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X, the moonshot factory
- an1sotropy 3y agoThe last event in their timeline is 2020. Moon presumed shot.
- shiftpgdn 3y agoI wonder if we can add it to the Google death pile?
- joezydeco 3y agoCan't say that here. You'll be downvoted as trite and cynical. IMO, it's all headed for the graveyard.
- codetrotter 3y ago> IMO, it's all headed for the graveyard Every company will die some day. But some companies have been around for a very very long time. Kongō Gumi Co., Ltd. (株式会社金剛組, Kabushiki Gaisha Kongō Gumi) is a Japanese construction company founded in 578 A.D., making it the world's oldest company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kong%C5%8D_Gumi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kong%C5%8D_Gumi And there are some other pretty old companies that are still around as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies Now you might say, Ship of Theseus. Is a company that is over one millennia old really still the same company at all. But philosophy aside. If you’re gonna prophetize the death of Google (or any other company in particular), I want very specific numbers. When? Tomorrow? This year? Within 5 years? 313,373 years from now?
- skulk 3y ago[warning: dangerously off topic rabbit hole] Huh, according to Wikipedia (without citation, unfortunately), that ancient construction company pioneered the use of CAD for temple design. I wanted to see if I could corroborate this claim, so "kongo gumi cad" on Google lead to: https://worksthatwork.com/3/kongo-gumi https://worksthatwork.com/3/kongo-gumi which makes a very similar claim. From what I can tell, this claim is echoed all over the (English) internet but originates from "worksthatwork.com". The earliest wayback snapshot of that website from 2014 doesn't mention CAD, but the March 30, 2015 snapshot does. Looking at the wikipedia article edit history, there seems to be an edit war happening regarding the accuracy of sources (someone seems to believe very strongly that Nikkei Asia is not a reliable source): https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kong%C5%8D_Gumi&oldid=1121470324 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kong%C5%8D_Gumi&o... The CAD claim seems to have originated in 2022, but the citation to "worksthatwork.com" was swiftly removed in a subsequent edit due to lack of evidence: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kong%C5%8D_Gumi&oldid=1102660712 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kong%C5%8D_Gumi&o... Well, this was a strange rabbithole to fall down. I'm interested to know from where this claim originates, or if "worksthatwork.com" just made it up in 2015. The answer probably lies beyond the English language internet. I wish Wikipedia had a "blame" feature like git. If it exists, I couldn't find it.
- codetrotter 3y ago> I wish Wikipedia had a "blame" feature like git. If it exists, I couldn't find it. If there is an edit war going on, and this claim is being removed and added you’d still need to look at quite a lot of revisions manually. But there are tools to export Wikipedia page edit history to git I think. And you could write a script to grep every revision of the article for the word “CAD” to determine at what point in time it first appeared in the article. And then from there you could look at who added it and so on.
- joezydeco 3y agoGoogly things aren't going anywhere, as long as they are pulling in ad revenue.
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- spondylosaurus 3y agoFrom the submission tite I definitely thought "moonshot factory" would be some kind of analysis of how too-lofty startups fail, not an earnest mission statement from whatever this is. Blegh.
- exitb 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_(company)
- short4ecstacy 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_(American_band) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_(American_band)
- scblock 3y agoX by Google, X by Twitter, X by X. Terrible branding on all sides and I am so not interested in any of this bullshit.
- aerodog 3y ago[flagged]
- intelVISA 3y agoMission successful...
- iopq 3y agoI commented on Reddit's latest moves, downloaded their app just to use it for a while and give it a bad review. Deleted the app and haven't gone there in a while Just because you comment on something doesn't mean you'll use it
- kspacewalk2 3y agoGod that thing is fucking terrible. You can't change font size? But what if I don't like to read walls of tiny text? And what the hell is with the video playback UI? I want to see comments under a video post, why do you take me to full-screen video playback no matter what I do? About 50% of the time I manage to tap something somewhere which makes it work on 3rd try, but I wish that percentage was higher.
- larvaetron 3y agoHeaven forbid someone should type out a comment to voice their disinterest about something.
- dpifke 3y agoLow-effort comments are against the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html It's possible to voice disinterest in a thoughtful and substantive way. The GP comment (and arguably your reply) does not.
