Ask HN: Any well funded tech companies tackling big, meaningful problems?

Footnote: I’m not this critical of the gig economy, just couldn’t resist the opportunity for some gallows humor. :)

Steps in the right direction are all we can ever take.

Asteroid mining might be a bit of a solution to this resource extraction problem, but not really.

Tesla's utility-level batteries (MegaPack) make wind and solar projects more economically feasible since any excess wind can be stored instead of being sold at negative rates when its not being used. These batteries will allow the replacement of many coal-powered generator plants since those are typically used for peak times when we need more energy. They're responsible for pushing the electric car revolution forward (making it fashionable), which is forecasted to lead to less peak energy usage and a more balanced usage during non-peak hours (since people will be charging their cars at home after hours). In theory, this reduces the need to make upgrades to the US electricity distribution network and we should lose less energy transporting it. This also reduces the need for oil, and could prevent more wars in the middle east (since their major resource is less valuable)

However, if a Lithium mine in South America opens, and it wrecks and pollutes the land, the same place that bears the costs (the pollution) also gains the benefits (the jobs/revenue from the Lithium). At the very least, it's more fair.

I'm sure things are a bit more difficult with the current pandemic considering their buildings' layouts (like most open workplaces), but I'd wholeheartedly recommend people interested to taking a serious look.

So, why doesn't Tesla build that cheaper, smaller, lower-range car? It's probably because the profits in it are much smaller, and they need profits to justify their insane valuation. Every quarterly report on TSLA is sliced apart by thousands of analysts, is it in their best interest to make less profit and do slightly more good by electrifying slightly more miles? What if they went bankrupt or lost on a bunch of funding due to this strategy, and then BEVs would be set back a decade?

I'd buy the modest car myself, yes, but I don't think that it's the most financially sound way to proceed...their strategy of starting at the high-end, low-volume side seems to have worked well, so that's what they're sticking with. FWIW, I think the Model 3 is already even on costs with the plurality of new vehicle purchases in America, which with options often range from 30-50k depending on the make.

Renewable tech (ie solar, wind) is an excellent example of this phenomenon, where we are finally getting to the point where you don’t need to appeal to people’s morals/values to get their energy companies to use renewables - they’re now simply cheaper in a lot of regions! Because tech improved in the right direction, greed and economic efficiency have become much more aligned with reduced environmental impact.

So the way I like to think about problems is this: what technology, if it existed, would solve this problem even when people/societies act entirely in their own self-interest (given how many world economies typically function)?

Morality is a luxury few feel they can afford, so make the moral choice cheaper.

They have and they did. [1] You have it backwards. The other car companies have chosen not to purchase batteries and motors from Tesla anymore.

Tesla wanted to be a spark. They thought, worst-case scenario: other car companies will come and dominate, and we'll be positioned as a supplier with the best technology. Well, that didn't happen.

So now we have a simple dilemma. Tesla needs $$$. $$$ represents choices, research, development, improvement, etc. (Did I mention that Tesla's constant investment in battery technology has been driving down the cost across the industry?) Let's say they want to shutter their car business and just supply batteries and drivetrains.

We'll put the cost of a battery pack at $10k. Like any supplier, when selling to other car companies, they have to add X% markup to cover their future goals, research, development, etc. Now, other car companies pay $15k for the battery pack, which leaves $10k left over for all the other parts of the car to reach break-even on that $25k economical car. Margins are already thin, that ain't gonna work.

Well, Tesla could just sell the battery packs at cost since they care so much, right? Just so happens Tesla raised $5B. $5B / $10k = 500k battery packs. Great! But there were 17 million vehicles sold in the U.S. alone last year... that's a drop in the bucket. Tesla would need $150B / yr just to sell enough batteries to other car companies at cost. That ain't gonna work.

So where do we end up? Well, Tesla can "supply" the battery pack to their self at $10k because, well, it's their battery pack. Thus bestowing a competitive advantage upon their company.

