In the late 90s the blackberry pagers took over the finance world, and eventually their phones dominated the business landscape. Then 2008 happened, first was the iPhone and the financial crisis and then the CEO thought they could ignore competition.
2008 was important because it showed the bankers the limitations of the blackberry, First the web browser was terrible and more importantly your employer knew exactly what you did in every minute of use. Many bankers were fired for cause because of how they used their phone, maybe not appropriate but a convenient way of kicking out bankers. In 2007 every banker on Wall Street or in the City was using a blackberry as his constant companion, by 2009 the blackberry was often spending the evening and weekend in the office, as most bankers had a second private phone with great applications.
The crime that Blackberry committed was then try to emulate the iphone badly with terrible products that didn't function. They owners and leaders became complacent assuming that bankers would not move away. A very bad call.
Tesla was the end all and be all of the electric car market until 2023 when new offering was made available. Tesla biggest error was to promise, and sell features that 5 years on still don't work. Several friends bought the self drive 10,000 package and it still doesn't work. Since 2023 Tesla has been promising a cheap electric car..2025 and no trace of anything. FYI BYD launched a $15,000 electric car two weeks ago. Range is limited, but its $15,000.
Mr Musk's biggest problem over the past five years. is not keeping promises. The promises are the reason that Tesla's stock is still trading at a 190x level compared to Ford at 8x. At one point the promises have to be delivered. The Cybertruk was pitched to a segment of the market that doesn't buy electric vehicles. Over the past 100 days, Musk has gone out of his way to antagonize his primary market - rich guilt ridden upper middle class democrats. He also managed to piss off the rest of the planet by associating his brand with the President of the United States.
This indicates that Musk is disconnected from reality, which is partly the reason he was so successful in creating the Tesla to start with and Space X, which has reduced the cost of cargo launching by nearly 90%.
However, the shine is slowly coming off, sales are dropping fast globally for the Tesla something will have to be done there soon, my guess is that Musk will take a back seat, and only remain as a board member.
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