Introduction

At "The Future of Science Communication in a Post-Factual World," a recent 21st Century Scientist workshop held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Liana Aghajanian made a compelling observation about how ordinary users perceive and express sentiment on social media.

According to Aghajanian, the digital world is keeping a bit of a secret: users of social media may not be as positive as they first appear. Some feeds may look dire indeed, given the particular experiences and orientations of friends and followers. But overall, Aghajanian says, people tend to share positive news stories on social media. But they do so not because they are positive people, but rather because they want to be perceived as positive people. In other words, people tend not to share negative news because they fear they will then be perceived as negative people.

Aghajanian herself is a bit at odds with the world. She works primarily in restorative narrative, a method of long-form writing that aims to capture the complexity of life. For her, gone are the chirpy stories of triumph through tragedy, of just-hang-in-there-and-it-will-all-work-out-in-the-end optimism so characteristic of animated films and bumper stickers. What replaces them is a sober exploration of what it means to be harmed and yet still alive; of how people pick up the pieces (or they don't or they can't or how they drop some of them along the way); of what life looks like after a time of ashes has passed.

Instead of these kinds of stories, she said, many people almost compulsively share positive news stories, in the hope that they will be perceived not as complicated people living in a complicated world, but as unabashedly positive people. News about technology, which tends to be written somewhere on the spectrum between “gee, golly, isn’t it great to be alive with all these cool toys” to “the world is terrible, but the new [thing] will save us” may thus be overrepresented among shared stories, not because those who share necessarily believe in x app, but because they perceive technology positively, and want to borrow some of that positivity for themselves.

Intrigued by her statement, I set out to discover how people feel about technology when given the chance to converse with famous figures responsible for much of modern computing technology.

Technology is very broadly defined, of course—anything from the wheel to the codex to Oculus Rift counts. To make an impossible task more manageable, and to center the human in technical discourse, I turn instead to the people who have become the faces of technological innovation: Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, and Elon Musk.

My sentiment analysis of social-media interviews with Gates, Wozniak, and Musk suggests that people (here, participants in Reddit's Ask Me Anything (AMA) series) are, in fact, quite positive in their interactions with the people responsible for much of the computing technology that we use every day. But users feel more positively about Musk, while they very much dislike Steve Jobs (so much so that Wozniak, Jobs' one-time partner, must answer--quite literally--for many of Jobs' perceived flaws).

Perhaps most intriguing, like a tech version of A Christmas Carol, these three figures come to function as the ghosts of a technology past, present, and future (Wozniak, Gates, and Musk, respectively). In so doing, they invite a few users to denounce crimes against humanity and, somewhat less grandly, embrace snark, while many others are inspired to imagine a world and even a universe transformed by the power of hardware and software.

Problem

Idea

I analyzed sentiment in the Reddit AMAs with Wozniak, Gates, and Musk. All three AMAs are relatively recent (approximately a year old), are archived at Reddit and thereby accessible, and have produced a lot of data--over 15,000 parent-level comments between them.

Pang and Lee (2008) note that "sentiment" is a tricky term. For this project, however, I followed the understanding of sentiment that they include from Merriam Webster's Online Dictionary: a "settled opinion reflective of ones feelings" (Pang and Lee, p.5).

To conduct my sentiment analysis, I used the PRAW Python library to collect the authors, scores, and body of all parent- or top-level comments in each AMA. I chose to work with top-level comments, as Reddit encourages its users to ardently police these comments by upvoting appropriate comments and downvoting inappropriate ones. More information on Reddit's voting guidelines can be found here.

Research questions

How do Reddit users feel about technology? Are their comments more positive, negative, or neutral toward these tech innovators? What words frequently comprise their questions? With what do users associate famous tech innovators? Do Reddit users use the Reddit voting system to elevate positive comments and bury negative ones, and if so, what counts as positive and negative comments?

Methods

Word frequency; sentiment mining; visualization.

To perform the sentiment analysis, I chose VADER, a rule-based model optimized explicitly for social media data (Hutto and Gilbert, 2014, p.4).

Related Work

Sentiment analysis of Reddit is a fairly popular topic. Reddit is an attractive social media site to mine for sentiment, as it offers users both the ability to comment and the ability to vote on others’ comments, and it does so on thousands of topics in spaces known as “subReddits”. There are subReddits devoted to topics as varied as animals, politics, and interviews (or Ask Me Anythings), and many more, and users are encouraged to create subReddits devoted to their particular interests if none already exist. The voting system (also known as “Karma”) offers a particularly rich system for documenting and analyzing sentiment associated with individual users, topics, and within and between subReddits.

Methods, however, differ. Some, like this Reddit post about sentiment on the subReddit r/apple (https://www.Reddit.com/r/Python/comments/59thp6/sentiment_analysis_of_new_mpb_on_Reddit_with/), uses the PRAW library and TextBlob, while this blog post about learning data science through analyzing Reddit headlines uses JSON and NLTK (http://www.learndatasci.com/sentiment-analysis-Reddit-headlines-pythons-nltk/), and this academic paper uses Karma to map neural networks (https://cs224d.stanford.edu/reports/TingJason.pdf). Though seemingly not as prevalent as sentiment analyses of Twitter, sentiment analysis of Reddit offers a robust look at how millions of users interested in almost innumerable topics feel about the topics, people, and products with which they engage.

These resources are just a few of the offerings at which I looked when gathering data for my project. This blog post in particular introduced me to the PRAW library, giving me enough of an overview to send me off to the PRAW docs fairly confident that this was a tool I should use: https://unsupervisedlearning.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/who-is-rwashingtondc-part-1-daily-activity-usage/. The author’s overall goal evolved from understand their own Reddit habits to characterizing Redditors to characterizing Redditors via the hours and frequency of their posting. From this post, as well as the guidance offered by numerous StackOverflow posts on analyzing sentiment with both NLTK and PRAW, I was able to assemble my data.

Data

First attempt; top 500 best comments, parents and children; interviewee’s responses removed

I initially wanted to capture just the first question posed by each participant—the opening question that started everyone off on separate conversations within the same AMA. I quickly learned that, between my grappling with the DOM and the message-board-like quality of Reddit, it was not very easy to parse out the dividing lines between author, evaluation metadata, parent comment, and children comments.

As a result, a nice, clean list of just opening comments took a few days to produce. After using screen capture, parsing with BeautifulSoup to separate the metadata from the body of each comment, and cleaning the comment data (removing “load more comments”, tokenizing, case folding, and removing stop words), I ended up with the data I wanted.

Reddit conversations function much like conversations in the real world. As people become involved in chatting, they alter previous questions, make jokes, or wander; in other words, they produce a lot of noise. Why they were chatting to begin with—to pose and answer a question—can get a bit muddled. As such, while I think this first attempt produced an interesting dataset, the data are limited to just a few “best” parent comments and many child comments, which risks turning a large-scale open exchange into a few snatches of conversation between friends.

Second attempt; all top-level comments, not sorted

Wanting more, and more diverse, data, I turned to PRAW. I learned about PRAW from a few tutorials, the PRAW docs, and several very generous and knowledgeable StackOverflow-ers. After installing PRAW through pip, registering my script with the API, and establishing a Reddit instance (all of which took approximately 10 minutes), I can confirm that PRAW does indeed make navigating Reddit comments easy and (relatively) quick. The longest I have waited to retrieve comment bodies from over 3,000 comments is just three minutes.

This method gave me all of the top-level comments, stripped of metadata, and without needing to have the phrase “load more comments” removed. (I could easily limit the amount of more comments I wanted loaded, as each load was a separate request to the API, and could further filter based upon the “threshold” of child comments in response to the original comment, with the idea being I could call for parent comments that had at least one child comment in response to it).

The best aspect of this approach is the increase in data. Just with Steve Wozniak’s AMA, my dataset went from 477 comments to 3,478. And these comments span the length of the comment offerings, from the most thoughtful or interesting or popular to the most flippant or crude or downvoted. However, this approach also scrambles Reddit’s voting system by treating all comments equally. Those who attempted to adhere to Reddit’s policies concerning AMA comments, those who submitted comments or voted on others in the hopes of getting real answers, and those who voted but did not themselves comment, are not represented in this dataset.

Third (and final) attempt; all top-level comments, sorted by upvotes and by downvotes, and by positive, neutral, and negative sentiment

The previous two approaches helped me clarify my research question, and thus, what kind of data I needed to compile. I want to capture parent comments that represent important questions for AMA participants, whether as representative of questions the community would like to see answered, or as representatives of questions that the community would like to bury and, thus, have a significantly reduced chance of being answered.

To capture the data, I have used the PRAW Python library to connect with the Reddit API and collect the parent or top-level comments for each AMA. I have chosen to work only with the top-level comments because these comments, through the voting system, function as Reddit's built-in sentiment analyzer of sorts.

