Hey everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast.
This is a show where we discuss the critical Crossroads, The
Shape, SpaceX, Tesla X, The Boring Company, and Neuralink.
And I'm your host Will Walden if you want uninterrupted episodes
of the Elon Musk podcast. Please go to club.
Elon.supercast.com to find out how there's a link in the show
notes. Elon Musk has announced that his
AI venture Xai will release its ChatGPT competitor Grok to the
open source public domain this week.
It's a strategic move by Musk, who has consistently criticized
Open AI's profit driven use of AI technology, and it marks a
shift in AI development and accessibility for a large
language model like Grok And by open sourcing.
Grok XAI is set to join the ranks of companies like Meta and
Mistral, which have already made their AI models freely available
for modification and use by everybody.
And the decision to make Grok open source comes on the heels
of Musk's legal action against Open AIA, company he Co founded
but departed from in 2018. And Musk's lawsuit accuses Open
AI of straying from its nonprofit roots and original
mission, alleging that it has instead pursued profit
maximization, particularly following its collaboration with
Microsoft. Now the legal confrontation has
sparked a big debate in the tech community and what are the
merits and the risks of open sourcing AI technologies as
opposed to keeping them closed sourced and for profit?
While Musk's critique of Open AIS transformation centers
around it's shift from an open source nonprofit organization to
what he perceives as a profit focused entity closely aligned
with Microsoft. Now according to Musk, this
contradicts open AI stated commitment to developing AI that
benefits humanity at large. The lawsuit and Musk's vocal
criticisms highlight the growing tensions between ideals of open
innovation and the realities of funding and profiting from
advanced AI research. Now, myself, I'm an open source
kind of guy. I'm a developer.
I've been developed apps for companies that have gotten
millions and millions of uses, and I've open sourced some of my
technology that large corporations have used.
So I'm a proponent of open source.
I'm also a proponent of capitalism and making money.
And so I understand the two points that are being discussed
here, but the announcement of Grok's open sourcing was made by
Moscone X. Of course, it used to be
Twitter, and it's challenging Open AI directly and other
leading AI developers. And by offering Grok as an open
source tool, Xai aims to democratize access to advanced
AI, potentially fostering a more inclusive, innovative field of
AI development that's not confined by the commercial
interest of a few dominant players.
It opens up the playing field now.
The debate over open sourcing AI is not new, but has gained fresh
momentum in light of Musk's lawsuit against open AI, and
proponents argue that Open Access to AI technologies can
accelerate innovation and application across diverse
fields. However, there's significant
concerns about the potential misuse of open source AI,
including fears that it could be exploited for harmful purposes
such as terrorism or the development of uncontrollable AI
entities. Now Musk's vision for AI
governance includes the creation of a third party oversight body,
a concept he advocated for at least last year's AI safety
summit in the UK. And such an organization would
monitor AI development across the industry, providing a check
against potentially dangerous or unethical applications of the
tech. This proposal reflects Musk's
ongoing concerns about ethics and safety implications of
unchecked AI. Now Musk and Xai and also Grok
were driven by his desire for the alternative to the AI
development models pursued by Open AI and Google and Microsoft
and larger companies. And Musk aims for XAI to embody
a commitment to maximum truth seeking AI, he says, a goal that
underpins the decision to open source Grok and engage a wider
community. This development and
application. Now, Musk's position on open
source AI was further clarified in a conversation with Lex
Friedman last November, though, where he lamented the
development of open AI from its original open source ethos.
Scathing and his remarks under score this tension between the
fundamental principles of open AI and its current operational
model, which Musk's perceived as overly profit driven and
restrictive in terms of access to AI technologies.
Now this lawsuit against Open AI presents a pivotal moment in
Musk's long standing relationship with the
organization. Having been a founding member
himself, Musk's departure from the board in 2018 was a huge
turning point for the company, leading to his current
adversarial stance. His legal challenge raises
important questions, though, about the commitments and
responsibility of AI organizations and their
alignment with broader societal interests.
Open A is response to Musk's lawsuit has been to assert its
continued dedication to developing AI in a matter that
benefits humanity as a whole. The organization argues that the
scale resources required for advanced AI development
necessitated the shift for a for profit model, a decision that
Musk was purportedly in agreement with in 2017.
Now this defense highlights the complex balance between Musk's
ideals of open sourcing AI tech, but also the necessity, the
absolute necessity of the money that you need to buy these
chipsets. The NVIDIA GPU is that you need
to drive the way that these things function.
It costs a lot of money, and sometimes open sourcing
technology doesn't make you any money, and most of the time
that's the case. Now to make money.
