Musk has degrees in economics and physics. My undergrad is in physics and my dad is an engineer. They are definitely different skillsets.
When I decided to build a treehouse for my kids, I came up with a clean sheet design. My dad saw my drift and walked me through a redesign the preserved the core idea. And then my neighbor, a general contractor, supervised the build (and pretty much doubled every safety margin along the way). My other neighbor (a self-employed roofer) did the crazy bits.
I would be inclined to credit Musk with broad outlines and I would give him credit for being able to participate in the engineering process by asking some sensible questions. I would not be inclined to credit him with imposing tried-and-true design methods and constraints. Similarly, I would give him credit for broad outline path-to-profitability. I would not give him credit for day-to-day diligence of double-entry accounting that the CFO worries about or the contract negotiations his PMs answer to the CFO's staff for.
Not only he sold two tech companies where he worked as a software engineer early in his career, but he has been the chief engineer for SpaceX for almost twenty years, and the results of that kind of speak for themselves?
They gave up on patents over a decade ago so we might never really know, but it’s widely reported that he designed the original falcon rocket, has a hand in the engine designs, the dragon capsule, the space suits, and now starship and everything surrounding it. For most people just being a part of one of these projects would be a mark of success...
It's been 311 days since Elon Musk promised to produce ventilators at the SpaceX factory.
It's been 546 days since Elon Musk claimed Tesla was increasing production of solar roofs towards one thousand per week by end of 2019
It's been 644 days since Elon Musk said there will be a million fully autonomous Tesla robotaxis in a year
It's been 726 days since Elon Musk said Tesla would likely be cash flow positive in all quarters going forward. Tesla lost $702.1 million in Q1 2019 and $408 million in Q2 2019.
It's been 747 days since Elon Musk said the new Roadster will use rocket technology that will allow it to fly
It's been 761 days since Elon Musk said brake pads on a Tesla would never need to be replaced.
It's been 817 days since Elon Musk said Teslas should be able to read and understand parking signage by end of 2019.
It's been 902 days since Elon Musk tweeted funding was secured to take Tesla private at $420 a share.
It's been 925 days since Elon Musk said he would rescue children stuck in a cave with a custom built mini-sub.
It's been 929 days since Elon Musk pledged to fix Flint's lead water crisis.
It's been 958 days since Elon Musk promised employees that there would be no more layoffs. They laid off 1000 employees 718 days ago.
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Truth doesn't seem like something he's particularly concerned with
An engineer that's being logical and thinking from first principles should come to the same solution, but the vast majority of the population base their viewpoints on what's "true" based on what the internet / mass media has told them for years is true, not by what actually makes logical sense in objective reality.
The news has been spamming PR pieces for years about self-driving cars, with absolutely no technical merit to them. Twitter/Reddit/Etc have been absolutely spammed by echo chambers that all assure themselves that self-driving cars have been invented and will be released soon.
The population is awash with the viral idea that they're possible, exist, and are on the way, because that's just what they've been told for years. The average person repeats the idea because that's what the internet told them is true, which makes it even more "true", since now there's another person repeating it.
What percentage of the population that goes online and talks about how self-driving cars are coming soon actually have the engineering background / technical knowledge to come to that conclusion?
As an engineer you should care about cost and other tradeoffs. At this point Waymo is not much more than an exorbitantly expensive tech demo. I sure hope that one day it is more than that.
Tesla has a million cars on the road. It is a technology people can use and afford and it is working.
comma.ai sells a device for $1000 that can be installed on the majority of cars sold in America.
The whole point is they aren't actually doing what waymo is setting out to do, and it doesn't matter how many cars tesla has with driver assist it won't really help them get to full autonomy.
Because testing the cars does help. Beyond a certain point you also need information on how the system responds, and not just in the areas your customers are comfortable having it engaged.
To me its obvious that he is wrong. Great, now we can all just claim we are so incredibly smart and know anything based on feeling.
Waymo is wasting tons of money driving around one city, that is literally the easiest city to driver around arguably in the world. They did this for years and years and years.
Tesla has a much, much, much larger fleet driving around in literally all conditions, in almost every single country in the world. Their software already handles things that Waymo has not even bigging to solve, like special street signs in Korea and China.
Will Waymo be the first to offer a Taxi service in geofenced? Yes. Will Tesla be the first where I can go anywhere at any time? Yes.
There are other engineers in the same field with more technical expertise in this specific field of robotics than Elon, and they think that Tesla's path is not accurate enough. Maybe they're right. Maybe Elon is.
The problem is when you hold someone up on a pedestal and a cult of personality forms. That clouds your judgement and you lose your objectivity. It's great if Elon is right, but if he isn't I hope the fatalities, injuries, and property damages can be kept to a minimum and it doesn't hamper better technologies from being implemented.
