Ask HN: Who is your favourite Entrepreneur/Visionary?

14 pointsposted 12 days ago
by wasimsk

Item id: 47789816

41 Comments

mikewarot

12 days ago

Henry Maudslay, who made the first practical screw cutting lathe, bench micrometer, and transformed the world of machine tools. He made a bench micrometer that could measure to the 1/10,000th of an inch in the early 1800s.

He helped set up the very first machine tool based line for the production of pully blocks for the British Navy. [1] https://todayinsci.com/M/Maudslay_Henry/MaudslayHenry-ToolBu...

oulipo2

12 days ago

Anyone that worked unselfishly for the public good. People like doctors and scientists putting their career at work to improve humanity

tmtvl

12 days ago

Richard Stalman, someone who puts other people's rights before his own wallet.

oulipo2

12 days ago

He's got a lot of sexual assault allegations against him. Also awful personal character

Chinjut

10 days ago

Where can I find these allegations of him committing sexual assault?

tmtvl

10 days ago

Probably on stallman-report.org, although I will hasten to add stallmansupport.org as a counterbalance.

tmtvl

11 days ago

Considering some others mentioned here are Elon Musk and Steve Jobs it seems like 'awful personal character' doesn't count for much.

If we completely ignore the Stallman support and take the Stallman report as completely factual and accept it at face value, then I still think the good he has done outweighs the bad.

oulipo2

10 days ago

Well, "awful personal character" SHOULD count for much in response to the question "Who is your favorite entrepreneur", actually

dnnddidiej

12 days ago

Geohot. He is unconventional. Probably leaving money on table but doing more unconventional stuff.

jgrahamc

12 days ago

I just don't idolize individuals.

user

10 days ago

[deleted]

claudiulodro

11 days ago

It's not one particular entrepreneur, but my favorite are the long-term local small business owners, like the guy I met a few months ago that's had a tire shop in town since the 70s. They've found a sustainable way to make a living providing something useful for their local community. That should really be the goal.

bawis

11 days ago

I love the typical family-owned small businesses, their runners are the ones that aspired entrepreneurs should listen to their advices instead of bestsellers books of ghouls preaching their bullshit.

smackeyacky

11 days ago

Rod Canion.

Practical, but radical enough to take on IBM when their PC looked unassailable. Being first to the table with a 386 and working with others to make sure micro channel was DOA set the standards for the industry for decades.

Edit: 2nd was Gary Kildall

nickfromseattle

11 days ago

Palmer Luckey. Many of the things he discusses, he brings an interesting angle I didn't think of, and has changed my opinion on numerous topics. Great orator.

jorisboris

11 days ago

Richard Branson, he goes against so much convention:

- everyone has so much process to "hire right", but in his books he hired kinda random it seems. And seems to delegate a lot rather than "founder mode"

- the original remote worker: bought a caribbean island for cheap and managed his businesses from there

- random collections of businesses under his brand: airline, telecom, music, ...

was he just like super lucky that everything worked out for him?

late_night_fix

12 days ago

I admired Steve jobs for product vision, but I wouldn't ignore the ecosystem around him.

dennisjoseph

10 days ago

Gary Burrell - Garmin Lee Kuan Yew — Singapore Chung Ju-yung — Hyundai

ekm2

11 days ago

A better question would have been..who would you consider a formidable rival?

slipwalker

10 days ago

Thomas Edison. He was gangsta ! Stole, cheated and lied everytime he could. If we are limited to recent personalities, then John Mcaffe, same reasons.

trolleski

11 days ago

Do you mean which billionaire master do you simp for? Stop idolizing them!

perilunar

12 days ago

Elon Musk.

Ok, so he's a bit of a arse, and I really wish he had stayed out of politics, but overall...

dgellow

12 days ago

He’s responsible for at least hundred of thousand of death with the illegal shutdown down of USAID

highhedgehog

7 days ago

I don't like the person, but his vision on SpaceX is incredible

tmtvl

12 days ago

How is the hyperloop coming along nowadays?

al_borland

11 days ago

We’re just going to ignore Tesla, SpaceX, and Neuralink to point at something that he said he didn’t even want to do and said other people should try it?

If anyone else had a single one of those companies it would be considered a life-defining achievement. He has multiple at the same time. Not having a 100% unicorn rate doesn’t make someone a failure.

jorisboris

11 days ago

i share your sentiment, the politics venture hurt his brand, but he's still a crazy impressive entrepreneur