Starship Test Launch Thursday

[james22]

1 hour ago, Gregmal said:

Listen Warren is great and all, but if everyone decided they’d never take risks, hoard an obscene amount of cash most of the time, and then look to cash in when there’s “blood in the streets”, ie the majority of the system and those in it are hurting, I don’t think we d have ANY sort of innovations, ever. 

 

Funny discussion to be having on Columbus Day.

 

You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.

[rkbabang]

10 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

He is not overrated. He clearly is instrumental with SpaceX that does things that other entities that get government funding too can’t do.

 

Then again he is gaslighting at the same time as well, as seen with the Robotaxi event which was all vaporware.

 

You can be a genius and shill at the same time.

 

I can't think of a single product at any of Elon's companies that wasn't seen as "vaporware" at first?    I'm not saying Robotaxis will be a thing, I'd bet against it. Even if he can pull off the product, I think Americans like riding in their own private cars too much for any type of Robotaxi to make much money.   But he's always pumping some new crazy thing and some of them end up real and successful products.

 

I thought starlink was a crazy idea at first. 

 

 

 

[james22]

At the end of 1492 most men in Western Europe felt exceedingly gloomy about the future. Christian civilization appeared to be shrinking in area and dividing into hostile units as its sphere contracted. For over a century there had been no important advance in natural science and registration in the universities dwindled as the instruction they offered became increasingly jejune and lifeless. Institutions were decaying, well-meaning people were growing cynical or desperate, and many intelligent men, for want of something better to do, were endeavoring to escape the present through studying the pagan past. . . .

 

Yet, even as the chroniclers of Nuremberg were correcting their proofs from Koberger’s press, a Spanish caravel named Nina scudded before a winter gale into Lisbon with news of a discovery that was to give old Europe another chance. In a few years we find the mental picture completely changed. Strong monarchs are stamping out privy conspiracy and rebellion; the Church, purged and chastened by the Protestant Reformation, puts her house in order; new ideas flare up throughout Italy, France, Germany and the northern nations; faith in God revives and the human spirit is renewed. The change is complete and startling: “A new envisagement of the world has begun, and men are no longer sighing after the imaginary golden age that lay in the distant past, but speculating as to the golden age that might possibly lie in the oncoming future.”

 

Christopher Columbus belonged to an age that was past, yet he became the sign and symbol of this new age of hope, glory and accomplishment. His medieval faith impelled him to a modern solution: Expansion.

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316584789/

[Dalal.Holdings]

6 minutes ago, rkbabang said:

But he's always pumping some new crazy thing and some of them end up real and successful products.

 

I thought starlink was a crazy idea at first. 

 

 

24 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

Then again he is gaslighting at the same time as well, as seen with the Robotaxi event which was all vaporware.

 

Jobs didn't call it gaslighting, he called it a Reality Distortion Field

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field

 

Quote

 

In the book Steve Jobs, biographer Walter Isaacson states that around 1972, while Jobs was attending Reed College, Robert Friedland "taught Steve the reality distortion field." The RDF was said by Andy Hertzfeld to be Jobs's ability to convince himself, and others around him, to believe almost anything with a mix of charm, charisma, bravado, hyperbole, marketing, appeasement and persistence. It was said to distort his co-workers' sense of proportion and scales of difficulties and to make them believe that whatever impossible task he had at hand was possible. Jobs could also use the reality distortion field to appropriate others' ideas as his own, sometimes proposing an idea back to its originator, only a week after dismissing it.^[1]

 

 

Edited October 14 by Dalal.Holdings

[rkbabang]

33 minutes ago, dealraker said:

Of course I'm being a tad facetious here guys, but I've witnessed so many  of this same discussion so many times about so many men... I can't help but chat it up some.  Time after time if you and I live a while there will be many more.

 

People forget, they are simply not capable of meaningful comparison (I'm not either), we just live in the moment.  Opinions will be endless.

 

 

Who are all these men?   In my lifetime (52 yrs) I can think of 3.   Bill Gates in the 80-90s, Steve Jobs 70s-2000s, and Elon Musk in the 2000s - 2020s.   I wouldn't put people who got rich by selling everyday items in a new way (Bezos or Dell) or trading stocks (Buffett or Munger) in the same category.

 

[james22]

 

[John Hjorth]

This piece of information about Elon Musk from Wikipedia cracked me up dearly! Trying to buy ICBMs from Russia, getting a 'No' because considered a novice

 

What a head wind pattern! 

