Post: #51

(08-17-2018 11:52 AM)Abelard Lindsey Wrote:  I think Tesla is the next Theranos. I think it will fail within the next 6 to 12 months and Musk will go the same way as Delorean. I suspect the reason why SpaceX is doing so well in comparison to Tesla is that Musk is not involved in the day to day operation of SpaceX. The rocket engineers have been given pretty much free rein to do what they need to do to develop low cost space transportation and are doing so by doing essentially what my friends and I came up with as the proper strategy over 20 years ago. That is to stick with conventional rocket technology and focus on making the first stage reusable, followed by the second stage, all the while improving the manufacturing technology in making the rockets. The other reason why I think SpaceX is doing so well compared to Tesla is because, paradoxically, I think it easier to develop and manufacture reusable rockets than it is to make a reliable car as consumer product and manufacture millions of them to exacting standards. Making rockets from a manufacturing standpoint can possibly be easier because you're making only one or two of them at a time and are not trying to get the per unit cost (cost of good sold) down to a fine level. From a cost standpoint, there is way more "slop" to play with.

Remember that Musk, personally, is a marketing guy with some IT skills. His claim to fame was being one of the principles in Paypal where he was the marketing guy. Peter Thiel was the technical brain behind paypal and was their overall "brain" behind the outfit. Musk is a bright guy. But he does not personally have the engineering and technical experience or knowledge to understand the issues and processes of making an electric car or developing a reusable rocket. If Musk is falling apart its because he is way in over his head with his various companies, especially Tesla.

Glad to hear someone say it. I've thought for years this guy was ...underwhelming. More fluff than substance. A great self-promoter. Like Richard Branson, who's been selling seats on Virgin Galactac's "first tourist space flight" for YEARS...every year, commercial launch is "right around the corner!!"...but it never happens...and idiots keep putting their $100,000 deposits right into Sir Richard's pocket ...lol...meanwhile, THIS is the closest they've come: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=vir...ORM=VRDGAR

Too many millennials are smitten with Musk...i remember reading some twit's tweet that said "Someday, we'll look back and laugh that there was a time that people doubted Elon Musk or bitcoin".

That's the most millennial tweet i've ever seen. The people who believe either of those bet money on Conor McGregor to beat Floyd Mayweather...AT HIS OWN SPORT!! Which WASN'T McGregor's sport! And still the 'tards believed. Same people.

Tesla, like most founder-led businesses, can be a challenge to work at. Musk is a tin-horn tyrant given to whimsy and emotional volatility. Working for him is like working for Trump or, dare I say it, Steve Jobs. Jobs was brilliant and successful...but a complete asshole! My fave Steve Jobs story:

http://vanshardware.com/2010/07/the-lege...teve-jobs/

Not sure if true or not. But if not, it's based on the fact that Jobs WAS an ass who fired people on a whim. People who had families and kids tuition payments and mortgages. And he ruined their lives on a whim. Glad cancer ate him. Wish it was slower and more painful. Wish the same for all the megalomaniacal, turbulent, volatile a-hole bosses out there. At most companies, a CEO can't be a tyrant - there's a Board of Directors to answer to, and they have voting Shareholders to answer to, etc. The system constrains bad behavior, at least to a degree. But when the CEO and the Board and the Shareholders are all ONE man...he starts to think he's Louis XIII and shouts "Off with his head!!" every time someone is insufficiently amusing. Guys like that can all get cancer, as far as I'm concerned.

Never work for a founder-led company.

Post: #52

< Founder-led companies where the founder owns 100% of the company can be the most tyrannical.

Ultimately it depends on the person - if you have had character flaws before then those get massively reinforced. My experiences with this were semi-bad and with one company benign. But that is wholly dependent on the character raw material - very nice guys do make somewhat acceptable bosses. Steve Jobs certainly was not one of them - though as Don Johnson put it whether fame has changed him: "No - I am the same asshole I was before."

Post: #53

Imagine doing acid when you are maybe the single biggest driving factor towards putting Man on Mars.

A brain can't process things like that.

There is a lot to admire about the man, but he has not mastered the art of incorporation.

