Tag: elon musk

• Tesla vs. Waymo

  One of the reasons why I’m interested in the autonomous vehicle space is that I know our built environment is sticky. And because we’ve designed so much of it around the car, it’s hard to imagine this dependance going away anytime soon.

  In fact, there’s a very real possibility that autonomy leads to further decentralization. That is typically what happens when we make it easier and cheaper for people to travel longer distances. They sprawl. So we ought to start preparing ourselves for the positive and negative externalities.

  I’m not a deep expert on autonomous vehicles, but as an interested observer, Waymo appears ahead of Tesla in delivering this future. Waymo has been offering fully driverless rides since 2020 and Tesla is still at L2 autonomy, which means a driver needs to be present in the vehicle.

  I hear from lots of people that their Full Self Driving (FSD) software is pretty good, but according to some studies, it can require human intervention as often as every 13 miles. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Tesla won’t be first to “solve autonomy,” but their Cybercab isn’t here yet.

  If you’re interested in this topic, here is an article by Timothy Lee summarizing a discussion that he recently had with the co-CEO of Waymo, Dmitri Dolgov. Some of it is a little technical, but it does offer a comparison between Tesla and Waymo.

  That is, how their approaches differ and what the future might look like.

  2024.10.22

• Pulling the future forward

  I like the way that Scott Galloway describes entrepreneurship in this recent post about why he’s bearish on Tesla:

  Entrepreneur is a synonym for salesperson, and salesperson is the pedestrian term for storyteller. Pro tip: No startup makes sense. We (entrepreneurs) are all impostors who must deploy a fiction (a story) that captures the imagination and attracts capital to pull the future forward and turn rhyme into reason. No business I have started, at the moment of inception, made any sense … until it did. Or didn’t. The only way to predict the future is to make it.

  He then goes on to describe the difference between an entrepreneur and a liar:

  This is not the same as lying. There’s a real distinction between an entrepreneur and a liar: Entrepreneurs believe their story will come true, as they are laser-focused on making it true. A liar, well, they know they’re misleading people with false data. Usually for money (i.e., fraud). This is where Tesla turns gray.

  Scott continues to say things about Elon and Tesla. But that’s not the point of today’s post.

  The point I would like to make is that real estate development is an inherently entrepreneurial endeavor. You need to be a salesperson and a compelling storyteller, because that’s the only way you’ll be able to create the future. And creating the future is what developers do.

  2024.10.20

• I’d actually like a Tesla bicycle

  I watched Tesla’s We, Robot event last night. As many of you know, Elon and his team showcased a Cybercab, Robovan, and a humanoid robot that dances funny, all of which will be available in the market for purchase at some unknowable date in the future. What was obvious is that Elon himself has no clear idea of when this will be.

  What I will say, though, is that the designs look cool. The Cybercab looks like a Porsche and a Cybertruck had a love child, and the Robovan looks like an Art Deco rendition of what the future is supposed to be like. I first wondered why they’d create a robotaxi with only two seats. But thinking about it now, most Uber rides probably only have 1-2 passengers.

  

  Despite these pretty designs, the overwhelming reaction to the event seems to be one of disappointment. We’ve heard what was said before. Public transportation is bad (I disagree). Autonomy will free up your time and remove unnecessary parking spaces from our cities (allowing for more public space). And soon you’ll be able to put your under-utilized car to work and earn extra cash.

  Cool, but when?

  Waymo and Uber are not, as far as I know, hosting similarly flashy events. But as far as I can tell, they’re making meaningful progress in advancing toward full autonomy. As of June of this year, Waymo had already logged over 22 million rider-only miles. And in September, they announced a partnership that would bring AVs to Austin and Atlanta by way of the Uber app.

  At this point in the hype cycle, I don’t think anyone is interested in hearing promises about what the future of autonomy will be like, especially without any firm dates. They want to know: Are we there yet? So I think it’s no surprise that people, including investors, weren’t all that pumped up by the event.

