<div dir="ltr">Steve,<br><br>I really like your reply. There’s a lot I could comment on and maybe add a different perspective—not as a competing argument, but just another view. But for now, I’ll focus on this part:<br><br><b><i><u>It seems possible, for example, that Tesla's dominance in the EV market is past...</u></i></b><br><br>I wouldn’t be so sure.<br><br>In China, yes, Tesla will likely remain a strong #2, but the Chinese government won’t let them overtake BYD. And BYD is good too.<br><br>However, in the rest of the world—like the US, Europe, and Japan—Tesla is simply too far ahead. They continue to innovate at a pace that makes it very hard for others to catch up.<br><br>I’ve followed this space for a while, and while I can’t recall every detail offhand, I’ll stick to two key reasons for my view:<br><br>Giga Press technology<br>Tesla has a huge cost advantage in manufacturing because of its use of Giga Press machines. To benefit from this, a company needs high production volume. Tesla has designed its models in a way that allows them to maximize this technology. Other carmakers can’t easily adopt it because they lack the volume and experience. When Tesla started, they had time to experiment. Now, they’ve refined the process and have much lower production costs. VW, GM, Ford, and others are in trouble—there’s simply no realistic way for them to catch up.<br><br>Manufacturing efficiency<br>Most car companies are still building EVs using the same manufacturing principles established in Henry Ford's time. Over the past maybe 100 years or so, they’ve nearly perfected this approach. As long as there’s demand for gas-powered cars, they can not only survive but make good profits. But the writing is on the wall—whether people like it or not, EVs are coming. Tesla has completely reimagined how cars are built, and their entire manufacturing process is significantly more cost-effective. Traditional carmakers can’t just swap out gas engines for batteries and expect to compete. Looking ahead, they are in serious trouble.</div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, 12 Feb 2025 at 20:25, steve smith <<a href="mailto:sasmyth@swcp.com">sasmyth@swcp.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><u></u>
<div>
<p>Pieter -</p>
<p>In response to both your litany of innovations we might attribute
directly to Musk and to this question:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think Musk has managed to set precedents and break new ground
in many areas. </p>
<p> It seems possible, for example, that Tesla's dominance in the
EV market is past... whether it is his political problems
(mishandling the Commons with Twitter/X so egregioiusly or going
full-MAGA ++) that will lead to that or if in fact, the
precedent he set with (ubiquitous) EVs really has catalyzed the
entire market and industry (in spite of his buddy Trump trying
to attenuate that in favor of coal-rolling quad-cab 3 ton diesel
pickups in every suburban driveway) in a way which is now taking
off on it's own. </p>
<p>Trump's attempt to make fossil fuels and ICEmobiles "great
again" may actually be the challenge both EVs and renewable
sources need to become viable. A bit like the 16 year old kid
whose father threatens to call the police on him for his
pot-stash who then breaks away and finds his own way in the
world (my hackneyed image of George and Freeman Dyson as
gestured at in the chronical of his early years in "<a href="https://www.harvard.com/book/9781680512786" target="_blank">The Starship
and the Canoe</a>").</p>
<p>Whether Musk actually "invented" or "innovated" any/all of
those things, he definite participated in making them
mainstream. Henry Ford, for example, didn't really innovate
precision manufacturing so much as use Whitney and Taylor's
pioneering work at-scale. While he double wages for workers in
his assembly lines, he also was virulently against unionization
(sounds a bit like Musk?) and then went on to be radically anti
Semitic. <br>
</p>
<blockquote>
<p><i><provided by GPT> In 1919, Ford bought <span>The Dearborn Independent</span>,
a small newspaper, and turned it into a platform for
anti-Semitic propaganda. In 1920, the paper began publishing
a series of articles called <span>The International Jew: The World’s Foremost
Problem</span>, which promoted the fraudulent <span>Protocols of the Elders of
Zion</span>, a widely debunked anti-Semitic text. <GPT
quote><br>
</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>And not for nothing, he was awarded the <i>Grand Cross of the
Golden Eagle</i> by the Nazi Party in the 30s.</p>
<p>Is Twitter/X an echo of the Dearborn Independent?</p>
<p>His "innovations" in Orbital Launch may be hinged entirely on
the huge disparity of tolerance on "failures" SpaceX has been
allowed opposite NASA proper and it's major contractors (e.g.
Boeing). This doesn't take away from the progress he/SpaceX
have therefore made, just frames it a little differently? The
Russian's higher tolerance for (public?) risk may be the
main/only reason Sputnik preceded Vanguard by a year or so?
That doesn't mean they were "better" or worse" than we were at
innovation in that era/domain?</p>
<p>Re Robotaxis and Self Driving: Elno has been claiming FSD
"just around the corner" for over a decade with no more than
incremental idiosyncratic delivery of features. Yet he has
popularized the idea and created a belief in the possibility and
an appetite for it which is critical to it's
realization/manifestation. Even if Waymo (or Apple iCar or
GoogleDrive or BYD or Huawei ???) scoops him, we should give him
credit for popularizing/normalizing it. The decade+ of
instrumenting all of his vehicles to provide a huge and diverse
training set is extremely valuable by many measures. On the
other hand, he may have missed his moment and the first truly
effective FSD may well be based on something less
massive-data/brute-force just as DeepSeek may be demonstrating
opposite the existing LLM behemoths?</p>
<p>As a rapidly aging 'old man' (<i>get off all my lawns!</i>) I
don't like all these advances even though it will probably mean
I can keep on being independent well into my "Alzheimer Years"
(tacky maybe but I did walk a Father-in-Law and a Father all the
way to their graves down that alley in the last 15 years). This
without being an acute danger to others (both old men referenced
parenthetically had wives who were able to manipulate them out
of driving early enough and stayed healthy/alert enough
themselves to be their "self-driving/navigating car robot
drivers")... Predictive scheduling/navigation might even
prevent me from instructing my self-driving car to take me
places I shouldn't be going otherwise. My father started letting
himself into neighbors' houses in the middle of the night. I
might start showing up in a neighboring state or on the opposite
coast with no particular understanding of quite where I was or
what i was doing. Zombie snowbirds a new thing for the 2030s?
