Bruce LeSourd

b/acc

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

GOATed. $NVDA

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

So your experience with your 2015 Model S is reassuring, and I certainly hope you're right.

However I'll stand by my concern.

There are two known part issues relevant to my Foundation Series Cybertruck, either of which is disabling for where I live:

1. The documented, fleet-wide PCS failure on early Cybertrucks. They're generally waiting until the PCS fails to replace them with a better version, and that means the longer your PCS survives, the more chance they'll run out. The "use a supercharger" workaround doesn't work for me because I'm 1.5 hours from the nearest supercharger at freeway speeds, in a place with mountains and cold weather. I have to be able to charge at home.

2. My suspension air compressor has failed and been replaced twice in two years. Unlike the PCS, Tesla hasn't updated the part. Failure leaves the suspension in Entry mode - there's no workaround. Technically drivable, but practically unusable. You can't "lock" the suspension at a reasonable height. The last failure caused the suspension to cycle continuously, overheat, shut off, cool down, then try again. I have no idea whether this is a fleet-wide problem, but I'd be a fool to think it won't happen again. Worst case scenario, to keep my truck another 10 years I could need 10 compressors - if this is a fleet-wide issue, even for a subset of Cybertrucks, eg those that do a lot of off-roaring, there's a real risk of Tesla running out of these parts.

In the US, aside from safety recalls, there's no requirement to provide spare parts after the warranty expires. Both these parts are covered under the general vehicle warranty, which is about to expire for me (at 49K miles right now).

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

@Vhoyde Jensen: "the adult in the harem".

[Ming @tslaming]

BOOM 🚨 Just when the Jensen Huang story seemed like it couldn't get messier, the NYT says there was a second affair, and this time it's someone inside Nvidia.

It's Kimberly Powell, 48, the VP who built Nvidia's healthcare business after joining in 2008. She reports directly to Jensen, who's 63, and both are married to other people.

The Times says five people who worked at Nvidia described the relationship, and that it was talked about inside the company.

The wildest detail comes from GTC in March. A bystander apparently filmed the two getting affectionate at a San Jose hotel, and Jensen's security team reportedly offered that person an NDA.

When the Times called him about it, Jensen allegedly said "I don't think you should be talking to me directly" and hung up. Nvidia declined to comment, and Powell didn't respond.

Jensen already admitted the Alice Huang affair in a company email, but that one was a national security headache.

This one hits closer to home. Nvidia's own code of conduct tells employees to steer clear of conflicts, including personal relationships.

The board opened one investigation this month, and it might need a second.

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

@Vhoyde Because that's called a harem, and historically, harems are notoriously the source of lots of intrigue, coups and civil wars. So you're trading espionage risk for internal political risk.

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

@Gene76244311 @NatureUnedited In other words...

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

"First, you can put the DC where no one lives, so local costs don't matter." Any terrestrial location that's feasible for data center construction and operation has people living somewhere nearby.

Take the Box Elder County, UT, data center proposal. That's out in the middle of nowhere, on a vast, barren swath of extremely marginal ranch land that already owns the water rights for the water the data center needs. This water was previously used for irrigating alfalfa to feed cattle. The data center was going to be powered from its own gas plant that tapped into an existing natural gas pipeline. The ranch was so big that it dwarfed even the gigantic footprint of the fully built-out data center in the middle of it.

It's hard to imagine a data center location with less net new impact on locals, but there was still a gigantic uproar.

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

Glad to see some heavy hitters consider abandoning grades.

In my experience teaching at the community college level from 2001-2002, grades stood in the way of rigor, innovation, essential collaborative work that prepares students for the real world, and acceptance of feedback.

Two key factors combined to make grades in one of my classes problematic:

1. At a community college where anyone with a HS diploma can get in, the range of capabilities and experience among students is extreme. I taught a technical writing course that was a gate for the IT program. In this class I had foreign students who had never written a paragraph in English, and a woman with a BA in English from University of Washington. I had people who had never used a computer, and a professional software developer. All in the same class that sat at the intersection of writing English and computers.

2. Most students in the class needed a certain grade in this specific class or their entire plan for being at college would be upended. Getting into the IT program required a 3.0 grade, and that's why most students were taking my class. I had a veteran who would lose his education benefits if he didn't maintain a 3.3 overall GPA. This created a huge amount of stress over grading that stood in the way of good pedagogy, high standards and honest feedback.

My dad chaired the legal studies department at Saddleback Community College in Orange County, CA, at the time. He suggested I drop outliers before applying any curve. I did that, and made the floor of my curve 2.5 for any student who turned in every assignment. That insulated most students from losing all possibility of getting an A to the much more experienced outliers, while still allowing me to make assignments that would challenge the best students and show everyone where the bar of high professionalism was. But it was a kludge at best.

