You're right, people do have different tolerances for risk. I can only speak for myself and what I regard as prudent.
You mention doing your own research. I couldn't agree more. I worked for a hedge fund for two years. I spent another two years getting a Masters degree in Computational Finance. As you can see from my Medium publications, I build models to analyze various investment strategies. Right now, I'm heavily invested in dividend stocks and they have been doing better than the overall market (in addition to the dividend yield).
I have not and will never entrust my money to a financial adviser. I am still studying covered calls. I am not going to invest in covered calls until I can run some simulations that show what their performance may be.
Regarding Tesla, I'm currently half way through the book "Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors" by Edward Niedermeyer. Niedermeyer has spent years studying the auto industry. So far the book has only reinforced my view that TSLA is a dramatically overpriced stock. I think that Elon Musk is an unstable sociopath, however much of a genius may also be.
Many people have observed that psychology is one of the challenges in investment. I believe that it is important to understand when you have been lucky and how much of your gains can be attributed to luck or insight. In some cases where I've lost money it was because I forgot this and became over confident. Being lucky does not make you a Master of the Universe.
Risk, in my view, has seasons. If you have substantial cash flow from a salary then a prudent person can take more risk. Once you retire, the risk profile of a prudent person changes. You can no longer afford to have your retirement threatened by a 70% drop in your Netflix shares or your Tesla shares. More conservative investments are more prudent course. You've already made your money, so make sure you can keep it.
Most knowledgeable people would say that an investment portfolio that is heavily invested in Tesla, one of the most volatile and highly priced stocks in the S&P 500, and other technology stocks is aggressive and high risk. If this is how you want to invest the money you count on for retirement that this is up to you.
