GreenPlastic

We called Tesla roadside because other tire shops were closed and I didn't want to put the spare on myself. They offered to just tow it to the SC and have it fixed on them.

Owned BMWs and Infinitis before and Tesla Service is way better.

There are other stories like this on Tesla Motors Club and Tesla service always goes above and beyond to get it right. The service guys gave me their card when I picked my car up. When I have an issue, I send them an email and get me scheduled immediately. They've taken care of a flat tire that they didn't need to (on Xmas eve, nonetheless), fixed almost every issue, and have always gone above and beyond.

When we had the flat tire, it was on Xmas eve, they worked to get our car towed to the service center and even offered to deliver it to us later that night. We left the key in the trunk and went Xmas shopping and it got towed just fine.

Had a chance to buy some SpaceX stock and passed because I didn't see a path to liquidity with the large capital requirements to get to Mars. Not for everyone, but satellite internet is the ultimate power law play and SpaceX is in a great position to make it a reality. However, even if it is successful, they burn cash for 20 years with no way to cash out.

I knew a real estate investor who was really successful who's motto was the best investments are those in the worst areas that most people wouldn't touch. Large trailer parks with high vacancy rates, run down neighborhoods, etc.

We don't live in Detroit but bought 3 properties for 40k each with about 18-20% yields. The renters aren't the best (they're paying 800 in rent because they can't afford an 8k downpayment), but they're great investments.

1. Canadian salaries are a joke. Senior software engineers make 85k in Vancouver and housing is as expensive as SF. 2. Canadians think their health care system is pretty good because they haven't experienced a good private system. My wife is from Vancouver and thought that until she tried the American system (assuming you're insured). Her friends have long waits for OBs and almost no family doctor is taking new patients. Further, my uncle had a 6 month wait for chemo and had to go to Detroit to get it (about 15 years ago, don't know if it's better now).

Why does everyone assume they need growth? I'd be plenty happy to have a company with a 2B revenue stream, call options on other assets in Fabric and Periscope and there's like 0 secular decline.

And 2B in revenue - it's worth it for some private equity firm to come in, pay more than 10B, fire everyone except an essential staff and milk the revenue stream.

Seems like all they'd have to do is add value to advertisers using the existing ad-word engine. The plan is always the same for any internet holding - build up user base, then invest heavily in the advertising engine to add value for the true customer, advertisers. If you listen to FB conference calls, it's always "we want to build the service to over a billion users, then we'll work hard to create the ad engine to get advertisers as much value as we can."

My guess is they have an LOI (probably from SFDC), probably at a pretty significant valuation, and the board did what they should have and decided to shop it (they may have leaked on purpose to start a bidding war). The other suitors came to the conclusion that the range was more than they would pay and dropped out.

I don't think that the only path forward is an M&A since they have plenty of cash, good revenue, and a reasonable product strategy. Doesn't mean, like any startup with way less traction, they wouldn't consider one at the right price.

Or capital is cheap and it doesn't hurt to raise it while you can.

If I remember correctly, it was a lockout shortened season with multiple back to back to backs, Thibs had a habit of playing his players too many minutes, and Rose was gimpy going in.

The real reason our model really liked Philly because they were one of the top teams in eFG% on defense, defReb% and off TOV%. Basically, they were dominant in several of the 4 factors that aren't obvious to most casual observers.

Philadelphia 76ers to beat the Chicago Bulls a few years ago in the NBA playoffs. Payout was something like 11-1 and our model had implied probability at something like 45% for Philadelphia.

Made like 50k.

and CapEx

Or it says a lot about the experience of driving a Tesla compared to a gas car.

Am I the only one who dreads going to the gas station and runs the car down to the absolute empty point before getting gas? I really don't ever want to go to a gas station again and would rarely use the supercharger network.

I'm preaching to the choir, but the problem with other manufacturers, and why I would never consider a Bolt, is it's got a 0-60 time over 5.5 and it looks like crap. To me, it's a 3 series with a way better user experience.

I live in a high-end condo (not in the Bay area), and in a building of 400 units there are 5 Teslas on the first 3 floors of parking (8 floors total).

Not to mention, everyone I know with a Tesla is only considering Tesla for their next car.

