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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   35215 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023

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SpaceX succeded with things where many others failed, did things considered basically impossible and Musk's takes on spaceflight seems to make more sense.

What was that, reusability? Other people have done it, the only question is whether it makes sense. People always point to how much the costs to orbit have fallen, but I'm not sure I buy it's because of reusability. He also does some interesting things with accounting, like overcharging governments by 2-3 times, and with that I wonder if the private launches aren't just subsidized by government contracts.

Maybe simply "disregard common opinion, order company to do weird stuff because you thing that it is a good idea and double down on everything" worked in case of SpaceX and imploded in case of Twitter? After all such strategy cannot work every time?

Of all the companies I would have expected it to work, it was Twitter. There's no way they needed all the people they were hiring, so trimming the fat was a good move. Alternative sources of funding like Blue, and letting people put tweets behind a paywall was a pretty good idea. Maybe it was the advertiser boycott, maybe Twitter was in a lot worse shape at the time of purchase than anyone let on, but as good as his initial ideas were, it seems they're not enough.

Maybe it was the advertiser boycott, maybe Twitter was in a lot worse shape at the time of purchase than anyone let on, but as good as his initial ideas were, it seems they're not enough.

As someone with a slight amount of tech knowledge (10 years of experience) my reading of the situation was that he was totally correct that there was a lot of fat that needed to be cut - but the problem was that the fat was heavily contributing to keeping twitter on one side of the culture war even as they let technical debt accumulate to absurd levels. He is facing an avalanche of negative press and stories because not only has he threatened to make Twitter a place where dissenting opinions can exist at all, but also because he just made a whole swathe of social justice jobs evaporate. Even if they don't get explicit about it, I believe that activists understand on a basic level that someone demonstrating you don't need to pay their cultural commissars in money or do-nothing sinecures is a real, serious threat to their movement and way of life. If you're a diversity officer who helps people deal with micro-aggressions at Meta, you REALLY don't want to see Elon fire everyone with a job that looks remotely like yours and then have the company do better as a result - so you lean on the advertisers and government connections, make sure the legacy media savages them, make them an acceptable target for mockery, etc.

He also does some interesting things with accounting, like overcharging governments by 2-3 times, and with that I wonder if the private launches aren't just subsidized by government contracts.

The problem with this argument is that SpaceX still charges the government significantly less than ULA (i.e. Lockheed and Boeing) do.

What was that, reusability?

Yes. Or more specifically, reusability that reduces costs unlike space shuttle failed attempt.

And some smaller changes that resulted in overall reduced costs.

Starting and running private company building brand new rocket is also really unique achievement. Also human spaceflight as private profitable company.

Other people have done it

Not in way that makes sense. Space shuttle was a major prior attempt and ended more expensive than disposable rockets.

He also does some interesting things with accounting, like overcharging governments by 2-3 times

Well, they still launch cheaper than competition or launch at all. It is hard to say how much overcharging is here, given that almost all activity in this space is governmental.

Of all the companies I would have expected it to work, it was Twitter.

There is possibility that Twitter was fundamentally unprofitable or that Musk is worse fit, or that he started to believe that he is perfect and makes no mistakes.

Yes. Or more specifically, reusability that reduces costs unlike space shuttle failed attempt.

Is there an official breakdown of costs on Falcon 9, showing that they are actually saving money on reusability?

Not aware of anything so detailed (and would be happy to read it!) though not saving on that just means that they managed to

  • find savings elsewhere
  • hide actual saving source

In theory they may run with the same rocket costs and less bloated company and/or less outrageous profits than ULA etc, but it also would be impressive.

Not aware of anything so detailed (and would be happy to read it!) though not saving on that just means that they managed to:

  • find savings elsewhere
  • hide actual saving source

There's also:

  • find an undisclosed source of income
  • keep raising money from investors as they burn through capital without any real profit

I guess that scam of that size would be also quite impressive, though fairly unlikely.

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