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And Google's stated goal is to "organize the world's information," which they have not (yet?) fully accomplished. Yet no one considers Google a startup.

bigyikes 3y ago
SpaceX regularly takes large, tangible steps towards achieving their stated goal. See: Starship launches. The company continues to rapidly change.
- argiopetech 3y ago
  Hey! So does Google. They just shut those steps down with little fanfare every couple years.
bbor 3y ago
Well they kinda did! Not sure about “fully” but that’s not in the statement. Is there any objectively correct way to organize stuff? More concretely/less annoyingly, I’d say Google isn’t a startup because they meaningfully accomplished (an interpretation of) their mission statement and have brought real value to people in that way. It’s not perfect but Google is a lot more of a finished product than starship
sneak 3y ago
Google’s 2022 revenue was $280B. They (Google) have $13-19B profit per quarter, so their R&D budget relative to revenue is a lot smaller than what we assume SpaceX’s to be. (If we have real numbers for SpaceX, please tell me. I’m quite curious.) Bloomberg says SpaceX’s revenue was $9B this year and is expected to hit $15B next year given the success of Starlink. (For reference, Google makes a SpaceX amount of annual revenue every 11 days. Scale counts, too.) I think this (R&D expense vs revenue) is the fundamental characteristic of a startup. Despite strong demand for F9 and Starlink, these aren’t the product market fit they are after, they’re more like bridge financing. SpaceX is way, way more important and valuable than even $20B/year in revenue. Presuming they can make Starship work, a single Starship+Booster can, with 3 flights a day, double the total tonnage on orbit (of all human history thus far) in one year. The value of that will be absolutely immense, and that will cost them less than $100B from where they are at today. Their revenue will easily be 10x greater. Is there some foreseeable circumstance where Google’s revenue could 10x or 20x? When SpaceX has a few dozen Starships taking 10,000 tons each day into orbit with hundreds of launches every day, they will practically cease being a startup in my view, Mars colony or no. Then, manufacturing will take over their expenses (and scaling manufacturing, which, while still a major technical accomplishment, is a horse of a different color than spending toward developing the first working one). In the business of heavy manufacturing, even $4-20B in revenue is pretty small, doubly so for aerospace. Space vehicles are more expensive than just about anything else that can exist.

bigyikes 3y ago

SpaceX regularly takes large, tangible steps towards achieving their stated goal. See: Starship launches. The company continues to rapidly change.

argiopetech 3y ago
Hey! So does Google. They just shut those steps down with little fanfare every couple years.

bbor 3y ago

Well they kinda did! Not sure about “fully” but that’s not in the statement. Is there any objectively correct way to organize stuff? More concretely/less annoyingly, I’d say Google isn’t a startup because they meaningfully accomplished (an interpretation of) their mission statement and have brought real value to people in that way. It’s not perfect but Google is a lot more of a finished product than starship

sneak 3y ago

Google’s 2022 revenue was $280B. They (Google) have $13-19B profit per quarter, so their R&D budget relative to revenue is a lot smaller than what we assume SpaceX’s to be. (If we have real numbers for SpaceX, please tell me. I’m quite curious.) Bloomberg says SpaceX’s revenue was $9B this year and is expected to hit $15B next year given the success of Starlink. (For reference, Google makes a SpaceX amount of annual revenue every 11 days. Scale counts, too.) I think this (R&D expense vs revenue) is the fundamental characteristic of a startup. Despite strong demand for F9 and Starlink, these aren’t the product market fit they are after, they’re more like bridge financing. SpaceX is way, way more important and valuable than even $20B/year in revenue. Presuming they can make Starship work, a single Starship+Booster can, with 3 flights a day, double the total tonnage on orbit (of all human history thus far) in one year. The value of that will be absolutely immense, and that will cost them less than $100B from where they are at today. Their revenue will easily be 10x greater. Is there some foreseeable circumstance where Google’s revenue could 10x or 20x? When SpaceX has a few dozen Starships taking 10,000 tons each day into orbit with hundreds of launches every day, they will practically cease being a startup in my view, Mars colony or no. Then, manufacturing will take over their expenses (and scaling manufacturing, which, while still a major technical accomplishment, is a horse of a different color than spending toward developing the first working one). In the business of heavy manufacturing, even $4-20B in revenue is pretty small, doubly so for aerospace. Space vehicles are more expensive than just about anything else that can exist.