There are many words that can be used to describe Elon Musk, but “cautious” probably isn’t first to mind when it comes to the ambitious CEO trying to establish a colony on Mars.
But one of the most advanced artificial intelligence systems in the world would disagree. According to IBM supercomputer Watson, Musk is the most cautious leader in the tech industry, according to a study conducted by career advisory firm Paysa.
Paysa used IBM’s data to calculate the most cautious tech leaders associated with Silicon Valley, and the SpaceX CEO topped the list, beating out the likes of Bill Gates, Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos.
Musk just barely snagged the honors with the score 0.96, ahead of Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins with a score of 0.95. Current Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Oracle’s Larry Ellison followed right behind with scores of 0.91. The least cautious leaders were Alphabet’s Larry Page and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, tied with a score of 0.73.
Paysa said it determined the results by “gather[ing] speeches, essays, books, the transcripts of interviews and other forms of communication produced by tech leaders.
“After we’d obtained over 2,500 words, we fed these through the Watson Personality Insights API,” Paysa further explained.
“Personality Insights extracts personality characteristics based on how a person writes,” IBM Watson’s website states. “You can use the service to match individuals to other individuals, opportunities, and products, or tailor their experience with personalized messaging and recommendations.”
Musk is certainly known for his bold plans. Along with his SpaceX ventures, he’s trying to construct a high-speed transportation system called Hyperloop and revolutionize the automobile industry with Tesla. But in Watson’s view, ambition doesn’t necessarily translate to recklessness.
