the stories behind the money that nobody tells on the red carpet
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THE MOST TERRIFYING MICHAEL JACKSON MOMENT
THE LAWYER HANDED HIM HIS OWN NOTES...
march 1, 1996. michael jackson is 37. he's under oath in a lawsuit, and a camera is rolling.
the lawyer slides two handwritten pages across the table. michael reads them and says it's his handwriting.
deposition = you answer a lawyer's questions under oath, on camera, before the trial. anything you say can be played to a jury.
what's on his list:
→ 0:09 "yes, it's mine"
→ 0:26 things he wanted to set straight in a tv interview
→ 0:35 the interview was with diane sawyer
→ 0:43 "people have lied on me"
→ 0:48 the bleached skin rumor
→ 1:01 a rumor about president clinton's inauguration
→ 1:07 "don't judge a person unless you walk a mile in their shoes"
→ 1:26 "jesus said to love the children"
→ 2:04 "people completely lie on me"
what actually got me is that he wrote it down. the most famous man on earth sat at home and made a list of what people said about him.
i rewatched 1:26 three times. he's quoting the bible to a lawyer. he looks like he means every word.
he was never convicted of anything. in 2005 a jury found him not guilty on all 10 counts.
but the list didn't get shorter. it got longer every year until 2009.
the scariest part isn't the rumors. it's a man who had to keep a written list of them.
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ELON MUSK: "MY BRAIN HURTS AND MY HEART HURTS. I WORKED 22 HOURS A DAY..." OTHERWISE TESLA WOULD HAVE DIED, AND ME ALONG WITH IT
2018. Axios on HBO sits down with Elon, and he looks nothing like the guy on stage
tired eyes. hand on his face. long pauses
they ask why this was the hardest year of his career
he doesn't talk about the stock or the critics. he talks about the factory
"Tesla really faced a severe threat of death due to the Model 3 production ramp"
"the company was bleeding money like crazy"
"if we didn't solve these problems in a very short period of time, we would die"
how close?
"single-digit weeks"
think about what that means. a car company with billions in revenue, thousands of employees, a stock everyone argues about. and the real number that mattered was weeks of cash
so what does the CEO do with single-digit weeks?
22 hours a day
7 days a week
sleeping in the factory
working the paint shop, general assembly, the body shop himself
"do you ever worry about yourself imploding?"
"yeah, absolutely. no one should put this many hours into work. this is not good"
then the line that hits different:
"it hurts my brain and my heart hurts"
"this is not recommended for anyone. I just did it because if I didn't do it, Tesla, good chance, would die"
here's the part people forget
in the same year he described Tesla as weeks from death, Tesla posted a ~$312M profit in Q3 2018. the market had been betting on bankruptcy. the factory floor bet against it
the comeback is on the stock chart. the price isn't
no investor deck has a line for "founder sleeps under his desk for months". but that was the actual collateral behind the Model 3
he's not selling hustle here. he's warning you off it
the stock chart shows the miracle. the factory floor shows the bill
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For nine days, Susan Smith cried on national TV and begged a stranger to bring her two little boys home. They were at the bottom of a lake a few miles away the whole time, and she was the one who put them there.
On the night of October 25, 1994, she ran up to a house in Union, South Carolina, screaming. She said a Black man with a gun jumped into her car at a red light, made her get out, and drove off with her sons in the back seat. Michael was 3. Alex was 14 months old.
The whole country went looking for a man who didn't exist. His sketch was on every channel. Hundreds of volunteers searched the woods on foot and on horseback, divers went into the lakes, and the town tied yellow ribbons on every tree.
In the video below she tells the story herself. She says her son asked "Mom, where you going?" and she told him she loved him before the man slammed the door.
"I just felt like such a failure."
A week later she stands next to her husband David and begs whoever has her children to bring them home. On Good Morning America she says she has put her faith in the sheriff.
The sheriff had stopped believing her almost from the start. The light she described only turns red at that empty intersection when another car is waiting on the cross street, and she swore there was no other car. She failed a lie detector test. And a rich man she was seeing had just written her a letter saying he didn't want children.
