>If they can just execute on this, the world is theirs
People in these parts seem to fail to understand that:
a) the 300k - 400k of refundable reservations is a minuscule fraction of auto market share.
b) That the demand for $35,000 automobiles is not endless, let alone the $50,000+ that the Model 3 is selling for currently. Most people can't or shouldn't be making $1000 per month payments on a car.
Tesla has a ways to go before the "world is theirs".
TL;DR: "Yet, as Durant’s story typifies, one of the challenges for visionary founders is that they often have a hard time staying focused on the present when the company needs to transition into relentless execution and scale."
This line of thought might be a "natural inception[0]" from Tesla using the very same auto plant[1] where Toyota taught GM some of their trade secrets. After hearing this and knowing both are American automakers, many humans would continue the comparison, and some would find similar events somewhere in GM's long history. Because of the length of GM's history, it's probable that you'll find a similar event - somewhat reminiscent of "Bible codes" showing encoded prophecy, except long works such as Moby Dick accidentally have the same encodings. [2]
Though it would be "symmetrical" if Toyota formed a similar partnership with Tesla for a similar purpose.
A good read, but I really wish the author would stop the constant equation of visionary and founder and remove the couple of factually wrong insinuations that Musk was the founder of Tesla. Elon Musk did not found the company he did definitely help it survive its infancy and grew it to what it is today (which either market leading or nearly bancrupt depending of who you ask), but he didn’t found it.
> One of the common traits of a visionary founder is that once you have proven the naysayers wrong, you convince yourself that all your pronouncements have the same prescience.
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[ 8.2 ms ] story [ 881 ms ] threadhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16891651
>If they can just execute on this, the world is theirs
People in these parts seem to fail to understand that:
a) the 300k - 400k of refundable reservations is a minuscule fraction of auto market share.
b) That the demand for $35,000 automobiles is not endless, let alone the $50,000+ that the Model 3 is selling for currently. Most people can't or shouldn't be making $1000 per month payments on a car.
Tesla has a ways to go before the "world is theirs".
if that question begins with "how" or "why" however, the answer is better phrased as "it doesn't".
/rant
not very inspired analysis of Tesla's challenges, with a comparison to a just barely similar historical case.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%
Though it would be "symmetrical" if Toyota formed a similar partnership with Tesla for a similar purpose.
[0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/ (Inception (2010))
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI
[2] http://www.awitness.org/essays/bibcode.html
That line rings true.