  On a more important note, Tesla had bicycles with brightly illuminated wheels circulating around their event set (at Warner Bros.) to presumably demonstrate that their Cybercabs can successfully navigate around moving objects (when brightly illuminated). If you missed them, look at the 29 second mark in the below video:

  I can’t be the only one who thought: “What are those? Now, that’s what I want!” So I’ve asked Elon when they’ll be available and when I can buy one. I’ll keep you all posted on his response.

  2024.10.12

• Twitter > Instagram

  If I had to pick only one social network to use, it would be Twitter. I, of course, also enjoy Instagram because I like taking photos. But if I had to pick one, it would be Twitter.

  I just find that Instagram is more about passive consumption (like watching TV), whereas on Twitter I’ve found a way to actively engage in productive discussions around the topics that interest me — everything from real estate and architecture to NFTs and photography.

  The crypto community is also very centered around Twitter. I haven’t looked at the numbers, but I would think that NFT activity has been, or at least should be, a boon for the company. That said, Twitter has never really been a great business and public company.

  But maybe that changes now that Elon Musk has become its largest shareholder with a 9.2% stake in the company (currently valued at a few billion). The stock jumped over 27% today. Or maybe it doesn’t change at all and this is just a fun side hustle for Elon.

  Here is a typically funny explanation from Matt Levine introducing what just happened:

  Look this all makes complete sense, obvious, intuitive, simple sense. If you are the richest person in the world, and annoying, and you constantly play a computer game, and you get a lot of enjoyment and a sense of identity from that game and are maybe a little addicted, then at some point you might have some suggestions for improvements in the game. So you might leave comments and email the company that makes the game saying “hey you should try my ideas.” And the company might ignore you (or respond politely but not move fast enough for your liking). It might occur to you: “Look, I am the richest person in the world; how much could this game company possibly cost? I should just buy it and change the game however I want.” Even if your complaints are quite minor, why shouldn’t you get to play exactly the game you want? Even if you have no complaints, why not own the game you love, just to make sure it continues to be exactly what you want? The game is Twitter, the richest person in the world is Elon Musk…

  2022.04.04

• The case for speculative asset bubbles (and happy new year)

  This is an interesting perspective. It is from Fred Wilson’s annual what-happened-this-past-year post:

  But here is the thing about speculative frenzies – they are generally directionally correct but off in their order of magnitude. And they finance the trend that they are directionally correct about. It may be the case that Tesla’s market capitalization is too high, but that allows Tesla to raise $10bn without diluting more than a few percentage points. And that $10bn will go towards accelerating the conversion of the auto industry from carbon-based fuel to renewable energy. And that is a good thing for society.

  When I first read this my mind immediately went to tulip mania. Was that directionally correct? Did tulip bulbs ultimately rebound and maintain their value over the long-run? I actually don’t know.

  But if you think about the dot-com bubble, that was directionally correct. Sure, infamous “companies” like Pets.com never ended up going anywhere, but the idea of tech and the internet becoming dominant was absolutely right.

  Fast forward twenty years and you can be sure that many people are now buying their pet supplies online, along with pretty much everything else. Sometimes we simply overshoot and get the timing wrong.

  This is perhaps a good thought for all of us to consider as we welcome 2021 and say goodbye to what was one weird and terrible year.

  Being directionally correct means that it’s okay for there to be bumps, mistakes, and speculative frenzies along the way. They are expected. What matters is the path forward.

  Happy new year, everyone.

  2020.12.31

• Condo transaction volumes in Miami-Dade county are up 61.4% year-over-year

  

  This pandemic seems to have been good for real estate located in places that people like to spend time in, but maybe had to limit their time there in the past because of things they had to do like, you know, work in an office. This includes everywhere from “cottage country” outside of Toronto to sunny destinations like Miami.

  Here are some figures that I came across for South Florida via Analytics Miami. Comparing November 2020 to a year prior, condo transaction volumes in Miami-Dade country are, interestingly, up 4.3% for condos less than $1 million and up 61.4% for condos worth more than $1 million.

