Successful humans vs good successful humans
Ispent last week in Las Vegas attending a technology event that I go to every year. Las Vegas is absolutely the city of my nightmares and it certainly hasn't improved in the 12 months since I was last there – far more police on the streets, more evidence of homelessness and a distinct pall of cannabis smoke point to some economic and social headwinds looming.
But it was interesting to hang out with 50,000 of my closest friends and see what this particular technology powerhouse has done in the last 12 months. Spoiler alert: it's all about AI.
A couple of experiences I had on one of the days made me think about people and their importance. As usual, I got up early and went for a run. When I got back to my hotel I turned on the TV and was faced by Elon Musk's speech at a recent conference.
He was asked about the backlash from advertisers on the Twitter platform he owns after an anti-semitic post he had endorsed. Advertisers are leaving the platform in droves, worried about being seen to side with such actions.
When asked about his views on those advertisers, Musk said that they can go f... themselves. Bear in mind that he spent over US$40 billion buying Twitter, and seems to be intent on setting fire to that huge pile of money. Whatever the reason for his ranting, he seems pretty crazed.
Notwithstanding his craziness, and without wanting to get into an argument about whether Musk is or is not a genius, it is fair to say that he has done a hell of a lot with his career. From PayPal to SpaceX, from Tesla to the Boring Company, Musk has built some huge companies and created immense wealth (as well as the aforementioned destruction of a fair amount of it as well).
But my opining today isn't about how successful he is, as a business leader. It is about whether or not one should be assessed on those metrics, or on a far simpler one, being a good human being.
This was cast into stark comparison later that day when I met up with someone I had first met at the previous year’s conference. Shikha Verma is an engineer and an executive with the company. Last year I saw her present in a keynote in which she announced a new product her team had been creating. I commented on social media how great it was to see a woman on the keynote stage, something unusual in this industry.
Anyway, Shikha reached out and thanked me for my best wishes, and we agreed to meet up for a coffee. We did so and then proceeded to talk about everything other than work. I found out about her two daughters, what her husband does for a living. And I told her about my family and plans for some hiking trips when I got home.
Twelve months on and I met up with Shikha for a coffee again. We talked very little about work. Technology is interesting, but really it’s far less impactful than the stuff we do that is really important: family and the like. I got an update on what was happening with her family and she got one on mine.
After she left to get on with her busy schedule for the day, I carried on wandering around the expo floor, thinking a little bit about the comparisons between the sort of people Elon Musk and Shikha are. Now, I'm pretty sure that she is an amazing engineer. You don't get to where she is within a company like she works for without being incredibly smart, dedicated and talented. But none of that stuff really matters.
In 100 years, no-one’s going to remember whether the database you created or the e-commerce solution you changed the colours on was a success or not.
People will long have forgotten there was this micro-blogging platform called Twitter that allowed you to send messages of 140 characters and that it rose and fell in short succession.
What might be remembered are the people you brought into the world and how much of a positive contribution they made to society.
I'm not suggesting we should be defeatist and give up on having big vocational dreams since nothing really matters. After all, we all find our own individual purpose and meaning in our lives.
All I'm saying is that Elon Musk may be doing big and important work, but I still think the world would be better with more folks like Shikha Verma than a bunch more people like him.