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Survey Says: Elon Musk Is Most Admired Tech Leader, Topping Bezos and Zuckerberg (teslarati.com) 119

Posted by BeauHD from the most-admired dept.
First Round Capital conducted a poll of 700 tech company founders and found Elon Musk to be the most admired leader in the technology industry. Elon Musk received 23 percent of the votes; 10 percent said Amazon's Jeff Bezos, 6 percent said Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and 5 percent wrote in Steve Jobs. First Round writes: "We launched State of Startups to capture what it means to be an entrepreneur. We asked the leaders of venture-backed companies about everything from the fundraising environment to their working relationships with their co-founders to their office's price per square foot. [...] Once again, we asked founders to write in which current tech leader they admire the most and we tallied 125 names. The Tesla and SpaceX leader held firm at the top spot (23%)..." Teslarati reports: While the survey did not ask respondents to explain their choice, it is safe to assume that Elon's propensity for setting lofty and visionary goals, and then being able to execute on them, is one trait admired most by tech founders. Most recently, Musk moved the scheduled start of production for the upcoming Model 3 midsize sedan forward by a full two years. Tesla also recently celebrated a record-setting third quarter and has been moving aggressively to close the second half of this year with 50,000 cars delivered. The company has announced a series of sweeteners to motivate people to order and take delivery of new vehicles before the end of the year. Unlimited Supercharger access for long distance travel and a, then, upcoming price hike on its entry level Model S 60, announced by the Palo Alto-based electric car maker and energy company, were incentives to stimulate sales. With plans to increase annual vehicle production by a factor of ten to twenty-fold by the end of the decade, send humans to mars and transform the energy sector, Musk's innovative solutions to rewrite humanity as we know it joins an elite rank held by few genius inventors and industrialists who have gone on to change the world.
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Survey Says: Elon Musk Is Most Admired Tech Leader, Topping Bezos and Zuckerberg More

Survey Says: Elon Musk Is Most Admired Tech Leader, Topping Bezos and Zuckerberg

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  • Survey brought to you by (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The friends of Elon Musk.

    • Re:Survey brought to you by (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @10:18AM (#53414589)

      Well out of the other leaders in the world he seems to be the only one betting a business model on overall cultural progress.

      Zuckerberg - A platform where you can gossip and spy on your old high school crushes.
      Bezos - A platform that can ship stuff you want to your door.

      Musk - Focusing on clean energy, cleaner transportation, and space travel (that isn't so clean), but finding ways to make peoples lives better and push society to the future without it trying to wait for the other companies to change what they are doing only when they find out it is too late.

      • Re:Survey brought to you by (Score:4, Interesting)

        by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @10:30AM (#53414641)

        and space travel (that isn't so clean)

        Well, clean-er, at least (building space hardware is seriously expensive and therefore not clean at all, so reducing the need to build it every time increases the cleanliness - although Jevons' paradox may apply!)

      • Re:Survey brought to you by (Score:4, Interesting)

        by JoshuaZ ( 1134087 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @11:47AM (#53414993) Homepage
        Even space travel they have focused on trying to do it cleanly. A big part of why their next generation of engines, the Raptor, uses methane as a fuel is that in the long-run one can synthesize methane directly and a straightforward way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction [wikipedia.org]. This has both an advantage in terms of Mars (can make more fuel on Mars) and also in terms of eventually making clean fuel on Earth.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ark1 ( 873448 )
        Do we know how the survey was conducted? Perhaps it was chose among "a. Mosk, b. Bezos c. Zuck d. Jobs"

      • Musk - Focusing on clean energy, cleaner transportation, and space travel (that isn't so clean), but finding ways to make peoples lives better and push society to the future without it trying to wait for the other companies to change what they are doing only when they find out it is too late.

        +5 Insightful... christ, really? The hyperloop is a bad joke that has zero potential to be revolutionary or cost-effective in the forms it's currently proposed[1]. It's just diverting funds that could be spent on a worthier cause and (ultimately) breaking the hearts of millions of starry-eyed geeks. SpaceX isn't revolutionary; it's just the chorus of NASA's swan song.

        That leaves only Tesla which, yeah, has done some good stuff and has produced a fair number of interesting things, but right now they're f

        • >SpaceX isn't revolutionary; it's just the chorus of NASA's swan song.

          Really? Landing a first stage back on its tail during a COMMERCIAL, FULLY PAID FOR LAUNCH IS A BIG FUCKING DEAL.

          • >SpaceX isn't revolutionary; it's just the chorus of NASA's swan song. Really? Landing a first stage back on its tail during a COMMERCIAL, FULLY PAID FOR LAUNCH IS A BIG FUCKING DEAL.

