With any new technology, the likelihood of failure is high but the expected value is positive. As Nat Friedman (CEO of GitHub) said: "Pessimists sound smart. Optimists make money."

> the likelihood of failure is high but the expected value is positive

Except when the new technology was proposed and marketed by a loony, of course.

Yes, all those poor Tesla IPO investors who got misled by a loony are lining up for shareholder lawsuits and yelling for prosecution, due to the obviously financially irresponsible management of their investment.

(Refresh my memory here - would an 88X return on investment after IPO be classified as high returns on a high-risk investment?)

I sense some notes of disagreement with calling the Tesla CEO "a loony"

The likelihood of failure is 100% when the technology is as ridiculous as the hyperloop. It's just yet more gadgetbahn, except it's transparently worse.

* 10% of the optimists make money

The optimists get more than one at bat.

And pessimists don’t?

I think the implication is that pessimists don’t try.

Your assumption is only true if trying never has a negative downside.

I don’t see how that follows.

My take on the GP meaning: Failure diminishes trust from investors.

If you got 1 milliion from investors, and you blew it/wasted it/burned it. It will be harder to get the million for the 2nd idea.

Talk about a false dichotomy there. No person is fully a pessimist or optimist. Framing it in terms like this just serves to stifle actual discussion. A nice soundbite from someone who happened to be optimistic about the right thing.

A pneumatic railway was already built and functional in London in 1863. While designed for mail, humans rode on it and it was triple the speed of any transport of the time.

Technically it might qualify as a hyperloop so your prediction may already be wrong.

you need to fix your clock, its not 2027 yet.

The prediction holds, not the prediction is decided.