If you're going to do many big things, you have to trust big things to other people. The guy doesn't have confidence in the people around him. The real game lesson is about how he built his social circle of professionals.

His professional relationships seem cracked and it looks like he is trying to over-alpha things. He's trying to do everything and take on insane hours and then bitch to people about said hours (indicating he either isn't really doing those hours, or, more likely, he is not handling those hours well).

That's analogous to the boyfriend checking every text his main girl sends. Either have faith that the job can be done when you aren't around, or don't lie to yourself that the job can be done at all. He's unrealistic about his abilities.

Post: #54

Everyone seems to be taking the words of this woman at face value...

There are lots of vested interests out there desperate for Tesla to fail...

Post: #55

Tesla was not founded by Elon Musk. He had nothing to do with its founding. Musk was an early investor. Tesla was founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhart and Marc Tarpenning. Eberhart was Tesla'a first CEO from 2003-07. Eberhart was fired as CEO and after two other CEO"s Musk became CEO in October 2008.

Post: #56

(08-18-2018 02:46 AM)Simeon_Strangelight Wrote:  But him being on the "Down Spectrum" - hehe - he is highly intelligent, as for Down Spectrum - Azelea Banks is closer to it if there were such a thing.

Actually, I think Musk should start a band and call it Down Syndrome Spectrum.

Post: #57

Post: #58

Everybody is flawed. Hopefully he'll recover and find his way.

And that chick is a crazy racist bitch. I'm sure karma will eventually smash her to pieces like a freight train.

Post: #59

Musk-haters either have a financial incentive (short position, or in fossil fuel/car industries). Or they are jealous – everyone has at least a partial feeling of sour grapes towards people that are extremely successful (e.g. Musk started world's largest payments company, PayPal, and numerous others). This "sour grapes" mentality is becoming more and more popular with millennial workers. Many of the #MeToo cases were women who were loser employees who got overlooked for a promotion so they took down the whole ship with them. Jealous losers.

The media weaponized these sentiments against Musk to generate clicks. Very similar to what they're doing with Trump – misleading hit pieces, sensational headlines, etc.

How does hating on Musk make the world better? Wouldn't we rather have people that try stupid things and fail, than people be bullied & shamed into never doing anything new?

Post: #60

(08-17-2018 10:00 PM)Jetset Wrote:  

(08-17-2018 05:44 PM)Going strong Wrote:  Apparently, she considers that White people, with their disgusting "thin, not fully-human lips", are "mutant" and must have evolved from a stupid, "inbred" and forlorn tribe of cavemen out of the Caucasus.

In fairness, she specified that Musk comes from a second group who crawled out of the caves 15,000 years later than regular Caucasians.

In other words, he's descended from retarded cavemen, even by caveman standards.

It's actually a pretty sick burn.

Anyway, it's a WHB situation, and I'll shamefully admit that I'd be tempted to place my "thin, hardly-human lips" onto some plump, juicy private parts of her, and go full pre(post?)-Caveman with her in bed - But, fear of strange diseases would probably rein me in, thanks God!



That would in any case make a nice thread for our Game sub-forum here: "Pre-Caveman game, unleash 15.000 years more of your caveman instincts"

(edited as Elon Musk hasn't been in charge of Paypal for a long time now)

Post: #61

(08-18-2018 03:23 AM)The Father Wrote:  Never work for a founder-led company.

Not all founders are assholes but they're usually not qualified to run a company in its cruise phase. (Note that Martin Eberhard was really the original CEO and he got the boot because he was deemed a lightweight, unfit to take the company to the next level. Would be interesting to hear what he has to say about recent goings-on.)

The difference between Jobs and Musk is that Jobs had a wander-through-the-desert stage where he manned up. Musk has had some near-misses but hasn't been truly humbled. He is also surrounded by a cult-like fanbase and so he thinks his shit don't stink. And yet every now and then he does a Barbara Walters style interview where he gets all weepy-eyed pining for sympathy.


"I've been working 120 hour weeks and almost missed my brother's wedding."

Then he snaps back into braggadocio mode.

"How does hating on Musk make the world better?"

