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SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

nytimes.com

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Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#221

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

Malice wrote: post #180
gpawl wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whence this myth that Musk doesn't love money, just because he makes his money making cool tech? http://variety.com/gallery/elon-musk-buys-fifth-bel-air-home... http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-mclaren-f1-hypercar... wrecked-it-2015-6

Because you don't make the choices he made if you love money. You absolutely do not start a rocket company. "If you want to make a small fortune in the rocket business, start with a large fortune." That being said, maybe we're looking at things differently. I'm sure he prefers having money than not having it, but the macro scale choices he's made imply he values other things more than his personal fortune.

The popular opinion is that if you start a rocket company you will fail but if Musk thought that he would fail, he wouldn't have started SpaceX. He thought he could succeed in rockets = he thought he could make money off rockets. Musk is a businessman just like all the others, he just has a public persona/PR team which appeals to "nerds."

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#222

Post by TheHeasman »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #125
narrator wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon can fail a lot because money for private companies is a lot more expensive and harder to get than for public companies. Musk is playing on hard mode because he wants to retain control.

Musk claims he won't take SpaceX public because public investors have short attention spans and would require profit/return too soon. Because he wants goals set out further than the next quarter, he has kept the company in the hands of like minded investors. That may just be bloviating on his part, but it does seem at least sensible on the surface.

Branson said the same thing about the Virgin Group when he turned it from a public to a private company.

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#223

Post by binarytransform »

microcolonel wrote: post #64
dbosch wrote: post #58

"World's most valuable privately held companies". Sounds weird, no? What about Vitol ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitol ), Saudi Aramco, Koch Industries ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_Industries ) ... etc ?

This is what you call a fluff piece. HN and the broader computer technology industry is sycophantic for Elon Musk, and will ignore that all of his companies would be dead in the water if it weren't for the questionable appropriation of government funds, at least if they spent and marketed the way that they do. The products are great, but the money comes out of everyone's pockets. You're all paying for some guy's Mode…

You clearly have no clue how the rest of government contracting works.

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#224

Post by rkunnamp »

gaius wrote: post #107

It makes me sad that SpaceX, a company that actually invents and makes stuff, is mentioned alongside Uber whose only product is evading taxes and regulations

Technically both company wants to take people from point A to point B. But those points vary widely though.

As someone from India, I have huge respect for Uber. The taxi unions here were looting people. They were quite arrogant. In Bangalore, most auto taxi drivers would happily stay idle for the whole day, and try to make some quick bucks during the rush hours by charging 300% or 400% extra, until Uber came and killed their arrogance.

Uber may not have had the same level of technical innovations as SpaceX. But they do have mammoth execution challenges, to the scale that no company might have had to face so far. For eg, in India, in each of the 29 states , they have to deal with the regulators of each state. In hundreds of cities, they have to deal with the respective taxi unions. Extrapolate it to a global scale , I can't even imagine.

My respects to both Elon and Travis! Both are my heroes.

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#225

Post by trevyn »

EGreg wrote: post #218
angstrom wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having played several hundred hours of KSP I can confirm you shouldn't underestimate momentum. It's amazing that it's even possible. I think the number I've heard is if the earth's gravity was something like 10% stronger this wouldn't be feasible.

Can you elaborate on this? Are you saying with a 10% higher gravity we wouldn't be able to escape Earth's field with any amount of thrust? What?

Possibly not able to carry enough chemical fuel to lift the fuel into space and return and do a controlled landing without refueling? That seems more plausible.

Fuel is heavy, and most of it is spent on... lifting fuel.

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#226

Post by bluGill »

jimjimjim wrote: post #158
gpawl wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It what sense does Bezos lack control? Being public means that the company is transparent , not that it is out of control.

that is completely not actual reality. it depends on who the investors/share holders are and the balance between lots of small investors and a few large investors. as long as investors see a way to make money out of the ceo (dividends or rock-star growth pushing share price up) they are happy. and all of that pushes thinking towards making targets for the quarter or year. and if it get's bad enough -> not enough mone…

You need both. A visionary alone needs the discipline that comes from having to choose which vision of many and finish it. A financial focused manager will never bet on any but the most obvious ideas and thus lose when someone else makes something work.

Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard. The least creative person has enough ideas to bankrupt even the biggest company if you start a team to implement them all as the idea occurs (a car obviously takes more people than a paper notepad, but you should expect to have all those ideas)

A visionary who never thinks about money will eventually run out, or worse bounce between ideas and never finish one. The person who only thinks about money will not invest in the things required to continue making money.

I've heard it stated that you need a visionary CEO and a close second who is a financial realist. The visionary has lots of great ideas, the financial realist reigns them in and forces the visionary to choose which vision(s) to focus on and finish; and let the others go. This works great until the visionary CEO steps down (dies, retires...), when you put the realist second in charge all the visionary projects are stopped, for a couple quarters the company makes more money, but there are no visionary things in the pipe so the company dies a slow death.

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#227

Post by Helmet »

gaius wrote: post #203
adrianN wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where you live, but here in Berlin taxis come quickly, are clean, and you pay what the meter states. I never had trouble with a driver. They could be cheaper, but I don't think that lowering prices by increasing competition is revolutionary.

Uber is not really cheaper, they are just burning their investors cash to project the illusion. When a) that runs out and b) they have to pay the same fees and taxes and follow the same regulations as other taxi companies, the true cost will be revealed

You're speculating. As it stands right now, Uber is absolutely cheaper than taxi's (at least where I am from). What they have to do in the future is anyone's guess.

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#228

Post by valuearb »

nickik wrote: post #166
valuearb wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The BE-4 is an impressive idea for an engine. It's never had a successful test fire, and is behind the Raptor in development.

It's not behind the Raptor in development. The Raptor has test fired but only a sub-scale. BE-4 design is finished and should not change anymore. We don't know if it has been test fired or not, they are in the middle of the testing campaign and Blue Origin does not share that information. The first BE-4 will be done long before Raptor, and it will fly before.

The BE-4 blew up on the test stand a couple months ago when they tried to test it. It's not complete because they are likely redesigning to fix that. We know it hasn't had a successful test or they and especially ULA would be trumpeting it.

The subscale Raptor was successfully tested nearly a year ago and is twice the power of anything BO has ever made.

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#229

Post by valuearb »

nickik wrote: post #198
Libbum wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absurd in the orbital mechanics portion but not the rest. It seems that spacex has chosen the waffle cone, ice cream scoop and add sprinkles later approach whereas BO has focused solely on the sprinkles.

They do it more step by step. But with the BE-4 and BE-3/BE-3U they have developed two fantastic engines that they can both potentially sell for use in orbital rockets. They are also already far into the development and production of a orbital rocket themselves. They focus on the cone, and slowly build up. By 2021 they will fly the third biggest rocket in the world with some unique capability.

The BE-3 is half the power of the Merlin and has only been fired in tests.

The BE-4 is a collection of parts thats never been fired together successfully.

2021 is hugely optimistic given BOs track record.

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#230

Post by [deleted] »

nickik wrote: post #198
Libbum wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absurd in the orbital mechanics portion but not the rest. It seems that spacex has chosen the waffle cone, ice cream scoop and add sprinkles later approach whereas BO has focused solely on the sprinkles.

They do it more step by step. But with the BE-4 and BE-3/BE-3U they have developed two fantastic engines that they can both potentially sell for use in orbital rockets. They are also already far into the development and production of a orbital rocket themselves. They focus on the cone, and slowly build up. By 2021 they will fly the third biggest rocket in the world with some unique capability.

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