Los Angeles Times - 16.11.2019

C4 LATIMES.COM/BUSINESS

Vegas Convention Center.
It’s the first big test of
whether the whimsical Bor-
ing Co. can actually com-
plete a large-scale commer-
cial undertaking.
Boring Co.’s $48.7-million
subterranean transit sys-
tem in Las Vegas is its only
major project so far, outside
of a nearly milelong test tun-
nel in Hawthorne. Pit con-
struction and other prelimi-
nary work on the project be-
gan two months ago. If all
goes according to plan,
starting in January 2021, Las
Vegas convention-goers will
be able to board Teslas run-
ning along a throughway
buried underground and be
hurtled halfway along the
sprawling complex in just
one minute.
So far, despite Boring
Co.’s high profile, Davis has
largely stayed out of the
spotlight. Through a
spokesman, he declined
multiple interview requests
for this article. But he’s a key
force within the company.
“He has the ability to inspire
people,” said Mike
Wongkaew, who was a Bor-
ing Co. engineer until late
last year. “He also rolls up his
sleeves and helps out.”
Last year, as the com-
pany raced to finish its
Hawthorne test tunnel,
Wongkaew said, Davis was
among those helping to
carry supplies including ply-
wood frames deep into the
tunnel.
Colleagues describe him
as a sharp engineer who
both provides broad leader-
ship and tackles detailed en-
gineering questions. “He’s a
technical guy,” said Juan
Reyes, former acting admin-
istrator of the Federal Rail-
road Administration and
now a partner at law firm
Seyfarth Shaw. “They really
count on him to resolve is-
sues.”
And at Boring Co. today,
there is no shortage of is-
sues. Although the company
has made progress in Las
Vegas, two more of its major
projects have been stymied.
In Washington, a proposed
link from the city to Balti-
more is mired in regulatory
review. And in Chicago,
where former Mayor Rahm
Emmanuel promised
speedy action on a proposed
downtown-to-O’Hare shut-
tle, the mayor’s unexpected
retirement threw the plans
into limbo.
His successor, Mayor
Lori Lightfoot, told the Chi-
cago Sun-Times in June that
Musk’s promise to build the
tunnel without city money
was a “total fantasy” and
that the project didn’t rise
“to the top of our list” of pri-
orities.
Other critics have ques-
tioned both the safety of
Boring Co. tunnels and the
company’s lack of experi-
ence building large-scale in-
frastructure. But it’s a new-
comer’s fresh thinking, the
company contends, that has
allowed it to develop tech-
nology to construct tunnels
faster and more cheaply
than the competition. Bor-
ing Co.’s champions believe
that combination will make
a new transportation future
possible. Now, in Las Vegas,
with two parallel 0.8-mile
tunnels under the conven-
tion center, Davis is going to
get the chance to prove it.
Davis started working
with Musk in 2003 as one of
the first hires at Musk’s
Space Exploration Technol-
ogies Corp. With his twin
master’s degrees in particle
physics and aerospace engi-
neering, Davis developed a
reputation at SpaceX for re-
lentlessness. “He’s been
working 16 hours a day every
day for years,” one SpaceX

engineer told Bloomberg

journalist Ashlee Vance in

his book, “Elon Musk.” “He

gets more done than 11 peo-

ple working together.”

He’s also performed feats

of engineering. At one point,

Musk assigned Davis the

near-impossible task of

making a part that cost

$120,000 with a budget of

$5,000. Davis toiled for

months and eventually

came up with a way to craft

the part for $3,900, Vance

wrote. When Davis sent

Musk a lengthy message

with the good news, outlin-

ing the process and savings,

Musk sent a one-word email

back: “OK.” Davis now jokes

about the incident, but it re-

veals a hard-headedness

from Musk, a famously

tough boss, as well as Davis’

ability to handle it. Davis is

one of Musk’s longer-serving

executives.

At SpaceX, Davis spent a

few years working in differ-

ent locations, including

Omelek Island in the Mar-

shall Islands, where the

company once had launch

facilities, as well as its

Southern California head-

quarters. Then, a little over a

decade ago, he moved to

Washington to open the

company’s D.C. office.

There, missing the type of

frozen yogurt he’d grown ac-

customed to in California, he

decided to learn to make it

himself via trial and error,

according to an interview

with a local radio station. As

a side project, he opened his

own yogurt store, Mr. Yo-

gato, in the city’s Dupont

Circle neighborhood, three

months before the first suc-

cessful launch of SpaceX’s

Falcon 1 vehicle in 2008. Mr.

