LOS ANGELES — Two Los Angeles startups are racing to develop tubes to zip people at speeds of hundreds of miles an hour between cities — the so-called Hyperloop.
The plan was hatched by entrepreneur Elon Musk. Two years ago, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, too busy with other matters to develop the one form of transportation that sounds more amazing than self-driving cars, opened up his plans and invited the wider world to pick up the project.
Two of the companies that took up the offer — Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Inc. and Hyperloop Technologies Inc. — have the same goal but their approach to management could hardly be more different. In a sense, it’s also a race to prove which management style works best.
HTT is the radical company, taking a crowdsource approach to its Hyperloop design and development by tapping as many bright minds as possible. Most of its 420 workers serve part-time, as online contractors without salaries.
HT is more traditional. More than 50 full-time employees work at its three-acre campus. It’s raising large sums of cash from Silicon Valley venture capital titans and attracting big-name advisors, including a former President Barack Obama campaign manager and a former Snapchat executive.
“I’m a firm believer that this is going to take amazing full-time talent, resources and capital,” Chief Executive Rob Lloyd said.
Who progresses fastest will determine the future of the Hyperloop. And HTT’s unconventional structure, if it works, could become a model for other industries. Or it could flop, as just another expensive, one-time hobby project.
To HTT, collaboration is the best way forward.
“We weren’t understanding the position of Elon: Why would a man with the vision not do it himself?” said Bibop Gresta, the company’s chief operating officer. “The answer came immediately after: To do this, you need the best minds in the planet. You’ve never had the best engineers from NASA working with the best engineers from Tesla, Boeing and so on.”
But first, what are Hyperloops? They are transportation tubes, in which people and goods would travel hundreds of miles in train-car-sized capsules, propelled by electricity, magnetism and air pressure. The tubes would suck the capsules, suspended in air, almost like a vacuum cleaner. Travel time from Los Angeles to San Francisco? Half an hour, according to Musk.
With renewable energy sources and the novel design, Hyperloops promise to be more resource-efficient and faster overall than car, plane or train. Musk contends even electric cars and high-speed rail would be outmatched — if the idea works.
To prove the theory, HTT plans to construct a test tube in Quay Valley, a solar-powered community being built near Kettleman City, Calif., about 165 miles northwest of LA.
Within the first six months of the project launching online, more than 200 online applicants sought to help HTT.
Building a flexible workforce was the idea of HTT Chief Executive Dirk Ahlborn, 38, a German-born entrepreneur who’s long advocated crowdsourced, online management. The people he chose work at NASA, SpaceX, Tesla, Cisco, Boeing, Google, Microsoft and other tech and engineering companies. A few ask permission before accepting the side gig, but no outside companies have raised concerns, Ahlborn said.
People are arranged into teams of five to nine. Four teams tackle pillar designs. Five study power sources such as solar and nuclear. Several address comfort, storage and assembly of passenger capsules.
The workforce is forgoing paychecks in favor of stock options that vest over several years. They’ll have the chance to purchase HTT shares at a discount, perhaps as early as this fall. Amid soaring valuations of technology startups, workers are gambling that the venture is big enough to produce future riches.
For Ahlborn and Gresta, the system is valuable, too. Budget constraints often require companies to reject high-caliber candidates. But HTT can tap alternates, even if for limited durations.
HTT is hiring some full-time managers as the construction phase nears. Employee No. 1, Yayun Zhou, 24, graduated with a master’s degree in architecture from UCLA in June. She had worked on the Hyperloop station design in architect Craig Hodgetts’ class. Now, she’s collaborating with people worldwide.
HTT says the Quay Valley test will cost $150 million. Sponsors, venture capitalists, foreign governments and individual investors could be funding sources. HTT plans to recoup some costs by considering how every piece of a Hyperloop could make money. Columns, for one, could be outfitted with solar panels or billboards.
“This process is taking advantage of the Internet, reaching the best people wherever they are,” Ahlborn said. “For us, it’s, ‘Are you passionate about the project? OK, come help us.’ “
