[wp381640]

I found this tweet very naive and an indication that Musk really doesn't know what he's getting into.

I don't see how he thinks tweet content alone will be enough to verify the 5% of monthly monetizable users

The other poor indicator was his tweet about sampling _100_ of his own replies to detect bots. That's a horribly small sample and horrible selection bias

The firehose is terabytes a day, add storage + indexes and it's pretty far from "fitting on an USB stick" in order to analyze.

[agnosticmantis]

As a statistician I chuckle seeing the genius rocket scientist lacks the most rudimentary understanding of stats 101.

Maybe from now on we should use statistics as the epitome of difficult intellectual activity instead of “rocket science”.

[smcl]

Or running a Python script? https://www.crikey.com.au/2022/06/01/elon-musk-crikey-dogeco...

[coffeeblack]

It was a reply to a tweet. Please use context.

[altacc]

It was a statement by the richest person on the planet on communication channel that he regularly uses to his declare personal and business intent and which is obsessively over analysed and therefore has real effects on business markets. Please use context ;)

[oefrha]

Why would you assume ignorance instead of malice when a very smart person advised by smart people with domain knowledge makes an obviously nonsensical claim, while billions are on the line?

[Isinlor]

Because Elon probably spends max couple of hours per week on Twitter acquisition?

His modus operandi is taking quick decisions and backtracking if he is wrong.

Actually it's not only his modus operandi, SpaceX according to NASA evaluation is also working that way.

It's basically depth first search vs. breath first search.

Dr. Daniel Rasky, a NASA Senior scientist

https://youtu.be/MxIiiwD9C0E?t=1464 :

> I think there are some things and kind of going back to in some ways back to the Apollo days if you take a look at kind of the environment that NASA had in Apollo it was kind of what Elon has with his young engineers. you had you know people trying things and in what works and what doesn't work I think over the years we've gotten into a very risk-averse profile and we're I call it full matrix engineering that okay that all concerns that anyone can raise have to be chased down a hundred percent before you can make any decision. Okay, so yeah like a full matrix of all the things that may be pertinent to a certain decision and you have to fill that entire array before you can make a decision to go forward and there's times when that makes sense but it doesn't make sense for everything we do. SpaceX uses a sparse matrix okay 51% okay when do when we get to 51% okay enough we're gonna make a decision and then we're going to try it and move on.

[Bubble_Pop_22]

> His modus operandi is taking quick decisions and backtracking if he is wrong.

That is the modus operandi with products/services, it's not anything new anyways. It has been named in a bunch of different ways ranging from "agile" , "move fast break things" etc. also less charmingly "Microsoft vaporware products" or "Google graveyard", "Steve Jobs' bluffs"

They all indicate the same strategy: ship something and get feedback, if feedback is ultra-negative then you can always kill it.

However when legal stuff is signed, and especially legal stuff of this magnitude then the only way in which you leave yourself room to backtrack is if there is a clause which lets you do so in the legal document. When legal stuff is signed is not in your hands anymore, you have to treat it as being in the courts hands. Because that is what happens if you backtrack.

[Isinlor]

For car industry and space industry it is a complete revolution.

From what I understand he can legally backtrack from the deal, but he would have to pay some billion dollars penalty. Not cheap by any means, but he can afford that. And having billion dollars at stake you can try to look for a lot of legal reasons to not pay that billion.

But my guess is that he genuinely thinks that 5% number is not accurate based on his twitter feed comments. His feed comments is mostly crypto scammers. Some independent people also claim that 50% of his followers are fake.

Twitter claim of 5% is very specific and probably accurate in a legal sense. But if you have tens of billions at stake and a deal that looks like a mistake it's entirely reasonable to dig deeper.

[Bubble_Pop_22]

> For car industry and space industry it is a complete revolution.

Isn't a bit premature to declare it a successful revolution? Cases against Tesla autopilot are mounting, there is a reason why "move fast and break things" isn't used in fields where the people's lives are at stake. It's the reason why Theranos imploded. Who could have possibly predicted what could have happened if US Govt let Theranos run, maybe they'd have really developed the product in the following iteration of the company?

> From what I understand he can legally backtrack from the deal, but he would have to pay some billion dollars penalty

That is only the case if the FTC or the US. Govt. blocks the deal because of any reason.

[Isinlor]

I did not know that about the deal. Thanks for the info.

With SpaceX it is certainly a successful revolution. There is whole bunch of new startups that would not exists without SpaceX. Most of them will die, but some will not.

It is also quite clear that Tesla already achieved it's goal of accelerating transition to sustainable energy. Volkswagen shift is certainly linked to Tesla. And Volkswagen actually committed fraud on emissions that probably led to death of many people.

Situation with Theranos and Tesla is completely not comparable. Autopilot works fine. You are safer with autopilot activated on a highway than you are driving in a city per kilometer driven. Whether you are safer on a highway with or without autopilot is debatable and we don't have good enough data to settle it. So, Autopilot is not prefect by any means, arguably not market leading solution in the category of drive assist, but it works fine.

The bigger issue is with Full Self Driving. Tesla can drive you around in a city - so the way they spin what FSD means is almost satisfied. The issue is that it is extremely stressful experience and I'm 100% convinced that you are more likely to get in an accident when babysitting it vs. if you would drive by yourself and pay the same amount of attention.

But I think in 5 - 10 years they may be able to actually deliver proper working solution. They are making progress.

[Barrin92]

because Musk isn't some technical genius with amazing domain knowledge, he's the world's best salesman with a unique talent of attracting followers.

[coffeeblack]

There are lots of great technical interviews with him on Yt that show the opposite is true.

[waffleiron]

Could you link a few? I'd be interested, cause it's not the feeling I get from him.

[Isinlor]

Here you have Dr. Daniel Rasky, a NASA Senior scientist talking about SpaceX and Elon. Daniel Rasky was involved in specific studies that were comparing operation of NASA and private companies. He also has first hand experience from working at SpaceX and with Elon. He is expert on advanced entry systems and thermal protection materials and he was for example involved in decision to select PICA as a heat shield for Dragon, and he explains how that went with Elon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxIiiwD9C0E

Here is Elon answering questions of National Academy of Science members about Starship. He explains in detail why he pushed the team towards steel and away from carbon fibers:

https://youtu.be/da3iF2Np51A?t=951

Here you have another direct conversation with Elon:

https://youtu.be/t705r8ICkRw?t=172

Here is Elon discussing with Sundy Munro mass manufacturing and engineering.

Sandy Munro is a veteran engineer from General Motors supplier and directly at Ford. Sandy Munro is now running a consultancy company that tear downs cars and suggests improvements to wide range of clients from the car industry.

https://youtu.be/YAtLTLiqNwg?t=78

[coffeeblack]

Thanks, half of the videos I didn’t even know.

Also, Musk was doing a physics PhD in battery tech at Stanford when he dropped out to found Zip2.

[hef19898]

It can easily be both!

[shp0ngle]

Because it’s Elon Musk.

[honkdaddy]

To be pedantic, USB sticks do come in TB sizes these days.

Either way though, I expect Musk, the richest man alive, can afford to pay a handful of senior engineers a couple weeks pay to store and run some analysis on the firehose. It's a lot of data, but at "fuck-you" level money it's certainly manageable.

[HWR_14]

Sure, it's manageable. I mean, trivially, Twitter manages it and Elon is worth more than Twitter, so clearly he can afford to process the data. They question is how long will it take, and how much money will he spend reproducing the analysis done by the company he's about to buy.