            I meant technologically revolutionary.

            Being a market revolutionary doesn't excite me all that much, particularly since there is a very hard floor on how low they can drive the prices. Space travel was expensive and niche in the 20th century and it's going to remain expensive and niche in the 21st century. I'm glad it's still being done, and by an American company no less, but seriously... meh. 99% of their customers are going to be people who want satellites launched or perhaps governments who want to

            • http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/1... [cnn.com]

              "The future is already here, it is just unevenly distributed" Cheaper space flight is both a market revolution and a technological one. Ubiquity and cheaper costs are just as important as raw innovation (not saying rocket flight will be ubiquitous or cheap, most humans will die in the gravity well they are born on). You can still do a ton of Information Age stuff with cheap(er) rockets.
              • From that article:

                The downside is a much smaller coverage area. ... It's a potentially very expensive endeavor,

                Yeah, that's a world-changer right there.

                You'll forgive me, but as someone who has taken a closer look at the hyperloop long ago (before thunderf00t did his underrated take down), random expensive-sounding Musk pipe dreams don't really stir me unless some extremely compelling details are provided. The man has been tilting at technological windmills for years and years instead of pursuing things that are actually achievable and really would change the world.

                Tesla's efforts are a sli

  • Steve Jobs rather than Tim Cook? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Must hurt to be seriously outclassed in leadership by someone rotting in his grave. Looks like Apple is considered to be on autopilot after Jobs went, and the autopilot is named Tim Cook.

    That Apple plane is solar-powered, but if you don't have a clue about North and South, you might still run out of Sun eventually.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Lennie ( 16154 )

      Don't certain of celebrities get even more popular after their dead ? It's like people see a TV report on what they've done and understand what has been lost. Also Steve Jobs was already very popular. Tim Cook was hardly known by the general public in comparison.

      • Don't certain of celebrities get even more popular after their dead ? It's like people see a TV report on what they've done and understand what has been lost. Also Steve Jobs was already very popular. Tim Cook was hardly known by the general public in comparison.

        That generally happens to everyone other than a CEO. Quick without looking it up, who is Jonathan Ive? It may surprise you given that he has more to do with Apple's products than Tim Cook does.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Lennie ( 16154 )

          I know who Jonathan is because I've read about him before, he's the most important designer at Apple.

          • Well I'm impressed. I'd be happy to run a survey of the Slashdot to prove that your knowledge of him is an outlying case.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by grub ( 11606 )
              I would think most of /. knows who Ive is. Amongst the general population you will get mainly blank stares.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Lennie ( 16154 )

              Well, I read a site where a guy regularly writes about user interface design... make that most of the time: rants about user interface design. ;-)

    • To be fair since the release of the original iPhone. What really new technology had came out that really made us excited? The closest I can think of is the 4k tv. And the ultra high resolution displays where Apple introduced on the iPhone 4. Where for the most part is kinda of a yawn.

      the MacBook today looks nearly the same as a Powerbook 15 years ago. Sure it may be thinner and lighter and some cosmetics. But there hasn't been a big change in design for a long time.

      Much of the advancements in technology

  • But who would know all of them? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This is sort of why I don't like popularity contests on the internet. Because who would know all of them in order to make the best comparison, maybe noone. :)

  • Creeps (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    What kind of douchebags spend money to see how much their friend is liked is fucking creepy, what the fuck is wrong with them ?

  • Topping Bezos and Zuckerberg (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    And I top a turtle and a snail for top speed. Yay me.

  • Because it's not software (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03, 2016 @07:10AM (#53414107)

    Musk is popular because rather than making intangible items such as software he's advancing hard technologies like Rocketry and Cars. Physical engineering accomplishments are always going to outdo software for its ability to inspire. An example: K&R vs Steve Jobs, one made the software foundation for everything we use, the other made shiny physical products. Now when we look back 100 years from now Musk is going to be a visionary of the like of Henry Ford. The same is true of the person who invents working fusion, whether it's Polywell based, ITER, or something else. Once working fusion has been built it'll be hailed as a true landmark in science/technological progression. Warp drive is another advancement of this scale. These are the big advances which matter to the species and which are readily visible. It takes visionaries and money cold hard cash to make these projects happen and these guys might not be the only people smart enough to build these advances, but at the time they're the only ones putting their balls/livelihoods on the line to push us forward.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by swb ( 14022 )

      I thought Henry Ford was a visionary because of his business model -- an assembly line that could mass produce cars for everyone -- not because he necessarily innovated the automobile concept itself.