The problem with Musk is really the problem with the investor community in general. Tesla is a one-ticker-symbol bubble phenomenon feuled by mythmaking and emotionalism. People jump on the bandwagon and before you know it tens of billions have been put into the hands of someone based on a perception of their larger-than-life qualities. It's the same sort of thing that powers tinpot dictators. It's a problem of human nature.

A lot of more worthy but less visible people toil away in obscurity while Musk pisses away money not knowing how to build cars with bumpers that don't fall off. For anyone who busts their ass on the basis of business being a meritocracy, we have reason to want Musk to be held accountable for mistakes and not be coddled.

This falls in line with Theranos as well as Marissa Mayer at Yahoo and Kathleen Kennedy's mismanagement of Star Wars.

It sucks seeing people be given so much power and money and then blow it.

Post: #62

Simply put - Musk as zero idea about heavy industry - ESPECIALLY the automotive business - and doesn't have the humility to accept help when it was offered (Toyota).

Preston Tucker got taken behind the woodshed by the SEC for doing things far more tame than Musk is doing right now with Tesla.

Cars are not cell phones. And maybe upper middle-class high-income trendsetters who want to flaunt the latest and greatest can afford to be beta testers with their cobbled-together ugly as fuck Model X because they have other cars in the household, but people who buy $30k cars - of which Tesla has not delivered a single Model 3 of that introductory price, by the way - it is often their only car.

The tech behind Teslas is great. Impressive in aspects. But all that revolutionary tech means little when you can't do simple shit like get panel gaps to be even or install weatherstripping correctly or have backlights that aren't warped and distorted or all-in-one command screens that brick or handle basic ergos like having to drill down three menus to activate intermittent windshield wipers. They purged all the veteran auto industry people in their organization and it shows. The Model S was close to being a production car; the Model X was Musk-led and junk because of it. Cool Falcon Doors - they don't work half the time. Also, the windscreens blow out for no reason. Nice car, Elon.

And the autonomous car tech? Here's a hint - don't call it AutoPilot because your misinformed general public will think its literally that. Again, beta testing with software is one thing because your medium is contained to a device. But unleash something like AutoPilot to an uncontrolled environment like the real world and look what happens. Compare and contrast with GM's SuperCruise - far more restrictive but something I would actually trust. Accurate LIDAR-mapped control-accessed freeway usage under certain parameters with visual cue monitoring and feedback sensors along with sensor-fused seat warnings versus AutoPilot's "fuck it...ya'll figure it out" methodology.

Tesla is a 9 year-old Tier I supplier trying to be a manufacturer. Can't wait for it to fail. All the hubris is going to be delicious.

Post: #63

(08-18-2018 11:21 AM)Going strong Wrote:  

(08-17-2018 10:00 PM)Jetset Wrote:  

(08-17-2018 05:44 PM)Going strong Wrote:  Apparently, she considers that White people, with their disgusting "thin, not fully-human lips", are "mutant" and must have evolved from a stupid, "inbred" and forlorn tribe of cavemen out of the Caucasus.

In fairness, she specified that Musk comes from a second group who crawled out of the caves 15,000 years later than regular Caucasians.

In other words, he's descended from retarded cavemen, even by caveman standards.

It's actually a pretty sick burn.

Anyway, it's a WHB situation, and I'll shamefully admit that I'd be tempted to place my "thin, hardly-human lips" onto some plump, juicy private parts of her, and go full pre(post?)-Caveman with her in bed - But, fear of strange diseases would probably rein me in, thanks God!



That would in any case make a nice thread for our Game sub-forum here: "Pre-Caveman game, unleash 15.000 years more of your caveman instincts"

(edited as Elon Musk hasn't been in charge of Paypal for a long time now)

These pics do a good job of hiding that Banks actually has a very harsh face. Not so hot in the 212 video.

Post: #64

The Tesla Store in Boston was at the Boylston Street entrance to the former Prudential food court now Mario Batali "Eataly".

Very slick store with a Tesla Chassis and 4 wheels and one Actual Tesla sporty looking 2 door sedan - again very slick styling.

One day I order an Uber and what shows up a sporty looking reddish Tesla... so I try to get in the passenger side and some guy dressed like Steve Jobs - black mock turtleneck and jeans was driving.

