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bko 20 hours ago [-]
> Shareholders will have no say in how the company is run. If and when he makes a mess of things, they will find it very hard to sue him because of various waivers. The board – that entity that is supposed to look out for shareholders - is loaded with Musk loyalists.
Does anyone seriously believe that an independent board of investors can deliver better results than a founder?
If you look at the companies that built the most amount of wealth in the last 20 years, from Meta, Google, Tesla, Alphabet, Nvidia, what many of them share is more or less singular control by the people in charge. Sometimes its super-voting shares but other times its just founder mentality and ability to make big bets and set the direction.
The rest of the article is similarly non-sensical. Everyone will be forced to buy it but it's going to crash! The prior investors will sell their shares! The IPO is an exit mechanism!
protimewaster 19 hours ago [-]
Companies that are 80, 100, 200 years old or more have trouble with founders dying.
One of the disadvantages of relying on the founder is that founders die. If I'm trying to keep a fund going for the next 100 years, investing in a company that relies exclusively on a person who will be dead within 100 years seems problematic.
physPop 18 hours ago [-]
Thats the definition of cherry picking and survivorship bias
fjni 19 hours ago [-]
I’d be genuinely curious about the data on this.
There are examples I can think of with a more traditional governance structure that did well: Apple, Amazon, Microsoft.
altmanaltman 18 hours ago [-]
Alphabet owns Google, why did you list them seperately? Why is Microsoft not included? Why is Apple not included?
Pretty insane to then claim the article is non sensiscal.
drak0n1c 18 hours ago [-]
Correct, everyone complains about "enshittification" but they fail to recognize that the most egregious cases occur when a company with a dedicated founder/leader transitions to rule by committee.
nwah1 17 hours ago [-]
A lot of founders are the cause of enshittification. In fact, most of the big names I can think of are.
nutjob2 19 hours ago [-]
You're assuming cause and effect run in that direction, but arguably companies that do well are going to have stable leadership. Governance matters when things go of the rails. There is also the matter of how well these companies would have done with alternative leadership. They might be running well under capacity. Finally the stock prices are a terrible metric since they are based on sentiment. See various meme stocks.
transdev12 16 hours ago [-]
[dead]
dismalaf 19 hours ago [-]
Why should people invest in SpaceX? Because they're going to be propped up by the US government for a long time. Nations need a way to get to space. SpaceX has launched more rockets than anyone in the last few years. Including 3x more than China's space agency.
peterlada 17 hours ago [-]
Having a global internet service with at cost launch prices is about 3-8 trillion dollar business. That's one product line at Space X.
triceratops 12 hours ago [-]
Genuinely curious about the math behind this. https://www.msci.com/indexes/index/754891 this index represents a decent chunk of the worldwide telecommunication industry. It's only worth $1.45T in total. They roll trucks and dig trenches to provide internet service - and provide other telecom services besides. My gut tells me that's cheaper than launching rockets. And these companies already provide service to most of the humans that have money.
I think SpaceX has done brilliantly in lowering the cost of rocket launches. I still don't understand or believe in the valuation.
ben_w 17 hours ago [-]
Only if the world doesn't regard the owner of said telecoms service as a political security risk. Tricky sell given increasing distrust of globalisation and the new trend of sovreign-shoring.
chadgpt3 14 hours ago [-]
Also given, you know, the politically motivated bans from that service.
tills13 9 hours ago [-]
Me selling lemonade at the end of my driveway is about 300-800 million dollar business. That's just one thing I sell at the end of my driveway. 250k people in my city x $4/lemonade x 365 days per year
fsuts 15 hours ago [-]
Source of that valuation? As doubt its true
People in less wealthy countries will pay a cheaper sum than wealthier countries.
Also China is accelerating its own equivalent
rhplus 6 hours ago [-]
BS check: $8T is $1000 per person on this planet. A healthy P/E ratio of 25 would translate to earning $40/year in profit from every person on the planet. SpaceX/Starlink obviously doesn’t just walk in and get everyone as a customer though. They have roughly 10 million customers right now. Let’s be generous and say they have 20 million. That $8T works out at $400K per customer valuation which at a 50 P/E would mean $8K/year/customer profit per customer or $666/month/customer profit. Those are generous numbers. Scaling back to 10 million customers and 25 P/E would require $2666/month/customer in profit to get to $8T valuation. For Internet service?
ben_w 5 hours ago [-]
Not that it materially changes your point, but I would not be surprised if Starlink reaches 200 million customers at some point, even with my other comment about Musk personally being increasingly seen as a political security risk, the increasing distrust of globalisation, and the new trend of sovereign-shoring.