  Somewhat similarly, single family home transaction volumes in Miami-Dade county (for the same time period) are down 5.2% for houses worth less than $1 million and up 100% for houses worth more than $1 million.

  Sometimes you see a decline like this (the -5.2%) because there simply aren’t enough houses on the market for less than $1 million. But it could also be that more rich people are looking for expensive properties in Miami compared to last year.

  As you may have gathered from here and here and here, I’m not all that bullish on the permanency of this whole working from home thing. But there’s no denying that there’s a very clear trend around people moving to places that are warmer. This was happening well before COVID-19.

  There is also some evidence that rich people are starting (continuing?) to eschew high tax states like California for lower tax states like Florida and Texas. I don’t have the data to be able to comment on how meaningful this trend is, but, for whatever it’s worth, apparently Elon Musk just moved to Austin.

  Photo by aurora.kreativ on Unsplash

  2020.12.10

• How different is Tesla’s business model?

  I have a friend who is a big fan of Tesla. And judging by what’s going on with the company’s stock these days, he is not alone. This morning he sent me this article talking about how Tesla has introduced an entirely new business model for the automotive industry. The two key takeaways are as follows. One, Tesla is in many ways a software company. The hardware and software onboard each vehicle are continually getting better and oftentimes these improvements are delivered to their customers for free via over-the-air updates. This is not how the incumbent car companies work. And two, fully electric vehicles are going to crush after-sales revenue by virtue of the fact that electric vehicles simply don’t require the same amount of service. So now you’re in a position where the cars last longer (and apparently depreciate a lot less). This might seem bad for business, but if you can build an ecosystem of energy products and services around said car, then maybe you’ve got a big ass Tesla moat. Maybe. I have no idea what the company should be valued at today, but all of this is interesting to me and I’m fairly certain that the car I have right now will be the last combustion engine vehicle I ever own. Depending on when autonomy arrives, it may also be the last car I ever own.

  2020.08.31

• The car revolution is being powered by software

  

  Frederic Filloux publishes a regular newsletter called the Monday Note. It’s generally all about tech and new emerging business models. His latest post, called “Code, on wheels,” is about Tesla and the software revolution that is currently underway in the car industry. And it’s a good reminder of just how unique Tesla appears to be as a car company and how software is bound to infiltrate all aspects of our economy. Already you’re hearing people make a distinction around “pure” software companies. This is necessary because of how ubiquitous it has become.

  Here is a a longish excerpt from Filloux’s article:

  But the ultimate leap in value will be the creation of an application ecosystem. The limit will only be the imagination of app creators. As an example, airport operators are likely to develop apps to manage car traffic and passenger flows. Here is a use case: Your flight departing from San Jose Airport leaves in an hour. Your dual app system — one in your phone, the other in the car — checks the flight status, the gate, and the traffic. It notifies you when it’s time to leave. Once in the vicinity of the airport, the app guides you to the parking space nearest to the gate. An alternative and slightly more futuristic scenario involves you dropping your car in front of the terminal, then letting the autopilot send the car to the long-term parking lot a few miles away (this will soon become feasible as geofenced environments such as airports will be well-suited for Level 4 autonomous driving).

  Again, this implies major changes in the way car software is currently handled. These scenarios require the car and the phone apps working seamlessly, exchanging data in real-time with the airlines, the airport, the navigation system of the car, the parking infrastructure, and eventually, the autopilot. We are not there yet, but by that time, the dust will have settled: either carmakers will have developed their own OS — along with the SDKs to foster the development of third-party apps — and/or, tech giants will have taken-over, leveraging their current market positions in the phone sector to impose their own norms. I always thought that Apple had that in mind when it hired legions of engineers for its Titan project and filed applications for self-driving cars to the California Department of Motor Vehicles. I doubt that they completely gave up on the idea of replicating what they achieved for the 500 billion smartphone market with the 3 trillion dollar car sector.