Open AI has different business models, but Elon Musk thinks
they should be completely open and no privatization of it, and
no way to capitalize on the finances of the people like
myself who pay for Open AI. And the legal battle between
Musk and Open AI is also complicated by the definitions
and expectations surrounding artificial general intelligence.
Proves that Open AI has deviated from its mission involving open
sourcing everything, and they're demonstrating that ChatGPT 4 or
its successors constitute AGI, a challenging task given that the
current state of AI technology and the evolving understanding
of what actually AGI entails. Now, the controversy surrounding
Open AI's direction and Musk's lawsuit could have broader
implications on the AI industry, potentially affecting Open AI's
market position and the trust of its customers and partners.
I don't think it's going to really do that much, though I I
think they're going to be competitors.
In a weird way, I think Elon is more competitive than Sam Altman
about this. Sam knows his role.
He knows what's going on and working with Microsoft, he
almost has an infinite amount of money and capital coming into
the organization, so we won't really have to worry about that.
And the recent turmoil within Open AI, including the temporary
dismissal of Sam Altman, has already raised concerns amongst
stakeholders about the organization's stability and the
governance. But Sam is back back on the
board. And amidst these developments,
Musk continues to use his platform on X to critique Open
AI, of course, and advocate for a more open approach to AI
development. His interactions with users on a
platform reflects strong opinions on the need for
transparency and accessibility in AI, as well as his
skepticisms towards Open AIS current trajectory.
Now, I want you to think about this for a moment.
Do you think Elon is kind of mad about being booted from Open AI
because he he's gone in 2018? That's something you have to
think about. You can't just sit back and
accept things the way that they are.
There's really no reason for Elon to lie to us, right?
But could he be upset that he's not part of Open AI now?
Seeing all of their current success and how far ahead they
are than a lot of the other AI technologies out there?
There's a possibility. I just want to keep that open,
make sure that you keep an open to mind about these things
because you never know what's going on behind the scenes.
And Grok and the way that Elon is expressing that he wants to
take everything open source now, which he didn't before, he
didn't say anything about that before, why would he do that?
So I just think about that. Could it be the reason could be?
Maybe. Maybe he.
Likes the idea of open AI. You know ChatGPT is not open for
a paying customer, it's not open.
You can do numerous things with a paid account.
ChatGPT is open to the public. You can use it whenever you want
to. There are limitations, but I
mean, it's a free tool for everybody to use.
But they don't open source their code, and that's where Elon is
different than Open AI. He's going to open source the
code, apparently. We don't know how much he's
going to open source though. So he could open source 100% of
this and give everybody a free license to do whatever they want
with Grok. Or he could open source certain
segments of the code if he does the certain segments.
And it's not really open source in my opinion as an open source
developer myself. If you're going to open source
something, open source the whole thing, make a tool for somebody,
make the whole tool available to everybody.
So the way that he open sources, this is going to be a very, very
interesting tell on what he's interested in.
Could he be just opening, open sourcing, something to throw in
Sam Altman and open the eye's face?
There's a possibility. Is he spiteful?
Is he a spiteful person? That's up to you to decide.
But there's a there's going to be some interesting things
happening around Open AI and Grok in the near future.
Because I mean any open source competitor to ChatGPT is going
to be welcomed for everybody. If somebody could build off of
Grok also, that's the other thing.
If he open sources in some certain licenses, open sourcing,
you can make derivatives. But you also have to make sure
that eventually if Grok and Xai go private again, you take some
of your money that you make from this thing 'cause you could open
like an open source project. If it's fully open source, you
can do whatever you want to with it.
You can make as much money as you want to from it.
But if he rescinds the license at some point, there's a
possibility you have to pay the guy or you have to pay Xai for
the tools that you built and the money that you made from it.
So we have to really be careful of these open source projects
and which parts of them that he's open sourcing.
So we'll have more information about the parts that he's open
sourcing in the future. Of course, it's a strategic
move, though. It could reshape the dynamics of
all AI development. There's alternative models now
that prioritize accessibility and community involvement over
control and profit. It's a potential to catalyze a
new wave of innovation in AI. But also Meta has done this
before too. Meta's open sourcing most of the
stuff. So you know how much is going to
change everything? We're not 100% sure, but there's
tensions between Musk and Open AI.
Power and control. It's going to be in the hands of
tech giants now. Sam Altman?
You know, a rich guy. Elon Musk, super rich guy.
