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

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

#161

Post by rainmouse »

EduardoBautista wrote: post #55
BlackjackCF wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Not sure Google home is looking to surpass the Echo from here.

http://static3.uk.businessinsider.com/image/59123ef6dd089554...

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

#162

Post by jacquesm »

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.

Think of Musk as Howard Hughes+, think of Bezos as John Carmack+.

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

#163

Post by fastball »

agumonkey wrote: post #146
BlackjackCF wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's more Uber than Amazon.

Amazon didn't turn a profit for years because they were heavily reinvesting in more/better infrastructure (their "fulfillment centers") and services. One of the biggest services out of this reinvestment is AWS, which AMZN built for AMZN, and then realized it was such a good product they started selling it to others (also part of Bezos' ethos and their large initial costs: if you can't sell your internal tools to other people, you shouldn't be using it)

However, Amazon is making a profit these days, and is still growing, so I think it's sustainable.

Uber, meanwhile, is/has been subsidizing many/most rides with VC money in order to get market share, which is an entirely different thing and more in line with your perception.

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

#164

Post by foota »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #120
gpawl wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 way…

I think there's an important distinction between altruistic and someone that isn't interested in money so much as in accomplishing things they want.

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

#165

Post by nabla9 »

EduardoBautista wrote: post #55
BlackjackCF wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

What you describe is exactly how you come to dominate retail business and become monopoly power online.

Amazon's reference point is Wal-Mart. They are in ever expanding price cutting small margin business.

Another good comparison in Microsoft in 80's and 90's. MS dominated over IBM, Apple and others several decades with sup-par product everybody hated by attacking and destroying potential competitors, not by improving products.

Bezos knows what he is doing.

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

#166

Post by nickik »

valuearb wrote: post #84
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…

The BE-4 is an impressive idea for an engine. It's never had a successful test fire, and is behind the Raptor in development.

It's not behind the Raptor in development. The Raptor has test fired but only a sub-scale. BE-4 design is finished and should not change anymore. We don't know if it has been test fired or not, they are in the middle of the testing campaign and Blue Origin does not share that information.

The first BE-4 will be done long before Raptor, and it will fly before.

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

#167

Post by beaconstudios »

oblio wrote: post #116
phkahler wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

Musk did go all in though, at one point he was dead broke from pouring all his money into spacex.

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

#168

Post by nickik »

skgoa wrote: post #138
hkmurakami wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This interview with Tom Mueller (CTO of SpaceX) suggests that competitors have had to go back to the drawing board after seeing SpaceX accomplish wrt their low cost systems. https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/6b043z/tom_mueller_... That rocket is going to be the real game-changer. I would say that the Falcon 9 is evolutionary, you know, a reusable rocket that greatly reduces the cost of access to space. Maybe w…

Yes, let's just listen to one company's exec bashing his competitors... I also find it hilarious how he completely glosses over the fact that the Falcon 1 was supposed to be their product and utterly failed in the market.

He is a rocket engineer that built Merlin and is now working on Raptor. Also, I don't know why it is important that Falcon 1 failed, they used the tech to go where the real money is. That just smart business.

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

#169

Post by nickik »

Animats wrote: post #102

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 b…

They don't need Brownsville, they need both the Florida pads up and running. Brownsville will add even more, but the Florida pads are more important.

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

#170

Post by simonh »

gpawl wrote: post #106
narrator wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It means the shareholders decide who is control. This is not about having control now, it's about retaining control.

Musk doesn't want to be beholden to shareholders because their interests (profit) might not align with his objectives (Mars). Presumably Bezos does not fear any such misalignment of interests between himself and his shareholders.

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