#like I’ve agreed with things Elon musk has said about climate change

[timeisacephalopod]

I know the weird way people have decided to engage with posts made by ‘problematic’ people wasn’t meant to be harmful, but the idea that you have to delete a post you agreed with or liked because OP sucked in some way is pretty insidious when you consider that the mentality behind this is that if you agree with one thing that person has said you agree with everything that person says, and that is flat out ridiculous. It lacks any and all nuance in anyone’s thinking, and it’s adjacent to guilt by association and that’s Not Awesome.

[biofunmy]

Meet the Man Quietly Building the Tesla of Trucks, With Jeff Bezos Aboard

NORMAL, Ill. — By definition, the time of the world’s richest man is pretty valuable. But early last fall, Jeff Bezos sought out a 36-year old entrepreneur named R.J. Scaringe and spent the better part of a day in Plymouth, Mich., at the company he founded, Rivian.

Mr. Bezos got a preview of Rivian’s electric pickup truck and sport-utility vehicle and liked what he saw. Not long after his visit, Amazon led a $700 million investment in Rivian. Two months later, in April, Ford Motor invested $500 million. All told, Rivian has raised $1.7 billion without selling a single truck or S.U.V.

If you have not heard of Rivian before, well, that was intentional. Until recently, it was in stealth mode, operating out of unmarked buildings and making few public announcements. But no longer. By the end of 2020, Rivian intends to begin producing premium electric vehicles, with a greater range than anything on the road today.

Rivian is promising to do for trucks what Tesla did for luxury cars.

That’s where the similarities between the two electric automobile makers end. Even as Tesla and its brash chief executive, Elon Musk, made headlines by setting and falling short of some audacious goals, Mr. Scaringe and Rivian has spent a decade fine-tuning their designs.

Walking around a former Mitsubishi plant in Normal, Ill., Mr. Scaringe points to where stamping presses will churn out car parts like fenders and doors. But he is hoping to do more than sell cars. Mr. Scaringe wants to dispel myths he thinks still surround electric vehicles.

“We have a number of untruths — a truck can’t be electric, an electric car can’t go off road, it can’t get dirty, it can’t tow and truck buyers don’t want something that’s environmentally friendly,” he said. “These things are fundamentally wrong. Electrification and technology can create a truck that’s incredibly capable and fun to drive.”

In addition to developing advanced battery systems, Rivian has also designed a skateboard-like chassis that it plans to sell to other carmakers. For Ford, investing in Rivian is a way to leapfrog the competition and get new ideas from a start-up as it and other automakers race to prepare for an electrified future.

Amazon has been mum about its interest in the company, but Rivian’s vehicles could help the retail giant reduce its carbon footprint as it builds its own distribution network.

The automobile business has fearsome barriers to entry, and aspiring players have to ante up billions of dollars just to be dealt into a game where profit margins tend to be slim.

Mr. Scaringe is likely to need billions more to get as far as Tesla, which itself struggled to expand production in 2017 and 2018. But the demand for electric vehicles is there — Tesla built more than 250,000 cars in 2018.

Mr. Scaringe founded Mainstream Motors, the business that would later become Rivian, in 2009 after completing a doctorate in mechanical engineering at M.I.T.

His timing was odd to say the least — the financial crisis had made investors skittish, and the bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler did not bode well for an automotive start-up.

Family and friends provided the initial funding, and Mr. Scaringe and his father both took out second mortgages to raise money. Rivian takes its name from Florida’s Indian River, close to where Mr. Scaringe grew up in Melbourne, Fla.

Mr. Scaringe and a small team worked for two-and-a-half years to create a fuel-efficient sports car, but he ultimately pulled the plug in 2011. “In my heart and soul, I knew I wasn’t answering the fundamental question of why the world needs this company to be successful,” he said.

It was a painful moment. At one point, the team had worked through four nights in a row, said Roman Mistiuk, now a senior interior designer at Rivian. “When the vehicle was done, R.J. said we’re switching.”

The small band of employees stuck with him, and when Mr. Scaringe moved the company to Michigan, they followed him north. At one point, Mr. Scaringe, his girlfriend (now wife) and several Rivian staff members lived together in a house in the Detroit suburbs.

Except for sleeping, they talked cars day and night. “It was breakfast, lunch and dinner, 24/7,” Mr. Scaringe said.

Early backing from Saudi and Japanese investors provided the runway for Rivian to develop its electric vehicle designs.

“Fortunately, my personality is one that I never lost confidence I could do it,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I always knew how I was going to do it.”