They're tech giants. There's no difference between
Xai if it's closed sourced and open AI if it's closed sourced
or if Xai goes open source. It has to go full open source or
it's not real true open source. So everything should be open
source. The language model, that's
that's up for debate. But the technology running the
language model, if you supply your own language model, that's
OK in my eyes. So it's got to be an interesting
next 3-4 weeks. That's supposed to happen
sometime this month. And the outcome of Musk's
lawsuit against Open AI and the impact of Grok's open sourcing
remain to be seen. Now, it's going to happen in the
next few weeks and we'll be here for you.
This episode is going to be a little bit different.
I'm going to be talking off the cuff about Space XS Starship,
which will be doing its third test flight hopefully on
Thursday of this week. Now, either Thursday or Friday,
we're still waiting for the FAA to approve Starship's flight,
but everything else is in place. SpaceX has tested the rocket
booster numerous times. They've done cryogenic testing,
which means they fill up the booster with cryogenic fluid.
And that makes it absolutely super cold, because when a
rocket fires its engines, it gets extremely hot.
Now the fuel inside is pumped through.
They make sure that the cryogenics work.
They make sure that all the plumbing works on the base
station down at stage zero. Stage zero is where they
launched the rocket from. So they have the the rocket
launching facility down at Boca Chica Beach, which is also known
as Starbase, and the ground facilities.
They've had a huge revamp recently.
They've added new, they've added new fuel decks, They've added
new plumbing to the thing. It's been millions of dollars in
the making. And they've also added new
piping. They've added new electronics to
the the launch deck. They've also added a water
deluge. System, and if you're not.
Familiar what a water deer system is.
It basically pumps millions of gallons of water underneath the
rocket for noise suppression and so basically the rocket doesn't
explode the launchpad. This has kilotons worth of
power. It is the most powerful rocket
and the biggest rocket that's ever flown.
They made it to space last time for the IFT 2 flight, IFT 1.
Didn't go too well, but it went, you know, better than expected.
Elon has said numerous times he didn't think it was going to
even get off the pad, but it cleared the pad, it launched and
now the wonderful thing is they learned from the mistakes in IFT
One from IFT One and both the rocket and the booster and the
ship itself. Starship exploded during IFT
One. Same thing happened during IFT
2, but during IFT 2 they started this thing called the hot
staging technique. And hot staging is when they
ignite the rocket which is on top of the booster during stage
separation. So about 50 seconds into the
flight, I think it's about 50 seconds.
About a minute into the flight, they start to separate the the
rocket and the booster itself. And that's right after Max Q,
which is the most dynamic pressure that's put on the
rocket during this flight. And once they make it past Max
Q, they know they can go to the next stage, which is stage
separation. Now stage separation is very
important because you can't send the rocket booster and the
Starship to space. The booster has to come back,
land, get refurbished and then go up again.
So what they did last time, hot staging at about a minute, ish
into the flight, they separated, started separating the booster
in the ship and when they did that they ignited the ship's
rocket engines, which is in itself.
This is a rarely done move in Space Flight because it's just
not needed. But something this powerful like
need to push the booster away from the ship.
And they need that extra kick that the ship can get from the
booster 'cause it's pushing against the booster as the
booster's still pushing forward and up.
So they use that kick stage the the hot staging, to push it up
even further and faster. So when they do that, the
booster gets set back down towards Earth.
It does not flip, almost a full flip at that point, and then
it's going to reignite its engines.
The booster will reignite its engines, 33 Raptor engines when
they started, but they're going to do a few of them on the way
back in, what they do with a Falcon 9 rocket, very similar.
And then they'll land the booster, this time IFT 3, which
we're talking about, they're going to be landing that softly
in the Gulf of Mexico. Now, if this all goes as
planned, the booster won't blow up.
They'll do a very soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico because
they have to learn how to land this.
Elon said it took about 15 flights for the Falcon 9 to land
properly. Now if that's the case, SpaceX
has about 10 more flights before the booster will land properly
and the ship will land properly. But for Falcon nine, they didn't
have a top half of it. The fairing and anything on top
of the booster is expendable, except when they send people to
space. So the fairing just falls back
down to Earth for a Falcon 9. And with Starship, there's a
whole upper stage that they have to land and they're going to
land this thing vertically. Now the difference between IFT 2
and IFT 3, there's a couple, there's a few things we have to
talk about as far as differences go, but before we do that, let's
talk about what happened to the IFT 2 ship.
It's a few minutes into the flight after the stage
separation, after the booster blew up, as it was doing the
flip, they did the flight termination system because they
figured that the booster wasn't going to make it, so they blew
it up and few minutes into the flight after that, the ship was
exploded as well because it wasn't going to make it.
