I’ve got issues with some of the stuff Elon Musk’s been doing at Twitter, and some of the non-Twitter tweets he’s sent, including ones pushing wild and harmful conspiracy theories. But for all the potentially valid critiques and criticisms, I also see many mixed in that are completely incorrect and misguided — and those can only hurt the more legitimate complaints and concerns people are raising.
One common one is that Elon Musk isn’t an engineer. Similarly, it’s common to say that he just bought his way into Tesla and isn’t a true founder (a judge determined he was indeed one of five core founders, and a basic historical account of how Tesla got off the ground indicates as much). The implication with both claims is that Elon was not at all responsible for the success of Tesla (or SpaceX, or PayPal). People who have followed the Tesla story closely know this is all nonsense, and when someone throws one of these javelins at Elon’s identity, reputation, and history, they immediately look like fools. Elon and Tesla followers quickly write off such people, because they know these critiques are absurd. It’s the best way to make sure any legitimate complaints or concerns these people have are scoffed at and ignored.
A handful of tweets triggered this article, but the issue has irritated and disappointed me for a long time. Top, top, top engineers in the automotive industry, in the space industry, and in the computer industry have given Elon the highest respects in terms of his engineering know-how and abilities. I spent a bit of time trading DMs with Elon on Twitter over the course of several years. One of the core takeaways I got from him about himself was that he was an engineer more than anything else (career wise), and I agree with that. Probably the #1 message he provided in recent years was that Tesla would lead on manufacturing, thanks to its engineering prowess. Here are a few tweets from people who know:
There are plenty more from well established leading chip engineers, rocket engineers, and automotive executives.
Here’s a good one from someone who has just followed the story well:
That’s a basic tweet, but it’s a rare one, because it acknowledges that Elon has had tremendous success due to his abilities as an engineer, but then also offers two key critiques. These days, most people chiming in on these topics seem to be 100% all-in on supporting Elon and everything he says or does or 100% all-in on trashing him. The latter make big mistakes by not knowing that Elon’s success isn’t due to entitlement, luck, or screwing people over. It is indeed due to hard, smart work — and inspiring tens of thousands of people to also engaged in hard, smart work.
By and large, I see what’s happening at Twitter as a disaster. I see the whole Twitter purchase as a financially stupid and misguided shitshow. I see that Elon has been surrounded more and more by “yes men” (for reasons I could write a book about) and that many of the people he listens to are giving him really bad misinformation on a variety of topics. Twitter used to be a problem for Elon because he’d put his foot in his mouth there, and earlier this year even, he laughed about that and seemed to indicate that he was trying to do better. Going and buying the platform, at a ridiculously high price, has been him going 10,000 times further in the wrong direction. It’s too bad he’s surrounded far too much now by people who egg on his most counterproductive and unkind instincts. It’s too bad so many people around him are using him for their own misguided and selfish motives. At the end of the day, of course, he’s a fully grown man with ample ability to set up the atmosphere around himself that’s best for learning and progress. Indeed, once being the wealthiest man on Earth, he could have pursued greater understanding with essentially limitless funding. Instead, it appears that he surrounds himself with people who agree with almost every assumption he makes.
As an engineer, I’m sure he’s still top notch. That’s in large part what made him the richest man/human on Earth. I’m not sure he has the right background to understand Twitter’s architecture well or to know how to lead Twitter, but I have far less technical expertise, so I can’t provide a good judgement on the technical side of that. All of the other stuff, and some of the technical stuff shared by Twitter people, make this episode of the Elon story something like a train wrecking into a burning building falling off a cliff. So it’s hard to watch and yet difficult to turn away. I’ve seen enough from Elon about Covid-19, transportation planning, and various political topics to know that he often steps into a topic with wrong assumptions and can be stubborn about letting go of them. However, that doesn’t mean he isn’t brilliant in other ways and one of the most knowledgeable people on earth about a variety of technical and engineering topics. In fact, that’s partly the point. People who think he doesn’t know engineering don’t know what they’re talking about. He has spent so many hours for so many years learning about technology and engineering related building cars, building rockets, and building software for them that he really hasn’t had much time for other matters. So much success combined with so little time to become more well rounded on other topics is bound to lead a person astray in those other realms, and then increasingly being surrounded by people who think he’s either infallible or someone to be manipulated for their cause makes the matter that much worse.
I’m critiquing both Elon critics and Elon superfans here, so I don’t expect to be pleasing many people or making many fans with this article, but for those of you who are with me, a tip of the hat to you.
And the core message for anyone trying to influence him or his supporters: don’t say stupid stuff about his engineering skills, his personal background, or his role at Tesla and SpaceX if you don’t want to be quickly categorized as a fool. Look for the truth and how to persuade, not an even bigger food fight of misinformation.
Máte tip na CleanTechnica? Chcete inzerovat? Chcete navrhnout hosta pro náš podcast CleanTech Talk? Kontaktujte nás zde.
Naše nejnovější video EVObsession
Nemám rád paywally. Nemáte rádi paywally. Kdo má rád paywally? Zde v CleanTechnica jsme na chvíli implementovali omezený paywall, ale vždy to bylo špatné – a vždy bylo těžké rozhodnout, co bychom tam měli dát. Teoreticky váš nejexkluzivnější a nejlepší obsah jde za paywall. Ale pak si to přečte méně lidí!! Rozhodli jsme se tedy, že zde v CleanTechnica zcela zrušíme paywally. Ale.
