Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 303 posts

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#101

Post by rl3 »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #100
rl3 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm neither an Amazon nor Bezos fan, but that ethos is something I respect. Rocketry isn't something you rush. Frankly I'm surprised SpaceX hasn't had more mishaps given the breakneck speed at which they operate.

Most kinks of space travel were worked out in the '60s and spacex is pushing for reliability specifically, not for payload capacity - coincidentally that's where they're pushing the envelope and getting most of the failures.

Regardless, designing a modern reusable launch platform isn't anywhere close to trivial.

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#102

Post by Animats »

Space-X is, at long last, getting their launch rate up. 9 Falcon-9 launches so far this year. For a while, they had commercial customers canceling because they were way behind on their launch schedule. It's quantity of successful launches that makes money in that business.

Not much is happening at the Brownsville TX site, where Space-X still hasn't done much more than pile up dirt and wait for it to settle. They're building on beach sand. They really need that site so they can have more pad time.

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#103

Post by perilunar »

microcolonel wrote: post #64
dbosch wrote: post #58

"World's most valuable privately held companies". Sounds weird, no? What about Vitol ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitol ), Saudi Aramco, Koch Industries ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_Industries ) ... etc ?

This is what you call a fluff piece. HN and the broader computer technology industry is sycophantic for Elon Musk, and will ignore that all of his companies would be dead in the water if it weren't for the questionable appropriation of government funds, at least if they spent and marketed the way that they do. The products are great, but the money comes out of everyone's pockets. You're all paying for some guy's Mode…

> You're all paying for some guy's Model S

We're also paying for all the wars in the middle east that keep the oil flowing.

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#104

Post by ericd »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #65
gogopuppygogo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not do a limited IPO that ensures he retains control. Don't the people working for SpaceX deserve to have liquidity? Isn't it fair for the general public to have the ability to profit off of his epic feats?

> Don't the people working for SpaceX deserve to have liquidity? There is a robust secondary market for SpaceX stock.

What is the most active secondary market for it?

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#105

Post by gpawl »

skinnymuch wrote: post #85

Forbes seems to have always been wrong about Musk's net worth unless I'm missing how it works. By my estimations, now he should be worth around $23B. $11B from Tesla. $11.5B from SpaceX. Obviously they haven't updated for this news yet, but they still won't be at $23B. Regardless, going from having invested all is PayPal money by 08 and in dire straits to being $20B+ 9 years later is awesome. And depending on what na…

Whence this myth that Musk doesn't love money, just because he makes his money making cool tech?

http://variety.com/gallery/elon-musk-buys-fifth-bel-air-home...

http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-mclaren-f1-hypercar... wrecked-it-2015-6

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#106

Post by gpawl »

narrator wrote: post #76
EduardoBautista wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon has a load of terrible products. Even their store is getting worse and worse. The fire phone was a complete flop. Amazon cloud drive and music are not at all at the same level as their competitors. Google Home is looking as though it's going to surpass the Echo. Amazon is successful because they are fine with taking losses, only just recently making a small amount of profit compared to their scale.

Amazon can fail a lot because money for private companies is a lot more expensive and harder to get than for public companies. Musk is playing on hard mode because he wants to retain control.

It what sense does Bezos lack control?

Being public means that the company is transparent, not that it is out of control.

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#108

Post by gpawl »

dancole wrote: post #15
gozur88 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes. That's the entire point of a corporation.

"The idea that all of the world should be measured in dollars to stockholders is actually a relatively new idea. It used to be that we thought that businesses had their purpose. Your purpose was to be making newspapers or fountain pens or whatever. And now we act as though the only purpose of a business was to enrich the people who trade it on Wall Street… Of course you’ve got to have profit, of course you’ve got to…

You confuse "corporation" with "company"

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#109

Post by gpawl »

gozur88 wrote: post #88
dancole wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The idea that all of the world should be measured in dollars to stockholders is actually a relatively new idea. It used to be that we thought that businesses had their purpose. Your purpose was to be making newspapers or fountain pens or whatever. And now we act as though the only purpose of a business was to enrich the people who trade it on Wall Street… Of course you’ve got to have profit, of course you’ve got to…

How many centuries ago was that? Do we really want to go back to a world where the biggest threat to your life was starvation?

Less than 2 centuries. You think it's good to have bigger threats than starvation?
Post reply on HN