Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

magnesiumb t1_iwuzxp8 wrote

I am not sure where to begin. "Almost failed" is vague with no well-accepted understanding. It's not the same as, say, "rejected" (since we see Sankey graphs here for job searches and budgets primarily) which has a clear meaning. Same with "global leader" - is this top 15 automakers? Top 100? Just sells cars around the world? Is it disingenuous to call SpaceX a global leader when very few countries really have space agencies (77 total, 16 that actually go to space)? With OpenAI as well - what is the qualification on "global leader"? Who competes with it? It's like calling the NFL champions this year "global leaders in American football".

What the hell is "made it a unicorn"???

Is the "bought a start-up" and "acquired by his company" the same thing? Which did he "help to create", "cofound" and "bought as a start up" -- SpaceX, SolarCity, or Tesla? This flow is unclear to me, but it could be me. It feels like this information is lost. I think you should have had the end output be the current statuses, not the companies themselves and the companies themselves should have been in the flow since several have the same end.

"Sold for $$$" is a redundant label. What else would he have sold it for? Peanuts? I suggest changing it to 'profit' if you mean he sold it for a profit. Otherwise, see below with * about changing the graph's title to reflect what you're trying to show here.

You have cofounded on here twice as well as global leader. As someone corrected me before, there should only be one of each category and these categories then flow to the correct end-point, even if they have to cross each other. Also why wouldn't Neuralink be up with Tesla and SpaceX in the final output when they have similar paths except for the commercial and research lab aspect? This is confusing.

By having a "still operates it", it implies that he doesn't operate the others that are not under this final output. Is this the case?

This is hard to follow and this type of graph isn't the best way to display this data. This feels more like opinion telling us the track record as there's no actual data here. The choice to leave off Twitter is pretty telling to me that there is some kind of agenda here. It would likely, if you were trying to be objective, have been categorized near the "the Boring Company" as not having generated profit, but you included that weird "made it a unicorn" label. You could still have created another label but you did not. *Calling this the business track record is not accurate -- this chart, at the very least, just shows companies Elon Musk is involved in, how he got involved, and his current role in them (e.g., still operates it, sold it, acquired it, left it). It says nothing about the business status or the strength or health of these companies.

27

Your_Trash_Daddy t1_iwv1yz5 wrote

This is a fanboy post. They aren't interested in facts or actually improving it. Everything you said is correct, and this is nothing but opinion dressed up with graphics. None of the terms mean anything, nor could they really, scientifically.

21

Bagdemagus1 t1_iwwx1f6 wrote

Unicorn means it has a billion dollar valuation.

SpaceX and Tesla are global industry leaders, even if that criteria is a bit vague I don’t really see a way you can argue that. OpenAI I’m a lot less familiar with, not sure what their deal is.

2

magnesiumb t1_iwx6r3a wrote

Then OP needs to use common language. You don't use undefined jargon in data presentations, unless your audience is thought to know it as well.

No, you cannot say that with a vague definition. What's to stop me from saying "I'm a global leader in pharmacy, even if that criteria is a bit vague I don’t really see a way you can argue that"? If you make a claim, you need to back it up.

I am a fan of OpenAI for fun with their text generator. It's machine learning or something, people can use it for a variety of things. I am not sure it's real-world utility, honestly, but others might.

2

Purplekeyboard t1_iwyk5r3 wrote

The real world utility in text generation is still to come. If it can continue to get better, at some point there will be endless numbers of uses for them. Personal assistant for every person on the planet, replacing millions of phone jobs as text can be turned into voice using text to speech, and so on.

1

magnesiumb t1_iwz3gd8 wrote

I played around with their Marv the sarcastic robot thing and I think they have a lot of work to do before they put this into the real world. I'd prefer to talk to a real human over a machine any day until we reach uncanny levels.

1

Lucky-Carrot t1_iwx301n wrote

in what way is tesla an industry leader in anything? no one is following their dangerous design of reducing safety controls to the bare minimum required for the car to be road-legal. there were electric cars before tesla and there will be electric cars after the stock scam that it is runs out

1

born_in_cyberspace OP t1_iwyhu5p wrote

You're right, I've to trade some clarity for brevity. But I think most people understand that I mean.

> Is it disingenuous to call SpaceX a global leader when very few countries really have space agencies

They have the biggest market share in the world in its niche (commercial launches). So, there is no ambiguity here.

> With OpenAI as well - what is the qualification on "global leader"

In the AI community, they're regarded as one of the top labs. Almost no one else, aside from DeepMind, have contributed so much to the AI research.

> The choice to leave off Twitter is pretty telling to me that there is some kind of agenda here

It's quite simple: the fate of Twitter is not settled yet. It could go either way in the coming weeks.

> What the hell is "made it a unicorn"???

"Unicorn startup" is a common term in the business field: a startup that has a valuation of at least $1 bln

−1

magnesiumb t1_iwz5ieb wrote

Based on the comments, no. And I am looking at this chart and wondering how? The flow removes a layer of information. Look, if you like Elon, that's fine, but if you don't care about actually creating a nice chart then why are you here? It doesn't help your point and it's just bizarre. You can reply to this comment if you wish, but I don't know what a back and forth is gonna do at this point if you're resistant to any commentary that isn't agreement with what I will now just say is a flawed chart that tells people nothing except that you like Elon Musk a lot.

>They have the biggest market share in the world in its niche (commercial launches). So, there is no ambiguity here.

Being a world leader implies some level of position and power. If you're in a niche field, you really aren't a world leader. You're just the only one doing it. I don't think there are a lot of SpaceX type companies that will pop up in the near future. This is the issue with using vague terms because we can go back and forth on this.

>In the AI community, they're regarded as one of the top labs. Almost no one else, aside from DeepMind, have contributed so much to the AI research.

OpenAi was founded in 2015. So my mind immediately said this is likely not a true statement. And a Google search says it's not really true - they, along with DeepMind and FAIR, just get a lot more press. 1,2

"DeepMind, OpenAI and FAIR were probably the top three pure AI research labs in terms of known funding, while IBM pushes out more patents.” (3)

I just clicked the first three links when Googling "leading AI researching labs." I don't doubt they are good at what they do, but there have been people with their towel in the race for a decade, so your claim seemed dubious enough to investigate. Again, the issue is the term "world leader." There are also Chinese tech companies mentioned in the same article as the quote and these lists are very Western-centric from my POV. This is a niche field, so all you would need to do is expand "global leader" to top thirty. You will not only capture all of them, but OpenAI would likely rank then and the statement has some merit as a technicality. But just because it's one of the only two you know, doesn't mean it's the world leader.

>The choice to leave off Twitter is pretty telling to me that there is some kind of agenda here

This circles back to what this chart is trying to say. You can include footnotes in charts. Also SolarCity doesn't have a "fate" associated with it -- why does "fate" matter? Why not say he "acquired it" - a neutral, factual statement? Or that it hasn't generated a profit - also a factual statement? You could have presented it.

>"Unicorn startup" is a common term in the business field: a startup that has a valuation of at least $1 bln

Your assumed audience is not business people though and even if it were, it sounds like English-speaking slang rather than professional business language that doesn't belong in a presentation. Use Plain Language and avoid jargon.

1