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Is that a lot or a little? How am I supposed to judge? It looks like SpaceX is well over $1B with a B in funding in total now. In comparison Blue Origin just ge

Is that a lot or a little? How am I supposed to judge? It looks like SpaceX is well over $1B with a B in funding in total now. In comparison Blue Origin just gets money from Bezos, so "no" funding? Big wikipedia list of private space companies (no funding info): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_private_spaceflight_companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_private_spaceflight_co... Overall venture funding going up (from 2015): http://fortune.com/2016/02/22/vcs-invested-more-in-space-startups-last-year/ http://fortune.com/2016/02/22/vcs-invested-more-in-space-sta...

askafriend 9y ago
Well, Pinterest also has over $1 Billion in funding, if that makes you feel any better. Sure reality is more nuanced than that, but it's a fun comparison to make.
- tradersam 9y ago
  Jesus F. Christ, you’re right. Just shows where humanity’s overall priorities are, funny enough.
  - drcross 9y ago
    Instagram cost 19 billion. You can buy 73 of the worlds largest container ships for that amount of money.
    - rokob 9y ago
      Instagram cost $1B, Whatsapp was $19B. In hindsight, Instagram was a steal at that valuation too.
      - jhayward 9y ago
        > Whatsapp was $19B. Just for comparison, $19 billion is what the first operational fusion power reactor is budgeted to cost. Instead of Whatsapp, the world could have fusion power. Tell me that makes sense.
        swarnie_ 9y ago
        Can't share cat gifs with a fusion reactor. Checkmate
        sangnoir 9y ago
        > Instead of Whatsapp, the world could have fusion power. I'm sure if HN could combine savings from annual budget the $5 lattes and $2,000+ annual refreshes of the Shinybook Pro, we'd be halfway there. But hey, maybe the value provided in an affordable SMS replacement to a billion people isn't all that, right? It's just a replaceable app, why don't they get iPhones and use iMessage. /s HN can be hilariously condescending - "I don't use this, it doesn't impact me, I don't understand it - therefore it can't be worth much". > Tell me that makes sense. WhatsApp provides massive value to its users, especially when they supported feature phones. What's the human value of a poor rural farmer sending a message to their child in the next city over "Your mom isn't feeling well, please send money for a clinic visit"? I bet it is more than the $1/year WhatsApp originally charged. Communication is a force-multiplier - someone smarter than me has probably already calculated the value WhatsApp has added to the world by merely existing. I'm not a Facebook fan- I hate that Facebook changed the monetization model and are dropping WhatsApp support for feature phones in pursuit of features. However, Facebook paid $19 billion because WhatsApp was potentially an existential threat to Fb. Why don't you and a small team develop a fusion reactor and see how much GE/Saudi Aramco will pay - I bet it would be north of $19 billion.
        jhayward 9y ago
        I think you should reconsider your post. First it starts by claiming that I don't understand, use, or appreciate messaging in general. This is of course without any background or support, and is simply an ad hominem. I have a more extensive background in messaging than most people in tech. There is no condescension in making a value judgement of yet another messaging application vs a fundamental energy source technology. Next you make some statements in support of value for WA. Regardless of the value of messaging in general, WA is is simply yet another app in a very crowded market. Its purchase was clearly anti-competitive, rather than innovative, and as such can not be justified based on function. Last you hurl some weird non-sequitur that implies my judgement is incorrect because I'm not a fusion researcher/implementor working on disrupting the world energy market, combined with some kind of conspiracy theory about Saudi Aramco? That's just plain specious. One can clearly judge the value of working fusion energy without being a physicist. So please, re-read the posting guidelines and reconsider how you address others and their arguments. Thank you.
    - kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
      Just as a side note, that's such a weird thing to compare against... What intuition does the average reader have about the price of container ships? If anything, I learnt that container ships are less costly than I would have guessed...
      - drawnwren 9y ago
        I now have exactly one conversion of value between Instagram and cargo ships. I'm not sure this cleared anything up for me.
      - garmaine 9y ago
        Well it’s at least visually comparable to the more standard units of measurement : the VW bug and football fields.
      - lostlogin 9y ago
        It’s probably a misunderstanding of common media units of measure. If an Olympic swimming pool or an Empire State Building are a valid unit of measure, why not a container ship?
        kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
        Those are probably weird too, but most people have some idea of how tall tall buildings are (even if they haven't been to NYC), and likewise have probably been to a pool.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- stevenj 9y ago
  Wow. That is shocking. Has Pinterest even reached product/market fit?
  - aaronblohowiak 9y ago
    people i know are using it less because of how buggy/slow it has gotten and how hard the basic activity of curating your boards has become. i also now avoid clicking anything related to pinterest because they break the web and make it hard to visit the source website and view their site on mobile. Too many walls around that garden.
    - bspn 9y ago
      I once clicked on a recipe that was pinned to a Pinterest board and it would not allow me to view it without registering for an account. They lost my eyeballs forever that day and I'm sure there's many others like me out there. Given their target revenue model was presumably ad/affiliate referral based, keeping potential consumers outside the wall made zero sense to me.
      - timthelion 9y ago
        I'd pay money to never see pinterest appear in another image search result again.
        bsmith89 9y ago
        Search Google Images with "-site:pinterest.com" You could even set a custom search engine keyword that searches Google Images with the above included automatically.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        Same for me. I think this might be the actual reason they're losing out. The moment they started requiring to log in to view stuff discovered through Google anyway was the moment I stopped using them, even though I actually have an account.
rory096 9y ago
This $100 million is a follow-on to a $350mm round started this summer, bringing this year's total to $450mm. This puts them up to $1.68 billion in funding, including their $1 billion funding from Google and Fidelity in January 2015. Latest valuation is reportedly $21.5 billion.[0] A conservative estimate of annual payroll on /r/spacex from this week was $700mm.[1] Each Falcon 9 costs about $62mm, though some of the oldest contracts are for far less and government missions are more (plus Dragon). Cash-flow-wise, payments are broken up over the separate phases of the contract. They have launched 16 rockets this year, 8 last year and 6 the two years before. (Not counting one failure in each 2015 and 2016 — though we know SpaceX earned at least part of its CRS-7 milestone payments by getting off the pad.) [0] https://equidateinc.com/company/space-exploration-technologies https://equidateinc.com/company/space-exploration-technologi... [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/7fk828/estimation_of_spacexs_payroll_costs/ https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/7fk828/estimation_o... [2] http://www.spacexstats.xyz/#section-launchhistory http://www.spacexstats.xyz/#section-launchhistory
- Already__Taken 9y ago
  Getting paid for a rocket that blew up has got to be a weird conversation.

