years ago. It was a pharisaical comparison to the uber rich and monkey behavior. At the time, it had mention of Branson, Gates, Turner, but thoughts of now having a profile biographer, rocket ships, pictures taken in a particular way, and some oddball stand out achievement of something just all fits the mold.
Save your money people. This biography likely will not garner any significant insight.
Save your money people. This biography likely will not garner any significant insight.
Agreed. Really love his writing style, but Musk is not good subject material.
EV’s of 100 or 10 years ago are not comparable to Tesla. Contemporary EV’s are nowhere near Tesla. They are a decade ahead of other vehicles regardless of fuel system. All of your example happened because of leaders with vision, not organically.