It’s understandable why companies try and sometimes succeed at creating a reality distortion field about the future success of their products. Management is asking Wall Street to allow them to make this huge investment (in their own salaries and R&D empire), and they need to promise a corresponding huge return. Wall Street always opportunities to jack up profits in the short term, and management needs to tell a compelling story about ROI that is a few years in the future to convince them it’s worth waiting. Intel also wanted to encourage adoption by OEMs and software companies, and making them think that they need to support Itanium soon could have been a necessary condition to make that a reality.
I don’t know what factors would make IEA underestimate solar adoption.
> I don’t know what factors would make IEA underestimate solar adoption.
The IEA is an energy industry group from back in the days where "energy" primarily meant fossil fuels (i.e. the 1970s), and they've never entirely gotten away from that mentality.
There are trillions of dollars on the line in convincing people not to buy solar panels or other renewable sources.
Remember all the conspiracy theories about how someone invented a free energy machine and the government had to cover it up? Well they're actually true - with the caveat that the free energy machine only works in direct sunlight.
How often are they reality distortion fields vs leadership trying to put on a face to rally the troops and investors? How do you do the second without the first?
Something I ponder from time to time, while trying to figure out how to be less of a cynic and more of a leader.
> Management is asking Wall Street to allow them to make this huge investment (in their own salaries and R&D empire), and they need to promise a corresponding huge return. Wall Street always opportunities to jack up profits in the short term, and management needs to tell a compelling story about ROI that is a few years in the future to convince them it’s worth waiting
Explain Amazon, Uber, Spotify, Tesla, and other publicly listed businesses that had low or even negative profit margins for many years.
The idea that Wall Street only rewards short term profit margins is laughable considering who is at the top of the market cap rankings.
I don’t know what factors would make IEA underestimate solar adoption.