Why Elon Musk is going CRAZY?

Right now, Elon Musk is being pulled in a million different directions. The man has started over half a dozen tech companies, and has dipped his hands in countless more.

I’m a skeptic of Musk and those who herald him as a “genius”. He’s not going to make it to Mars by 2024 (NASA will probably have beaten him by the time he does), his “Hyperloop” won’t be capable of the initially proposed 1,000 mph travel (if it’s ever built), and his attempts to conceive AI will be infertile until we master quantum processing (and, as Richard Feynman once put it, "if you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics”). Musk is a trailblazing businessman, not some super-scientist.

That said, there’s no denying Musk’s footprint on the world. He’s inspired countless people, and his successful ventures have benefited countless more. In the coming century I expect him to be remembered as a critical stepping stone toward scientific progress, in the vein of Jobs, Tesla, or Edison. I’ll admit he’s made a recent string of mistakes (this article from the New York Times should bring the unaware up to speed: Elon Musk Details ‘Excruciating’ Personal Toll of Tesla Turmoil). However, I think he should be given some amount of grace.

From what I’ve gleaned, Musk is a man who’ll settle for nothing less than the actualization of his vision for the world. It’s his greatest strength, and greatest weakness. Is he crazy? Hell yeah. However, last I checked, it’s the crazy people who shake things up.