 

Reminds me of the prisoner sentenced to death by shooting:

 

The executioner to the prisoner : 'Up against the wall!'

The prisoner to the executioner : 'There is no wall!'

The executioner to the prisoner : 'Then build one!'

Edited October 14 by John Hjorth

[thowed]

3 hours ago, Gregmal said:

Listen Warren is great and all, but if everyone decided they’d never take risks, hoard an obscene amount of cash most of the time, and then look to cash in when there’s “blood in the streets”, ie the majority of the system and those in it are hurting, I don’t think we d have ANY sort of innovations, ever. 

 

Fair dos, I was thinking more of younger Warren, where it felt like it was more calculated risk, though of course the Salad Oil thing could've always gone wrong.

 

Think Spek nailed it with 'You can be a genius and shill at the same time'.

 

And yes, in terms of innovation, I'm sure a fair bit of it happens by people taking stupid risks.  I suppose as long as that's clear to investors how much risk they're taking, then it's fair enough.

 

In addition - this thread is pretty rope-y now, and most people sound a bit cross & defensive on their views, and I don't think we're learning much...

Edited October 14 by thowed

[rohitc99]

I have been reading about edison and there are a lot of parallels between him and elon. One thing which stood out was that often a new technology needed hype and promise (aka vapor ware) to keep the interest going and capital flowing in. Edison did that with the electric bulb and was a showman.

 

Ofcourse charlatans do it too and hence its tough to differentiate in the begining. But as edison proved himself, the next time he made claims, people were ready to back him. 

 

often edison would claim his invention was working, while he was feverishly trying behind the scene to make it work

 

I agree with @rkbabang - there have very few, handful maybe of people who have pushed technology forward to this level and here elon is doing it in multiple fields and from a position of strength compared to someone like edison

 

I was hearing a podcast with jensen huang and Xai stood up a data centre of 100000 GPU in 19 days where as it takes 1-3 years to plan this kind of this and no one has gone beyond 30000 GPU till date

 

How much more evidence do we need that this guy makes stuff happen even if some of his moonshots fail or are delayed !

[DooDiligence]

[Longnose]

17 minutes ago, DooDiligence said:

LOL thanks for the laugh!

[rkbabang]

25 minutes ago, DooDiligence said:

 

 

Nice.  These are also good in the same genre 

 

 

[John Hjorth]

There are parts of Elon Musk's personality, that I would categorize as behavioral weaknesses. There has been at least one instance of letting a friend down, as an example.

 

Think poor Starman.

 

Me to ChatGPT : "How does Starman get his Tesla Roadster software updated?"

ChatGPT to me : "Starman, the mannequin inside the Tesla Roadster, launched by SpaceX doesn't receive software updates like a regular Tesla. The car was intended as a demonstration payload, and since it's in space, it won't be able to connect to Tesla's network for updates. Thus, it remains with the software it had at launch."

 

Imagine maneuvering in the Asteriod Belt or in the Kuiper Belt without regularly map updates, after being a bit 'overshot' by a friend. Now that is cruelty for a friend.

[UK]

7 hours ago, Dalal.Holdings said:

Like Jobs, you have to accept Elon the whole package.

 

7 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

You can be a genius and shill at the same time.

 

+1

[LC]

7 hours ago, rkbabang said:

Who are all these men?   In my lifetime (52 yrs) I can think of 3.   Bill Gates in the 80-90s, Steve Jobs 70s-2000s, and Elon Musk in the 2000s - 2020s. 

 

 

The majority of progress is a brutal push forward from thousands of people who I would gather most on this forum would argue are overpaid, worthless degree, career academics, blah blah blah.  

 

Martin Eberhard was the brains behind Tesla and the EV market in general. And of course his work was on the backs of hundreds, thousands of scientists and engineers before him. Elon Musk is a great salesman and industrialist - he took a proved technology and market - and married the two (and edged out the true founders as well - how shrewd). A true cynic would say he was simply in the right place at the right time. The story of Gates and Microsoft has similar themes. Not that these people were not smart - but let's not pretend Elon went from tinkering around with a soldering iron to inventing lithium batteries.

 

I guess my point is - it's easy to fall in love with personalities, less easy to attribute credit to the thousands of careers needed to develop and bring a revolutionary technology to market. 

 

People I think are real heroes? A good start are the scientists who discovered/invented human insulin, and then sold the patent for a dollar. Or Jonas Salk's famous "you cannot patent the sun". 

