<i>> Lastly he revealed he was working on something he calls the “Hyperloop” which will be a “cross between a rail-gun and a Concorde.”</i><p>Sounds a lot like the Lofstrom Loop, repurposed for Earthside transport.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop</a>
Wasn't Google on its way to winning mobile even when Jobs was around? I know that Apple makes far more money on hardware, but Google is an advertising company. As a company that makes most of its profits from advertising, isn't the largest share of the market enough for them to "win"?<p>Also, isn't it possible that Apple could continue making boatloads of money off hardware even if Android builds off of its smartphone success and becomes the most popular tablet OS? (Which I think is inevitable unless Windows 8 devices get better) Wouldn't this scenario mean that both companies are winners?
So from the recap of quite an interesting interview, TC went with the apple vs google headline? That was hardly the most interesting aspect of the article.
"But the airport officials were scared. They didn't know whether the destruction of the launch loop was an isolated incident of terrorist sabotage, or maybe the beginnings of a revolution-no one seemed to think, ever, that it might have been just a simple accident. It was scary, all right. There's a hell of a lot of kinetic energy stored in a Lofstrom loop, over twenty kilometers of iron ribbon, weighing about five thousand tons, moving at twelve
kilometers a second. Out of curiosity I asked Albert later and he reported that it took 3.6 x lO^8 Joules
to pump it up. And when one collapses, all those Joules come out at once, one way or another."<p>From Heechee Rendezvous:<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Heechee-Rendezvous-Frederik-Pohl/dp/0345300556/" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Heechee-Rendezvous-Frederik-Pohl/dp/03...</a>
Here's an idea on how Apple can "win."<p>The phone market is quickly turning into a mature business like the PC is today. Essentially all of the major innovation on the hardware side is done and the software side will be where people choose their phone/tablet.<p>IOS has the best apps, period. Apple needs this to always be the case. Just like people buy Windows because of its apps (games, etc.)<p>Developers make more money on the IOS platform (by far) than any other. Apple needs this to always be the case.<p>I submit that Apple needs to drop the commission rate for apps sales from 30% to some value approaching zero. This will
starve Android/Win8/BB of developer mind share.<p>Developers will write great apps, make more money and users will pick the IOS platform because it has the apps (games) they want.
What does winning in mobile look like? Apple isn't interested in low price low margin devices. They sell premium high margin products. If apples market share were to freeze exactly as it is now with the same margins forever raking in tens of billions of dollars a year in pure profit, they'd be happy. Of course they'd be even happier with even more, but android outselling them 2:1 isnt a problem as long as Apples margins are greate by 20:1.
<i>>Musk said it was important that societies create an environment where it’s “important it’s seen as a socially desirable thing to be an entrepreneur.”</i><p>I think this is something whose importance is hard to fathom when living in hot startup ecosystems. When I was living in Japan, I was <i>shocked</i> at how people saw entrepreneurship in an undesirable light. In fact, new graduate polls showed that the most desirable type of profession was a public sector worker, followed by megacorp employee, then SME employee. Entrepreneur was literally at the bottom of the ladder [1].<p>This is in sharp contrast to the States, where polls show that people look up to and want to become entrepreneurs (the "start ups are cool" mentality) and see public sector workers as the most undesirable type of employment [2].<p>It's hard to live a life that isn't widely socially accepted, and having a society that looks favorably upon entrepreneurship or sole proprietorships is hugely important for giving people the peace of mind and confidence to embark on their individual paths [3]. Say what you will about the current proliferation of startups, but anything that promotes the long term social acceptability of starting a company is a net positive in the long run for making it easier for people to take the plunge themselves in the future.<p>Our environment skews our perspective, and our perspective determines what we think is possible. We tend to believe in the triumph of the individual spirit and determination over mental hurdles, but it's a rare specimen that has the both the hard skills to create something great and the mental power to actually convince themselves to do so against conventional wisdom. Don't you that that it'd be desirable to reduce the mental hurdles so that those with different mental predispositions can roam freely?<p>[1] I think doctor/lawyer/accountant were omitted because there are very few who enter these professions each year and is statistically somewhat irrelevant.<p>[2] This isn't to say that working in the public sector is actually a bad gig or not useful, but public perception does matter in many ways in attracting talent.<p>[3] In fact, patio11's lifestyle is generally derided in Japan, even though us HN'ers look up to the example he sets both in terms of skills and lifestyle. I have friends who work in the same city that patio11 used to (and perhaps even in the same industry...) who cannot get themselves to leave their megacorp jobs even though they have mid-5-figure income streams from their side gigs that they could obviously grow if they resigned from their day jobs and committed themselves to it. Their reasoning? They fear that they would no longer be accepted by society without said megacorp job. You need supreme confidence in your self worth to live without the "social proof" of an establishment on your shoulder in this culture, and it's a disservice to the world that great talent remains locked up because of this.
Elon Musk is an inspiration - he looks at big, real world problems and solves for them instead of spinning his wheels on the next shiny app. Especially appreciate his views on too many people going into finance or law rather than science and engineering.<p>Poor editing in this article, if anyone finds a video of the original interview please post - tried to search for it but no luck.
Not to refute his point on Apple post-Jobs, but Samsung is the only company in the Android ecosystem making any money, so it's not clear that Google is winning anything.
> Silva opened by asking how rare it was these days to see companies created which were worth more than $50bn, and yet Musk himself had helped to create at least four so far.<p>Really? Can anyone provide me with a list of these companies?
Hyperloop - dream on: land-accelerated vehicle (a rocket-like) that is "slingshot" to the destination over the air.
Acceleration even above Mach can be achieved on a maglev circular track gradually with ability to "switch" track and shoot the vehicle in the air.
Land it to a maglev(!) landing pad in the form of a funnel or simpler - with a parachute-like system.
One word: Plastics.<p>He's said this Hyperloop is something that can't crash. If you have something that can't crash you can build it out of plastic which would be much lighter (more efficient/faster/easier to levitate) and cheaper then current high speed rail.<p>I think is a mag-lev plastic highly aerodynamic train with lots of rail lines so that the cars cant collide.
To me the hyperloop in my head would be a maglev train within a vacuum chamber, unless Musk has some kind of new tech in development in his research lab somewhere (not implausible if you ask me), but if i was going to build such a thing i'd probably have to do a working prototype first and it seems the easiest way to do that would be to use an existing underground train system, perhaps a derelict one. Then it would be much easier to create new infrastructure after its been proven to work.
hrrm, I'm skeptical of claims made by executives that don't work in that industry, although here he's probably right.<p><i>reads article</i><p>Wait, this is about some UK tech meetup where a reporter asks Musk some questions. And the quote is:<p>> Finally, I asked Musk who he thought would come out on top, out of Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook?<p>> "It’s the grudge match," he said. "It’s good for consumers that there is this battle. I think probably Google will win on the phone because Jobs is out of the picture..."<p>"Win on the phone?" What does that even mean?
Musk has replaced Jobs in the public mind as the Ultimate Genius Entrepreneur. And he's going to ruthlessly use it to inspire people up to Mars.<p>Actually, the Musk/Jobs comparison makes me think of the Famous Jobs/Sculley quote ("Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life? Or do you want to come with me and change the world?"), with Jobs in the lesser role this time.
Was doing some research on Elon. Apparently he's quite the playboy too. Dumped his older wife for a pretty young actress whom he recently dumped again. Guess money really can buy a sequence of love affairs