Instead of a med-Alert bracelet with my home phone, my FSD car
will simply "return to home" the way a DJI drone does if it
detects it's going to run out of juice before it can or maybe if
it has attempted to cross into restricted airspace (no longer
apparently)? My loved ones (if my geriatric habits don't leave
me without any) can put soft temporal-geo-fences in my FSD
configuration without me even knowing? <br>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Trump Negotiator:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A few months ago you (Pieter) confronted the list with the idea
that "maybe Trump is a really good negotiator?"... and I have to
concede that he has some bold tricks (like Musk does in taking
over and running tech companies?) which can be highly
effective. At best he's negotiating *for* only 49.9999% of the
voting citizenry of the US against the remainder (49.99998% Dems
and allies and .000002 "undecideds"). At worst, he's
negotiating for himself, maybe Barron, a little Ivanka, a little
less Melania, even less the other Trump kids (claimed and
unclaimed), and only transactionally the tech Billionaires and
Fossil Fuel and other extremely powerful wankers. His loyalty
to Politicians (including his corrupt Supreme Court Justices) is
entirely transactional.. while they may benefit from his
"negotiating skill", he is definitely NOT negotiating FOR them
(see Hegseth, Gaetz, Patel, etc). <br>
</p>
<p>So whether he is an effective <i>negotiator</i> or not, it is
worth asking "who is he negotiating on behalf of? To what
end?" <br>
</p>
<p>Musk will be as well remembered as Ford or Lindbergh (another
rabid Nazi-ally) are while Trump may or may not rival
Hitler/Stalin or maybe some lesser flash-in-pan dictator
wannabe?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Being "effective" is entirely orthogonal to being "good".</p>
<p>- Steve<br>
</p>
<div>On 2/12/25 4:32 AM, Pieter Steenekamp
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:14.6667px"><b><i><u>For
robotaxis, I’d bet on Waymo not Tesla. Waymo is very
conspicuous and popular in San Francisco. </u></i></b></span></div>
<div dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:14.6667px"><br>
</span></div>
<div>If you want me to place a bet, I need the fine print—short,
medium, or long term? US, China, or global rollout? And, of
course, the risk-reward profile—are we playing it safe or
swinging for the fences?<br>
<br>
Now, I think some of you might suspect that my knee-jerk
reaction might be to bet on Tesla, but if we're for example
talking short-term in the US with a conservative risk-reward
ratio, I'll also hedge my bet with Waymo too. After all, Waymo
is practically a local celebrity in San Francisco, while
Tesla’s robotaxi dreams are still stuck in traffic.<br>
<br>
Also, if the fine print specifies China, BYD would be a good
bet.</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, 11 Feb 2025 at
19:40, Marcus Daniels <<a href="mailto:marcus@snoutfarm.com" target="_blank">marcus@snoutfarm.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<div lang="EN-US">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt">I
find the OpenAI purchase attempt strange. He must
really have an inferiority complex, since xAI has
the hardware now to compete.[1] Or maybe they
have the money and brawn but not the brains?<br>
<br>
For robotaxis, I’d bet on Waymo not Tesla. Waymo
is very conspicuous and popular in San Francisco.
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt"><br>
[1] <a href="https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/xai-raises-another-6bn-including-from-nvidia-and-amd/" target="_blank">https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/xai-raises-another-6bn-including-from-nvidia-and-amd/</a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt"> </span></p>
<div style="border-right:none;border-bottom:none;border-left:none;border-top:1pt solid rgb(181,196,223);padding:3pt 0in 0in">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12pt"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black">From: </span></b><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black">Friam <<a href="mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com" target="_blank">friam-bounces@redfish.com</a>>
on behalf of Jon Zingale <<a href="mailto:jonzingale@gmail.com" target="_blank">jonzingale@gmail.com</a>><br>
<b>Date: </b>Tuesday, February 11, 2025 at
9:13 AM<br>
<b>To: </b>The Friday Morning Applied
Complexity Coffee Group <<a href="mailto:friam@redfish.com" target="_blank">friam@redfish.com</a>><br>
<b>Subject: </b>Re: [FRIAM] OpenAI and the
fight between Elon and Sam</span></p>
</div>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif;color:rgb(51,51,51)">"</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">Apparently,
Tesla only managed to show profitability last
quarter due to unrealized earnings on Bitcoin.
Stock is way overvalued."</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif;color:rgb(51,51,51)"></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif;color:rgb(51,51,51)"> </span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">Technically,
I would put a short-term (let's say 3 year)
fair value around $210 or so, but would likely
wait to pay $150-$160. Fundamentally, I would
like to see the market cap closer to $300 B.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif;color:rgb(51,51,51)"></span></p>
</div>
</div>
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