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Hacker Built a Self-Driving Car In His Garage - Bloomberg

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This is not entirely true. There are some people that are smart enough to accomplish what engineering teams cannot. It's rare, but it does happen.

I know just a few people whom I would consider brilliant programmers. I even know one fellow who can achieve the kinds of things you are referring to. He is by far the most productive software engineer I've ever met, and he's a brilliant software architect. He comes up with amazing solutions to problems, and can make them work reliably. He can refactor an enormous code base on the fly without breaking it, which requires holding a lot of things in your head at one time. He's also a manic-depressive, but is 99% manic and 1% depressive.

Even with all that, he couldn't do an autopilot system all by himself. Getting an autodrive system to be robust in the real world is going to require figuring out and dealing with a million edge cases - and finding a way to organize the system so all those edge cases are dealt with in a systematic way. You're going to require massive amounts of real-world testing and tweaking. No matter how brilliant someone is, they can't solve that problem by themselves.
 
I know just a few people whom I would consider brilliant programmers. I even know one fellow who can achieve the kinds of things you are referring to. He is by far the most productive software engineer I've ever met, and he's a brilliant software architect. He comes up with amazing solutions to problems, and can make them work reliably. He can refactor an enormous code base on the fly without breaking it, which requires holding a lot of things in your head at one time. He's also a manic-depressive, but is 99% manic and 1% depressive.

Even with all that, he couldn't do an autopilot system all by himself. Getting an autodrive system to be robust in the real world is going to require figuring out and dealing with a million edge cases - and finding a way to organize the system so all those edge cases are dealt with in a systematic way. You're going to require massive amounts of real-world testing and tweaking. No matter how brilliant someone is, they can't solve that problem by themselves.

I couldn't agree more with your points, bonnie's, stoneymonster and others here. Prototyping or hacking something can help to prove a concept but this is often 1% of the work and sometimes, an approach shown in a prototype can be completely unscalable when applied to the full problem to be solved. Taking this further, I have often wondered if perhaps Elon got sucked in by engineers prototyping a fairly competent version of autopilot last year. Remember how certain he was that it had become available earlier than expected and then they demonstrated it at the D event. Presumably taking whatever they had and making it into a robust, safe, globally deployable solution was a much bigger task than he had anticipated. It is easy to get wowed by something innovative and new. Having Teslas driving themselves around a clearly marked and predictable course was pretty cool but adapting that basic solution to thousands of cars in thousands of different conditions was a very big ice berg hiding below the water. Still, I will admit that sometimes it is good to have people who are not impeded by realism/pessimism pushing new technologies forward in spite of huge lurking hurdles.
 
I find the article tone juvenile, bordering on childish thinking, if not on ignorance and a lack of understanding of the complexities involved in the discussed topic.

It concerns me greatly that such an article can have immediate effect on a public company:

MBLY.JPG




Perhaps George Hotz, the subject of the article, is talented and curious, but so are millions of others.

It is true that often some great individuals were a single catalysing force that brought about changes to established order.

I find it difficult to reconcile greatness with the quotes below:

... he reveled in the thought of one person mucking up multibillion-dollar empires...

...I know everything there is to know....

....The job left him unsatisfied and depressed. At Google, he found very smart developers who were often assigned mundane tasks like fixing bugs in a Web browser...

I find it not so smart not to figure out that mundane tasks are the unavoidable part of getting any creation to fruition. How can anyone hope to develop something as complex as self-driving car system without being ready to embrace and fully own the mundane tasks? It is a bit arrogant to assume that there is a pecking order of tasks and 'mundane' tasks are a lower order in status or priority in that pecking order of all tasks.

My inclination is to think that the capacity to persevere through the mundane and unpleasant is the distinguishing feature of individuals that achieve outstanding results.



It is possible that the above characterizations of George Hotz are not correct, it could be the journalist's (mis)interpretations. I would also cut GH some slack due to being 26.

No doubt one day GH will achieve some great things. Hopefully, he'll also learn how much he does not know. He might also learn to be more humble and to be grateful to these developers that persevere with mundane bug fixing.
 
I find it not so smart not to figure out that mundane tasks are the unavoidable part of getting any creation to fruition. How can anyone hope to develop something as complex as self-driving car system without being ready to embrace and fully own the mundane tasks? It is a bit arrogant to assume that there is a pecking order of tasks and 'mundane' tasks are a lower order in status or priority in that pecking order of all tasks.

My inclination is to think that the capacity to persevere through the mundane and unpleasant is the distinguishing feature of individuals that achieve outstanding results.

