« Batman has no limits. » This cult line from the film The Dark Knight: The Dark Knight by Christopher Nolan symbolizes not only Bruce Wayne’s excessive ambition, but also the image we often have of influential billionaires, a perception they readily share. However, in reality, even the most brilliant minds have their limits.
A contribution by Gautam Mukunda for Forbes US – translated by Lisa Deleforterie
Fidelity’s recent announcement that the value of fundamental to the world.
To learn from what happened at X, we must first recognize the scale of Musk’s accomplishments at his other companies. Revolutionizing an industry is already an exceptional feat, doing it twice is even more so. Tesla arguably accelerated the electrification of the auto industry by a generation, and SpaceX might just be one of the most impressive companies in the world.
Any analysis of the lessons to be learned from what happened at X must first recognize the scale of Musk’s successes at his other companies. Revolutionizing an industry is a remarkable feat, doing it twice is even more impressive. Tesla has arguably accelerated the electrification of the auto industry by a generation, while SpaceX may well be the most notable company on a global scale.
Musk’s results with X are diametrically opposed to his other successes. The damage is not limited to the financial aspect. Twitter is arguably the most expensive individual purchase in history, but Musk’s fortune is such that even if its value fell to zero, he would still be one of the richest people of all time. What Musk really lost with the purchase of This harm is not so much linked to its support for Donald Trump – although this harms its image, especially among Tesla’s climate-conscious customers – as to its adherence to various conspiracy theories. He notably defended the “QAnon shaman”, actor in the assault on the Capitol, and relayed a false story about the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband.
Twitter, as a social network, is fundamentally different from Tesla or SpaceX, in every way. So why did Elon Musk think he would be as successful with this platform as he was with his other ventures? Plus, why would institutions as sophisticated as Fidelity invest billions in Musk’s acquisition of a social media company, when he only completed the purchase under threat of legal action ?
This error of judgment results mainly from a perception of genius inspired by the world of comic books. In Iron ManTony Stark is touted as the greatest weapons designer of all time, an actually multidisciplinary task that requires large teams, not just a lone genius. But let’s admit that this is possible. In the latest Avengers film, Stark is such a brilliant physicist that he single-handedly manages to invent time travel. And it is not an isolated case. Bruce Wayne is not only a better athlete than most Olympic champions, but he is also more skilled than the Gotham Police Department at forensics and better at coding than the engineers at Wayne Enterprises. Bruce Banner, meanwhile, has seven doctorates.
In reality, genius does not manifest itself like this. Real scientists, however brilliant they may be, have only one specialty, or at most a small number of specialties. An expert in both biology and physics, for example, simply does not exist. A century ago this might have been possible, but today advances in each discipline are so complex that fully mastering any one takes a lifetime, even for the most talented minds. Likewise, Jackie Robinson was once able to excel in multiple professional sports, and athletes like Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders, and Brian Jordan managed to play in both the NFL and MLB. However, today no professional athlete manages to combine two sports careers at this level.
What is true in science and sport is also true in business. Research by my colleagues Boris Groysberg and Nitin Nohria demonstrated that, between 1989 and 2001, former GE executives who became CEOs of other companies only succeeded when their new companies resembled the GE divisions they had previously led. Elon Musk, even though he’s often compared to a comic book superhero — and even made an appearance in Iron Man 2 — remains a human being like us, with our own limits. The skills needed to run a social media platform that relies primarily on advertising are very different from those needed to run an automobile company, and bear almost no relation to those required for a company that makes and launches rockets. If Elon Musk and his investors had realized this, they would undoubtedly be in a much better situation today.
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