There is an interesting problem when you try to explain the success of Elon Musk. If you’re a fan, you might look at Tesla and SpaceX, see that Musk has accomplished what few others could, and decide that he must be a genius.
When you look at Twitter – and the mess he has caused over the last nine months – the only logical explanation is that he has some kind of master plan that the rest of us just don’t get. It must be a form of intentional creative destruction, not just a chaotic disaster.
On the other hand, if you’re not a fan, you might look at how Musk has handled Twitter and find it hard to give him credit for the incredible success he’s had at Tesla and SpaceX. If you don’t like Musk, it’s hard to acknowledge that he has accomplished a lot. The success of his other companies must be due to some other factor like government subsidies.
How you feel about Musk makes it hard to separate the success or lack of success he has had at his various companies. And, that’s important, because, for as much as Twitter has been a debacle, Musk’s other companies are very real success stories.
Tesla has almost single-handedly done what no other automaker has been able to do – make electric vehicles (EVs) something that people actually want to drive. SpaceX is an incredibly important company, both in terms of the United States’ space ambitions, but also its national security.
Those two companies are real success stories, which is why – if you happen to believe that the success is the result of Musk’s genius – it’s hard to square that with the failure of Twitter. There must be some kind of genius-level strategy that the rest of us just don’t understand. He must be playing some kind of game that the rest of us aren’t able to comprehend.
It’s okay to recognise that to be true, even if you think Musk’s stewardship of the company previously known as Twitter has been terrible. Still, it poses a challenge since it’s hard to understand why the guy who built the most valuable car company ever, and who runs a company that is working on putting humans on Mars, can’t figure out how to make software that doesn’t make people furious.
I think there’s a pretty simple explanation, which is that Musk thrives with a very specific set of circumstances that uniquely fit his temperament and skills. In any other situation – like running a social media platform – he fails.
Except, those two companies – Tesla and SpaceX – have something important that makes it possible for Musk to thrive. They both build physical things in the real world. They build electric vehicles and rocket ships, respectively. Those are hard challenges with real limitations. You can have crazy ideas, but eventually, you run into the problem of physics.
That isn’t true with Twitter. It’s not true of software at all. If you have crazy ideas for your software platform, you can randomly change the name and logo in the middle of the night. You can ditch your well-established system of verifying accounts in favour of a system designed to get people to hand over US$8 (RM36) a month. You can suddenly start limiting the amount people are able to use your service because you’re mad at the companies building AI chatbots.
Obviously, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. But, with Twitter, there’s no one to tell him he shouldn’t. And, all of those things are technically possible.
Musk can’t just do whatever he wants when it comes to electric vehicles or space rockets because those things are subject to laws and regulations, and, well, physics. Do not underestimate how important that is as a check on Musk’s whims.
Software is different. If you want to change something, it’s relatively easy to implement whatever crazy ideas you might have. It might not be wise, but there is very little to stop you when the change is just lines of code. There’s also very little cost involved.
That’s why the rule of impossibilities is so important. Musk’s personality is such that he pushes towards impossible outcomes, but in the physical world, that pushes the team to accomplish extremely difficult things that all still are contained by the laws of physics. That structure is a good thing because it keeps people from doing dumb stuff.
The major limits that exist when making physical products – money and physics – don’t exist with a digital platform. Almost nothing is impossible, which means that someone like Musk can just do whatever he wants. That’s not just a bad way to build a product, it explains why he’s so bad at doing just that. – Inc./Tribune News Service
Credit: The Star : Tech Feed
