Hyperloop? I am not sold on his talent being “find good things to do” as opposed to “successfully do things”. And second has a lot to do with energy/drive, not only intellect. Hence I expect his intelligence be overestimated. But I agree with your estimate, which is not what I expected?
I don’t find it surprising; 0.1% is a fairly low bar here on LW. I’m not considered that unusual here, and my calibrated guess is that I’m in the 0.3% category. There’s a million people in the USA alone at that level, and three hundred thousand at 0.1%. That’s a wide pool to select from.
Personally I wouldn’t be surprised if Musk was substantially above the top 0.1%. I’ve seen a number of technical interviews with him; he and I have similar backgrounds and technical field strengths; and we are approximately the same age. I feel able to properly evaluate his competence, and I do not find it lacking.
Not sure about hyperloop. Judging by this list, the idea is gaining some traction across the world, but so far only as feasibility studies, test tracks etc.
Seems to be a natural evolutionary step for high-speed ground transport, but no idea if it makes economic sense yet, and if it’s technically feasible with the current tech. Maybe in 50 years...
I don’t think the hyperloop matters one way or the other to your original argument (which I agree with). Someone can be a genius and still make mistakes and fail to succeed at every single goal. (For another example, consider Isaac Newton who a) wasted a lot of time studying alchemy and still failed to transform lead into gold and b) screwed up his day job at the Royal Mint so badly that England ended up with a de facto gold standard even though it was supposed to have both silver and gold currency. He’s still a world-historic genius for inventing calculus.)
Alchemists still performed experiments on chemical reactions, discovered new ones and described them, practiced how to separate substances and for that they developed tools and methods, that were later in chemistry. It’s not like it was an inherent waste of time, it was a necessary stepping-stone to get to chemistry, which developed from it more gradually than it’s typically acknowledged.
A useful model is Elon Musk. He has an unusual talent of making massively successful decisions that were seen as dumb by most experts at the time.
The list includes:
Launching a rocketry startup
Pursuing reusable rockets
Investing into a car startup
Pursuing electric sport cars
Launching a satellite internet service (too early to judge, but is starting to look like a genius move too)
Buying Twitter (same)
I don’t feel very confident guessing his IQ, but I think it’s safe to assume he’s somewhere in the top 0.1% of all humans.
Funnily enough, many people still call him dumb, even after SpaceX and Tesla (e.g. read any thread about him on Reddit).
As Henry David Thoreau said,
Hyperloop? I am not sold on his talent being “find good things to do” as opposed to “successfully do things”. And second has a lot to do with energy/drive, not only intellect. Hence I expect his intelligence be overestimated. But I agree with your estimate, which is not what I expected?
I don’t find it surprising; 0.1% is a fairly low bar here on LW. I’m not considered that unusual here, and my calibrated guess is that I’m in the 0.3% category. There’s a million people in the USA alone at that level, and three hundred thousand at 0.1%. That’s a wide pool to select from.
Personally I wouldn’t be surprised if Musk was substantially above the top 0.1%. I’ve seen a number of technical interviews with him; he and I have similar backgrounds and technical field strengths; and we are approximately the same age. I feel able to properly evaluate his competence, and I do not find it lacking.
Not sure about hyperloop. Judging by this list, the idea is gaining some traction across the world, but so far only as feasibility studies, test tracks etc.
Seems to be a natural evolutionary step for high-speed ground transport, but no idea if it makes economic sense yet, and if it’s technically feasible with the current tech. Maybe in 50 years...
I don’t think the hyperloop matters one way or the other to your original argument (which I agree with). Someone can be a genius and still make mistakes and fail to succeed at every single goal. (For another example, consider Isaac Newton who a) wasted a lot of time studying alchemy and still failed to transform lead into gold and b) screwed up his day job at the Royal Mint so badly that England ended up with a de facto gold standard even though it was supposed to have both silver and gold currency. He’s still a world-historic genius for inventing calculus.)
Alchemists still performed experiments on chemical reactions, discovered new ones and described them, practiced how to separate substances and for that they developed tools and methods, that were later in chemistry. It’s not like it was an inherent waste of time, it was a necessary stepping-stone to get to chemistry, which developed from it more gradually than it’s typically acknowledged.