#256 – Debate: Elon Musk, Billionaires, Ethics, and Role Models with Sahil Lavingia and Justin Jackson

What's up, everybody? This is Cortland from ndhackers.com, and you're listening to the nd hackers podcast. More people than ever are building cool stuff online and making a lot of money in the process. And on this show, I sit down with these Indie Hackers to discuss the ideas, the opportunities, and the strategies they're taking advantage of so the rest of us can do the same. So Elon Musk is trying to acquire Twitter, and I think it's a uniquely controversial matter because it sits at the sort of center of multiple unrelated controversies that we're dealing with. So, for example, should social media platforms be centers of free speech, or should they be responsible for cleaning up and clarifying misinformation and protecting people from harm and harassment? How do we deal with income inequality? Should billionaires and people like Elon have as much singular power as they do? Should we even have billionaires in the first place, etcetera, etcetera. No matter who you are, I think it's hard not to have an opinion on Elon Musk and the issues surrounding him. And so to debate and discuss this issue, we have two very successful indie hackers here. None of them should be strangers to you if you're fans of the pod. Justin Jackson, the founder of Transistor, which is my favorite podcast host and what I use to host the Indie Hackers podcast, is here. And as far as I've been able to tell from Justin's tweets, you're you're fairly anti Elon, Justin. I'll let you speak for yourself, in just a moment. We also have Sahil Lavinia, the founder of Gumroad, who is the opposite. Gumroad is one of the best ways to sell your products online as a creator. And Sahil, from your tweets, you're fairly pro Elon. You do a lot of retweeting, a lot of sharing, a lot of supporting. So I don't wanna speak for the two of you. We'll have you each give a couple of your thoughts on Elon before we jump into it. But just a few notes on the format. So I'm here with Channing. Channing is my cohost. We're gonna be the moderators, and we will, I suppose, just ask questions of both of you, and we'll probably slip in a few challenge questions directed at each one of you. And you'll each just have a few minutes to talk. You could talk back and forth between each other, and we'll just try to keep things fair and equal. How does that sound? Four dudes talking about Elon Musk on a podcast. What could go wrong? Alright. Justin, why don't you go first? What are your thoughts on on Elon? How do you feel about the guy? So the author Adam Grant has this quote, professionalism is the standard of conduct you uphold. Being a professional is about maintaining personal reliability and social respect. You strive for excellence in your actions and grace in your interactions. And so …