$8T/(unreasonably high 50 P/E)/200M customers/12 months = $66.67 profit (not revenue) per customer per month.
The moment Musk's reality distortion bubble stops functioning, his brands' PE ratios are likely to revert to the 5-15 levels of comparable businesses.
adammarples 10 hours ago [-]
Really because the entire world's economy is only about 120Tn. One internet provider is about 5% of that?
NuclearPM 15 hours ago [-]
Bullshit
lava_pidgeon 19 hours ago [-]
I'm happy to tell you that Nations don't want to be dependent on the US government and Elon Musk.
So there is a big race to build the next SpaceX. And I can assure you building rockets isn't rocket science. Other companies will follow propped up by their governments.
dismalaf 19 hours ago [-]
> And I can assure you building rockets isn't rocket science.
Is this parody?
> Other companies will follow propped up by their governments.
It's cool to say but it hasn't happened. And rockets literally are, well, rocket science.
lava_pidgeon 19 hours ago [-]
It does currently happen. In Germany alone there are 3 rocket companies + 1 space vehicle based on governmental programs. You can ask chatgpt for other projects.
And yes, my pun which you didn't get just says: Building rockets isn't hard.
leonidasrup 18 hours ago [-]
Building large payload cheap dependable rockets capable of reaching orbit with high probability is hard.
FireBeyond 17 hours ago [-]
Even leaving aside the extremes of industrial espionage or "there's only so much you can learn from SpaceX TV", you can be sure that there are absolutely huge swathes of aerospace engineering education and commercially that are using a lot of SpaceX's work as a Cliff Notes of sorts to help improve their own odds.
xdavidliu 16 hours ago [-]
its not that they did not get your pun, its that they think building rockets is hard, and i tend to agree
dismalaf 12 hours ago [-]
> And yes, my pun which you didn't get just says: Building rockets isn't hard.
No I get it except it's a ridiculous take. Building rockets is objectively hard.
> In Germany alone there are 3 rocket companies + 1 space vehicle based on governmental programs.
Literally none of them have reached orbit.
NuclearPM 19 hours ago [-]
Woosh
verzali 19 hours ago [-]
Flying rockets is rocket science. Building rockets is engineering.
xdavidliu 18 hours ago [-]
this comment is nonsensical
17 hours ago [-]
Dig1t 14 hours ago [-]
>I can assure you building rockets isn't rocket science.
This is mind bogglingly wrong.
“[Rocket Science] looks hard and is harder than it looks” is the classic line. Anyone in the industry will tell you how extremely difficult rockets are.
Look at Blue Origin, all the money in the world and it still blows up on the pad. Look at ULA, largest aerospace companies in the world with institutional aerospace talent, backed by nearly unlimited government funding and is nowhere near a reusable rocket, decades behind SpaceX.
You are letting politics blind you to reality.
snypher 10 hours ago [-]
So what is the secret sauce SpaceX brings to the table? Obviously they have top talent, but if it's not a matter of funding or talent, what makes them stand out?
Dig1t 10 hours ago [-]
I think it’s a combination of talent and the mission. Most people who work there are true believers in the mission of making life multi-planetary. There are many examples in history of people doing extraordinary things when top talent was combined with belief in a higher calling.
splitstud 11 hours ago [-]
This is like a pea buried under 7 mattresses of delusion. If you dont like Musk, fine, but cmon man.
cyanydeez 16 hours ago [-]
I already emailed my pension mangers to divest from the fascists (Easily identified by Trumps inaugural pphotos.
Dig1t 14 hours ago [-]
You should short the stock. If you think it’s a big scam and not actually worth being in the top 500 US companies, you could make a lot of money.
mswphd 14 hours ago [-]
not everyone responds to a perceived social ill by thinking "maybe I should gamble"
Dig1t 10 hours ago [-]
Shorting is the best mechanism for exposing scams and frauds in public markets, in fact that’s really the only reason it exists.
