Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

grokmachine t1_ixiuoqo wrote

Reply to comment by Chop1n in what does this sub think of Elon Musk by [deleted]

Zip2 and X.com/Paypal. Those were the initial startups that provided the money for SpaceX and Tesla.

1

Chop1n t1_ixixngb wrote

Thanks for taking the bait, I love it when Musk fanboys walk right into this one:

Musk founded X.com, which was little more than an online bank. He actually lost a power struggle with co-founder Harris Fricker, who became CEO of the company, and Musk basically lost control. X.com then acquired Confinity, which had already developed PayPal. Musk didn't do shit as far as PayPal itself was concerned. He was "around" in some capacity when it exploded, but he played no part in its development, and it wasn't his vision, either. PayPal exploded because it was PayPal, and nothing Musk did had anything to do with its success, since he didn't develop it nor "shepherd" it in any meaningful capacity.

1

grokmachine t1_ixuwtf4 wrote

Lol, Musk lost a power struggle, yes. But why does Musk have to personally build something in order to count as a successful CEO? That is a standard applied to no one else. Yes, the earliest form of Paypal was developed by Confinity, but it looked very little like the Paypal after the acquisition. It was initially only for Palm Pilots! X.com had the ability to send payments using email addresses first.

And the decision to buy them (which X.com did) was made because Musk and others (not others in opposition to Musk) recognized the potential in the early Paypal product. Acquiring a promising product that goes on to be huge is the kind of thing a successful CEO does much more often actually coding a new product him/herself.

1