Thomas Nearly (President, NYSE) :
NYSE: Hello friends, my name is Thomas Nearly and I am the current President of the NYSE (New York Strock Exchange). You may be amazed to know that I have a CFA certification myself.

Dreampak Ahuja (ex-CFO, Tesla) :
CFO: Hello friends, I am a new name in the discussion - Dreampak Ahuja. An alumnus of IIT, I have spent a major part of my career in Ford before moving to Tesla for 5 years. I've seen the company rise and was a passenger on the ship under the able command of Melon Tusk.

Melon Tusk (CEO, Tesla) :
Melon: That's too much Dreampak. It is always a team effort. I'm Melon Tusk and I'm excitied to be back for another discussion. I'm the CEO of Tesla Motors, although today I'm here in my capacity as the owner, and not a corporate honcho.

Thomas Nearly (President, NYSE) :
NYSE: So Gross, as someone who looks into balance sheets day in and day out, what do you have to say about Tesla Motors?

Gross Seymore (Analyst, Deutsche Bank) :
Analyst: I would like to talk a little bit about how the story you tell about Tesla is going to drive whether you think Tesla is a good buy or a bad buy.

Dreampak Ahuja (ex-CFO, Tesla) :
CFO: Gross, let's talk about numbers, stories have nothing to do with company valuations! We're not school kids to listen to stories.

Thomas Nearly (President, NYSE) :
NYSE: Be just a little patient, Dreampak. Gross wouldn't mention stories if he didn't think it was very important.

Gross Seymore (Analyst, Deutsche Bank) :
Analyst: I believe that a good valuation connects stories to numbers, that storytelling alone doesn’t do it and number crunching alone doesn’t do it. There are 3 parts that connect the company's story to its valuation: company life cycle, market size, and...

Melon Tusk (CEO, Tesla) :
Melon: And what?

Gross Seymore (Analyst, Deutsche Bank) :
Analyst: A storyteller.

Thomas Nearly (President, NYSE) :
NYSE: Gross, your models seem to be very mysterious.

Gross Seymore (Analyst, Deutsche Bank) :
Analyst: Good lord, it's pretty straightforward. Tesla is in the early stages, hence we have high growth possibility. The automobile market is fairly large and most importantly, Melon is able to frame that story to the market in a way that it’s convincing that gets people to believe the story.

Thomas Nearly (President, NYSE) :
NYSE: That's correct. Whatever you might think about Melon Tusk, you can't deny that he is an amazing story teller.

Melon Tusk (CEO, Tesla) :
Melon: I'd just put it in this way: Young company + Big Market + Integrity = Successful

Dreampak Ahuja (ex-CFO, Tesla) :
CFO: I'm still confused. Grss means to say that with a 'story stock' like Tesla, the shifts in the story drive the price, not the numbers themselves. What does that even mean?

Gross Seymore (Analyst, Deutsche Bank) :
Analyst: Damn it, let me explain. When you see an earnings report come out of a story stock, it’s not whether your earnings are above or below expectations that affect how the market behaves. It’s about what earnings report tells you about the future of the company.

Thomas Nearly (President, NYSE) :
NYSE: In other words, you can have really bad numbers come out but if your story doesn’t change, your value doesn't change and ultimately - your price won’t change?

Dreampak Ahuja (ex-CFO, Tesla) :
CFO: So you're suggesting that belief in a company guides investment decisions, not numbers. Don't ignore the impact of news on the 'story'. There are delivery shortfalls - Tesla is not able to produce enough cars to hit the market. Similarly, of of the drivers died in a crash while testing the auto-pilot mode.

Thomas Nearly (President, NYSE) :
NYSE: Surely these things impact the value. Tesla stock had fallen after both these announcements.

Melon Tusk (CEO, Tesla) :
Melon: I think Gross has a point here. Although we did lose share value, we made it back quite soon,. In fact, our prices went even above what they were when the share fell.

Gross Seymore (Analyst, Deutsche Bank) :
Analyst: Almost 400,000 people put their names down their waiting list and were willing to deposit money to get a car in 2018. You can’t ignore that belief - which comes not from numbers but from the story.

Thomas Nearly (President, NYSE) :
NYSE: Is it so? If yes, I can’t think of another automobile company that would have been able to pull that off. Clearly Tesla has a customer base and a brand loyalty far greater than we thought it did.

Dreampak Ahuja (ex-CFO, Tesla) :
CFO: Now of course you cannot talk about Tesla without talking about Melon Tusk. People either love him or hate him. This is one of the cases where you have no middle ground.

Gross Seymore (Analyst, Deutsche Bank) :
Analyst: 100% true. And what you think about Tusk is going to drive what you think about Tesla.

Thomas Nearly (President, NYSE) :
NYSE: I personally think Tusk is a visionary. So I would put him in the same class of CEOs as Steve Jobs or Jeff Bezos. But the pre-1998 Steve Jobs - who was a genius, but kind of headstrong; would do things because he really wanted to, wouldn’t really listen to other people.

Dreampak Ahuja (ex-CFO, Tesla) :
CFO: He really didn't seem to have interest in the nitty-gritty of operations at that point of time.

Melon Tusk (CEO, Tesla) :
Melon: That Steve Jobs didn’t succeed. I think Tesla is getting to that stage of life cycle where you have to start delivering. The vision part of the story is now behind us.

Gross Seymore (Analyst, Deutsche Bank) :
Analyst: You really should. Become more like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who was more focused right from the beginning.

Dreampak Ahuja (ex-CFO, Tesla) :
CFO: True. Tesla has sold about 70,000 cars so far. General Motors sells that many in three days. Still Tesla's market cap is 50% of General Motors. It just goes to show that Tesla is vastly more valued by investors than traditional companies.

Thomas Nearly (President, NYSE) :
NYSE: Exactly, currently they're really worth more than Fiat, Mitsubishi Motors, Mazda, Renault or Suzuki.

Gross Seymore (Analyst, Deutsche Bank) :
Analyst: Fantastic, but don't forget: while people continue to think about Tesla as an automobile manufacturer, it is actually a technology company.

Dreampak Ahuja (ex-CFO, Tesla) :
CFO: Aah, a paradigm shift. That's difficult to handle. The last time we tried it, it failed. Melon, Remember the time in 2008 when you almost had to sell of the companty to Google due to cash crunch? Let's ensure that it never happens again.

Melon Tusk (CEO, Tesla) :
Melon: Well yes, that is my fear, too.

Gross Seymore (Analyst, Deutsche Bank) :
Analyst: Mlon, Just be on your feet. I value Tesla at $152, while the market price is $250+. You're highly overvalued. Be cautious.

Thomas Nearly (President, NYSE) :
NYSE: Melon is working hard, like crazy. You know, just because he wanted to avoid the traffic while going to office and save time, he's started digging a tunnel to build a smooth underground road. And Hyperloop started.

Dreampak Ahuja (ex-CFO, Tesla) :
CFO: Well, it is this madness that keeps Tesla in the investors' hearts.

Gross Seymore (Analyst, Deutsche Bank) :
Analyst: Aha! Nikola Tesla himself would have been very proud of you, Melon.