Forget that Elon Musk is crazy, forget the Wall Street valuations, GM or Ford must merge with Tesla or be permanently left behind, on the way to the scrapheap.

It’s not where we are today, but where we are tomorrow. And twenty five years of disruption tell us you can be too early, but nothing is as bad as being too late.

The automotive industry is looked at as a manufacturing business. That’s old school. Cars in the electric world will be all about software! Remember back in the last century, during the computer boom, how many different manufacturers there were? Packard Bell and Gateway even made major inroads. But manufacturing is a low margin business. The winners were all software companies. Look at Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Apple’s specialty is the integration of software and hardware. As for Amazon…it’s got great software, but it also possesses first mover advantage. The first mover, if it continues to innovate, often dominates. As long as it reaches scale. Furthermore, the main driver of Amazon’s profits isn’t the delivery of goods, with so much human labor involved, but AWS, Amazon Web Services. And now Amazon is losing market share there because it’s become about adding software to the hosting package, read Monday’s “Wall Street Journal” story for edification:

“Amazon’s Cloud’s New Boss Is Girding to Defend Turf in the Field Company Pioneered – Adam Selipsky, in interview, says AWS aims to offer more cloud software as Microsoft and Google challenge its market dominance”: https://on.wsj.com/3qqdl8P

Forget Rivian, forget all the American electric car startups. But don’t forget their Chinese brethren, already in the marketplace, and not only in China, a huge market. All these new companies have to push a heavy rock up a hill that includes not only software, but manufacturing. And one of the reasons Amazon does so well is because it’s a trusted name. Do you really want to risk your hard-earned capital on an upstart that may not only work imperfectly, but will leave you high and dry when the company goes bankrupt? I don’t think so.

Tesla is here today. As is its charging network. The company is selling as many units as it can produce. Unlike Detroit, Tesla is selling to Hertz AT FULL PRICE, assuming it can even deliver the quantity.

This is where GM and Ford shine, manufacturing. This is why Tesla needs one of them. To ramp up and dominate, so the company rides into the future as the undisputed leader, not only technologically, but in sales.

Detroit, i.e. GM and Ford, have expertise in manufacturing. They just don’t know much about software. Volkswagen, first mover in the electric sphere amongst legacy manufacturers, has been hobbled by software issues in its march forward: 

“VW’s Hopes of Catching Tesla Hinge on a $30 Billion Tech Reboot – Internal battles, technical glitches and a complex structure have hampered the German auto giant’s software efforts”: https://bloom.bg/3c192IE

It’s harder than it looks. I.e. it may look like an electric car, but equaling Tesla’s experience is nearly impossible. So far, GM has put out the Bolt, a tiny auto with battery problems, and Ford has recalled its Mustang. Unfortunately, despite American nationalism, the Japanese still make the most trouble-free cars, which is a reason for Tesla to shy away from GM and Ford, but without scale you’re doomed. That’s how Microsoft won, via scale, providing the operating system for IBM computers. The best does not always win, assuming the competitor is good enough. But when it comes to cars good is not good enough. No one wants car problems anymore, that’s so last century, middle of last century.

So AOL merged with Time Warner. Talk about a disaster. Gerry Levin’s vision was correct and the upstarts knew more than he did about the future, it’s just that AOL was built on air, soon to be superseded by the World Wide Web. Electric cars are the future. That’s been decided. And unlike AOL, it’s already here, the vision is complete, there’s not a major disruption right around the corner.

Forget Mary Barra, forget everybody in Detroit. They’ve missed the memo time and again. They’re managers, not innovators. And the last twenty five years have proven that innovators disrupt the storied class, very slowly, derided, and then seemingly overnight. This is what Clayton Christensen said. Yeah, at first you pooh-pooh the competitor, and then it gets good enough and eats your lunch. All those people are buying Teslas despite continuing manufacturing defects. Sure, Tesla has gotten better in manufacturing, but it is still not major league.

But if Tesla’s blueprints could be used in Detroit? Problem solved!

And also GM or Ford’s problem solved. They risk being legacy companies that go down to zero. The digital sphere is littered with companies like this. Do you remember BlackBerry?