> Or actually build an economical car, sub $25k

That's the plan. Do you not see their steps towards accomplishing that goal? Tesla literally laid out their plan from the beginning: start at the upper end of the market to capture enough money to throw into R&D such that they can work their way down the curve into the more economical price range. Not sure how this isn't obvious from Tesla Roadster ($150k+), Model S ($75k+), Model X ($80k+), Model 3 ($35k+) ...

By the way, you don't get down to a $25k car unless the parts that go into that car cost less than $25k. Tesla has been working to drive those costs down since the inception of their company. Evidence being the many factories they're building and the working partnership they've maintained for R&D on batteries with Panasonic.

> no self-driving

Self-driving is an add-on. It's not included in the base price of a vehicle.

> no performance mode

Once again, another lineup. Not the base model.

> Just a working, fully electric car that any working-class person could buy, globally

Working-class person with a Model 3 checking in. Similarly the Model 3 price point put it firmly within the grasp of my parents who have subsisted on Toyota Camry's and Honda Accord's their whole lives. Their next car will be a Model 3.

> That would have much more impact than building luxury electric vehicles.

Yeah. Tesla agrees. They're getting there. I'm not sure what they've done in the past two decades hasn't proven that.

[1]: https://evannex.com/blogs/news/when-tesla-partnered-with-the...

That's not the right question you should be asking. The questions you should be asking are "Where can I contribute the most value?" and "How can I use that to improve society?"

Maybe tech isn't the be all end all, but it's often better to do things that you're good at.

Part Un: 1) Create a low volume car, which would necessarily be expensive 2) Use that money to develop a medium volume car at a lower price 3) Use that money to create an affordable, high volume car

Part Deux: 1) Create stunning solar roofs with seamlessly integrated battery storage 2) Expand the electric vehicle product line to address all major segments 3) Develop a self-driving capability that is 10X safer than manual via massive fleet learning 4) Enable your car to make money for you when you aren't using it

https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux

One simple example: new technology can drastically lower the barrier to do things which inevitably democratizes them. Then teams don't have to rely on specialists to accomplish that task and the overhead of internal politics/poor communication/etc goes down. I bet spreadsheets saved a number of otherwise dysfunctional companies when they were introduced by letting small teams do their own analysis and operate independently. Sure, in some sense you're just letting individual teams work around the broader dysfunction of an organization, but sometimes that's exactly what you need to get out of a company-wide stalemate.

For all that people don't like fancy cloud tools and microservices, they play the same role at tech organizations. Having a lot of trouble with teams not integrating their code well and not playing well with your deployment/ops/etc team? Give each team the tools to deploy and manage their own services and they'll figure something out.

Not an expert on this phenomenon, but I think mobile payments and banking in developing countries is playing a similar role. I'm sure there are other examples along the same lines being developed and tested as we speak—not necessarily by startups though.

Obviously that would take more work than just buying directly from Tesla, but if they built their manufacturing line to supply their own Tesla-invented tech then they should be able to sell it to other manufacturers, right?

No, but broad agreement about what people value and visible signs that people are willing to spend resources on that would.

Electric cars are sexy now and people will spend money on them.

If this conversation is about organisational/behavioral change, then Tesla did create inexpensive electric vehicles. The fact that those vehicles are being designed, manufactured, and sold by totally separate companies is an implementation detail -- An inescapable result of the fact that lower cost requires larger scale and greater expertise with larger scale.

https://www.edmunds.com/electric-car/articles/cheapest-elect...

> To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence. Supreme excellence consists in achieving the continuation of our policy with other means -- Sun von Clauzwitz.

Yup, this is exactly what I was hoping wasn't true: That it's impossible to be both well funded, high revenue growth AND do so while tackling a meaningful problem. ---

Don't want to make this thread about all the ways in which Tesla is a bad example (just first one that came to mind).