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Originally Posted by jmecklenborg
This Chicago proposal is not "tech". It's not a subsonic vehicle operating in a vacuum tube, ala the hyperloop. This is just going to be a rail vehicle in a tunnel running on batteries instead of overhead power or a third rail.
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It doesn't have to be "tech" as you put it. A ton of new and huge companies are simply finding a new and better method of doing the same old thing.
Streaming isn't new, but Netflix is worth billions because it found a way to get content to consumers using that platform and allowing them to ditch established methods like cable and satellite tv.
Lyft and Uber are essentially just cab companies, and yet they too are worth billions because they found a better method of getting rides to consumers.
GrubHub, DoorDash, TaskRabbit are all competing with an already well established and low tech business: food delivery. Yet they have streamlined it and lowered the costs for consumers and allowed restaurants that did not want to have the associated cost of delivery (having extra employees as drivers, POS/register system for coordinating orders, additional insurance for the driver's vehicles, etc.) be able to compete with pizza and Chinese joints that do.
A lot of these companies I mentioned (plus innumerable more that I haven't) have lost or are currently losing BILLIONS. They still have incredible value though, because of the massive potential future cash flow. Facebook wasn't making any money for almost a decade when it first came out, and now its revenues are in the billions. Amazon barely makes a profit, but its one of the most valuable companies in the world, and has completely upended how people shop. You cannot look at a brand new company and compare its P/E ratio, P/L & balance sheets to a company like Proctor and Gamble and say, well, its not earning anything at the moment, "shut 'er down, Bob!" That's completely asinine, and clearly not the way the business world works. (thankfully)
You need to approach the Boring Company from this same perspective. Currently, tunneling for transportation is incredibly expensive, and Musk knows this. That is why he is attempting to turn all we know about that upside down by doing it far faster and far cheaper than anyone else has before. You claim it can't be done. I ask you then, give me the project blueprints and show me the exact technology and methods Musk is using for you to make such a claim, because clearly you have access to them and have reviewed them in depth to know with such certainty that it cannot be done. Unless you know something that none of us don't, I really don't think its fair for you to say that what Musk is proposing is neither possible nor financially prudent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jmecklenborg
What, exactly, is innovative about this project, other than its murky financing?
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Absolutely everything. You either have an inability to see that, or are at this point simply deriving joy out of being a contrarian.