askafriend 9y ago

Well, Pinterest also has over $1 Billion in funding, if that makes you feel any better. Sure reality is more nuanced than that, but it's a fun comparison to make.

tradersam 9y ago
Jesus F. Christ, you’re right. Just shows where humanity’s overall priorities are, funny enough.
- drcross 9y ago
  Instagram cost 19 billion. You can buy 73 of the worlds largest container ships for that amount of money.
  - rokob 9y ago
    Instagram cost $1B, Whatsapp was $19B. In hindsight, Instagram was a steal at that valuation too.
    - jhayward 9y ago
      > Whatsapp was $19B. Just for comparison, $19 billion is what the first operational fusion power reactor is budgeted to cost. Instead of Whatsapp, the world could have fusion power. Tell me that makes sense.
      - swarnie_ 9y ago
        Can't share cat gifs with a fusion reactor. Checkmate
      - sangnoir 9y ago
        > Instead of Whatsapp, the world could have fusion power. I'm sure if HN could combine savings from annual budget the $5 lattes and $2,000+ annual refreshes of the Shinybook Pro, we'd be halfway there. But hey, maybe the value provided in an affordable SMS replacement to a billion people isn't all that, right? It's just a replaceable app, why don't they get iPhones and use iMessage. /s HN can be hilariously condescending - "I don't use this, it doesn't impact me, I don't understand it - therefore it can't be worth much". > Tell me that makes sense. WhatsApp provides massive value to its users, especially when they supported feature phones. What's the human value of a poor rural farmer sending a message to their child in the next city over "Your mom isn't feeling well, please send money for a clinic visit"? I bet it is more than the $1/year WhatsApp originally charged. Communication is a force-multiplier - someone smarter than me has probably already calculated the value WhatsApp has added to the world by merely existing. I'm not a Facebook fan- I hate that Facebook changed the monetization model and are dropping WhatsApp support for feature phones in pursuit of features. However, Facebook paid $19 billion because WhatsApp was potentially an existential threat to Fb. Why don't you and a small team develop a fusion reactor and see how much GE/Saudi Aramco will pay - I bet it would be north of $19 billion.
        jhayward 9y ago
        I think you should reconsider your post. First it starts by claiming that I don't understand, use, or appreciate messaging in general. This is of course without any background or support, and is simply an ad hominem. I have a more extensive background in messaging than most people in tech. There is no condescension in making a value judgement of yet another messaging application vs a fundamental energy source technology. Next you make some statements in support of value for WA. Regardless of the value of messaging in general, WA is is simply yet another app in a very crowded market. Its purchase was clearly anti-competitive, rather than innovative, and as such can not be justified based on function. Last you hurl some weird non-sequitur that implies my judgement is incorrect because I'm not a fusion researcher/implementor working on disrupting the world energy market, combined with some kind of conspiracy theory about Saudi Aramco? That's just plain specious. One can clearly judge the value of working fusion energy without being a physicist. So please, re-read the posting guidelines and reconsider how you address others and their arguments. Thank you.
  - kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
    Just as a side note, that's such a weird thing to compare against... What intuition does the average reader have about the price of container ships? If anything, I learnt that container ships are less costly than I would have guessed...
    - drawnwren 9y ago
      I now have exactly one conversion of value between Instagram and cargo ships. I'm not sure this cleared anything up for me.
    - garmaine 9y ago
      Well it’s at least visually comparable to the more standard units of measurement : the VW bug and football fields.
    - lostlogin 9y ago
      It’s probably a misunderstanding of common media units of measure. If an Olympic swimming pool or an Empire State Building are a valid unit of measure, why not a container ship?
      - kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
        Those are probably weird too, but most people have some idea of how tall tall buildings are (even if they haven't been to NYC), and likewise have probably been to a pool.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
stevenj 9y ago
Wow. That is shocking. Has Pinterest even reached product/market fit?
- aaronblohowiak 9y ago
  people i know are using it less because of how buggy/slow it has gotten and how hard the basic activity of curating your boards has become. i also now avoid clicking anything related to pinterest because they break the web and make it hard to visit the source website and view their site on mobile. Too many walls around that garden.
  - bspn 9y ago
    I once clicked on a recipe that was pinned to a Pinterest board and it would not allow me to view it without registering for an account. They lost my eyeballs forever that day and I'm sure there's many others like me out there. Given their target revenue model was presumably ad/affiliate referral based, keeping potential consumers outside the wall made zero sense to me.
    - timthelion 9y ago
      I'd pay money to never see pinterest appear in another image search result again.
      - bsmith89 9y ago
        Search Google Images with "-site:pinterest.com" You could even set a custom search engine keyword that searches Google Images with the above included automatically.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      Same for me. I think this might be the actual reason they're losing out. The moment they started requiring to log in to view stuff discovered through Google anyway was the moment I stopped using them, even though I actually have an account.

rory096 9y ago

This $100 million is a follow-on to a $350mm round started this summer, bringing this year's total to $450mm. This puts them up to $1.68 billion in funding, including their $1 billion funding from Google and Fidelity in January 2015. Latest valuation is reportedly $21.5 billion.[0] A conservative estimate of annual payroll on /r/spacex from this week was $700mm.[1] Each Falcon 9 costs about $62mm, though some of the oldest contracts are for far less and government missions are more (plus Dragon). Cash-flow-wise, payments are broken up over the separate phases of the contract. They have launched 16 rockets this year, 8 last year and 6 the two years before. (Not counting one failure in each 2015 and 2016 — though we know SpaceX earned at least part of its CRS-7 milestone payments by getting off the pad.) [0] https://equidateinc.com/company/space-exploration-technologies https://equidateinc.com/company/space-exploration-technologi... [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/7fk828/estimation_of_spacexs_payroll_costs/ https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/7fk828/estimation_o... [2] http://www.spacexstats.xyz/#section-launchhistory http://www.spacexstats.xyz/#section-launchhistory

Already__Taken 9y ago
Getting paid for a rocket that blew up has got to be a weird conversation.