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Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

nytimes.com

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Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#331

Post by tynpeddler »

wilsonnb3 wrote: post #321
tynpeddler wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>SpaceX has done far more than Tesla to push the rocket industry towards reusable launch systems but even then, had SpaceX never existed another company would have developed one within 5-10 years anyways. This seems unlikely. Up until Spacex actually landed a rocket, every other launch provider in the world considered it a ridiculous goal. The launch industry was concentrated around 3 groups, none of which had any in…

Look at it this way - without SpaceX, most of the people working at SpaceX responsible for planning and executing the project would have been employed at the other launch companies. Unless you think that Musk is a once in a generation rocket engineering genius directly responsible for designing their reusable systems, it stands to reason that they would have been invented anyways (but probably more slowly).

Were there other launch companies hiring engineers to do what Spacex did? Put another way, while the engineers are certainly talented and skilled, without a company hiring them and directing them in the same direction, they would not have developed the skills and careers that they did. Had one of these engineers been hired by ULA for example, they would have probably been far more constrained than they were at Spacex.

Musk created the environment and goals that let these engineers achieve incredible things. Without that environment, I don't see these engineers having the same accomplishments.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#332

Post by Isinlor »

rayiner wrote: post #257
tomhoward wrote: post #37

But, he added, “if you have anyone who can do a better job, please let me know. They can have the job. Is there someone who can do the job better? They can have the reins right now.” I think this hits at the crux of the issue around the performance/behaviour of Musk and other leaders of hugely ambitious companies. And I think it highlights the importance of thinking about what kinds of people it will take to lead the…

> Do we actually want Tesla and SpaceX to fail? Maybe we do? It's worth remembering that the folks who took us to the moon in the first place were government employees and federal contractors. No rockstar leaders with a tweeting habit. Musk has accomplished a lot, and it's upsetting to see the personal attacks against him. His tweets are a little reckless, but whose aren't these days? But that doesn't mean we want th…

> Maybe we do? It's worth remembering that the folks who took us to the moon in the first place were government employees and federal contractors. No rockstar leaders with a tweeting habit.

Do you think it was really less noisy? Wasn't it started by threat of Soviet rockets flying over your heads? Threat of third world war? The sputnik moment? With a pinch of charismatic leadership of JF Kennedy? Famous "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard (...)" The president who got assassinated? I doesn't sound like less noisy period.

And without the threat you ended up buying Soviet-era engines and Russian organized trips to ISS. Until Musk and SpaceX happened and put you back in leadership position.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#333

Post by chadmeister »

cepth wrote: post #309
pas wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aramco IPO going nowhere fast Why? Could you elaborate on this please?

There are a bunch of reasons, but the basic background is this. -Vision 2030, which first mentioned the IPO, was announced back in 2016 -Oil prices sit around $66/barrel today. This represents a recovery from the low-point of ~$40/barrel. However, Aramco’s valuation is obviously tied to the price of oil, and the Saudis want to wait (hope?) for higher oil prices -Even at today’s depressed oil prices, the Saudis have s…

I think this IPO could happen sooner than you think. The Saudis seem to have quite a bit of influence on the current US presidential administration and I wouldn't be surprised if the Saudis played a role in the decision to sanction Venezuela, who was at the time was the #1 oil exporter in the world, and the decision to sanction Iran, another huge oil exporter. They've recently coordinated oil supply cuts through OPEC and also isolated Quatar, another large oil exporter. I think the claim that peak oil is behind us is reasonable conjecture, especially with the rise of economically viable alternative energy sources. I think the Saudis are well aware of this and they're currently making what looks like a very effective short term play at cashing out as much as they can.

