News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on The Boring Company raises $112M from Musk, early employees. Parent comment

Re:The Boring Company raises $112M from Musk, early employees by st26 on Monday April 16, 2018 @11:55PM (#16855336)
existing, proven technologies he could get behind with his billions

Whether hyperloop is feasible, he's pretty clearly gunning for future, unproven technologies, and very much on purpose.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to spend your billions on trying to find new technologies.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Boring Company raises $112M from Musk, early employees by DmenshunlAnlsis on Monday April 16, 2018 @11:57PM (#16855342)
He making his money on cars with lithium batteries, and chemical rockets. That’s where he’s spending and making his billions. He’s dropping 3.8% of his recent $2.6 billion award on this project.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Boring Company raises $112M from Musk, early employees by pavs on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @05:14AM (#16856686)
Wow. You are either willfully ignorant at best or deliverately spreading false info at worst.

Musk's Tesla package is performance based. He only get 'paid' by stock if he meets some ridiculously hard performance benchmark (ie, literally have to make Tesla the the most valuable company in the world). Not only that we won't get stock options if he doesnt meet those goals, he can't sell stock for a long period of time to make sure the stock valuation is not a temp spike. Also he doesnt get paid a single penny even if tesla stock performs somewhat better or even stays the same.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Boring Company raises $112M from Musk, early employees by afterburner on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @05:57AM (#16856879)
You kinda missed the main point. Musk's business is focused entirely on improving existing, proven, old technologies.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Boring Company raises $112M from Musk, early employees by kd5bjo on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @06:20AM (#16856998)
Like digging tunnels under populated areas to make new rights-of-way?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Boring Company raises $112M from Musk, early employees by throwaway84742 on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @08:49AM (#16857762)
Not entirely. He has delivered a number of “firsts”, such as rockets that land upright, and is about to deliver more: the satellite internet business will operate a constellation of satellites that is vastly larger than all satellites currently in orbit. This means they can only be automatically controlled.

Frankly, even just delivering one innovation of this magnitude is impressive, being able to do it again and again deserves respect and admiration.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Boring Company raises $112M from Musk, early employees by rohit2412 on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @09:06AM (#16857869)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X

Wait satellite internet business is new? What have you been smoking? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_Internet_access

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Boring Company raises $112M from Musk, early employees by throwaway84742 on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @09:30AM (#16858068)
Satellite internet is not new. Flying and controlling thousands of satellites most definitely is new, however.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Boring Company raises $112M from Musk, early employees by rohit2412 on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @09:34AM (#16858096)
Viaweb, oneweb etc do this. And it may be an operational challenge, not nothing revolutionary
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Boring Company raises $112M from Musk, early employees by throwaway84742 on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @09:48AM (#16858225)
Nobody flies thousands of satellites right now. There are about 1200 satellites in orbit _total_. And nobody controls their satellite constellations fully automatically. And even if OneWeb does end up launching its constellation, this is only viable with a reusable rocket fleet which is manufactured and operated by their main competitor. So I’m skeptical.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Boring Company raises $112M from Musk, early employees by Gravityloss on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @09:24AM (#16858017)
DC-X was a nineties rocket that flew and landed on its tail. It was not orbital though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzXcTFfV3Ls

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Boring Company raises $112M from Musk, early employees by throwaway84742 on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @09:46AM (#16858210)
All right. “Orbital rockets that land upright”. Better now?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Boring Company raises $112M from Musk, early employees by DmenshunlAnlsis on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @09:56AM (#16858295)
You kinda missed the main point. Musk's business is focused entirely on improving existing, proven, old technologies.

So we’re all in agreement then, very good.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Boring Company raises $112M from Musk, early employees by throwaway84742 on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @10:00AM (#16858334)
It’s kind of like saying that a motorcycle is an “improved bicycle”.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Boring Company raises $112M from Musk, early employees by afterburner on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @03:11PM (#16861355)
It's more like saying a self-balancing bicycle is an improved bicycle.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Boring Company raises $112M from Musk, early employees by Gravityloss on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @04:05PM (#16861811)
There were separate technologies. Orbital rockets. Rockets with kerosene gas generator engines or balloon tanks or aluminium lithium tanks already. There were rockets that landed on their tail. These technologies were all combined into one.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Boring Company raises $112M from Musk, early employees by simonh on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @08:14AM (#16857570)
That's a very narrow, opinionated restriction of the term technology, but accepting it for the sake of argument, isn't that what Engineers do?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Boring Company raises $112M from Musk, early employees by afterburner on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @08:36AM (#16857694)
Engineers do all kinds of things, including wild leaps in technology.

However, what he's actually done is make slightly better rockets and slightly better electric cars. He's not working on hyperloop, he's working on the more certain stuff.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Boring Company raises $112M from Musk, early employees by ericd on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @12:44AM (#16855530)
It's not like he was already paid that, he only gets paid that if the company hits incredibly aggressive milestones that would render that amount a rounding error.
[ Parent | on HN ]