Day: August 18, 2025

• Tesla’s first car, the 2008 Roadster, was pivotal in establishing the company’s market presence.
• Andrew Lambrecht drove one and noted how features like the lack of power steering stand out.
• Overall, the Roadster demonstrated that electric cars could be fast, efficient, and stylish.

In 2006, Tesla CEO Elon Musk published a blog post titled “The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (just between you and me).” Tesla hadn’t built any cars yet, but the post outlined its planned strategy for success.

“So, in short, the master plan is: 1. Build {a} sports car; 2. Use that money to build an affordable car; 3. Use that money to build an even more affordable car; 4. While doing above, also provide zero-emission electric power generation options,” Musk wrote.

Tesla followed this strategy. Its first product was the 2008 Roadster, a $100,000 two-seater sports car. Tesla then built the more mainstream Model S and Model X, eventually paving the way to the Model 3 and Y.

Tesla is almost unrecognizable from its original form when the Roadster launched in 2008. In 12 years, it went from a cash-strapped startup to the world’s most valuable automaker. The Silicon Valley tech firm is now worth over a trillion dollars.

But we cannot forget where Tesla started, and the vehicle that thrust the company into relevance was the Roadster.

The little Roadster that could

When Tesla started, the goal was straightforward: to make a product cool enough to generate interest among the populace. There were many previous attempts at electric cars, primarily in the 1990s, but none of them became mainstream.

Tesla wanted to prove that efficiency, power, and looks were not mutually exclusive pillars to achieve. The result was designing a fast and zingy electric sports car.

The Roadster could thrust itself to 60 miles per hour in just 3.7 seconds and had a range of 244 miles. It could go further than other EVs at the time, squashing the Nissan Leaf’s 73-mile range and the Mitsubishi i-Miev’s 62-mile estimate. Most importantly, it didn’t look or feel like anything electric on the market.

But the numbers only tell part of the story. On the road, it was completely different from anything I’ve ever driven.

Back to Tesla’s roots

When I was in California last summer, my friend Wade Higgins asked me if I would like to drive his Tesla Roadster. Naturally, I cleared out my calendar.

Wade worked at Tesla from 2013 to 2015. In 2014, he sold some of his Tesla stock and picked up a used Roadster he found online. Wade estimates his Roadster could be worth three times what he originally paid, which was $55K.

Still, with Elon Musk’s polarizing right-wing presence and the small number of used Roadsters on the market, current values remain uncertain.

The design

As I reached Wade’s house, the doors from his garage lifted, and the silver 2008 Roadster was unsheathed. I had only seen one on the road prior, so merely being in its presence was a surreal experience.

The first thing I noticed was that the Roadster was tiny — its hood barely made it up to my knees. The Roadster was so small because it was based on the Lotus Elise platform. While many newer EVs are built from the ground up on electric platforms, Tesla didn’t have the resources back in the old days to do so. Therefore, Tesla partnered with the then-struggling Lotus Cars to procure the vehicle’s chassis and help with engineering support.

The result is a 155.1-inch-long car measuring only 44.4 inches in height. For comparison, it’s about 30.7 inches shorter than a Model 3.

This small form factor is excellent for its electric powertrain

Aerodynamics are key to securing the range. Simply put, a smaller car means a smaller frontal area. Less area means the vehicle won’t have to push as much air out of the way when driving.

The car also uses a relatively small battery. Its 53-kilowatt-hour battery pack allows it to achieve its 244-mile range. A smaller battery means less weight and fewer battery cells to keep cool.

Wade’s Roadster is also still on its original battery pack, which, seventeen years later, is still operating normally.

The 2008 Roadster weighs about 2,900 pounds. The low weight means the car doesn’t need mountains of horsepower to go fast. The original Roadster “only” made 248 horsepower, which is far lower than most modern sporty EVs.

The feel

The tight dimensions become immediately apparent when you get behind the driver’s seat. Everything feels miniature. You’ll literally sit shoulder-to-shoulder with the passenger.

Starting the Roadster is also different from any other modern Tesla. There’s no app or sleek keycard — instead, owners have a physical key. Slide it into the receptacle to the right of the wheel, twist it, and you’ll hear a muted electronic hum, an analog ritual for an electric car.

The only attribute the Roadster shares with modern Teslas is the minimalist “TESLA” typeface across the rear. Beneath its sleek exterior, a brutal and raw sports car resides.

Another interesting quirk? There’s no power steering.

At low speeds, the driver receives a complimentary bicep workout. Especially when navigating through parking lots, you must supply a decent amount of force to make the car turn.

The lack of power steering also means there’s no intermediary between the road and the steering column. Every bump, crack, and imperfection in the asphalt’s surface permeates up the steering rack and into your fingertips.

