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Wait really? Genuinely curious. Do you think $2B was worth it?

Like I just implicitly assumed that that is way too much money for the value it provides but admittedly I didn't think much about it. Can you quantify how the benefit might be worth that much?

I think Cruise Automation has roughly raised that amount over it's entire lifetime. Even if we had to fund 10 of those companies for a similar amount, that seems like a better investment than the dozen or so subway miles that would fund.



Congratulations you just reinvented communism. We don’t want cities making those kinds of investments for hopefully obvious reasons in that context.

Subway lines can pay for themselves across hundreds of years. It’s the best kind of investment for cities because it operates on their timescales and use ultra cheap bonds responsibly and it doesn’t interfere with free markets.


yeah it just takes forever and sometimes ends up not finishing but usually just much worse than expected.

just pick the low hanging fruit first and let driverless cars operate freely with data sharing. then build your pyramids.


and also not sure how private investment funding driverless car companies + having cities mostly just stay out of the way is communism?


People’s willingness to buy very low yield government bonds is independent from people willing to make high risk investments in private companies. Trying to get people in group A to make investments of type B through government action is the kind of central planning you don’t want.

Cities taking advantage of people with ultra low risk tolerance to make infrastructure investments at ultra low rates that only make sense with very long time horizons is dependent on markets.


no need to make anyone make any investments they don't want. private market has already funded many driverless car companies. no communism needed.


> Even if we had to fund 10 of those companies for a similar amount, that seems like a better investment than the dozen or so subway miles that would fund.

Ahh, so by ‘we’ you didn’t actually mean a group you are part of but instead other people.


yes sorry that was confusing




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