Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs - Episode 228: To Tesla or Not to Tesla

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

In this episode, Conor and Bryce chat about Tesla, Twitter and Elon.Link to Episode 228 on WebsiteDiscuss this episode, leave a comment, or ask a question (on GitHub)SocialsADSP: The Podcast: TwitterConor Hoekstra: Twitter | BlueSky | MastodonBryce Adelstein LelbachShow NotesDate Generated: 2025-03-20Date Released: 2025-04-04ADSP Episode 225: CppNorth & Flux Plans, The Slow Death of Twitter and More!"Tesla Terrorsim" Youtube VideoIntro Song InfoMiss You by Sarah Jansen https://soundcloud.com/sarahjansenmusicCreative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0Free Download / Stream: http://bit.ly/l-miss-youMusic promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/iYYxnasvfx8

You know, I don't want you to have your car get broken into or the tires stolen or, you know, the full self-driving hacked and it programmed to, you know, drive you into a lake or something. You know, so at one point they were the cool car. I remember a period of time where when you saw Tesla, like, ooh, that's a Tesla, how exotic and cool. And yeah, I mean, it is funny how the symbolism, the connotations associated with certain things can change very quickly. Welcome to ADSP, the podcast episode 228 recorded on March 20th, 2025. My name is Connor and today with my co-host Bryce, we chat about Tesla, Twitter and Elon. It's only going to be a 22 minute episode, folks.

So part three of this recording, which I believe puts us on like episode 2...28 potentially. We have to revisit a topic we talked about and this is a, you know, we went from GTC to GTC Nvidia stuff to now this is a less technical topic folks, but every once in a while I like to get hot takes from Bryce and for the avid listener. You will recall, I think it aired in February, but the discussion was in January. I think it was literally one or two days after, we'll call it Elon's most notable snafu. And for those of you that don't know what I'm talking about, I don't know, get out from the rock that you're living under. And at that point, I said that my partner and I were thinking about buying a Tesla in the next year and I was

having some moral qualms with is it okay to to buy a product from someone that is maybe doing some things you don't agree with and you. My moral compass at times, very you know not very often but at times, Bryce you gave me the go-ahead and said I don't need to feel bad. That was in January. It is now, as we've mentioned a couple times, March 20th. And I just, I think I tweeted it, I posted it, whatever all the words are, across both Blue Sky, Twitter, and Mastodon, the irony of posting it on Twitter, aka X, which is run by Elon. A 45-minute video of the, what some people are calling Tesla terrorism of you know cars wheels being uh you know there was like 60 cars that got their wheels stolen um you know vehicles that are being

lit on fire I think in some states shots were fired at Tesla dealerships none of which obviously we condone um but the the I would like to revisit I thought it was Incredible like how quickly the timing was that we happened to be recording like a couple days after that happened and at the time I would say that things were what's the word less heated or maybe less controversial It was still controversial what was going on, but now we are three months or I guess two months later and also on top of that the Tesla stock price has absolutely plummeted. It seems like the kind of the inverse of GameStop from however many years ago that was. Redditors and folks that are not a fan of Elon are taking to

shorting Tesla or selling the shares that they may or may not have owned. Anyways, and I just, I was just, well actually I won't say who I was visiting and conversing with, but they were concerned when I said that I was, you know, still interested in buying a Tesla, but even more concerned now about the morality of it. And this individual was like, really? Like, you would still still buy a Tesla what they're calling a swastika I I was like you know I'm still all about that FSD full self driving 13.0 I don't want to support this person but I do want to not have to drive my vehicle and I don't have access to BYD which is only sold in China slash Europe. I heard yesterday in the keynote that Nvidia is partnering with GM for their self-autonomous vehicles. Happy to buy one of those when they come out.

Anyways, that's my monologue out of the way. So my question to you is what are your updated thoughts and feelings if you've been paying attention to both Tesla, Elon, and as one of the previous episodes was titled, the slow death of Twitter, as I have started to see the graphics and images and past tweets, they're kind of just disappearing. You can't find them now. Anyways, I'm done talking.

Yeah, I was, I could not find my 2017 GTC keynote Twitter thread. I tried really hard and then I asked a couple of different large language models with search capabilities to try hard and to no avail. Maybe it has disappeared from the Internet. I had an interesting conversation at dinner last night with some of my colleagues where we were discussing the presence of an American flag on outside of someone's house. Also pause, because this is going to be a bit political. We should very clearly state these are our personal views.

