Thunderf00t has lost last of his marbles and remaining bits of credibility

[EEVblog]

I do want to make the point that I think he does what he does just for the money and he will move along to any topic that will achieve that end.

I can assure you he doesn't. Because you don't make that much money from making Youtube videos.
A 200k video will probably make him around $500, that barely pays for the time to edit it.
He has a day job as a research scientist and barely makes one video a month at this point.
If he was doing it for the money he'd be pumping out daily slop.

If you do watch or skim the same segments of this video I link here you'll see how, at least according to this person, he has shifted is subject matter over the years. I am going to assume he did so in response to waning interest on the current topic-du-jour. Or because he got bored.

He shifts subject matter based on what interest him at the time, and how times change. There has been a natural progression. He started out with Atheism videos (religious debunks) when it was a big genre on Youtube. When the skeptic community imploded because of Atheism+ there was no point doing that any more so he moved to anti-SJW videos. When the SJW movement died out there was no point doing them any more so he moved to product debunking like solar roadways, fontus etc. And when Elon came along I guess that really ticked him off, so he's been doing Elon videos ever since.
The core type of video hasn't changed though, he's always done "debunking" videos which have just changed targets based on how society changes.

[PlainName]

I don't recommend watching this video. I haven't.

Couldn't resist taking a look 

After a minute or so the thought struck me that maybe Thunderf00t is taking a cut from all the other tubers rubbishing him. No doubt there will be some who are rubbishing the rubbishers, and we end up with a kind of Ponzi scheme, all with Thunderf00t at the peak.

[Psi]

I do want to make the point that I think he does what he does just for the money and he will move along to any topic that will achieve that end.

I can assure you he doesn't. Because you don't make that much money from making Youtube videos.
A 200k video will probably make him around $500, that barely pays for the time to edit it.

You could be right.
But I suspect that, as long as it's still advertiser friendly, making rage-bait, controversial content with lots of hype/comments/user-engagement does improves the money you get per view over a typical channel with normal engagement. So he could be making more money per view than the norm.
People who are experiencing strong emotions tend to be easier to sell things to, they are not in the right frame of mind to say "no im not going to by that" so are more valuable to advertisers.

[paulca]

The only reason SpaceX succeeds is because Elon was forcefully removed from executive function.  It was more to do with him manipulating the markets, but probably a wise move.

What Elon says about anything is 100% garbage.  He promises things he cannot deliver, like school boy level fantasy "I believe we could do this this year.".... 10 years later... nothing.

If you tune Elon out completely SpaceX and Tesla don't look so bad. 

Most people thought Starship was a joke when it started as a tin can in a desert carpark.  A lot of people still think it's a joke.  It hasn't really delivered on any promises.  From the grand animations of dozens of people living in luxury on a manned trip to mars to needing dozens of launches to take 1 fuel load to orbit.  Sub-orbital 2 hours flights world wide with a dozen launches a day.  LOL.  Please.  Maybe 2100.

[wraper]

The only reason SpaceX succeeds is because Elon was forcefully removed from executive function.  It was more to do with him manipulating the markets, but probably a wise move.

Removed from what executive function? Figure out if it happened at all first.

[paulca]

The only reason SpaceX succeeds is because Elon was forcefully removed from executive function.  It was more to do with him manipulating the markets, but probably a wise move.

Removed from what executive function? Figure out if it happened at all first.

Sorry I believe it was Tesla not SpaceX.  Its honestly hard to find which I am referring to as google has a dozen listings for Elon being investigated by the SEC.

[wraper]

^Board chairman is not an executive position BTW.

[AVGresponding]

Falcon 9 is successful. Starship has yet to be more than a massive waste of taxpayer's money. My offer of a wager stands

[Psi]

One of the big reasons SpaceX and Tesla are so successful is because Elon shows up in the trenches with the engineers from time to time and gets things going smoothly again by removing any blocks being caused by management. Management typically don't understand what needs to be done, due to not being engineers themselves, and are unwilling to trust their engineers and sign-off major changes that costs money.

