111–120 of 194 posts
If SolarCity would have had "...tens of hundreds of millions of dollars in phantom revenue that would put them at over a billion in revenue, which I'll leave to you to look up how inaccurate that statement is.
My partner worked for various solar companies (But not Solar City) as a canvasser hoping to get some sales experience. As a result we got to see first hand how corrupt and underhanded their sales departments could be. Canvassers were exploited mercilessly and commissions never appeared as new requirements were added to the payouts. Paychecks bounced periodically. Canvassers would be told to go door to door in areas w…
Such things are common in sales in general. It's absolutely cutthroat. Salespeople, managers, everyone is in a Hobbesian all-against-all fight to the death for commissions. Crime and fraud are abundant. Personal attacks are not even that uncommon. Anyone who doesn't play this game tends to get muscled out. It's obviously worse in some organizations than others, but it's probably harder to create a non-toxic sales org…
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>Journalists being critical isn't them launching a war, it's them attempting to leave no stone unturned. When you only do your job some of the time, it's reasonable to question your motivation. We've had years of Tesla and Musk puff-pieces and it's only in the last few months that journalists have decided to leave no stone unturned en masse.
> we've had years of Tesla and Musk puff-pieces and it's only in the last few months that journalists have decided to leave no stone unturned en masse You're complaining about the disease and then complaining about the cure. When Tesla was flush with cash and the recovery was young, the operating and financial envelope was wide. Tesla had the room ( i.e. capital and investors' patience) to screw up. Elon has said he…
In the ebbs and flows of positivity/negativity frequency, all flows look like cures for ebbs. Really, it's just the another symptom of the same disease that there are intentionally large peaks and valleys at all (unintentional is a different matter of course).
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Realized revenue will always be a percentage of unrealized revenue less than 100%. So by definition paying off of realized revenue at the same rate means you're going to be paying less in commissions to your sales staff. If I'm a salesperson looking for my next gig you're going to have to prove that you're paying a high enough commission for it to be worth it to me. But most importantly, why would a salesperson who c…
See also the Ben & Jerry's management salary thing.
My partner worked for various solar companies (But not Solar City) as a canvasser hoping to get some sales experience. As a result we got to see first hand how corrupt and underhanded their sales departments could be. Canvassers were exploited mercilessly and commissions never appeared as new requirements were added to the payouts. Paychecks bounced periodically. Canvassers would be told to go door to door in areas w…
> It seems like the entire solar industry is focused more on extracting government subsidies than on creating long term revenue streams. Some might argue this is the exact nature of government subsidies. People are always going to make choices in their economic self-interest. Either solar needs to be the most cost effective solution for their energy needs, or the government needs to artificially inflate the cost of o…
I would add that they will make choices in their understanding of their economic self-interest. People are not rational actors.
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I don't think linuxftw was necessarily saying that government intervention is inappropriate. They were saying that the nature of government intervention is to distort the underlying economics. It is therefore unsurprising when businesses grow up around these temporary distortions rather than long term business models. It's the "price" we pay for whatever upsides there are to the subsidy.
Then I support this intervention. This idea that there is some "pure" form of undisturbed economics that is practiced outside the framework of achieving some larger social objective is also an absurd myth.
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> Every time a hurricane knocks out a town's electric grid and federal funds are used to repair it, that's a subsidy. When government authority to exercise eminent domain acquires easements or land to erect power distribution, that's a subsidy. This is anti-government fervor carried to absurdity. No man is an island. What is the point of government if not to provide care in disastrous situations? And yes this is the…
I don't think linuxftw was necessarily saying that government intervention is inappropriate. They were saying that the nature of government intervention is to distort the underlying economics. It is therefore unsurprising when businesses grow up around these temporary distortions rather than long term business models. It's the "price" we pay for whatever upsides there are to the subsidy.
Current market conditions mean people will choose traditional grid-backed energy (most of the time) for economic self-interest reasons.
Whether these subsidies are good or bad is up to the reader to decide. There are plenty of people on the internet that are willing to tell others 'what to think.' I just like to highlight what I believe to be the causation so we can achieve an optimal outcome instead of endlessly parroting dogmatic beliefs of any political party.
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That "reaching out" habit out of instinct should be curbed. I realize it's the game of journalism -- "we should report it first!" But just because the journalist's business model requires to "publish as quickly as possible", they shouldn't pressure companies, who already have to deal with mountains of crap. (Not that I'm the "fondness for large, opaque corporations" kind; just trying to think fairly where it deserves…
On the flip side, why do we need a comment from the company anyway? Assuming the journalist has sources for what they are writing, the 'official company PR response' is next to worthless. At this point I think journalists only bother contacting the company as a formality to try and defend against claims of bias.
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Then I support this intervention. This idea that there is some "pure" form of undisturbed economics that is practiced outside the framework of achieving some larger social objective is also an absurd myth.
It is OK to support the intervention, but it's helpful to be honest about what it is (subsidy) so we can have an honest discussion the tradeoffs.