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Comment by schmichael | Hacker News Reader

Chevron is an oil and natural gas company, not an electricity production company. Directly producing green energy is a bit like Apple selling Windows PCs.

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Apple was a computer company and now their biggest business is selling mobile phones.

Which are what if not computers?

There must be some difference, as otherwise my washing machine would be a computer too since it has a screen, input, and an operating system; and conversely that the Windows phone wouldn’t have had such a brief existence.

Perhaps the difference between a phone and a washing machine is, uh, the plumbing?

So you're saying having plumbing in the computer makes it not a computer? What about water-cooled gaming and HPC systems: are they computers?

Certain kind of plumbing, as in the kind that allows the computer to wash clothes.

Do I really need to clarify that the primary purpose of a washing machine is not to compute, but to wash?

Not was, is. They didnt undermine their first market in the slightest.

Kodak was a film company. They made the first digital camera. Theyre dead now.

Chevron is a profit-making company, and will do anything that makes it money. The only relevant question is whether they'd have any advantage in green energy, or would they lose margin to competition.

Failing at green energy might be profitable enough if it drives up costs for other green energy companies.

> Chevron is a profit-making company, and will do anything that makes it money

You assume that Chevron will act rationally. Whether it would be profitable is far from the only question.

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