The benefits of having someone like Elon to force needed changes through, and pivot quickly, is not only the benefit from a better product or output. A lot of the benefit comes from all the extra motivation it gives the engineers to get work done.  Nothing kills engineering productivity more than crappy upper management who keep making the wrong calls because they do not understand things at a technical level or trust what their engineers tell them.

As soon as you have a company that listens to its engineers it becomes very attractive to the really top quality engineering talent.

It's not that Elon is some sort of god. If you take any random company and add someone who has good engineering talent and assign them the power needed to make big company decisions and put them in the trenches with the engineers it will have the same effect. A massive increase in productivity and innovation.

[wraper]

It's not that Elon is some sort of god. If you take any random company and add someone who has good engineering talent and assign them the power needed to make big company decisions and put them in the trenches with the engineers it will have the same effect. A massive increase in productivity and innovation.

It needs to be a combination of talents. Putting a engineer to rule over the company can easily destroy it in no time if he lacks in other areas. For example, you need to be somewhat ruthless for hard to achieve things to get done.

[EEVblog]

You could be right.
But I suspect that, as long as it's still advertiser friendly, making rage-bait, controversial content with lots of hype/comments/user-engagement does improves the money you get per view over a typical channel with normal engagement. So he could be making more money per view than the norm.
People who are experiencing strong emotions tend to be easier to sell things to, they are not in the right frame of mind to say "no im not going to by that" so are more valuable to advertisers.

Even if he does get double the typical average RPM (not many do that), it's still not much money in the scheme of things.
Helps pay the bills, but he's certainly not "in it for the money".
As I said, if he was, he'd be churning out daily or twice weekly Elon rage videos, not one lengthy video a month.
He clearly gets a kick out of the fight, that's why he does it. He's been the same since the Atheism days 15 years ago, only his targets have changed.

[Psi]

It's not that Elon is some sort of god. If you take any random company and add someone who has good engineering talent and assign them the power needed to make big company decisions and put them in the trenches with the engineers it will have the same effect. A massive increase in productivity and innovation.

It needs to be a combination of talents. Putting a engineer to rule over the company can easily destroy it in no time if he lacks in other areas. For example, you need to be somewhat ruthless for hard to achieve things to get done.

It can obviously go the other way, with too much engineering mindset and not enough business mindset. But in my opinion it's way way more common that businesses hold themselves back due to a lack of any engineering mindset in management, rather than too much. 
I'm not vowing for engineering control over everything. Just that placing engineers at the bottom of the company structure causes way to many problems.
There needs to be a direct link from engineering to the top, instead of through 5 layers of managers all passing on engineering ideas or proposals which they don't understand until it finally gets to upper management in a distorted form that makes no sense or has lost the underlying critical reason behind the proposal.

[EEVblog]

It can obviously go the other way, with too much engineering mindset and not enough business mindset. But in my opinion it's way way more common that businesses hold themselves back due to a lack of any engineering mindset in management, rather than too much. 
I'm not vowing for engineering control over everything. Just that placing engineers at the bottom of the company structure causes way to many problems.
There needs to be a direct link from engineering to the top, instead of through 5 layers of managers all passing on engineering ideas or proposals which they don't understand until it finally gets to upper management in a distorted form that makes no sense or has lost the underlying critical reason behind the proposal.

Altium was an interesting example here where the company had one of the most successful products in the market, but barely hung on financially. Because they didn't have anyone in charge who actually knew how to run a company and make a profit.
The founder/CTO was a just a software nerd who would be up at 2am coding, and ran the publicly listed company as basically a hobby, with silly pie-in-the-sky "visions" like PCB software no longer being required because everything would be modular. And that everything would be in FPGA's so you wouldn't have to care about hardware that much any more. And trying to implement those visions drove the company into the toilet financially.

The company was almost a completely "flat" structure, with "managers" just being the senior most software person in a group, they didn't actually manage anything. And a ton of (even fairly trivial) decisions were left hanging on the founder to make a decision.

Trying to get in a CEO to help with this ended up with the founder just forcing her out because she didn't see the "vision".
It wasn't until a hostile takeover where the founder was booted from the company did they take the business seriously and the share price went from 10c to $50 and they cashed out billions.