They released too much fuel. They were going to do, they're
going to bleed some fuel out and then they had to terminate the
flight at that point. So booster didn't make it, ship
didn't make it. But from the data that they
gathered from both of those occurrences, they made
improvements for IFT 3. So when IFT 3 happens, we're
hoping for a full stage separation, hot staging, and the
flip maneuver by the booster. This thing is.
Massive, by the way. If you've never seen this thing,
it is about 250 feet tall. So think of a 25 story building,
One of the biggest things that's ever flown to be honest with
you, because it's so round as well.
It's so big. It's 30 feet around, It's 9
meters in diameter, so The thing is massive.
Massive. And they've got to do the flip
maneuver, soft land it in the Gulf of Mexico, hopefully.
And if they do that, that is a huge win.
That's huge for a SpaceX 'cause. Then they can move forward with
a guided soft landing out to certain parts of the ocean, or
they can have a or, sorry, the Gulf of Mexico.
Or they could do a guided burn back towards Starbase.
And eventually, I don't think they're going to be doing it
right away. They have another launch tower
that they want to build before I believe they're going to do a
some sort of landing at Starbase.
So having a landing pad at Starbase would be OK catching it
with the tower. That's what they're going for,
because they can't do a landing on the booster without catching
it, but. If you've never seen the.
The catch tower, it's it's also massive, 400 foot tall, 410, I
believe it is 413 feet tall. It's a massive structure and
when they catch this thing 250 foot tall booster on a 400 foot
tall tower, it's going to be absolutely amazing.
So if they do that event, they'll do that eventually.
I'm probably going to give them about 10 more flights before
they even try that. They have to do a bunch of
guided flights, make sure that everything works perfectly fine,
and then if they can get it nailed for five or six flights
in a row, I believe there will be ready to catch it.
But they need to get the second tower up, because if something
does happen to the catch tower or the launch tower, it's the
same thing. Launch and catch is the same
thing, so something happens to one of the towers.
They need to have a backup because they can't just wait
months if the booster comes in hot, breaks a bunch of stuff
because there's hundreds of miles of cables and pipes that
connect everything at Starbase. If anything goes wrong, this
thing is made out of stainless steel too.
So if anything goes wrong, shards of stainless steel could
explode and just devastate some of these pipes, some of the
tankers, some of the tanks equipment nearby, it's it would
be a massive process to get it back up and flying.
And also at that point they have to deal with federal
regulations, if FAA etcetera, and then that's gonna be a big
deal. So if something happens that's a
mishap, they have to do a full mishap investigation and it
could push them back a year. So they have to make sure this
is absolutely perfect for IFT 3. They're going to try to land the
booster in the Gulf of Mexico and they're going to, which this
is a cool part. They're going to launch the
Starship all the way to the Indian Ocean before they were
going to go to the off the coast of Hawaii, Kauai for the first
two flights. That was their plan and they
switched it to the Indian Ocean for safety reasons.
We're not exactly sure, Elon and SpaceX hasn't released the
details about the safety reasons, but they're gonna be
landing in the Indian Ocean and when they land in the Indian
Ocean with a ship, they would have done a few things in
between the launch and the landing.
One of those things is a fuel. It's they're moving fuel from
one container to another container within the Starship
itself. This is for a bigger problem
that SpaceX is solving, which is they're gonna be doing in orbit
refueling. So they need to make sure that
the fuel can actually move around the Starship.
And also they're going to be checking the payload doors for
Starship, and the payload doors are very important payload
doors. It's a Pez dispenser at this
point for the Starlink missions. Now Starlink, if you're not
familiar, it's space XS, broadband, rural satellite,
Internet service, and it's a massive moneymaker for SpaceX.
Now if they could launch hundreds of Starlinks in a month
as opposed to 30, it would be a game changer for SpaceX, it
would. The revenue would increase
dramatically. They can have more coverage and
more people using the service. Better service for everybody.
It's just a no brainer. And Starship can hold an
infinite amount more than a Falcon 9.
There's just no comparison to it.
So if they can nail this time the next flight they may launch
some Starlink satellites into orbit, adjust to test it and see
if it works. So that might be an interesting
one for IFT 4, but IFT 3, if they do, they're just gonna test
the mechanism to launch those out and the Hatch, things like
that. And as far as we know, that's.
It. Except for landing in the Indian
Ocean and getting to orbit, or getting the space for the
Starship and. As far as we know, that's.
The Those are the big ones. Those are the big takeaways for
this launch. I wanna, I wanna thank you, of
course for listening to the show.
If you are a Space Flight enthusiast, come check us out
over on YouTube. Space News Pod.
Space News Pod on YouTube is my Space Flight channel.
Please take a second. Go over there.
Subscribe. Gonna be doing a live launch for
the Starship tomorrow morning, Thursday morning at 7:00 AM.
