dmode

What? Everyone I know thought Russia would absolutely destroy Ukraine within days and take it over

That’s how physical good work. But software, especially consumer software, works on a winner take all model. That’s why there are very few consumer companies and chatGPT is pretty much the only one after Meta, which was founded in 2004. The reason this happens is because consumer software can scale infinitely as there is zero marginal cost for a new user and there are very high switching costs. A single car company cannot scale to serve every single customer. Because it requires massive CapEx investment. But Google can serve every single search globally because the incremental cost to serve the additional consumer is essentially zero. That’s how these frontier models are eventually going to play out. There will be consolidation and winner take all. It has somewhat happened already with chatGPT taking over consumer and Claude taking over Enterprise. There will probably some long tail open source player, similar to Linux.

That's fair. But my point is from a business POV, why would SpaceX want to invests hundreds of billions of CapEx on a third or fourth frontier model, which cannot compete with chatGPT and claude on the high end, and getting squeezed by open weight models on the low end

Can someone explain to me what's the point of Grok anymore? I don't understand why we need a third or fourth closed frontier model. It is clear that chatGPT has locked down the consumer play, and may be Gemini is there. Claude has enterprise locked up, followed by chatGPT and Gemini. Enterprise switching costs are notoriously high, and even if they switch, they have chatGPT or Gemini to choose from. Beyond that, you have a vast array of open source models (DeepSeek, Kimi, and now Meta's Spark and Glimmer). So, why would anyone need a third or fourth frontier model and why would SpaceX spends billions in CapEx for a very small market share

It's not an AI company. It is a datacenter company. While all frontier AI labs are fighting for compute SpaceX is give up compute, instead of reserving it for their own models. That tells you all we need to know

Anecdotally, every single family member I have in India has 1 or 0 kids.

Good riddance. Elon is a complete fraud.

The emails clearly show that Elon had no interest on this being a non profit. Especially because he advocated for OpenAI to be absorbed by Tesla multiple times. The only reason he is suing is because xAI is dead and he needs some AI love.

This is such a ridiculous hyperbole, I am surprised it is the top comment on Hacker News. There are still 40 mn people in California, and people still move here.

- Housing is ridiculous -> pay can also be ridiculous. And housing can be cheap once you move out of Bay or Los Angeles

- Utilities are ridiculous --> You don't really pay that much because of temperate weather

- Political issues are rampant --> Not sure what this means. I mean, political issues are rampant everywhere. Have you seen Florida ? Whole politics is based on around being "anti woke". Or Texas ? Ridiculous stunt (flying migrants, banning abortions). I prefer not to live in a Christian theocracy

- Homeless and crimes everywhere --> Do you get your news from Fox ? There is like zero homelessness and very little crime outside of very large cities. Even in SF, once you are out of downtown, there is very little homelessness. In fact, SF has some of the lowest violent crime rates

- Own a car and bike is a hassle --> LOL, what ? Is that why every family has multiple cars and bikes ? And is by far the leading EV ownership rates in the US ?

- Racial and political ideologues.... --> Again reads like a Fox news headline. Perhaps you prefer the book banning ideologies and "benefits of slavery" being taught elsewhere. My kid goes to a public school here and it is amazing the amount of effort is put in to be inclusive

- One can lose entire livelihood.... --> Can't even, insanely ridiculous

But doesn't alcohol trigger a wildly different reaction than hard drugs ? Which alcohol triggers schizophrenia, psychosis, hallucination and make you violent ? And these are triggered very very easily by using a small amount of meth or fentanyl. To get to a comparable state with alcohol, you would have to drink copious amount, but then you are more likely to be passed out than exhibit violent behavior.

I agree with your other point though - permissiveness of use shouldn't come with ignoring all societal norms, just because you are a vulnerable drug user. In fact, permissiveness of use should be paired with stricter enforcement of quality of life laws

Teslas absolute don't have long-lasting materials or great reliability or great performance. There have been hundreds of thousands of articles and experience about poor materials, build quality, reliability etc. I have owned both a Model S and Model 3, and I did own them because I wanted to support an EV maker, but they are by far some of the worst made cars I have owned. I switched back to a BMW EV and its like night and day.

You are extremely biased. I have both owned a Tesla and non Tesla EV. Non Tesla EVs are way more conservative in their range estimates and you can actually beat their estimates. People routinely beat BMWs advertised EPA range - something you will never hear for a Tesla

I had a Mazda 3 once which would routinely beat its EPA estimates, especially highway driving. You are too forgiving of Tesla's business gimmicks

I have the BMW i4, and I would echo the same comment. BMW is extremely conservative with range estimates and would almost certainly meet or beat their range estimates.

When I used own a Model S, it nearly left me stranded in a mountainous highway, in winter with its optimistic range meter. Ultimately, I had to drift behind a truck, drive at 45 mph, and reach the Supercharger with 2% charge remaining.

PayPal was not founded by Elon. SolarCity was run by his brother / cousin (?) and was about to go bankrupt before being questionably acquired by Tesla. Boring is not a thing. Even Tesla wasn't founded by him. So his track record is really creating SpaceX (and jury is still out on long term success) and executing on Tesla (where technology, concept was founded by someone else).

Is this the Alphabet X or the Elon X ?

I really think incidents by autonomous cars are the least of SF's problems

Evernote is still around ?

I think they stole the core concept from Twitter - engage users and then show ads. Sue them

I thought Musk had said that there is nothing worth stealing from Twitter because it’s codebase was so bad

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/twitter-down-elon-musk-ex...

Try staying in a hotel with two kids

I feel like I read about Airbnb's collapse every other month. Anyone showing random data on twitter and expecting a brand- which is literally a verb and doesn't even require paid marketing - to collapse 40% is laughable. I must also point out that a 40% drop is not reflected in the stock price (which is actually up quite a bit) or in the forward guidance. It is also interesting, that supposedly data driven people in Hacker News would fall for some random tweet.

I really don't think he is saying that. There is not quote for him saying anything like this. I think he positioning the trade-off.

Apple is now making $20bn on just service PER QUARTER. This is their failed product.

Perhaps, he can fix auto wipers first ?

I take my kids there all the time as well. There are so many fun kids things to do - Exploratorium, GG Park, Cal Academy, Tunnel Tops park, Presidio, Crissy Field, GG bridge, Ocean Beach etc. etc. Stop falling for nonsense tropes

100% agree with you. Asian cities feel much much safer. But there is a lot more context and history behind why it is.