[Morgan]

There are a fair number of people in the world with at least $100m cash (this doesn’t even include entrepreneurs raising money). This is what was spent to build the first successful rocket. None of them have come remotely close to the accomplishments of SpaceX let alone any of Elon’s other companies. Bezos is the best competitor, having spent $1b+ (10x more) and has achieved very little. 
 

The common claim that Elon is an idiot and it’s the engineering teams that do everything; obviously he has huge and incredible teams, but Elon (and his teams) are able to produce the best results by far compared to every other single organization on the planet. 

[dealraker]

10 hours ago, rkbabang said:

 

 

Who are all these men?   In my lifetime (52 yrs) I can think of 3.   Bill Gates in the 80-90s, Steve Jobs 70s-2000s, and Elon Musk in the 2000s - 2020s.   I wouldn't put people who got rich by selling everyday items in a new way (Bezos or Dell) or trading stocks (Buffett or Munger) in the same category.

 

I'll close my posts here by simply stating that there is a stunning connection of who is the Richest with who is the dominant genius.  Oh these stock prices do have their say!

 

That fossil Buffett with his outdated words, something about mental and emotional stability.  How silly is that, we all want political and societal eruption these days...(just dont cut my benefits or guv revs and tax credits).

Edited October 15 by dealraker

[Luke]

4 hours ago, LC said:

 

The majority of progress is a brutal push forward from thousands of people who I would gather most on this forum would argue are overpaid, worthless degree, career academics, blah blah blah.  

 

Martin Eberhard was the brains behind Tesla and the EV market in general. And of course his work was on the backs of hundreds, thousands of scientists and engineers before him. Elon Musk is a great salesman and industrialist - he took a proved technology and market - and married the two (and edged out the true founders as well - how shrewd). A true cynic would say he was simply in the right place at the right time. The story of Gates and Microsoft has similar themes. Not that these people were not smart - but let's not pretend Elon went from tinkering around with a soldering iron to inventing lithium batteries.

 

I guess my point is - it's easy to fall in love with personalities, less easy to attribute credit to the thousands of careers needed to develop and bring a revolutionary technology to market. 

 

People I think are real heroes? A good start are the scientists who discovered/invented human insulin, and then sold the patent for a dollar. Or Jonas Salk's famous "you cannot patent the sun". 

Well said.

[UK]

A wealthiest man on earth who build several succesfull hard high tech businesses, did this not single handedly and without proper degree...what an imposter, what a shame:))

 

Btw: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-09/china-is-trying-to-rival-elon-musk-in-space

 

Again, I am not a fan of everything Elon does at all, but boy this tendency to see everyone or everything in eiter good or bad is so perplexing to me...a man or a thing can and usually is good and bad at the same time!

[Milu]

1 hour ago, UK said:

A wealthiest man on earth who build several succesfull hard high tech businesses, did this not single handedly and without proper degree...what an imposter, what a shame:))

 

Btw: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-09/china-is-trying-to-rival-elon-musk-in-space

 

Again, I am not a fan of everything Elon does at all, but boy this tendency to see everyone or everything in eiter good or bad is so perplexing to me...a man or a thing can and usually is good and bad at the same time!

Ya this seems to be a hard concept for people to grab. Steve Jobs didn't do the industrial design of the iphone, write the code for IOS, design the chips, battery technology etc. He also didn't have whatever degree seems to be needed by previous posters to be 'allowed' to do this. 

 

Must start adding a few more questions to my investment checklist going forward

- Does the CEO have the necessary Education Degree

- Did the CEO invent and design every component in the product themselves

 

In fact I think if Elon wants to legitimately run Space X he should get some PHDs in Physics, Chemistry, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering lest he be seen as a charlatan by some folk.

[Dalal.Holdings]

8 hours ago, LC said:

 

The majority of progress is a brutal push forward from thousands of people who I would gather most on this forum would argue are overpaid, worthless degree, career academics, blah blah blah.  

 

Martin Eberhard was the brains behind Tesla and the EV market in general. And of course his work was on the backs of hundreds, thousands of scientists and engineers before him. Elon Musk is a great salesman and industrialist - he took a proved technology and market - and married the two (and edged out the true founders as well - how shrewd). A true cynic would say he was simply in the right place at the right time. The story of Gates and Microsoft has similar themes. Not that these people were not smart - but let's not pretend Elon went from tinkering around with a soldering iron to inventing lithium batteries.