The video ends on November 3. That morning she was on TV saying the hardest part was not knowing. That afternoon she confessed.
She had let the car roll down a boat ramp into John D. Long Lake with both boys strapped into their car seats, and watched it float, flip over and sink. Divers had already searched that lake, close to shore. The car was 122 feet out, upside down.
The jury needed about two and a half hours to convict her. She got 30 years to life. In November 2024 she told the parole board she would give anything to go back. David told them it wasn't a tragic mistake. The board said no, unanimously.
On November 19 she goes before them again.
Her lawyers said she meant to die in that car too and got out at the last second. So which was it: a broken mother who lost her nerve, or a woman who killed her sons for a man and then cried for the cameras for nine days?
For nine days, Susan Smith cried on national TV and begged a stranger to bring her two little boys home. They were at the bottom of a lake a few miles away the whole time, and she was the one who put them there.
On the night of October 25, 1994, she ran up to a house in Union, South Carolina, screaming. She said a Black man with a gun jumped into her car at a red light, made her get out, and drove off with her sons in the back seat. Michael was 3. Alex was 14 months old.
The whole country went looking for a man who didn't exist. His sketch was on every channel. Hundreds of volunteers searched the woods on foot and on horseback, divers went into the lakes, and the town tied yellow ribbons on every tree.
In the video below she tells the story herself. She says her son asked "Mom, where you going?" and she told him she loved him before the man slammed the door.
"I just felt like such a failure."
A week later she stands next to her husband David and begs whoever has her children to bring them home. On Good Morning America she says she has put her faith in the sheriff.
The sheriff had stopped believing her almost from the start. The light she described only turns red at that empty intersection when another car is waiting on the cross street, and she swore there was no other car. She failed a lie detector test. And a rich man she was seeing had just written her a letter saying he didn't want children.
The video ends on November 3. That morning she was on TV saying the hardest part was not knowing. That afternoon she confessed.
She had let the car roll down a boat ramp into John D. Long Lake with both boys strapped into their car seats, and watched it float, flip over and sink. Divers had already searched that lake, close to shore. The car was 122 feet out, upside down.
The jury needed about two and a half hours to convict her. She got 30 years to life. In November 2024 she told the parole board she would give anything to go back. David told them it wasn't a tragic mistake. The board said no, unanimously.
On November 19 she goes before them again.
Her lawyers said she meant to die in that car too and got out at the last second. So which was it: a broken mother who lost her nerve, or a woman who killed her sons for a man and then cried for the cameras for nine days?
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A CRAZY STORY ABOUT ELON MUSK AND HIS FATHER ERROL... AT ERROL'S 70TH BIRTHDAY, WORLD-FAMOUS STARS ASKED HIM "YOU SUPPORT TRUMP?" HE SAID YES. ELON TOLD HIM SUPPORTING TRUMP IS EVIL... "BUT NOW HE SUPPORTS TRUMP HIMSELF," ERROL RECALLS
2016. cape town. Errol Musk turns 70
Elon and Kimbal fly in and bring about 20 guests from america. Errol says they were all Hollywood. he names Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Lawrence, Jon Favreau. plus one of the people behind Google
the lunch goes on for hours
then Favreau leans over with a big laugh:
"we believe you support Trump"
"yes. I support Trump"
the whole table laughs. "that's stupid." "he's a terrible person"
Errol: "no he's not"
after the lunch Kimbal is furious. "I've never seen Kimbal so angry." his father embarrassed them in front of their friends
and Elon says it straight:
"it's evil to support Trump"
now fast forward to 2024. Elon endorses Trump, puts a fortune behind the campaign, and jumps on stage at his rallies
Errol's take, said with zero modesty:
"he had been brainwashed by these Democrats. because now Elon supports Trump"
the interviewer asks the obvious question: so did you two not speak for 7 years?
not exactly. "we were on bad terms." happy birthday. happy christmas. that's it
"he was never very happy. but now he's very happy"
"so did he come to you and say: dad, I was wrong, you were right?"