- aerodog 3y agoIt took me over a minute to realize this is not an Elon Musk production
- andrewstuart 3y agoYes, X as a brand lacks uniqueness. Xbox X factor X-men Xvideos Etc etc Seems to me musk just loves the domain. Domain: $10,000,000 Users: $44,000,000,000
- giancarlostoro 3y agoWas it not called Xbox because of DirectX?
- astrange 3y agoThe Xbox brand is very unique because they think numbers go from 0 to 360 to 1.
- bravetraveler 3y agoTough to overflow when bound to a loop, I guess
- opportune 3y agoThey do over the domain 360*Z_719
- astrange 3y agoIf it's supposed to be degrees, then since 360==0 doesn't that mean the range is [0,360) so 360 degrees is actually an out of range value for an angle? I've always wondered this but never enough to ask it.
- opportune 3y agoZ_719 is the shorthand for integers in [0, 718], with Z_n typically connotating the algebraic group or ring of integers up to n. In this case 360(Z_719) is an ideal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_(ring_theory) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_(ring_theory)) over that domain. While the ordered sequence of Z_719 is just {0, 1, 2... 718} then wrapping back around to 0, for the ideal 360(Z_719) you get {0, 360, 360*2 % 719 = 1, ...} which is the basis of my joke :)
- cduzz 3y agoIs it finally going to get to 12 or are they going straight to weighland?
- deelowe 3y agoTo add fuel to the fire, Elon has been quite vocal about his disdain for Larry lately. According to Elon, he got upset at Larry for not taking the risks of AI seriously. I wouldn't put it past Elon for this to be a bit of him thumbing his nose at Alphabet.
- afavour 3y agoMusk wanted to rebrand PayPal as X. His obsession goes back a long, long way.
- deelowe 3y agoTrue. Maybe it was Larry who was doing the nose thumbing to start with.
- Terr_ 3y agoSomehow the naming obsession reminds me of the antics of self-promoter (and fraud) Kim Schmitz, who targeted being "Dot Com" or "Mega". https://www.wired.com/2012/01/kim-dotcom/ https://www.wired.com/2012/01/kim-dotcom/
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- yreg 3y agoThere's also this story although I wouldn't take it too seriously Elon Musk Reportedly Had Affair With Sergey Brin’s Wife—Ending Billionaires’ Friendship - https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2022/07/24/elon-musk-reportedly-had-affair-with-sergey-brins-wife-ending-billionaires-friendship/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2022/07/24/el...
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- XCSme 3y agoThe information looks interesting but the site is so hard to navigate, there are 3-7 moving elements on the screen at any time, text runs away while reading it, scroll doesn't work as expected, information is presented in too many different ways.
- jack_riminton 3y agoMakes it harder to track the projects and the progress (or lack of it) so maybe that's why they like it
- thomascgalvin 3y agoI despise websites that add useless interactivity like this. We already have scrollbars that work perfectly well.
- bongobingo1 3y agoI don't think you're really supposed to navigate it. There isn't any real content on sites like this. They exist to check a "we have a marketing website" box, that prospective parties can basically open, scroll half way down and think "yep looks very impressive". If you're the public, there is nothing to learn, esp if they have a sub brand that actually does the thing (eg waymo). If your an investor (?) you have actual data to review, or dont care either way.
- macinjosh 3y agoSeinfeld was a show about nothing, X is the Seinfeld of branding.
- CodeWriter23 3y agoSeriously, Google spamming Musk's rebrand? Tacky af.
- gertrunde 3y agoI'm not sure they're at all related? Surely Google/Alphabet's X subsidiary has been around for a while now? (wikipedia suggests since 2010, albeit only renamed from Google X to just "X" in 2015) (And I always felt the name made a certain amount of sense for a subsidiary of a company named "Alphabet").
- andsoitis 3y agoHave any of their projects gone anywhere? https://x.company/projects/ https://x.company/projects/
- tedivm 3y agoIntrinsic managed to purchase Vicarious AI for so little money that my options were completely underwater (by a sizable margin too), so I guess that works.
- dheera 3y agoYeah, they released 20 million mosquitoes in Fresno https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/14/googles-life-sciences-unit-is-releasing-20-million-bacteria-infected-mosquitoes-in-fresno/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/14/googles-life-sciences-unit...