The ride is just as unforgiving. The taught suspension transfers shocks directly into the cabin, creating a bumpy but visceral driving experience. Every jolt and vibration reminds you that comfort was never a priority in the Roadster.

All of these attributes deliver a raw and engaging ride. It was truly one of the most fun EVs I’ve driven in recent years, but I could assume the harshness would get old if I drove this car frequently.

Charging

The Roadster can’t use Superchargers because it launched four years before the first one was built. Therefore, it cannot DC fast charge, meaning you’re limited to slower AC charging.

At home, the Roadster will charge at 70 amps, which is high even for today’s standards. Most EVs top out at 40 or 48 amps. This means the Tesla Roadster can charge at 15.4 kilowatts, adding about 60 miles of range per hour. A zero-to-full charge takes three and a half hours.

Public charging the Roadster adds some complexity. It uses an obsolete charging connector, so a regular Tesla NACS connector won’t work. You’ll need an adapter if you want to charge on a public level 2 station.

The Tesla Roadster wasn’t made to be a mass-market vehicle

The Roadster was made to show the world what electric cars could be.

Despite being 17 years old, the Tesla Roadster still breaks many preconceptions. It’s lightweight, blisteringly quick, and still running strong, thanks to the long-lasting battery pack.

If it hadn’t been for the Roadster, Tesla would likely not be where it is today. I think it’s the most important car of the 2000s.

• Teen prodigy Kairan Quazi joins Citadel Securities as a quant developer in New York City.
• Quazi, who graduated college and joined SpaceX at age 14, chose finance over AI and big tech offers.
• He prized the ambitious, meritocratic culture and fast feedback loops offered in quant finance.

AI labs wanted him. Big Tech did too. But in the end, it was quant finance that won over teen prodigy Kairan Quazi.

The 16-year-old, who garnered worldwide attention in 2023 for graduating from college and landing a job as a SpaceX engineer at age 14, starts this week as a quant developer at systematic trading giant Citadel Securities in New York City.

“After two years at SpaceX, I felt ready to take on new challenges and expand my skill set into a different high-performance environment,” Quazi told Business Insider in an interview. “Citadel Securities offered a similarly ambitious culture, but also a completely new domain, which is very exciting for me.”

In a time when quant trading firms face heightened competition for talent from AI labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI, landing the engineering wunderkind is a noteworthy win for Citadel Securities, one of the premier destinations in finance.

The sister company of billionaire Ken Griffin’s hedge fund Citadel, Citadel Securities is one of the world’s top high-speed trading firms, handling hundreds of billions worth of stocks, options, currencies, and other assets each day. Using state-of-the-art technology and algorithms, the global market-maker executes trades on behalf of other institutions and retail traders — it handles roughly 35% of retail US stock trades — as well as deploying its own proprietary trading strategies. It generated nearly $10 billion in revenue in 2024 and a record $3.4 billion in the first quarter of 2025, according to media reports.

In his new role, Quazi will work on the firm’s global trading infrastructure, sitting at the “intersection of engineering and quantitative problem-solving” and working with both traders and engineers, a company spokesperson said.

“It felt like a very natural transition from the high-performance culture at SpaceX,” Quazi said.

Why quant finance beat out Silicon Valley

At just 16, Quazi has been amassing accolades and records for most of his life.

Raised in the Bay Area, he jumped from third grade to college at age 9. Quazi interned for Intel Labs at age 10, working on predictive speech generation platforms, and in 2022 interned in machine learning at cyber-intelligence firm Blackbird.AI.

Then, after becoming the youngest ever graduate of Santa Clara University, Quazi took his software engineering degree to the Starlink division at SpaceX.

He wasn’t fetching coffee or working on immaterial projects. Quazi worked on production-critical systems, he says, designing and implementing software that determines where Starlink satellites target their beams, helping ensure fast, reliable internet connections to the company’s millions of customers.

“I had a very broad scope and a lot of responsibility, especially for a junior engineer,” Quazi said.

He added that he was expected to fully own projects, including “developing ideas and presenting them to other engineers and leadership, ultimately implementing them, and monitoring the rollouts.”

With his background and résumé, a long and successful career in Silicon Valley likely seemed a foregone conclusion. And at a time when many of the world’s brightest minds are flocking to AI startups — and courting offers worth hundreds of millions — that would’ve been an understandable next step.

But Quazi declined offers from top AI Labs and tech firms (he declined to specify which companies), as well as other quant firms, to join Citadel Securities.

His rationale for jumping into quantitative trading mirrors the sales pitch the industry and its recruiters often tout: For highly ambitious researchers and mathematicians, it’s a dream scenario with almost instant feedback and responses to your ideas.