this is the part that got me:
"no. I'm a dad. I don't want to put my kids through that, where they have to say sorry to me... obviously from what he's doing he should be saying something like that. but I would never put him through that"
and then the ending
december, after a big rocket launch in florida. a SpaceX party, about 250 people
Elon stops the whole room, puts his arm around his father:
"everybody. this is my dad. he taught me everything I know about engineering"
from "it's evil" to "he taught me everything" in front of 250 SpaceX engineers
fair warning: this is Errol's version. Elon has said very harsh things about his father over the years, and the family's history with Errol is far darker than one party story
but notice what actually changed Elon's mind
it wasn't an argument at a birthday lunch. it wasn't his father
it was Trump himself
in 2016 a table of Hollywood stars laughed at the idea of supporting him. 8 years later he'd won the white house twice and turned one of his loudest skeptics, the richest man on earth, into his biggest backer
whatever you think of him, very few people have ever changed what the world thinks of them that hard, with their own actions
in 2016 saying "I support Trump" got you laughed at in Cape Town
in 2024 Elon was jumping on stage next to him
the old man at the end of the table just saw it 8 years early
in markets that's the whole game. being early feels exactly like being laughed at
so who was really right at that lunch: the stars, or the guy they were laughing at?
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Jeffrey Dahmer's father once carried a locked metal box down to the basement and got ready to smash it open. Inside was a human head. He never opened it.
In 1994, Jeffrey sat next to him in a Wisconsin prison and told the story on national TV.
Between 1978 and 1991, Dahmer killed 17 men and boys, most of them in Milwaukee. He was arrested in July 1991, after one man escaped his apartment with a handcuff still on his wrist and flagged down a police car.
Two months before that, police had been at the same door. A 14-year-old boy was found on the street, drugged, naked and bleeding. Two women called for help. The officers believed Dahmer when he said the boy was his 19-year-old boyfriend, walked him back inside, and left. The boy was killed that night.
His father, Lionel, wrote a book about raising him called A Father's Story. In the video below, they sit side by side with Stone Phillips, and Phillips asks about the box.
Jeffrey kept it locked in his bedroom closet. One week his dad came to visit, saw it, and asked what was inside. Jeffrey wouldn't open it. They argued. Lionel took it down to the basement to break it open himself.
"I was thinking, I've got to stop this from happening," Jeffrey says. "It's all going to come crashing down now."
It didn't. The box was never opened in front of his dad. "And so the lies continued," he says. "The whole scenario just continued for years after that."
Then the cameras stop, and at the end of the tape you see what happened next. On his way out, Dahmer casually pointed at a box in the room and wanted the crew to know: that's the type of box. It looked almost exactly like the one his father had found.
He got 15 life sentences. Wisconsin has no death penalty. In November 1994, a few months after this interview, another inmate beat him to death with a metal bar while they cleaned a prison gym bathroom. He was 34.
Jeffrey Dahmer's father once carried a locked metal box down to the basement and got ready to smash it open. Inside was a human head. He never opened it.
In 1994, Jeffrey sat next to him in a Wisconsin prison and told the story on national TV.
Between 1978 and 1991, Dahmer killed 17 men and boys, most of them in Milwaukee. He was arrested in July 1991, after one man escaped his apartment with a handcuff still on his wrist and flagged down a police car.
Two months before that, police had been at the same door. A 14-year-old boy was found on the street, drugged, naked and bleeding. Two women called for help. The officers believed Dahmer when he said the boy was his 19-year-old boyfriend, walked him back inside, and left. The boy was killed that night.
His father, Lionel, wrote a book about raising him called A Father's Story. In the video below, they sit side by side with Stone Phillips, and Phillips asks about the box.
Jeffrey kept it locked in his bedroom closet. One week his dad came to visit, saw it, and asked what was inside. Jeffrey wouldn't open it. They argued. Lionel took it down to the basement to break it open himself.
"I was thinking, I've got to stop this from happening," Jeffrey says. "It's all going to come crashing down now."
It didn't. The box was never opened in front of his dad. "And so the lies continued," he says. "The whole scenario just continued for years after that."
