> There is no evidence that Musk actually (partly) designed any of the creations his companies spawned.
That's not really true though. He's on several patents, and accounts from people who work with him are that he spends a lot of time working on engineering problems.
I don't think he's like working on sims or anything, but he seems to be pretty involved in the high level engineering decisions and understand everything that goes into his companies' products.
That remembers me Joe Rogan's "What is it Like to Work for Elon Musk?" [1] When Garrett Reisman who previously worked with Elon says: He's a very that BROAD engineer and can talk at the same table with their top engineer employees. So totally discrediting the blog post. I think it's actually the last refuge of the "title" mindset. Engineers solve problems using engineering principles; period. If you have a Engineer's degree, PhD or you build pyramids it doesn't matter.
Not at all. The point is that someone the CEO of a technical organization can give themselves credit for the work done by the (actual) engineers working for them.
In regards to Steve Jobs specifically, Steve Wozniak said, "Steve didn't ever code... He wasn't an engineer and he didn't do any original design, but he was technical enough to alter and change and add to other designs." (emphasis mine)
Probably not how you would describe someone who honestly came by 200+ patents.
Does being on a patent mean that the person actually worked on the engineering of the idea? or worked at all on the idea?
I'm not sure how patents work but I don't think anybody verifies the names on it or what they actually did, and I guess in a company effort it could easily be the boss ending on it too?
Legally speaking, only people who actually worked on the invention can be on the patent. I believe (not a lawyer) that including extra people can be grounds for invalidating that patent. However, this does still get abused; Elizabeth Holmes was on many of the patents filed by Theranos.
That's not really true though. He's on several patents, and accounts from people who work with him are that he spends a lot of time working on engineering problems.
I don't think he's like working on sims or anything, but he seems to be pretty involved in the high level engineering decisions and understand everything that goes into his companies' products.