Stejně jako ostatní mediální společnosti potřebujeme podporu čtenářů! Pokud nás podporujete, vkládejte prosím trochu měsíčně, abyste pomohli našemu týmu napsat, upravit a publikovat 15 příběhů o čistých technologiích denně!
Autoři
- Fabian Braesemann Departmental Research Lecturer in AI & Work, University of Oxford
- Paul X. McCarthy Adjunct Professor and Industry Fellow, UNSW Sydney
- Peggy Kern Associate Professor, Centre for Positive Psychology, The University of Melbourne
Prohlášení o zveřejnění
Autoři nepracují, nekonzultují, nevlastní akcie ani nedostávají financování od žádné společnosti nebo organizace, která by měla prospěch z tohoto článku, a nezveřejnili žádné relevantní vztahy mimo jejich akademické jmenování.
Partneři
University of Melbourne provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU.
University of Oxford provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.
UNSW Sydney provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.
Jazyky
- indonéština
- angličtina
From Elon Musk’s supreme confidence to Jeff Bezos’ ability to make smart decisions under pressure, some of the most successful entrepreneurs are known for their distinctive personalities. But these traits aren’t just interesting side notes to these founders’ stories: confidence and calmness, along with other qualities such as a love of adventure, can have a big impact on startup success.
A startup is typically counted as a “success” if it’s acquired by another company or goes public (that is, its shares become available to trade on a stock exchange). And common investor wisdom attributes this to either supply side (novel products) or demand side (market interest or “hot sectors”) factors.
Of course, many other elements are associated with startup success. There’s a “Goldilocks age” for startups, for example, with those younger than seven years old less likely to be successful because they haven’t had enough time to develop. Startups based in hot spots like San Francisco, Berlin or London are also more likely to succeed due to better access to finance and talent.
While our new research shows all these elements are important, it reveals that the personalities of founders are actually the most influential factor in startup success.
AI uncovers the x-factor: founder personality
Our multidisciplinary team from the University of New South Wales, the University of Oxford, University of Technology Sydney and the University of Melbourne embarked on a two-year mission to unravel the mysteries behind startup success. We tapped into detailed data on more than 21,000 global startups to discern patterns that might predict a venture’s triumph or downfall.
Using AI algorithms, we applied the “five-factor” model – a psychology theory that divides personality into five main groups – to analyse startup founders worldwide. After comparing data on thousands of successful founders to information about employees, we discovered that entrepreneurs exhibit very different combinations of personality traits to everyone else.
Entrepreneurs tend to have a penchant for variety and novelty. They often have a desire to be the centre of attention and an inherent exuberance. While these traits might sound generic, in the business world they translate into risk-taking, networking and relentless energy – critical ingredients for startup success.
Based on our findings, we have identified six distinct founder personality types: leader, accomplisher, operator, developer, fighter and engineer. Each type has its own combination of subtle personality traits, for example, operators value orderliness and fighters are emotionally sensitive.
Founder personality traits
Many of these personality types are thriving in the real-life startup world. Take, for instance, Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft. He left Harvard to chase what was then a risky dream. This epitomises “openness to adventure”, which we found was a characteristic of the “leader” personality type.
This theme of defying the odds coupled with seemingly limitless energy resonates with many founder stories.
Melanie Perkins, a co-founder of $26 billion graphic design software company Canva, faced over 100 rejections from investors before securing the venture capital funding needed to build the platform. She has described herself as “determined, stubborn and adventurous” – also traits of the “leader” founder type.
Jeff Bezos is a well-known “acccomplisher”. He left his secure position at a New York hedge fund to found Amazon from Seattle. This wasn’t an impulsive move, it was a strategic choice. Bezos saw Seattle as the best place for a national distribution hub because it would benefit from Washington state’s specific tax laws. Such meticulous planning and long-term vision has characterised some of Amazon’s other achievements, including the development of Amazon Web Services, a global cloud computing leader.
And, of course, no discussion of start-up personalities would be complete without Tesla and Space-X founder Elon Musk. This “engineer’s” many business interests are driven by boundless imagination, as well as intellect. You can see this in SpaceX’s audacious goal to colonise Mars and Tesla’s futuristic Cybertruck design, as well as Musk’s underground transportation system Hyperloop.
Founders are wired differently
Síla rozmanitosti
Our model also indicated that startups with a diverse blend of these founder personality types are 8 to 10 times more likely to be successful.
Canva’s three co-founders are a great example of this. Ex-Googler Cameron Adams’s technical intellect and imagination has combined with Cliff Obrecht’s assertive dealmaking and Perkins’ energy, trustworthiness and adventurousness to create a tech juggernaut.
Even if you’re not gearing up to launch or invest in the next big startup, personality offers a fascinating lens through which to view the start-up world and its most talked-about figures. And these findings are likely to hold in other settings too: team performance is shaped by the right combination of different personalities.
Behind every successful startup, there’s more than just a groundbreaking product or a burgeoning market, there’s a dynamic founder – or founders – with a personality that’s the secret to startup success.
