I guess someone needs advanced access to cryopod batteries. Still not quite the level of Dropbox '14.
dropbox '14?
When Condoleezza Rice was appointed to the board of Dropbox
Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors
51–60 of 358 posts
Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
My point is that this doesn't bode well for Tesla. My biggest complaint with Tesla is that they don't provide service manuals or have an open parts department for their vehicles. For comparison, pretty much every other major auto maker will sell you a book telling you how to fix anything on your vehicle, and will sell you the parts and special tools to do so. Not Tesla, and given what we know about Ellison, I very mu…
Apple started the path to normalizing this, and I believe it's core to being responsible for the entire user experience. Personally, I'm not a fan of this, but I understand the motives aside from profit. If a Tesla gets poor maintenance by an unskilled shop, when the vehicle crashes and kills the driver, Tesla gets the black eye and has to defend itself in the media and in front of the NHTSA. Tesla's stock takes the…
All well and good -- solid arguments except when you consider things like:
Apple's Mac Pro (the big tower) had upgradeable RAM and video, and the newer versions (the little black shiny pretty cylinder) were soldered on.
That's less about lawsuits and support costs -- it's memory for God's sake and everyone else lets the consumer physically upgrade it, even many laptops. It's about going through the cartel to get the upgrade, which is marked up 3X, 4X. Apple is recent -- anyone remember Sun?
Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors
#53"As you know people, as you learn about things, you realize that these generalizations we have are, virtually to a generalization, false. Well, except for this one, as it turns out. What you think of Oracle, is even truer than you think it is. There has been no entity in human history with less complexity or nuance to it than Oracle. And I gotta say, as someone who has seen that complexity for my entire life, it's ve…
Isn't the whole premise of capitalism that people motivated by money will build useful things for the world? How did Ellison conclude that shipping mediocrity is more profitable than shipping excellence?
> Isn't the whole premise of capitalism that people motivated by money will build useful things for the world?
I hope not because that seems hopelessly naive.
Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors
#54Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup, it's a billion-ish USD at today's price of about $332/share. That's about 3% of Larry's reported net worth.
Geez. Okay I didn't realise he was hyper rich. Well, I'm delighted for anyone to want to support electric cars.
It's hard to think about the wealth of extremely wealthy people intuitively. Just for added perspective, he bought an entire Hawai'ian island called Lanai.
Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, Oracle is bad. No, I don't love or even like them. But quoting Bryan's dramatic speeches every time Oracle or Ellison are mentioned is adding next to nothing to the discussion at this point. It's a great way to incite anger though.
My point is that this doesn't bode well for Tesla. My biggest complaint with Tesla is that they don't provide service manuals or have an open parts department for their vehicles. For comparison, pretty much every other major auto maker will sell you a book telling you how to fix anything on your vehicle, and will sell you the parts and special tools to do so. Not Tesla, and given what we know about Ellison, I very mu…
> For comparison, pretty much every other major auto maker will sell you a book telling you how to fix anything on your vehicle
Wow I didn't know this. I have hard time believing this. Where can I find this for my subaru 2019.
Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors
#57"As you know people, as you learn about things, you realize that these generalizations we have are, virtually to a generalization, false. Well, except for this one, as it turns out. What you think of Oracle, is even truer than you think it is. There has been no entity in human history with less complexity or nuance to it than Oracle. And I gotta say, as someone who has seen that complexity for my entire life, it's ve…
Isn't the whole premise of capitalism that people motivated by money will build useful things for the world? How did Ellison conclude that shipping mediocrity is more profitable than shipping excellence?
You know how when you give an AI shallow directives in machine learning, it'll start doing weird things? Like that Roomba that got stuck permanently driving backwards, or the game AIs that figure out that standing still is the best way not to die.
Well it works like that for capitalism too. People optimize for the goal (money), not necessarily the hopeful outcome (useful things).
Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors
#58A lot of people seem negative about this. Can someone explain why? Are there any implications I should expect (as a Tesla owner and stockholder)?
Well, it's sort of weird. He's never really been involved in a company that manufactures, i don't believe. Plus his legacy is that of maximizing licensing fees which isn't really in Tesla's wheelhouse given their history of opening patents. Maybe he's being brought in to fight the right to repair and help lock down Tesla's to maximize some sort of dealer /service model? Or maybe this is some sort of long play to get…
Its the beginning of the end.
Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't the whole premise of capitalism that people motivated by money will build useful things for the world? How did Ellison conclude that shipping mediocrity is more profitable than shipping excellence?
Right now, there's a whole bunch of businesses and governments that are trapped on oracle. That's because they were the only game 20 years ago. And inertia and lockin is the game. Where I work uses Oracle. And every dev and sysad wants away from it. And the answer every time is "we can't support forking our DB backend cause were too tied to oracle and its bugs". And the prices go up and up. And everyone on it is effe…
Is there a standard capitalist solution to lock-in? (Or is it too new of a problem to have been researched?) This seems like a fatal flaw if your goal is even merely free markets and vibrant competition, not even improving society.
Perhaps one option is to remove government protection from trade secrets and intellectual property. Were it not for the threat of government interference, a competitor could easily arrange to get Oracle's source code leaked, and then the two of them would actually compete on quality of their support/service contracts.
Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors
#60"As you know people, as you learn about things, you realize that these generalizations we have are, virtually to a generalization, false. Well, except for this one, as it turns out. What you think of Oracle, is even truer than you think it is. There has been no entity in human history with less complexity or nuance to it than Oracle. And I gotta say, as someone who has seen that complexity for my entire life, it's ve…
Whenever I read this and the java guy Gosling they are incredibly negative about Oracle. One wonders if there is something behind all this as it appears they were figures of respect and authority at their previous company. But upon being consumed by Oracle was that still the case? I get the impression that there is underlying bitterness and resentment festering here due to something like that.
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