The majority of startups will fail. You have to know that going in, that the odds are very much against you.

I just can’t BELIEVE the things that have gotten funding. Who “invests” $5M in a luxury watch site? I thought there were just a lot of bad ideas out there, but I think there are a lot of unsophisticated investors too.

Does anyone ever ask any serious questions? What happens if the government classifies Uber’s drivers as employeess, and not contractors? What happens if advertising on Twitter doesn’t generate enough revenue? What happens to revenue at Google and Facebook if advertising rates plummet?

I think the key to avoiding depression is to have a good idea from the start, not something that relies on advertising to make money. eBay. Netflix. Amazon. Of course, the last two come with other problems.

Oh really? Because when I last crunched the numbers, Tesla loses about $9,000 on each vehicle it sells.

They've lost money ever quarter but one for the last decade.

And that has been Tesla's argument for the last ten years, yet they still lose about $9,000 on each car they make.

If they can't make a profit on a $100,000 car, there's just no way they'll be able to profit on a $40,000 car.

Tesla doesn't know how to make an electric car for the masses.

Half a dozen big car companies are already doing it. Leave the innovation to them, Musk. You're just a dorky P. T. Barnum.

What difference does that make? I'm willing to bet that Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook employ several times the number of people that Musk does, but don't take anything close to the amount of government money that Musk does.

Without the government teat, Musk is a talentless hack. He builds stuff for the wealthy, and has the poor and middle class taxpayers subsidize it.

What a dick.

I'm not claiming that it's going to happen today, or even tomorrow, but as we connect all parts of manufacturing to computers and the Internet, as we have robots performing our manufacturing, how long will it take before we have autonomous machines digging raw materials out of the ground and delivering it to factories?

How long until solar and nuclear allow machines to run for years without needing humans to obtain energy supplies for them?

Eventually, there won't be any plug to pull.

Wait, has there ever been a time when a more advanced civilization encounters a less advanced one, and the less advanced civilization prospers?

My point: if we develop self-aware AI, it's over for humanity. I think the real question is are we ever going to be capable of creating AI which becomes self aware? Can human beings create software that complex?

Totally. It takes real genius to lose nearly $9,000 for every car you make.

And more genius still to turn a profit in just a single quarter in a decade.

To nearly go out of business, saved only by a government loan. Or a government contract.

And let's not forget a home battery which might be economical in California or Hawaii, but nowhere else.

Pure genius.

I think it's actually Homo sapiens sapiens.

We can't have loser pays, because the more money you have, the greater the chance you'll win in court, regardless of the merits of the case.

Sorry, but class actions against large companies by injured consumers are just a cost of doing business, and being a huge corporation.

If companies don't like being sued, don't break the law.

And I hold this opinion as someone who was the victim of a frivolous lawsuit. We need patent reform, NOT tort reform.

I’ve got tens of thousands in SDS. When the powers that be decide it’s time to crash the market (because they’ve shorted it), I’ll make out like a bandit.

SDS moves dollar for dollar as the S&P does, but in the opposite direction. In the last crash, SDS went up more than 20X. This time, the banks are much larger, and the federal government will not have the money to bail them out, so we’ll have a true depression, with SDS going up probably 40X or 50X.

And I’ll make hundreds of thousands on the way down. After that, I'll buy into the S&P on the cheap, and make tens of millions on the way up as the market rebounds in the years after the crash.

Hey, isn’t this how the Kennedys made much of their money, by betting against the market?

Another right-wing canard to debunk. Oh well here goes...

For every Soros who is spending money to promote "collectivism" (code used by Ayn Rand-loving sociopathic troglodytes who haven't had a date this century) , there are ten or more Adelsons and Kochs promoting their fascism. It isn't even close dude.

I think it's great that the Koch brothers give to charity, but at those levels, it's like someone who earns $40K per year giving $100 in total to charity each year. Not exactly a sacrifice.

It's even worse because that worker earning $40K per year can't pay for all of their necessities for life on that salary, where the Kochs have already paid for everything they'll ever need.

Listen buddy, I don't understand your prison lingo, but I'm straight...

Right, and all those donations don’t even add up to a fraction of the nearly $1B they plan on spending to influence the 2016 election.

If a Nazi donated $100 to a soup kitchen, does that forgive Auschwitz? And don’t lecture me on Godwin!

I'm just goofing around with you, don't be a brick, and try reading for content.

If a U.S. company designs products in one country, manufactures them in another country, and sells them in a third, in which jurisdiction should the company pay tax? The country in which it's domiciled?

I have no problem with Apple paying federal income tax on every product designed in the U.S., and then paying sales taxes or VAT to the governments of the countries in which those goods are sold. I don't think the country of manufacture should matter at all when it comes to determination of corporate income tax.

Apple is a U.S. corporation. So long as it reaps the benefits of incorporating here, they have to pay for it.

You're joking, right? I get to deduct the salaries I pay employees, but I still have to pay corporate income tax on my profits, after deductions.

That may not be the way you want the world to be, but that's the way it is right now.