A little side bit to this is that Saudi Arabia's King Salman named his 31-year-old son Mohammed bin Salman (MS) as crown prince on June 21, 2017, removing his nephew, Mohammed bin Nayef, as heir and one of they key platforms on which MS has sought to earn favor from other ranking figures has been the promise to make this IPO happen asap. The longer it takes the bumpier his transition to power will be, so you can bet he is well incentives to cut the needed deals to drive that price of oil as high as he can as fast as he can.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#334

Post by Rebelgecko »

tynpeddler wrote: post #329
dagoat wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> every other launch provider in the world considered it a ridiculous goal VTVL was a thing before SpaceX > almost certainly heavily influenced by Spacex Blue Origin was founded almost 2 years before SpaceX

VTVL were mostly suborbital toys and demonstrators. None of the major launch providers were actively developing recoverable, orbital boosters. As for Spacex influencing Blue Origin, I mean that spacex has set the tone for for what is possible and this has almost certainly helped inspire and drive Blue Origin's products.

ULA announced Vulcan's (partial) reusability before SpaceX landed a rocket, and I imagine they had been working on that for some time before it was announced. Granted, SpaceX certainly lit a fire under them to make some changes and bring costs down with Vulcan

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#335

Post by bogomipz »

tomhoward wrote: post #37

But, he added, “if you have anyone who can do a better job, please let me know. They can have the job. Is there someone who can do the job better? They can have the reins right now.” I think this hits at the crux of the issue around the performance/behaviour of Musk and other leaders of hugely ambitious companies. And I think it highlights the importance of thinking about what kinds of people it will take to lead the…

>"Would we rather that Musk had just never founded Tesla and SpaceX, ...

If not, then it would surely be better for the conversation to be less about how crazy or unstable or reckless Musk is..."

This seems like a false dichotomy. The headline of this piece has a reference to Tweeting and the article by extension concerns his at time provocative social media presence. I am someone who is rooting for Tesla and the mainstreaming of purely electric cars and reusable rockets. And there are many investors who are actively rooting for his successes as well. But he doesn't do himself any favors by calling someone a "pedo" on Twitter or stating "he's secured funding to take the company private" etc. We live in world of hyper-sensationalized news cycles, something he's well aware of. I would rather the media and public discourse focused on the positive aspects of his entrepreneurial endeavors. But when he as CEO gives them lots of fuel and easy path to do otherwise he's kind of part that problem in that no?

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#336

Post by akmiller »

mattmaroon wrote: post #308
akmiller wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps their initial reason in shorting the stock was not inherently evil. But at this point they risk losing billions of dollars so their only incentive is to ensure the company fails. I actually don't find their share price to be out of control at all. They have assets other companies would only dream of at this point. The data alone on miles driven is extremely valuable in the race to self driving cars. Their sup…

I would consider data to be an argument in favor of the big three. Tesla only sells about 100000 cars a year. Ford's top-selling model, the F-series, is almost eight times that. I'm assuming you mean some data that Tesla is currently collecting that Ford cannot, but it would be a matter of not much money for them to do so. They can add whatever sensors they need in the next year's F150 and within a few months have mo…

True, but it is not only the data. Even if it was why aren't the big 3 doing this already? Tesla is a technology company more-so than a car company. They employ the engineers focusing on machine learning and gathering the right data to support that. This would be a brand new area for Ford, Chevy, etc... I'm guessing. Not that they couldn't ramp up, but I don't think it would be as easy as you seem to suggest.

Walmart had the funds to overcome and mimic what Amazon was doing early on as well and they didn't. Why not? Some companies are set in their ways and have trouble seeing the future...or at least be willing to sacrifice short term revenue goals for long term gain (often times big profitable companies act this way).

TBH, I own a Tesla. I agree they are likely not the leader in the best technology for driverless cars, they are definitely the leader in affordable driverless cars. The interesting thing is autopilot gets better and better on streets you drive over and over again. Tesla's have ruined my experience for driving any other car. I'm sure someone else will make some great electric cars in the future as well, but right now there is nothing that compares to it overall.

