hello639

> And they should.

Nah, even the Porsche Cayman is more prestigious than the Tesla Plaid.

> If I showed somebody two images of inner city traffic jams, they wouldn't be able to tell me which is humans driving gas engine'd cars, and which is self driving electric vehicles.

The city with self-driving cars will economically outperform the city with human-driven gas cars.

Just like America economically outperforms Europe. The best and brightest from Europe/cities with manual human drivers will leave their dying cities behind and move to the futuristic, inspiring, and highly-compensating self-driving car city/America.

Europeans are upset that America is getting away with treating the underprivileged so poorly, yet America constantly outperforms Europe $-wise. And yes, everything in life is about $.

>> Why do people still work at Tesla

> A lot of money, perhaps?

They work there for the mission, not the money.

Tesla pays 100-150K USD for new grad SWE including stock options/RSU. For AI, it’s about 150-200K.

Or you can drive 15 minutes to Google and a SWE gets 200K and AI gets 200-250K. Or “sell out” and work in quant finance for 400-500K new grad SWE as a 22 year old.

So no, people do not work at Tesla/SpaceX for the money.

I have many friends at Tesla, Neuralink, SpaceX, and they complain how little they are paid, how they have no free time, and how they hope the name brand on their resume gets them a higher paying job some day. Looks like they bought Elon’s bullshit.

> All you need is a couple of index funds and bonds.

Ah, spoken like a true middle class Boglehead.

VTI/VOO will not change your life, even after 30 years. Broad market ETFs are not worth the risk.

You’re better off doing bonds (little to no risk) or crypto (high risk, more likely for life-changing generational wealth compared, even compared to FAANG SWE TC).

> it seemed that FTX.us was firewalled from FTX.intl. Is that now revealed to be false?

No shit

> And yet his companies are some of the most difficult to get a job at. Interesting.

It’s more difficult to get a tech job at FBI/CIA than Google. Does that make the US government a more desirable place to work?

As an aside, top talent definitely does NOT work at Elon’s companies. Top talent knows that “a good company mission” does not pay for rent, mortgage, or daycare.

> I know that in Andrej's interview he talks about how he felt the Tesla team had become autonomous and didn't rely on him anymore, maybe George resonated with that.

Ah, yes. Andrej left because the Tesla team has everything to finish FSD this year.

It has nothing to do with Elon’s obsession with the Boston Dynamics robot, nor the failed progress on FSD.

> Either a lot of that previous wonder-talk was actually a lie, or there's something else going on here.

Tesla dropped radar and ultrasonic due to supply shortages. Nothing to do with their AI being smart.

Many first-hand reports on Tesla fanboy forums on how no-radar and no-ultrasonic autopilot is far worse than with the sensors.

> I can see airlines like Southwest making wifi free just like how they provide checked bags for free.

Southwest is not providing free bags out of the goodness of their hearts. It’s purely a profit-oriented business decision.

- Free bags means fewer people putting carry on bags in the overhead bins.

- Fewer carry on bags means faster boarding.

- Faster boarding means less time spent at the gate.

- Less time spent at the gate means the plane is in the air for more time.

- More time the plane is in the air means more profit made (generally speaking, provided loads, schedule and routing allows)

> Aren't capital gains already reported from your bank?

Capital gains from real estate sales are not automatically reported.

Public securities (stocks, ETFs, crypto, etc) are a small fraction of overall capital gains by $.

Damn you. Here, take my upvote.