HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Sometimes parts from China get stuck in customs or are otherwise delayed, and this affects Tesla as much as the rest of us.

Here's an interview Elon did with Sal Khan back in 2013. He literally had employees running around to buy as many USB cables as he could.

https://youtu.be/vDwzmJpI4io?t=31

If you want to send up more propellant, you need to send up even more propellant to get the propellant you want up to space. Which means you have no room left for your actual payload.

Back in 2013, before SpaceX had recovered any rockets at all, Elon Musk talked about how the way they were going to get reusable rockets was by making the rocket and the reusability more efficient: https://youtu.be/vDwzmJpI4io?t=26m30s

> willing to work hard at things that aren't immediately obviously essential but you do them anyway.

I view this as actually one of the biggest problems with current pedagogies and curriculum structures. They don't teach the why of things[1] and so students either are unmotivated because it seems meaningless to them, or the ones who follow blindly on faith, who think less for themselves, end up looking like the smart ones. But then maybe that's what some employers are looking for.

As Musk puts it, they fail to teach to the problem instead of the tools.[2]

[1] https://youtu.be/vDwzmJpI4io?t=35m2s

[2] https://youtu.be/3UxL-0--oQo?t=25m25s

⬐ FussyZeus

There is however a certain value to being capable of doing what you're told, even if you don't understand the why of everything right off the bat. As a business owner if I need certain things in a certain way from my management or employees, especially if it's just a personal preference or a certain way I do things, I don't give a shit if my management understands it as long as they do it.

There's plenty of room for free thought in a good workplace but there are also certain things that don't need to be questioned because it's none of your business.

⬐ mulcahey

Sure but the "none of your business" argument doesn't really work in education.

Secondly, in the work place, it's reasonable to assume the work you are doing is beneficial to the business, whereas with classes your work isn't helping anyone else, and might not even be helping you.

⬐ FussyZeus

Education is supposed to emulate the business world, ergo, for some things it does work.

That's a flaw in the classes, not the system. The point of a formal education system is to prepare you for the business world; if it's not matching up in some way, then it's the fault of the institution or the educator, not the student or the business.

Have you seen Batman (the Chris Nolan movie)? It's pretty frickin' awesome. You've got incredible special effects, great script, multiple takes, amazing actors, and great sound and it's very engaging. ... If instead of having movies- say we're going to have that script performed by the local town troupe. So in every small town in America (if movies didn't exist), they would have to then recreate The Dark Knight. You know, with home-sewn costumes and jumping across the stage and not getting their lines quite right, and not really looking like the people in the movie, and no special effects or anything. That would suck! It would be terrible. That's education.

-- Elon Musk (chatting with Sal Khan)[1]

I think there's a ton of improvement to be had in the education space. People have used technology to make many forms of entertainment more compelling, but education is pretty similar to half a century ago: classrooms, teachers, lectures, etc. A lot of the stagnation is due to bureaucratic and legislative inertia, which isn't such a big problem in countries lacking widespread public schooling.

With regards to cost and bandwidth issues: Remember, Gates's predictions/goals are for the next 15 years. Technology is only going to get cheaper and faster. In 2000, iPods didn't exist. In 2030, even low-end tablets will put current hardware to shame.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDwzmJpI4io#t=2280

⬐ marak830

In fact in Japan atm I use a starboard (basicly a large projector with touch capabilities), in my classroom. If things like this became more common, I'm sure education could be shaken up a lot.

It is an excellent medium to teach a class withe.

⬐ motoboi

I watched some classes on MIT OpenCourseWare and was blown by the fact that they use chalk boards (!). I mean, one of the best universities in the world use the same tools as mine: a teacher, chairs and a chalk board. Don't that make us think about how important is the culture, the environment of those famous institutions. It's not about tools, it's all about people.

This reminds me of a very similar campaign Paypal did to help jumpstart the online payments market. Paypal offered $20 to anyone for opening an account or referring a new user[1]. This served to help rapidly grow a market of Paypal users before one existed.

1 (I highly recommend watching the full conversation as it's immensely interesting) - http://youtu.be/vDwzmJpI4io?t=11m21s

⬐ battani

The difference being that most of these students will receive the free bitcoin and hold, hoping they appreciate in value, instead of transacting and contributing to the network effect.

⬐ beaner

Is this myth not dead yet? People spend bitcoin and want to spend it. There is also speculation and hoarding, but no universal law that says you can't do both.