Much like what he is building, Mr. Scaringe is in constant motion, splitting his time between the company’s engineering headquarters in Plymouth, the factory in Normal and two other offices in Irvine and San Jose in California.

That leaves little time for him to spend with his wife and three sons, the oldest of whom is 3. “Rivian is 100 percent minus family,” Mr. Scaringe said, estimating that his wife and children get about 5 percent of his time.

Rivian is the culmination of a lifelong dream. Mr. Scaringe grew up rebuilding vintage Porsches under the tutelage of a neighbor and he knew he wanted to start a car company when he was 18.

“It became the plan when I started college,” he said. “Then I started putting the pieces together.”

At M.I.T., Mr. Scaringe made his ambitions clear, recalls Dan Roos, a retired engineering professor who served as the director of the university’s Center for Transportation Studies.

“He said, ‘I’m going to start an auto company’,” Mr. Roos said. “When you hear a student say that, it’s like saying I’m going to change the world. It’s nice but highly unlikely. But he was very determined about what he was going to do.”

As much as he loved cars, Mr. Scaringe said he was deeply troubled by their role as a cause of climate change, air pollution and other ills. “I wanted to have an impact and the highest impact approach was to build the company myself,” he said.

Mr. Scaringe, an outdoorsy type who enjoys mountain biking, wants his cars to be able to go off road. Rivian trucks and S.U.V.s can operate in three feet of standing water. A ballistic liner protects the battery pack so drivers can take the vehicle into rugged terrain without worrying that rocks and other objects could penetrate the undercarriage.

Rivian’s R1S S.U.V. bears a resemblance to a Range Rover, while the flatbed in its R1T pickup is shorter than the best-selling Ford F-150. “Rivian’s products are not really meant to be work trucks,” said Stephanie Brinley, principal automotive analyst with IHS. “They aim to be lifestyle products, capable but meant for recreational use.”

The R1S will directly challenge Tesla’s S.U.V., the Model X, and although Mr. Musk has said he will introduce a pickup, Tesla has yet to unveil one

The R1S and the R1T will start at around $70,000 and cost more than $90,000 for fully loaded models that can travel up to 400 miles on a full charge. Rivian has received tens of thousands of reservations from buyers who have made deposits of $1,000 each.

“Targeting the premium pickup and S.U.V. market in the U.S. was smart,” said Sam Abuelsamid, principal auto analyst at Navigant Research. “Those are the kind of vehicles Americans want to buy, as opposed to a compact car or midsized sedan.” Profit margins are higher too, especially for luxury models.

As different as Mr. Scaringe is from Mr. Musk, the two share some qualities. Mr. Scaringe is a control freak who weighs in on everything from the color of bathroom tiles to the lighting in the assembly plant.

Rivian employees describe Mr. Scaringe in worshipful, almost mystical tones, echoing the kind of adoration that Mr. Musk inspires. Designers laud his sophisticated design sensibilities. Brand experts cite his marketing know-how.

“I’ve spent years trying to decode R.J. and predict what he wants,” said Larry Parker, creative director at Rivian. “He’s moving so fast. Sometimes we don’t know where he is going. To keep up with R.J. is not easy.”

Jeff Hammoud, Rivian’s head of design said Mr. Scaringe was the reason he was willing to leave his job as the top designer at Jeep. “It’s amazing how much he is able to absorb,” Mr. Hammoud said.

But there are idiosyncrasies beneath the surface. Mr. Scaringe usually dresses in blue (“Blue is my favorite color!”), occasionally flannel. On his birthday, many employees wear flannel on what’s known as “Dress Like R.J. Day.”

To provide fresh food for his employees, Mr. Scaringe wants to turn the grassy areas that surround the plant in Normal into a farm. “The goal is let’s make this the best place to eat in town,” he said.

Asked about Rivian’s rivalry with Tesla, Mr. Scaringe would not disparage the competition. He credits Tesla for changing the perception of electric cars as “boring and slow, or glorified golf carts.”

While Tesla has failed to reach its own lofty production targets in recent years, Mr. Scaringe is only promising about 20,000 to 40,000 vehicles in 2021, the first full year of production.

Before that happens, Rivian will have to create assembly lines for its vehicles and batteries, which Tesla’s problems have shown is very difficult. The company will also have to establish a retail operation to get its vehicles to buyers.

“Manufacturing is the biggest challenge,” said Mike Ramsey, an analyst with Gartner. “The capital requirements are enormous and ceaseless.”