These do not represent the views of our employer whatsoever. Everything said here on out is just Bryce and myself talking. But yes, American flag. So we were talking about the display of an American flag outside of a house and about why we were talking about like why is it that some people or that in some parts of the US it is seen that just putting the flag outside of your house sends a message about your political ideology. And I don't, you know, for a variety of reasons,

I'm not going to get into my thoughts on that or like how that discussion went, but I think that the reality is that, and this reminds me of when I was working on the inclusive terminology standard. And when we did that work, we came up with this notion that terms have both their connotation and what they're intended to mean, and then they have their intended meaning and then they have their connotations, right? Their maybe unintended and secondary meanings. And like putting a flag in front of your house, That that is not intended like that the primary meaning of a flag is not to To send this like a message about your politics within the US right? It's the primary

intention of the flag is to be a representation of the country, but then it's taken on this connotative meaning and I think that the Tesla brand has started to take on these connotations. It's starting to become a political statement, right? Especially like with the Cybertruck. Like I think I don't want to put people into categories, but I suspect that a lot of people who have bought

a Cybertruck have a certain political leaning. And certainly, even if you don't have that political idea, on to categories, but I suspect that a lot of people who have bought a cyber truck have a certain political leaning. And certainly, even if you don't have that political ideology, you must know if you're buying a cyber truck that people will think that that means that you are a supporter of Elon and that you are maybe a supporter of the current administration. And you know, obviously, I think it's very sad because I have friends who work at Tesla, I have friends that work at SpaceX, and they make amazing products. And it's sad that it has become politicized and I feel for them and I feel for people who like I have we both

have friends who who own Teslas and did not mean to make a political statement but I do think that it's it's reached a point where yeah maybe maybe one like it's it's awful if you have to think about whether owning a particular car, what owning a particular car says about you. I understand your perspective, Kano, that you just want the technology, right? But I do think we're in a place now where it does send a particular message. And maybe that's always been the case because I remember back when SUVs became popular in the early 2000s, you know, and then the Prius came out, you know, the Prius was a car that

clearly sent maybe not a political message but some sort of message about your values, right? Yeah, I mean, what's interesting is when you initially said owning a Cybertruck probably indicates which way you lean. My first thought was like, wait a sec, when did the Cybertruck come out? Because at one point, like owning a Tesla, like Elon used to identify or I don't know what, you know, at some points he said he was politically neutral but it used to be this like kind of you know good for the planet climate change is happening kind of tech forward I identified it more with like you know more like democratic values

in the states or whatever and only until recently in the last whatever I don't even know how many months or years it was has he has he swapped and that's why Like there's a bunch. I'm not sure if you've heard about this You probably didn't watch that video that I posted but people have started putting stickers on their Tesla's because you know of the damage The tires being stolen keys being happened, you know, some people are spray painting swastikas on on Tesla's They started putting these stickers on the bumper stickers that say, you know, I bought this before Elon went crazy. And to try and like let people know that like I didn't buy this to support Elon, I bought it because I like the car. I wanted an EV. And anyways, the point being is when you actually first said that I was like, actually, does he mean left or does he mean

right? And like, I think, you know, Cybertruck is the most Elon-esque of the vehicles. I personally would never buy it because I think it's ugly as hell. Yeah, it's interesting that like there's a history of that. Like at one point, Tesla's were kind of like the status symbol in Silicon Valley, you know, like. At one point, they were the cool car. I remember a period of time where when you saw a Tesla, like, oh, that's a Tesla. How exotic and cool. And, yeah, I mean, it is funny how the symbolism, the connotations associated with certain things

can change very quickly. And also to be clear, when I was talking to that individual who I don't wanna identify, that they were concerned that I was interested in getting a Tesla, it got lost on them for like the first hour of the conversation that like, how come I just don't look at other EVs, et cetera? I've looked, I've watched so many MKBHD, I believe is his five acronym, uh,

the tech reviewer on YouTube. Uh, uh, he has a whole autofocus, um, MKBHD YouTube channel. I've watched all the EV videos and, uh, some of them look great. None of them have the two places for your cell phones but the main thing is none of them come remotely close to the self-driving. That is what I am after and I have heard BYD is phenomenally good in China but you can't get a BYD car anywhere in North America, at least that I know of. So it's like I'm open to buying a different EV but it's like there's no competitor in the FSD space Anyways in case in case that's not clear. But yes, you were about to say something. Yeah

well, I mean and I think it'll be interesting to see I think we're gonna see a lot of a lot more Self-driving developments the next couple years. I mean, I know everybody's been saying that for a while, but I do think that we're going to start to see other players catch up. It does seem like the AV industry Twitter and the slow death of Twitter. And you and I have talked about reasons we haven't left the platform yet. You mentioned in the past that one of the reasons