So get ready for that. It's going to be wild.
Hopefully the FAA comes through with the launch license within
the next 12 hours. That's all we got though, and
that's all we're waiting for. Well, thanks again, everybody.
Take care of yourselves and I will see you in the next one.
And make sure to subscribe to this show too.
And the space. News Pod on YouTube.
Hey, thank you so much for listening today.
I really do appreciate your support.
If you could take a second and hit the subscribe or the follow
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please take care of yourselves and each other and I'll see you
tomorrow. Hey everybody, welcome back to
the Elon Musk podcast. This is a show where we discuss
the critical crossroads that shape SpaceX, Tesla X, The
Boring Company, and Neuralink. And I'm your host Will Walden if
you want uninterrupted episodes of the Elon Musk podcast.
Please go to club. Elon.supercast.com to find out
how there's a link in the show notes.
This morning SpaceX launched their massive Starship rocket
and they completed 1/2 world journey after launching from
South Texas Starbase Boca Chica. Now this is a low Earth orbit
launch. It's a crucial capability for
future launches for Starship, and the launch occurred from
Starbase at about 8:25 AM Central time.
This is the third iteration of the full stack Starship rocket
flight. It's 397 feet tall.
And its width. Is bigger than a 747 jumbo jet
is huge. It's about 30 feet around and it
had its take off time adjusted to ensure the surrounding waters
were clear of any vessels. So people in boats were hanging
out in the no fly zone and SpaceX had to take extra little,
a little bit extra time to move those boats.
Get those boats out of there. They were supposed to launch in
about 7:30 AM Central time, so 8:30 AM my time and Eastern
Time. And they had to push it back
about an hour to get those boats out of there, which is very
crucial, very beneficial to those boats because it's very
dangerous to be under the giant shrapnel tube that is Starship.
That is if it didn't work out right.
But this launch went pretty well actually.
So this flight built on previous test, there's marked
improvements, and now they're moving closer to operational
satellite launches for the Starlink.
They're going to accelerate Starlink satellite deployments,
and this will contribute to the company's expansive network of
satellites orbiting the Earth right now and also accelerate
their bottom line. They make money from Starlink
and if they can deploy hundreds of Starlinks more per month,
they will have more coverage and people will be able to get the
the coverage more and they'll have better coverage for the
people on the Earth and therefore make more money.
So Elon Musk celebrated this launch.
He's prideful about what happened with the team.
He said Starship reach orbital velocity, which is a huge deal
for a Starship because the next, probably the next phase is to
get it to orbit. IFT 4 to get it to orbit, make
sure that everything works right.
They open up the Hatch door today, they did a propellant
transfer demonstration. They closed the Hatch door.
It was a pretty big milestone, a bunch of little milestones that
were pretty big. And there's several firsts that
happened during this flight. And one of those was the payload
door. That happened.
The payload door opens and closes sort of like a Pez
dispenser. That's what they call it.
And that was that happened for about 20 minutes straight, and
there was also an internal transfer liquid oxygen
propellant. They're stepping stones towards
in orbit fuel refueling, which is a necessity for more extended
space missions, including the Artemis missions for NASA lunar
landings and also Mars missions. Now, not all objectives were
met, though. The Super Heavy booster failed
to execute a controlled splashdown leading to an
uncontrolled descent into the Gulf of Mexico, which is you
know, they plan for these things and they'll learn from it.
Additionally, a planned Raptor engine restart in space did not
occur with SpaceX yet to provide any explanation about why that
happened or why they didn't happen.
So Starship also allows for substantial payload
capabilities, promising to deliver up to 150 metric tons to
lower Earth orbit and an expendable configuration.
This capacity nearly double S to about 300 metric tons, which is
an absolutely massive amount of things to send to the Earth
orbit. It's it's incredible how much
300 tons, 300 metric tons of things are.
Now Musk is talking about Starship.
Recently he envisaged it as a cornerstone in his plan for
interplanetary human settlement, particularly Mars, and in the
shorter term, Starship will play a crucial role in satellite
deployment in an integral role in NASA's Artemis program for
lunar exploration. Starting with Artemis 3 in about
2028 probably, the flight demonstrated the reliability of
the Super heavy booster's 33 Raptor engines, all of which
performed great. The thrust powered the rocket on
its initial climb and subsequent trajectory over the Gulf of
Mexico, now approximately 2 minutes and 42 seconds post
launch, the booster began shutting down its engines,
initiating a hot staging process.
