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One of the most genius “games” that I’ve seen in real life is Tesla’s offering of a roadster for a huge up front payment to pre-order (~$45,000). They literall
by whall6 2y ago
One of the most genius “games” that I’ve seen in real life is Tesla’s offering of a roadster for a huge up front payment to pre-order (~$45,000).
They literally created a new product out of thin air that they are untethered to in terms of time or specs (except that it has to be able to accelerate with the force of a jet engine?) to “unlock” millions of dollars of cash flow to fund current operations. (I imagine this to be the brainchild of Zach Kirkhorn.)
I don’t know how many startups can employ “pre-order” tactics with their lack of brand power, but the basic essence is probably useful.
- dfhvneoieno 2y agoThat's not "genius". Saying "give me money now for something later", making it vague and then not delivering isn't new or genius. It's something which is illegal, and this will be found to be illegal, once there's political will to investigate/prosecute.
- hobs 2y agoYep, that's called Fraud. The only reason its continuing is because the political will to prosecute the rich, especially their big donor friend Elon who they've been giving billions of government subsidies to - investigating him after helping him makes them look bad too, and oh boy did MANY state and federal dollars flow his way.
- ethbr1 2y agoIt's fraud if you never deliver. It's certainly not fraud if you are making progress towards delivering at some nebulous future date, and there was no contractual delivery date in the pre-sale. It's debatable whether it's fraud if the initial pre-sale expressedly included the possibility of non-delivery (i.e. Kickstarter).
- dfhvneoieno 2y ago[flagged]
- ethbr1 2y ago[flagged]
- hobs 2y ago> It's certainly not fraud if you are making progress towards delivering at some nebulous future date, and there was no contractual delivery date in the pre-sale. Only legally, this is basically just fraud with legal disclaimers covering your ass, there's no integrity here and no intention of delivering anything more than the hyperloop.
- ethbr1 2y agoLegal terms are the codification of a contract between buyer and seller. Caveat emptor exists because ultimately it's the buyer's decision whether or not to take an offered deal. If some people were dumb enough to agree to a disadvantageous contract with Tesla... well, world's full of fools.
- fakedang 2y agoIt's not illegal. It's product validation. It would have been a fraud had Musk taken the money and disappeared into the Caribbean sunset. Which he did not.