I guess Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning were just hapless chaps stumbling around in the dark, until Elon lighted their way with his genius vision of how to build an EV. /s
So much so I had to google their names because even I can't remember them.
He could declare bankruptcy and be a billionaire again tomorrow.
And I don't say this out of any kind of admiration for him; just there's still enough moneyed rubes out there that he could set up a new company making plumbuses and it would hit unicorn status by the end of the day.
You're familiar with survivor bias, yeah?
You're forgetting retired women.
Well done. I'm like most people in that I didn't spot it until he started talking about a subject I knew about. The first Tesla Roadster looked amazing^1^, and then the hyperloop sounded like a cool idea^2^, and then oh wait what's he saying about software development now?
^1^ because its body was made by Lotus
^2^ except it doesn't work
A lot of their success seems to be recognising an opportunity before anyone else
Pretty much everyone in the world has at some point in their lives had some idea or spotted some gap in the market that could be a successful product, but 99% of us don't get to act on that because the rent is due and will be due again next month.
I remember they once tried some similar shit with the Kerberos protocol, sneaking a patented feature in there so they could then seize the whole thing in the name of Active Directory, but I think they were forced to back down(?)
I’m actually having difficulty finding details on it now because they’ve done a solid job drowning the story out from the search results...
It's a bit more nuanced. Trolling and ragebait absolutely was a thing, but there was still a certain sense that it was just part of the Wild West nature of the internet. Someone posting racist garbage on a phpBB would be a minor irritant that would catch a bit of flak but be otherwise ignored.
These days it's entire office blocks full of professional trolls armed with advanced analytics, profiling systems and AI paid to push political agendas. And the most frustrating part of it is that despite the fact that everyone knows this to be true, it's still working anyway and we have elected officials of ostensibly Developed countries repeating obvious bullshit they saw online.
Corbyn in the UK ten years ago had a huge groundswell of popular support that at one point looked like carrying Labour to a 1997-style landslide, until he was taken down by an organised campaign of pearl-clutchy disingenuous accusations of anti-semitism over his support for Palestine; a campaign that the neoliberals in his party were all too happy to play along with.
The tweet was specifically talking about their $299 card that also has a 16Gb version. OP is shitstirring for clicks.
If his wealth were a US treasury bond, he'd have to spend at least $50,000,000 every DAY in order to not still keep getting richer.
Take a moment to think about how difficult it is to spend $50,000,000. If I gave you 24 hours to do it using Brewster's Millions rules, you'd struggle.
There is no good reason for billionaires to exist.