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Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

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Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstly, this was not some PR event. Musk had large number of people knew what they were talking about wanting to ask tough questions. What Musk is interested in is not relevant. Secondly, Musk can't avoid short term investor questions because unless he answers them, there may be no longer term. This kind of clear avoidance of difficult questions can easily add one percentage point to Tesla's future loans and reduce…

Investing is what we make of it. The reality is for everyone but the top 1%, investing is long term. It's tied into 401ks, it tied into RSU, its tied into Options unless you're the top 1% in which case the only benefit of short-term markets is the ability to manipulate them for your own benefit. Many CEO's know this and Tesla isn't the only company that faces this problem. Amazon has to think long-term, many tech com…

The reality is for everyone but the top 1%, investing is long term.

Yes, but if things go horribly wrong in the short-term, the long term doesn't really matter.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the grand scheme of things figuring out how to make model3's faster than they can sell them is a boring problem for Musk It's the gateway problem to any of the ones he might find more interesting, and if he isn't willing to engage with that problem enough to satisfy investors, he should be “Chief Ivory Tower Visionary” and let someone else be CEO. Or, at least, get a COO and gracefully hand off boring operationa…

The CEO role is Chief Ivory Tower Visionary. As CEO, your #1 job is to set the vision and strategy for the company, and your #2 is to get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off, which is dramatically easier with a strong vision. He does desperately need a good COO though to make sure Tesla can actually deliver on its promises.

Is it really ideal doing things this way ? Or is it just part of an ego trip, and deciding on such complex things as vision an strategy for a company are better done in a collaborative fashion, maybe with the CEO as the final arbitrer ?

And how much of that image of a all knowing visionary CEO is just a manufactured image ?

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#323

One of the things I was really was going to happen with Tesla would have been a revival of the boutique auto industry - whereby, one could buy all the subcomponents of the Tesla - a full drive-train-chassis setup with all controls and then build custom bodies on top of them Like trucks and vans etc. Pipe-dream sure, but I was really hoping that this would happen. How hard would it be to extend the length of the chass…

Tesla is literally the opposite of that dream.

Tesla is effectively the Apple of the car world. The whole thing is locked down, and if you make modifications to the car, they will brick it with software.

You don't really "own" that Tesla.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#324
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the grand scheme of things figuring out how to make model3's faster than they can sell them is a boring problem for Musk and I could imagine how frustrating it must be to have all the banks freaking out as if they're going to miss a fleeting opportunity to sell a bunch of cars. It's like when Nikola Tesla was trying to build worldwide wireless telegraphy but J.P. Morgan just wanted him to make fluorescent lights.…

For all that Musk is credited with versus what he actually invented he is not Tesla, he's Edison with worse business sense.

He’s building things other places won’t touch because of the economics

Everyone wants to sit and cross t’s and dot i’s because they are trained those matter more than net new

If those are the only conversations you have, only doing things you’re sure will be comfortable the economy and society stagnate

Economics are not the law of the land or reality. They’re a control mechanism for our output as a thinking, feeling, creative species

Let’s just make more banal phone apps I guess. The ones where the economics are well known to keep us safe

See stories about kids not playing outside or being allowed a quasi dangerous chemistry set

No one wants to be wrong so we take the safe route, which protects the status quo we all bitch about

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#325
post #190

What a weird call. Especially the callout of the diamler CEO. Elon says that the diamler CEO does not understand physics "He doesn't know much about physics. I know him. I'd be happy to engage in a physics discussion with him. I actually studied physics in college." Wiki says otherwise: "... studied electrical engineering from 1971 to 1976 at the University of Karlsruhe; he graduated as an engineer. He completed his…

You don't have to get a degree to study something.

My thoughts exactly. Reading that exchange had me thinking of John Carmack.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#326

Elon has always seemed to have the attitude of "not everyone should invest in this stock". I find this refreshing. God forbid a CEO do anything except try to drive the share price as high as humanly possible. I don't know if this carries the same weight in a public company, but setting expectations with investors is super important in a startup and prevents a ton of wasted time wrangling investors who don't get the t…

> Elon has always seemed to have the attitude of "not everyone should invest in this stock". This is financial suicide for the company. TSLA needs more money this year or next year. Losing $1 Billion per quarter means he is relying on his shareholders each time he raises another round of equity. The $1.7+ Billion to build the Gigafactory was from the Stock Market ( https://electrek.co/2016/05/25/tesla-tsla-stock-offe…

He's probably planning to ICO. Worked for Telegram, and taking questions from YouTube is a great first step toward raising billions in cryptocurrency.

Also, recent events have proved that pissing off the entire financial community so much that they refuse to lend you money because you always lose it is no barrier to becoming President of the USA - and, in fact, can help, because the entire electorate hates the financial industry anyway. Maybe we'll see Elon 2020 and a government bailout. Hell, government bailouts of the auto industry is pretty par for the course these days.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#328
post #190

What a weird call. Especially the callout of the diamler CEO. Elon says that the diamler CEO does not understand physics "He doesn't know much about physics. I know him. I'd be happy to engage in a physics discussion with him. I actually studied physics in college." Wiki says otherwise: "... studied electrical engineering from 1971 to 1976 at the University of Karlsruhe; he graduated as an engineer. He completed his…

Unless he was confused (quite possible) Musk would have been referring to the CEO of Daimler Trucks North America, Martin Daum.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-21/daimler-t...

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Musk is interested in is not relevant. Could you explain this statement? It's good to have these kinds of questions but let's not forget the bigger picture. Musk is making a contribution to the world. The Wolf on Wall Street not so much.

> Musk is making a contribution to the world. The Wolf on Wall Street not so much. This is such a dumb, narrow-minded statement. Musk isn't some angel handing out miracles. He's a businessman, on a business-centric call, and was being rude to other businessmen who are essential to the success of anything he wants to do. This isn't The Wolf of Wall Street , this was Toni Sacconaghi, an extremely credentialed analyst,…

It's dumb if you willfully select to view the statement in isolation. Wall Street did not come about to make the world a better place but came about to make investors rich. It is this single-minded focus on wealth that I couldn't give a rats ass about. This focus of wealth from quarter to quarter is short-sighted and unrealistic in certain businesses.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Elon has always seemed to have the attitude of "not everyone should invest in this stock". This is financial suicide for the company. TSLA needs more money this year or next year. Losing $1 Billion per quarter means he is relying on his shareholders each time he raises another round of equity. The $1.7+ Billion to build the Gigafactory was from the Stock Market ( https://electrek.co/2016/05/25/tesla-tsla-stock-offe…

He's probably planning to ICO. Worked for Telegram, and taking questions from YouTube is a great first step toward raising billions in cryptocurrency. Also, recent events have proved that pissing off the entire financial community so much that they refuse to lend you money because you always lose it is no barrier to becoming President of the USA - and, in fact, can help, because the entire electorate hates the financ…

This comment began with a questionable proposition and then just kept going downhill.
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