Users can contribute their own top-level comments and they can also vote for other comments to be either pushed up in the list or buried further down in it. Voting has serious ramifications for engagement during an AMA. In the rules for AMAs, participants are explicitly encouraged to vote for comments with which they agree and to downvote comments that are rude, offensive, or do not pose a question. Upvoted comments also bear a dual burden of becoming surrogates for voters’ own unarticulated comments, and more successfully catching the attention of the interviewee, who is also explicitly told to respond to upvoted questions rather than hunting for questions which they may feel more comfortable answering. https://www.Reddit.com/r/IAmA/wiki/index

As such, top-level comments are more likely to be seen and responded to by both user and interviewee, either with votes or with answers.

Findings

The conversation

Each AMA provides over 3,000 top-level comments, for a grand total of approximately 15,000 top-level comments between them. What are they talking about? What words dominate each thread? Are any top words shared across AMAs?

To take a large view of each AMA, I cleaned each dataset (removed punctuation, casefolded, and removed stopwords) and looked for word frequencies.

Word frequencies

Wozniak


In [108]:
import nltk
stopwords = nltk.corpus.stopwords.words("english")

In [109]:
with open('./data/wozniak_text.txt') as f:
    wozniak_string = f.read()
    
wozniak_tokens = nltk.word_tokenize(wozniak_string)

replace_punct = [word.replace("'", '').replace('"','') for word in wozniak_tokens]
alpha = [word for word in replace_punct if word and word[0].isalpha()]
alpha_lower = [word.lower() for word in alpha]
alpha_lower_stop = [word for word in alpha_lower if word not in stopwords]

alpha_lower_stop_fd = nltk.FreqDist(alpha_lower_stop)
alpha_lower_stop_fd.tabulate(10)


apple steve think would  like  jobs    hi    nt   one  ever 
 1037  1004   694   567   551   435   323   298   271   266 

In [110]:
%matplotlib inline
alpha_lower_stop_fd.plot(20)


The most frequent two words in Wozniak's AMA are proper nouns: 'apple' and 'steve'. This latter is not terrifically surprising, given that Wozniak's first name is, of course, 'Steve', and that many comments begin with some version of 'Hi, Steve!'. Looking at the sixth most frequent word, 'jobs', one might think--as I did--that users were interested in either working for Apple, or in the economic benefits that technology in general and Apple in particular might bring (employing young, college-educated people, much like the population of the users, for instance). But looking at the word 'jobs' in context suggests something else entirely.


In [111]:
get_Text = nltk.Text(wozniak_tokens)
get_Text.concordance("jobs",width=49,lines=20)


Displaying 20 of 430 matches:
in the Apple movies ( jobs and Steve Jobs ) ? Wh
vies ( jobs and Steve Jobs ) ? Who did a better 
lationship with Steve Jobs and how you were such
 i look up to you and jobs as role models . I 'm
ew the death of Steve Jobs in terms of how it ha
ayal of you in *Steve Jobs ? * What are your tho
ngerous and steal our jobs , or that it 'll have
, you never met Steve Jobs , and he started a ca
 Elon Musk with Steve Jobs . Fact that you have 
oy working with Steve Jobs ? I often hear mixed 
pple be without Steve Jobs and what would apple 
e the corpse of Steve Jobs ? Do you think Steve 
 ? Do you think Steve Jobs had NPD ( Narcissisti
m a huge fan of Steve Jobs but I 've always want
th movies about Steve Jobs and Apple , and besid
ays conguring up more jobs ) . I do n't have thi
are already occupying jobs that barely get them 
ry or moment of Steve Jobs ? Something we might 
 in the newest 'Steve Jobs ' film ? What is your
ris games ? Was Steve Jobs really as big a prick

Wozniak's AMA, in some ways, is a coversation with two Steves--one living, one gone; one perceived in a positive light, the other in a rather negative one, but both very much present in this thread--which suggests that sentiment in Wozniak's AMA is sentiment shared, at least in part, with Steve Jobs.

Gates


In [113]:
with open('./data/gates_text.txt') as f:
    gates_string = f.read()
    
gates_tokens = nltk.word_tokenize(gates_string)

replace_punct = [word.replace("'", '').replace('"','') for word in gates_tokens]
alpha = [word for word in replace_punct if word and word[0].isalpha()]
alpha_lower = [word.lower() for word in alpha]
alpha_lower_stop = [word for word in alpha_lower if word not in stopwords]

alpha_lower_stop_fd = nltk.FreqDist(alpha_lower_stop)
alpha_lower_stop_fd.tabulate(10)


 gates  would   bill  think    mr.   like  world     hi     nt people 
  1517   1170   1169   1125    999    732    548    545    541    541 

In [114]:
alpha_lower_stop_fd.plot(20)


It would seem that Gates, while still associated with Microsoft, has been able to achieve some distance from his company. His own last name is the most frequent word in his AMA (as opposed to 'apple' for Wozniak), and it would appear that his brand as a global-minded philanthrophist is successfully present here. The word 'world', for instance, is the seventh most frequent word. Looking at the word 'world' in context, we can indeed see that users associate him with a concern with the large scale, the hugely impactful, and the geo-political at its biggest level.


In [249]:
get_Text = nltk.Text(gates_tokens)
get_Text.concordance("world",width=49,lines=20)


Displaying 20 of 548 matches:
your biggest `` first world problem '' ? - What v
your biggest `` first world problem '' ? - What v
o help or improve the world either now or in the 
o help or improve the world either now or in the 
ase in the developing world in the coming decades
n weaning the Western world off of meat and dairy
d for the rest of the world . Renewable power , e
vince everyone in the world of one thing , what w
ay that we viewed the world . These ranged from r
m to being one of the world 's great philanthropi
have made you see the world in a different light 
built has changed the world and continues to comp
he richest man in the world right now , what woul
ou want to change the world in some big way , '' 
 a leader in the tech world , how do you feel abo
e problems facing the world with technology today
purtunity to play the World Cup of Bridge in Cann
 am born from a third world country . Good Aftern
rviving in the modern world . Though I find your 
richest people in the world ? Does Warren Buffet 

Musk


In [115]:
with open('./data/musk_text.txt') as f:
    musk_string = f.read()
    
musk_tokens = nltk.word_tokenize(musk_string)

replace_punct = [word.replace("'", '').replace('"','') for word in musk_tokens]
alpha = [word for word in replace_punct if word and word[0].isalpha()]
alpha_lower = [word.lower() for word in alpha]
alpha_lower_stop = [word for word in alpha_lower if word not in stopwords]

alpha_lower_stop_fd = nltk.FreqDist(alpha_lower_stop)
alpha_lower_stop_fd.tabulate(10)


  elon  would  tesla  think   like     hi  space spacex   musk    one 
  1828   1533   1210    978    947    930    869    842    804    757 

In [116]:
alpha_lower_stop_fd.plot(20)


Like Gates, Musk has also been able to establish an identity apart from his company, though rather like Wozniak, Musk is never far from his signature technology, here, Tesla. However, just from looking at the twenty most frequent words, we can see that Musk's AMA is not so much about the past as Wozniak's, nor so much about our world as Gates', but is instead about the not here and the not now.

'Space' is the seventh most frequent word, while 'future' is fifteen and 'mars' is eighteen. Looking at the word 'future' in context, we can see that Musk is approached as a kind of visionary of a future that is just on the cusp of being, brought about by amazing technologies of which we have only begun to dream (but Musk may have already patented). The link established here between Musk and the future, however cursory at the moment, suggests that his AMA will be the most positive in nature.


In [117]:
get_Text = nltk.Text(musk_tokens)
get_Text.concordance("future",width=49,lines=20)


Displaying 20 of 584 matches:
ze something for the future that would be great 
ze something for the future that would be great 
 in your current and future endeavors , what you
 the relatively near future I assume the first c
aforming Mars in the future ? ** Reflectors ? Fr
 the material in the future ? Thank you very muc
lemented in the near future ? Elon , is SpaceX w
olarCity in the near future ? Thanks ! Mr. Musk 
and improved for the future of solar coming up ?
technologies are the future do you envision Tesl
e , do you foresee a future of shared electric c
pace environment for future Tesla based moon and
 questions regarding future Tesla production and
t do you envision as future game changing goals 
n the not so distant future . I have my own idea
we are living in the future . I know people tend
technologies are the future do you envision Tesl
technologies are the future do you envision Tesl
 going ? When in the future would something like
ut your views on the future : 1 ) What are your 

Sentiment across AMAs

As mentioned previously, Reddit encourages group sentiment policing with the upvote/downvote system. In these three AMAs, users have avidly participated in this system, particularly when it comes to upvoting comments. Approximately 95% of top-level comments in both Wozniak's and Gates' AMAs have scores greater than 0. Approximately 85% of top-level comments in Musk's AMA have scores greater than 0.

Comments were awarded significantly fewer downvotes comparatively. Just 1% of top-level comments in Wozniak's and Gates' AMAs have negative scores, while just 3% of top-level comments in Musk's AMA have negative scores.


