Six Things 7.16.24
Insurance Thought Leadership
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Let's Have a Word About Elon Musk
Paul Carroll, Editor-in-Chief of ITL
Elon Musk is driving me nuts.?
He keeps promising that a breakthrough is just around the corner for Teslas that will not only make fully autonomous driving possible but that will let owners mint money by making their vehicles available as part of a robotaxi network that Tesla will manage. And – this is the really crazy part – many investors seem to believe him even though he’s been making such empty promises for more than eight years.
He’s also now back to talking up the idea of colonizing Mars. He’s said that a million people will be living on Mars in 20 years – 30 years, tops. Even though I realize he’s in his carnival barker guise and is promoting interest in Space X, the sheer stupidity of his claims is breathtaking. We won’t have a single person living on Mars in 20 years, let alone 1 million.
While the connection between Musk’s fantasies and insurance is less direct than I generally like to be in my notes to you, I do think there are a couple of lessons here about how to test claims of coming breakthroughs, including in insurance. I’ll try not to froth at the mouth too much as I lay them out.
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