So, a merger would be a win-win. It would demonstrate vision. And solve each company’s respective problem.

As for the self-driving “problem,” don’t you get it? It’s not the accidents/injuries/deaths, this is how it works in software, it takes a while to get it right. But when you do.. Come on, were you computing in the eighties? Software was buggy, constantly improved, and then the companies got it right. Tesla is on the bleeding edge here. We will have self-driving cars. The company that gets there first will have a huge economic advantage. Meanwhile, GM and Ford and the rest of the auto industry are afraid of regulators, who are clueless, and inactive in the most revolutionary auto leap forward. Electric cars are a small step compared to self-driving cars. You need to be in this sphere.

But that’s software. All those bells and whistles in Teslas… Those are Easter eggs demonstrating the company’s ability to write software, they’re so good at it that they can spend money and time adding fun features just for the hell of it, to entertain their customers.

In the future, you will be buying a computer, not a car. It will look like a car, but under the skin it will be a computer. This is bedrock, not up for discussion, this is not a far distant vision, this is now! So who is prepared for now? Certainly not GM or Ford. As for the other worldly manufacturers, there are not as obvious merger candidates, GM and Ford are the ones for Tesla.

Yes Tesla’s valuation is through the roof, so GM or Ford can’t purchase it. And there’s no reason for Tesla to do the reverse. It should be a no-cash transaction. Then again, there are tax issues, so many issues investment bankers specialize in.

Sure, Ford just got an almost ten billion dollar win via the public debut of Rivian, but money won’t buy you love and it won’t buy you software stability, no, that takes effort.

This is the way to go. Otherwise GM and Ford are at major risk. As for Tesla…can it scale up in time? Doubtful. But having GM or Ford’s manufacturing infrastructure…

Oh, one more thing, the Tesla brass ends up in control. Give the Detroit CEO a title, and then shortly thereafter squeeze them out with a golden parachute.

You don’t win by committee in tech. It’s all about a singular vision, usually from the founder/CEO. You let the old guard have power at your peril.

Every day more people are warming up to Tesla. They’re on the road, purchase is seen as much less of a risk. But imagine if they were made in concert with Detroit and were everywhere?

Then you’ve got a done deal. Dominance. For decades.

Go for the prize.

https://bit.ly/3mZnaZ5

Start at 1:33:33

I can’t believe I found this.

So I was driving over the hill, going through the SiriusXM channels over 300.

Used to be these were only internet stations, but if you’ve got a relatively new radio you can bring them in over the air in your car.

And I started with Road Trip Radio, #301, driving songs, and not all old.

And then I moved my way up to the dial to Jam On at 309 and I heard this.

Now you’ve got to know I’ve got a noisy car, but one of the best stereos extant. The best of Focal all around, an AVI subwoofer, a JL amp and an Alpine tuner. So what you’re hearing right now is not equivalent to what I heard, there’s no way to replicate the experience in front of your computer, or on earbuds, but in my car…

I’m done with politics, at least for the last week. I give up. I’m just thankful I live in blue California. It seems we’re going to go back and forth, from right to left, same as it ever was, but the parties and their beliefs are not the same as they ever were, but…this is a long explanation to tell you I haven’t been listening to news in my car, but music…well, at least when I’m not listening to Howard.

And I must admit I heard something on one of the modern stations in the 300s that appealed to me earlier in the evening, but it was this STS9, Sound Tribe Sector 9, track that appealed to me.

Used to be Jam On was further down the dial, but now that station is called “Phish Radio,” and people bitched when this happened, but maybe having two stations is better, especially when you can pull in both in your car.

Now the jam band scene… It peaked sometime in the nineties, but it still sustains, it even has its own festival, Electric Forest, never mind so many act-based festivals around the country. And jam band music is the opposite of hit music, it’s all about the live performance as opposed to the recording, a perfect fit for today’s experiential world. But, the media hasn’t caught up with the new world yet, it believes it’s about the limited Spotify Top 50 when nothing could be further from the truth, there are more genres doing better than ever before, but it is hard to climb the ladder and become ubiquitous and rich, so you’d better really like being a musician, because the money is not spectacular, then again if you read the reports on Astroworld you learned that music was just a feature, an element of Travis Scott’s empire. He’s built a business, which is the goal of so many Millennials and Gen-Z’ers, but for those of us who remember the old days, primarily before MTV created a monoculture, it’s all about the music and only the music.