you didn't leave is you still feel like you were getting better engagement on Twitter than on other platforms. And I've noticed, ever since Elon Elon took over that I've gotten less engagement, still more than on other platforms but less engagement. But I have up until I've tweeted a bit at GTC and some of those things have gotten good engagement but for me, one of the reasons I've been more active on Twitter recently is I sort of wanted to test whether it's still a good platform, whether it's still a platform that I get engagement on and in particular I've been posting things on both LinkedIn and Twitter to see

sort of comparatively at how much engagement I get on those two platforms because I think if I was going to exit Twitter probably LinkedIn would be the place that I would that I would be because I'm primarily on Twitter to reach my my professional network to reach you know other programmers to spread the word about things that that you know that I'm doing at work or that that I am passionate about in the in space. And I feel like LinkedIn is the most established platform alternative for me to do that. And I do still think it's true that I'm getting more engagement on Twitter than on other platforms. However, I think based on what the amount of engagement that I am getting on LinkedIn,

I think if I committed myself to more regularly posting on LinkedIn and building up my following on LinkedIn, I would probably get equal to or more engagement there. And I know that there's some number of people that I can no longer reach on Twitter because people have left for another platform. So I think at the very least it's likely that I will be posting across both Twitter and LinkedIn for my various social media stuff going forward. I maybe will take another look at Blue Sky again but it's like it would be hard for me to commit to doing three. It's even hard for me to keep up with just doing two or even just the one.

Yeah, I mean, as long as you're tweeting from your computer, I don't actually find it too much hassle. Like that's been my kind of my, I have mentioned it earlier that my goals is I post to all three. Although admittedly I posted to Twitter, the Jensen versus Bryce one, I did it to Blue Sky. And then when I was copying and pasting the images to Mastodon, I just got two, five, oh three hours. 503 errors and I was like, alright mastodon is not getting this one and

Or it like I didn't even give me an error I just saw on the bottom left corner of the screen a little a little like translucent 503 thing and I was like, okay Well, I'm in the middle of recording a podcast. I'm not I'm not gonna figure this out. But yeah, I mean it's it's clear to me I think that like Elon is slowly destroying a lot of the, I don't even want to say companies that he's created, companies that he has acquired slash grown, because I'm not sure. I mean, Tesla, he stole or bought and then sued into oblivion, the people he bought it from. Twitter, he accidentally tweeted and then ended up having to buy.

And that whole saga was nuts. Yeah, and now he's, I don't know what the verb is for what he's doing to your governmental infrastructures. But you know, the question is, you know, what, how should I feel? You know, this is going to be the ongoing quarterly Tesla update with Bryce, with Bryce as my moral compass. He said it was OK in January 2025. You might be listening to this in April, but recording this March 20th. What does Bryce say now? I guess, I guess I, I still think it's OK for you to get a Tesla if you want to get a Tesla however, I would I would not advise doing so because

Like I know that let me put it in a way I I think I know that you buying a Tesla wouldn't buy it as it means to support Elon and Not not not as an indication of some political view. But some people would read it that way. And I don't want you to have your car get broken into or the tires stolen or the full self-driving hacked and it programmed to drive you into a lake or something. programmed to, you know, drive you into a lake or something.

You know, so. So I think maybe now is not the time. Now is not the time. That is interesting. I've never I've never thought because that's the thing is on one hand, you're looking at like the second hand market value of Tesla's is plummeting right now. So from a former actuaries, someone who has studied arbitrage and statistics, see a lot of value here, is arbitrage.

What used to be market value has crashed even though the actual like tangible value of these things has not changed, but I guess it's because of the risk that something's gonna happen. So part of my thought is like, maybe I'll just buy a secondhand Tesla at bottom for pennies on the dollar.

And then just put a sticker on just put a sticker on it saying I bought this after, you know, after Elon went crazy. However, I'm an actuary and I just saw a good value opportunity. I was thinking that like in the thousands of dollars I would save buying a secondhand one plus while its market value is plummeting, I could spend like a grand of that on a custom paint job that's like, you know, full blown Canadian maple leaf flag and that's got some big signs that says, you know, Elon sucks or something. More is like, that I just want to go around saying that although I will I don't think I'm ever on record saying this because we try to

Not say politically neutral, but focus more on tech topics. I have despised Elon ever since I read Ashley Vance's Biography on him where there's this there's a I don't I don't think I think it's I think that you can dislike Elon without it being political. Uh, I think so But I also think that there's like a large number of folks that if you say something bad about someone, you know That they admire for whatever reason now, they're gonna hold it against you Which I guess you know as the older we get we should be less concerned with Upsetting folks, you know, if you've been listening this long for 220 however episodes