- sieabahlpark 3y ago[dead]
- lantry 3y agoWaymo was one of their projects https://waymo.com/ https://waymo.com/
- jwang14 3y agoHard to argue Waymo hasn't gone anywhere, given their public pilots. The other one I know of is Wing partnering with Doordash in AUS: https://help.doordash.com/consumers/s/article/Drone-Delivery?language=en_US https://help.doordash.com/consumers/s/article/Drone-Delivery...
- ecshafer 3y agoI'd say its hard to argue that Waymo HAS gone anywhere. Can I buy a waymo? Can I rent a waymo taxi to take me to the airport?
- clemailacct1 3y ago
- amelius 3y agoWhen will he change his name into Elon MuX ?
- ijustwanttovote 3y agoI guess the WWE Attitude Era still exists.
- majestic5762 3y agoActually someone described this phenomena really well: we are all tied up (psychologically, socially, economically) by these billionaires and the visions they bring up to us, that we let ourselves seduced by the spectacle, while surrendering our common sense and critical thinking, void of power, action, consciousness. The reality is that, even you fuel a revolution somewhere, there are massive opposing idiots out there willing to kill themselves for being quoted by musk etc. So just enjoy the ride and try to navigate this world as billionaires do: profiting from the stupid - but be cool & polite ;) not saying they're not driving innovation, but they're machiavellic the rest of the time (we are all the same, but for others it takes longer to realize). sure, downvote me, at least you have this power :)
- kobalsky 3y ago> there are massive opposing idiots out there willing to kill themselves for being quoted by musk etc. Straw man aside, calling your opponents idiots says more about you than about your opponents.
- majestic5762 3y agoYou haven't understood my message because you are superficial. I don't have opponents, i'm not trying to convince anyone of anything, those are my sincere opinions, it was just an observation and i'm not trying to grow a cult. Don't be so reactive on the internet, it's like winning the special olympics (can we still make these kind of jokes today? .... people either forgot the Internet, either they're born in 2000 lol)
- majestic5762 3y agoEven @sama, as much as I respect him and look up to him (for both ycombinator and openai), disappointed me with his attempt at monopolizing AI. At the end of the day, he's looking for his best interest, who am I to comment? :)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ulrashida 3y agoSo many things ill thought out in this. Curious to see which media outlet is the first to refer to "SoAndSo's x'd out earlier today" or "Recent x's suggest a growing interest in..." Perhaps two weeks until he explains it all away as an "experiment" rather than genuine ignorance.
- kanavs 3y agoAt this point, it is literally becoming like math, just name every other random variable, x.
- CharlesW 3y agoEverybody wants to have the "cool factor" of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System Heck, Musk even copied the logo outright.
- xyst 3y agoWow - has this guy ever had an original thought. The Twitter landing page looks like something from the mind of a prepubescent boy pumped on “xtreme” products of the early 00s
- mcmcmc 3y agoYou could say "X Æ A-12" as a child's name was pretty original
- atourgates 3y agoIt was literally a "fan submitted" logo. Not even a Musk thought.
- tills13 3y agoFor God's sake stop highjacking scroll, people.
- tills13 3y agoFor God's sake people, stop highjacking scroll.
- barbazoo 3y agoWhat do you mean by hijacking? The page changing as you scroll down? I'm on desktop and it looks quite pretty I would say. Does it not work for you or do you just don't like that sort of UI?
- xyst 3y agoWhy is every rich asshole obsessed with “X”? Disgraced Uber CEO/founde (“TK” — within his inner circle, douche alert lol) with inserting X into their products Twitter randomly renamed to “X” by Elon Tesla car with X Google has some X product, probably. I think their R&D dept is just named “X” Apple had a brief “X” and “XS” phase with their iPhones (instead of just using 10 or 10S)
- bobthepanda 3y ago* x in premium products is often associated for ‘exclusive’ * tesla’s cars were S, X , 3, and Y, for that motivation in particular * x is a bit of a weird letter in the english language, not super common * x from algebraic notation
- yreg 3y agoDon't forget about your username.
- code_duck 3y agoApple’s X predated that by a decade or two with OS X. Also, the fine article is about Google X.
