[cracrecry]

People do not understand the meaning of "Marketing". People believe it is selling what you have(Sales and Advertisement) while it really means understanding Markets: The needs of the people.

If you have good intuition on what the needs of the people are, even on things that do not exist yet, you can design your product or service accordly. You could also choose the right people for the job.

People like Steve Jobs or Elon are great at understanding markets. i.e Steve knew that people would be using their smartphones on they pockets and that having scratch resistant screens was essential while the rest didn't care. I had a PocketPC and TabletPC and Microsoft cared so much and invested billions in things that few people care while being against most user real needs.

They are visionaries that have to imagine a future that does not exist yet. The kind of people that can do that, like Elon or Sam usually can see the future as real as it already exist and can be overoptimistic as for them it is obvious that something is going to happen as for them the future is as real as the present.

Elon saved Tesla from bankruptcy choosing a pathway to mass fabrication of EVs. The original Tesla vision was exclusivity and using Lotus car frames.

What separates Elon for everybody else is that he risks his own money on what he believes in, not someone else's like Sam. He is a risk taker like nobody. This is what I hear from people that know him personally.

[bamboozled]

Elon and Sam can be as visionary as all hell, they can also be wonderful manipulators too. Both things can be true. Especially if said behaviour gets them more money to take more risks.

In the case of Altman, I feel the way he communicates in this sort of secretive, somewhat threatening way (I’m about to unleash my super secret AGI published by my fake nonprofit org, regulate the completion at once) is sociopathic. It’s quite unique to him. I recall Steve Jobs being visionary, I heard stories of him being a perfectionist, but I don’t recall him using the same sociopathic playbook I described. Think of the contrast in behavior between Altman and say, Carl Sagan, the contrast is so stark to me. Between Elon musk and Eric Weinstein.

Anyway my original point wasn't focused on the people, just that I think they’ve workouted out how to perfectly game our attention economy to their advantage. I don’t hate them for it per se. I just think it’s dishonest and distracting. I'm not even sure they know they're doing it, but they just do it because it works.