$10 isn't even much to hoard. If the price goes up 10x that's still just $100. This is more like, "Oh, you got our drinks, I'll pay you back in btc!" kind of money.

⬐ darksim905

It's not a myth because it's true. There are so many people holding on to it as investments that it's not even funny. There are people making so much money off of bitcoin it's ridiculous.

⬐ beaner

I was saying that the myth is that people don't want to spend bitcoin.

⬐ tron657

How and when did hoarding bitcoin become a myth? Last I checked number of transactions per day was decreasing. And the C2C aspect you describe is unlikely to take off given the ease of cash or tools like Venmo, and lack of availability of bitcoin apps on iOS.

The myth here is that "people want to spend bitcoin." Just take a look at the bitcoin transaction volume merchants are seeing beyond the first few days.

⬐ baby

> Last I checked number of transactions per day was decreasing.

Are you looking day to day trends? Because if you step back a little you'll see that transactions have done nothing but increase.

⬐ battani

https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions

We see a decrease since December and otherwise flatlining. And this includes the trading volume that happens on the exchanges which has increased.

⬐ baby

Only if you compare it to the peak of December, otherwise it's clearly rising.

⬐ None

None

⬐ beaner

My point was not that hoarding is a myth - my point was that "people will not spend bitcoin, because they will only hoard it" is a myth.

Have you actually talked to people who own bitcoin? They want places to spend it.

> Just take a look at the bitcoin transaction volume merchants are seeing beyond the first few days.

This doesn't really mean anything. First-day enthusiasim can't be held as representative of the greater trend. The greater trend being that more merchants are accepting bitcoin over time, and more bitcoin is being spent on real things.

All the famous entrepreneurs mentioned in this story have very light accents. I found YouTube videos with these entrepreneurs speaking, and none of them have "accents so strong that you have to interrupt the conversation to ask what they just said.":

* Vinod Khosla, Sun Microsystems co-founder and now a venture capitalis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxYVOMj6F2U&t=1m2s

* Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TShENN3VVX8&t=0m29s

* Tesla’s Elon Musk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDwzmJpI4io&t=2m33s

* Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vv0NKieCoI&t=5m59s

Paypal buying eBay items wasn't actually the primary method for stimulating growth. Initially, Paypal offered new users $20 for opening an account, and $20 for referring somebody to open an account. They then dropped the bonus to $10 for both, then $5, then $0. This allowed them to grow immensely, and they reached 100,000 users in one month. These bonuses weren't "cheap" though: they cost PayPal around 60-70 million.

Here's a reference - an interview between Elon Musk and Salman Khan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDwzmJpI4io&feature=player_de.... It's worth a watch.

⬐ dataminer

The whole interview is very insightful, thank you.

⬐ pearjuice

>60-70 million

Great strategy if they actually worked out they could get it back in x time with y users actively using Paypal. The real step is taking the risk. What if only half of the money returns and there is no further adoption? How did they ever take that step? Or were they monitoring the user growth 24/7 and if it didn't match their planned strategy, they would pull the plug on bonuses? Amazing however they managed to pull it off.

On the matter of the academic-industrial complex, I humbly defer to Elon Musk: http://youtu.be/vDwzmJpI4io?t=9m31s

⬐ FD3SA

Due to the downvote, I'd just like to explain a bit further. Academia is designed with very unique economics which favor publishing over useful experimental results. As such, it can only be expected that rational actors will game the system by fabricating data in order to publish impactful papers, especially if the short term gains (tenure) outweigh the long term consequences (incorrect results).

It is a classic case of improper incentives leading to undesired outcomes.

"With an advanced rocket you can do maybe two to three percent of your lift-off mass to orbit, typically. And then reusability subtracts two to three percent. So then you've got nothing toward or negative and that's also not helpful. So, the trick is to try to shift that from two to three percent in the expendable configuration, to make the rocket mass efficiency, engines efficiency, and so forth so much better so that it moves to around three and half to four percent in the expendable configuration and then try to get clever about the reusablility elements and try to drop that to around the the one and a half to two percent level so that you have a net payload of about two percent."

http://youtu.be/vDwzmJpI4io?t=27m

(Watch from 27m for about 50 seconds.)

⬐ bayesianhorse

They should send Sal on the Mars mission. Then he can khan out videos "on the fly".

⬐ bcn

The last question was about 'the hypertube' https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&...

⬐ hendler

Awesome interview.