Jason Badeaux

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 bat... See more

In our view, efforts like the Cybertruck aren’t really about making money; they are about getting attention and proving that Tesla is one of the world’s most innovative companies, specifically for the purpose of building Tesla’s ability to win support from stakeholders — what we call innovation capital.

I found something else surprising about previous energy transitions. Each one later enabled new modes of transport and new materials which were very hard to conceive of during its early phases. In each of the past transitions, the energy source unlocked new distribution technologies and materials that helped drive more adoption for the energy sourc... See more

If interest rates begin to rise or we see a post Covid-19 global slowdown, these automakers may struggle to make interest and debt repayment schedules while borrowing additional debt to fund its plans to rapidly build out their EV infrastructure and compete with Tesla. This issue raises major concerns for the survival of these traditional auto bran... See more

Every one of these questions refers to a system that is complex, in the sense that a great many independent agents are interacting with each other in a great many ways [...] the very richness of these interactions allows the system as a whole to undergo spontaneous self-organization. Thus, people trying to satisfy their material needs unconsciously... See more

Second, there are use cases for "crypto". Most notably: money. Money that's not issued by a central government is a perfectly reasonable use case. Crypto is successful at being money. You may think decentralized money is bad or not useful to you in particular, but if you can't accept money as a use case, then that's a hint that this claim may be un... See more

In other words, crypto's use case is the one that it claims: decentralization. It's use case is to cut out middlemen, break up monopolies, and fight aggregators. It's certainly not the case that crypto is entirely useless.It may still be the case that crypto is "more bad than good", but the claim "after 13 years, there are still no use cases for cr... See more

A system is a public utility if it is permissionless, rent-free, and does something useful.