In [1]:
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt; plt.rcdefaults()
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from vaderSentiment.vaderSentiment import SentimentIntensityAnalyzer
analyzer = SentimentIntensityAnalyzer()

In [63]:
wozniak_comments = pd.read_csv("./data/wozniak_parents.csv").dropna()
gates_comments = pd.read_csv("./data/gates_parents.csv").dropna()
musk_comments = pd.read_csv("./data/musk_parents.csv").dropna()

In [120]:
#code adapted from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14270391/python-matplotlib-multiple-bars

n_groups = 3
scores_wozniak = (round((len(wozniak_comments[wozniak_comments['Score'] < 0]) / len(wozniak_comments)) * 100), 
               round((len(wozniak_comments[wozniak_comments['Score'] == 0]) / len(wozniak_comments)) * 100), 
               round((len(wozniak_comments[wozniak_comments['Score'] > 0]) / len(wozniak_comments)) * 100))
scores_gates = (round((len(gates_comments[gates_comments['Score'] < 0]) / len(gates_comments)) * 100), 
               round((len(gates_comments[gates_comments['Score'] == 0]) / len(gates_comments)) * 100), 
               round((len(gates_comments[gates_comments['Score'] > 0]) / len(gates_comments)) * 100))
scores_musk = (round((len(musk_comments[musk_comments['Score'] < 0]) / len(musk_comments)) * 100), 
               round((len(musk_comments[musk_comments['Score'] == 0]) / len(musk_comments)) * 100), 
               round((len(musk_comments[musk_comments['Score'] > 0]) / len(musk_comments)) * 100))
 
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
index = np.arange(n_groups) 
bar_width = 0.20 
opacity = 0.8
 
rects1 = plt.bar(index, scores_wozniak, bar_width,
                 alpha=opacity,
                 color='b',
                 label='Wozniak')
 
rects2 = plt.bar(index + bar_width, scores_gates, bar_width,
                 alpha=opacity,
                 color='g',
                 label='Gates')

rects3 = plt.bar(index + bar_width * 2, scores_musk, bar_width,
                 alpha=opacity,
                 color='r',
                 label='Musk')
 
plt.xlabel('Innovator')
plt.ylabel('Percentage of total comments')
plt.title('Comment breakdown by score')
plt.xticks(index + bar_width, ('Negative', 'Neutral', 'Positive'))
plt.legend(loc=4, prop={'size':8})
 
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()


My findings suggest that positivity is the dominant sentiment in these online comments with technology innovators. This is particularly true for Musk, whose AMA is the most positive by far, with almost 70% of comments on his AMA thread marked as positive, 24% neutral, and only 9% negative. Gates had the second most positive AMA, with 58% of comments marked as positive, 28% neutral, and 13% negative. Wozniak had the least positive AMA, with 55% of comments marked as positive, 32% neutral, and 12% negative.


In [66]:
wozniak_comments['Sentiment'] = wozniak_comments['Text'].apply(lambda comment: analyzer.polarity_scores(comment)['compound'])

In [67]:
gates_comments['Sentiment'] = gates_comments['Text'].apply(lambda comment: analyzer.polarity_scores(comment)['compound'])

In [68]:
musk_comments['Sentiment'] = musk_comments['Text'].apply(lambda comment: analyzer.polarity_scores(comment)['compound'])

In [69]:
#code adapted from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14270391/python-matplotlib-multiple-bars

n_groups = 3
scores_wozniak = (round((len(wozniak_comments[wozniak_comments['Sentiment'] < 0]) / len(wozniak_comments)) * 100), 
               round((len(wozniak_comments[wozniak_comments['Sentiment'] == 0]) / len(wozniak_comments)) * 100), 
               round((len(wozniak_comments[wozniak_comments['Sentiment'] > 0]) / len(wozniak_comments)) * 100))
scores_gates = (round((len(gates_comments[gates_comments['Sentiment'] < 0]) / len(gates_comments)) * 100), 
               round((len(gates_comments[gates_comments['Sentiment'] == 0]) / len(gates_comments)) * 100), 
               round((len(gates_comments[gates_comments['Sentiment'] > 0]) / len(gates_comments)) * 100))
scores_musk = (round((len(musk_comments[musk_comments['Sentiment'] < 0]) / len(musk_comments)) * 100), 
               round((len(musk_comments[musk_comments['Sentiment'] == 0]) / len(musk_comments)) * 100), 
               round((len(musk_comments[musk_comments['Sentiment'] > 0]) / len(musk_comments)) * 100))

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
index = np.arange(n_groups)
bar_width = 0.20 
opacity = 0.8
 
rects1 = plt.bar(index, scores_wozniak, bar_width,
                 alpha=opacity,
                 color='b',
                 label='Wozniak')
 
rects2 = plt.bar(index + bar_width, scores_gates, bar_width,
                 alpha=opacity,
                 color='r',
                 label='Gates')

rects3 = plt.bar(index + bar_width * 2, scores_musk, bar_width,
                 alpha=opacity,
                 color='g',
                 label='Musk')
 
plt.xlabel('Innovator')
plt.ylabel('Percentage of total comments')
plt.title('Comment breakdown by sentiment')
plt.xticks(index + bar_width, ('Negative', 'Neutral', 'Positive'))
plt.legend(loc=4, prop={'size':8})
 
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()


In all three AMAs, positive comments comprised the dominant share of comments. In two of the three AMAs (Gates and Musk), comments higher in positive sentiment are correlated with higher scores.


In [71]:
%matplotlib inline
gates_comments.groupby(by=['Score']).mean().plot()


Out[71]:
<matplotlib.axes._subplots.AxesSubplot at 0x113b2eeb8>

In [72]:
musk_comments.groupby(by=['Score']).mean().plot()


Out[72]:
<matplotlib.axes._subplots.AxesSubplot at 0x117caaef0>

In Wozniak's AMA, however, neutral sentiment is rewarded with the most upvotes.


In [73]:
wozniak_comments.groupby(by=['Score']).mean().plot()


Out[73]:
<matplotlib.axes._subplots.AxesSubplot at 0x113c31d30>

Across all three AMAs, comments with the highest amount of negative and positive sentiment receive very low scores.

Sentiment within AMAs

Negative and positive comments within AMAs differ in length and focus.

Negative and positive by score

Negative and positive comments according to score tend to be shorter in length, generally consisting of one sentence culminating in a question mark.

More positive comments by score--particularly in Gates' and Musk's AMAs--tend to be longer, with more characters spent on providing context to the question.

Most negative comments by score - Wozniak


In [239]:
for number, comment in enumerate(wozniak_comments.sort_values('Score').iloc[:10]['Text'], 1):
    print("{}. {}".format(number, comment))


1. Have you thoight about losing weight?
2. I notice you have abnormally large nose holes. What's up with that? 
3. Steve any chance you can smack Tim around and get apple to fix 1. Siri's terrible dictation support and 2. The default keyboards incredibly horrendous algorithm of suggested autocomplete?
4. What do you think of Seth Rogen's portrayal of you in the upcoming Sausage Party?
5. How pumped are you about Making America Great Again?
6. What was it like working with an asshole like Jobs?
7. Why does Apple let children build  products under less then appealing conditions, yet have the nerve to band porn? And why don't they pay your fair share of taxes like the rest of us? 
8. how come the apple watch is so shit?
9. Do you ever think about the future of marijuana in plastics, or home 3d printers?
10. This is a serious and difficult question.  How does your company justify the working conditions that your products are made under in China being so bad they install suicide nets? Understandable if you avoid it.  

Most negative comments by score - Gates


In [240]:
for number, comment in enumerate(gates_comments.sort_values('Score').iloc[:10]['Text'], 1):
    print("{}. {}".format(number, comment.replace('\n','')))


1. [deleted]
2. What is your honest opinion of Steve Jobs?
3. Which of the presidential candidates has the best hair?
4. Mr Gates, why is Windows Phone dying? Can't you do anything?
5. Hi Bill, how much money have you spent so far on trying to buy Gun Control influence, directly attacking my (and your) 2nd Amendment right?
6. Is it true that you can leap over a chair from a standing position?
7. Im giving it a shot: Can you donate some money or a pc to a poor dutch student?
8. Mr Gates: What do you think the single most important technological innovation of the last 100 years was. As a follow up, what do you think will be the most important in the next 100 years??
9. What do you think about all that is happening with apple vs the government about privacy?
10. Have you ever wanted to build your own theme park? 

