Elon Musk didn't build that

[Axulus]

Plenty of companies sell cheaper, as capable products like Apple.

Now, but in the yearly days Apple was kinda alone in the market.

Who does likewise with electric cars?

Nobody for now.
And again I was talking about technology, Both iPhone and tesla use ordinary tech just nicely packaged.
And that home battery from tesla is actually garbage because for practical home use there are better battery chemistries than the same one they use in cars.

Where can I buy a product comparable to the performance and reliability of a Tesla in a less nice package?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

He did Paypal. That is why he is rich. Tesla and the like are his hobbies.

He didn't build PayPal either. That was created by  Confinity.

The $4.5 billion was about his other hobby ventures, not how he got so wealthy.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Plenty of companies sell cheaper, as capable products like Apple.

Now, but in the yearly days Apple was kinda alone in the market.

Blackberry would disagree.

Who does likewise with electric cars?

Nobody for now.
And again I was talking about technology, Both iPhone and tesla use ordinary tech just nicely packaged.

Tesla is the only company I'm aware of that sells an electric car with a 200+ mile range. No one comes close to that. The other players are fighting around 100 miles still. And they have a modestly affordable version as well. Still over $50k, but not too shabby.

And that home battery from tesla is actually garbage because for practical home use there are better battery chemistries than the same one they use in cars.

I'll have to take your word for that.

 

[ronburgundy]

http://angrybearblog.com/2015/06/elon-musk-has-received-billions-in-subsidies.html



Just putting that out here.

"Self-made" billionaire Elon Musk.

He did Paypal. That is why he is rich. Tesla and the like are his hobbies.

Not quite. He did X.com which was an email payment program that was then bought-out (i.e., eliminated as competition) by another company that already had Paypal. He made billions off of Paypal, but really had little to do with it or its success. He was able to start X.com with the millions he got from the sale of his first company Zip2, which I think maintained lists of local businesses on media websites, allowing for things like pop-up ads for a local business even though the user on the NYT website. He was able to start that first company because his dad gave him $30,000, and only had the knowledge and skills to start such a company because he was handed a world class education and one of the world's first personal computers in 1981, when he was 10 years old.

OK, he didn't do it by himself. Thread over?

So long as we can declare the death of the silly mythical notion of the self-made rich, almost all whom would never have gotten rich without being handed significant wealth and/or opportunities that few other people have. While we are at it, we should declare death to the myth that they were especially wise in the way they made use of those fortunate advantages, since very often is a matter of factors outside their control whether their investments led to millions, or just a modest living, or a total loss. IOW, take the same man with that same $30k his father gave him, change a few critical events that were outside his control leading to his first company being bought out by Alta-Vista, and he'd likely be upper-middle class just like the family he was born into.

 

[barbos]

Now, but in the yearly days Apple was kinda alone in the market.

Who does likewise with electric cars?

Nobody for now.
And again I was talking about technology, Both iPhone and tesla use ordinary tech just nicely packaged.
And that home battery from tesla is actually garbage because for practical home use there are better battery chemistries than the same one they use in cars.

Where can I buy a product comparable to the performance and reliability of a Tesla in a less nice package?

Nissan Leaf?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

He did Paypal. That is why he is rich. Tesla and the like are his hobbies.

Not quite. He did X.com which was an email payment program that was then bought-out (i.e., eliminated as competition) by another company that already had Paypal. He made billions off of Paypal, but really had little to do with it or its success. He was able to start X.com with the millions he got from the sale of his first company Zip2, which I think maintained lists of local businesses on media websites, allowing for things like pop-up ads for a local business even though the user on the NYT website. He was able to start that first company because his dad gave him $30,000, and only had the knowledge and skills to start such a company because he was handed a world class education and one of the world's first personal computers in 1981, when he was 10 years old.

I'm certainly not claiming there is no help. I was more responding that he didn't become wealthy because of the billions he received in Federal money.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Now, but in the yearly days Apple was kinda alone in the market.

Who does likewise with electric cars?

Nobody for now.
And again I was talking about technology, Both iPhone and tesla use ordinary tech just nicely packaged.
And that home battery from tesla is actually garbage because for practical home use there are better battery chemistries than the same one they use in cars.

Where can I buy a product comparable to the performance and reliability of a Tesla in a less nice package?

Nissan Leaf?

Leaf < 90 miles, Tesla > 250 miles. You can't take a Leaf cross country. With a Tesla it is possible. The Leaf is a great car, certain, and more affordable, but it has a leash on it.

 

[barbos]

Now, but in the yearly days Apple was kinda alone in the market.