I don't have any hard evidence to back this up (mostly anecdotal), but I think the demand for a Model 3 is much, much larger than people think. Estimating demand based on current luxury car demand is probably not accurate. It's pretty obvious that many people making 125-200k who would never buy an 80K car have chosen to spend more and buy the Model S.

Like I said, purely anecdotal but I know 30-40 people, many of whom aren't in tech, who plan on putting a deposit down on the first day. It's literally 1 out of 6 people I talk to. When I mention "I won't buy another car unless it's a Tesla" I often hear "me too." Many of these people I was shocked even knew what Tesla was, let alone were waiting for this car. I've only driven BMWs and Infinitis and won't buy a gas vehicle again after driving a Model S. A 35K Model 3, assuming it performs similar to a 60KwH Model S has a couple advantages over a 3 series. 1) With tax incentives, it can be had for much cheaper in many states 2) if you factor in gas savings, it brings it closer to 25K. I really think it will appeal to the BMW crowd as well as those who would never touch a BMW because of the image it portrays.

ULA is already dead in the water. The only reason why they're around is because of the monopoly they have with US military launches.

See above. Mostly because I thought that listing cash comp was inconsistent with how the company markets itself to employees and the company's culture, which tends to be more on the humble side.

I did have some information about the work in there but nothing really about the team size - I'll keep that in mind for future listings. Completely agree on your statement that the type of candidate you'll attract depends on the team, the company, the project.

Leaned on the company's official materials for this. Employee focused culture where we work hard and play hard. XX on best companies to work for list. Fast growing company with great benefits, dogs allowed at work, etc.

Fair enough, but the information is publicly available on glassdoor.

A couple reasons why I didn't list comp:

1. I didn't want to get candidates purely motivated by the high cash comp in the area. 2. Cash comp isn't core to how the company markets itself to employees and its culture. The company prefers to sell itself on being an employee friendly place to work.

Like the article hypothesizes, I thought we'd get 50-100 resumes because it's so easy to apply for jobs on the internet and was surprised at how few we actually got.

Wasn't meant as an insult. Just have a lot of phone screens where people list 100 technologies on a resume and don't have a rudimentary understanding of any.

The majority of candidates have never used source control or haven't spent the time to brush up on basic data structures questions.

Can't post the exact description but the jist of it was:

Strong understanding of objective C and iOS SDK Swift experience a plus Passion for design / UX Proven track record of quality apps in app store

That's literally all I had under qualifications.

Posted a senior iOS dev position to Indeed, LinkedIn, Glassdoor where the company is paying 25%(maybe 40% if you include RSUs) above market here (although we don't put comp in the job listing) and only got 3 applicants in a month.

In my experience, a lot of new grads don't know how little they actually know and expect the degree itself to qualify them for the job.

While I agree, for the most part, that future growth is risk adjusted and priced in, I also believe that the market doesn't quite understand all the nuances. One, Tesla's margins are actually significantly than GMs. Two, they're losing money on a gaap basis because of a. how you account for residual lease values when they most likely won't have to pay any of that back and b. large capex expenditures in preparation for model x and model 3. If they weren't spending so much on capex, this would be a very cashflow positive company. Third, the average person doesn't quite understand how much better of an experience driving a Tesla is than a normal ICE vehicle (I know several people who would never buy > 50k car who own Teslas, know another 20 who would go buy a 3 immediately if it was available). Finally, projections don't really account for the stationary storage market, which is all gravy.

Are there risks? Of course - you can have a giant first mover advantage, giant technological moat, and ISO chooses a different charging standard, Elon Musk gets hit by a bus, etc. I think there's enough optionality here for those willing to wait 5 years.

I think an Apple Tesla partnership is more likely than Apple directly competing with or buying Tesla. Sometime last year, Musk spent some time at Apple, Tesla has the patents and Apple seems like the right company to license the technology. They're also a great partner for the gigafactory because they can get laptop batteries for cheap + batteries for their electric vehicle.

Also, if you're Apple and you're interested in getting into the car game, why build a minivan? A minivan is hard to design beautifully and doesn't have mass-market appeal unless you're not trying to compete with Tesla. If you're truly interested in disrupting the automobile industry, you're creating a premium luxury sedan - the 3 series of electric cars.