“Quant finance offers a pretty rare combination: the complexity and intellectual challenge that AI research also provides, but with a much faster pace,” Quazi said. “At Citadel Securities, I’ll be able to see measurable impact in days, not months or years like many research environments.”

Citadel Securities, in particular, is known for its technological prowess and meritocratic culture, a key selling point for someone who was rejected from jobs — and even booted off LinkedIn — not because of his abilities but rather his age.

He felt Citadel Securities valued his “unconventional” background. “They moved very quickly and didn’t use my age or years of experience to gate-keep opportunities,” Quazi said, adding that the opportunity to engage directly with senior leadership impressed him.

It also helped that Quazi was exposed to finance from an early age, as his mother was an investment banker working in mergers and acquisitions. Moreover, for math and engineering students, quant trading firms loom large on campus as some of the most sought-after post-graduate jobs.

“It’s one of the most prestigious industries you could go into as a computer scientist or mathematician,” Quazi said.

On his own in NYC

Living on your own in New York City as a teenager is nightmare fuel for some kids and their parents.

Quazi isn’t too concerned.

The Bangladeshi-American, who in his spare time likes to read, play video games, rock climb, and hang with friends, among other hobbies, grew up visiting family in New York regularly. He said he values the rich culture, diversity, and energy of the city.

“New York has a very special place in my heart,” Quazi said. “My mom grew up in Astoria, Queens, and I have a lot of family there.”

Another perk: Quazi, who still doesn’t have a driver’s license, will no longer need his mother to drive him to work, as he did for his gig at SpaceX in Redmond, Washington. At least at first, he’ll be living about a 10-minute walk away from Citadel Securities’ midtown office.

After that, he’ll take the subway.

• Despite Spotify’s strong performance overall, its ad business is struggling.
• Ad buyers say they have been disappointed by a decline in customer service amid high staff turnover.
• Spotify hopes a raft of new ad product launches and partnerships will turn its fortunes around.

Spotify’s ad business is floundering.

“We have simply been moving too slowly,” CEO Daniel Ek said on the company’s latest earnings call.

Spotify has said it wants advertising to make up 20% of its overall revenue. As of June, that figure stood at 11% — a share that has barely budged over time. Second-quarter ad revenue was down 0.7% versus the prior year, and media industry analyst Brian Wieser pondered in a recent note to clients whether it had plateaued.

Chris Camacho, CEO of the ad agency Cheil UK, said cracks in Spotify’s ad business have been visible for some time. That contrasts with the rest of the company’s relatively strong performance, with healthy growth in user numbers and overall revenue, and a stock price that’s up over 100% in the last year.

“In a world demanding seamless media execution and measurable impact, Spotify has struggled to connect ambition with action,” Camacho said of the company’s ad efforts.

“It needs to give brands access to cultural moments, not just audio slots,” he continued. “That means better content partnerships, richer storytelling formats, and measurement that proves value beyond listens.”

Industry insiders say Spotify’s ad efforts have been hampered by the company’s focus on its subscription business, which is much more lucrative. Two ad buyers told Business Insider that Spotify’s customer service has slipped recently, while podcast industry insiders said its ad rates remain low.

Spotify seems to recognize the need for change. Longtime ad head Lee Brown left last month, and the company confirmed that a search is underway for a new leader. Ek appeared to blame Brown for Spotify’s ad struggles, saying on the earnings call that “execution” and not strategy led to the poor performance.

“We felt it was the right time for a leadership change,” Ek added. Brown, who recently became the chief revenue officer at DoorDash, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Spotify’s executives said on the recent earnings call that they want advertising to contribute more to the company’s revenue.

Podcasts offer advertisers access to Spotify’s Premium users — but the strategy has been messy

In some ways, Spotify has a business model that eats its own tail.

If Spotify converts too many free users into Premium subscribers, the audience for advertisers shrinks. If it makes the free offering too attractive, users won’t be tempted to upgrade. Spotify’s ad-supported tier serves as an important on-ramp for its Premium business — plus the $1.9 billion in ad sales it brought in last year helps toward paying its substantial royalties to music labels and other content creators. However, Premium is the sacred cash cow: Enders Analysis estimates that gross profits for Premium are around 15 to 20 times those of the advertising tier.

The company’s big push into podcasts — which have ads for those on the Premium tier — offered a way to bridge that gap. It also gave advertisers the chance to reach more affluent audiences. Spotify spent more than $1 billion to acquire companies like Gimlet Media and Anchor, and signed exclusive deals with Joe Rogan and the Obamas.

Podcast executives and ad buyers told Business Insider that the podcast advertising strategy has been messy, with several pivots in its few years of operation. Spotify ended some of its original and exclusive programming, cut staff, flip-flopped its stance on areas like measurement and ad pricing floors, and made a pivot to video that is still in the early stages and has yet to prove itself as a guaranteed moneymaker.

