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Why didn't you just use something like Mailinator? They specialize in this exact thing. Gives you an API to grab links and everything. That's what I use.

Love this! Plus I didn't realize Silicon Valley was already on Amazon Prime, which means it's binge watching time!

I wonder if there's any published evidence of this. I've heard the same thing and it /seems/ reasonable but then again it could be folklore. I guess it depends on the company and how expensive it is to fix.

I mean small or /agile/ companies that can repair a bug and deploy right away would have a substantially lower cost than say a large company that needs to have dozens of people approve something before it can be fixed.

I don't run into this folklore very often but it does happen on occasion - I'll file this little tidbit away until its useful in the future. It is funny to think this number hasn't been adjusted since the mid 1970's.

Agreed. One of the other interesting / admirable things about Elon as a CEO is his ability to talk in such detail about his products. I think this is probably more normal for a founder than a CEO, but it sets a high bar for CEOs (and other executives) for them to be able to talk about the very details of the products they are building. Unfortunately I've never had a CEO like this.

The explosion supposedly occurred at their test facility which probably makes this a not-so-big deal. Sure you don't want to damage (or blow up) test equipment but if you're going to do it, the test facility seems like the best place.

I wonder if Elon will be the one who responds and/or how detailed will the explanation be...?

I agree. The article makes it seem like Larry is the driving force behind Google and Sergey is just along for the ride (aside from the meetings they take together and the ability to argue out points). Maybe that wasn't what the author intended but it seems like a side-effect.

Anyone else remember this device from Star Wars - The Phantom Menace when Obi Wan Kenobi and Qui Gon Jinn swim down to Jar Jar's people? lol.

If this were real and it isn't - it sounds like a rebreather (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebreather) only several orders of magnitude smaller and without the extra tank full of pure O2.

Fun to think about though.

What's wrong with a half-billion dollar loan from the government to help out building a car company? Isn't that exactly the type of loans our government should be making - ones to companies who create high-paying jobs, become successful and then repay their loans early?

I believe Elon said Tesla will be profitable next quarter excluding carbon tax credits which is the only existing subsidy they get as a corporation. As for the buyers do you really think the $5-$7k credits the buyers get (at least in the U.S. based on the state they are in) are enough that if they were to stop getting those credits Tesla would stop selling all cars? I mean they aren't exactly selling cheap cars. What's $5-7k if you are already spending $70-90k? That's about a 10% discount.

At least Spotify seems to be waiting until local and/or state governments contact them about collecting sales tax. With Amazon now collecting Sales tax on purchases here in California it's probably only a short time before Spotify does as well.

My former company was about 50% distributed - sales, finance, professional services were all in different areas except for development & testing. We were stuck working in the office. Then again we were only a 10 person company so I'm not sure how well that applies. Besides Automattic I haven't heard of any other companies doing this.

I'm assuming it will be more than "about 20 bucks" once people find out about this! On the plus side its free money from Google right?

Good find.

Good for Wikipedia.

Wikipedia should consider experimenting with different business models to generate money. Mozilla makes most of it's money from Google. By placing Google.com as their start page, they split the revenue generated from ad clicks - it's around 80% of their revenue (I looked at their financial statements long ago but can't remember specifics).

$500k to Sergey Brin is pocket change.

Sounds like a good hack. How much did you spend and how much additional storage did you get?

Just imagine the margins a book seller has to have in order to operate a large store with 20+ employees. If you can walk-through the store and compare their prices with Amazon's it puts pressure on B&N not to charge as much, even if they may be more convenient. Plus a ton of people do browse.

Isn't B&N one of the few places to still carry a large selection of Music?

Looking forward to reading this book but thought the podcast was interesting.

I'm fine with the changes Netflix made, although I would prefer to login to only one site.

Agreed!

I wonder how the battery degrading will affect the depreciation of the vehicle which is usually the biggest financial drain of buying a new car.

Agreed