
Silicon Valley Decides It’s Just Too Hard to Build a Car - yabatopia
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-25/bill-ford-to-silicon-valley-the-future-of-cars-is-in-detroit
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frisco
The Submarine giveaway here was the zero mentions of Tesla. They had quotes
from a Ford family member but none from someone at one of the "tech"
companies. I really struggle to feel like the news gives me a good
understanding of the reality of the situation.

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_rpd
Yes, how is Tesla not Silicon Valley? Bloomberg used to be a great news
source, but it has deteriorated sharply.

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davidf18
I suspect that the car industry's troubles with hiring software engineers as
mentioned in the article has more to do with leadership in the auto companies.
If they have leadership that understand software and software engineering,
then they can set up an environment that appreciates the unique environment
that software engineers like. They certainly have the financial resources to
hire away competent software engineers from other firms.

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6d6b73
I suspect that their troubles have more to do with the need for software
developers experienced in stuff that's not JavaScript or some other "cool"
technologies. They probably also require people to read/write and understand
software spec documents, something most software devs in SV can't do.

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EpicEng
I imagine it definitely has something to do with it. When I'm looking for a
web dev I get 3+ CV's / day. When I'm looking for someone to help with my end
of things (imaging device design and computer vision)... Well, I'm still
looking and it's been two years.

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davidf18
People with these skills _do_ exist. Perhaps it has something to do with your
location. For instance, your name is EpicEng, which _might_ mean that you work
for Epic, the large medical record company in Wisconsin. Epic is not located
in an interesting place or a place conducive for career growth with other
companies, in contrast with say, SV, NYC, Boston.

Alternatively, if it is important enough to the firm, they should be offering
significantly more money than they are.

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EpicEng
Oh, sure, they're out there. I work in SD, so we do have access to talent
(though we also struggle competing against SF.) My problem has been finding
someone who is a software engineer first, e.g., not solely an academic type.
We need them too as they're the people with depth in the computer vision
arena, but I'm looking for someone who understands digital microscopy, image
processing and analysis, but who will also write robust, production level
software.

It's a bit of a niche and I was fortunate enough to be exposed to it early in
my career.

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sytelus
TLDR; The article is not only void of any new information but also falsly
claims that Google has given up on manufacturing its own self-driving car
without citing any sources[1]. Then it goes on to get quotes from "experts"
asserting that building cars is too hard outside Detroit. That's basically
about it.

Its all bull crap, if you ask me, and potentially paid article by some lobby.
If a tiny company called Tesla can build a car out of nowhere, so can others.
Although, the risk taking appetite of big tech companies has certainly went
down recently and it does remains questionable if they can actually pull off
putting car on market.

[1] There has not been any news (like Apple) on Google giving up on car
project. In fact as per recent interview, the project is alive and well:
[http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/25/13307364/google-self-
driv...](http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/25/13307364/google-self-driving-car-
design-yoojung-ahn-interview)

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kwhitefoot
No car company builds cars from scratch (a few niche players might come close
but they are economically insignificant despite the astronomical prices of the
vehicles). I have a friend in the industry and his description of car makers
is that they are kit assemblers (it's not said disparagingly).

Of course BMW, Mercedes, GM, etc. do a lot of design work but a lot of the
parts are either standardised or within the customization range of their
suppliers.

This is of course how Tesla managed to get into car making so quickly, by
buying as much material and expertise and manufacturing capability from
existing suppliers as possible.

If Apple and Google have decided to leave it to the existing big players that
doesn't sound like any kind of defeat to me, just recognition that there are
organizations that already have the expertise and supply chains up and running
available to provide what the market wants.

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sytelus
And in fact even _you_ can build your own car. Just search for kit cars. You
can make it even self-driving (almost) with hardware like this:
[http://www.nvidia.com/object/drive-
px.html](http://www.nvidia.com/object/drive-px.html)

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Animats
Tesla, in contrast, is good at building cars, but sucks at safety-critical
self-driving systems.

Google has an effort with Fiat-Chrysler to build 100 self-driving minivans.
The article seems to have missed that.