I had to bend my neck hard to the right to get in and felt a shock of nerve pain and a crook in my neck the rest of the week.

No such problems in a Vette or Lambo or Ferrarri or any American 4WD SUV or Truck.

Noticed a newer Chevy Volt yesterday with a kool almost crossover stance and plenty of head and leg room. Plus the Chevy write up on the Volt is that it is an electric drive care with essentially an auxiliary Gas generator to recharge the batteries and drive the electric engine if on long-distance highway trips so you don't have to be worried about a low battery leaving you stranded in the hood or boondocks.

Plus people who own Volts rave about the quiet city rides and great mileage and almost never having to refill the engines like once every 500+ miles or so.

Professionally Designed Chevy Volt that is comfortable reliable and works or Cult of Personality electric-only vehicle that requires special charging stations and literally hurts to get in or out of if a normal sized German Viking Celt American male.

I do admire the Styling of the Tesla however for objective reasons stated a practical person who has not drunk the Jobs-Musk cult of personality tech virtue bragging kool-aid will never buy one. This company like all tech fails will be bought up by a major real car company for pennies on the dollar to own the brands, manufacturing facilities, tooling and any proprietary tech or patents that have not expired yet.

Plus the recent Musk lead conference call where he personally really disrespected the analysts listening in - these are not Tech Journo schmucks these are guys who make direct investment decisions on behalf of major institutional investors think the largest Mutual Funds, Pension Funds and Hedge funds and if you can not answer their professional direct questions about the companies future direction and financial performance in a polite confident and professionally prepared manner you set off more red flags than some sexy slore with a Drug Stores worth of psychotropic meds in her Medicine Cabinet.

A normal sane guy gets the hell out of there. A risk-taking former Nuke Boats combat systems diver and driver like me picks her up takes her for a spin - tests drive the hell out of her with a few pump and dump bangs along the way and dumps her back off where he picked her up no worse for the wear for her roomies to deal with.

Tesla is the metaphorical her in this scenario and if the Financial Analysts following you are not issuing strong buy recommendations about you they are telling their bosses and friends at the golf club or bar to PUMP AND DUMP THE PHOCK out of her (Tesla).

Its like the Guy at the Croc Farm who likes to show off like its a petting zoo and feeds the crocs and gators by hand rather than with a long feeding pole... you can feed them by hand hundreds of time but eventually that one time they get faster than you WHAM your dumb ass is on the menu.

When people buy stocks they buy in small amounts dollar cost averaging and stage in as the stock's performance improves over the next few quarters proving out their investment thesis and reasons for buying the stock it is likened to walking up stairs.

However when disappointing performance starts to look like a tsunami of red ink losses the normal reaction is to sell at market for whatever they can get or take put options that are profitable all the way down to hedge their positions - likened to taking the express elevator down!!! I could be wrong - now the fate of Tesla rests in whether or not Elon Musk's Tweet about taking Tesla Private at $420.00 per share - financing secured was true. I hope for his employees and their families he was not blowing magic smoke up the SECs and major shareholders asses or this will be one of the most dramatic Big Shorts since the mortgage-backed securities fiasco of 2008/09 with Musk doing a long vacation at Club Fed if lucky.

Post: #65

(08-18-2018 01:35 PM)Deepdiver Wrote:  One day I order an Uber and what shows up a sporty looking reddish Tesla...

Owning a $60000 car, yet using it for Uber...

Post: #66

(08-18-2018 07:29 AM)Long Haired Samson Wrote:  Tesla was not founded by Elon Musk. He had nothing to do with its founding. Musk was an early investor. Tesla was founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhart and Marc Tarpenning. Eberhart was Tesla'a first CEO from 2003-07. Eberhart was fired as CEO and after two other CEO"s Musk became CEO in October 2008.

Thank you for the background; I did not know that. But the principle remains the same: He is the CEO, controlling shareholder, and by virtue of the latter controls the Board of Directors. I.e., any "checks and balances" that constrain bad behavior are relaxed. Can you imagine if Trump had the power of the Presidency, Congress and Supreme Court all at once?? He'd be a dictator. He'd have people executed on the spot. Like Rosie O'Donnell. (OK well maybe THAT would be alright, but for the most part, it was be an extremely oppressive society to live in...)

