Live data from Hacker News

X, the moonshot factory

x.company

111–120 of 198 posts

Re: X, the moonshot factory

#111
post #75

For God's sake people, stop highjacking scroll.

What do you mean by hijacking? The page changing as you scroll down? I'm on desktop and it looks quite pretty I would say. Does it not work for you or do you just don't like that sort of UI?

Re: X, the moonshot factory

#112
post #59
post #21

To add fuel to the fire, Elon has been quite vocal about his disdain for Larry lately. According to Elon, he got upset at Larry for not taking the risks of AI seriously. I wouldn't put it past Elon for this to be a bit of him thumbing his nose at Alphabet.

Musk wanted to rebrand PayPal as X. His obsession goes back a long, long way.

Somehow the naming obsession reminds me of the antics of self-promoter (and fraud) Kim Schmitz, who targeted being "Dot Com" or "Mega".

https://www.wired.com/2012/01/kim-dotcom/

Re: X, the moonshot factory

#113

Is this another shot at Elon Musk? Not sure where all the hate for him came from. Was it the hardline free speech direction he took Twitter, reinstating conservative accounts? That seemed to be the downward turning point in his popularity.

I think Musks turning point was when he randomly accused the Thai boyscout guide of being a pedophile. Since then his image has been continuously circling the toilet.

Re: X, the moonshot factory

#115
Wow this is a great example of bad marketing/naming/fluff. I thought this was X (Elon Musk) and the site looked generic enough (until Google is mentioned) to make me think this was the case.

Then it hit me: Musk is doing the rebrand so he can package 'moonshots' to pump his Twitter stock and eventually save his investment in the company. He'll bundle 'Elon futurism' into Twitter so he can get a better multiple.

Re: X, the moonshot factory

#116
Everyone is hating on "X" right now because of the bloviated way tech companies talk about "changing the world". I'm always pessimistic about things like this too, but I do have a soft spot in my heart for this stuff.

Why?, because it allows some engineers to work on cool stuff. Will it pan out, probably not, but I'm not going to cry if Google blows through a few million bucks. They won't even notice it.

Better that a few engineers get to have some fun working on stuff other than optimal ad placement. Who know's maybe they'll stumble across something actually helpful to humanity (not holding my breath).

Re: X, the moonshot factory

#117

I always felt that calling this a “moonshot factory” was foolishly overblown. Just like you don’t generalise your code until you have at least two instances to work from, show us two successful “moonshots” before you even start thinking about a “factory”.

Moonshots don't imply moon landings. I take the name in a humbler manner — X is a lab that works on risky projects that might not make it anywhere, and Alphabet is okay with that.

Re: X, the moonshot factory

#119
post #83

How long do these “moonshots” have until they are considered failures? It seems like an anti pattern that some huge, futzy organization launches a “moonshot” to explain why they burn money on something without needing a return because it’s a “moonshot.” JFK gave his “to the moon” speech in 1962, targeting 1970 [0]. And the USG did it. So 8 years was the first one. It cost a ton of money and was successful and had mas…

> Google launched its X/moonshot org in 2010 [1]. 14 years later, have any “landed?”

Waymo, Brain, and Chronicle

Post reply on HN