Now this technique, which was inspired by Russian rocketry,
allows for a seamless transition between stages, avoiding any
interrupted thrust. So basically the booster is
still going up and out and as that's happening the stages
start separating, but when they separate the ship actually
ignites its engines and it pushes the booster back a little
bit while also pushing the second stage, the Starship
vehicle itself up towards orbit faster.
Now the upper stage is 6 Raptor engines then propelled the
vehicle to a near orbital velocity reaching a peak
altitude of 144 miles and like Elon said, they did get to
orbital velocity. Eventually the design trajectory
ensured that the spacecraft would re enter the atmosphere
before completing a full orbit, preventing it from becoming
space debris. We don't want that.
We don't want it to burn up. We want to test all the systems
on the way back in. Now comparing the 1st 3 orbital
test flights of Starship though, a clear trajectory of
improvement is evident. The initial flight faced engine
failures and caused huge damage to the launchpad.
The second flight saw no engine failures, though a propellant
tank led to the Rockets destruction.
Now also the reliability of the Raptor engines has been
confirmed over the last two flights, addressing earlier
concerns regarding their performance.
This is a huge achievement for Space XS rocket technology.
It shows that they can continue to build these and they're on
the right track to build hundreds of these.
According to Elon Musk, now on boards, cameras during this
flight were unprecedented, including the hot staging
process and the rocket its whole journey across the globe.
Their valuable insights into the rocket's performance and the
behavior in various phases of the flight for SpaceX.
But also we got to see them as well.
So that was a really, really great treat for all of us rocket
fans out there. And this flight was a success,
but it concluded over the Indian Ocean where Starship RE entered
the Earth's atmosphere and was ultimately destroyed.
But we also got great video of that.
So if you haven't seen that yet, please check it out on Space XS
X account. But despite all the failures, it
was deemed the most successful today, fulfilling several
crucial objectives. And NASA's anticipation for this
mission stems from $4 billion investment in Starship for lunar
missions. The test represents a
significant step forwards for humans to return to the moon,
especially with that propellant transfer.
That's something they'll have to do for the Artemis missions to
get people back to the moon. Now SpaceX has several more
starships in production. They're continuing to aim for
test flights throughout the year.
Elon said he wants to have nine test flights.
Realistically, if they can get to 9 test flights, that would be
ridiculous. Everybody that I've talked to so
far in the spaceflight category has said six at best.
More than likely they'll have four more this year, but six at
the best. But if they can get nine, they
still have to get approval for the 9 as well, which they
probably will get approval now with each subsequent flight,
though, they're going to be refining Starships design and
capabilities every single time. The iterative process is crucial
for developing the future success of Starship, and every
single ship will be better, faster, more powerful, more
reliable, and be able to get things to low Earth orbit in a
more timely manner. And each test is a learning
opportunity. Hardware is evolving.
Software is evolving. The ground systems are all
evolving every single launch. And SpaceX advances its mission
of space exploration, and they're inching closer to its
goals of interplanetary travel and also habitation.
Every single launch of Starship. So Reddit has recently adjusted
CEO Steve Huffman's compensation structure in anticipation of its
forthcoming initial public offering or its IPO.
Now this is a recalibration of its market value expectations,
But previously Huffman's compensation included incentives
tied to the company achieving a $25 billion market valuation.
Upon going public, these incentives had been revised,
reflecting a more conservative outlook on the company's IPO
performance. Now in a detailed review of
companies documents, it was discovered that in December
Reddit retracted specific executive awards contingent upon
the company reaching A lofty market capitalization post IPO.
This move shows a strategic pivot in the company's approach
to execute compensation and valuation aspirations.
And despite the adjustment in valuation based incentives,
Huffman maintains eligibility for restricted stock units, or
Rs US, contingent on the company sustaining a $5 billion market
valuation. Over.
A 10 day period. A recent updates to the
company's filing suggests that this revised valuation target
aligns with Reddit's current market expectations, with a
potential RSU value estimated at approximately $21 million.
Now, this recalibration of financial expectations is a
significant tempering of ambition for Redis IPO posited
as a notable event in the tech industry's market listings for
the year. The company initially filed for
an IPO confidentially in 2021, but decided to postpone,
influenced by an environment of increasing interest rates in a
downturn in tech stock valuations.
The company, Reddit, is poised to list shares on the New York
Stock Exchange imminently, with pricing markedly low to its last
private valuation of $10 billion.
The strategy shows that the company's pragmatic adjustments
to current market conditions in investor sentiment are 100%
real. Now there's executive
compensation amendments going on here, now there's concerns about
that, too. And there's Because there's late
changes to Huffman's incentives, these adjustments might not
adequately motivate the CEO towards substantial post IPO
stock value growth. It's a potential issue for any
investor's perspective going into this IPO.