Spotify acquired the podcast hosting and adtech company Megaphone in 2020 in a $235 million deal that was designed to help podcast publishers make more money through its advertising marketplace.

There were hiccups from the start. A former Spotify ad sales exec said there was an irony in the company attempting to sell Megaphone to podcasters as a best-in-class adtech solution while Spotify itself uses Google as its ad server.

One podcast publisher said they were getting around $8 or $9 CPMs — the cost of 1,000 impressions for a digital ad — on average through Megaphone, versus the $20 to $40 CPMs they would achieve for host-read ads. However, they acknowledged that directly sold ads usually fetch higher prices than those sold via third-party adtech, such as Spotify’s. The average CPM price advertisers paid for digital audio ads in the second quarter of this year was $16.51, according to the analytics company Measured — though the final fee a podcast publisher would receive after platforms and other third parties take their cut would be smaller.

A Spotify spokesperson said the average CPM on Spotify is “far above” $9, though they declined to provide additional specifics. They said that ad revenue is influenced by macroeconomic and seasonal shifts that may impact overall CPMs. Publisher revenue generated through the Spotify Audience Network had seen double-digit growth year-over-year, the spokesperson said.

A pivot to video

Spotify has been introducing other money-making opportunities to offset volatile ad prices.

This year, as part of a big video push, it launched the Spotify Partner Program, offering creators a 50% share of the ad revenue their videos generate. It has encouraged some publishers and creators to get on board by giving them minimum revenue guarantees, though it’s unclear how long those will last.

The Spotify Partner Program has been a “big win” for YMH Studios, producer of podcasts including “Your Mom’s House” and “2 Bears, 1 Cave,” according to the company’s head of ad revenue, Alan Abdine. He said the company had seen a consistent 20% to 30% revenue lift.

Several ad buyers told Business Insider that Spotify must prove it can be a meaningful player in video.

“Video here feels like an add-on,” Cheil’s Camacho said. “If Spotify wants to be bold, brave, and first, it needs to reinvent what video within an audio experience could be.”

A Spotify spokesperson said video podcast consumption is up 54% this year, with users who watch a podcast consuming 1.5 times as much as those who just listen. The spokesperson said it is building ways to improve the creative options available for creators, fans, and advertisers, such as audio-to-video playback, built-in community tools, better on-platform analytics, and new monetization models like the Spotify Partner Program.

Customer service takes a slide

Some advertisers have been put off by Spotify’s increasing focus on automated ad buying and by high turnover in the company’s ad sales staff.

Spotify cut 2,300 jobs through three rounds of layoffs in 2023. Last year, it axed 40 positions and 17 open roles in its ad and campaign management teams.

Dan Granger, CEO of the audio ad agency Oxford Road, said getting a response from the Spotify team could take days versus a matter of hours from other partners, and that many of its accounts were handled offshore.

The Spotify spokesperson said the company prides itself on its customer service and aims to respond to advertisers within three to six hours, with the goal of resolving any issues or queries within 48 hours.

Granger said his agency had experienced consistency issues when Spotify inserted ads into podcast streams. Sometimes, ads are clustered in a short burst instead of being paced evenly, eroding a campaign’s performance. Ad prices had recently jumped without a commensurate increase in the value they delivered, Granger said, adding that Spotify’s measurement offering was “inhospitable” for brands.

In an August note to clients, analysts from Arete Research said they questioned whether Spotify “has the DNA of an ads company, or whether ads are simply a way to spur users into paying for Premium.”

This dynamic isn’t lost on the ad community.

“Spotify just doesn’t prioritize the needs of the advertising community the way it does that of its subscriber business,” Granger said.

Spotify is pinning its hopes on 2026 being a better year for the ad business

Some in the ad industry think Spotify can turn its fortunes around.

Spotify has made a raft of announcements in the last year. Among them, it launched the Spotify Ad Exchange, which lets customers buy ads using demand-side platforms, an in-house creative lab, and a generative AI tool to help advertisers create audio ads. It hopes these rollouts will help turn the dial for its ads business by 2026.

Will Doherty, senior vice president of inventory partnerships at The Trade Desk, said Spotify’s decision to partner with adtech companies gives ad buyers more choice and control versus rival “walled garden” Big Tech platforms from whom they can only buy directly. The Trade Desk is a Spotify Ad Exchange partner.

Doherty said moves like these put Spotify’s ad business in a position to grow.

“From a technical standpoint, Spotify is pretty sophisticated,” Doherty said. “It takes time for any business to consolidate and unify an ad stack on a global scale, while managing the various partnerships needed to grow and be successful.”