One of the best orators I've ever heard was a CFO / COO of a company I've worked for. I was in awe of how great his delivery was, how he had great comedic timing, and how empathic he seemed to be with his audience.
Turns out, from people who worked with him, he was a complete imbecile, and completely incapable of getting anything done.
I'll take the substance over the sizzle any day of the week.
I was thinking the same as I watched it. I was wondering if there were some technical issues to explain the slow start of his speaking part and if he might have been frazzled from whatever happened behind the scenes.
He was the same at the Dragon 2 launch. I get the impression that he doesn't rehearse for these events much, probably because he's probably got much more important things to work on.
He's not the smoothest or most polished by any means. But he grabbed my attention and kept it from the first moment, because it's sincere and informative. I didn't feel like I was an anonymous member of an audience in front of a multi-billionaire. I felt like I was at a small gathering of nerds where one of them was enthusiastically telling me about his latest cool project.
Apple is often considered to set the standard for these sorts of events. I've been watching Apple's announcements since long before they were cool again, and I enjoy them a great deal. But I'll take Musk's halting sincerity over Steve Jobs or Tim Cook's empty polish any day of the week.