A better choice of words might have been "Don't work for a company whose CEO also has a controlling ownership stake"...that's more of a mouthful than "founder-led", though...

Post: #67

(08-18-2018 11:35 AM)questor70 Wrote:  

(08-18-2018 03:23 AM)The Father Wrote:  Never work for a founder-led company.

Not all founders are assholes but they're usually not qualified to run a company in its cruise phase.

That's a very good distinction: The skills that it takes to a get a company from $0 revenue to $5MM are a fair bit different than the skills needed to get it from $5MM to $1B, and VERY different than the skills needed as it goes from $1B in revenue to $50B.

And the people that work there are different: If you're working in a company with $0 revenue, you are either VERY young in your career and can take a flyer (because companies like that typically can't pay as well as more established companies, or offer the benefits bigger companies do). Also, you may have sweat equity in the place, so even if he shoots you, you have some shares. AND, at that stage of the company, the founder needs you as much or more than you need him, so he is less likely to fire people willy-nilly.

But when the company is in a mature phase, the people who work there often have families to support, mortgages to pay. It's often a different breed of cat. And there are a lot of them. You shouldn't toy with thousands of people's lives. It's arrogant and disrespectful. Yet that's what Jobs and Trump and others used to do. That apprentice line where Trump constantly shouts "You're Fired! You're fired! And YOU'RE fired!"....you think they wrote that for the show? No way. Talk to people who knew him when he was just a New York business person, not a politician. That was his M.O.! The other thing people i know who worked with him say he always said, like 10X a day, is "OK THEN I'M SUING YOU!!".

Frankly, i'm surprised you don't read in the news more stories about a tin-pot tyrant dictator who fires someone on a whim, like Jobs used to do, but one time fires the wrong guy. And that guy carves him up into little pieces while he's still breathing. If that happened more, people like Trump, Musk, Jobs (and many more less well -known creeps i could name here) might behave with a little more humility. I rarely hear that story. But boy i'd like to!

Post: #68

(08-18-2018 02:24 PM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

(08-18-2018 01:35 PM)Deepdiver Wrote:  One day I order an Uber and what shows up a sporty looking reddish Tesla...

Owning a $60000 car, yet using it for Uber...

The bank owns it - virtue signaling doesn't pay.

While I respect Elon Musk to some degree, I am simply not buying this personality cult.

Not only are his global warming scam motivated companies co-financed by the taxpayer, but I simply don't buy his "infallible" super-genius myth that is being pushed:




"The greatest living inventor" - yeah right.

This bootlicking of businessmen has a long history ever since Rockefeller let workers be shot, but then returned a couple months later after a successful PR campaign to see the serfs bow down to him low.

I am not even a car expert and I know that his electric company could not even replicate making a car on the level of the old GM one from the 1990s:





GM back then scrapped all cars refusing to leave even one intact model alive despite massive interest.

In addition I know that in Europe there are multiple companies transforming your VW Passat or Mercedes into electric cars. They use it by rather cheapish batteries for 5000-25.000$. The 25.000$ transformation will give you a range of 500-600 miles!!! And it will do so without the risk of getting burned to a crisp in one of the famous Tesla spradic combustion incidents:



So to recapitulate - Tesla cannot make a car as good as the one created by GM engineers over 25 years ago:



And it cannot even compete with small companies transforming normal cars into electric ones as a cost-cutting measure (it's mostly small and mid-tier companies which are ordering those transformations - local delivery ones etc.)

https://www.ecap-mobility.com/de/ecap.html



So if much smaller companies can do it, why can't Tesla with their billions of subsidies? I would rather buy myself an Electric Delorean than a Tesla. My buddy owned one and I was not impressed as even the quality in that price range could not be compared to a Porsche or better.

Comparing him to Theranos is only fair in terms of the hype that surrounded him. Maybe he should ask the small electric car-transformation companies for advice.

Post: #69

(08-17-2018 11:30 AM)Roosh Wrote:  Currently, Musk is dating pop singer Grimes, the rebound after his relationship with Amber Heard. Grimes looks a bit alternative.