But, you say, how are we going to hire good students out of school without grades?

First off, we're in a new era where any grade or other academic rating is more irrelevant than ever.

But even back in the day, using grades as a gate had obvious problems. For example, after I graduated with a BS in CS from University of Washington in 1992, I had an interview with a company that wanted to see a grade in C++. UoW didn't have courses in individual programming languages... you were expected to learn them as part of a topical curriculum (I learned C++ during a computer graphics course). The closest thing was a programming paradigm survey course where we learned Prolog, Smalltalk and Lisp. By contrast, University of Oregon, a much lower-rated CS program, had classes in programming languages, and this company preferred hiring UofO grads for that reason.

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

@RobotaxiTX @cybrtrkguy @elonmusk And following in your point, Tesla needs to make a HD/light truck platform similar to the Semi and the F-series to capture the autonomous opportunities in the "pickup truck" market. Cybertruck is the best vehicle ever, but it's not the platform you need to play in this space.

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

@Ramza_2 https://t.co/k0TE7j3IDa

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

@ItsyBitseeee @NatureUnedited [Steve Irwin voice] the Australian ray is a beautiful creature, totally harmless unless threatened and this ecosys-Aaahhrgg!

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

@DanielBailleau @NatureUnedited True. I want to be pro-skunk but my local skunk's foraging around my house woke me up every night this summer.

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

How is Elon going to build autonomous off-road field service trucks for the Mountain West backcountry without the Cybertruck collecting data from off-roaders?

I was so psyched to be able to dispatch a flock of 5 Cybertrucks to haul equipment and power to backcountry sites, provide rescue capabilities, etc.

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

WTF and also... weirdly true to life.

[로키빈 @Lockyjoon]

왜 자꾸 일론을 존슨황 영상에 넣는거냐규 ㅋㅋ

진짜 미치겠네 ㅠㅠ ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

@CadBane28 @NatureUnedited Harshing lol. Autocorrect is like a skunk... you never know when or what it will spray.

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

@CadBane28 @NatureUnedited Shhh ... you're hashing the vibe here with your call of the wild realism

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

@EverIntrigued This is the truest, most consequential comedy bit in history.

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

My most popular post ever is a snarky humorous reply about skunks. I hope my local skunks are proud. And feeling unthreatened.

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

@ItsyBitseeee @NatureUnedited [Steve Irwin voice] the Australian ray is a beautiful creature, totally harmless unless threatened and this ecosys-Aaahhrgg!

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

@herbertong @thejefflutz Keep forgetting:
- Jeep (slow off-roading)

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

In addition to being a good seller in its market niche, the Cybertruck competes on capabilities with:
- F-250 (short-haul towing/hauling)
- S-class (safety and comfort)
- Prius (efficiency)
- Raptor R (off-roading)

Too bad Tesla didn't advertise, this would have made a cool commercial (think iPhone launch reveal).

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

@AviTheCohen @NatureUnedited Mommas are fickle that way.

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

Cybertruck was never in the pickup truck market.

To go after the pickup truck market you need:
- a truck platform that allows for many customizations
- enterprise sales
- a service ecosystem

On the left is my Cybertruck. On the right is the 2011 F-350 I bought so I could trailer my Cybertruck from Duchesne, UT, to Tesla's Pleasant Grove Service Center, drop it off and drive home while I wait 2-5 weeks for the suspension air compressor to be fixed, after waiting a month to get an appointment. It's failed twice in two years. Tesla's SLC area service centers haven't scaled with demand.

Cybertruck is the greatest vehicle ever, no contest.

But an F-series has boring dependability as a truck system and ecosystem. That ultimately translates into "truck guys" reading a truck as a "real truck".

Once battery energy density and cost improve substantially, Tesla should follow its Semi program back into the HD and light truck markets, and do it right this time.
Sell to businesses on TCO and uptime, make it a platform, make building an ecosystem a priority, and the truck guys will come.

[Bruce LeSourd @digibruce]

8am - Robotaxis drive people from the suburbs to the city
9am - Robotaxis replace delivery vans and cars, competing head to head with driver-constrained, aggregated cargo transport and gig economy services; Robotaxis enable new intra-day activities with their low per-mile cost; Robotaxis provide a new revenue stream for downtown office buildings with low occupancy and huge underground garages with lots of power infrastructure, which no longer have commuter vehicles parking in them; while Robotaxis wait they make $ providing AI inference; all this assumes a suburb-to-downtown commute that doesn't really exist any more; cities will reconfigure around new transport capabilities (eg neighborhoods booming around train stops)
5pm - Robotaxis drive people home from the city to the suburbs