- Vox_Leone 3y agoF** everything, we're doing five X's!
- MontyCarloHall 3y agoAlso of note is that the stock ticker symbol "X" is, for whatever reason, US Steel [0]. If Elon ever takes his X Company public, I bet there will be a lot of erroneous buys of US Steel, similar to what happened when Twitter originally went public [1] (an unrelated penny stock with the ticker symbol TWTRQ surged), or when an unrelated company with the ticker symbol ZOOM surged when people started buying Zoom videoconferencing stock (ticker symbol ZM) at the start of the pandemic [2]. [0] https://www.google.com/finance/quote/X:NYSE https://www.google.com/finance/quote/X:NYSE [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveschaefer/2013/10/08/after-twitter-driven-pop-tweeter-stock-flops-with-new-ticker-symbol/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveschaefer/2013/10/08/after-... [2] https://www.yahoo.com/video/confusion-over-stock-names-zoom-093000038.html https://www.yahoo.com/video/confusion-over-stock-names-zoom-...
- madcaptenor 3y agoAs of 12:54 PM US Eastern time, US Steel stock is up 2.79% for the day. The S&P 500 is up 0.44% for the day. Might be something to that.
- starkparker 3y agoIIRC the X came from the 1980s when it branched out into energy, bought Marathon Oil, and reorganized into an umbrella company named "USX" in which the US Steel part became just a subsidiary. They exited that in 2001 but apparently? kept the symbol.
- madcaptenor 3y agoIt's actually the other way around - they already had the symbol X and that's why they became USX. New York Times, July 9, 1986, on the founding of USX: https://www.nytimes.com/1986/07/09/business/us-steel-new-name-ends-an-era.html https://www.nytimes.com/1986/07/09/business/us-steel-new-nam... "Mr. Roderick explained that for months the company had considered more than 200 new names, ranging from U.S.S.A. and Amcor to Maxus. U.S.X. was selected, he said, because ''it had a continuity from the U.S. part.'' He added that X had been the company's symbol on the New York Stock Exchange since 1924. " There's no obvious connection between X and US Steel - maybe somebody just thought X sounded cool?
- prepend 3y agoHow long do these “moonshots” have until they are considered failures? It seems like an anti pattern that some huge, futzy organization launches a “moonshot” to explain why they burn money on something without needing a return because it’s a “moonshot.” JFK gave his “to the moon” speech in 1962, targeting 1970 [0]. And the USG did it. So 8 years was the first one. It cost a ton of money and was successful and had massive returns culturally, scientifically, and financially. Google launched its X/moonshot org in 2010 [1]. 14 years later, have any “landed?” It seems like orgs should stop using this terminology unless they are seriously committed. The USG launched their “cancer moonshot” [2] for very good reasons, and very sympathetic, but their goal was by 2020 and they didn’t make it. I think we should increase cancer research funding, but draping it in hyperbole is negative when we don’t achieve what we said we targeted. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_choose_to_go_to_the_Moon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_choose_to_go_to_the_Moon [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_(company) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_Century_Cures_Act#Medical_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_Century_Cures_Act#Medical...
- brycewray 3y agoThe main JFK speech about the manned moon landing was May 25, 1961, before a joint session of Congress. The “we choose to go to the moon” speech at Houston’s Rice University in the fall of 1962 was more a case of pumping up public enthusiasm about the very expensive program, given that polls — especially in that mid-term election year — were showing growing doubts among voters that the expenditure was worth it.
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- rconti 3y ago"Tidal"? Isn't that already a music streaming service?
- paulvnickerson 3y agoIs this another shot at Elon Musk? Not sure where all the hate for him came from. Was it the hardline free speech direction he took Twitter, reinstating conservative accounts? That seemed to be the downward turning point in his popularity.
- bobthepanda 3y agoHe also laid off a bunch of people pretty haphazardly and introduced paying for brand integrity.
- NBJack 3y agoNot sure what rock you've managed to find (please send me the address, BTW, I could use a break myself), but between being forced to buy the company, firing a vast swath of the staff, not paying his workers, and other terrible decisions on what was otherwise a floundering if beloved company, I think Elon has earned this fresh disdain.