[paulca]

One of the big reasons SpaceX and Tesla are so successful is because Elon shows up in the trenches with the engineers from time to time and gets things going smoothly again by removing any blocks being caused by management. Management typically don't understand what needs to be done, due to not being engineers themselves, and are unwilling to trust their engineers and sign-off major changes that costs money.

Em.  No.  Elon is a fraud.  Watch ANY video where he is actually at SpaceX with the engineers and watch closely.  There is a documentary online that shows how it's handled.  Elon is assigned a handler.  It's usually one of the tech leads.  His job is to keep Elon busy, contented and away from the actual proceedings.  He is treated as a visitor to be kept at arms length, pulled aside and kept busy so he doesn't try and get involved.

Nothing the man says ever confirms he has the slightest clue about any engineering.  Elon is the rich friend that shows up to your team and brings carisma and MONEY, lots of MONEY.  So you tolerate him, let him take credit when he wants, anything to keep the money rolling and the press happy.

Later those same people come clean and tell the truth about Elon.  Those people are worth listening to.

EDIT:  To give Elon credit for what he does do.  He sets pie-eyed goals that most people would just not consider as it's too much, too big.  He will take it on, he will drive it.  He will spout a load of garbage about it, but he also has the money to possibly try it and see.

This does, genuinely drive innovation.  Elon promises the stars but people only make it to the moon.  My point is, without a "visionary" like Elon forcing the issue we might not have even made it to orbit while trying for the stars.

Even Elon's epic failures (which is most of them) do retain some successes.

[paulca]

I'm not vowing for engineering control over everything. Just that placing engineers at the bottom of the company structure causes way to many problems.

I have been in both good and bad companies in this regards.  Software Engineering for me.  The primary issue is that you have highly skilled individuals in engineering who are basically the actual "product output".  Without engineers the company can basically do nothing but waffle.  However "typically" these individuals are rarely all things at once.  They might not have a business clue in their head.  They can't do HR work.  They can't do many things.  They do however engineer the company output and ultimately are the "work horse" everyone is riding.

Smart companies realise this and structure the company around the engineering teams/departments such that the company support the engineering teams.  The take work away from them the engineering teams, leaving them to do just the engineering piece that their "generic business MBA" cannot.  Even though you could get a Software Engineer say, to fill in monthly personel reports, at $1000 a day+ it would be a bit stupid when a $500 a day 'admin staff' could take it off engineering.

These companies get the "You are either engineering the product for the customer or you are supporting those who are."

The bad companies... haven't worked this out.  They do whatever it is they do, write documents, hold meetings, make presentations and spreadsheets so they can have 10 meetings a week talking about it and here is the crunch.... they actually believe that this work IS the real work.  Like as long as they do their bit value has actually been added.  They tend to push work down onto engineering.  "I need to know why it's so slow to develop!  I want all engineers to start logging their work on 15 min basis".  Clueless and incompetant they take an overloaded team and overload it by asking even more of it.  (In the lastest chapter of my own work life incompetence they have decided as 3-4weeks per work stream is not working out and lagging to 5-6 weeks, they are going to stuff 4 at once into the pipeline concurrent.  With only 4 engineers.  I am completely lost already, I don't know which functionality is in what branch.  It's popcorn time.)

[Ice-Tea]

It wasn't until a hostile takeover where the founder was booted from the company did they take the business seriously and the share price went from 10c to $50 and they cashed out billions.

MLaybe they should ask the founder to come back at this point

[Psi]

I applaud your effort booscrawl but I fear it will fall on deaf ears.

[wraper]

SpaceX's 1,000+ Falcon launches

It's a bit less than 600 F9 and FH combined. Although it really will be 1000+ in 2-2.5 years unless they switch all their Starlink launches to Starship before it happens.

[EEVblog]

Em.  No.  Elon is a fraud.  Watch ANY video where he is actually at SpaceX with the engineers and watch closely.  There is a documentary online that shows how it's handled.  Elon is assigned a handler.  It's usually one of the tech leads.  His job is to keep Elon busy, contented and away from the actual proceedings.  He is treated as a visitor to be kept at arms length, pulled aside and kept busy so he doesn't try and get involved.