It’s an incentive for people to root out corruption and graft. If you truly believe that SpaceX is a big scam and it’s not actually worth enough to be in the S&P 500, then taking a short position not only will net you a bundle of cash, it will do the public a service by helping to expose a fraud and prevent future companies from doing the same thing.
robocat 1 hours ago [-]
> Shorting is the best mechanism for exposing scams and frauds in public markets
That societal benefit is mostly worthless to investors.
Investors need to capture a good return (risk adjusted) to have any incentive to expose frauds or scams.
mswphd 9 hours ago [-]
Again, not everyone responds to a perceived social ill by gambling. Timing a short is still gambling.
protimewaster 13 hours ago [-]
You're ignoring the fact that timing has a lot to do with a short position. There was a long period where shorting Enron would've ruined you, and a short period when it'd make you rich.
satvikpendem 10 hours ago [-]
That's their point. If it's not worth shorting you might as well buy it now, at least you'll make money.
cyanydeez 13 hours ago [-]
I'm sorry, I shouldn't do shit to avoid fraud. The government should enforce fraudulent behavior.
But no, we're in the grift economy where I'm suppose to hedge my bets about how big a fraud is and when someone will wake up naked in a pit of aligators.
Good luck with that.
cmxch 12 hours ago [-]
Fine, but someone will make more money. And it’ll be theirs, not yours.
Does anyone seriously believe that an independent board of investors can deliver better results than a founder?
If you look at the companies that built the most amount of wealth in the last 20 years, from Meta, Google, Tesla, Alphabet, Nvidia, what many of them share is more or less singular control by the people in charge. Sometimes its super-voting shares but other times its just founder mentality and ability to make big bets and set the direction.
The rest of the article is similarly non-sensical. Everyone will be forced to buy it but it's going to crash! The prior investors will sell their shares! The IPO is an exit mechanism!
One of the disadvantages of relying on the founder is that founders die. If I'm trying to keep a fund going for the next 100 years, investing in a company that relies exclusively on a person who will be dead within 100 years seems problematic.
There are examples I can think of with a more traditional governance structure that did well: Apple, Amazon, Microsoft.
Pretty insane to then claim the article is non sensiscal.
I think SpaceX has done brilliantly in lowering the cost of rocket launches. I still don't understand or believe in the valuation.
People in less wealthy countries will pay a cheaper sum than wealthier countries.
Also China is accelerating its own equivalent
$8T/(unreasonably high 50 P/E)/200M customers/12 months = $66.67 profit (not revenue) per customer per month.
The moment Musk's reality distortion bubble stops functioning, his brands' PE ratios are likely to revert to the 5-15 levels of comparable businesses.
So there is a big race to build the next SpaceX. And I can assure you building rockets isn't rocket science. Other companies will follow propped up by their governments.
Is this parody?
> Other companies will follow propped up by their governments.
It's cool to say but it hasn't happened. And rockets literally are, well, rocket science.
And yes, my pun which you didn't get just says: Building rockets isn't hard.
No I get it except it's a ridiculous take. Building rockets is objectively hard.
> In Germany alone there are 3 rocket companies + 1 space vehicle based on governmental programs.
Literally none of them have reached orbit.
This is mind bogglingly wrong.
“[Rocket Science] looks hard and is harder than it looks” is the classic line. Anyone in the industry will tell you how extremely difficult rockets are.
Look at Blue Origin, all the money in the world and it still blows up on the pad. Look at ULA, largest aerospace companies in the world with institutional aerospace talent, backed by nearly unlimited government funding and is nowhere near a reusable rocket, decades behind SpaceX.
You are letting politics blind you to reality.
It’s an incentive for people to root out corruption and graft. If you truly believe that SpaceX is a big scam and it’s not actually worth enough to be in the S&P 500, then taking a short position not only will net you a bundle of cash, it will do the public a service by helping to expose a fraud and prevent future companies from doing the same thing.
That societal benefit is mostly worthless to investors.
Investors need to capture a good return (risk adjusted) to have any incentive to expose frauds or scams.
But no, we're in the grift economy where I'm suppose to hedge my bets about how big a fraud is and when someone will wake up naked in a pit of aligators.
Good luck with that.