How It Started on 2023-09-28

End of September 2023, Linda Yaccarino, who is officially the CEO of Twitter, said the company would be profitable “in early ‘24”. Source: The Verge

How I See It Going

To her credit, she said “in early ‘24.” She didn’t specify if she meant 2024 or 3024. Now profitability claims are a bit tricky. It is possible to use accounting methods and financial techniques to temporarily boost the profits of companies. So I think this claim is 99% unlikely, but not 100% impossible. Long term profits? To my chagrin I must admit that Twitter still has a possibility of achieving that goal.

How It Actually Went on 2024-04-02

Unfortunately, I have no official news to share about Linda Yaccarino’s promise that Twitter would be profitable by now. They say no news is good news. I say no news is a clue that profitability was not achieved.

How It Started on 2023-07-27

The Full Self Driving story started back in 2013, but I’m not going that far back in time, partly because my own recollection of events is fuzzy about what Elon claimed back then. I’m starting from this year, and Elon declared that with v12, Full Self Driving was going out of beta (therefore implying for the general public that it will indeed be true Full Self Driving). Source: Electrek

How I See It Going

Full Self Driving will not be out of beta in 2023.

How It Is Going as of 2023-09-28

As of 2023-09-28, your Tesla still can’t fetch your bread and newspaper for you.

In October 2016, Tesla released a promotional video entitled “Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Teslas.” It was later admitted by employees that the video had been very carefully prepared and edited. Source : Tesla’s Director of Autopilot software as reported by The Verge

How It Actually Went on 2024-01-01

I am shocked, Full Self Driving was not available in 2023. I mean, this despite the fact that it was never “Full Self Driving” in the first place. I am shocked. Shocked.

How It Started on 2023-09-12

During the iPhone event of September 2023, Apple made a movie claiming it plans to be carbon neutral by 2030. Source: as of September 2023, it’s right there on their YouTube channel.

How I See It Going

They will not reach that goal, not by a long shot. When you are one of the biggest producers of electronics on the planet, it is impossible, especially when you are (mostly) against the right to repair and design devices with very low repairability scores. It’s wishful thinking at best and pure PR bullshit at worst. At some point, the movie will be discreetly removed from Apple’s materials.

How It Is Going

Not there yet.

How It Actually Went

Not there yet.

How It Started on 2023-04-19

During the Q1 2023 earnings call on April 19, 2023, Elon Musk announced that the first Cybertruck deliveries would take place in Q3 2023. Technically, that means September 30th latest. Source: Electrek

How I See It Going

Nope. Won’t happen.

How It Is Going as of 2023-09-27

Between Q1 and Q3 Elon complained that building Cybertrucks was hard. Source: Ars Technica

How It Actually Went on 2023-09-30

Here we are. To nobody’s surprise, Q3 went by and not a single Cybertruck was delivered to customers. My bet is that during the next earnings call, Elon will claim that the first Cybertrucks will be delivered sometime in 2024. At one point he will complain again that making Cybertrucks is hard.

How it is going is based on a simple idea: corporations make a lot of promises. Carbon neutrality. Inclusivity. Responsibility. They promise to revolutionize the world with millions of robotaxis and full self-driving. They say they’re going to make smartphones obsolete with a little something in your pocket. Having observed this game for several years, I can say this: the main goal of many (but not all) of these press releases is to (a) get free publicity and (b) reduce the psychological guilt of potential buyers.

This is how I got the idea of “How it is going.” I’m going to track the press releases promises of several companies:

• What they promised, when, and for which deadline.
• What my prognosis is: from “yep totally going to do it” to “utter bullshit.”
• We reach the set deadline I’m going to document what they actually achieved.

There are the companies that are true to their word. There are the companies that actually mean well but set goals that they know are unattainable. And there are the companies that plainly lie. When possible, I intend to make a distinction between companies based on their past track record.

The irony is that I have no idea how this project will be going. This is just a start. I know I need to make a few changes to the architecture of my blog to add tags per company, dates, etc., but I think an imperfect start is better than waiting forever to implement the project. So let the good times roll!