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In another article about Tesla VW CEO described them as having ‘essentially unlimited resources’. I guess spaceX probably falls under a similar category. Unlimi
by jonplackett 6y ago
In another article about Tesla VW CEO described them as having ‘essentially unlimited resources’. I guess spaceX probably falls under a similar category. Unlimited resources + not wasting ANYTHING is a killer combo.
- electriclove 6y agoI think many others also have 'essentially unlimited resources' but it is the execution and quick iteration that is unique to both Tesla and SpaceX.
- jonplackett 6y agoLots of places seem like they should have unlimited resources. I would have thought VW would be pretty high on that list - but they have their resources tied up. SpaceX / Tesla seem to be more free to use their resources in daring ways.
- AYBABTME 6y agoTesla can seemingly issue new shares and the public market just buy them all up at a huge valuation; I think that's what is meant by "unlimited resources".
- ALittleLight 6y agoThat may be mixing up causality. One reason people love to invest is because they see what amazing things are possible. I personally would love to invest with SpaceX.
- zbrozek 6y agoThere's tons of places with effectively unlimited money. But very few places that have nearly unlimited resources. Some key resources are usually inversely correlated with money: decision-making latency and throughput, clear focus, and iteration speed. That's because money buys headcount, not good leadership.
- ashtonkem 6y agoUnlimited resources often slows things down, paradoxically.
- sfblah 6y agoI don’t think you’re right about many others having unlimited resources. This situation is a novelty in the post-cold-war era. Admittedly in the Cold War military projects probably did have unlimited resources.
- aaronblohowiak 6y agoDo you think sls development is less than what spacex is spending on starship?
- reasonabl_human 6y agoThis made me chuckle. SLS is a bloated joke, survives due to political favoritism for job generation. SpaceX does everything at a radical discount by comparison.
- codeulike 6y agoWillingness to take ambitious business risks is what sets Tesla and SpaceX apart. Innovation is gambling, it is risky.
- jcheng 6y agoAre you sure he wasn’t talking about Apple?
- jonplackett 6y agoHe said ‘other competitors’ or something like that and I assumed he meant Tesla despite it being at the time of Apple launch - building gigafactories takes a lot more resources than anything Apple has done so far. Word is Apple won’t even manufacture the whole car anyway like Tesla does.
- woah 6y agoI wouldn’t be surprised if Apple has produced many times more iPhones by weight than Tesla has produced cars
- basementcat 6y agoYou inspired me to do some Googling and arithmetic. From the Apple website, an iPhone is about 0.5 lbs. There have been approximately 1.3 billion iPhones sold. https://www.statista.com/statistics/276306/global-apple-iphone-sales-since-fiscal-year-2007/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/276306/global-apple-ipho... A Tesla Model 3 weighs about 4,000 lbs. In the last 6 quarters, about 600,000 vehicles were delivered. https://www.statista.com/statistics/502208/tesla-quarterly-vehicle-deliveries/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/502208/tesla-quarterly-v... 2.4e9 > 6.5e8 TL;DR: Cars are heavy. The total mass of the vehicles Tesla has delivered in the past six quarters exceeds the total mass of all the iPhones that Apple has ever sold.
- SECProto 6y agoI don't think you need 6 quarters. Using your numbers, 1.3 billion iPhones is 650 million pounds. At 4000lb each, it only takes 163000 model 3s to outweigh the iPhones - about 5 months of production, or two quarters.
- jonplackett 6y ago
- redis_mlc 6y ago> essentially unlimited resources Both Tesla and SpaceX are welfare queens. So yes, they have infinite government resources to spend.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]