Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition

spacex.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 132 posts

Re: SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition

#2

Post by loceng »

I'm really happy to see Tesla and SpaceX being run properly as platforms. Clearly Elon Musk has a great understanding of platforms with his online involvement with PayPal, however there aren't as obvious examples of it occurring in the physical product world; there are attempts though they seem more to control a user's behaviour and entrench people into a recurring business model than actually disrupting an unmanaged-disorganized system.

Platforms that generate a lot of value from APIs succeed by getting developer adoption by running things like hackathons - and this effort seems no different. Kudos.

Re: SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition

#3

Post by dtparr »

I thought this was an interesting tidbit from the linked rules pdf:

> In addition to hosting the competition, SpaceX will likely build a pod for demonstration purposes only. This team will not be eligible to win.

Re: SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition

#5

Post by toomuchtodo »

dtparr wrote: post #3

I thought this was an interesting tidbit from the linked rules pdf: > In addition to hosting the competition, SpaceX will likely build a pod for demonstration purposes only. This team will not be eligible to win.

I think that's admirable, and doesn't strike me as out of the ordinary for Elon. SpaceX has some remarkable engineering talent (which also transfers tech to Tesla; see their friction stir welding technique that is used by both companies now).

It wouldn't be fair for SpaceX to be able to win.

Re: SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition

#6

Post by toomuchtodo »

[deleted] wrote: post #4

[deleted]

> Now if only I had an idea that had this much interest...

Or perhaps, more importantly, the resources to bootstrap the ideas..

> By the way, what kind of business strategy is this called?

Patronage or philanthropy, depending on how you see it. It's okay for DARPA to do grand challenges, but not Musk portfolio companies?

Re: SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition

#10

Post by mikeash »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #6
[deleted] wrote: post #4

[deleted]

> Now if only I had an idea that had this much interest... Or perhaps, more importantly, the resources to bootstrap the ideas.. > By the way, what kind of business strategy is this called? Patronage or philanthropy, depending on how you see it. It's okay for DARPA to do grand challenges, but not Musk portfolio companies?

Don't forget the track record to get people interested in your ideas. If just about anybody besides Elon Musk had proposed hyperloop, nobody would have paid attention, but when it's a guy who runs a company that routinely puts stuff into space on their own rockets, and runs another company that went from zero to "best car in the world" (in the opinion of many serious car folks) in under a decade, people naturally pay more attention.
Post reply on HN