scottkduncan

> Economists, board members, bankers, c-level execs - the shot callers of the world are much less clever and equipped to lead than they collectively think they are.

I completely agree with this, but disagree that Musk is constructively channeling his creativity and nonconformity here. He's trying to pivot from a niche product for tech enthusiasts to a mass market car, with a client base whose first questions will be about the car's reliability, not how quickly it can go 0 - 60. A guy who flies off to Thailand, accuses people of being pedophiles, curses out journalists, and yes, smokes a huge blunt during an interview, does not inspire confidence to most people at a time when his company is hemorrhaging cash, straining to meet production goals, slashing investments in the future, and losing senior execs left and right.

If Tesla was humming along it'd be one thing to have more of this edge, but to me this looks like a slow motion breakdown prompted by deep problems at his company.

legal != smart

Agree with Jacques M on solar, and would also add that much of the battery tech is Panasonic's and self-driving is a long ways away from being road-ready.

"Shorts" didn't cause the CEO to invent a $420/share offer for the company out of whole cloth, nor did they force him to smoke a blunt on video. The mental gymnastics you have to do not see the red flags here, completely the result of the CEO's actions and mismanagement, is something.

"Wall Street" is not betting on them to go bankrupt. Collectively, investors value this company that produces, at best, 7K cars a week at $45 billion. The idea that one quarter of profitability achieved through slashing capex to the bone fundamentally would fundamentally change their valuation doesn't carry much water in my view.

Yes, it was what passes for a joke attempt on a Friday afternoon.

I'll pick one up in the liquidation sale.

"Most of the other units are Airbnb rentals."

Now there is some fodder for the anti-short term rental crowd.

Protectionism would benefit some U.S. farmers, but certainly not all. The U.S. is a net exporter of corn, soybeans, dairy, etc. to Mexico and they are our third largest agricultural export market.

The US air system also used to be much more expensive and served far fewer routes, pricing out a significant portion of consumers: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/how-airl...

Definitely sarcasm. Bone dry delivery.

I'm not sure they vision you're describing is the direction private equity would take it, but with the major tech buyers shying away it does seem like a private exit is the most likely way this ends.

John Hempton summed up this view well: http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2016/10/some-comment-on-tw...

It turns out Pew found the opposite in their 2016 poll of global opinion of the United States. Favorability of the U.S. increased from 50% favorable to 57% in Germany from 2015 - 2016, while unfavorable views declined from 42% to 38%.

http://www.pewglobal.org/2016/06/28/americas-international-i...

> Yeah he is controversial, but is he worthy of so much attention?

He is running to be the most powerful political figure in the world...so yes.

Cool. What do you call RT and Fox News?

If you haven't seen "a shred" of NYT coverage of Hillary's email scandals then all that means is you haven't looked for it. They covered it ad nauseum.

The argument that someone was wrong about something once and thus should no longer be listened to about anything is both pervasive and dangerous.

Please, the media covers Hillary extensively and it is almost always negative. This story is a great example - tantalizing headlines about impropriety but then actually nothing that really indicates wrongdoing. People that ran charities got meetings with the Secretary of State -- what is the scandal here?

Vox did a good write-up of this and how the AP went out of their way to make this look worse than it is: http://www.vox.com/2016/8/24/12618446/ap-clinton-foundation-...

While there is certainly a credentialed labor issue in higher education, we don't exactly have a shortage of PhDs and it's not like there has been a rapid ramping up in compensation for professors. In fact it has been the opposite as colleges have moved to use more adjuncts who have far fewer protections than tenured professors and yet the costs continue to rise unabated.

In healthcare too I don't think the credentialing of doctors and nurses is the predominant reason for why healthcare is so expensive. It is rather a complex mix of tremendous overhead and administrative costs, drug/device monopolies, over-consumption of medical services, etc.

“Over the past two years we’ve been focused on growth, operational excellence, and customer satisfaction with a primary focus on profitability,” AptDeco’s co-founder Kalam Dennis told TechCrunch. “We have spoken with Move Loot regarding their interest in an acquisition. Ultimately we’re only interested in opportunities that align with the previously mentioned strategic goals.”

Ouch. Add it to the list of on-demand services that don't scale very well.

If you are interested in political participation one place to start would be state and local races - you are more likely to find unconventional candidates at those levels that don't fit neatly with either party.

I also find it much more plausible that a third party would make inroads at the state and local level and build momentum from there, rather than a third party candidate emerging out of nowhere and taking the presidency outright.

Per your second point, there is certainly a strong profit motive for keeping terminally-ill patients alive longer than they otherwise might want on the part of health-care providers. End-of-life care costs are no joke.

But it is still an auction, right? As in, if the starting price is less than the market price it should still get bid higher and there won't be a market irregularity?

Very true, I guess the distinction I'm trying to draw though is between having articles talk about men's clothing vs. having comments on an article about a company with a female CEO quickly go to her physical appearance when the subject at hand is the company's performance. When Facebook makes missteps, I don't think discussion on them quickly jumps to Mark's hoodies.

I'm not sure if this is the thread you were thinking about, but I don't see much about the appearance of the founder; rather it is all rightfully focused on his miserable failings and running his company into the ground: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11327341

I hope similar attention is paid to men's wardrobe choices next time a corporate scandal article involving a male CEO is posted to HN.

It still costs time...

Shypmate idea is great but there are some obvious risks, like unwittingly becoming a drug mule. I wonder how they counteract that.

Companies factor in local cost of living into their salary packages and the author is pointing out the business problems (i.e. high turnover of entry level employees) caused caused when Yelp failed to do this.

Salaries in New York are higher than those in Des Moines, and if companies want the benefits associated with locating in the Bay Area they are going to have to pay employees more. Even entry-level and lower-skilled ones.

Except that most of the people communicating directly with Secretary Clinton would have been political appointees who would have joined the organization from the outside.

Don't get me wrong, it's still a hierarchical, traditional organization.