Nomanally, Rockefeller may have been the richest person ever to live, but he never got to experiance the pleasure of a Mountain Dew Code Red, a Fleshlight or the second season of the Wire. So who is really rich?
But it doesn’t really have anything to do with being richer though, just that we are more modern just by passage of time and the “because of capitalism” part is iffy
The best part of John D’s biography is that he became the richest person ever, then retired owning basically the entire oil industry. Then, years into retirement, they invented cars. Nice deal!
I apparently have been on Twitter since 2010 and didn’t know you could bookmark a Tweet. I just went there now and couldn’t figure out how to bookmark one.
Long before he became “Chief Twit” of Twitter, Elon Musk had a different obsession: making Teslas drive themselves. The technology was expensive and, two years ago when the supply chain was falling apart, Musk became determined to bring down the cost.
He zeroed in on a target: the car radar sensors, which are designed to detect hazards at long ranges and prevent the vehicles from barreling into other cars in traffic. The sleek bodies of the cars already bristled with eight cameras designed to view the road and spot hazards in each direction. That, Musk argued, should be enough.
Some Tesla engineers were aghast, said former employees with knowledge of his reaction, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. They contacted a trusted former executive for advice on how to talk Musk out of it, in previously unreported pushback. Without radar, Teslas would be susceptible to basic perception errors if the cameras were obscured by raindrops or even bright sunlight, problems that could lead to crashes.
Musk was unconvinced and overruled his engineers. In May 2021 Tesla announced it was eliminating radar on new cars. Soon after, the company began disabling radar in cars already on the road. The result, according to interviews with nearly a dozen former employees and test drivers, safety officials and other experts, was an uptick in crashes, near misses and other embarrassing mistakes by Tesla vehicles suddenly deprived of a critical sensor.
In interviews, former Tesla employees who worked on Tesla’s driver-assistance software attributed the company’s troubles to the rapid pace of development, cost-cutting measures like Musk’s decision to eliminate radar — which strayed from industry practice — and other problems unique to Tesla.
They said Musk’s erratic leadership style also played a role, forcing them to work at a breakneck pace to develop the technology and to push it out to the public before it was ready. Some said they are worried that, even today, the software is not safe to be used on public roads. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
Musk, as the chief tester, also asked for frequent bug fixes to the software, requiring engineers to go in and adjust code. “Nobody comes up with a good idea while being chased by a tiger,” a former senior executive recalled an engineer on the project telling him.
Cliffs: Musk has been trying to cut corner at Tesla, getting rid of the radar sensors and relying only on the cameras which are prone to errors. If you think you’re imagining an upswing in Tesla errors, you’re not. They’ve been spiking since they’ve disabled the radar.