- paulvnickerson 3y agoSorry buddy, I value the privacy of my rock.
- bshipp 3y agoI think Musks turning point was when he randomly accused the Thai boyscout guide of being a pedophile. Since then his image has been continuously circling the toilet.
- bravetraveler 3y agoWell before that, even before the impractical submersible idea/calling that one person a pedophile when it flopped
- hendersoon 3y agoLooking past the Elon hilarity, I'm all for moonshots, a bold move investing in the next big thing. Trying to transform Twitter into WeChat for the west seems unlikely, to say the least, but has nothing to do with this announcement. They just both have X in their names because I guess Elon likes the letter.
- iainmerrick 3y agoI always felt that calling this a “moonshot factory” was foolishly overblown. Just like you don’t generalise your code until you have at least two instances to work from, show us two successful “moonshots” before you even start thinking about a “factory”.
- yreg 3y agoMoonshots don't imply moon landings. I take the name in a humbler manner — X is a lab that works on risky projects that might not make it anywhere, and Alphabet is okay with that.
- iainmerrick 3y agoThat's a fair point! Although, it still feels to me like the "factory" part implies they've figured out a good way to spot good investments: At X, we’re trying to build a “moonshot factory”, a place where the processes and culture make it easier to make radical breakthroughs — repeatedly. ...but their track record doesn't really bear this out, I think? If they had studied successful moonshots from the past and pinpointed some important elements of their approaches, that would make sense, but if so the website doesn't talk about it. It looks like an incredibly cool and fun place to work, but who knows if they're funding the right ideas and the right people, or if it's all just random?
- jrvarela56 3y agoWow this is a great example of bad marketing/naming/fluff. I thought this was X (Elon Musk) and the site looked generic enough (until Google is mentioned) to make me think this was the case. Then it hit me: Musk is doing the rebrand so he can package 'moonshots' to pump his Twitter stock and eventually save his investment in the company. He'll bundle 'Elon futurism' into Twitter so he can get a better multiple.
- SkipperCat 3y agoEveryone is hating on "X" right now because of the bloviated way tech companies talk about "changing the world". I'm always pessimistic about things like this too, but I do have a soft spot in my heart for this stuff. Why?, because it allows some engineers to work on cool stuff. Will it pan out, probably not, but I'm not going to cry if Google blows through a few million bucks. They won't even notice it. Better that a few engineers get to have some fun working on stuff other than optimal ad placement. Who know's maybe they'll stumble across something actually helpful to humanity (not holding my breath).
- owlbynight 3y agoThese engineers won't be having fun, because these engineers will be working for Elon Musk. Also, it's a rebrand. He fired the vast majority of the engineers he had. Everyone is hating on "X" because the people who possess the ability to think critically, i.e. engineers, are rightfully perplexed by every single move that this moron makes. It taps into the uncanny valley response for smart people, and it is amplified because Elon Musk has branded himself a genius. This is a shitty rebrand from Twitter to something that is impossible to search for on Google, and nothing more. It is the X-shaped shadow of a fiery ball of mediocrity that is hurtling towards San Francisco pavement as we speak.
- sf_rob 3y agoMy cynical view is that Google's X projects had great value to the company but not in the long-shot asymmetric return sense. X convinced engineers working on optimal ad placement that they were part of something grand and beneficial. Google becoming a financial mature company may be inevitable, but risks alienating engineers who want more meaning in their work, whether that meaning is real or superficial.
- 23B1 3y agoHave worked (or attempted to work) on numerous projects with these guys, and each one has been an embarrassing mix of them throwing money at us and then disappearing and it going nowhere. Half the time the project sponsor just disappears into some other part of google.
- Solvency 3y agoCan't wait for The XX to acquire both of these fledgling companies. https://www.instagram.com/thexx/ https://www.instagram.com/thexx/
- croes 3y agoWhat happened to unique company names?
- dmode 3y agoIs this the Alphabet X or the Elon X ?
- poisonborz 3y ago...with an unhinged protofascist billionaire at the helm. This sort of "throwing optimist VC billions to radical approaches" could be a good approach to a number of hard problems that academy and classical corps couldn't solve, but Musk's recent views and radicalisation drives away any serious partner with an inch of foresight.