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Originally Posted by redpoint5
I'm assuming nobody would give it to you because you have no history of taking high risks and making hugely successful businesses. Musk worked his way into great financial standing partly by good fortune, and partly by being brilliant and risk tolerant (also great fortune, as everything is). Tesla isn't a pet project for Musk; it's his passion. Same with Space X. He didn't just have a whimsical idea one night and get loose with the pocketbook; he's been obsessing about these ideas since his youth.
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The funny thing is that Musk doesn't have a history of making hugely successful businesses either. His big claim to fame is PayPal. Except Musk didn't create PayPal or turn it into a success. Musk was a co-founder of X.com. It merged with another online payment company called Confinity. The CEO of Confinity became CEO of the newly created PayPal. It was that man that shepherded the company from a start-up to IPO and then facilitated the sale to EBay. Musk remained a large shareholder and made a fortune on the sale of PayPal but he wasn't the guy running the company.
Musk is an ideas guy not an operations guy that takes the idea and turns it into a profitable business. His mismanagement of Tesla continues to prove this day after day.
None of Musk's companies since X.com has been successfully if you use the standard business definition of success - making money for shareholders.
Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5
I certainly never said Musk is "betting it all" on Tesla, so I hope you aren't implying that I was. However, he did bet a large fortune on a number of things, and some are bound to fail. That's what entrepreneurs do. They fail often and move on. If your expectation is that entrepreneurs make 100% perfect decisions, you don't understand being human at all.
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You did not say Musk is "betting it all"; that was hamsterpower. Which is why I pointed out to hamsterpower that Musk is betting with other people money. Which is a pretty fair statement when Musk has put in less then 1% of the capital invested in Tesla.