Most negative comments by score - Musk


In [241]:
for number, comment in enumerate(musk_comments.sort_values('Score').iloc[:10]['Text'], 1):
    print("{}. {}".format(number, comment.replace('\n','')))


1. Will you give me a Tesla?
2. A lot of people compare you to a real life Tony Stark. What are your thoughts on this comparison?
3. Hey Elon, huge fan from down under, and whether or not you get to this question, thanks for doing the AMA!Wanted to ask you about your thoughts on extrasolar colonisation. Firstly, do you think Mars will go the way of the Moon landings? Where a few people over a number of years go there and return, only to stop sending humans? Or will we make a continuing effort to colonise the planet? Once we get started, will human endeavours to colonise Mars/ other places in the Solar System speed up, or will it be more or less an ISS scenario with researchers at a base?Also, wanted to ask what your thoughts were on exploring Venus’ upper atmosphere. There has been some talk recently in the community that this may be a better option to explore for colonisation than Mars even. Again, thank you for doing the AMA, I look forward to reading through all your responses!CheersCaffinatedsuperhuman
4. Can I have a Top of the line Tesla? It'd be cool for a first time dad :)
5. To Elon Musk Personally Direcly. Elon, I am Author of inventions equal to pioneer, as Tesla. Situation is the same as it was with every major thing that changed the world (history of pioneer inventions is history of humanity). For example book "Xerox. the billions nobody wanted". More than 100 years ago Nikola Tesla was thrown into garbage can, nobody helped him and his inventions(for benefit of all) were vanishing. Only one true human, true philanthropist, true businessman was found in the world, Mr. George Westinghouse, he gave Tesla money, not to let him dye of poverty, and took his inventions to life for benefit of all (today each and everybody uses them, because all about electricity is made basing on his inventions). Elon, we have true great inventions for most important problems of all. Hydrogen fuel (tens or hundreds times simply, cheaper, safer, efficiency), hydrogen fuel cell, rocket fuel (another quality), solution to huge forest fires (if fireworkers would use my algorithms, than some most horrible forest fire could be stopped in five minutes easily and cheap), prevention of damage like focusima, new materials, true nano technologies etc. Especially I ask You to pay attention to our hydrogen fuel breakthroughs, because as each our invention, this is not modernization of old, this is essencially another. All today hydrogen tehcnologies are total deadlock: complexity, expensive, no safety, no efficiency. Our hydrogen fuel is true, cheaper safer efficiency etc by tens or hundreds times. Why don't You want to become owner and master of these great inventions. Why don't You want to become true philanthropist (like George Westinghouse was). Why don't You want to get our cooperation completely ? (if You will help us, than I will give You all our inventions, knowledge and author rights). This is all true, I have all materials and documents, regarding hydrogen it is totally practical approved. This is all lifetime work of 55+ years for now. The great knowledge equal to Tesla inventions (or Roentgen/ First antibiotics), true key things that come to life ones in hundreds years, are all vanishing. I ask Your help. Please reply sergbloomkin@gmail.com Serg Bloomkin Russia Ekaterinburg Independent author inventor www.true-inventors.com (Russian). sergbloomkin@gmail.com +79226166807 cell phone. Why don't You want to help true inventors as Tesla ?
6. Hey Elon, just wondering, what's a hyperloop?
7. So in order to fulfill your idiotic Mars fantasies, you are allowed to destroy beautiful Florida estuary with your new development plans? Must be nice keep raping this planet so you can lubricate and stroke your massive ego. Btw, Tesla batteries and all resources for space exploration are destroying Earth and its resources, let's be clear about that. 
8. This is a big waste of time...  Who the fuck cares about this shit?
9. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE TRAGIC DEATH OF MICHAEL BROWN IN FERGUSON MO AND THE SUBSEQUENT RIGHTEOUS PROTESTS?
10. I have a few questions for you.1. How does it feel to have founded the only launch vehicle provider whose fans [create](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfMuvsC9k2U&feature=share) [fan](https://cdn.mediacru.sh/m/m1QKOUoDvKha.jpe) [art](http://justatinker.com/Future/wallpapers/barge-landed-1920-1080.png) (and [games](http://zlsa.github.io/f9r-dev2d/))?2. How badass will the Mars transporter's entry, descent, and landing sequence be?

Most positive comments by score - Wozniak


In [242]:
for number, comment in enumerate(wozniak_comments.sort_values('Score', ascending=False).iloc[:10]['Text'], 1):
    print("{}. {}".format(number, comment.replace('\n','')))


1. What are your thoughts on the FBI/DOJ vs Apple ordeal at the moment?
2. What is Tim Cook doing right/wrong, in your opinion?
3. Steve, what's the greatest invention that you wished you designed?
4. Do you like how you were portrayed in the Apple movies (jobs and Steve Jobs)? Who did a better job: Seth Rogen or Josh Gad? What did they do completely wrong?
5. What is the most funny prank that you've pulled?
6. What is your opinion on how immersive our technology is becoming? We use computers in some form, almost constantly. Do you ever feel in your own life you that it becomes overwhelming?
7. Whats your favorite Linux Distro?
8. Thank you for doing this, Steve! Even though you left in 1985, what was your relationship with the company like after, and how has that changed compared to now? Are you, for example, allowed to go and visit any colleagues that still work there or are you simply another outsider? 
9. Seeing as you're hosting a Comic Con... who's your favorite comic book character?
10. Hi! First off, you are my greatest idol :) I was wondering, why did you leave Apple? (Thanks in advance!)

Most positive comments by score - Gates


In [243]:
for number, comment in enumerate(gates_comments.sort_values('Score', ascending=False).iloc[:10]['Text'], 1):
    print("{}. {}".format(number, comment.replace('\n','')))


1. Mr. Gates, can we please have another Age of Empires? Not sure if this is your department, but I figured I'd ask since you were here...Thanks!Edit: Bill plz I know you can see this.Edit 2: First gold, thanks stranger! Just goes to show the power of reddit. One of the most powerful people on the planet came here to discuss humanitarian issues, and all we want to do is discuss video games. 
2. Bill, would you pick up $40,000 if you found it on the sidewalk? [Referencing this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2inExgT77s).EDIT - Your proof is amazing.
3. Bill, in an interview with Playboy in 1994 you claimed to have used LSD when you were younger.Right now, LSD is being investigated more and more closely as a therapeutic tool for various conditions and situations (ranging from autism, to alcoholism to fear of dying), but also as a creativity enhancer (as attested by its documented use in the form of microdoses in Silicon Valley). Do you feel your LSD experiences contributed anything to what you have achieved and invented?If so, could you share some of the most relevant elements?
4. What's your fastest time in expert minesweeper without editing the .ini file?
5. Some people (Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, etc) have come out in favor of regulating Artificial Intelligence before it is too late. What is your stance on the issue, and do you think humanity will ever reach a point where we won't be able to control our own artificially intelligent designs?
6. What's a technological advancement that's come about in the past few years that you think we were actually better off without?
7. Mr. Gates,You funded my high school, Pender Early College High School. I was able to go to high school and get my Associate's Degree in this five year program. It's because of this that I'm now about to graduate from a four year school with my degree in History Education - so I can teach students who weren't as fortunate as I.Do you ever visit the schools that your foundation helps fund?Matt*EDIT: I don't have the words to convey my thanks and appreciation for how you've impacted my life. Thanks Mr. Gates. 
8. Hey Bill! Has there been a problem or challenge that's made you, as a billionaire, feel completely powerless? Did you manage to overcome it, and if so, how?Now for a less serious question: sushi or thai food?Thanks for doing this AMA!
9. Are there any purchases that you are adamant about being frugal over? That one thing you just won’t spend much money on? 
10. What do you see human society accomplishing in the next 20 years? What are you most excited for?

Most positive comments by score - Musk


In [244]:
for number, comment in enumerate(musk_comments.sort_values('Score', ascending=False).iloc[:10]['Text'], 1):
    print("{}. {}".format(number, comment.replace('\n','')))


