As an enterprise software developer, who gets pitches constantly from stuff we "need" I'd love to hear this elaboration

Haha me too, I was like geez I hate those guys, they come in in teams of 4, the only reason we're listening to them is because they partied with my boss,

Grill them, a year later sign up for something we 10% need lol

it must be frustrating for you to be so much smarter than everyone, yet still be unable to make any decisions.

The reality is that folks like "the_falcon" are the main reason why the sales cycles are longer. If they wield any amount of technical sway, it becomes orders of magnitude tougher to close a sale when they lay down deliberate & contrived (test) barriers. Oh, and they love using the POC technique to waste your time either solving their problem for free or finding out that they didn't really have their requirements fully understood.

Coming from the other side, the reason the POC is so important is because the reality is that we need to get the tech into the hands of the engineers so they can implement it, break it, and then run it for 6 months and troubleshoot it before they know if it's A) any good to begin with and B) a good fit for the problem they want to solve, and they have to do that with your product and whatever competitors are nearby in the Gartner MQ.

I know the sales guys work for their money, but I don't think the above is alot to ask for what could potentially be a quarter of a million dollars in recurring annual revenue.

ha ha! I get it! Cause the job title you have determines your personality and style and ethics and morals. And all sales guys are slimy, not like us pure, rational engineers.

This is not Musks project, this is a collective of unpaid academics backed by a kickstarter knockoff and a PR firm in El Segundo

"Now, the company Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Inc. (which is not affiliated with Musk or Tesla) "

Musk is building his own "Separately, Musk has said he plans to build his own 5-mile test track, likely in Texas, for companies and students to test out potential Hyperloop designs."

They are going to do what they did to my friends project. Parade the techies around, get it funded, and then "lose" half the money "he 5-mile test track is estimated to cost about $100 million, which Hyperloop Transportation Technologies hopes to pay for with its initial public offering (IPO) later this year, according to Navigant's blog. "

And what the heck is navigent?

From the article "Separately, Musk has said he plans to build his own 5-mile test track, likely in Texas, for companies and students to test out potential Hyperloop designs."

Exactly, this was a PR Release for a hyperloop cash grab in hopes they IPO

The wording of this article is interesting. I personally know the people behind this project. This is from a PR firm, and kickstarter knockoff who 'lost' a lot of my friends startups money

This company (Hyperloop Transportation Technologies) got no funding, Hyperloop Technologies did ($8.5m).(which is in reality a PR firm called jumpstarter pr in El Segundo)

They are hoping to raise the funding at IPO

"Now, the company Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Inc. (which is not affiliated with Musk or Tesla) has inked a deal with landowners in central California to build the world's first Hyperloop test track"

"The 5-mile test track is estimated to cost about $100 million, which Hyperloop Transportation Technologies hopes to pay for with its initial public offering (IPO) later this year, according to Navigant's blog."

Musk is building his own Separately, Musk has said he plans to build his own 5-mile test track, likely in Texas, for companies and students to test out potential Hyperloop designs.