Yogato customers who an-

swered trivia questions cor-

rectly got 10% off, as did any-

one who could stump Davis

on a “Seinfeld” question, ac-

cording to the “Rules of

Yogato” posted on the shop’s

website. Those who came

dressed as tennis star Bjorn

Borg got 25% off.

This burst of entrepre-

neurship unfolded as Davis,

still at SpaceX, got to work

on yet another degree: a doc-

torate in economics at

George Mason University,

where he wrote his 2010 dis-

sertation on U.S. currency

debasement. In the preface,

he noted that he hoped to

one day open a restaurant

called Little Yohai, perhaps

finding inspiration in Morrie

Robert Yohai, creator of the

snack Cheeze Doodles.

Instead, he settled for

opening a bar, Thomas

Foolery, which became one

of the first restaurants in

Washington to accept bit-

coin. The bar was stuffed

with “gimmick upon gim-

mick,” wrote the Washing-

ton Post, including “angry

hour” discounts for patrons

who shouted their drink or-

ders. It also served comfort

food such as grilled cheese

sandwiches, cookies with ice

cream and spiked versions

of milkshakes. “Basically, it

takes you back to being a

kid, but with alcohol,” one

reviewer wrote on Yelp.

Today, Davis is no longer

a restaurateur. Thomas

Foolery closed in 2015, and he

sold Mr. Yogato last year for

$1, after holding a contest to

select the new owner. Now,

Davis seems to have found a

creative outlet on a much

larger scale.

In 2016, Musk started

Boring Co., which he tapped

Davis to lead. Onstage at a

presentation in Los Angeles

last year, Musk and Davis

joked about their plans for

the company’s waste prod-

uct of tunneling sludge.

Davis deferred to Musk,

laughing at his jokes without

seeming obsequious, and a

couple of times gently

nudged him from one topic

to the next. Their easy rap-

port may help explain Davis’

longer-than-usual tenure as

a top Musk lieutenant.

At the event, Musk said

he was contemplating sell-

ing Boring Co. bricks made

from dug-up dirt for life-size

Lego kits, or perhaps using

them to create an Egyptian-

style monument. Davis re-

sponded by telling Musk the

company would build him a

pyramid. (So far, Boring Co.

has built only the Monty Py-

thon watchtower.) While the

two men talked, between

them, a snail crawled around

in a pineapple-shaped ter-

rarium, meant to symbolize

the slow pace of competi-

tors’ tunneling equipment.

Some in the industry are

not amused. In Las Vegas,

Mayor Carolyn Goodman

took a stand against the

Boring Co. project there, cit-

ing the company’s track

record of completing zero

commercial projects so far.

But this spring, Davis spoke

at a Las Vegas Convention

and Visitors Authority meet-

ing about the firm’s vision

for the transit system. The

group outvoted Goodman

and approved the tunnels.

Wooing skeptical public

officials has become an inte-

gral part of Davis’ job as he

fights for the requisite ap-

provals and contracts in

places such as Chicago and

Baltimore. It’s a task he was

familiar with from his time

at SpaceX in Washington,

negotiating with agencies

including the Federal Avia-

tion Administration.

“He was always trying to

adjust things so the govern-

ment would ultimately ap-

prove it,” said former rail-

road administrator Reyes,

who got to know Davis

through Boring Co.’s efforts

to navigate the intricate fed-

eral review process required

for the Washington-area

tunnel.

Yet in one way, Davis’ role

as a government liaison is an

odd fit. He has served on the

board of advisors of the At-

las Society, according to its

website. The group is dedi-

cated to exploring the phi-

losophy of Ayn Rand, known

for equating government bu-

reaucrats with “looters and

moochers.” According to

one 2012 report on a lecture

he gave at the Atlas Society,

Davis can quote from Rand’s

influential novel “Atlas

Shrugged.” He also appears

in the background of a 2012

movie based on the book.

Whatever his literary

preferences, regulators will

probably look more kindly

on Boring Co. if Davis can

pull off the Las Vegas project

without a hitch. Plenty of

other cities could use a low-

cost transit option. And Bor-

ing Co. is likely to bid on

other projects as they come

up around the country.