Then the cameras stop, and at the end of the tape you see what happened next. On his way out, Dahmer casually pointed at a box in the room and wanted the crew to know: that's the type of box. It looked almost exactly like the one his father had found.
He got 15 life sentences. Wisconsin has no death penalty. In November 1994, a few months after this interview, another inmate beat him to death with a metal bar while they cleaned a prison gym bathroom. He was 34.
When Ed Kemper was 15, he shot his grandparents. When he was 21, the state of California sent him home to live with his mother, against the advice of the doctors who had treated him.
He was 6 foot 9, almost 300 pounds, with an IQ of 145. He had spent five years in a state hospital, and he was so well behaved there that he helped the doctors run psychological tests on other patients.
His mother worked at the university in Santa Cruz, so he had a campus parking sticker on his car.
Between 1972 and 1973, young women started disappearing while hitchhiking. Police told students to only get into cars with a university sticker. His car had one.
In the video below he sits in prison in 1984 and explains how easy it was. He says that after his first two murders there were three times he should have been caught, and each time someone got scared and looked the other way.
Then he talks about the girls he picked up. They didn't know who was driving. They spent the ride talking about the killer everyone was afraid of, comparing notes on what he might look like and why he was doing it, while sitting right next to him.
"She judged me not to be that guy," he says. "I didn't look like him."
In September 1972, two psychiatrists examined him and said he was no longer a danger. A judge sealed his juvenile record. Kemper later said one of his victims was in the trunk of his car in the parking lot while they talked.
He wasn't caught. He stopped. In April 1973 he killed his mother and her friend, drove to Colorado, and called the Santa Cruz police from a phone booth to confess. They thought it was a prank. He had to call back several times before anyone believed him.
He got life in prison and has been turned down for parole again and again.
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THESE FRAMES ARE HARD TO WATCH. A RUTHLESS KILLER IN A COURTROOM. THE PARENTS OF HIS VICTIMS CAN'T HOLD BACK THEIR TEARS.
Rostov, Russia. April 1992.
The man in the cage is Andrei Chikatilo. A grandfather. A former schoolteacher. A Communist Party member.
Between 1978 and 1990 he killed at least 52 people. 21 boys, 14 girls, 17 young women. He found most of them at bus stops and train stations.
The cage wasn't there to keep him in. It was there so the families couldn't get to him.
At 0:20 you see a mother break down in the hallway. At 0:30 the guards walk him in, and the room surges toward the bars.
Then he starts talking to the crowd like it's nothing.
Over the next 6 months he shouted, sang, ripped off his clothes, and claimed he was being "radiated." When the verdict was read, he grabbed the bars and yelled "Why me?"
A woman tried to push through the guards. "Give him to us," she screamed.
The judge said he had "an iron psyche and nerves of steel."
But the worst part isn't on this tape.
In 1984, police already had him. A knife and a rope in his briefcase. His blood type didn't match the samples from the bodies, so they let him go. He had a rare condition that made the tests read wrong. He killed 21 more people after that.
And his first victim, a 9-year-old girl in 1978? Police had already blamed another man, Aleksandr Kravchenko. He confessed under pressure, took it back in court, and was shot anyway in 1983.
Chikatilo was executed on February 14, 1994. One bullet, in a prison in Novocherkassk.
Two men were shot for the same little girl. Only one of them killed her.
THESE FRAMES ARE HARD TO WATCH. A RUTHLESS KILLER IN A COURTROOM. THE PARENTS OF HIS VICTIMS CAN'T HOLD BACK THEIR TEARS.
Rostov, Russia. April 1992.
The man in the cage is Andrei Chikatilo. A grandfather. A former schoolteacher. A Communist Party member.
Between 1978 and 1990 he killed at least 52 people. 21 boys, 14 girls, 17 young women. He found most of them at bus stops and train stations.
The cage wasn't there to keep him in. It was there so the families couldn't get to him.
At 0:20 you see a mother break down in the hallway. At 0:30 the guards walk him in, and the room surges toward the bars.
Then he starts talking to the crowd like it's nothing.
Over the next 6 months he shouted, sang, ripped off his clothes, and claimed he was being "radiated." When the verdict was read, he grabbed the bars and yelled "Why me?"