It is possible that the above characterizations of George Hotz are not correct, it could be the journalist's (mis)interpretations. I would also cut GH some slack due to being 26.

No doubt one day GH will achieve some great things. Hopefully, he'll also learn how much he does not know. He might also learn to be more humble and to be grateful to these developers that persevere with mundane bug fixing.

Well stated Auzie! ..in complete agreement. It's also worth noting that all of his individual non-mundane work is built upon, and heavily reliant on, the work (Honda electronic controls, AI engine, etc., etc.) of many individuals and countless hours of mundane tasks. One must at least come to this realization.

He is relatively young as you point out, so there is still plenty of time to course correct. Would be a shame to waste his talents; they are impressive after all.
 
I find the article tone juvenile, bordering on childish thinking, if not on ignorance and a lack of understanding of the complexities involved in the discussed topic.

It concerns me greatly that such an article can have immediate effect on a public company:

View attachment 104707


Yes, indeed immediately after the Hotz article came out some fund manager said that MBLY was the "short of 2016". Orchestrated? Maybe. Regardless, this Hotz guy said he hopes the cost will be around $1000. Some of Mobileye's hardware costs about $100, so it's already 10x less pricey than what Hotz hope to achieve. Tesla marks it up greatly of course, to account for their development of the software layered on top of the Mobileye system and make some $. Regardless, by the time Hotz gets some semblance of a working system that can fit on a 1-2 inch chip (like MBLY's), the contracts with automakers will all have been locked up by MBLY. It's good that there are brilliant people all working on stuff like this, including Hotz, but that Bloomberg article was written with a slight intent to make it sound like Hotz was onto something huge that was previously unseen. For instance, in the video when Ashley Vance says "most autopilot systems now are clunky....", right then the video edit shows a Tesla Model S dash screen using autopilot. For those of us who are driving Tesla's on autopilot, we all know it is anything but 'clunky'. Misleading news segment which was designed to get clicks/views and perhaps just maybe help out a few shorts on MBLY stock. Conspiracy theory of course.
 
I read the entire article, extremely interesting. I think he's got the correct idea to simplify automated driving by NOT writing a million line of code to account for every situation.

Yes, exactly. I've always said rote is worse than calculation, equation, knowing the goals. But he might have been throwing that out there as a red herring. I can't imagine any successful AI being millions of lines of code. That would be horrible. It has to be short, precisely woven.

Instead, his is a learned computer, which is where computers will have to go to advance. Plus, if his algo's are good, it will be far less labor intensive to code, etc. I also thought it was interesting to read Elon's apparent note about Tesla "getting rid of Mobile Eye,".

There's something corrupt about thinking that an area of California full of redwood trees would be worse than a war-torn religious mecca at programming something. Of course Musk will have had come to that realization. I have no idea of the history behind it. However, it's too bad he shot his wad in the war-torn area: it's OK to test stuff there, as long as the AI doesn't get religious. Um, ok, I take that back. Also, California has been getting communist religious -- that's dangerous too. Of all people, I like the fact that Musk is doing it, since he can tap into multiple morals, areas, and disciplines.

This garage guy -- he's just obviously better at it. I'm glad he's played the ground too. Musk's approach always seemed plodding and slow to me. I've seen that Musk can be bad at making deals: not really sure why he's giving Hotz the middle finger. Musk is overly corporate now. That's something you need with big factories to some extent. Of course metrics are metrics and everyone can measure like that so maybe they don't need to get better at it --- just let it roll on to its conclusion by itself.

- - - Updated - - -

I find the article tone juvenile, bordering on childish thinking, if not on ignorance and a lack of understanding of the complexities involved in the discussed topic.

...

Hopefully, he'll also learn how much he does not know. He might also learn to be more humble and to be grateful to these developers that persevere with mundane bug fixing.

About the knowing: a lot of us are taught we don't know, and when we clearly do know far better than we're told we know, our great realization is our own belief in ourselves. That is extremely powerful: that all the nay-sayers are just WRONG. That is something that we have to go through to to be able to actually work on ANYTHING, otherwise we get stuck, stagnate and die. Furthermore, the "I know everything there is to know" is an admission that you are at the cutting edge and must yourself move it forward (along with anybody around you), not that all knowledge of all things has been downloaded into your brain. HOWEVER: in any field, there is a point at which the equations are well written, and often one can look at the old equations of yesteryear and realize that one's equations are far superior. Sometimes you just like to sit down and appreciate your accomplishments and say "my equations are right, I know them, they are good enough to cover everything in this field", essentially erasing the field and subsuming it in some new goal. Putting knowledge to bed is a great thing indeed.