One contender: San Jose,

which has sent engineers to

meet with Boring Co. and

earlier this year put out a re-

quest for information on two

projects. One would connect

Diridon Station downtown

to the airport, and the other

would run along the Stevens

Creek corridor, a busy

thoroughfare that connects

downtown to Cupertino,

about a dozen miles west. It

was Boring Co., said San Jo-

se Mayor Sam Liccardo, that

inspired the city to believe it

could attract relatively low-

cost, high-tech proposals.

If Boring Co. lives up to

its promises in congested ur-

ban areas around the U.S.,

its technology could one day

outdo the fervently held

techie dream of building

cars that fly, Davis has said.

“Flying cars ... they don’t

really exist,” he said during

the L.A. presentation with

Musk. “Tunnels do exist.

And are very buildable.”

McBride writes for

Bloomberg.

‘He has the ability to inspire people’

[Davis,from C1]

A $48.7-MILLIONsubterranean transit system in Las Vegas is Boring Co’s only major project so far, outside of its Hawthorne tunnel.

John LocherAssociated Press

BORING CO.created a media sensation last year by selling flamethrowers and

building an actual watchtower as part of an elaborate Monty Python joke.

Robyn BeckPool photo

language.
“There is nothing fair
about taking a copyrighted
work verbatim and using it
for the same purpose and
function as the original in a
competing platform,” the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Federal Circuit said in a 3-
ruling.
At issue are pre-written
directions known as applica-
tion program interfaces, or
APIs, which provide instruc-
tions for such functions as
connecting to the internet or
accessing certain types of
files. By using those short-
cuts, programmers don’t
have to write code from
scratch for every function in
their software, or change it
for every type of device.
Oracle says the Java

APIs are freely available to

those who want to build ap-

plications that run on com-

puters and mobile devices.

But the company says it re-

quires a license to use the

shortcuts for a competing

platform or to embed them

in an electronic device.

“We are confident the

Supreme Court will pre-

serve long established copy-

right protections for original

software and reject Google’s

continuing efforts to avoid

responsibility for copying

Oracle’s innovations,” said

Deborah Hellinger, an Ora-

cle spokeswoman. “In the

end, a finding that Google

infringed Oracle’s original

works will promote, not sti-

fle, future innovation.”

Oracle says Google was

facing an existential threat

because its search engine —

the source of its advertising

revenue — wasn’t being used

on smartphones. Google

bought the Android mobile

operating system in 2005

and copied Java code to at-

tract developers but refused

to take a license, Oracle con-

tends.

“Naturally, it inflicted in-

calculable market harm on

Oracle,” Oracle told the

Supreme Court. “This is the

epitome of copyright in-

fringement, whether the

work is a news report, a ma-

nual, or computer software.”

Android generated $

billion for Google between

2007 and 2016, according to

Oracle court filings. Google

said it welcomed the court’s

decision to review the case.

“We hope that the court

reaffirms the importance of

software interoperability in

American competitiveness,”

said Google’s chief legal offi-

cer, Kent Walker. “Devel-

opers should be able to cre-

ate applications across plat-

forms and not be locked into

one company’s software.”

At the Supreme Court,

Google argues that software

interfaces are categorically

ineligible for copyright pro-

tection. Google also con-

tends that the Federal Cir-

cuit restricted the “fair use”

defense to copyright in-

fringement so much as to

make it impossible for a de-

veloper to reuse an interface

in a new application.

“What Oracle is seeking

here is nothing less than

complete control over a

community of developers

that have invested in learn-

ing the free and open Java

language,” Google argued.

The Trump administra-

tion is backing Oracle at the

Supreme Court and urged

the justices to reject the ap-

peal. Microsoft Corp.,

Mozilla Corp. and Red Hat

Inc. are among the compa-

nies that pushed for the

Supreme Court to give

Google a hearing.

The appeal encompasses

two decisions by the Federal

Circuit in the six-year battle.

The first is a 2014 decision

that the programming lan-

guage can be copyrighted,

and the second is a 2018

ruling that overturned the

jury’s verdict of fair use. The

Supreme Court had previ-

ously rejected Google’s peti-

tion over the 2014 decision.

If Oracle wins, the case

will go back to a federal jury

in California, where the only

issue will be how much

Google should pay in dam-

ages. Should Google win on

either question, that would

end the case.

Stohr and Decker write for

Bloomberg.

Supreme Court to take up Google-Oracle clash

[Copyright, from C1]

‘What Oracle is

seeking here is

nothing less than

complete control

over a community

of developers.’

— Google