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I wonder what parallels we can draw between Holmes and her blood testing, with Elon and full self driving. I suppose Elon has covered his bases by saying it is

I wonder what parallels we can draw between Holmes and her blood testing, with Elon and full self driving. I suppose Elon has covered his bases by saying it is still a work in progress while charging for it, but he has also been saying it will be ready in about a year or two since 2016. I think the FSD research Tesla is doing is interesting, but man I would rather all of that money gone into a carbon fiber roof or something on my model 3 instead!

thehappypm 5y ago
Consider the James Webb Space Telescope. Are the engineers working on it frauds because it’s been delayed for years? No, they have legitimately been trying their best despite leadership committing to dates. Theranos would be if JWST took taxpayer dollars and launched a non working telescope and sent back fake images. Tesla with FSD is a lot more like the JWST being delayed, or perhaps if they launched a stripped down version to space and then delayed the real thing.
- shawabawa3 5y ago
  It depends on whether Tesla/Elon actually believe they can deliver FSD. It would be fraud if internally they knew FSD was not possible on their hardware but they continued advertising that it was (I'm not suggesting this is the case, just saying there is a world where Tesla's FSD claims are fraud)
- boc 5y ago
  Except the JWST isn't going to fly through my windshield at 80 miles an hour on 280 if it doesn't end up working perfectly.
druadh 5y ago
The progress made on full self driving (FSD) has been quite transparent, at least compared to Theranos. I worked at Tesla from 2017 - 2019 and the quality of Enhanced Autopilot probably quadrupled in the that small amount of time. I left before being able to experience the progress made on FSD, unfortunately. I agree that Elon's timeline's are absolute BS. My perspective on his timelines are that they are almost meant more for his employees (throughout all his companies) to try and shorten the time it takes to 'achieve the impossible'. For example, something that most industry folks would think will take 20-30 years (or is feasibly impossible ie. reusable rockets), Elon gives a 5 year timeline and his team actually gets it done in 10 -- still less time than anyone thought possible. I'm excited to see what kind of progress is made on FSD once the DOJO supercomputer is built out and put to work (another item with an unrealistic timeline, I've no doubt). Just my two cents. Enjoy your Model 3!
- giantrobot 5y ago
  > For example, something that most industry folks would think will take 20-30 years (or is feasibly impossible ie. reusable rockets), Elon gives a 5 year timeline and his team actually gets it done in 10 -- still less time than anyone thought possible. No one realistically thought reusable rockets were impossible or even infeasible. Reusable rockets trade lift capacity for reusability. A single-use Falcon 9 lifts more than a reusable one because it can use all the fuel in the first stage for lift saving nothing for landing. Keep in mind the Space Shuttle (a reusable rocket) had been flying for thirty years before Space X landed a Falcon 9. Space X has done cool things but they are iterative developments. Tesla didn't invent electric cars or do something impossible, they iterated on existing technologies. They, like Space X, have happily and readily accepted every government subsidy dollar they're remotely qualified to receive. All while Musk is bitching about paying taxes.
  - druadh 5y ago
    > No one realistically thought reusable rockets were impossible or even infeasible. Not addressing the point of my comment here ^, but why didn't anyone else do it if it was feasible and possible? And how long would it have taken an agency like NASA to actually start and complete the project? > Keep in mind the Space Shuttle (a reusable rocket) had been flying for thirty years before Space X landed a Falcon 9. Wasn't the space shuttle a glider with rockets strapped to the bottom? It was not a reusable rocket, it was a reusable shuttle. > Space X has done cool things but they are iterative developments. Well, everything in the human existence is an iterative development, so I don't understand what you're trying to say other than to downplay other peoples' accomplishments. https://youtu.be/mY-fSnKTLqw?t=111 https://youtu.be/mY-fSnKTLqw?t=111 <-- anyone could do it if they felt like it, right?
    - irthomasthomas 5y ago
      It is akin to Heinz trying to reuse and refill their cans of beans. Rocket engines are big disposable tin cans carrying very expensive beans.
ljp_206 5y ago
Theranos' marketing promise/demo was a small box that supposedly ran a number of usually laborious blood tests on a drop of blood. That box actually returned pre-programmed results, or just ran tests using traditional equipment. With this, we can imagine scenarios that would be comparable for a Tesla, or any othet tech startup. It seems relatively safe to say that Tesla's FSD doesn't just pipe out the computation to a competitor or something, so by this thought experiment, it at least has that going for it. There's moonshot, and then there is farce. Theranos was farcical, but someone might do it some day. Tesla, at the very least, still has chances to deliver.
Aperocky 5y ago
There's no parallel, self driving cars is technically feasible. Meanwhile Theranos bloodtests suffer from scientific impossibility: you can't get information from where there is none. And when the information is sparse, you'll have to spend greater entropy to get it (versus the tiny machine that theranos built).
- forgot-my-pw 5y ago
  It's not just about what's technically feasible. He's making false promises every year and now released to public a Beta product that should have been Alpha or earlier stage.

