Jason Badeaux

Over time, the Gigafactory will grow and hopefully fulfill Elon Musk’s dream: achieving complete vertical integration for all Tesla products.

History is littered with examples of incumbent leaders who do not adapt to shifts in innovation from its competitors. Nokia’s failure to respond to Apple’s smart phone technology is an example.

Electric lighting, for example, did not simply replace candles and oil lamps on a 1-to-1 basis, but instead opened up entirely new residential, commercial, industrial, artistic, and scientific applications. Refrigeration did not just replace ice boxes on a 1-to-1 basis, but instead found new applications ranging from air conditioning and... See more

Blockchains are an alternative system for promise enforcement, fundamentally different from any system human history has seen before. Promises in blockchain systems are enforced by miners, who — in reasonably competitive mining markets — have limited ability, and weak incentives, to do anything other than execute others' promises roughly according... See more

The future success of Tesla doesn’t depend so much on their products but rather on one thing: the Tesla Gigafactory.

This is a very new technology. It could be decades before it is developed enough to be put into a car. The high levels of cobalt could also be a huge issue. Not only is cobalt more than twice as expensive as any other battery metal, but its mining is environmentally and humanely dubious. Many companies, including Tesla, want to have cobalt-free... See more