      Musk's advancement mostly seems in the electric drivetrain, less so in the business model. He wants to do direct sales, but while it runs against the grain of the existing car sales business, existing regulation and low production volume make it appear less than revolutionary, especially when many products are s

      • Ford's innovation in business is that he saw the value of building an affordable car, one that his own employees could afford. But to achieve that he had to re-engineer the production process (rather than the business process). He did not reinvent the concept of a car, but he certainly had to redesign it so that it could be built efficiently on his production line.

        You could say that Musk is following a similar path. He wants to get to Mars, needs to get launch costs down to make that feasible, so he (a

    • Re:Because it's not software (Score:4, Insightful)

      by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @10:33AM (#53414653)

      There's nothing wrong with software. Without software, the productivity of this world would drop like a brick. Numerical methods, advanced search algorithms, digital control systems etc. are all-important today for the things we do.

      Having said that, when discussing such vital components of modern world, Facebook it ain't.

    • Re:Because it's not software (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Nemyst ( 1383049 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @10:55AM (#53414773) Homepage
      I disagree. The internet is equal parts hardware and software and has defined our current era. Self-driving cars and trucks might well cause a revolution in transportation methods and that's largely software based. A hypothetical sentient AI would probably be the greatest achievement of mankind and would be software.

      No, the real reason Musk is seen as a much more inspiring figure is just that what he's working on is far more interesting and ambitious than just creating a site where you can share cat pictures and complain about politics or making a Walmart clone, but on the web. You could make amazing software, but the current trend is to make crappy websites.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tgv ( 254536 )

        You're completely right. I can't imagine a single reason to vote for Zuckerberg, whose only motto seems to be "let's see how far we can screw our users today", and Bezos' tech moment is behind us now. Musk has electric cars, vertically landing rockets, and a hyperloop. How cool is that?

  • Yeeeah .... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03, 2016 @07:34AM (#53414141)

    Well, whoop-di-doo.
    Bezos gave us: improved logistics, more crap from China, and no way to tell what is genuine and what is not. And he treats his lowest employees like shit. Not, wait, he doesn't have any lowest level employees - he farms that out, so he never has to fire anyone ever and never has to pay workers comp. And the death of the small book shop.
    The Zuck gave us a glorified international phone book, and five eyes' wet dream. We still don't know where he's going with this - apart from wanting to become a private-internet-with-ads, and neither, I suspect, does he.
    Musk gave us PayPall (okay - booo), functioning, practical, and good-looking electric cars, cheap (in comparison) access to space (okay - orbit), solar cells you actually want to put on your roof, a believable concept for public transportation, a vertically landing rocket that actually does, enough political savvy to wrangle an okay to launch US military satellites (HTF did he pull that off?), and plenty of other stuff ... and I get the distinct feeling he ain't done yet.
    I certainly know which one I want to be when I grow up &| get my shit together.

  • Zuckerberg created one thing, Bezos two (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NotInHere ( 3654617 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @07:45AM (#53414155)

    Zuckerberg has created one thing: Facebook
    Bezos has created two things: Amazon and Amazon cloud.
    Musk has created (or helped to create): Paypal, Tesla, Solarcity, SpaceX, ...

    Facebook is just a ruthless market leader who is at #1 due to network effects, but Musk is driving real innovation.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Bezos has created two things: Amazon and Amazon cloud.

      Bezos has created three things: Amazon, AWS-cloud and Blue Origin. FTFY.

  • Most admired (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Hognoxious ( 631665 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @08:06AM (#53414175) Homepage Journal

    Is that the same as "least despised"?

    • In terms of mathematical programming, yes, that's how you invert an objective function.

    • Is that the same as "least despised"?

      Tragedy of the commons. Especially bad in this internet age.

      Anyone who is in a position of power or innovation gets a raftload of hate. Just human nature for some people to be angry at success. Or be angry at popularity. Or wealth. Take any positive thing, and there will be some people who freak out because it is positive.

      I do some things, and it is pretty surprising the amount of crap one gets just for doing some things. Takes a lot of effort and time, and most of my people just love it.

      Where the t

    • Is that the same as "least despised"?

      Yes, but then if you despise all tech leaders then that actually says more about you than them.

      • Does it? At least I'm not an overhyped blowhard like all the fuckers mentioned in TFA.

        • Yes, but then if you despise all tech leaders then that actually says more about you than them.

          Does it? At least I'm not an overhyped blowhard like all the fuckers mentioned in TFA.

          Well I guess it's validated now too.