Who does likewise with electric cars?

Nobody for now.
And again I was talking about technology, Both iPhone and tesla use ordinary tech just nicely packaged.
And that home battery from tesla is actually garbage because for practical home use there are better battery chemistries than the same one they use in cars.

Where can I buy a product comparable to the performance and reliability of a Tesla in a less nice package?

Nissan Leaf?

Leaf < 90 miles, Tesla > 250 miles. You can't take a Leaf cross country. With a Tesla it is possible. The Leaf is a great car, certain, and more affordable, but it has a leash on it.

Again, from engineering point of view tesla is nothing remarkable.
From a business point of view it is remarkable however. Well,considering utter lack of desire on the part of established companies to compete with Tesla.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Now, but in the yearly days Apple was kinda alone in the market.

Who does likewise with electric cars?

Nobody for now.
And again I was talking about technology, Both iPhone and tesla use ordinary tech just nicely packaged.
And that home battery from tesla is actually garbage because for practical home use there are better battery chemistries than the same one they use in cars.

Where can I buy a product comparable to the performance and reliability of a Tesla in a less nice package?

Nissan Leaf?

Leaf < 90 miles, Tesla > 250 miles. You can't take a Leaf cross country. With a Tesla it is possible. The Leaf is a great car, certain, and more affordable, but it has a leash on it.

Again, from engineering point of view tesla is nothing remarkable.
From a business point of view it is remarkable however. Well,considering utter lack of desire on the part of established companies to compete with Tesla.

How is that difference in range between charges "nothing remarkable" from an engineering point of view? That seems like a remarkable improvement over comparable technology to me.

 

[barbos]

Now, but in the yearly days Apple was kinda alone in the market.

Who does likewise with electric cars?

Nobody for now.
And again I was talking about technology, Both iPhone and tesla use ordinary tech just nicely packaged.
And that home battery from tesla is actually garbage because for practical home use there are better battery chemistries than the same one they use in cars.

Where can I buy a product comparable to the performance and reliability of a Tesla in a less nice package?

Nissan Leaf?

Leaf < 90 miles, Tesla > 250 miles. You can't take a Leaf cross country. With a Tesla it is possible. The Leaf is a great car, certain, and more affordable, but it has a leash on it.

Again, from engineering point of view tesla is nothing remarkable.
From a business point of view it is remarkable however. Well,considering utter lack of desire on the part of established companies to compete with Tesla.

How is that difference in range between charges "nothing remarkable" from an engineering point of view? That seems like a remarkable improvement over comparable technology to me.

Putting bigger battery is not remarkable in my book.

 

[KeepTalking]

Musk is still doing it and is the main driving force behind the projects, regardless of whether he gets public funding to help him along.

There would be no projects without public funding.

Without public funding it would be Elon who?

No, Elon Musk would still be the guy who got rich by selling PayPal to eBay.

 

[dismal]

He didn't build PayPal either. That was created by  Confinity.

Damn, I really thought he built something.

It seems he's built a clever new way of getting himself into the ownership structure of companies that at some point are worth a lot of money. If he's built this while also being a shiftless loser and the companies involved produce inferior crap, it's actually more impressive.

 

[KeepTalking]

I'm just wondering why this thread is titled "Elon Musk didn't build that". As far as I know he has never made the claim that he built any of his companies with no help from anyone.

 

[Axulus]

Now, but in the yearly days Apple was kinda alone in the market.

Who does likewise with electric cars?

Nobody for now.
And again I was talking about technology, Both iPhone and tesla use ordinary tech just nicely packaged.
And that home battery from tesla is actually garbage because for practical home use there are better battery chemistries than the same one they use in cars.

Where can I buy a product comparable to the performance and reliability of a Tesla in a less nice package?

Nissan Leaf?

You mean the leaf that has 107 net horsepower vs. Tesla model S's 302?

 

[Frikki]

Now, but in the yearly days Apple was kinda alone in the market.

Who does likewise with electric cars?

Nobody for now.
And again I was talking about technology, Both iPhone and tesla use ordinary tech just nicely packaged.
And that home battery from tesla is actually garbage because for practical home use there are better battery chemistries than the same one they use in cars.

Where can I buy a product comparable to the performance and reliability of a Tesla in a less nice package?

Nissan Leaf?

Leaf < 90 miles, Tesla > 250 miles. You can't take a Leaf cross country. With a Tesla it is possible. The Leaf is a great car, certain, and more affordable, but it has a leash on it.

Again, from engineering point of view tesla is nothing remarkable.
From a business point of view it is remarkable however. Well,considering utter lack of desire on the part of established companies to compete with Tesla.

