[AR] Re: VSS Unity powered flight
- From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Arocket List <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2018 23:53:50 -0400 (EDT)
On Sat, 7 Apr 2018, Paul Mueller wrote:
When I wondered how Rand could definitively say that VG will never be a
commercial success, I admit I was thinking in terms of whether revenue
could cover operational costs and generate a cashflow profit, not
thinking about return on investment for the development costs...
Yeah, "commercial success" is more often used to refer to the state of the
company itself -- whether it's profitable, growing, etc. -- than to
whether the investors are doing well from it. There are plenty of
commercial successes which don't make investors especially delighted, e.g.
a lot of commercial airlines.
The ultimate example, of course, is companies like Iridium, which have
been through -- to swipe a phrase from the late Jordin Kare -- the
"neutron mortgage", Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which (typically) wipes out the
investors but leaves the company standing.
Henry
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