I can't help feeling a bit uneased reading about computer science people doing salespitch for solving a world epidemic.
If a famous medical doctor was trying to convince me that his database product was really the best, while making grandiose statement, i think i'd be very very harsh with them.
This appeal to authority always bothers me. Polymaths are capable of making bigger contributions in any field they involve themselves in than the average phD can in their own field of expertise. Look at Musk, Tesla, Von Neumann, Hughes, Da Vinci, Edison, Ben Franklin.
However, I wouldn't limit this to being a "genius" thing -- there may actually be something significant to being able to apply knowledge and patterns in one or more field to a seemingly unrelated field, and people who tend to be interested enough to learn and think about a lot of different fields in depth have a better base of mental abstractions for inventing in a new field, even if they don't score ridiculously high on an IQ test.
Note that this is just a general rant -- re: the article, I don't think the pitch is particularly interesting or noteworthy.
Science and technology has moved on significantly since the Da Vinci days and modern day “geniuses” like Musk surround themselves with experts in each field.
On some topics you just have to accept that someone who has spent years of their live dedicated to a complex topic might actually be better placed to judge a solution than someone who specialises in an entirely unrelated field but happens to demonstrate a passing interest. Particularly when the topic is literally a matter of life or death.
On average, sure. And that may be a rational reason for a busy investor to reject a pitch meeting, but that's never a reason to dismiss an idea once you've read it, or in a forum where there is no cost to that idea existing (such as HN).
It’s a reason enough to be skeptical. How often have you read on here someone saying “can’t you just do x y and z” to a problem that is grossly more complex than the commenter initially appreciates?
A better stance would be to take such pitches as an interesting take but one which still requires peer review.
Edit: Remember when Musk tried to pitch a submarine to save those children stuck in a Thai cave and how local divers have to point out the passage ways were too narrow for even Musks child size sub? Being smart doesn’t mean you are equality qualified to resolve hard problems in other people’s fields.
It's an excuse not to think. Now, if you feel that YOU are not qualified to evaluate the idea, that's a different story. Don't act on the idea until it comes from someone you trust. But that's no reason to tell others it's unworthy of their evaluation.
Why not? It doesn't matter if he's... Elon Musk. What he's accomplished in fields he wasn't trained in is significant. I think that makes OPs point just fine.
He seems to have a rare skill for building large successful innovative companies with revolutionary products. Not sure if that’s below or above the level of accomplishment of the reference group.
Because Elon Musk has made a series of incorrect, misleading, and ignorant statements about the Coronavirus crisis in order to benefit himself personally.
Name one aeronautical engineer phD who deserves more credit for giving America the ability to put humans in space next month than Musk.
He's quite involved with technical decisions. His social media behavior is irrelevant here -- this is about the ability to innovate outside of physics or economics, which is what he learned about in college.
> Name one aeronautical engineer phD who deserves more credit for giving America the ability to put humans in space next month than Musk.
Why limit it to them? Without the Internet, there would have been no X.com, no PayPal, no billion dollar paycheck. If "funding" a large project is the equivalent of "being a scientific genius", I think we'll add a lot of geniuses to the books, and we should probably include every government official that makes decisions about funding large projects.
And really ... who deserves more credit for putting a man on the moon than Karl Marx? Without Marx no communism, without communism no Soviet Union, without SU no American fear of losing dominance, and without that no ambitious and well-funded space program.
You do start to get a false feeling of invincibility after being validated so much in your actual field (even if it is largely due to being in the right place at the right time). Most one-hit wonders who manage to hit a homerun in the Valley with their web app who then end up trying to solve world hunger, etc. afterwards fail. I do have to hand it to Gates though (but he isn't a one-hit wonder).
Gates has the good sense of surrounding himself with deep expertise in everything he takes on.
He was smart to avoid the typical tech guy hiring only a bunch of other tech guys to try and take on problems like hunger, global health, and education.
It’s not really his solution though is it? WHO has been urging governments to “test test test” for months with the same argument. In fact, the UK government is currently being criticised for not testing enough. Other countries that test more have shown a lower death rate (Germany at one point, not sure of the figures today) at odds with neighbouring states. Between lockdown and waiting for a vaccine, this is the only other thing that’s been suggested that makes sense. It’s not like the author is recommending injections of bleach.
There are junior level devs at FAANG that would otherwise would be either starting their own company or be considered senior level at most other startups/other companies -- often they are really bright engineers at the beginning of their career, the same age as Paul Bucheit when he created a certain web email client at a FAANG company as a junior engineer.
If a famous medical doctor was trying to convince me that his database product was really the best, while making grandiose statement, i think i'd be very very harsh with them.