How is that difference in range between charges "nothing remarkable" from an engineering point of view? That seems like a remarkable improvement over comparable technology to me.

Putting bigger battery is not remarkable in my book.

Can you name one available, mass produced, remarkable product?

 

[Bronzeage]

http://angrybearblog.com/2015/06/elon-musk-has-received-billions-in-subsidies.html



Just putting that out here.

"Self-made" billionaire Elon Musk.

He did Paypal. That is why he is rich. Tesla and the like are his hobbies.

Of course, Paypal is a natural product of the internet, so Elon can't claim that, either.

Elon is that most wretched of creatures, the renegade rich guy. He can't be content to bitch about taxes on the rich and how Obamacare will make pizzas cost more. If that weren't bad enough, he makes an electric car. A fucking electric car, of all things.

It's like Warren Buffet telling people his secretary is in a higher tax bracket than him. If there is one thing conservatives have always counted on, it was the solidarity of the rich. When one billionaire starts saying things like the emperor is naked, they get nervous, because the emperor really is naked.

 

[arkirk]

There would be no projects without public funding.

Without public funding it would be Elon who?

No, Elon Musk would still be the guy who got rich by selling PayPal to eBay.

So far, it looks like Musk's stuff is for the haves only. I am equally unimpressed as Barbos. I feel our technological age has created a lot of people who are extremely dependent on technology out of a box and who would feel very deprived if they had to live without any of it. We have very seriously strained our relationship to the ecosystems that support us and have generally lost track of our relationship to our world. It is as if we have forgotten we are living things, dependent on the same air as the insects and the trees. Everybody steps aside and curtsies for the 250 mile per charge car and the four gig cell phone. None of these things will alter our physical dependence on our environment. Guys like Jobs and Musk wear Madison Avenue halos and distract us with their gifts. In the end, they are just gifts of limited significance.

 

[ronburgundy]

Not quite. He did X.com which was an email payment program that was then bought-out (i.e., eliminated as competition) by another company that already had Paypal. He made billions off of Paypal, but really had little to do with it or its success. He was able to start X.com with the millions he got from the sale of his first company Zip2, which I think maintained lists of local businesses on media websites, allowing for things like pop-up ads for a local business even though the user on the NYT website. He was able to start that first company because his dad gave him $30,000, and only had the knowledge and skills to start such a company because he was handed a world class education and one of the world's first personal computers in 1981, when he was 10 years old.

I'm certainly not claiming there is no help. I was more responding that he didn't become wealthy because of the billions he received in Federal money.

Understood, I just wanted to clarify that he didn't really "do paypal", so much as get rich off of the work of those that did and who gave him a stake as part of buying out their competitors. And its important to trace his ability to start that company and his first one back to the massive and uncommon advantages and wealth he was handed from birth through the funds given to start his first company.


As to the Fed subsidies, they might be good investments. In fact, the fact that Musk is already so rich might be a good thing for those investments, if it means that he is so rich that his first goal will not be developing tech that makes him richer, but tech that most benefits society, which are most often not the same thing. If we categorize tech that can make the most personal profit for select individuals, then categorize tech that can be best used to solve various social problems, the two categories will only have modest overlap. So, if Musk is not trying to optimize his profits, he has a better chance of optimizing societal benefits.
Of course, one way to ensure that benefit would be to make the subsidies contingent upon limits to the private ownership and control of the resulting tech, intellectual property rights, etc.. IF Musk is sincerely trying to optimize solutions to social problems, he would agree to that since the more freely available the tech, the more positive impact it would have.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Now, but in the yearly days Apple was kinda alone in the market.

Who does likewise with electric cars?

Nobody for now.
And again I was talking about technology, Both iPhone and tesla use ordinary tech just nicely packaged.
And that home battery from tesla is actually garbage because for practical home use there are better battery chemistries than the same one they use in cars.

Where can I buy a product comparable to the performance and reliability of a Tesla in a less nice package?

Nissan Leaf?

You mean the leaf that has 107 net horsepower vs. Tesla model S's 302?

Stanley Steamer is the way to go.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_car
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Motor_Carriage_Company

 

[Tom Sawyer]

How is that difference in range between charges "nothing remarkable" from an engineering point of view? That seems like a remarkable improvement over comparable technology to me.

Putting bigger battery is not remarkable in my book.

Nor would it be in anybody's book, but this thread is about Tesla's battery. Getting about 50% better performance for about 2/3rds of the cost is a fairly significant improvement.

http://www.torquenews.com/2250/what-makes-tesla-s-batteries-so-great