Edit: To add one other point on my initial paragraph (and coincides with my last). Tesla not only gathers the data but has the autopilot features to be able to test changes to the algorithms in place and improve them over time. Even if the big 3 started collecting this data they are far behind in the ability to even simulate much less enable it for real feedback on the roads.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#337

Post by bopbop »

isostatic wrote: post #231
bopbop wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's still quite a significant difference between "popularizing something that may save the planet from extinction from global warming which could have been pursued for quite a while by other large companies automotive and otherwise but hasn't been" to "people prefer shopping with them over how they used to shop". But I can see that the net gain of the time saved using Amazon could be argued as a good for…

Has Telsa really popularised it? Or is this looking at things from an SV perspective? Certainly in the UK it's a minor player compared with the Nissan Leaf, and plugin hybrids are even more popular

Well, anecdotally, I'm from the UK, and hadn't heard of the Nissan Leaf until you mentioned it. Tesla, on the other hand... Although yes, actually that's very impressive.

With regards to Hybrids, my (limited) understanding is that they are part of the problem - they're better, but only better by half. From what I'm reading about global warming, we need to push as far as possible towards a fully electric, mostly renewable future as quick as possible.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#338

Post by elicash »

taternuts wrote: post #318
elicash wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The little sleep he IS getting isn't even quality. From the author of Why We Sleep: > Unfortunately, the current set or classes of sleeping pills that we have do not produce naturalistic sleep. So they are all a broad set of chemicals that we call the sedative hypnotics. And sedation is not sleep. It's very different. It doesn't give you the restorative natural benefits of sleep. https://www.npr.org/2018/07/20/630792…

It's a whole lot better than nothing, that's for sure.

It's not Ambien or nothing for most people. This is a false choice and a dangerous way of framing it. Cognitive therapy for insomnia is just as effective in short-term and, unlike sedatives, do not cause sleep to be worse in the future.

http://www.sleepeducation.org/treatment-therapy/cognitive-be...

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#339

Post by ABCLAW »

that_jojo wrote: post #241
fabizeid wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it have to be the current version of Musk to be a better version of Musk? Why can't we consider that Musk or his type was instrumental to launch Tesla but at this point a different person is better fit to grow it? Maybe skills needed to sustain a company might be different than the skills needed to launch it.

Completely just to play devil's advocate, here: When has a major innovative company ever done better after ousting a visionary but perhaps somewhat toxic founder? Maybe we could look at Uber, but it's too soon to tell. And The new management there seems earnest, but I'm not sure they're looking so hot from an actual business perspective.

How many major innovative companies haven't been headed by a visionary but toxic founder in the first place?

If we're just looking into this question to understand how important neurosis is in creating greatness, I think we need the more obvious counterfactual first.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#340

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi »

wilsonnb3 wrote: post #321
tynpeddler wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>SpaceX has done far more than Tesla to push the rocket industry towards reusable launch systems but even then, had SpaceX never existed another company would have developed one within 5-10 years anyways. This seems unlikely. Up until Spacex actually landed a rocket, every other launch provider in the world considered it a ridiculous goal. The launch industry was concentrated around 3 groups, none of which had any in…

Look at it this way - without SpaceX, most of the people working at SpaceX responsible for planning and executing the project would have been employed at the other launch companies. Unless you think that Musk is a once in a generation rocket engineering genius directly responsible for designing their reusable systems, it stands to reason that they would have been invented anyways (but probably more slowly).

I honestly think that no one who has followed SpaceX since the early days can hold this view.

The 'oldspace' industry was so absolutely antagonistic and dismissive of reusable rocketry, there's no doubt in my mind that it would not have been pursued. The whole idea was associated with the Shuttle, widely considered to be an albatross for NASA.

Those young engineers you mention would have vanishingly little influence on development of any new rocket program in a deeply bureaucratic, ossified system. Who even are these 'other' rocket companies developing rockets? ULA is the product of government contractors simply supporting Atlas and Delta. Until Bruno, there was no real possibility of a new rocket program. There's Ariane, Roscosmos, China, and India, so mostly impossible for US citizens. It's very likely Ariane would not even be developing a new rocket if it wasn't for the specter of SpaceX.

The most important thing to understand is that rocket development wasn't progressing. It was excruciatingly stagnant, entirely dependent on the government to take the initiative, and subject to constant political muddling.

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