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0 pointsklintcho3y ago0 comments

This argument could be made about any big SV company the past 30 years.

- Anyone of IBM, Microsoft or Yahoo could build a better (quicker and cheaper) search engine than what a bunch of new grads from Stanford can (Google)

- Anyone of the car manufacturer can build a better (quicker and cheaper) electric car than a software millionaire (Tesla)

I don't agree with the statement, I think there are numerous reason people embark on ambitious project that incumbents "could" do, but are not doing;

- An unexpected insights,

- A new research breakthrough from some other field

- Collecting a bunch of the most bright people coming up at the same time in the field (Mueller for SpaceX comes to mind for instance) etc.

But most of the time it's just that it's not really in their business to do a 100 million dollar - 1 billion bet on something that risky, they are in the business of returning like 7 - 10% a year to their shareholder, not producing 5x returns (like the VC/startup business).

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rollinggoron3y ago

Eh, I figured I would get this response but writing software e.g. your IBM, Yahoo, and Microsoft example is much easier and faster to do than building a cutting edge, physical, supersonic commercial jet. To build Google, all you needed was a computer, and a new approach/algorithm to solving web search. Software companies are much easier to disrupt than physical product companies.

As others have pointed out the Tesla isn't a great example either because building a car is still 100x easier to do than building aircraft, let alone supersonic planes.

"Unexpected Insights" and "A new research breakthrough from some other field" seems to be handy wavy. A supersonic jet breakthrough is not something that can be discovered in a dorm room. It requires millions in research and expensive materials to build and test against.

klintchoOP3y ago

I did include SpaceX as well, and I'm not sure one can find a better example than that, but there are others as well:

- Cruise + other self driving car companies (obv also a bunch of software, maybe even software focused, but looking at Waymo, they developed all their own hardware, LIDAR tech etc.)

- Commonwealth Fusion + a bunch of other fusion startups (obv they haven't really gotten to a product yet one could argue, but a bunch of breakthroughs in high powered electro-magnets has been made)

- Heart aerospace - electric planes

- Canvas construction - robotic plastering and painting for construction.

While supersonic flight has been proven, albeit not economically viable, it's still something that has been done, and done like 40+ years ago. It's not really on the "fusion power"-levels of difficult. But sure, I guess on could argue both sides equally well :)

In regards to research breakthrough, sure they were handwavy at least as it relates to jet engines capable to support supersonic flights. I don't have any sources but I have little doubt that jet engine / material breakthroughs has been made since the 80:s.

chadash3y ago

SpaceX, yes. But I think some of these other examples work against your point. Yes, some of them have raised lots of money (or even sold for lots of money), but revenue for Cruise + Commonwealth Fusion + Heart combined (I haven't heard of Canvas) is about $0 so far. It's yet to be seen if any are viable businesses even if they have already invented cool shit. To your point above, Boeing is not in the venture capital business. Their investors most likely want dividends and stock buybacks, not capital intensive moonshot bets.

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raverbashing3y ago

Except costs for prototyping and building a plane are (no kidding) 100x the costs of prototyping and building a car

And that's for "easy" stuff like electric cars. Not a supersonic plane (which has a full bag of hurt to go with)

If you don't believe me just look at the price tag of a brand new Cessna (which is old/proven/boring technology)

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