A woman tried to push through the guards. "Give him to us," she screamed.
The judge said he had "an iron psyche and nerves of steel."
But the worst part isn't on this tape.
In 1984, police already had him. A knife and a rope in his briefcase. His blood type didn't match the samples from the bodies, so they let him go. He had a rare condition that made the tests read wrong. He killed 21 more people after that.
And his first victim, a 9-year-old girl in 1978? Police had already blamed another man, Aleksandr Kravchenko. He confessed under pressure, took it back in court, and was shot anyway in 1983.
Chikatilo was executed on February 14, 1994. One bullet, in a prison in Novocherkassk.
Two men were shot for the same little girl. Only one of them killed her.
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MICHAEL JACKSON: "TOMMY MOTTOLA IS A RACIST"
HE SAID IT INTO A MICROPHONE. ABOUT THE BOSS OF HIS OWN LABEL
july 6, 2002. harlem. al sharpton's office. michael jackson walks in wearing sunglasses and calls out the man who runs his record company.
tommy mottola = the head of sony music. the company that put out michael's albums.
what he says in this clip:
→ 0:07 black artists "have been taken advantage of"
→ 0:26 james brown. sammy davis jr. "the real pioneers"
→ 0:41 record companies "really, really do conspire"
→ 0:47 "especially the black artists"
→ 1:00 he names tommy mottola
→ 1:08 "racist"
→ 1:23 "i need your support"
→ 1:37 "it's a conspiracy"
→ 1:40 "the story always ends the same"
what actually got me is how calm he is. no shouting. he reads it like a verdict.
his album invincible came out 8 months earlier. he said sony let it die.
sony's answer: "ludicrous, spiteful and hurtful."
i rewatched 1:08 twice. after that word there's a 15 second gap before he can talk again.
6 months later mottola was out at sony.
the scariest part isn't the word racist. it's that the biggest star alive felt he needed al sharpton to be heard.
have you ever had to go public because nobody inside would listen?
THE MOST TERRIFYING MICHAEL JACKSON MOMENT
THE LAWYER HANDED HIM HIS OWN NOTES...
march 1, 1996. michael jackson is 37. he's under oath in a lawsuit, and a camera is rolling.
the lawyer slides two handwritten pages across the table. michael reads them and says it's his handwriting.
deposition = you answer a lawyer's questions under oath, on camera, before the trial. anything you say can be played to a jury.
what's on his list:
→ 0:09 "yes, it's mine"
→ 0:26 things he wanted to set straight in a tv interview
→ 0:35 the interview was with diane sawyer
→ 0:43 "people have lied on me"
→ 0:48 the bleached skin rumor
→ 1:01 a rumor about president clinton's inauguration
→ 1:07 "don't judge a person unless you walk a mile in their shoes"
→ 1:26 "jesus said to love the children"
→ 2:04 "people completely lie on me"
what actually got me is that he wrote it down. the most famous man on earth sat at home and made a list of what people said about him.
i rewatched 1:26 three times. he's quoting the bible to a lawyer. he looks like he means every word.
he was never convicted of anything. in 2005 a jury found him not guilty on all 10 counts.
but the list didn't get shorter. it got longer every year until 2009.
the scariest part isn't the rumors. it's a man who had to keep a written list of them.
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THE PAIN IN ELON MUSK'S VOICE WHEN HE TALKS ABOUT THIS... THE COMPANY HAD 4 MONTHS LEFT TO LIVE
april 2023. Twitter HQ, San Francisco. a BBC reporter sits across from Elon and asks about his first days as owner
he doesn't start with the bots or free speech. he starts with the money
"definitely spending money like it's going out of fashion"
then he lays out what he walked into:
Twitter was tracking to lose over $3 billion a year
and it had about $1 billion in the bank
"so that's four months to death. so this is your starting position. how would you feel?"