1. Hi Elon! **I'm asking three questions on behalf of the nearly 20,000-strong fan community /r/SpaceX**. We consider these the best questions we'd like you to answer for us (trust me, there were hundreds more), so a response to each would be much appreciated!1. Falcon Heavy. Some have speculated that at stage separation the Falcon Heavy center core is too far downrange and travelling too fast to be feasibly returned to the launch site. Could you go into some detail on whether you plan to use barge landings permanently for this core, expend it depending on the mission, or take the payload loss and boost back to the launch site?2. Mars. Could you please clarify what the Mars Colonial Transporter *actually* is? Is it a crew module like Dragon, a launch vehicle like Falcon, or a mix of both? Does it have inflatable components? Is MCT just a codename?3. Spacesuits. How does SpaceX plan to address the limitations and contribute to the advancement of current spacesuit technology to best serve humans enroute and on the surface of Mars? You mentioned in 2013 that there'd be an update to SpaceX's "spacesuit project" soon - how is it coming along?Thanks for taking the time to do this AMA! Also at some point, /r/SpaceX would love to have an AMA with someone such as Gwynne Shotwell, Steve Jurvetson, Hans Koenigsmann, or even yourself - so if we could organize something for the future that would be great! And finally, just in case your work and this AMA hasn't already made you aware, you're launching Falcon 9 in less than 12 hours (the 19th SpaceX launch & 14th F9 launch no less!), so here's a [countdown clock](http://spacexstats.com/mission.php?launch=19) & [website](http://spacexstats.com) I built for you. Best of luck with Dragon & the landing! Regards, Lukas. 
2. I’m a teacher, and I always wonder what I can do to help my students achieve big things. What’s something your teachers did for you while you were in school that helped to encourage your ideas and thinking?  Or, if they didn't, what's something they could have done better? thanks! 
3. What daily habit do you believe has the largest positive impact on your life?
4. Hello Mr. Musk, I sold you a pair of hiking boots at the Sports Authority Elite in Corte Madera. I just wanted to know how your walk through the forest (as you described it) went? Also did you like the boots?
5. Hi Elon, I'm already saving up for my Model 3.  Can you share anything about the Model 3 that we don't already know?
6. tl;dr: How do you learn so much so fast? Lots of people read books and talk to other smart people, but you've taken it to a whole new level.It seems you have an extremely proficient understanding of aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, software engineering,  all various subdisciplines (avionics, power electronics, structural engineering, propulsion, energy storage, AI) ETC ETC nearly all things technical.I know you've read a lot of books and you hire a lot of smart people and soak up what they know, but you have to acknowledge you seem to have found a way to pack more knowledge into your head than nearly anyone else alive. Do you have any advice on learning? How are you so good at it?
7. Hi Elon.  A friend of mine is all paranoid about the computer singularity, and used your name as a source of his paranoia.  Don't you think it could all be a bunch of hype?Awesome car/rocket/etc stuff you do!  Huge fan!
8. Hi Elon, I'll leave the technical questions to the experts. 1) do you plan on getting any sleep tonight and 2) how will you celebrate if the test is successful? Best of luck! x
9. Hi Elon, I currently work for Toyota Tsusho in Fremont doing the wheel assembly for Tesla. I want to let you know how proud I am to be however minutely linked to such a powerful and positively influential company such as yours. Keep doing the good work, sir. You are an inspiration to not only myself but countless others around the world. My question: You seem to have had to deal with a tremendous amount of adversity in a few of your ventures. Do you have any advice for those dealing with seemingly insurmountable adversity? 
10. Previously, you've stated that you estimate a 50% probability of success with the attempted landing on the automated spaceport drone ship tomorrow.  Can you discuss the factors that were considered to make that estimation?In addition, can you talk more about the grid fins that will be flying tomorrow? How do they compare to maneuvering with cold-gas thrusters?

Negative and positive by sentiment

Negative and positive comments by sentiment, however, both tend to be longer than even the positive comments by score, consisting of at least a few sentences that recall a fact or an experience, recounts an anecdote or piece of information, or explicitly communicates an opinion, followed by another sentence culminating in a question mark.

Most negative comments by sentiment - Wozniak


In [245]:
for number, comment in enumerate(wozniak_comments.sort_values('Sentiment').iloc[:10]['Text'], 1):
    print("{}. {}".format(number, comment.replace('\n','')))


1. Why won't you help the FBI unlock the phone of terrorist? I have an iPhone, I have nothing to hide. Only criminals and terrorist would have something to hide. So what exactly is the problem?
2. Why does apple suck so much cock? Why are you a co-founder of such a shit company? Why are you on reddit doing AMA's? Why aren't you at Assaple, Making it suck even more shit than it already does?
3. This is a serious and difficult question.  How does your company justify the working conditions that your products are made under in China being so bad they install suicide nets? Understandable if you avoid it.  
4. If Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were in the forest and one killed the other with a rock would that be fucked up or what? 
5. Do you fear that the future holds a world where Corporations will abuse and lose control of artificial intelligence? What is the possibility of mistakes being made?
6. It is unfortunate that your platform is completely inaccessible and locked down, almost perfectly useless except to the consumer user. The fact that the soft and hardware are inextricable and that all levels of apple products are exclusively integrated makes it utterly worthless, it cannot be worked on advanced or tested, it is released fully sterile and dead to be used up and thrown away like a box of tissues. Fuck apple for soaking up so much talent and money and effort and resources into preventing, constraining and directing consumer product development. It's a disgrace to engineering and humanity alike.  Why did you do it?
7. How does it feel knowing that steve jobs stole a lot of your ideas for which he never gave you credit? Also, is it true that he randomly fired employees he met while walking through the office "because he felt bored?" What about leaving his family in poverty? Seems like a really awful guy. Was it that hard to work for him?
8. You mentioned that you got into an airplane accident that led to you taking a break from the company. Were you the pilot or a passenger and have you flown since the accident or developed a fear of aviation?
9. How did you and steve jobs mentally enslave so many people to this shitty tech?
10. Do you resent what Jobs made of apple, or do you simply not care? Also, universe karmic justice that his(from the perspective of many) shit personality and how he lead his life brought down that fragile fulcrum of his life with cancer?

Most negative comments by sentiment - Gates


In [246]:
for number, comment in enumerate(gates_comments.sort_values('Sentiment').iloc[:10]['Text'], 1):
    print("{}. {}".format(number, comment.replace('\n','')))


1. Hello Mr. Gates, you mentioned in an answer about feeling powerless towards terrorists. I was reading also once that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost the US more than 3 trillion dollars. If this money would not have been spent in wars in those countries, but rather as investments in those countries, would there still be a considerable amount of miserable people in those countries who would be potential terrorists?       So the real question is with crazy amounts that the military spends, that usually lead in disaster, chaos, and even more terrorism, wouldn't we be more successful if we used that money to create happy and friendly people?Your foundation is showing us how much billions can change the world, what would be possible with trillions?
2. There are a wide variety of the problems in the world. The capability exists to fix, or at least dramically improve, hunger, climate change, war, poverty, many diseases, and more. It seems the core of the problems of humans are other humans. We are capable of so much, but also are our own worst enemies.What do you think we can do to help people grow beyond the more negative aspects of human nature that keep us tribal, and so susceptible to believing nonsense?
3. Mr. Gates,There was an article published some time ago about [self-driving cars being "programmed to kill"](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/542626/why-self-driving-cars-must-be-programmed-to-kill/).The main point of the article is this:> Here is the nature of the dilemma. Imagine that in the not-too-distant future, you own a self-driving car. One day, while you are driving along, an unfortunate set of events causes the car to head toward a crowd of 10 people crossing the road. It cannot stop in time but it can avoid killing 10 people by steering into a wall. However, this collision would kill you, the owner and occupant. What should it do?People would understandably be hesitant to buy a car that could end up sacrificing their lives. How do you see companies solving this moral dilemma and convincing drivers to buy self-driving cars? What other obstacles do you see in the public adopting these cars?Thanks!
4. Some of us still remember that you got started by buying a license to a CP/M knockoff, and progressed by buying, copying, or stealing other technology. Microsoft's "innovations" have primarily consisted of dirty business tactics and proprietary attacks on industry standards.You have personally set back personal computing by probably 5-10 years, and also dragged the industry irrevocably down a wrong path.Two questions:1) Do you feel any guilt for the incomprehensible damage you have done to a fledgling industry?  2) Do you think you will be remembered more for your later philanthropic work, or your earlier robber-baron tactics?
5. Mr. Gates,Can society as a whole combat imperfect dissemination of information and, if so, how do you see this happening? Specific examples of what I mean by ‘imperfect dissemination of information’ are:1. Russian media spreads specific information about the Syrian war (or any other issue). A U.S. media outlet offers a different (if not oftentimes conflicting) view of the same event/problem. Unanswered questions lead to confusion and more questions; yet, the news cycle starts anew, and new topics overshadow the previously unanswered ones.2. Fox News says one thing about a Presidential Candidate; CNN offers a different opinion.What I’m trying to get at is the fact that people have to make their own judgments based on conflicting and imperfect information. I believe that most misunderstandings, stereotypes, and prejudices arise from said imperfect understanding. This issue of imperfect/asymmetric information becomes increasingly complicated when state censorship, direct and indirect (via vague and easily misinterpreted laws), comes into play.
6. Hey Bill! Im born in the early 80's. I was a huge fan of Atari and grew up in a war between Atari and Amiga. As everyone now knows none of them won the war.While both Atari and Amiga were dying and I entered the world of PC's, you showed up. Everyone hated Microsoft and you were the king of bad things. Nowadays it's all forgotten and you are just a super awesome guy doing some good stuff.But, the other day I was thinking about those days when me and so many others saw you as an incarnation of evil. Did you ever get sad about it? Or did you never care at all?
7. Mr. Gates, thank you for doing this again.I am slightly worried about the future of the internet and the way it is used by people to connect. The internet is supposed to help educating people. But I feel like it often times reinforces conflicts and ignorance. For example, many people use Facebook as one of their primary means to connect to the world, to read news and to shape their view of the world.But when you read discussions between people on controversial topics it seems that they just seek confirmation for beliefs already held. Here in Europe there is a whole lot of discussion about problems concerning the refugee crisis and often times the most visible contributions are rather extremist in one direction or the other, reasonal comments get burried. I observed the same on topics that have to do with the India / Pakistan conflict or Israel / Palestine matters e.g. on the BBC page. Writing an educated comment after checking the facts and actually thinking about a problem does take longer than blurting out a rather unsophisticated reply after all.Although I am not aware of any actual studies on that matter I've read articles arguing along the same lines.Do you see that as a problem as well? If so, do you think society is aware of the problem and what do you think can be done about it? (I think compared to the upvoting-system on Facebook, reddit's system does a better job here)
8. Do you want to go out for coffee sometime? I live in Canada but the Tim's will be worth it ;) After a couple days I'll inbox you on Microsoft Live asking you to lunch, and then we'll eventually spend the rest of the day walking around Lake Ontario. With the crisp smell of polluted water in the air I'll ask you out to a medium-budget restaurant for dinner, maybe Applebee's. On the Uber drive home I complain about how unfilling my chicken fingers were and how expensive your margarita was. It's 9 o'clock already and we're at my basement apartment, as we awkwardly walk past the family of 5 living on the main floor, I give you the "look". We're on my couch, watching a documentary about Eminem...you say you're tired and want to go home. I tell you my mom's asleep by now and would kill me if I woke her up, so we sleep together. One thing leads to another and as I'm about to lift off your shirt you whisper "say something that would make you mine forever". I finish taking your shirt off, lean in right next to your ear, and say "I have $60,000 in student loans". The next morning you wake up before me, I hear you get up and think you're only going to the bathroom, so I go back to sleep. I wake up what feels like hours later. You're not there. You leave a note on my Ikea particleboard coffee table: "There was only 7 Windows in your apartment, I can't be with someone that wants to upgrade but hasn't accepted my terms and conditions. Goodbye." I sit on the couch with my head in my hands, holding back tears. I look up at the clock. It's 3 in the afternoon. I spend the rest of the day thinking about what happened, and I keep telling myself... "Google has a better search engine anyway"
9. It's great to save lives but wouldn't solving the systems that cause lives to suffer be the better goal. Is it possible for you to rally enough money to combat all the horrible things we keep doing? If I had money I think I would try to ruin all the corrupt men in politics
10. Dear mr. Gates,There is so much trouble in the world such as Syria. War and terrorism is destroying the country. But they can't be stopped easily. What do you think is a solution to stop ISIS? Thank you so much!! Ps. Sorry for bad English writing ;)Yours truly,Jasper