  There are many in the planning world who are quick to dismiss autonomous electric vehicles as being more of the same. They’re still cars, right? For better or for worse, the internal combustion engine was massively transformational to cities — just as previous advances in transportation were. But what comes next is still mostly unknown because, even if you assume that autonomy is a foregone conclusion, it’s unclear how this and an app ecosystem could change how “cars” function in our cities. What will be the spatial impacts?

  It is, however, clear to me that when things do start to really change, it will be because of software.

  Photo by Jannis Lucas on Unsplash

  2020.08.16

• Are car tunnels the solution to traffic congestion?

  

  Elon Musk recently posted this Twitter survey asking if we, the people, would like “super safe, Earthquake-proof tunnels under [our] cities to solve traffic.” It was leading in that the “no” response was, “No, I like traffic.” And it was initially vague in that it wasn’t clear how these tunnels would be used. Though, most of us could probably guess. Elon later added in the thread that these road tunnels would be for zero emission vehicles only and they would be limited to EVs (from all auto companies, not just Tesla). Finally, Elon stated that these tunnels are not intended to replace other solutions, such as light rail, rather to supplement them.

  At the time of writing this post, nearly 1.5 million people had responded to the survey and about 67% of them said “definitely” to Earthquake-proof tunnels. Elon’s reaction: “Stop whining, subway Stalinists, the people have spoken.” Notwithstanding the majority, this is a divisive topic and the reactions are mixed. City planner Brent Toderian responded by saying that this “solution” would merely result in more cars, more driving, and more emissions. Steve Jurvetson, on the other hand, argued that this would be the cheapest way to add lanes and prepare for the inevitable EV-only future. (Steve sits on Tesla’s board and recently launched a venture fund that, among other things, invests in sustainable mobility.)

  The crux of this divide is a view about how cities should work. And it often becomes like dogma. Is it optimal for us to all be driving around in individual vehicles — EV or not? Will autonomous vehicles actually help solve the traffic problem? Or is building on the backbone of mass transit the only way to properly design a big and efficient city? Whether it’s lip service or not, Elon seems to acknowledge that both cars and transit are important, and that both can work together to supplement each other.

  What is clear to me is that cities, at the scale of say Tokyo, wouldn’t function nearly as efficiently if it weren’t for their extensive fixed rail networks. At the same time, there are many cities (or portions of cities) that do not have the prerequisite population and employment densities to support this same level of transit investment. And that has created a strong pull away from transit (and active transport such as cycling) toward private vehicles. Sprawling cities signal to people that they should probably be driving. This is one of the reasons why land use should never be separated from mobility discussions.

  How autonomous vehicles change all of this remains to be seen. Though I do think it will make cars less private and more public transit-like. Studies show that most of us are pretty good at coming up with incremental improvements to the things we already know and understand. i.e. This is how I would make this car better. But we’re far worse at coming up with and predicting tectonic shifts in the landscape. And autonomy is probably one of those shifts. But as long as our built form remains heterogeneous, I am inclined to believe that a mixture of mobility solutions will be needed. Maybe that means car tunnels. Or maybe it doesn’t.

  Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

  2019.12.29

• Global distribution of wealth

  Bloomberg recently came up with a new index to define the distribution of wealth across adults in the world. They’re calling it your “net worth number” and the scale ranges from -2 to 11. Sadly, because the gap is so significant between the rich and the poor, it is based on a logarithmic or non-linear scale. Here’s how they break it down:

  

  Logarithms of negative numbers aren’t a thing, and so, technically, if your liabilities exceed your assets (i.e. you have a negative net worth) you shouldn’t appear on this index. But Bloomberg has added those people — which could be students with debt, after all — into the -2 category of their scale. These are people with a penny to their name.

  Now, the number of adults in each bracket is purely an estimate. If you look at different sources, you will end up with different numbers. Bloomberg believes that there are 2,800 adult billionaires in the world (numbers 9 to 11); whereas Credit Suisse’s estimate is about 1,600. (I wonder if it’s easier to estimate the number of billionaires or the number of -2’s.)

  Still, it is eye-opening to see where most adults sit (at number 3) and how bottom heavy this index is.

  2019.10.06