thehappypm 5y ago

Consider the James Webb Space Telescope. Are the engineers working on it frauds because it’s been delayed for years? No, they have legitimately been trying their best despite leadership committing to dates. Theranos would be if JWST took taxpayer dollars and launched a non working telescope and sent back fake images. Tesla with FSD is a lot more like the JWST being delayed, or perhaps if they launched a stripped down version to space and then delayed the real thing.

shawabawa3 5y ago
It depends on whether Tesla/Elon actually believe they can deliver FSD. It would be fraud if internally they knew FSD was not possible on their hardware but they continued advertising that it was (I'm not suggesting this is the case, just saying there is a world where Tesla's FSD claims are fraud)
boc 5y ago
Except the JWST isn't going to fly through my windshield at 80 miles an hour on 280 if it doesn't end up working perfectly.

druadh 5y ago

The progress made on full self driving (FSD) has been quite transparent, at least compared to Theranos. I worked at Tesla from 2017 - 2019 and the quality of Enhanced Autopilot probably quadrupled in the that small amount of time. I left before being able to experience the progress made on FSD, unfortunately. I agree that Elon's timeline's are absolute BS. My perspective on his timelines are that they are almost meant more for his employees (throughout all his companies) to try and shorten the time it takes to 'achieve the impossible'. For example, something that most industry folks would think will take 20-30 years (or is feasibly impossible ie. reusable rockets), Elon gives a 5 year timeline and his team actually gets it done in 10 -- still less time than anyone thought possible. I'm excited to see what kind of progress is made on FSD once the DOJO supercomputer is built out and put to work (another item with an unrealistic timeline, I've no doubt). Just my two cents. Enjoy your Model 3!

giantrobot 5y ago
> For example, something that most industry folks would think will take 20-30 years (or is feasibly impossible ie. reusable rockets), Elon gives a 5 year timeline and his team actually gets it done in 10 -- still less time than anyone thought possible. No one realistically thought reusable rockets were impossible or even infeasible. Reusable rockets trade lift capacity for reusability. A single-use Falcon 9 lifts more than a reusable one because it can use all the fuel in the first stage for lift saving nothing for landing. Keep in mind the Space Shuttle (a reusable rocket) had been flying for thirty years before Space X landed a Falcon 9. Space X has done cool things but they are iterative developments. Tesla didn't invent electric cars or do something impossible, they iterated on existing technologies. They, like Space X, have happily and readily accepted every government subsidy dollar they're remotely qualified to receive. All while Musk is bitching about paying taxes.
- druadh 5y ago
  > No one realistically thought reusable rockets were impossible or even infeasible. Not addressing the point of my comment here ^, but why didn't anyone else do it if it was feasible and possible? And how long would it have taken an agency like NASA to actually start and complete the project? > Keep in mind the Space Shuttle (a reusable rocket) had been flying for thirty years before Space X landed a Falcon 9. Wasn't the space shuttle a glider with rockets strapped to the bottom? It was not a reusable rocket, it was a reusable shuttle. > Space X has done cool things but they are iterative developments. Well, everything in the human existence is an iterative development, so I don't understand what you're trying to say other than to downplay other peoples' accomplishments. https://youtu.be/mY-fSnKTLqw?t=111 https://youtu.be/mY-fSnKTLqw?t=111 <-- anyone could do it if they felt like it, right?
  - irthomasthomas 5y ago
    It is akin to Heinz trying to reuse and refill their cans of beans. Rocket engines are big disposable tin cans carrying very expensive beans.

ljp_206 5y ago

Theranos' marketing promise/demo was a small box that supposedly ran a number of usually laborious blood tests on a drop of blood. That box actually returned pre-programmed results, or just ran tests using traditional equipment. With this, we can imagine scenarios that would be comparable for a Tesla, or any othet tech startup. It seems relatively safe to say that Tesla's FSD doesn't just pipe out the computation to a competitor or something, so by this thought experiment, it at least has that going for it. There's moonshot, and then there is farce. Theranos was farcical, but someone might do it some day. Tesla, at the very least, still has chances to deliver.

Aperocky 5y ago

There's no parallel, self driving cars is technically feasible. Meanwhile Theranos bloodtests suffer from scientific impossibility: you can't get information from where there is none. And when the information is sparse, you'll have to spend greater entropy to get it (versus the tiny machine that theranos built).

forgot-my-pw 5y ago
It's not just about what's technically feasible. He's making false promises every year and now released to public a Beta product that should have been Alpha or earlier stage.