Most negative comments by sentiment - Musk


In [247]:
for number, comment in enumerate(musk_comments.sort_values('Sentiment').iloc[:10]['Text'], 1):
    print("{}. {}".format(number, comment.replace('\n','')))


1. I currently work rocket propulsion, specifically test engineering and systems operations but not for SpaceX.I love your business model. I love your very different approach to the relationship between your analysts and your operations. Its one of the more incredible integration models I have ever seen. In fact, there is very little about the SpaceX approach I don't like. In fact, I contemplate jumping ship from my current job to your company frequently.My question for you is........how does your company handle health issues? Any room for error, or are you out and done as soon as theres a problem?
2. Hey Elon! I can't help but wonder that you might be some sort of superhero/vigilante. You're a billionaire philanthropist who is quite intelligent. All that is missing is a cape and a cowl. So i guess my question is, are you going to keep fighting crime on earth or are you going to fight crime in space now?
3. Reddit's Lord and Savior did AMA, reddit turned into drooling idiots unable to shake off their awe.It is all going to fail miserably, but none of you can see it when you jerk off to Mr. Musk. It is a waste of money, resources and is basically chasing the dream you deep down know is flawed. Humanity needs to sort out its Earth business and throw all resources at that, why don't we start there? Musk actually does a lot of disservice to humanity and this planet by sucking in available resources and poisoning young minds with his "visions".Btw, the launch failed, lol. 
4. When SpaceX experiences a set back in terms of a failed launch or mission, what is the first thing that hits you? Grief at the setback to SpaceX's fundamental mission? A hit to your pride? Frustration at the team? Sadness at the financial loss?
5. 1: Would you rather send a probe to Mars or Europa?2: What to you want to focus on after you finish with the reusable rockets? If I were you my priorities would be: a: stop and astroid from murdering us, b: stop a solar flare from murdering our computers and c: mine astroids for iron3: What grades did you get in high school?
6. Two very silly questions:1.) What, if anything, could make you turn your considerable powers towards evil? 2.) Is there room in any of your organisations for henchmen? I happen to have the combination of physical distinctiveness and moral ambiguity necessary for such a position and would gladly thwart your enemies, learn to wield a gimmicky or unique weapon, or have drastic and unnecessary medical procedures performed on me to make me more intimidating. Need someone to sword fight Richard Branson on one of your barges so he can't interrupt a successful landing? I'm on it. Need someone to take a bullet from Bill Gates so you can escape his forest lair with Spartan before it gets to market? Gladly. Need someone to sell secret asteroid samples or satellite data then escape the authorities using the superior acceleration and handling of a Model S P85D (taking full advantage of the dual drive for the icy bits of the chase) and ensuring payment goes through with the convenience and security of PayPal? I'm your guy. Need someone to menace whatever fools the "intelligence" community has smuggled onto your yacht? That's me. How about someone to delay any vexingly competent agents at the Hyperloop construction site so you can slip into the shockingly working prototype and escape? Heck I'll do it, appear to die, but then reappear and menace them anew unexpectedly.
7. LEAF owners are, for the most part, whiney idiots. Do you think that LEAF owners and Plug-in-Prius owners hurt the adoption of electric cars because they're annoying self-righteous assholes?
8. The professors at my university have a generally negative attitude about you and the Tesla cars, saying that the batteries used are as bad for the environment as much as normal (internal combustion) engines. Basically they believe it's an elaborate hoax.Also, people in my country consider it very important to have an opinion about Tesla as a company, considering it's the birthplace of Nikola Tesla.Why do you think this negative opinion is turning up? Have you heard a similar stance somewhere else?
9. Hey Elon,Do you think we've passed the point of no return with respect to environmental decay of the planet such that it is unlikely we can reverse the process before seeing a catastrophic failure of Earth and/ or the destruction of human civilization?
10. Elon, regarding Tesla, how do you plan to solve the future battery waste problem?  It seems we are only "kicking the environmental can" down the road and making a carbon pollution problem turn into a heavy metals/toxic chemicals environmental problem with batteries which could pose a similar situation to nuclear waste and its proper disposal.

Most positive comments by sentiment - Wozniak


In [165]:
for number, comment in enumerate(wozniak_comments.sort_values('Sentiment', ascending=False).iloc[:10]['Text'], 1):
    print("{}. {}".format(number, comment.replace('\n','')))
    print('\n')


1. Hi Steve. I don't know if you'll see this post or not but here goes it: I just finished your IWoz audiobook and it was really great and has really inspired me to continue my pursuit of being an engineer and inventor. Admittedly I'm a bit of a late starter. I'm 29 and originally went to school for neuroscience. Ever since I was a young boy I always took things apart and tried to learn how they work. I carry a small notebook around with me for when I think of a new business idea or invention I'd like to create. I've been teaching myself programming the last year or so and love that I can create things with minimum funding. I'd really like to go back to school for electrical engineering so that I have the foundation to make more things on my own. Hopefully I'll be able to do so once I can pay down my old student debt. I was wondering if you could direct me to some resources you find useful for learning and building things.  I'm trying to mirror your outlook on life and on engineering. I love how jovial, kind, and care free you seem while still possessing that passion for learning. I know it's a bit of a long shot and that youre constantly flooded with requests to talk but is there any way to contact you to ask you things outside of this ama? Thank you for the inspiration. I hope I can change the world even a fraction as much as you have.TL;DR Thank you for inspiring me and for showing me a different way to live and view life and engineering.