All I'm trying to explain to you is that there is a language of inventors and a language of laggards that is different although it often uses similar words and sentences (unfortunately). There are also commonalities.

About the whole Google/Facebook bugs/ads thing: I have never worked there, so I'll be the one who raises my hand and says I don't know. I've known some people who had to quit though. Ads are stupid. No one should ever use ads. Micropayments are better. The whole reason there was resistance to micropayments is that corporate types of the time wanted subscription, worship, religion, contract, lock-in, and raping charges way over competitive value, but these days there are enough people who know what the Internet is that micropayments would work fine. We don't need ads, coercion, lies, theft.
 
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Completely disagree with you.

This was written by the guy that Elon let interview him for his biography. Maintaining supplier relationships is part of maintaining a stable platform as you build a company. If your suppliers don't trust your future relationship, they do not partner with you on solutions.

Leaving them out there to swing in the wind implies maybe there is truth to the article. If Tesla/Elon had not clarified, especially considering the viewership this is getting, I would have been disappointed in the company.

Exactly.

I worked at a small company once that had a cost accountant that talked to me about what the use of college is, that it teaches things like about having too few suppliers for a single item, so that means there has to be multiple suppliers for each item, so I don't think MobileEye should feel bad that Tesla is trying to multisource, nor that there's a little competition. However, having said that, M.E. should also be respected for what IT is.
 
Yes, indeed immediately after the Hotz article came out some fund manager said that MBLY was the "short of 2016". Orchestrated? Maybe. Regardless, this Hotz guy said he hopes the cost will be around $1000. Some of Mobileye's hardware costs about $100, so it's already 10x less pricey than what Hotz hope to achieve. Tesla marks it up greatly of course, to account for their development of the software layered on top of the Mobileye system and make some $. Regardless, by the time Hotz gets some semblance of a working system that can fit on a 1-2 inch chip (like MBLY's), the contracts with automakers will all have been locked up by MBLY. It's good that there are brilliant people all working on stuff like this, including Hotz, but that Bloomberg article was written with a slight intent to make it sound like Hotz was onto something huge that was previously unseen. For instance, in the video when Ashley Vance says "most autopilot systems now are clunky....", right then the video edit shows a Tesla Model S dash screen using autopilot. For those of us who are driving Tesla's on autopilot, we all know it is anything but 'clunky'. Misleading news segment which was designed to get clicks/views and perhaps just maybe help out a few shorts on MBLY stock. Conspiracy theory of course.
Not a mutual fund manager but Andrew left of citron. Google him and see the type of man he is
 
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This garage guy -- he's just obviously better at it. I'm glad he's played the ground too. Musk's approach always seemed plodding and slow to me.
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Not sure how you measure that the garage guy is better. My measures show that he is not even in the competition.

That does not mean that one day GH can not achieve his goal. GH's potential achievement is up to him but at this stage it is just a potential. Tesla has a ready working marketable product.

Premature claims to superiority make me more doubtful of the claimant.

................

I've seen that Musk can be bad at making deals: not really sure why he's giving Hotz the middle finger. Musk is overly corporate now. That's something you need with big factories to some extent. Of course metrics are metrics and everyone can measure like that so maybe they don't need to get better at it --- just let it roll on to its conclusion by itself.

........

The reality is full of evidence that one of the distinguishing capabilities of EM that propel him out of the crowd of equally if not more talented people is his deal making ability.

Some people might perceive EM's deals as bad. That is a matter of perspective.

................
About the knowing: a lot of us are taught we don't know, and when we clearly do know far better than we're told we know, our great realization is our own belief in ourselves. That is extremely powerful: that all the nay-sayers are just WRONG. That is something that we have to go through to to be able to actually work on ANYTHING, otherwise we get stuck, stagnate and die. Furthermore, the "I know everything there is to know" is an admission that you are at the cutting edge and must yourself move it forward (along with anybody around you), not that all knowledge of all things has been downloaded into your brain..................................

........

Anyway you spin it, I have troubles taking seriously anyone who claims that they know everything there is to know regarding anything. My experience is opposite - the more I know about the subject the more it opens to me how much more is there to find out.

................

All I'm trying to explain to you is that there is a language of inventors and a language of laggards that is different although it often uses similar words and sentences (unfortunately). There are also commonalities.
........

Tesla employees, customers and investors can be described as laggards in some world that is different from the one I know, so I agree that we are unlikely to understand each other.

................
About the whole Google/Facebook bugs/ads thing: I have never worked there, so I'll be the one who raises my hand and says I don't know. ........

