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.
Yeah, some of the bandwagonny replies I'm seeing in this thread do not make their posters sound like someone you'd want to spend your working life sat next to.
You don't have to show interest in the company to help the CEO get richer, but you should probably show an interest in the company because it's where you're going to be spending 1/3rd of your entire waking hours from now on, and you're going to have a fucking miserable time of it if you've already decided to mentally check out before you've even got to the interview. Have some self-respect.
For the benefit of the many non-Brits complaining about how unrealistic it is: the Leaving School Grounds Unsupervised form is (when I grew up at least) a huge social divider and Big Deal in a lot of British schools. There was a whole micro industry at mine where the ~70% of kids who were allowed out would provide delivery services for sweets and pop for the 30% who weren’t.
JKR didn’t just pull this whole thing out her ass, it was something that most British kids will have instantly related to. (She’s still an awful human mind)
The terrifying thing is that this is just a temporary technical misstep.
Musk's response to this won't be to pack that shit in, it'll be to order his goons to figure out how to make it more subtle.
I googled the author, he's a Tech Bro pretending to be a media critic. Shame on The Guardian for publishing this moronic clickbait guff.
I would say the guy clearly doesn't understand the most basic concepts of fiction, except I suspect he probably does but is ignoring them in order to push his agenda.
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.