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

nytimes.com

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

#111

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ericd wrote: post #104
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> What is the most active secondary market for [SpaceX stock]?

The secondary markets for private securities trade "over the counter" [1]. There is thus no singular "market" which could be said to be the most active. (If you're looking for a more-actionable response, feel free to pop up your email.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over-the-counter_(finance)

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

#112

Post by onebyzero2506 »

gaius wrote: post #107

It makes me sad that SpaceX, a company that actually invents and makes stuff, is mentioned alongside Uber whose only product is evading taxes and regulations

Comparing SpaceX with Uber is like comparing apples to oranges.SpaceX may be inventing stuff but Uber solves a common problem for everyone around the world. I don't need to think twice about going from point A to point B without much hassle. And coming to the invention part, I believe rocket science is as much difficult as serving million requests concurrently and consistently without affecting user experience anywhere in the process. If Uber's product is evading taxes and regulations, then Google's products are just trying to make you click on some random ads. As a fellow hacker, you know what hard problems i am trying to talk about and we should respect that. I agree uber has some problems internally but they don't deserve to be disrespected.

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

#113

Post by hardly_a_mirage »

fsloth wrote: post #98
valuearb wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bezos started BO around the same time as SpaceX, and has spent just as much money if not more, and accomplished next to nothing. He will need to pour many additional billions in to even make a race of it, the way the BO turtle moves.

Maybe he's hired the rocket guys who can't take SpaceX's speed and like to actually spend evenings at home with their family :)? Only half kidding here.

Because Amazon treats their employees so well.

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

#114

Post by ericd »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #111
ericd wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the most active secondary market for it?

> What is the most active secondary market for [SpaceX stock]? The secondary markets for private securities trade "over the counter" [1]. There is thus no singular "market" which could be said to be the most active. (If you're looking for a more-actionable response, feel free to pop up your email.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over-the-counter_(finance)

I'd love some more actionable info :-) eriaac at gmail. Thanks!

(And I was curious whether there was anything like SecondMarket/EquityZen/etc where they're frequently traded in a more standardized fashion)

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

#115

Post by oblio »

fsloth wrote: post #98
valuearb wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bezos started BO around the same time as SpaceX, and has spent just as much money if not more, and accomplished next to nothing. He will need to pour many additional billions in to even make a race of it, the way the BO turtle moves.

Maybe he's hired the rocket guys who can't take SpaceX's speed and like to actually spend evenings at home with their family :)? Only half kidding here.

Bezos, famous for creating a family friendly environment at Amazon? :)

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

#116

Post by oblio »

phkahler wrote: post #35
le-mark wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The BE-4 is an impressive engine [1], at 550,000 lbs of thrust it's about 1/3 of a Saturn F1[2], and it's stage combustion lox/methane. Blue Origin is building some impressive hardware. What's interesting to me is the dichotomy between Musk and Bezos vision for humanity in the Solar System. Musk is Mars focused almost exclusively. Bezos has talked about space habitats (O'neil cylinders for example [3]) as how he thin…

>> Bezos isn't playing, he's going all in, selling $1 billion of shares a year to fund Blue Origin [4]. One way to look at this situation is Musk and Bezos competing to be king of transportation infrastructure for the Solar System. High stakes indeed. I used to wonder what could happen if the guys with billions decided to do something interesting with all their money. This is some of the most interesting stuff I've e…

All in?

Charles Foster Kane: You're right, I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars next year. You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place in... 60 years.

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

#117

Post by tqkxzugoaupvwqr »

fsloth wrote: post #98
valuearb wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bezos started BO around the same time as SpaceX, and has spent just as much money if not more, and accomplished next to nothing. He will need to pour many additional billions in to even make a race of it, the way the BO turtle moves.

Maybe he's hired the rocket guys who can't take SpaceX's speed and like to actually spend evenings at home with their family :)? Only half kidding here.

Or maybe Bezos didn’t understand orbital mechanics and picked the wrong approach: They went into space and landed again, but they did not go into orbit yet (as far as I know) and landed again. De-orbiting and landing is different from just going straight up and returning to the launch site that is below your feet.

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

#118

Post by prostoalex »

strictnein wrote: post #69

I mean, SpaceX is great and all, but it's no Cargill or even in the same league as Cargill or other similar companies like Koch (which is #2 in the US): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargill Revenue: US$109.6 billion (2017)[1] Net income: US$2.835 billion (2017)[1] Total assets: US$55.8 billion 25% of all United States grain exports 22% of the US domestic meat market

Each and every valuation attempt of a private tech company by the mainstream press takes the number of shares outstanding and multiplies it by the share price at the last round, pretending that preferred shares are valued as common. Since the round details are usually sealed (e.g., a company could in theory offer preferred shares with 100x liquidation pref and 25% annual preferred dividend, which would completely wipe out every shareholder except for the investors in the last round), the press doesn't really have a good way to value debt+equity instruments.

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

#119

Post by oblio »

perilunar wrote: post #103
microcolonel wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wars, terrorism and many assorted niceties, both here and there.

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

#120

Post by unityByFreedom »

gpawl wrote: post #105
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

People feel practical businessmen are money-focused. They think folks who appear to "risk it all" are altruistic.

Musk doesn't project the image of being practical. He claims to have almost gone broke when investing in Tesla/SpaceX, and now makes super-optimistic predictions: fully self driving cars in a year, and AGI in 2030-2040.

To some, this sets him apart from the "money-focused" crowd. Yet, you can think of ways his actions benefit him.

By predicting things earlier than most researchers, he can appear to have some knowledge they don't, thus attracting more young (cheaper) AI talent, and a public following whose understanding of machine learning is understandably limited.

It's unfortunate because those who research machine learning remember the last AI craze of the 80s and the ensuing AI winter. The same thing happened. Over-hyped technology couldn't meet the wild expectations of the general public. These expectations had been stoked by entrepreneurs who thought (or lied) that they could create AGI. For example, Thinking Machines Corp.

Nobody is 100% altruistic. When we mistakenly afford someone that quality, we elevate them to god-like status where they can do no wrong.

It's a tough position for practical machine learning researchers. There are a lot of advances that will be made in the next few years. I hope more people will try out machine learning to get their own understanding of its power and limitations. Getting all your information on a subject from sensationalized news or recent products isn't as educational as studying/using the subject yourself.

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