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Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

ycombinator.com

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Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#151

Post by TeMPOraL »

tucaz wrote: post #138
Afforess wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ending world hunger would cost a lot more than time spent trying to get out of Earth, because in order to end world hunger, you'd have to reform political systems that are impeding the abolishment of world hunger. For example, there is no way world hunger can be ended without massive regime change in North Korea, and any such change would be monumentally expensive, even if done peacefully. Solving the first 80% of wo…

I'm not saying this is the correct amount, but UN [1] says 30 billion/year would be enough to do it. However, I believe that they are taking into account only the financial needs and not the political effort necessary to do it, mainly to prevent people from diverting that money from going into the right place. I wasn't going to get into this subject to prevent a long debate, but I'm always amazed on how these things…

> There was a time that I thought that if someone as powerful and "rich" as Musk ran for president for some big and important country (like the US) they could fix everything.

> But for some reason that is unknown to me this will never happen. And when something close to it (in the power and money sense), like Trump running for president, does happen we know that we are not going to get this "magic fix".

I don't understand why do people still care about presidents? They can't do crap. Even the decisions they sign off are not really made by them. You don't even get to be a candidate if you aren't already up to ears in the usual political mud of deals and backstabbing. Democracies we know, as they mature, become very efficient at filtering out people who are too dangerous to status quo as they go up.

That's why if Elon even run for the office, I'd know it's the end of the good he can do for anyone.

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#152

Post by clydethefrog »

forgetsusername wrote: post #143
sama wrote: post #122

Some HN commenters never cease to amaze with their negativity...

This site is overwhelmingly supportive of Mr. Musk and his enterprises. Does everyone have to be?

Yes, the people behind this site are also responsible for this interview so it's bad PR if the comments are critical.

Check an archive of this thread, a lot of negative comments got removed.

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#153

Post by trentnix »

kstenerud wrote: post #105

It always saddens me when I see a slew of Debbie Downer comments from the HN crowd. "Yes, he ushered in the electric car revolution, but the production carbon footprint is still huge!" "Yes, he's building rockets, but he took a bunch of government money!" "Yes, he's paving the way to Mars, but what has he done for world hunger?" And it not just with Musk, but really with anyone who has been successful. I would have t…

I read something a couple of decades ago that's helped me avoid, occasionally, the mindset that causes me to be a curmudgeon: someone else's success is not my problem.

Thats not to say that any particular criticism is unjustified. Just that tearing down someone for its own sake is not good for anyone - rock throwers included.

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#154

Post by 0003 »

sandslash wrote: post #6
idlewords wrote: post #3

I am very happy that there's a transcript. But I just spent two minutes trying to figure out how to cut and paste it into a textfile (Scribd won't let me download it without signing up). My request to YC is to publish transcripts like this as text.

Hi there. That certainly is inconvenient! Here's a link to the transcript in RTF, and we will definitely note it for future posts: https://goo.gl/kaMMwv

utility delta X users who hate PDFs/Scribd = a large integral .

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#155

Post by merpnderp »

arca_vorago wrote: post #136

Give the people with ideas funding and the future will happen. Instead what has been happening is the uber-elite have been hoarding their money and not putting it back into the economy. This is how to delay the future. To me the future is welcomed with a guarded mentality, in that for all the benifits purported to follow it, but the reality is that as we progress technologically we are going to create a new wealth sc…

From the buzz, I thought VC's were funding every 18 year old with a wild idea. Is it really hard to get serious work funded due to a lack of available capital?

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#156

Post by TeMPOraL »

untilHellbanned wrote: post #149
guelo wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Au contraire, people that know the technology and industry can see through the PR much more clearly.

Exactly. He sucks up airtime for quieter, likely superior approaches in other or the same areas. It's anger not envy. What's the point of Wired interviewing Elon Musk for the 10,000th time? There are so many people doing so much good stuff out there. Finding them isn't hard. They are on the internet too.

> What's the point of Wired interviewing Elon Musk for the 10,000th time?

Ad money, like with all publishing. If they actually cared about providing useful content to people, they'd seek out those quieter ones and interview them too. Don't blame Elon for the market actors that want to earn money off his fanbase. Blame those market actors instead.

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#157

Post by cinquemb »

tedmiston wrote: post #128
cinquemb wrote: post #112

"But we're extremely bandwidth-constrained in that interface between the cortex and that tertiary digital form of yourself. And helping solve that bandwidth constraint would be, I think, very important in the future as well. Yeah." After working and consulting with labs while building/hacking software/hardware for neural interfaces and seeing where the field is now, I have very little hope. Too much bureaucracy, and…

By that, he's referring to the brain-computer interface [0], right? Or is it broader than that? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain–computer_interface

I assume so, but very general/handwavy with his wording, rather than on potential specific applications (of potential future mainstream use), which would help.

I think most people on this forum would be interested in how such can be related to gaming, but I know researchers that who be interested in cheaper/as or more accurate mapping (think "realtime" volumetric [mni-brain like] relative powermaps calc'd from beamforming/dsp on n-electrode arrays along the scalp at x sampling rates, and canceling out influences in the impedances due to rotational moments in the head [prob using gyros/3-axis accelerometers] and potential moisture build up along the scalp) for as much a 2-3 hours of scan time on a fmri/meg now, as well as being able to collect more data outside of the "lab" (and other brain states as well).

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#158

Post by Applejinx »

misterbishop wrote: post #110

How to build the future: Take $5B in public subsidy for boondoggle technologies, and then tell everyone you're fiscally conservative. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-2015...

You see, you've already lost me because nearly everything worthwhile has been funded by public sector money, notably space and the Internet. To my mind, claiming to be 'fiscally conservative' may be a good tactical claim as a CEO of rapidly expanding publically held companies, but in practical terms it's a terrible idea. If Elon is turning public money into technology, I'm enthusiastic about that. I'm sure there are ways to nationalize his industry if it proves necessary.

Better that, than privatizing things: that's a recipe for bad answers and a untimely demise due to market forces. Maybe I don't want AI, electric cars, and space travel to die because some hedge fund needed immediate profits the very next quarter.

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#159

Post by duaneb »

rantanplan wrote: post #62
duaneb wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not characterize many CEOs as being "a decorative role, who can be replaced in an instant". Leading may not be hands-on engineering and design (at least, you hope!), but it's certainly FAR from decorative.

I would characterize most CEOs I've met(and not only) as decorative. And that's why they do get replaced in an instant.

Part of the problem is that a CEO plays a very different role in a three person company, a 300 person company, a 3000 person company, and a 30k person company. I have a very difficult time imagining swapping out the CEO of an early round startup without having a major existential crisis.

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#160

Post by TeMPOraL »

clydethefrog wrote: post #66
bbctol wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Elon Musk, but the hero-worship disturbs me. Yeah, he founded one pretty successful company, got in early at a very successful company, and has been using the money to fund cool projects ever since. I think Tesla and SpaceX are both interesting, but still experimental: he hasn't been singlehandedly Tony Starking up the future in a lab, he's just used a lot of money from making some smart/lucky decisions to hir…

>has been using the money to fund cool projects Musk and his companies' investors enjoy most of the financial upside of the government support, while taxpayers shoulder the cost. [1] http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-2015...

First of all, those subsidies exist exactly to be used like this, so at best you can complain the government uses money to incentivize businesses. Elon is one of the few people who uses subsidies as they should be.

Secondly, his companies have a good track record of paying governments loan back, in full, before the due time.

Funny how a success story can be twisted into a negative.

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