2. Hope you guys find it useful (although I'm not sure if this is gonna be seen), with all the comments								Question	|	Answer		------------	|	------------		Hey Steve! I saw you speak in Orlando at the ASI Show last year. As a fan of Apple and moderator of /r/apple, I really enjoyed hearing about your personal relationship with Steve Jobs and how you were such a driving force behind the birth of the personal computer. Naturally, I was very disappointed at how little time you had on stage, so I’m really looking forward to this AMA so I can hear more! So here’s my chance to ask you the question I wanted to ask back then. Given that it’s been about 10 years since the first iPhone, it makes you wonder what smartphones will be like in another 10 years. Where do you see smartphones going in the next decade? At this point, new features seem to be somewhat minor, so I’m wondering if you have any insight on what form factors or major hardware features we might see in the not-so-necessarily-near future. Also, what kind of apple are you eating? Thanks so much for doing this AMA!	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12e4jz?context=3	)Seeing as you're hosting a Comic Con... who's your favorite comic book character?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12ebpe?context=3	)What is the most funny prank that you've pulled?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12emnj?context=3	)Steve, As a wannabe 20 year old entrepreneur i look up to you and jobs as role models. I'm currently working on a product with a team that we hope will have a big impact on the technology world. What advice can you give a group of 20 somethings when it comes to perfecting a product and growing a company? BTW during your "formative" episode, we felt like you were talking directly to us - we have an engineer, business minded guy, and marketing guy on our team :) thanks steve	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12eqha?context=3	)What are your thoughts on the FBI/DOJ vs Apple ordeal at the moment?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12ewrj?context=3	)What is Tim Cook doing right/wrong, in your opinion?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12f5dq?context=3	)What is your opinion on how immersive our technology is becoming? We use computers in some form, almost constantly. Do you ever feel in your own life you that it becomes overwhelming?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12fedf?context=3	)Hi! First off, you are my greatest idol :) I was wondering, why did you leave Apple? (Thanks in advance!)	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12foee?context=3	)Are you happy that when you were actively developing hardware, you didn't have to deal with all the issues that arise around security of userdata? Do you wish that there would have been more work around these issues back when you were innovating at Apple?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12fwc7?context=3	)What do you think about the lack of diversity in Silicon Valley tech companies? How do we make Silicon Valley more inclusive?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12fy83?context=3	)Are you still part of a segway polo league?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12g4um?context=3	)Hi Steve! Thanks for doing this AMA. My question for you is , How did you stay focused in college and work?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12ggsk?context=3	)Thank you for doing this, Steve! Even though you left in 1985, what was your relationship with the company like after, and how has that changed compared to now? Are you, for example, allowed to go and visit any colleagues that still work there or are you simply another outsider?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12gi5p?context=3	)What is your favorite up and coming gadget? Anything people don't know about yet?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12gmlr?context=3	)Hi Woz, thanks for doing this! Other than the occasional AMA, what do you spend your free time doing?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12gr5f?context=3	)Hi Steve, I saw you on a plane once but didn't want to bother you (you're welcome!). I know you are a big fan of Tesla, and there have been rumors about Apple entering the car market -- do you think Apple would be wise to enter the car market? If so, in what capacity?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12gsmp?context=3	)Interesting! I do love my Apple Watch, so I guess that is an evolution of the smartphone. I hadn't thought of it that way. What kind of smart watch are you wearing these days?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12gw9x?context=3	)Outback vs In-n-out?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12gyhf?context=3	)Hi Steve! I remember hearing about how you invented the sound card from a dream you had. Have you dreamed up any new devices lately?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12h960?context=3	)Steve, what's the greatest invention that you wished you designed?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12hawr?context=3	)Who was the first person to call you 'Woz'?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12hywu?context=3	)What do you consider the most difficult obstacle you've ever had to overcome?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12i1ve?context=3	)Do you still 'tinker'?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4apj5f/im_apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_ask_me_anything/d12i2q6?context=3	)


3. How do you keep relationships real as you become more influential? I have an easy time getting along with most people but fear being someone's friend or only having someone be mine because of the influence involved. I want influential friends and I want to use any influence I have to help and encourage my friends but I don't want that to be the basis of the friendships. Is this possible? Can a rich person have real friends and KNOW they're real friends? I know it may sound silly, but in any endeavor I undertake, I fear success will mean I, or my children will never know who their real friends are. Maybe it's better to stay poor? What are your thoughts? I know it can be a deeply personal question so I understand if it's better left alone. Thanks for reading this.


4. Hi Steve! I attended US Festival '83. I just wanted to thank you for the great memories that event has given me. I was curious as to how you created such a huge event - wrangling up the talent, the staff, the money... Did you stay within budget? Additionally, why is it that modern day tech moguls don't give back to the people on the "US Festival" level of fun and gratitude anymore? What are your thoughts on this? Is it that they are too focused on progress, money, fame? Or do they just not know how to have fun, like you? Talk about a fantastic promotional medium! Thanks again for your contributions, your grounded nature, and your gift of US '83!


5. Dear Mr Wozniak,Firstly, I want to say that I'm a huge fan, I really admire your work and I think that you are a very nice and funny person. I wish you all the best!Secondly, I want to ask you something: is it possible for you to come to Romania someday? I don't think you have ever been here. It is a very nice country (almost no vampires) and people here (including me) reallllllly want  to meet you! Please, pretty please?Even if you can't, you are still my hero! Have fun at whatever you are doing!! 


6. Hey Steve! Thank you so much for doing this first off.  I'm a person who also likes to think of ideas of how technology can assist humans in everyday life. I'm more of a big idea person rather intelligent though. (I have an issue with doubting myself) I'm only 23 so I like to think I still have a chance at great intelligence!What do you think about technology becoming pliable to the touch? For example, a device that can change shape, and mesh perfectly to the shape of your hand. While being able to reverse these effects once letting go and returning back to it's original shape. This affects human comfort and I imagine one day this could possibly be a reality. With your brilliant mind can you see this being a reality or am I just a dreamer?PS Your video interview was incredibly motivational. Thank you for sharing that. 


7. Shit.. I got late, not a question but... here it goes.   Hello Mr. Woz, you may not remember me but I remember you.  You were over here in TJ about 4 years ago and I was working backstage the set of Tijuana Innovadora making sure things were ok before your conference. It was awesome meeting you and my godfather got very jealous of me when I told him I got my iPod signed while he missed his chance of getting his original Apple II manual signed (which he still considers the best computer ever).    From here comes my small question: what happened the silver sharpie I lent you for signing stuff?  I tried to ask around if you left it somewhere but nobody could answer, I was too shy to even dare to ask if you left it somewhere and I'm pretty sure that due to how timeframes worked and all, there was really no chance to recover it.   So uh... yeah. I hope it found a nice home with you and that you had a nice time in TJ while you were around here.  


8. Hi Steve,Your contributions to our society are immeasurably impressive; thank you for sharing your talents! My questions: Apple is an American company...during the formative years, American consumers helped grow Apple into the global force it is today. In consideration of the billions of dollars in profits Apple makes quarterly, how do you feel about the outsourcing of Apple manufacturing jobs to countries like China? Do you think is is good to trump loyalty to country in lieu of HUGE profits? Thank you for your reply--I am eager to hear your thoughts on this topic. 


9. Hi Steve. I'm so glad I found this, I have a sincere question that I hope you'd be able to answer and you're the perfect person to do so.I'm a lecturer at a college and I'm currently developing a learning guide for multimedia students. I would like to add in a short bit of accurate information regarding Macs and Windows PCs.I've been doing research, but it's extremely difficult to find unbiased factual differences between the two platforms. I need the information to be current and I need to be able to cite it.Personally over the past few years I have used both Windows and Mac and the differences are narrowing down a lot, it all comes down to preference now. But I'm hoping someone with your experience, not only as a co-founder at Apple, but also a industry savvy gadgeteer that you could give me some information to really help explain the similarities and differences between Mac OS X and Windows (Especially the newest versions of each).So my question is:In an unbiased fashion, based on your knowledge of the industry and your personal interest in various devices, what are the real technical differences between Mac OS X and Windows? And how will those differences impact a multimedia user in terms of coding and development, Photography work, 3D rendering, video editing and composites, animation, sound production and the Adobe Creative Suite?If you could point out 3 advantages and disadvantages of each operating system, it would be immensely useful. Also, by citing you as a source I can be sure that the points are made from authority.Kind regardsTablet999


10. Hi Steve! Let me start by saying that I think you are a great man! You seem like one of the kindest and most honest people I've seen. I admire your intelligence and accomplishments and you've inspired me in many ways. I've been 100% an apple user for almost a decade now, but recently I've seen some changes in some of the products that seem to be driven by other factors than providing the customers with the best product for them. For example, the rumored removal of the headphone jack on the iPhone 7. I know you can't comment on whether or not this is true until it comes out, but this will effectively prevent me from buying an iPhone again. I imagined that giving people no choice but to buy apple's (overpriced if you'll excuse me for saying) proprietary headphones and removing a universal connector would go against your original ideals in the early days, especially at homebrew, and it ignores the legacy of where the iPhone came from, which was the iPod, a music player.To put it in a question format. Do you agree with product directions such as this?Thanks!


Most positive comments by sentiment - Gates


In [167]:
for number, comment in enumerate(gates_comments.sort_values('Sentiment', ascending=False).iloc[:10]['Text'], 1):
    print("{}. {}".format(number, comment.replace('\n','')))
    print('\n')


