reading this while at my dads house for christmas. when I left I went in my garage and clicked dads house, then clicked “start self driving” it back out, got out the neighborhood, on the highway, merged onto another, took an exit, drove to his neighborhood and pulled in the driveway. dad needed to get something from the gas station, we clicked the destination and clicked start self driving, it backed out the driveway and chose its own parking spot at the gas station, got back to his house in the driveway. not once today have I touched the accelerator, brake pedal, or turn signal, and I’m 2 cities away from home and have been on 3 drives. just my experience today
I think the lesson here is not to place financial bets based purely on idealogy. Without huge government subsidies, Musk would be bankrupt. You'd have to be blind not to see the shell game that keeps him afloat.
People keep forgetting that the vast majority of billionnaire founders, including Musk, are good at finance. Not at anything else.
And Musk and Bezos' specialities are in the field of taking government subsidies. NOT making cars. NOT rockets. NOT delivery. NOT ...
So if you believe in them, you can bet money that they'll be able to attract more subsidies in the future. But buying a car from them is a bet that they produce good cars ... and it's just moronic.
Ecommerce itself involved exploiting government regulations around sales taxes. Amazon didn't charge sales tax for over a decade because it had no physical location outside of WA. That alone gave it a massive price advantage over every other retailer. When the laws finally caught up, many competitors had already closed down, the biggest of them being Circuit City and Borders.
Let's think for one second. If Enron Musk has these really profitable cars, wouldn't he keep them for himself instead of selling them away under what they're worth?
Oh right he's not motivated by money he just wants to make the world better, right.
> Oh right he's not motivated by money he just wants to make the world better, right.
No. The reason is the same as why his Optimus robots will take over all menial jobs from us, work hard to earn money for us, eliminate poverty forever and leave us to do whatever we want.
I'm puzzled by your top level comment getting downvoted. If people can't recognize the motives or they're that much into hero worship, I say that we're in for a long winter.
I get puzzled by HN all the time. I never in my life could've imagined that the pull off the "successful billionaire genius" could be so strong with so many people.
Anyone who believes blindly musk promises is a moron
reading this while at my dads house for christmas. when I left I went in my garage and clicked dads house, then clicked “start self driving” it back out, got out the neighborhood, on the highway, merged onto another, took an exit, drove to his neighborhood and pulled in the driveway. dad needed to get something from the gas station, we clicked the destination and clicked start self driving, it backed out the driveway and chose its own parking spot at the gas station, got back to his house in the driveway. not once today have I touched the accelerator, brake pedal, or turn signal, and I’m 2 cities away from home and have been on 3 drives. just my experience today
Judging by Tesla's market valuation, there are unfortunately a lot of morons...
> For investors and fleet operators, though, the episode is a stark lesson in not equating corporate hype with economic fundamentals.
If further evidence is required that truths need relearning daily!
Those were the good years, when money was free and any idea could get funded.
The Pied Piper's tune leads you to the river to drown. If you want to survive you need to plug your ears and stay close to him.
News like this reminds me of what Linus Torvalds said on LTT when the topic of LoC metrics came up
I think the lesson here is not to place financial bets based purely on idealogy. Without huge government subsidies, Musk would be bankrupt. You'd have to be blind not to see the shell game that keeps him afloat.
People keep forgetting that the vast majority of billionnaire founders, including Musk, are good at finance. Not at anything else.
And Musk and Bezos' specialities are in the field of taking government subsidies. NOT making cars. NOT rockets. NOT delivery. NOT ...
So if you believe in them, you can bet money that they'll be able to attract more subsidies in the future. But buying a car from them is a bet that they produce good cars ... and it's just moronic.
The idea that Bezos' specialty is taking government subsidies and not ecommerce is hogwash..
Ecommerce itself involved exploiting government regulations around sales taxes. Amazon didn't charge sales tax for over a decade because it had no physical location outside of WA. That alone gave it a massive price advantage over every other retailer. When the laws finally caught up, many competitors had already closed down, the biggest of them being Circuit City and Borders.
Apparently 4.7 billion worth. https://www.vice.com/en/article/amazon-has-received-at-least...
It's just hard to believe that any company would be in the business of selling turnkey money printing machines, at scale.
Let's think for one second. If Enron Musk has these really profitable cars, wouldn't he keep them for himself instead of selling them away under what they're worth?
Oh right he's not motivated by money he just wants to make the world better, right.
> Oh right he's not motivated by money he just wants to make the world better, right.
No. The reason is the same as why his Optimus robots will take over all menial jobs from us, work hard to earn money for us, eliminate poverty forever and leave us to do whatever we want.
Right right that's what I was going to say next
I'm puzzled by your top level comment getting downvoted. If people can't recognize the motives or they're that much into hero worship, I say that we're in for a long winter.
I get puzzled by HN all the time. I never in my life could've imagined that the pull off the "successful billionaire genius" could be so strong with so many people.