Music is like pornography, you know it when you hear it. If you don’t like it, that’s fine, nobody likes everything, and now more than ever criticism means little, you can bitch but it falls on deaf ears, everybody’s having too much fun listening to the music of their desires.

So, once upon a time there was nothing more than the music, maybe some lights. And most of the venues had seats, you were there to listen, not to hang. You were in your own private reverie, merging with the performer(s) and their sound. When done right, it was a transcendent experience, you had no photographs, just a brain imprint and that was enough, you can still recite the details of great concerts the way golfers can replay every hole.

But in today’s multifarious world, it’s hard to find new music, playlists have not solved this problem, they’ve only confused it, never mind being imperfect. You want something new, but not finding an entrance point you give up and play the oldies, or just watch streaming television, but when you encounter something new you dig you’re elated.

Not that “Shock Doctrine” is new, the original studio version was cut in the aughts. But it’s just a blueprint for what’s come after.

Now looking at the SiriusXM readout I saw that this version of “Shock Doctrine” was performed live on the 9th of October, of 2021! Needless to say, it’s not on Spotify, probably never will be. And it wasn’t easily searchable on YouTube, but going through a million sites I found it. Which kind of amazed me.

Now the truth is it was the groove of this live performance of “Shock Doctrine” that got me. Not only did I feel comfortable, I melded with the sound, I was happy. This was not exterior, but interior. It pierced my body right down to my soul. I arrived at my destination yet I could not turn it off, I didn’t want the experience to end.

And then I started thinking about the experience, being at the gig, having the sound wash over me. And it’s only about the sound, not about the recognition of the hit, and every night the set list is different, the set is not set in amber.

So tune in at about 1:34:25 to hear what hooked me. The descending notes. Over and over again. Hypnotic.

Now this is not the only sound I like. I like acoustic singer/songwriter as well as metal. But this electric/synthetic sound is one that, when done right, resonates with me.

Now finding the concert online, I let the show play on beyond “Shock Doctrine,” and it was just as enticing, I became unmoored, on a journey. And sure, the beat is important, but it does not dominate, there are elements of melody, despite not being a hokey pop confection.

Hell, listening to STS9’s “Shock Doctrine” just makes me FEEL GOOD!

Trailer: https://bit.ly/3EZMSTp

If you want to detach from cyberspace and dive into real life…

Streaming television has been a boon for documentaries. Actually, credit Sheila Nevins at HBO, she nurtured the trend and now Netflix and other outlets have maxed it out.

Used to be you had to go to the theatre to see documentaries. Of course there were some on PBS, but their number was de minimis, as was the breadth of their subjects. Used to be a special treat. You read about a doc and you went to see it and then you were part of the discussion, as it wove its way through the public. The best example? “Capturing the Friedmans.” I remember leaving the theatre with more questions than answers, needing to discuss it, thinking about it for days. And then there was “Sherman’s March,” which I loved, and is recognized as one of the greats, but most people still haven’t seen it. Then again, you’ve got to appreciate the journey of a young man unsure about love searching for direction and his personal truth. And that’s what appeals to me most. The interior. What are people thinking. I must say, when I scan the landscape I don’t find many people I can identify with, I’m always looking to make connection.

Not that I have any children, never mind ones adopted from China.

That’s the story of “Found.” Three Chinese children, cousins, adopted at birth, in search of their story.

The three are so normal. Not that they don’t experience racism. But they always wonder…where do they come from? When the doctor asks about familial diseases there’s only a question mark, but now there’s DNA testing.

