15B in revenue is less than what AirPods sell in 6 months.
It's less revenue than Spotify.
It's nowhere near what should be necessary for a company to be "one one the most valuable companies in the world."
Elon knows this. He knows that the 1.5 T "valuation" is nonsense. The market for space launches is quite simply not that big. How many more Starlinks does the world need? What would you do if I gifted you a satellite?
The SpaceX valuation is predicted on hype for scientifically & economically illiterate ideas like "data centers in space."
Elon knows this. He knows that these indexing rules are the only way to keep the hype going and avoid a space-WeWork failed IPO.
Yes, they have. The BLS actually tracks a number of different "unemployment" numbers, whose definition you see here [0].
The "official" unemployment number, the one now reported as 4.4%, basically only counts the "percent of people actively looking for work that can't find it, who have been looking for work for more that 15 weeks.
The number you are trying to capture is what the BLS calls "U-6". That number is defined as:
> total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers.
In other words, anyone that would like more work but can't get it. I encourage you to read the entire definition and footnotes at the link I shared. It's very interesting!
Right now U-6 is at 8%. During the 2007 recession it peaked at about 17%. [1]
SpaceX makes 16B in revenue per year, with 7B in ebitda (which doesn't account for the cost of rockets)... so assume what, 3B in free cash flow per year? And that's being generous.
That's about what Google creates in free cash every 2 weeks.
Because if SpaceX were valued like a normal company, they would lose their money.
SpaceX, as technologically awesome as it is, simply cannot be that big of a company because the market for space launches is relatively small.
SpaceX is targeting an IPO at a valuation 500x earnings. They need to jump on the "AI" / datacenter bandwagon to even hope to sell that kind of valuation.
The whole "datacenters in space" thing is an answer to the question "what could require 1000x the satellite launches that we have now?"
It has nothing to do with what makes sense economically for datacenters!
Radiator size scales linearly with power but, crucially, coolant power, pumps, etc do not.
Imagine the capillary/friction losses, the force required, and the energy use(!) required to pump ammonia through a football-field sized radiator panel.
Amazon stock is flat over the past year. The rest of the "magnificent seven":
- Google: +70%
- Nvidia: +49%
- Apple: +7%
- Meta: Flat
- SHOP (closest comp): +19.41%
- Mercado Libre (international comp): +20.73%
So basically, the "tech world" is dividing itself, in the eyes of investors, into two camps: companies that will benefit from AI tailwinds and companies that will not. And all the money is going to the companies that will.
Amazon is more and more considered to be part of the latter group.
This is especially concerning of Amazon because it seems like AWS--the cash cow--has somehow missed becoming the cloud provider for AI compute needs.
As such, Amazon needs to give investors some reason to hold amazon stock. If you're not part of a rising tide, the only reason left is "we are very profitable."
So yeah, Amazon will have to cut costs to show more profitability and become further investable.
So yes, the layoffs have to do with AI...but not the way they are spinning it.
On one hand, he claims that he "fixed problems that had been sitting untouched because no one else could untangle them." And on the other hand he claims his layoff on "a global labor market with almost no guardrails."
So which is it: did he really work on problems no one else could solve, or was he replaced by cheap foreign labor?
Probably neither. The most likely scenario here is one of two things:
a) Amazon made a mistake by firing him. They laid off someone truly valuable.
b) He wasn't as valuable as he thinks he was. Those problems were not worth paying him a meaningful fraction of a million dollars a year (what an L7 makes at amazon).
What I can guarantee is that he wasn't replaced by a cheap, foreign, plug-and-play replacement.
It all makes sense when you realize the point of his tweet is that he's plugging his run for congress: so yeah, of course he's tapping in to the absolute worst nationalistic sentiment. Shame on him.
Lesson it took me far too long to learn about what "the best" is. Bona fides: I'm no titan of industry but I've worked with many, across many industries.
I've seen "the best." I've had what could be considered "life changing" success by most metrics (but irrelevant by SV-billionaire standards).
The lesson:
There are, in general, two groups of people you can work with. People that do what they say they are going to do, and people who don't.
People who don't do what they say they are going to do outnumber those that do by 20-1.
If you surround yourself with the first group, you're going to be ok. If you don't, most of your time and your organization's time will be spent not-doing, not-measuring, and not-advancing.
"The best" really is that simple, and the bar really is that low.
Of course, if you do what you say you're going to do, and you're incredibly smart, and you have vision, and (insert whatever you care for here) then yeah, you'll be the "best of the best"...but those things are legitimately not necessary for success.
I hate being negative but it sounds like par for the course for fly.
Incredible (truly, incredible, world-class) engineers that somehow lack that final 10% of polish/naming/documentation that makes things...well, seriously usable.
I remember last time I tried them the bizarre hoops/documentation around database creation. I _think_ they solved that but I remember at the time it felt almost like I was getting looked down upon as a user. Ugh, you need clarity? how amateurish!
When it comes to electronic music, there are basically two types of clubs.
One type is the mega club. These are see-and-be-seen places. Ibiza. Vegas. Miami. The DJs are very famous, but often because they have a few EDM "hits"--not because of their selection or mixing skills. These places have tables, bottle service, and beautiful people. The DJs here often do nothing: they may have a USB drive that they press "play" on and then pretend to mix.
Then there's another class of club: the "indie" electronic music club. These places have djs whose skill is more about selection, mixing, and crowd/vibe management. The djs here often have respected production careers but often not.
What you do at these clubs is simply dance. Usually by yourself, listening to music. The best of these clubs will not blow out your hearing because the sound system is exquisitely tuned.
As an introvert, the second class of club sounds like it would be perfect for you!
As an aside, if you've never experienced a truly world-class DJ (of the second type, not the first), it's an incredible experience. Even if you find electronic music "boring", these people are absolute masters at taking you on an emotional journey.
The best way to experience this is at one of the top festivals. The second best way is at a club. The third best way is at home, with great headphones, and soundcloud/youtube dj sets. NOT spotify.
right! I was struggling to translate "libertine" into the noun related to the act itself. ie, free -> freedom; hedonist -> hedonism; libertine -> ?
In romance languages there's a word "libertinaje", but the best translation I could find into english was debauchery which I agree has too many connotations of "partying." Wantonness perhaps?
"limitless indulgence of the appetites and desires" has a different word. That's not freedom, that's called debauchery and has absolutely nothing to do with "liberalism" in the political science meaning of the term.