 

I guess my point is - it's easy to fall in love with personalities, less easy to attribute credit to the thousands of careers needed to develop and bring a revolutionary technology to market. 

 

People I think are real heroes? A good start are the scientists who discovered/invented human insulin, and then sold the patent for a dollar. Or Jonas Salk's famous "you cannot patent the sun". 

 

This is pretty easy to counter though. There are organizations with tons of talented engineers/employees that are rudderless and close to failure due to leadership that lacks vision/became way too complacent. Boeing, IBM, GE, Intel, NASA come to mind. Microsoft under Ballmer. Apple before Steve Jobs came back was nearly bankrupt.

 

It’s not enough to have a bunch of talented employees. You need someone with a bold vision and the ability to take risks and push through failure. As quoted from Isaacson’s book, all but one engineer said they shouldn’t catch the rocket and Elon overruled and went ahead with a plan to catch the rocket. A similar discussion probably took place earlier in SpaceX when it came to reusability. 

 

Other companies with talented engineers said rocket reusability was not realistic.

 

Trusting a committee of experts to steer the ship will mean no innovation, no risk taking, and often rule by consensus which just doesn’t work. The U.S. gov’t has an executive branch for a reason and is not steered by Congress. Warren makes his own investment decisions and does not have a team of analysts doing the thinking for him.

 

Edited October 15 by Dalal.Holdings

[rkbabang]

8 minutes ago, Dalal.Holdings said:

This is pretty easy to counter though. There are organizations with tons of talented engineers/employees that are rudderless and close to failure due to leadership that lacks vision/became way too complacent. Boeing, IBM, GE, Intel, NASA come to mind.

Exactly. Boeing has an extremely talented workforce.  I’d bet if Boing and SpaceX swapped management today. SpaceX would go down hill and Boing would be doing miraculous things within a decade. It isn’t because Musk found all the smart engineers and no other company has any.

[Luke]

34 minutes ago, rkbabang said:

Exactly. Boeing has an extremely talented workforce.  I’d bet if Boing and SpaceX swapped management today. SpaceX would go down hill and Boing would be doing miraculous things within a decade. It isn’t because Musk found all the smart engineers and no other company has any.

Thats a very low bar you are setting. Doesnt take a "genius" to turn that company around from the shitter management this company had. And you are probably right, Elon can manage companies well but he is not a genius scientist that pushes the innovation these companies put out. Thats the entire point. He deserves credit where its due. Now on to discussing starship test launch! 

[LC]

2 hours ago, Dalal.Holdings said:

There are organizations with tons of talented engineers/employees that are rudderless and close to failure due to leadership that lacks vision/became way too complacent

 

Innovation and industry are two different things and take different skills to succeed.

 

The term I would use is industrialist. Elon Musk is a great industrialist. But his success is not due to innovation or genius - I would say circumstance and his own cunning play a larger role. 

 

I mean - removing middle management? Providing strong leadership to an organization? This is not innovation, but it is certainly very difficult to succeed in doing (look to Citi for how difficult it is).

 

My only point is that labelling Musk brilliant or genius I think is off-base. Strong willed? Cunning? Ruthless? Absolutely. Coincidentally these are skills he has in common with Trump - not shocking they are in bed together. 

[Dalal.Holdings]

23 minutes ago, LC said:

 

Innovation and industry are two different things and take different skills to succeed.

 

The term I would use is industrialist. Elon Musk is a great industrialist. But his success is not due to innovation or genius - I would say circumstance and his own cunning play a larger role. 

 

I mean - removing middle management? Providing strong leadership to an organization? This is not innovation, but it is certainly very difficult to succeed in doing (look to Citi for how difficult it is).

 

My only point is that labelling Musk brilliant or genius I think is off-base. Strong willed? Cunning? Ruthless? Absolutely. Coincidentally these are skills he has in common with Trump - not shocking they are in bed together. 

 

Makes no sense to me to not call Elon an innovator because reusable rockets that land upright is a major innovation that only exists because of Musk. Similar to iPhone under Jobs.

 

Yeah, the engineers worked to make it happen as well, but without Musk, it would not be here today simple as that. Unlike Jobs, Musk even put up his on capital from Paypal to make it happen so he was the early investor/chief engineer/innovator all rolled in one.

 

Anyway, it’s not my job to convince anyone on here. I know what the history books will say.