  • No surprise at all, just abuse vs hope (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Morgaine ( 4316 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @08:31AM (#53414205)

    The survey ranking of the top 3 winning technology leaders is no surprise whatsoever. One of them is revolutionizing the EV, energy, space and transport sectors with a large number of leading technologies and hence gives people great hope for the future, while the other two are best known for their profiteering and abuse of the public. It's hardly a contest.

    If you want to be known as a technology leader then you shouldn't be a leeching middleman as everyone will hate you, and rightly so. And if you do something technical then you should do it well, instead of doing it absolutely appallingly on purpose because that gives you greater profit --- I'm thinking of Amazon product search here, which is undoubtedly the worst search system that has ever been implemented in online shopping (advertising unrelated things in disguise). Prime Video has a similar purpose, mainly a vehicle for Amazon to put non-Prime content in front of you and make you pay for the privilege of their direct advertising. Oh and Bezos, you really shouldn't be abusing your employees either, it's bad karma.

    Regarding Facebook, there's not a lot to say in terms of technology because all the company does is provide a website which monetizes and hence abuses people, so you have to scrape the barrel to find anything technical at all to say about them. One example of FB tech is that their techies release some fine open-source packages behind the scenes (only programmers hear about this though), but this is incidental to FB's primary product which offers no technical leadership at all. In fact they've given us technical regression since FB has closed off much public communication into a walled garden. Zuckerberg offers no hope at all.

    So there we have it, not really a contest among those three. I'm sure there must have been other worthy companies in the surveyed 700, but among these three corporate leaders only Musk deserves to be called a technology leader. The other two should be filed under "Abuse for profit".

    • Amazon product search is bad? To be fair I sometimes have trouble with it - especially if use the wrong search terms - and the sponsored products can be annoying - but it generally works. It lets you know what most people buy, what most people give good reviews to, and the review system is...better than nothing. When/if they fix the bribed review system it'll be pretty good. Also the "other products people bought" is good, so the "frequently bought together".

      All in all it's better than newegg or ebay

  • Elon Musk Is Most Admired Tech Leader, Topping Bezos and Zuckerberg

    Only Slashdot could admire Elon Musk for topping Bezos and Zuckerberg. *squick*

  • Zuckerberg, really? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by swillden ( 191260 ) <shawn-ds@willden.org> on Saturday December 03, 2016 @10:34AM (#53414657) Journal

    I don't despise Mark Zuckerberg like many do, but I hardly think he qualifies as a tech leader. Facebook succeeded through luck, timing, hard work and good engineering. That's all laudable, but there wasn't much leadership or vision involved. Bezos' initial idea, an online bookstore, was hardly visionary or leading but subsequent decisions, especially the decision to standardize internal system interfaces that led to the idea, and ability, to create AWS absolutely was visionary. Google should have done that, but didn't have the vision. There's no debating the vision of Elon "Mars or bust in my solar-powered electric car" Musk. Musk has so much vision we'd call him a crackpot, except that he has a tendency to succeed. Steve Jobs was clearly a leader and a visionary with a focus on making technology simple and beautiful.

    And there are other leaders around who I'd say are much worthier than Zuckerberg. Larry Page, for example, whose goal for his new startup was to "Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful", an insanely ambitious mission which arguably is no longer ambitious enough to describe what Alphabet/Google is doing. Mark Shuttleworth, not so much for Thawte as for Canonical, where his vision hasn't really succeeded in displacing Windows but has gone much further than most of us considered possible. Though a bunch of CEOs probably wouldn't pick him, I'd put Richard Stallman high on the list, too. His vision of the importance of software freedom has been incredibly influential.

    I could go on, but the point is... Zuckerberg? Really? For what? I suppose it was visionary to believe that you could build a billion-user interactive system with PHP.

    • Facebook succeeded through luck, timing, hard work and good engineering

      You're talking about a social network which was not the first, not the biggest and had some serious competition in its inception. Luck, timing and good engineering only go so far when your competition had the same luck, timing and good engineering. The way I remember history Facebook evolved through a careful strategy to take over markets as it went and by the time it was released to the general public it was a long way behind an incumbent competitor.

      Sure timing has a bit to do with it (e.g. the now laughab

  • For two reasons. (Score:3)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @04:30PM (#53416255) Homepage

    Musk is the only man that is actually building shit to help society and further humanity while making a profit.

    The other two are simply hiring others to make money off the masses for personal gain. Bozos and Zuck have done absolutely nothing for society, in fact many would say that have done the reverse.

    • Amazon has really improved the online shopping experience. Sure, that's not the same thing a trying to put people on mars but it has a more tangible effect on more people.

  • While having a visionary tech leader is nice, it would be nice to remind that even the better idea needs workers to be actually implemented as something real.

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