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I don't know if you can compare SpaceX or Tesla to running a CRUD app. Engineering rockets is probably 100x harder than building twitter, but there is something

I don't know if you can compare SpaceX or Tesla to running a CRUD app. Engineering rockets is probably 100x harder than building twitter, but there is something very reassuring when all of the complexity of your product is embodied in a physical object you can touch and see, compared to an information context where you don't even know how many layers of abstractions you are working with.

rco8786 4y ago
It depends on how you view the product. The raw engineering of building a rocket is certainly a lot harder than running a "CRUD" app...but it's also pretty reductive to call Twitter that. Twitter is a huge social network with a huge advertising network intertwined. The problems and challenges with that are very real, very difficult, and they are social problems rather than engineering problems. It seems like Elon overestimated how much his knowledge of building cars and rockets would transfer over to social networks.
babelfish 4y ago
Depth vs Breadth. A Tesla is much harder to engineer, but only needs to work for 4-5 people at any given moment. Twitter is a CRUD app, but needs to work for hundreds of millions (billions?) of people.
- spoils19 4y ago
  A Tesla has to work for the driver, passengers, the others on the road, pedestrians, the road itself - these are new problems never encountered before that Elon is tackling head-on. If you consider every person on the world to be connected (if they are physically touching the ground), a Tesla has to literally work for those billions of people.
  - babelfish 4y ago
    A Tesla in Los Angeles does not have to work for a pedestrian in New York.
    - themadturk 4y ago
      But it has to be engineered to do so.
    - spoils19 4y ago
      If the Tesla in LA works fine and runs perfectly, the market will coalesce around that fact and accept it as a major player on the road, giving the pedestrian the necessary confidence they need to be safe around a Tesla. Again, these are brand new problems that Elon is solving, so they may be hard to parse due to how forward-looking he is.
deleted 4y ago
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rco8786 4y ago

It depends on how you view the product. The raw engineering of building a rocket is certainly a lot harder than running a "CRUD" app...but it's also pretty reductive to call Twitter that. Twitter is a huge social network with a huge advertising network intertwined. The problems and challenges with that are very real, very difficult, and they are social problems rather than engineering problems. It seems like Elon overestimated how much his knowledge of building cars and rockets would transfer over to social networks.

babelfish 4y ago

Depth vs Breadth. A Tesla is much harder to engineer, but only needs to work for 4-5 people at any given moment. Twitter is a CRUD app, but needs to work for hundreds of millions (billions?) of people.

spoils19 4y ago
A Tesla has to work for the driver, passengers, the others on the road, pedestrians, the road itself - these are new problems never encountered before that Elon is tackling head-on. If you consider every person on the world to be connected (if they are physically touching the ground), a Tesla has to literally work for those billions of people.
- babelfish 4y ago
  A Tesla in Los Angeles does not have to work for a pedestrian in New York.
  - themadturk 4y ago
    But it has to be engineered to do so.
  - spoils19 4y ago
    If the Tesla in LA works fine and runs perfectly, the market will coalesce around that fact and accept it as a major player on the road, giving the pedestrian the necessary confidence they need to be safe around a Tesla. Again, these are brand new problems that Elon is solving, so they may be hard to parse due to how forward-looking he is.

deleted 4y ago

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