Tim Draper Defends ‘Extraordinary People’ Elon Musk & Satoshi Nakamoto

By CCN.com: Billionaires in Silicon Valley want Wall Street to stop picking on Elon Musk. The Tesla CEO has done more for innovation than most, and putting him down will only discourage other entrepreneurs from taking risks the way Elon did. Venture capitalist Tim Draper, who is also a member of the billionaire’s club, was featured on BNN Bloomberg  where he defended the space travel genius and put him in the same camp as bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

“I’ve noticed something happening in the press that’s not healthy which is this schadenfreude where they go after the tallest trees. They go after these extraordinary people like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos…they’d probably go after Satoshi Nakamoto if they knew who he was, these extraordinary people who have created amazing things for our world. And we should be honoring them…I think we really should be saying, these are the best and brightest and the people who have done great things for us.”

Tim Draper is a known bitcoin bull with a price target of a whopping $250,000 on the biggest cryptocurrency, which he expects to materialize in the coming years. He is a big believer in decentralization, which will be a theme of the venture capitalist’s next fund – a movement he expects can be as big or bigger than the internet.

For all of his vision, Musk isn’t perfect, as evidenced by the recent shellacking he took from the U.S. SEC for tweeting sensitive information about publicly traded Tesla. But it’s hardly a reason to pile on.

“I think you’ve got to look at the whole picture…He brought us a really awesome electric car. And now he’s shooting things into space for us. The guy has done some extraordinary things,” said Tim Draper, pointing to PayPal as yet another “cool” innovation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHB3poRUqRQ

It’s Lonely at the Top

Tim Draper is a venture capitalist and has backed some of the most successful companies in the world, including Skype and Baidu , to name a couple. He is impressed by Elon’s willingness to “stand out there and be alone for a while with a new idea” such as “going to Mars,” saying that many people are “too embarrassed to do that.” As a result, only the “best and brightest” want to work for him.

” The best engineers in the world want to try something extraordinary…They want to cure cancer or get us to Mars or figure out space travel….They’re trying to do extraordinary things and that’s what they want to be a part of.”

‘Don’t Bet Against Elon!’

Entrepreneur Sam Altman, who is known in Silicon Valley circles, also defended Musk, saying in a tweet that it was “gross seeing so many [people] root against Tesla. Be the person on the side of climate and innovation, not the person hoping to make money on puts.” Altman added:

“Betting against Elon is historically a mistake…and the best product usually wins.”

As for bitcoin, Draper advises investors:

“One bitcoin is still one bitcoin. It always has been, always will be. There are only 21 million of them and you probably should get one.”

About the Author

Gerelyn Terzo

Gerelyn is Assistant Editor at CCN. Based in the U.S., she has also covered institutional investing on Wall Street but caught the bitcoin bug soon after. She resides 13 miles outside of New York, close enough but also far enough away to escape it all. Follow her on Twitter or email [email protected].

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