The claim that Elon Musk is a "fraud" at SpaceX, sidelined by a "handler" like a mere visitor, originates from a 2022 anonymous Tumblr post by a former intern describing chaotic early-2010s operations (when SpaceX had <5,000 employees). It depicts staff distracting him with busywork to channel his energy—a dynamic echoed in critiques but contextualized in Walter Isaacson's 2023 biography as typical startup "buffering" by executives like Gwynne Shotwell, not exclusion. As CTO and chief engineer since 2002, Musk's physics-trained, self-taught expertise has driven successes: Tom Mueller credits his hands-on Merlin/Raptor iterations (e.g., overnight failure dissections); he pivoted Starship to stainless steel in 2018, redrawing designs and dedicating 80% of time to engineering; Kevin Watson lauds his real-time physics mastery. SpaceX's 1,000+ Falcon launches and Starlink constellation stem from his innovations, earning National Academy of Engineering honors.

I know people who have worked with Elon, and they all say, eccentricity aside, that's he's legit, and has direct engineering input and they all consider him a fellow engineer.

[KE5FX]

I applaud your effort booscrawl but I fear it will fall on deaf ears.

Not all AI output is slop, and booscrawl's post seems like a good example, being helpful and informative.  But IMHO it should not be considered OK to paste it into a thread without "crediting" the model that generated it.  Citing sources is just plain courteous to the reader, even when not required by law or institutional rules.

[Simmed]

 
EM on JRE #2404

[Psi]

I know people who have worked with Elon, and they all say, eccentricity aside, that's he's legit, and has direct engineering input and they all consider him a fellow engineer.

I suspect the eccentricity/autism, combined with him doing so much in life, causes people a hard time accepting his accomplishments as real so they look for reasons to dismiss it as fake.

A lot of people with YouTube channels and high-functioning autism are absolutely insane with how many things they get done vs the rest of us.
So I have no doubts accepting that someone with high-functioning autism and huge wealth can do all the things he does.

There's also the personality type that always compares other peoples accomplishments in life to their own and if the difference is extreme it becomes very hard to accept. Especially if they are a doing it all and have a mental disorder. 
It can subconsciously manifest as anger towards the person, or in trying to find reasons to be angry at them.

[AVGresponding]

SpaceX's 1,000+ Falcon launches

It's a bit less than 600 F9 and FH combined. Although it really will be 1000+ in 2-2.5 years unless they switch all their Starlink launches to Starship before it happens.

My guess is Starship will still not have launched anything into orbit other than parts of itself, by then. Care to wager €20 on it? Maybe my €100 previous bet was too rich for everyone else's blood.

[EEVblog]

My guess is Starship will still not have launched anything into orbit other than parts of itself, by then. Care to wager €20 on it? Maybe my €100 previous bet was too rich for everyone else's blood.

Starship has actually deployed dummy satellites already, twice. Sub-orbital vs orbital is a safety technicality. I have no doubt Starship will be deploying real new gen Starlink satellites soon.
Whether or not the Starship is actually reusable soon remains to be seen though, that's still up in the air, but everything else is pretty much sorted.

[Psi]

The difference is in the goals.

Blue Origin goal is to build a competitor to Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy so they can
 - Get a share of the commercial launch market profits that SpaceX is getting now.
 - Deploy their own leo sat network and get a share of the Starlink profits
Blue Origin want to get something working well enough to do that asap, it doesnt need to be optimized, it just needs to do the job.

Where as SpaceX Starship is trying to iterate and optimize the best and cheapest bulk transport to space to build a base on the moon and mars. So SpaceX don't mind abandoning current designs for new ones if it will serve their goals better in the long run.
They could have stopped at Raptor 2, it was working well enough, but they designed Raptor 3 and now all the ship and booster designs need to be changed to use the new engine. Same with extending the ship and booster length to carry more fuel in V2 and V3.
SpaceX are playing the long game because it's a better plan for their goals.