danhak

The allocation of capital in anticiption of future cash flows.

Your comment is pithy and likely to get downvoted, but anyone who thinks cryptocurrency is an "investment" is a fool. I have heard no reasonable explanation from crypto enthusiasts when I ask them how they arrive at a fair valuation.

Even as a "store of value," anything this volatile is useless. Call a spade a spade: this is nothing short of pure mania and speculation. It will end poorly for the majority of people getting swept up in the hype.

> I'm not asserting that scarcity or effort alone create value, but without those two components you won't have value.

That's literally exactly what you asserted:

> The opposite of this is where Bitcoin derived it's value. First there is a fixed number of Bitcoin, so you can't simply make more past a point. Secondly, the effort required to mine Bitcoin increases over time.

This is circular logic and not really what I was getting at. Productive assets are valued based on expectations of future cash flows, independent of market value. You’re incorrect in saying the value of everything is determined by the market.

To quote Warren Buffett, “price is what you pay, value is what you get.”

> While I fully agree that most cryptocurrencies are grossly overvalued...

Could you please explain what “overvalued” even means in this context, and how one might go about determining fair value for cryptocurrency? I’ve yet to receive a straight answer on this.

The problem for the major OEMs is that there literally isn’t enough battery production capacity in the world for all of them to ship EV’s in significant volume, and there has been zero indication that they are taking steps to solve that problem. They are already years behind on securing GW-scale capacity.

Why, in your opinion, is GM’s Chevy Bolt still being outsold by the Tesla Model S?

Also FYI “electric engines” are not a thing.

Very fascinating. You argue that millennials favor restrictions on hate speech because they have not experienced anything like Hitler. Yet Germany censors hate speech precisely because of that history.

According to this article, Toys "R" Us accounts for about 10% of Mattel's revenue. That seems pretty significant:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-orbital-atk-northrop-grum...

Notably, the Tesla Model 3 uses permanent magnets, unlike its big siblings Model S and X: https://electrek.co/2017/08/07/tesla-model-3-new-details-rev...

> If there is one hard problem that Uber has arguably solved, it's managing a fleet of drivers and their cars, with all the trouble such a huge workforce of mostly low-income people with low job attachment brings. It is this core competency of Uber that would be rendered worthless by autonomous vehicles.

Technology companies must be willing to disrupt themselves before the competition does. Your argument here is like saying Netflix should not have pursued streaming because it rendered their core competency of DVD-by-mail logistics worthless.

"I'm willing to give her a pass on that because she was probably lying to garner goodwill"

What a leader!

Just a heads up that most tonic water is actually loaded with sugar and calories--nearly as much as soda!

I was pretty surprised when I'd realized this--G&T's had been my go-to "low-cal" cocktail for quite a while.

Ordering a club soda w/ lemon or lime however is a great move when avoiding alcohol in a social setting.

Safety requirements. Here's a crash test between a 2015 Nissan Tsuru, the least expensive sedan sold by Nissan in Mexico, and a 2016 Nissan Versa, the least expensive sedan sold by Nissan in the United States.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85OysZ_4lp0

Thank you for putting this so well, my eyes were rolling so hard at the parent comment, which reads like a parody of SV self-importance--as if SV is the only place in the world where people work hard on things they are passionate about.

My writer and filmmaker friends here in L.A. are every bit as ambitious as my entrepreneur friends up in the Bay Area. And their ambition is not only "acceptable" but celebrated.

It is precisely this ultra-narrow conception of worthwhile human endeavors that has kept me from moving up north. I love working in tech in a city where people are pursuing a huge diversity of interests and careers.

Are VW sales increasing 69% YOY too? Do their cars have an ASP of about $100,000?

Apples and bananas.

I'm not out to prove anything. I was just trying to correct misinformation, just like you said!

Here's a comment you wrote elsewhere in this thread:

> It's my understanding that this was another offering, so, essentially, Tesla sold 5% to Tencent at an average price of $217 and change. Current shareholders get diluted. Prices go up.

This is entirely incorrect. The only shares Tesla told to Tencent were priced at $255 as part of the March 17 offering, and that only represents < 2% of Tencent's position.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding. Your comments suggest to me that you think there was yet another secondary offering associated with this news.

> The 8,167,544 shares of Issuer common stock were acquired by the reporting persons in a registered offering of common stock by the Issuer on March 17, 2017 and through open market purchases, for an aggregate purchase price of $1,777,842,836 (including commission).

That means Tencent acquired its position at an average price of $217 / share. The March 17 secondary was priced at $255 / share. Algebra tells us that > 98% of Tencent's position was acquired on the open market and the rest via the March 17 offering.

Do you understand that's not what happens when shares are acquired on the open market?

This was not a capital raise. Read the filing. Tencent acquired most of the shares on the open market and the remainder in the round that was announced earlier this month.

This is not a new raise. The filing indicates shares were primarily purchased on the open market and then topped off by the Goldman-led round earlier this month. No new dilution here.

Isn't that effectively a straw man fallacy, then?

I did read it. The author makes an arbitrary distinction between "consequentialist" and "ethical consequentialist" vegetarians and implies the second category is comprised entirely of those concerned with animal welfare.

> "Ethical consequentialist vegetarians believe that farmed animals have lives that are worse than non-existence."

Nonsense. There are plenty of "ethical consequentialist" vegetarians who don't care about animal welfare but believe eating meat is unethical because it harms the environment or exacerbates human poverty and hunger.

What is your point? That nobody should be criticized for anything as long as ISIS is doing something worse? That's the standard for American society now?

Sending gay youth to psychologically damaging "conversion therapy" camps. Actively campaigning against the rights of gay individuals to marry or raise children. Physically abusing, disowning or abandoning gay children. There's a reason LGBT youth are 4x as likely to be homeless as their straight peers.

You can have live / work communities without shoehorning a $35 billion company and its 2,000 employees into a bunch of retail storefronts originally built as single-family dwellings in the 1920's.

There's plenty of large commercial space nearby in downtown Santa Monica, Culver City and Plays Vista. None of those are the distant industrial parks you allude to. Based on your comment I'm reasonably certain you have zero familiarity with this area.

When I said "center of gravity" I was referring to culture--art, live music, nightlife and food--not tech, which is certainly centered in Venice and Santa Monica.

Both--this article is pretty informative: http://la.curbed.com/2015/3/31/9975230/snapchat-venice-lease...

But even if a retail vacancy appears--it kinda diminishes the quality of a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood for a private corporate office rather than another retail storefront, bar or restaurant to take its place.

I'm a free marketer, blah blah blah, Snapchat is free to set up shop wherever they want within the bounds of the law. My point is to say what they are doing is lame, and they've made Venice lame. And it's uniquely lame compared to cases where tech giants set up shop in a single large commercial building that can accommodate all their employees within a locale.