Fast Company September 2019

new vantage points

Five years ago, Fast Company published a profile of entrepreneur Tristan Walker, a Foursquare veteran who was building a shaving and skincare business called Walker & Company. Written by contributor J.J. McCorvey, it was a candid portrayal of an African American founder trying to make his way in Silicon Valley, a place with a grim record on racial inclusion, despite the fact that so many of the iconic companies founded there consider themselves to be models of meritocracy. McCorvey revealed the complexities of navigating Sand Hill Road while black: Did the venture capitalists throwing “entrepreneur-in-residence” offers at Walker really value his potential as a founder, or were they looking for a quick way to diversify their ranks? For Walker, was it reckless of him, after earning a Stanford MBA, to…

elon versus the world

Yo Elon, you okay? Asking for a friend. I think you know her: the planet. Over the past year, Tesla cofounder and CEO Elon Musk’s leadership has been as erratic as his company’s performance. He announced that Tesla would close its stores, only to reverse that decision less than two weeks later. He promised for almost a year that the “Enhanced Summon” feature, which would allow drivers to have their Tesla pick them up curbside, was imminent, only to acknowledge at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in June that “there’s a lot of complexity in parking lots.” Perhaps most important, after months of stressing that Tesla must become profitable as a matter of “life or death,” Musk changed his stance yet again, saying that growth is paramount and profitability can wait. This…

tesla leads its rivals…

360K–400K Vehicles Tesla expects to deliver to customers worldwide in 2019 50% Percentage of Tesla deliveries in Q1 2019 that took place in the final 10 days of the quarter 1 Rank of Tesla’s Model 3 in small- to midsize luxury-vehicle U.S. sales in Q1 2019 60% Percentage lead over the No. 2 best seller, Mercedes C-Class 61% Percentage decrease of Tesla’s Q1 2019 sales compared with Q4 2018 63K Vehicles Tesla produced in Q1 201 $62.71 BILLION Tesla market cap on December 10, 2018, the day after Musk appeared on 60 Minutes mocking the SEC’s monitoring of his public statements $31.89 BILLION Tesla market cap on June 3, 2019, after six months of chaotic management, Twitter drama, and concerns about the company’s viability…

here comes tesla’s competition

Hyundai Motor Group The Korean automaker has become the most aggressive traditional Asian player in the EV space, and it just partnered with Croatian electric-sportscar maker Rimac on a new model. Q1 Sales:* 21,148 Goals: Spend $40 billion to build its own electric platform so it can launch 44 EV models by 2025 BMW Launched the i3 in 2013, but it’s always been an odd duck—it doesn’t look like a BMW—and the company has been criticized for not exploring new business models. Sales: 9,227 Goals: 12 fully electric models by 2025 Volkswagen Aggressively boosting production of new models, and both Porsche Taycan and VW’s ID.3 have racked up tens of thousands of preorders. Sales: 5,811** Goals: 70 models and 22 million cars produced by 2028 GM First rolled out the Chevy Bolt in late 2016, to good reviews, though now the company intends…

heads of the class

Tech billionaires are pouring millions of dollars into education causes every year in attempts to revamp schools, build a better workforce, and even win over America’s youth. Here’s a look at their signature education projects, and who stands to benefit from them. Marc Benioff $100,000 The amount that 21 middle school principals in the San Francisco Unified School District each received annually since 2013 from Benioff’s spin-out, Salesforce.org, to support “innovation” as they see fit Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan Through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Facebook CEO and his wife back Summit Learning, a digital platform that manages students’ tasks and progress—and is subject to a growing backlash. Who’s using the platform: 100 BROOKLYN STUDENTS STAGED A WALKOUT IN 2018 OVER THE PLATFORM’S INEFFECTIVENESS. Michael and Susan Dell 32.2 MILLION Students reached by Ed-Fi Alliance, a seven-year-old nonprofit…

simulation is a game-changer in the real world

More than a decade ago, a serious car crash nearly destroyed one young Australian woman’s jaw, breaking it in three places. A series of agonizing surgeries failed to reduce her unrelenting pain, and in 2017 her jaw began locking up to the point she could barely eat. Her oral surgeon recognized that the problem was a failed bone graft. She needed a new bone created from scratch using 3D-printing technology. Craniomaxillofacial surgical device designer OMX Solutions turned to ANSYS's engineering simulation software to measure, design, and then produce a new piece of simulated bone to be surgically implanted. The implant surgery took less than an hour, thanks to a perfect fit, and minutes after the anesthesia wore off, the patient was able to talk pain-free. The life-changing surgery was only possible because…