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Popular Mechanics Defends Elon Musk -- While He Tweets About Fortnite (popularmechanics.com)
The November issue of Popular Mechanics includes a message from its editors that Elon Musk is "under attack," arguing that while some criticisms have merit, "much of it is myopic and small-brained, from sideline observers gleefully salivating at the opportunity to take him down a peg."
But what have these stock analysts and pontificators done for humanity? Elon Musk is an engineer at heart, a tinkerer, a problem-solver -- the kind of person Popular Mechanics has always championed -- and the problems he's trying to solve are hard. Really hard. He could find better ways to spend his money, that's for sure. And yet there he is, trying to build gasless cars and build reusable rockets and build tunnels that make traffic go away. For all his faults and unpredictability, we need him out there doing that. We need people who have ideas. We need people who take risks.
We need people who try.
The magazine includes statements from 12 high-profile supporters, including investor Mark Cuban, who writes "When you invest in a company run by an entrepreneur like Elon, you are investing in the mindset and approach that an entrepreneur brings to the table as much as you are valuing the net present value of future cash flows. That is not typical for public companies that are overwhelmingly run by hired CEOs. My advice for Elon is simple: Be yourself. Be true to your mission. Respect your investors. Ignore your critics."
Meanwhile, in a Friday post on Twitter, Musk jokingly claimed that he'd purchased and then deleted the game of Fortnite, posting a doctored Marketwatch article quoting him as saying "I had to save these kids from eternal virginity."
"Had to been done," tweeted Musk, adding "ur welcome".
We need people who try.
The magazine includes statements from 12 high-profile supporters, including investor Mark Cuban, who writes "When you invest in a company run by an entrepreneur like Elon, you are investing in the mindset and approach that an entrepreneur brings to the table as much as you are valuing the net present value of future cash flows. That is not typical for public companies that are overwhelmingly run by hired CEOs. My advice for Elon is simple: Be yourself. Be true to your mission. Respect your investors. Ignore your critics."
Meanwhile, in a Friday post on Twitter, Musk jokingly claimed that he'd purchased and then deleted the game of Fortnite, posting a doctored Marketwatch article quoting him as saying "I had to save these kids from eternal virginity."
"Had to been done," tweeted Musk, adding "ur welcome".
I feel exactly that way about Elon Musk. I don't care about his defects shown so far. They are absolutely expected. I'd buy his company stock in small amounts just to stand where I speak. And if any goes bankrupt, I'd gladly share the weight of what I put. But to try to make him step down, feels like s*****d Apple when they fired Jobs for a "stable proven guy"...nothing got invented. Actually, Apple is still riding Jobs' waves and has done very little if nothing to invent anything that will change how we live or work, otehr than what was already started.
unfinished: (adj.)
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
- George Bernard Shaw
He bought the joke, put it into a SpaceX rocket, and launched it into LEO above your head.
He seems to be getting there. SpaceX is doing reasonably well, arguably on government money but coming from government contracts rather than subsidies, and offering a real value: Uncle Sam is saving money on those contracts. As for EV's... I don't think that market - meaning all auto makers, not just Tesla - would be where it is today if it wasn't for those tax breaks. Perhaps tax breaks are necessary to kick-start certain markets... I'm all for that, as long as those subsidies are doled out equally, and end at some point.
Here's hoping that Tesla can get over the financial hump, they've pulled out all the stops to meet important targets, but next 2 quarters are going to be make or break, and Musk will have to show that they can not only reach the current production (and distribution) levels, but sustain them as well, while turning to a positive cash flow.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
He failed to deliver on his promises. True. The goal was so over the top, what he did deliver is way above other car companies delivered.
He showed what a no compromise electric car can do, how it will drive, how it would feel and how great it would be. That genie is out of the bottle. No body can put it back in. No ICEV can compete with a EV.
And the party is just starting. The batteries are getting cheaper, energy density is getting higher. While ICE is fully optimized and there is nothing more you could squeeze out of an internal combustion engine.
In an EV, you can have two or four motors mechanically decoupled and electronically controlled. What such a car can do, no way an ICE can do.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Cell phones, laptops, Tesla are operating where you cant design for today's metrics. You need to predict the processor speed 18 months from now and design the phone. You need to anticipate the bandwidth increase expected in 12 months.
An EV's most critical metrics are energy density Kg/kWh of the battery and price $/kWh of the battery. Elon, in his famour 2006 "secret" master plan calculated a 7 year half life for these two critical metrics. The energy density will double, and the price wil halve every seven years. Sort of like Moore's law of batteries. Tesla is designing, building and pricing the cars based on that model. In 2012 for the Tesla Roadster, the battery cost was 270 $/kWh. Model 3, battery is 130 $/kWh (Tesla's claim) 140$/kWh Monroe's tear down. It is following the expected path. Tesla says it is going to hit 100 $/kWh sometime in 2019. That is the figure when the EV and ICEV will cost the same off the dealer's lot. Battery + motor cost = engine+transmission+emission control+fuel tank cost.
The legacy car makers are not used to engine manufacturing cost going down by 50% in 7 years. Nor the weight of the power train falling by 50% between drawing board and production.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Talented creative assholes are still assholes.
You are't having a debate if you start out by calling them 'haters.' You're simply engaging in cult-belief reinforcement activities. To be fair, the people you are 'debating' with might also be in a cult.