I haven’t done it. I’m unafraid of finding half-siblings, my father wasn’t that kind of guy. And my older sister looks like my father and my younger sister and I look just like my mother so there’s no doubt about our biological lineage. It’s just that…I don’t really want to make contact with any found relatives. Does that make me a bad person? Maybe it’s growing up in a female dominated extended family, being the only boy. All grown up I can now see I could have said no, but I never did. I remember spending Thanksgiving with my mother’s brother’s family in Stamford on a rainy day, wearing an itchy turtleneck, staring out the window. Who was I gonna talk to? Then again, in my family, you hewed the line. Not that it was narrowly rigid, but when my parents laid down restrictions, insisted on behaviors, you obeyed or paid the price, which started out as the hand and then evolved to the belt and then the hairbrush.

So, you’ve got three Chinese girls in different situations. One, raised as Jewish going to a Jewish school. Another the daughter of a single parent. Another the daughter of divorced parents. In Seattle/Phoenix, Oklahoma and Nashville. And on one level all teenagers are the same, on another every family is different. So you’ve got these girls deposited in life situations they had no part in choosing and that’s the world they live in. Strange.

Not that they’re all not happy with their families. Then again, what else do they know?

So, they go in search of their roots.

They employ Liu Hao in Beijing to excavate their story.

Hao is the star of the film. As one teen immediately says upon seeing her, she is beautiful. But she’s dedicated to being a genealogist. In America, if you’re beautiful, you’re supposed to be an actress, or an influencer. But Liu is college educated and loves her job, doing her best to make connections.

Liu spreads the word, seeding pictures into the landscape, and then waits to see what comes back. She gets responses from families that gave up their girls under the one child per family law. And when she goes to visit them, the interest and then pain they express…whew! Can you imagine giving up your baby at birth? Who then lives in an orphanage in some cases over a year waiting for adoption?

Yes, Liu also researches where the babies were left and what orphanages they were in, and even the “aunties” that took care of them.

So on one hand you’ve got the DNA search.

On another the contradiction between the girls’ modern lives in the U.S. and their parents’ less than modern ones in China, and…

There are so many differences. One of the Chinese women predicts that all the adopted girls will have long hair, which they do, that’s the American way. But not in China, most of the women have short-cropped hair.

And in the U.S. today China has been demonized. Yet so many of the products we use, like our computers, are manufactured there. To see the footage of cities and rural areas is utterly fascinating. These are people, just like you and me, speaking a different language, having a different life, but at the core the same. Makes me want to go. Then again, I want to go everywhere and meet everyone.

So the girls venture to China…

This is not a Netflix extravaganza, this is a movie, just a tad longer than an hour and a half. And “Found” is not sensationalistic, like “Tiger King.” No, “Found” is about regular life. In reality, the three Chinese girls just want to be happy Americans. But I resonated with Liu Hao the most. How much can she be making being a genealogist, not much, but she loves it! If you’re educated today in America, you’re expected to pursue the money. Wasn’t like that when I went to college, my parents didn’t care what I studied as long as I passed. College was about broadening your horizons, it was not a finishing school preparing you for the working world.

But today if you don’t go for the bucks you can quickly fall behind, and you don’t want to live in America without bucks, you want that profession, otherwise… It’s the lower, uneducated classes who are taking risks, making music, going on reality television shows…sure, some wealthy, educated people participate too, but it’s a lark, not everything if it doesn’t work out, and it almost never does, they get back on track while those of the lower classes fall back into…unfulfilling, low-paid jobs and maybe drink and do drugs to numb the pain.

The longer you live, the more you realize so much of what you’ve been told is b.s. Like achievement, moving up the ladder. At the end of the day there is no summation, life is not a test, you don’t get a grade, in truth you grade yourself, and the sooner you wake up to this the happier you will be.

Liu Hao loves talking to the people. Getting their stories. Those who abandoned their children.

That’s what I love best, getting people’s stories.

And there are plenty of stories in “Found.”

I really dug it.

Who would you pick to be the drummer of the fantasy band?

This is not necessarily the best drummer, but the best drummer for a BAND!

Tune in today, Novemver 9th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863

Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: siriusxm.us/HearLefsetzLive

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: siriusxm.us/LefsetzLive