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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

#141

Post by unityByFreedom »

halflings wrote: post #127
unityByFreedom wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 way…

So, he's actually saying those things (AI skepticism, or that some general AI would happen in 20 years) just to attract cheaper and younger AI people in his companies? Seems to me like he just actually believes in those things, as he put so much money in OpenAI that he could have invested in Tesla to make all those researchers work on his self driving (granted he took Karpathy recently, but there's still tons of high…

> So, he's actually saying those things (AI skepticism, or that some general AI would happen in 20 years) just to attract cheaper and younger AI people in his companies?

Possibly. He certainly benefits from the talent in operation at OpenAI. Whether people come over directly like Karpathy, or via networking, or through knowledge transfer.

> he put so much money in OpenAI that he could have invested in Tesla to make all those researchers work on his self driving

It could be cheaper to go through OpenAI. Other people invested in that company -- not just Musk. Also, a lot of machine learning tech and knowledge is transferrable across domains.

> Seems to me like he just actually believes in those things

He may well. I'm just saying it can also benefit his businesses to believe that AGI and fully self driving cars are coming soon.

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

#142

Post by imron »

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

Wait a decade and spaceX will have the following line item:

100% of all interplanetary travel, shipping and trade.

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

#143

Post by samat »

valuearb wrote: post #79
boznz wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every book I've bought for the past 8 years has been on kindle.. I don't think they're doing that bad..

The Kindle is good and Echo is great. Every other hardware product they've ever made has been complete dogshit, which is why the packaging for most of them advises buyers to set them on fire.

Well, i know another company (G) with just 2 or 3 good products. Most others don't have even one.

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

#144

Post by unityByFreedom »

supercon wrote: post #140
unityByFreedom wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 way…

This is of course all speculatory, but I think for many of us the things that sets him apart from the "money-focused" crowd are his goals and how outspoken he is about them. He wants to get people to Mars, which as a business venture will not turn a profit in his lifetime. I'm not saying he is altruistic but rather that he might be more of the 'fame and glory' type, wanting to leave a larger mark than a big digit in…

Yeah. It's speculatory, for sure.

> he might be more of the 'fame and glory' type, wanting to leave a larger mark than a big digit in some future Wikipedia bio

Saying things like going to Mars could still benefit him business-wise, whether he actually takes on that mission or not. It attracts people who believe he is at the cutting edge.

> for many of us the things that sets him apart from the "money-focused" crowd are his goals and how outspoken he is about them

I don't know if Musk plans to be outspoken or not. It seems to be an effective business strategy in itself.

So, I take it all with a grain of salt.

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

#145

Post by sumedh »

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

I don't think that is a fair comparison, Uber has revolutionized the transport industry. It has direct impact on you and me right now. Space X does not have such a direct impact for the rest of us.

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

#146

Post by agumonkey »

BlackjackCF wrote: post #36
loeg wrote: post #4

> Mr. Musk faces competition from another billionaire. Blue Origin, a rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, aims to send tourists and supplies into space. Is that line even close to true? Last I heard Blue Origin was years away from revenue and far behind SpaceX in terms of capability and manufacturing.

Maybe not right now, but I wouldn't ever underestimate Bezos. Musk and Bezos are both people I wouldn't bet against, but they're so drastically different in their styles. Musk is flashy, but gets shit done. Bezos knows how to get shit done quietly... and suddenly he's dominated and bought everything around you.

I thought amazon was also a bubble of some kind, relying on aggressive growth to swallow the market and then change it's policies because it's unsustainable ?

Musk seems a little more down to earth (sic) here.

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

#147

Post by [deleted] »

onebyzero2506 wrote: post #112
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 anywhe…

[deleted]

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

#148

Post by Libbum »

nickik wrote: post #137
tqkxzugoaupvwqr wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What an absurd claim. They were not to stupid to understand how to get to orbit. The made the choice to focus on a sub-orbital tourist effort first.

Absurd in the orbital mechanics portion but not the rest. It seems that spacex has chosen the waffle cone, ice cream scoop and add sprinkles later approach whereas BO has focused solely on the sprinkles.

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

#149

Post by tzm »

loeg wrote: post #4

> Mr. Musk faces competition from another billionaire. Blue Origin, a rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, aims to send tourists and supplies into space. Is that line even close to true? Last I heard Blue Origin was years away from revenue and far behind SpaceX in terms of capability and manufacturing.

These two images are telling:

http://pop.h-cdn.co/assets/15/52/1600x800/landscape-14508878... http://pop.h-cdn.co/assets/15/52/1450888612-bevsx.jpg

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