
Elon Musk Fireside Chat Video - littlesparkvt
http://spaceindustrynews.com/elon-musk-fireside-chat-video/613/
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beefman
Which company he was asked (but declined) to be cofounder of? Ah, must be
Solar City. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_City> "SolarCity was founded
in July 2006 by brothers Peter and Lyndon Rive, based on a suggestion for a
solar company concept from Elon Musk."

And the douchebag remark was directed at Eberhard? No, it was Randall Stross.
[http://techcrunch.com/2009/04/10/teslas-elon-musk-grows-a-
pa...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/04/10/teslas-elon-musk-grows-a-pair-good-
for-him/)

Thiel and he riding in an F1? I thought it only had one seat. No, three seats:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mclaren_f1>

~~~
henrymazza
They thought that someone with a F1 would like to show it to their friends. So
they manage to put 2 extra seats behind the driver.
[http://media.photobucket.com/image/recent/rydeordiekid570/MC...](http://media.photobucket.com/image/recent/rydeordiekid570/MCLARENF1SEATS.jpg)

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jc4p
While I absolutely loved this video, I absolutely despised the former Facebook
employee's long winded question that wasn't relevant to anything Elon Musk
could've talked about but was instead an advertisement.

~~~
Mizza
Ugh, tell me about it. What a slimeball.

I loved Elon's response to it though. It sounded a bit like he was implying
that he doesn't mind running public companies because he doesn't cook his
books in the first place.

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suprgeek
Even more exciting - He is going to go into details about the Transportation
Idea (Hyperloop) that he alludes to in the video in a few weeks
<https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/224406502188916739>.

Can't wait...

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MikeCapone
Great one. Elon is so fascinating. We definitely need more people like him. I
wish I could see what our civilization would look like if more of our smart
and driven people tackled important problems rather than go into finance or
Web 2.0 startups..

~~~
jmj4
Musk is one of my hero's, but his first company was a web start up that help
publisher's get news articles and other content online. He then built a money
management system, which eventually became part of Paypal. These are hardly
the world's important problems. But the exits from these wins allowed him to
do what he is doing.

I think that's important to keep in mind if you want to belittle guys building
Web 2.0 apps like Flipboard, reddit, ect.

~~~
MikeCapone
Of course, he got the capital that allowed him to go into these capital-
intensive businesses doing internet startup (though at the time he did it, the
internet was a lot less mature and he helped move that forward to, mostly with
Paypal).

But I still wish more smart and driven people did more important things than
photo-sharing apps. It might be impossible to jump directly into capital-
intensive industries unless you can join an existing startup (go work for
someone like Musk?), but there are also lots of non-capital intensive ways to
do very important things that would move our civilization forward more rapidly
than one more Web 2.0 company. Same for all the brainiacs who go into
investment banking rather than in engineering or biology or whatever. Totally
up to them, but it doesn't change the end result.

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guynamedloren
Recent HN discussion about this (and all things Elon Musk):

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4238984>

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ajays
You know what I'd love Elon Musk to tackle next? The education system in the
US. We are producing a generation of illiterates here. Today's economy demands
a more educated workforce (face it, the manufacturing jobs are disappearing),
but we're getting the opposite.

Yesterday, at the doctor's office, there was a young kid there (college age).
He was writing out a receipt for my copay. He had a hard time spelling out
"fifteen", and wrote "fifthteen" after several attempts. Yes, English was his
first language. And the fact that he's working in the doc's office means he
must be at least average.

~~~
samstave
Actually, I disagree.

What I think would be more beneficial would be not only healthcare - but the
health insurance market.

We need to commoditize hospital services while paying a great wage to nursing
and physician staff and make for an easy payment protection plan.

This was ostensibly the basis for the health ins industry - but when they
realized they could easily get evil/greedy they farked everyone.

The better model would be ubiquitous clinics with hospital services deployed
via low-cost modular modality units. Think "MRI in a shipping crate" "OR in a
shipping crate" "Davinci OR in a shipping crate with recovery attached - lower
cost nursing staff on-site but the actual surgeon is remote from their home in
Boston/SF/Dallas"

You build these modality modules like legos. You then take these legos and
deploy them to places like walmart, target and malls.

You pay a set scale for physicians and offer STOCK and recruit med staff
students to be lead by higher paid leaders who are the first generations
mentors.

You then provide an insurance plan through this service that is a set stepped
payment scale based on income that is much more competitive than modern
insurance.

You have a fixed fee, transparent schedule of services.

So, you have a known cost for the modules. You have a set fee schedule, pay
schedule and premiums schedule.

Make all this COMPLETELY transparent and partner with walmart, target and
other entities to place these modular, full service, clinics.

The common questions that will come up will be: how do you provide ICU, ER,
Acute etc.. care.

These services could be provided - but the truth is that this overall model is
needed to disrupt the current failure of the US health system.

We are building multi-billion-dollar hospitals EVERYEWHERE - but have you seen
a reduction in cost of services ANYEWHERE?

There is a clear way to disrupt US health, but it takes a multi billion dollar
commitment over 10 years.

This is the type of problem Elon is perfect to get moving...

(Disclaimer: I design hospital systems, consult on healthcare operations for
opening these new facilities and do technology consulting for the design of
very large hospital networks - although at the very moment I am focusing on
enterprise infrastructure consulting.)

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dojomouse
I'd bet a large chunk of change that the HyperLoop is some variant of vacumn
tube maglev. Not an idea Musk came up with by any stretch, but he's someone
who might actually be able to make it happen which would be very awesome. His
patent is going to hit a fair bit of prior art though.

Also think his dismissal of fuel cells is a bit disingenuous - Nissan
apparently have them down to $50/kW (volume production estimate) which, given
the low cost of energy storage ($/kWh), means they could be entirely viable at
least as a range extension option.

But still, overall, admire the hell out of the guy. Legend.

~~~
beefman
He's already said it's not a vac tube (on twitter). I'm betting on some sort
of launch loop (Lofstrom loop).

When he says there's a physics problem with fuel cells he's not being
flippant. They're less efficient than batteries, have lower volumetric power
density, and cars using off-the-shelf batteries already match the range of
gasoline cars (so there's no energy density problem to solve). The only
problem with batteries currently is cost, and fuel cells are no help there.

Pretty much the only attractive thing about fuel cells is that they can run on
energy-dense liquid fuels like methanol, which can do greater power fluxes
than last-mile grid. But battery swaps are even better. Ultimately, lithium
and gasoline have about the same energy density, methanol half as much, and
compressed hydrogen about 1/10 as much. And there are good reasons why hydride
storage is unlikely to become practical in cars any time soon.

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sgt
Already submitted to HN, but I'm sure a few missed out so thanks for posting
again.

~~~
littlesparkvt
I must have missed it the first time around on HN, sorry for the repost. Hope
new people find it this time around.