the reporter: "pretty intense"
here's where the hole came from, in his own rough numbers:
before the deal: ~$4.5B revenue, ~$4.5B costs. basically break even
after the deal: revenue drops to ~$3B as advertisers pull out
costs jump to ~$6B, because the takeover loaded ~$1.5B a year of debt interest onto the company
napkin math:
$3B burn a year = ~$250M a month
$1B in cash / $250M = 4 months
4 months = ~120 days
and then the line he says almost quietly:
"unless drastic action was taken immediately, this company is going to die"
you know what the drastic action was. thousands of people lost their jobs within weeks. by the time of this interview he said it was down to about 1,500 people
the part nobody talks about: a big chunk of that $3B hole wasn't Twitter's fault. it was the debt he used to buy it
he paid $44 billion for a company, and the purchase itself cut its life to 4 months
he didn't buy a company. he bought a countdown
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THE MOST TERRIFYING MICHAEL JACKSON MOMENT
THE LAWYER HANDED HIM HIS OWN NOTES...
march 1, 1996. michael jackson is 37. he's under oath in a lawsuit, and a camera is rolling.
the lawyer slides two handwritten pages across the table. michael reads them and says it's his handwriting.
deposition = you answer a lawyer's questions under oath, on camera, before the trial. anything you say can be played to a jury.
what's on his list:
→ 0:09 "yes, it's mine"
→ 0:26 things he wanted to set straight in a tv interview
→ 0:35 the interview was with diane sawyer
→ 0:43 "people have lied on me"
→ 0:48 the bleached skin rumor
→ 1:01 a rumor about president clinton's inauguration
→ 1:07 "don't judge a person unless you walk a mile in their shoes"
→ 1:26 "jesus said to love the children"
→ 2:04 "people completely lie on me"
what actually got me is that he wrote it down. the most famous man on earth sat at home and made a list of what people said about him.
i rewatched 1:26 three times. he's quoting the bible to a lawyer. he looks like he means every word.
he was never convicted of anything. in 2005 a jury found him not guilty on all 10 counts.
but the list didn't get shorter. it got longer every year until 2009.
the scariest part isn't the rumors. it's a man who had to keep a written list of them.
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"YOU WERE RIGHT," THE PRESIDENT TOLD KIMBAL MUSK (ELON MUSK'S BROTHER). ELON AND KIMBAL'S COMPANY PROVED WHAT KIMBAL SAID BACK IN 1995
1995. toronto. kimbal is in his early 20s, pitching zip2 to the president of the toronto star. elon is in silicon valley, sleeping in the office.
the pitch was simple. the internet will be the yellow pages of the future.
what happens in this clip:
→ 0:20 "a multi-billion dollar business with their yellow pages"
→ 0:34 the president picks up the book. it's this thick
→ 0:43 he throws it at kimbal. "do you ever think you're going to replace this?"
→ 1:10 kimbal's first thought: "he doesn't realize he's already dead"
→ 1:22 two years later, zip2 puts the toronto star on the internet
→ 1:33 the same man: "you were right"
what actually got me is the order of his thoughts. not "why did you throw a book at me." just "this guy is already dead."
to be fair, this is kimbal's memory, 30 years later. nobody filmed that meeting.
but the numbers don't need his memory. compaq bought zip2 in 1999 for $305M. canada's yellow pages company lost 90% of its share value in 2011 and 2012. the printed books still exist, just thinner every year.
the book didn't lose to a better book. it lost to a search box.
the scary part isn't being wrong. it's being rich enough to not notice.
"YOU WERE RIGHT," THE PRESIDENT TOLD KIMBAL MUSK (ELON MUSK'S BROTHER). ELON AND KIMBAL'S COMPANY PROVED WHAT KIMBAL SAID BACK IN 1995
1995. toronto. kimbal is in his early 20s, pitching zip2 to the president of the toronto star. elon is in silicon valley, sleeping in the office.
the pitch was simple. the internet will be the yellow pages of the future.
what happens in this clip:
→ 0:20 "a multi-billion dollar business with their yellow pages"
→ 0:34 the president picks up the book. it's this thick
→ 0:43 he throws it at kimbal. "do you ever think you're going to replace this?"