Now, while Huffman's compensation has been adjusted,
some aspects of executive incentives remain tied to
ambitious valuation targets. Notably, Huffman and Chief
Operating Officer Jennifer Wong retain eligibility for stock
options and performance awards linked to the company reaching
$25 billion valuation. This is a mix of conservative
and aspirational targets within the executive compensation
structure. Now Huffman, who's a Co founder
of Reddit, known by the user name Spez, has been pivotal in
the company's growth and strategic direction since its
operation and his return in 2015.
And utter his leadership. Reddit has expanded this user
base and enhanced its advertising revenue streams,
navigating through periods of organizational challenges.
And the delay in Reddit's IPO has afforded the company a
little bit of additional time to diversify its revenue sources
beyond traditional advertising, venturing into E com and also
data licensing. And these initiatives had
contributed to a revenue increase of over 20% last year,
totaling $804 million. Although the company has not yet
achieved profitability with a reporting net loss of almost $91
million in 2023. Now, this data licensing is a
key aspect of Reddit's future. With large language models and
AI, they can use all the data from the users, all the posts,
all the comments, all the up votes as data for AP is for AI
subsets. And as Reddit prepares for its
IPO and a competitive and scrutinized market, its ability
to attract investor interest remains a little bit uncertain
right now, especially given its lack of profitability and the
challenging landscape for digital advertising revenue.
Company's performance in this regard will serve as a litmus
test for the market's receptiveness to tech IPOs right
now. In anticipation of its stock
market debut, Reddit has outlined strategic plans to
bolster its fledgling advertising sector and diversify
revenue streams, including content licensing.
Company aims to leverage these initiatives to improve financial
health and engage potential investors by offering IPO shares
to its user base. A move that could generate
considerable buzz and engagement.
Despite these growth efforts, potential investors face the
prospect of buying into a company that has not yet
reported a profitable year. And amidst fierce competition
for advertising revenues from larger, more established
companies, this context raises questions about Reddit's
valuation and its appeal to investors seeking substantial
and sustainable growth and profitability.
This IPO, with a targeted valuation significantly lower
than previous estimates, is a cautious approach in a market
environment that has growth increasingly wary of high
valuations for unprofitable companies.
This pricing decision underscores the company's
adjustment to market realities and also investor sentiments.
Keep it low, people will invest, and the company's decision to
reserve a portion of its IPO shares for its user community
introduces a unique element to its public offering, potentially
increasing stock volatility due to unpredictable trading
behaviors of retail investors. And this approach, while
fostering community engagement, introduces additional dynamics
that can impact the stock market's performance.
Now, I was invited to be part of those IPO shares.
I haven't reserved my shares quite yet, but I may be
investing in this. And mind you, this is not
investment advice from me or from the show or from the
company, so just want to let you know that I got in.
Hopefully you get it too. Now, Reddit's competitive
positioning in the social media and digital advertising
marketplaces will be scrutinized within the next week.
The company's ability to carve out a substantial niche amid
formidable competitors will be critical to its long term
success and attractiveness to new investors.
After the IPO, the market conditions right now
characterized by recent listings that are lacklustre in
performance and an uncertain interest rate landscape, pose
additional challenges for Reddit's IPO right now.
The company's market debut will be closely watched all the way
through 2024 and 2025. We've seen it happen before.
Tech stocks have been valued so high and within six months
completely plummet off the face of the earth.
So Reddit's a cool place. I enjoy it.
I think it's fun. I don't know if you like it,
Maybe it's a a good investment for you.
Maybe you can help support the company, but as they navigate
the public offerings, the company's performance will offer
valuable insights into viability of new tech IPOs in the current
economic and market environment. The outcome of this IPO could
influence the strategies of other tech companies that are
similar to Reddit, considering public listings shaping the
trajectory of the IPO market in the near term.
As part of NASA's Artemis campaign to return humans to the
moon for the benefit of all, NASA is working with SpaceX to
develop the company's large, gigantic Starship Human Landing
system, the HLS, which will land astronauts near the moon's South
Pole during the Artemis 3 and Artemis 4 missions.
And on March 14th, SpaceX launched the third integrated
flight test of its Super Heavy booster and Starship upper
stage. This is an important milestone
toward providing NASA with a Starship HLS for its Artemis
missions. A complement of 33 Raptor
engines fueled by super cooled liquid methane and liquid oxygen
powered this super heavy booster with Starship stacked atop from
the company's Starbase orbital launchpad at 8:25 AM CDT.
Now Starship using 6 Raptor engines separated from the Super
Heavy booster, employing a hot staging technique to fire the
engines before separation and approximately 3 minutes into the
flight in accordance with the flight plan.