My expectation is that the great deal of work on autonomous driving will involve working on bugs. Someone who seems unwilling to go through the rigour and tediousness of mundane bits of work is unlikely to be the best candidate to win the prize in any complex software development competition.
 
For those that think this kid is "just an iphone hacker" you should read up a bit before dismissing him outright. He also singlehandidly hacked the "unhackable" Playstation 3 in a short timeframe.

He has a history of being good at different areas as well including robotics, 3D-imaging etc etc. Skills quite fitting for this kind of project wouldnt you say ? ;)

The boy is indeed cocky as hell, but I wouldnt be surprised if he comes up with something mindblowing here. Of course the odds arent on his side, but I would not bet against him.

I assume Elon Musk knew exactly what this kid represents in terms of potential and tried acting accordingly in order to hire him! I would have done the same myself(if only just to silence him...) :)
 
darthy001 just to clarify, my few posts here are not an attempt to dismiss GH' or anyone else's potential. Each person is the sole owner of their potential and no one can take that away from them.

I was prompted to comment because the speculative inaccurate article had an immediate effect on a public company. EM confirmed himself that the article is inaccurate.

I do not find speculative inaccurate journalism helpful.

Regarding GH potential and achievements, no one can put a limit to these except GH himself. Hopefully he has been/will be making significant contributions in whichever field he chooses.

It does not sit well with me to devalue contributions of others, no matter how mundane such contributions might be. These mundane contributions pave the way for few lucky ones to make significant breakthroughs.
 
GH is most certainly a genius in what he does (otherwise EM wouldn't even have met him) but hacking, and building things alone in one's garage, seems a rather individualistic thing; how do you integrate someone like that into a team of hundreds of programmers, let alone make him lead, motivate and guide those others? EM was/is probably just as technically genial but he had/has the social skills to sell his ideas to the market, make an idea work, and motivate hundreds of people, way above what the average genial hacker could do (and incidentally way above what the average CEO manages to do:) - I'm sure there are CEO's in Japan, China and Germany wondering why everyone is speaking today about the Tesla Powerwall whereas they put more or less the same thing on the market years ago and nobody noticed :))
 
darthy001 just to clarify, my few posts here are not an attempt to dismiss GH' or anyone else's potential. Each person is the sole owner of their potential and no one can take that away from them.

I was prompted to comment because the speculative inaccurate article had an immediate effect on a public company. EM confirmed himself that the article is inaccurate.

I do not find speculative inaccurate journalism helpful.

Regarding GH potential and achievements, no one can put a limit to these except GH himself. Hopefully he has been/will be making significant contributions in whichever field he chooses.

It does not sit well with me to devalue contributions of others, no matter how mundane such contributions might be. These mundane contributions pave the way for few lucky ones to make significant breakthroughs.

Ok, I think I was guilty of accusing you (or someone) of devaluing GH's potential. I agree on both counts (your mentioning of GH's and Tesla's respective potentials and achievements). One of the reasons I didn't have stock invested in Tesla early on is that I'm a person who saves time by seeing "who actually gets there" (has proven track record) as well as tries on occasion to hop on board with the people I know have potential. I like both Tesla and this kid, but agree with the position that both have their respective respectable positions: Tesla a proof-positive product shipping company (with even more in the oven), and this kid all kitchen without many dinner guests (yet), although he's had quite a few successful parties in the past. I like your summary.
 
Ok, I think I was guilty of accusing you (or someone) of devaluing GH's potential. I agree on both counts (your mentioning of GH's and Tesla's respective potentials and achievements). One of the reasons I didn't have stock invested in Tesla early on is that I'm a person who saves time by seeing "who actually gets there" (has proven track record) as well as tries on occasion to hop on board with the people I know have potential. I like both Tesla and this kid, but agree with the position that both have their respective respectable positions: Tesla a proof-positive product shipping company (with even more in the oven), and this kid all kitchen without many dinner guests (yet), although he's had quite a few successful parties in the past. I like your summary.

Interestingly, I also count myself into the crowd that likes to 'hop on board of people I know have potential', especially when it comes to investing. My early investment in TSLA was based purely on a potential, not on a proven track record.

It is apparent to me that the verbal encouragement and the verbal recognition of anyone's potential comes easy.


Actions speak much louder than words.


If GH is as talented and with as much potential as Bloomberg's article claims, he should have no problems in moving people from considering him 'a kid with a potential' to considering 'I could lose my money, but I'm buying in a piece of this dude's crazy project'.


I wish good luck both to Tesla team and to GH in their autopilot developments. There is enough space for both players and they are not pitted against each other.
 
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