You can tolerate an opinion. You't agree with. It's fine. But yeah, there's a chapter in the book which covers him firing his secretary of 20 years when she asks for a raise and Elon says, how about you take a two week vacation and I'll let you know how I feel and then the idea being like oh, how much do I need this person and apparently like After she was just anyway, she gets back from the two weeks. He says you're free to go I don't need you anymore and there was a couple of executives that left because they were so appalled that like the only reason that they were willing to work with Elon because was because the secretary was so good at like monitoring his emotional state and basically like had like a

Not physical but like they would check in with this the executive secretary is now a good time And then she'd be like now you come back tomorrow when Wednesday's not looking like a good day And that was the only reason that these folks would work with him Who knows how much of that is true? but I I imagine that the firing of the person is an actual true story and For someone that's worked for you for two decades. I just thought I just like What kind of what kind of person does that you know? What kind of person not a nice person and ever since I've never been a good big fan and now he's doing all this stuff

as of late and Yeah, anyway, so Bryce is at the Q2 mark. He says, feel free to buy, but at your own peril. Maybe not a good idea. What do you, what maybe, maybe can I get some, do you have any predictions? Where, where is this going? Is, is, is he going to be ousted as CEO of one of his companies soon? Where is this going? Is he going to be ousted as CEO of one of his companies soon? I imagine the shareholders and the board of Tesla right now are going like, you know, it is not having our company associated with this guy.

It's not doing us any favors right now, no? Yeah, I just don't understand it because, you know, the CEO of my company works very hard, like all the time. Nobody works harder at Nvidia, I think, the CEO of my company works very hard, like all the time. Nobody works harder at Nvidia, I think, than Jensen. And that inspires, you know, I think a great loyalty among employees. And I just don't understand how you can be a CEO of, like, multiple big tech companies effectively while you're also like doing the government thing I just I just I don't get it um you know

it it doesn't it doesn't seem sustainable to me what does that mean what does that mean though what do you think's gonna happen I don't know I don't know I mean maybe there's an argument that that it's better for the company is for him to be distracted with other stuff. Oh, it's better for the cup. Well, I mean, not when the distractions are leading to a cratering stock price. Yeah. I don't I don't think that he's going to be asked it. Really? I think he won't be ousted yet. Well, based on what we know right now, I don't think so. I mean, I think the whole tech sector has been in a bit of a pullback and I think investors will be a little bit patient.

Well time will tell folks. Check back in in three months for an updated conversation with Bryce and Connor on To Tesla or not to Tesla? Yeah, and we I mean so many other things we got to talk about there's we had a whole list of topics I'm not over that we didn't get to Yeah, you got it. You got it. You got it. We got to find a way for you to come next year It's really it's a shame that you've been at Nvidia for so long. You've never made it out to a GTC I mean admittedly for the first what was it?

I've been here for now five and a half years for the first like three and a half It wasn't possible that there were no GTC. I know it was yeah Yeah, yeah, and then just yeah in the last two years. I am gonna be on site in May for a research on site so Okay, nice nice Anyways, we got to let you go. What are any last things you want to share? With the at the end of this Tesla Twitter Elon episode Well, I mean I'll say that you know that we haven't even talked about the main reason that you shouldn't buy a Tesla

Why is that doesn't have an Nvidia chip in it doesn't have an Nvidia? Like I said when I saw that GM announcement. I was like in my head I was like I hope this has been in the works and only just announced for two years and they actually have a car to release because like I like I said I am happy to buy the other self-autonomous driving car if it's good. We have partnerships, NVIDIA has partnerships with a ton of the self-driving car companies. But you know, I'm going to wait until we can buy the self-driving car in the employee gear store.

We've got to get that employee discount. They give us like the 25 bucks per quarter. Yeah, they give us the 25 bucks per quarter. Yeah, they give us the 25 bucks a quarter So somebody do the math on how many years you'd have to work at Nvidia to be able to get a free Free car 100 bucks a year. So I don't know Millennium or something like that. Probably that's not even enough Depending on how yeah costly the car is There is actually it's very cool. So they have a couple they have like the they have some cars here to test drive, like you can test drive a Lucid or a Pole Star. I actually have rented a car today and initially I messed it up so I had to like modify the reservation, but initially it was for a Pole Star, but...

I had one in St. Louis, it was pretty cool. Is it good? Yeah I think so yeah. Alright well next time I rent a car I will attempt to get the Polestar that I missed out on. Alright we will let you go you got to get to GTC I assume. Yep I do. Be sure to check these show notes either in your podcast app or at ADSPthepodcast.com for links to anything we mentioned in today's episode as well as a link to a a GitHub discussion where you can leave thoughts, comments, and questions. Thanks for listening, we hope you enjoyed, and have a great day.