Now this was the 3rd flight test of the integrated Super Heavy
Starship system. Now with each flight test,
SpaceX attempts increasingly ambitious objectives for
Starship to learn as much as possible for future mission
systems development. The ability to test key systems
and processes and flight scenarios like these integrated
tests allows both NASA and SpaceX to gather crucial data
needed for the continued development of Starship HLS.
Now, the test accomplished several important firsts that
will contribute to the development of Starship.
For Artemis lunar landing missions, the spacecraft reaches
expected orbit and Starship completed the full duration
ascent burn. An objective closely tied to
future Artemis missions is a transfer of thousands of pounds
of cryogenic propellant between internal tanks during the
spacecraft's coast phase as part of NASA's Space Technology
Missions Directorate 2020 Tipping Point Awards.
Now the propellant transfer demonstration operations were
completed and the NASA SpaceX team is currently reviewing the
flight data that was received during those tests.
This tipping point technology demonstration is one of more
than 20 development activities that NASA is undertaking to
solve the challenges of using cryogenic fluids during the
future missions. NASA A key step forward
understanding how super cool propellant sloshes within these
tanks when the engines are shut down, and how that movement
effects Starship stability while in orbit.
Engineers will study flight test data to assess the performance
of thrusters that control starship's orientation in space.
We're also interested to learn more about how the fluids
movement within the tanks can be settled to maximize propellant
transfer efficiency and ensure Raptor engines receive needed
propellant conditions to support restart in orbit.
Now, storing and transferring cryogenic propellant in orbit
has never been attempted on this scale before.
But this is a game changing technology that must be
developed and matured for science and exploration missions
at the Moon, Mars and those that will venture even deeper into
the solar system. Now NASA's Artemis program, the
agency will land the first woman, the first person of color
and its first international partner astronaut on the lunar
surface and prepare for human expeditions to Mars.
And commercial human launch systems and landing system are
critical to deep space exploration along with the SLS
rocket, Orion spacecraft, advanced space suits, Rovers,
exploration ground systems and also the Gateway space station.
Now for the second time during this flight, all 33 Raptor
engines on the Super Heavy booster started up successfully
and completed a full duration burn during ascent and Starship
executed its second successful hot stage separation, powering
down all but three of Super Heavy's Raptor engines and
successfully igniting the six second stage Raptor engines
before separating the vehicles. Now following separation, the
Super Heavy booster successfully completed its flip move and
completed a full boost back burn to send it towards a splashdown
point in the Gulf of Mexico. Super Heavy successfully lit
several engines for its first ever landing burn before the
vehicle experienced a Rudd, which is a rapid unscheduled
disassembly now. The boosters flight concluded at
approximately 462 meters in altitude and just under 7
minutes into the mission. Starship's six second stage
Raptor engines all started successfully and powered the
vehicle to its expected orbit, becoming the first Starship to
complete its full duration ascent burn and while coasting
Starship accomplished several of the flight tests.
Additional objectives included the opening and closing of its
payload door or the Pez dispenser if you will, and
initiated A propellant transfer demonstration.
Starship did not attempt its planned on orbit relight of a
single Raptor engine due to vehicle roll rates during coast.
Our results from this demonstration will come after
post flight data review is complete.
Starship went on to experience its first over entry from space,
providing valuable data on heating and vehicle control
during hypersonic reentry. Now, live views of this were
made possible due to Starlink terminals operating on the
Starterm. They're absolutely brilliant
views. You have to check them out on
Space XS X page now. The flight test conclusion came
during entry with the last telemetry signals received via
Starlink from Starship at approximately 49 minutes into
the mission. And while the team receives and
reviews the data collected from the flight, Starship and Super
Heavy Vehicles are preparing for upcoming flights as they seek to
increase launch cadence throughout the year.
They want to do up to 9 launches this year.
Now, this is a rapid, iterative development approach.
You build it, you fly it, something happens, you figure
something out, you learn from that, then you fly the next one.
It's the basis for all of Spacex's major innovative
advancements, including Falcon, Dragon, and Starlink.
It's called recursive improvement, and it's essential
in the way the SpaceX builds spacecraft.
They want to get Starship into Earth orbit.
They want to transport humans. They want it.
Completely. Reusable.
And they want to help. Humanity, return to the moon and
ultimately travel to the Red Planet on Mars.
Hey, thank you so much for listening today.
I really do appreciate your support.
If you could take a second and hit the subscribe or the follow
button on whatever podcast platform that you're listening
on right now, I'd greatly appreciate it.
It helps out the show tremendously and you'll never
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Caught U quickly and please, if you want to support the show
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