... snip....

Looks like his ambition caused him to do too much. Will Grimes stay with him? Doubtful. Maybe he should have stayed with his original wife.

Bitch sounds like she's in love!

She's giddy with abandon.

And extra salty about not getting double pumped by her two favorite would be whore-masters.

Rejection is a cruel mistress. Cuts like a knife.

At least it's not a publicity stunt.


"Cracker".

Er? Come again?

CRACKER?

I hope Tuthmosis isn't reading this as I know he frowns upon text speak, but can I get a "LOL"?

Seriously?

Cracker?


I want to believe...


I also find it hard to swallow that she was there for three days before she realized they were not turning up and probably on holiday in Brazil.

Is she fucking autistic?


Nope deffo not a publicity stunt.

As we dive deeper in to clown world, and (((they))) realise they have to amuse us in ever more interesting ways, having almost used up the whole playbook of 'funny stories', at least they are getting a bit more outrageous and inventive with their bullshit.

I approve.

Only hoping it turns in to a serious 'beef' with Elon taking the mic and doing a dis track about how why he would never want to fuck a skank like Azy anyway.

This one has legs, but I doubt anyone wants to run with it much further.

Mission accomplished.

Post: #70

(08-18-2018 02:24 PM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

(08-18-2018 01:35 PM)Deepdiver Wrote:  One day I order an Uber and what shows up a sporty looking reddish Tesla...

Owning a $60000 car, yet using it for Uber...

There's a full on taxi company in Kelowna that is purely Teslas. Apparently the economics make sense because of no fuel costs. I don't know about that, because they have a 120k model X..

Post: #71

(08-18-2018 01:08 PM)Repo Wrote:  These pics do a good job of hiding that Banks actually has a very harsh face. Not so hot in the 212 video.

The face the Harlem Struggle was invented for?

(Actually, if I ever buy a boat, that'd be a good name for it. The Harlem Struggle.)

(08-18-2018 04:16 PM)TheFinalEpic Wrote:  There's a full on taxi company in Kelowna that is purely Teslas. Apparently the economics make sense because of no fuel costs. I don't know about that, because they have a 120k model X..

I've done Uber One in Madrid. Same concept with Model S. Drivers in pressed white shirts and jackets. I don't know if the economics make sense or if it's a gimmick to get visibility for Tesla, but it's kind of cool to ride around and have people stare at your car.

Post: #72

(08-18-2018 03:03 PM)The Father Wrote:  

(08-18-2018 11:35 AM)questor70 Wrote:  

(08-18-2018 03:23 AM)The Father Wrote:  Never work for a founder-led company.

Not all founders are assholes but they're usually not qualified to run a company in its cruise phase.

That's a very good distinction: The skills that it takes to a get a company from $0 revenue to $5MM are a fair bit different than the skills needed to get it from $5MM to $1B, and VERY different than the skills needed as it goes from $1B in revenue to $50B.

That's an unfair and myopic view.

It's very hard to take a company from 0 to 5MM and involves lots of mistakes, experience and ultimately learning. Something like 95% of all businesses fail to make it to 5MM, and if someone can learn everything to do that, he can also learn to take a copmany from 5MM to 100M, etc etc. Not everyone, but for knowledge-seekers and action-takers, then yes.

Post: #73

It seems like Elon Musk is in a bit of a Britney-Spears-shaving-her-head crisis right now. Hope he gets back on track!

Post: #74

(08-18-2018 12:23 AM)CynicalContrarian Wrote:  To add to what Arminius stated.

Quriouser & quriouser..., oh wait. Wrong Anon... :

That post was written by a short-seller obvoiusly motivated to see that stock tank.

Most of CDaN is bullshit. They think everyone and their mother is a gay, child-porn-loving rapist.

Post: #75

(08-17-2018 02:42 PM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  Top 1% wealth and fame, pop star girlfriends, entrepreneurial success of the highest caliber... and this guy is still fucking miserable.

Game really does save lives.

Just goes to show that true Game-awareness and Alpha-savvy (or whatever you want to call it) just can't be bought.