Even as Rivian has grown and new investors have come aboard, Mr. Scaringe has made clear he wants to hold the reins tight. General Motors discussed investing in the company this year, according to two people familiar with the negotiations who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. But the automaker and Mr. Scaringe could not agree on terms. G.M. was demanding more control and exclusivity than he was comfortable with.

For inspiration, Mr. Scaringe looks to Alex Honnold, a rock climber who scaled Yosemite’s El Capitan without equipment. A poster for a documentary about the climb, “Free Solo,” is on the wall of Mr. Scaringe’s office in Plymouth.

“Hindsight has a lot of advantages, one of which is that everything looks crisper and cleaner, but at the time you don’t know the path forward,” he said. “So you’re going up this infinitely steep climb.”

Sahred From Source link Technology

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[deniscollins]

Who Will Teach Silicon Valley to Be Ethical?

Silicon Valley companies deal with a host of high profile ethical issues. If you were the CEO of Google and already had a Chief Compliance Officer who monitors legal compliance, would you also incur the extra costs of hiring a Chief Ethics Officer to think through these ethical issues: (1) Yes, (2) No? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

I think we can all agree that Silicon Valley needs more adult supervision right about now.

Is the solution for its companies to hire a chief ethics officer?

While some tech companies like Google have top compliance officers and others turn to legal teams to police themselves, no big tech companies that I know of have yet taken this step. But a lot of them seem to be talking about it, and I’ve discussed the idea with several chief executives recently. Why? Because slowly, then all at once, it feels like too many digital leaders have lost their minds.

It’s probably no surprise, considering the complex problems the tech industry faces. As one ethical quandary after another has hit its profoundly ill-prepared executives, their once-pristine reputations have fallen like palm trees in a hurricane. These last two weeks alone show how tech is stumbling to react to big world issues armed with only bubble world skills:

As a journalist is beheaded and dismembered at the direction of Saudi Arabian leaders (allegedly, but the killers did bring a bone saw), Silicon Valley is swimming in oceans of money from the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund. Saudi funding includes hundreds of millions for Magic Leap, and huge investments in hot public companies like Tesla. Most significantly: Saudis have invested about $45 billion in SoftBank’s giant Vision Fund, which has in turn doused the tech landscape — $4.4 billion to WeWork, $250 million to Slack, and $300 million to the dog-walking app Wag. In total Uber has gotten almost $14 billion, either through direct investments from the Public Investment Fund or through the Saudis’ funding of the Vision Fund. A billion here, a billion there and it all adds up.

Facebook introduced a new home video device called Portal, and promised that what could be seen as a surveillance tool would not share data for the sake of ad targeting. Soon after, as reported by Recode, Facebook admitted that “data about who you call and data about which apps you use on Portal can be used to target you with ads on other Facebook-owned properties.” Oh. Um. That’s awkward.

After agreeing to pay $20 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission for an ill-advised tweet about possible funding (from the Saudis, by the way), the Tesla co-founder Elon Musk proceeded to troll the regulatory agency on, you got it, Twitter. And even though the settlement called for some kind of control of his communications, it appears that Mr. Musk will continue tweeting until someone steals his phone.

Finally, Google took six months to make public that user data on its social network, Google Plus, had been exposed and that profiles of up to 500,000 users may have been compromised. While the service failed long ago, because it was pretty much designed by antisocial people, this lack of concern for privacy was profound.

Grappling with what to say and do about the disasters they themselves create is only the beginning. Then there are the broader issues that the denizens of Silicon Valley expect their employers to have a stance on: immigration, income inequality, artificial intelligence, automation, transgender rights, climate change, privacy, data rights and whether tech companies should be helping the government do controversial things. It’s an ethical swamp out there.

That’s why, in a recent interview, Marc Benioff, the co-chief executive and a founder of Salesforce, told me he was in the process of hiring a chief ethical officer to help anticipate and address any thorny conundrums it might encounter as a business — like the decision it had to make a few months back about whether it should stop providing recruitment software for Customs and Border Protection because of the government’s policy of separating immigrant families at the border.

Amid much criticism, Mr. Benioff decided to keep the contract, but said he would focus more on social and political issues.

At a recent company event, he elaborated: “We can have a structured conversation not just with our own employees myopically, but by bringing in the key advisers, supporters and pundits and philosophers and everybody necessary to ask the question if what we are doing today is ethical and humane.”

23andMe has also toyed with the idea of hiring a chief ethics officer. In an interview I did this week with its chief executive, Anne Wojcicki, she said the genetics company had even interviewed candidates, but that many of them wanted to remain in academia to be freer to ponder these issues. She acknowledged that the collection of DNA data is rife with ethical considerations, but said, “I think it has to be our management and leaders who have to add this to our skill set, rather than just hire one person to determine this.”

