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1. Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Sunday, 02-Apr-2023 08:59:02 UTC Charlie Stross

   A year later we can see that the truth is that over decades his car company and rocket company both evolved ways of keeping Dilbert Stark from doing much damage—ruthlessly managing him to keep him out of the way of the core business. But his social media acquisition was so abrupt there was no time for Twitter to develop internal defences against a screeching, shit-slinging macaque.

   • Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Sunday, 02-Apr-2023 08:58:55 UTC Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • Michael Busch
     • Nicholas Weaver

     @ncweaver @michael_w_busch This kind of ignores how Starlink *is* making money—from cablecos who have a universal service obligation to provide service to mandated customers who are too remote to cost-effectively lay fibre to. It lets them avoid huge fines/loss of licenses, so Starlink can charge what they want. (It's not a cellphone service!)

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   • Nicholas Weaver (ncweaver@thecooltable.wtf)'s status on Sunday, 02-Apr-2023 08:59:00 UTC Nicholas Weaver

     in reply to

     • Michael Busch

     @michael_w_busch @cstross
     Yeup, Starlink will never be a big profitable business Because Physics (tm). Shannon's limit is real, which means you can only serve so many customers in a given area, and even in such an area many of those customers would be better served with point to point 802.11...

   • Michael Busch (michael_w_busch@mastodon.online)'s status on Sunday, 02-Apr-2023 08:59:01 UTC Michael Busch

     in reply to

     • Nicholas Weaver

     @ncweaver @cstross SpaceX was briefly profitable. Then Musk was allowed to start the Starlink scam, which is losing huge amounts of money while making a mess of low orbit.

     Along with Starship rockets that have only recently stopped exploding.

   • Nicholas Weaver (ncweaver@thecooltable.wtf)'s status on Sunday, 02-Apr-2023 08:59:02 UTC Nicholas Weaver

     in reply to

     @cstross
     And even the car company hasn't succeeded:
     The Cybertruck is just dumb from the start, and between when Pony Stark announced the Cyberduck and today, Ford announced the electric F150, built an entirely new factory, and started churning them out.

   • Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Sunday, 02-Apr-2023 09:00:05 UTC Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • Michael Busch
     • Nicholas Weaver

     @ncweaver @michael_w_busch Next, add in airliners and in-flight wifi, and ships, liners, and yachts. Starlink for those customers will not be a $250/month subscription. (Maybe add a zero or three, depending?) Nevertheless, there's demand for mobile, low latency, high bandwidth networking for ships and airliners.

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   • L P (bugloaf@kolektiva.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Apr-2023 09:00:10 UTC L P

     in reply to

     • Big Jesus Trashcan🎱:verified:

     @cstross @BigJesusTrashcan I also wonder if Elon knew he couldn’t personally design rockets or cars so he didn’t interfere too much there, but since he was a programmer at one time, he assumed he understood everything there was about Twitter.

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   • Michael Gemar (michaelgemar@mstdn.ca)'s status on Sunday, 02-Apr-2023 09:00:18 UTC Michael Gemar

     in reply to

     • Iain Bancarz

     @cstross @iain_bancarz How many other clean sheet auto makers and rocket companies have succeeded?

     And SpaceX at least *is* revolutionary, by any reasonable definition (Tesla perhaps lesss so). No one else is currently doing what SpaceX does, which is why it dominates orbital launch mass. And its Starship project is hugely innovative — if it succeeds (a HUGE if), it will completely upend launch.

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   • Michael Gemar (michaelgemar@mstdn.ca)'s status on Sunday, 02-Apr-2023 09:00:19 UTC Michael Gemar

     in reply to

     • Iain Bancarz

     @iain_bancarz @cstross I think that analysis is greatly underselling his influence on these companies. They are in vastly different domains, but both have been hugely innovative, outcompeting much larger, well-entrenched incumbents. If it was just raising money, why didn’t GM lead the way in practical electric vehicles, and Boeing or ULA in affordable reusable launch vehicles?

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   • Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Sunday, 02-Apr-2023 09:00:19 UTC Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • Michael Gemar
     • Iain Bancarz

     @michaelgemar @iain_bancarz GM had a huge investment in IC engines—and senior management from C-suite down had built their personal fiefdoms on it. Same with Boeing/ULA on the conventional launch industry. Whereas Tesla and SpaceX were "clean sheet" startups with no organizational debt (cf. technical debt) to earlier models.

     Musk didn't revolutionize those fields. What did was a startup company making a run at those targets with no baggage and adequate VC funding. (The latter, Musk affected.)

   • Iain Bancarz (iain_bancarz@genomic.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Apr-2023 09:00:23 UTC Iain Bancarz

     in reply to

     • Michael Gemar

     @michaelgemar @cstross Nobody is saying Musk "had no role". His role was to generate publicity, excitement, and investor $. Credit where it's due, he's very good at that.

     Musk dreams of being Henry Ford, and wants to convince us all he's Henry Ford, but in fact he's PT Barnum.

   • Michael Gemar (michaelgemar@mstdn.ca)'s status on Sunday, 02-Apr-2023 09:00:24 UTC Michael Gemar

     in reply to

     @cstross Musk is an unmitigated ass and possibly fascist, but I don’t think having two companies in vastly different domains that completely upended their markets is coincidence. Tesla sells the vast majority of EVs in the US, and SpaceX puts more mass in orbit than the rest of the world combined. Musk has made a hash of Twitter, but I think it’s silly to suggest that he had no role in those two hugely successful and innovative companies.

   • Michael Gemar (michaelgemar@mstdn.ca)'s status on Sunday, 02-Apr-2023 09:00:24 UTC Michael Gemar

     in reply to

     @cstross I think the best parallel may be to Henry Ford, who revolutionized industrial production, and was also a vicious racist. Terrible people can nonetheless be accomplished in some domains.