→ 1:10 kimbal's first thought: "he doesn't realize he's already dead"
→ 1:22 two years later, zip2 puts the toronto star on the internet
→ 1:33 the same man: "you were right"
what actually got me is the order of his thoughts. not "why did you throw a book at me." just "this guy is already dead."
to be fair, this is kimbal's memory, 30 years later. nobody filmed that meeting.
but the numbers don't need his memory. compaq bought zip2 in 1999 for $305M. canada's yellow pages company lost 90% of its share value in 2011 and 2012. the printed books still exist, just thinner every year.
the book didn't lose to a better book. it lost to a search box.
the scary part isn't being wrong. it's being rich enough to not notice.
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ELON MUSK KEEPS TELLING PEOPLE NOT TO BUY TESLA STOCK... BUT NOBODY LISTENS. SO WHAT DOES TESLA HAVE THAT MERCEDES DOESN'T?
november 2022. a room full of professional investors. Tesla is down ~40% from the top
an old man in a hat stands up and asks the question everyone is thinking:
Tesla trades at 70x earnings. Mercedes makes EVs too, trades at 6x and pays a 5% dividend
"why should i invest in Tesla rather than Mercedes-Benz?"
and the CEO of Tesla answers like this:
"i rarely try to convince anyone to invest in Tesla"
"many times i've recommended people don't invest in Tesla and i've said our stock is too high"
"but people just ignore me and keep buying the stock"
then he gives the only argument he has. and it's not a car argument
a car gets driven 10-12 hours a week. a week has 168
make it drive itself and it works 50-60. ~5x more useful. same cost to build
"if you think of net present value of future cash flows... if you actually do the math on that, it's insane"
then he goes further. a humanoid robot
"the economy is GDP per capita times capita"
"if you no longer have a constraint on capita... it is not clear that there is any limit to the size of the economy"
so that's the answer. Mercedes is priced as a car company. Tesla is priced as a bet that a car becomes a worker
read that again. the stock got more expensive, not less. the gap went from 12x to 45x
the "cheap" stock paid you to wait and went nowhere. the stock its own CEO called too expensive almost doubled
people weren't buying earnings. they were buying the 5x. and in 2026 robotaxis and Optimus still have to show up in the income statement to justify it
so who's right: the old man with the 6x multiple, or the crowd that ignored the CEO?
ELON MUSK KEEPS TELLING PEOPLE NOT TO BUY TESLA STOCK... BUT NOBODY LISTENS. SO WHAT DOES TESLA HAVE THAT MERCEDES DOESN'T?
november 2022. a room full of professional investors. Tesla is down ~40% from the top
an old man in a hat stands up and asks the question everyone is thinking:
Tesla trades at 70x earnings. Mercedes makes EVs too, trades at 6x and pays a 5% dividend
"why should i invest in Tesla rather than Mercedes-Benz?"
and the CEO of Tesla answers like this:
"i rarely try to convince anyone to invest in Tesla"
"many times i've recommended people don't invest in Tesla and i've said our stock is too high"
"but people just ignore me and keep buying the stock"
then he gives the only argument he has. and it's not a car argument
a car gets driven 10-12 hours a week. a week has 168
make it drive itself and it works 50-60. ~5x more useful. same cost to build
"if you think of net present value of future cash flows... if you actually do the math on that, it's insane"
then he goes further. a humanoid robot
"the economy is GDP per capita times capita"
"if you no longer have a constraint on capita... it is not clear that there is any limit to the size of the economy"
so that's the answer. Mercedes is priced as a car company. Tesla is priced as a bet that a car becomes a worker
read that again. the stock got more expensive, not less. the gap went from 12x to 45x
the "cheap" stock paid you to wait and went nowhere. the stock its own CEO called too expensive almost doubled
people weren't buying earnings. they were buying the 5x. and in 2026 robotaxis and Optimus still have to show up in the income statement to justify it
so who's right: the old man with the 6x multiple, or the crowd that ignored the CEO?
null margin retweeted
AFTER ANOTHER SPACEX FAILURE, ELON WAS IN DESPAIR BECAUSE THE MONEY RAN OUT... KIMBAL MUSK (ELON'S BROTHER) REMEMBERS THIS DAY WITH FEAR
kwajalein. a military base on a tiny island in the middle of the pacific. a spacex rocket had just blown up.