When asked about the idea of a single source of wisdom on ethics, some point out that legal or diversity/inclusion departments are designed for that purpose and that the ethics should really come from the top — the chief executive.

Also of concern is the possibility that a single person would not get listened to or, worse, get steamrollered. And, if the person was bad at the job, of course, it could drag the whole thing down.

Others are more worried that the move would be nothing but window dressing. One consultant who focuses on ethics, but did not want to be named, told me: “We haven’t even defined ethics, so what even is ethical use, especially for Silicon Valley companies that are babies in this game?”

How can an industry that, unlike other business sectors, persistently promotes itself as doing good, learn to do that in reality? Do you want to not do harm, or do you want to do good? These are two totally different things.

And how do you put an official ethical system in place without it seeming like you’re telling everyone how to behave? Who gets to decide those rules anyway, setting a moral path for the industry and — considering tech companies’ enormous power — the world.

Like I said, adult supervision. Or maybe, better still, Silicon Valley itself has to grow up.

[hollywoodjuliorivas]

Outsiders have long enjoyed mocking the City of Angels – its sprawl, its vapidity, its kookiness. Los Angeles has been called “New York lying down” (Quentin Crisp), “paradise with a lobotomy” (Neil Simon), and “72 suburbs in search of a city” (Dorothy Parker). “Tip the world over on its side,” said Frank Lloyd Wright, “and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.” The putdowns are still mean, still funny and still contain kernels of truth. But from the roof-deck of the 73-storey Wilshire Grand Center, a newly completed skyscraper offering stunning panoramas, the quips feel dusty, even quaint. Los Angeles reaches deal over hosting 2028 Summer Olympics Read more From this 1,100ft eyrie, the highest in the western United States, you can observe the glint of other towers rising up over downtown, transforming the skyline. You can see the web of railways criss-crossing the east side, and construction work on the expanding subway system. You can see the Hollywood sign to the north and the Pacific ocean to the west. You can see Dodger Stadium, the Coliseum, the Staples Center and other sporting arenas. You can see, in other words, why LA this week clinched the right to host the 2028 Olympic Games. And why mayor Eric Garcetti is exuberant. “This shows that LA is still a can-do city. We didn’t make a bid that said, ‘if the Olympics comes, we’ll do all these things’. We said, ‘we’re doing all these things, the Olympics should come’,” he told the Guardian. “This is definitely a moment. People want to be here.” The International Olympic Committee’s decision to bring the Games to LA – after Tokyo and Paris host the next two – caps a remarkable turnaround. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mayor of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti says winning the Olympic bid shows ‘LA is still a can-do city’. Photograph: Pierre Albouy/Reuters Back in the 1990s, LA was the butt not only of jokes but laments: this was the city of gang warfare, police brutality, racial strife, traffic gridlock and air pollution, a dysfunctional megalopolis echoed in the dystopian vision of Blade Runner. An influential 1991 book by David Rieff was titled Los Angeles: Capital of the Third World. These days it feels closer to La La Land, a city where policymakers almost break into song about developments in infrastructure, transport, art and architecture. “We’re a place that reimagines tomorrow and reinvents today,” Garcetti said in an interview, citing, among other things, new transit lines, the Hyperloop, Elon Musk, and new museums. “LA is a city that continues to attract the greatest innovation in the world.” 'Grow food on Mars': LA startups tackle climate change with inventive solutions Read more Voters in LA County have approved $120bn for investments in transport over the next four decades, one of the most ambitious public works in US history. Voters also approved $3.5bn to tackle homelessness. This will help address poverty and inequality, said Garcetti. “I don’t know of another place in the country that has those resources.” The economy is humming at near full employment. The port is unloading cargo at breakneck rates. LAX is renovating terminals amid record passenger numbers. Tech companies are spreading across Silicon Beach, LA’s insurgent rival to San Francisco’s Silicon Valley. Netflix, Hulu and Amazon are reshaping the entertainment industry. The sad trickle that is the LA river is due to become a vibrant waterway. After two decades without an NFL team, LA has lured the Rams from St Louis and the Chargers from San Diego. They will share a new stadium in Inglewood. The giddiness seems contagious: the Dodgers are enjoying an enchanted season which could end a 28-year World Series drought. The most dramatic transformation is downtown, a once-derelict shell now thrumming with condos, bars, cafes and galleries. Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Wilshire Grand Center, LA’s newest, tallest skyscraper, under construction in 2014. Photograph: Mark J. Terrill/AP “I think it’s a new age,” said Chris Martin, an architect of the Wilshire Grand Center, now the tallest building west of the Mississippi. The tower, part of a wave of Asian investment, symbolises the area’s revitalisation, he said. “Seventh Street is virtually a restaurant row now. To see women and men pushing children and walking dogs, I find it really wonderful. I love it.” So too did Max Almerto, 32, a kitchen worker. “The city is definitely getting better. Downtown used to be abandoned, now it’s full of people.” He spoke while commuting to work with his bicycle on the new Expo line, which connects the ocean to downtown. “I used to have cars – not any more. This is better than sitting in traffic being pissed off with the world.” Seated on the same carriage, Kevin McCall, 58, who works in graphics and marketing, agreed. “My car was failing and costing a lot, so I decided to experiment and try the train. Between Uber-ing and public transport it’s doable.” Trains, subways and light rails will eventually connect LAX, downtown, the coast, Disneyland and elsewhere, said Keith Millhouse, a former board member of Metrolink, southern California’s commuter rail system. “I think this is unparalleled. You’re really seeing a huge push towards a non-car centric culture.” We’ve hit our stride in a way I’ve not experienced before. People want to live here. The place is booming Chris Thornberg, analyst The renaissance comes amid a challenging time for New York, which has long scorned LA as a rival for America’s greatest city. Having lost a bid to host the 2012 Olympics to London, New York is now enduring a “summer of hell” on its crumbling subway, prompting authorities to declare a state of emergency. This did not stop the New York Times poking fun at LA nabbing the 2028 Games, asking if this would herald new Olympic events such as “longest juice cleanse” or “least original movie idea”. Advertisement Garcetti said his home town had no inferiority complex despite a century of wisecracks. “Written by east coasters,” he smiled. “Those of us who secretly decided to stay and live here always had a good time. I think LA has never cared what other people think. We’ve been comfortable in our own skin.” The mayor, a rising Democratic star (there is chatter of a White House run), said LA had permanent funding for infrastructure, unlike certain other cities. “People like to build things, they don’t like to maintain them … you have to think of the life of the projects.” He acknowledged that by some measures LA is the US’s most unequal and unaffordable city. “We’re an imperfect paradise. We still have homelessness and poverty and traffic to address. I never get too rosy-eyed.” Some critics say the mayor and other civic boosters are exactly that, and predict that the vaunted splurge on shelters and housing, for instance, will not stem the evictions and displacement, which are driving the poor and communities of colour from south and east LA. Skid Row’s desperation and squalor endure in the shadow of downtown’s new towers. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rising homelessness remains a major issue for Los Angeles to tackle. Photograph: Alamy Hosting the Games will aggravate such inequality, said Jonny Coleman, an organiser with the advocacy group NOlympics LA. “Every Olympic city has spurred displacement and police overreach. It accelerates gentrification. (Landlords) will do Airbnb and kick people out.” LA hosted the Games in 1932 and 1984. Using existing infrastructure and corporate sponsorship helped make the 1984 Games the first to ever make a profit – $225m – a feat unmatched by subsequents hosts who ended up with huge bills. LA hopes to repeat that fiscal magic in 2028 with an operating surplus of $500m. Andrew Zimbalist, an economist who has studied and often criticised the Olympics as bad value for hosts, said that projection was reasonable. “They have all the venues and infrastructure that they need.” Athletes, for instance, will stay in UCLA dorms. “There’s just no other city like that. I think they’ll be able to do quite well with sponsorship and ticket sales.” 'Human tragedy': LA homelessness jumps to record-breaking level Read more Chris Thornberg, an analyst with the research firm Beacon Economics, threw cold water on some of the boosterism. LA was still dysfunctional, he said, and spending fortunes on trains was questionable given the looming era of self-driving cars. But compared to the 1990s, when fires, floods, riots and earthquakes compounded economic malaise, the city was enjoying a renaissance, he said. “It’s absolutely real. We’ve hit our stride in a way I’ve not experienced before. People want to live here. The place is booming.” He credited urbanisation trends more than civic leadership. LA’s newfound swagger is unlikely to curb the jokes. It is after all an irresistible target even for those who mint livelihoods here. “I mean, who would want to live in a place where the only cultural advantage is that you can turn right on a red light?” said Woody Allen. There is dispute whether Dorothy Parker or someone else made the crack about 72 suburbs in search of a city. Parker did, however, lob a particularly wounding insult about palm trees. “The ugliest vegetable God created.”