So what are the most valuable private companies? Ikea, Bloomberg, Dell, Koch, Cargill, Bechtel, most of the big 5 accountancy firms...
I'm not so sure SpaceX is "one of the world's most valuable privately held companies".
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
#172Earlier 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.
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 improvin…
> They are in ever expanding price cutting small margin business.
If you sink all of your profits into expansion, then on the books you made zero profit. If you made zero profit, you pay zero taxes. This is a common tactic with farmers. They use this year's returns to buy next year's supplies. If amazon stopped growing and suddenly reaped their profits, there would be a big tax bill to go with it.
Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it would be far more correct to say "Mr. Musk faces potential competition from another billionaire." Though ULA is buying engines from BO.
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…
He's not Mars-focused anymore. Recently admitted that was a pipe dream: https://www.wired.com/story/spacexs-mars-plans-hit-a-pothole... (Conveniently enough, right after NASA came out and admitted they didn't have funding for a real Mars mission)
Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
T̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶i̶r̶s̶t̶ ̶p̶i̶c̶t̶u̶r̶e̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶k̶i̶n̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶m̶i̶s̶l̶e̶a̶d̶i̶n̶g̶.̶ ̶F̶a̶l̶c̶o̶n̶'̶s̶ ̶b̶o̶o̶s̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶d̶o̶e̶s̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶u̶s̶u̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶c̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶K̶á̶r̶m̶á̶n̶ ̶l̶i̶n̶e̶.̶ However, as it is apparent from the size in the second picture, Falcon needs much, much more thrust to help put things to orbit. Going to space is kind of easy, the hard part is staying there.
Falcon 9's first stage certainly reaches and (fairly greatly) exceeds the Kármán line in RTLS boostback, as the graphic shows.
Even in an ASDS landing, it exceeds the Kármán line. I think the typical apogee is around 120-130 km.
Stage sep happens below the line, however.
Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
T̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶i̶r̶s̶t̶ ̶p̶i̶c̶t̶u̶r̶e̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶k̶i̶n̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶m̶i̶s̶l̶e̶a̶d̶i̶n̶g̶.̶ ̶F̶a̶l̶c̶o̶n̶'̶s̶ ̶b̶o̶o̶s̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶d̶o̶e̶s̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶u̶s̶u̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶c̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶K̶á̶r̶m̶á̶n̶ ̶l̶i̶n̶e̶.̶ However, as it is apparent from the size in the second picture, Falcon needs much, much more thrust to help put things to orbit. Going to space is kind of easy, the hard part is staying there.
Falcon 9's first stage certainly reaches and (fairly greatly) exceeds the Kármán line in RTLS boostback, as the graphic shows. Even in an ASDS landing, it exceeds the Kármán line. I think the typical apogee is around 120-130 km. Stage sep happens below the line, however.
Thanks for correcting me instead of just downvoting.
Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies
#176Earlier 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.
The guy who does 100 things and wins at 10 still comes out above the guy who does 2 things and wins at 2. This is despite the previous guy having a failure rate of 90% and latter guy having a success rate of 100%.
Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies
#177It 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.
How has Uber revolutionized the transport industry? I could call a Taxi just fine before Uber.
Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
How has Uber revolutionized the transport industry? I could call a Taxi just fine before Uber.
Taxi apps pre-date Uber too
Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies
#179Earlier 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.
Musk claims he won't take SpaceX public because public investors have short attention spans and would require profit/return too soon. Because he wants goals set out further than the next quarter, he has kept the company in the hands of like minded investors. That may just be bloviating on his part, but it does seem at least sensible on the surface.
My understanding is that Musk wont take it public until the strategy of getting to Mars is protected.
Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies
#180Forbes 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
Because you don't make the choices he made if you love money. You absolutely do not start a rocket company. "If you want to make a small fortune in the rocket business, start with a large fortune."
That being said, maybe we're looking at things differently. I'm sure he prefers having money than not having it, but the macro scale choices he's made imply he values other things more than his personal fortune.