elon put about $100M of his paypal money into spacex. kimbal says "in the rocket world, that money goes away really quickly."
what happens in this clip:
→ 0:00 "one of the hardest times in spacex"
→ 0:21 the rocket blows up
→ 0:38 "every rocket launch was do or die"
→ 0:50 "it was so depressing." nowhere to go. no distraction
→ 1:15 the cafeteria. "the worst food you can imagine"
→ 1:22 a tiny store. canned tomatoes. nothing fresh
→ 1:33 kimbal cooks a big pot of chili for everyone
→ 1:49 no table. one pot in the middle. paper plates
→ 2:09 "their hearts were broken"
what actually got me is 1:49. the people building rockets don't even have a table. they eat beans off paper plates.
to be fair, kimbal isn't even sure which launch it was. he says "i think it was the second one."
falcon 1 failed 3 times. the 4th flight in sept 2008 finally made it. there was no money for a 5th.
i rewatched 2:15 twice. "by the end of the night, we're actually having a good time."
that pot of chili wasn't just dinner. it was the reason a broken team showed up again the next morning.
AFTER ANOTHER SPACEX FAILURE, ELON WAS IN DESPAIR BECAUSE THE MONEY RAN OUT... KIMBAL MUSK (ELON'S BROTHER) REMEMBERS THIS DAY WITH FEAR
kwajalein. a military base on a tiny island in the middle of the pacific. a spacex rocket had just blown up.
elon put about $100M of his paypal money into spacex. kimbal says "in the rocket world, that money goes away really quickly."
what happens in this clip:
→ 0:00 "one of the hardest times in spacex"
→ 0:21 the rocket blows up
→ 0:38 "every rocket launch was do or die"
→ 0:50 "it was so depressing." nowhere to go. no distraction
→ 1:15 the cafeteria. "the worst food you can imagine"
→ 1:22 a tiny store. canned tomatoes. nothing fresh
→ 1:33 kimbal cooks a big pot of chili for everyone
→ 1:49 no table. one pot in the middle. paper plates
→ 2:09 "their hearts were broken"
what actually got me is 1:49. the people building rockets don't even have a table. they eat beans off paper plates.
to be fair, kimbal isn't even sure which launch it was. he says "i think it was the second one."
falcon 1 failed 3 times. the 4th flight in sept 2008 finally made it. there was no money for a 5th.
i rewatched 2:15 twice. "by the end of the night, we're actually having a good time."
that pot of chili wasn't just dinner. it was the reason a broken team showed up again the next morning.
null margin retweeted
KIMBAL MUSK: "THE ROCKET LAUNCH WAS AT 4:00 PM. AT 2:30 PM ELON AND I WERE STILL AT DISNEYLAND"
september 28, 2008. spacex had 3 failed launches behind it. the 4th was the last shot. there was no money for a 5th.
the rocket was on an island in the middle of the pacific. the control room was a mobile home in a parking lot in la.
and the musk brothers went to disneyland with their kids. regular lines. no vip passes.
what happens in this clip:
→ 0:05 "literally as cheap as you can imagine"
→ 0:15 "my brother and i went to disneyland with our kids"
→ 0:34 the launch is at 4:00. it's already 2:30
→ 0:50 they get back a few minutes before liftoff
→ 1:08 "everyone just started crying"
→ 1:28 kimbal starts crying too
→ 1:42 "the last shot we had before we'd be out of business"
→ 1:47 a team of 500. boeing's version had 50,000
→ 2:13 "nasa saying okay, you deserve to live"
what actually got me is 0:34. they're checking their watches in a disneyland line while everything they own sits on one rocket.
kimbal calls it "a way to use up the day." when there's nothing left to fix, you just wait.
to be fair, falcon 1 flew only one more time after that. then spacex retired it.
3 months later, 2 days before christmas, nasa gave them a $1.6 billion contract.
i rewatched 1:08 three times. nobody cheers. they just cry.
the disneyland trip wasn't them being careless. it was 2 guys who had already done everything they could.