1. Hope you guys find it useful (although I'm not sure if this is gonna be seen), with all the commentsQuestion	|	Answer		------------	|	------------		What's your take on the recent FBI/Apple situation?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sa9in?context=3	)What's a technological advancement that's come about in the past few years that you think we were actually better off without? And As a tagalong question: what's a fantasy technological advancement you wish existed?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sae4d?context=3	)Bill, would you pick up $40,000 if you found it on the sidewalk? Referencing this video.	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0saf0a?context=3	)You dance anymore?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sagch?context=3	)Hey Bill! Has there been a problem or challenge that's made you, as a billionaire, feel completely powerless? Did you manage to overcome it, and if so, how? Now for a less serious question: sushi or thai food? Thanks for doing this AMA!	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0saith?context=3	)Mr. Gates! How soon do you think quantum computing will catch on, and what do you think about the future of cryptography if it does? Thanks!	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sam8v?context=3	)What are your thoughts on the many politicians that completely disregard climate change?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0saokm?context=3	)I'm about to graduate high school, do you have any life tips that I should know about moving forward in my life?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0saruv?context=3	)Hello Mr. Gates, You have previously said that, through organizations like Khan Academy and Wikipedia and the Internet in general, getting access to knowledge is now easier than ever. While that is certainly true, K-12 education seems to have stayed frozen in time. How do you think the school system will or should change in the decades to come? Thank you for continually coming back to reddit to let us ask you anything!	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sayk3?context=3	)Bill, why aren't you running for president?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sb15d?context=3	)Or Warren. Tell your ol' pal Mr Buffet to run.	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sb1tg?context=3	)Are there any purchases that you are adamant about being frugal over? That one thing you just won’t spend much money on?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sb3ep?context=3	)Hi Bill! You began Microsoft with the easy goal of putting a computer in every home. If you were to start all over today, what would your goal be instead?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sb7cr?context=3	)Afternoon Mr. Gates, I was curious about your thoughts on VR. We've all seen the great strides in AR made by the Hololens but nothing on VR from you guys at this time. Does that market interest you?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sb9sh?context=3	)Sql server on Linux was announced yesterday as I'm sure you are aware. What do you think this means or says about the company's direction, culture and future?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sbbr7?context=3	)What's your fastest time in expert minesweeper without editing the .ini file?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sbcyu?context=3	)Some people (Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, etc) have come out in favor of regulating Artificial Intelligence before it is too late. What is your stance on the issue, and do you think humanity will ever reach a point where we won't be able to control our own artificially intelligent designs?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sbf6o?context=3	)What's your fondest memory at Harvard?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sbjc3?context=3	)What was the most useful thing you ever learned?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sbk2t?context=3	)so what would you do if you were apple?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sbmm0?context=3	)What do you see human society accomplishing in the next 20 years? What are you most excited for?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sbs8h?context=3	)Hello Mr. Gates, I know you love to read, carry a lot of books around and learned how to speed-read, is there some technique you use to make this easier? More generally, how do you "attack" a book you're interested in?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sbvuv?context=3	)Any plans to retire and enjoy a quieter life? It strikes me that you must be sacrificing a lot to remain so active on these projects.	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sbybr?context=3	)What do you think will be the next biggest advancement in technology in the next 20 years?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sc0cv?context=3	)Would you consider marrying Melinda to be one of the top three decisions of your life? Because I do! :)	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sc1rf?context=3	)Mr. Gates, can we please have another Age of Empires? Not sure if this is your department, but I figured I'd ask since you were here... Thanks! Edit: Bill plz I know you can see this. Edit 2: First gold, thanks stranger! Just goes to show the power of reddit. One of the most powerful people on the planet came here to discuss humanitarian issues, and all we want to do is discuss video games.	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sc3o8?context=3	)Come on Reddit! We can make this the top question!	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sc5t9?context=3	)What's a technological advancement that's come about in the past few years that you think we were actually better off without?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0sc85e?context=3	)How did this even work? You passed the classes you didn't attend?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0scg73?context=3	)What's your personal computer specs?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0schfj?context=3	)What was the most useful thing you ever learned? Reply: I'm gonna take a wild guess and say it was probably programming.	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0scjre?context=3	)I recently saw Pirates of Silicon Valley, a film that claims to portray both Apple and Microsoft's rise to fame. Regarding that, I have a few questions for you, Mr. Gates. - Have you seen this movie, and if so did it seem accurate in portraying yourself and Steve Jobs?? - If you could go back in time and do it all over again, would you do anything different? - Any other interesting run-ins with the government besides the Porsche 911 incident? - Would you rather jump a horse-sized chair or 100 chair-sized horses? - What's your biggest "first world problem"? - What version of Windows do you use? Thank you for taking the time to handle all these AMAs.	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0scmm4?context=3	)Hi, Mr Gates! Big fan of your work. For someone that's currently 17 years old, what can I do to help or improve the world either now or in the future? Also, if you could give 17 year old Bill some advice, what would it be?	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0scqky?context=3	)Who is your favorite philosopher? EDIT: sorry for the mistake. Result of changing the question as you are typing.	|	[Here](	https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/d0scspq?context=3	)


2. Hello Mr Gates, I just wanted to say I really respect the work you and your wife do and enjoy reading your blog. I am actually currently reading The Road to Character which is one of the books you wrote about and I really recommend it so far. Just a few questions...1. What is your favorite color?2. What is your favorite movie/song?3. What is your favorite drink/food?4. I know you have a lot of wealth and have been able to experience quite a bit in your life so far, but I am curious...  What is something *fun* you would really like to do just for yourself, but you haven't really been able to do yet in your life? Build an amusement park, run a marathon, fly to space, climb a mountain, raft the Grand Canyon, etc.? Something just for fun and just to make you smile?5. Also, does your organization ever need nurses? :)Great pic by the way! Have a great day!


3. Hello Mr. Gates,During my undergrad I had the opportunity to visit and study reconsciliation in Rwanda.At one point we visited a small community of pottery makers, who would make pottery and walk to the village and sell it for food. If the pottery didnt cook right, they would go hungry.We wanted to help if we could and asked what they would want to help. Their answer was a surprise - they said they would love to have a small bike, so that they could drive the pottery to the village to sell, instead of walking the 8km's to town and back each day. This makes sense, and would be a single thing that would help a whole community.When we returned to Canada, we wanted to raise funds but unfortunately the idea fell through. I've never forgotten the elder man's face light up when speaking of the dream of owing a small bike, and I know he is still walking to town each day :(I've felt guilty ever since and really do want to help.I know a lot of people ask you for money, but considering how your Foundation tries to help many people with single initiatives, I am asking if your foundation may consider funding the bike for the village, and further, if you would fund further projects in similar nature?I would love to travel the world and help villages in similar manners. I believe micro level donations like these can make powerful impacts for whole communities. I would be willing to volunteer my time for such an endeavor, but I need the funds to distribute. I (and many people) no longer believe in some "charities" that purporte to help the poor while 80% of funds raised go to the organization. This is why I believe direct micro help like the example above would be much more beneficial.Would you consider funding such an initiative? I can promise complete transparency if so.Thank you for your time.


4. Hi! :) Mr. Gates, Melinda I really admire your work and im inspired to Contribute to make your dreams true and a better world for all. :)im also one of your your distant nonvacacional students.and i learn a lot thank u for your letters videos etc :) I would like to know what is the best leverage strategy for programing.?What are the best tools to program and how should i proceed?there so many: tools, technologies, languajes and courses.Im so confused where should i put my effort and time i don't want to lose energy in meaningless activity and i want to leverage as much as posible.Hope to meet one day soon.Thank u very much :)


5. Hello Bill!I was wondering if you could explain why you are in support of the FBI in the Apple vs FBI case? As you are probably aware, if the phone runs iOS 7 or 8, it is already vulnerable to being intruded. Furthermore, if the FBI forces Apple to write a investigation backdoor, what stops them from creating a surveillance backdoor?Do you care about privacy? Security? Are you willing to trade your freedom, privacy, security, liberty in exchange for a false sense of security?Ben Franklin Quotes. “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” ”Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither.” ”He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security.”Thanks


6. Hello Mr. Gates,I am an engineering graduate from the southern part of India. And I have a few role models like you , Elon musk and Ratan tata. Who are the people either gave back their wealth to the society for a good cause or working on a technology that will sustain the human species on the planet/Mars. But my question even thought I have a plan to start my own company but our country so much polluted with black money, If I started a company and paid my taxes I am sure half of it will go in to the pocket of the politicians. India is the country which tops in BLACK MONEY list in the Swiss Bank. And also here in tamilnadu, the 2016 state elections are reaching the peak and all the parties (ruling and opposite) are planning to distribute money to every votes in tamilnadu. The hacktivist ANONYMOUS started a party called humanity party in a well developed country like America. I think it would be better if they or some one start that kind of thing in a developing county like INDIA And finally America is one the greatest nation i ever seen (excluding the gun and drug culture). How to become INDIA one like AMERICA or even better?


7. Starting off by saying that this world is a fantastic, appreciative, and extremely better place with everything you've done in your life. Thank you! Now, I've been wanting to know for years because I'm a huge Xbox fan:1. What is the single best thing you like about Xbox?2. How exactly was Xbox created?3. What is your favorite Xbox games or cross platform games?4. Why is the Xbox 360 controller the greatest controller ever made? lol (you can skip that one if you please)5. Random question: What is your top favorite tv shows?


8. Good Afternoon Mr.Gates,    Your charitable work and entrepreneurial endeavors have inspired and saved millions of lives. You were my first role model and I enjoy following all of the great things that you have done, and continue to do, during my lifetime. I wish I could ask questions and thank you over a nice dinner party with Elon Musk, Warren Buffet, Richard Branson, and maybe a few of your friends but I guess Reddit will have to do.    What is one thing (a scientific break-through, upcoming future tech, etc.) that you wish you could invest in, but you are unable to. (Example: Elon Musk's Hyperloop...He's too busy building rockets. Like that's an excuse.)    Panos Panay has done a great job heading the Surface brand; except for axing the Surface Mini. What was the reason behind this decision? Is it because there's a Surface Phablet on it's way?    Thank you for doing this AMA. Even if you don't get to answer my questions, I still love you as a human being.      edit:grammar x2


9. Mr. Gates,I just want to say thank you for everything you are doing for the world right now! You and your wife are really doing amazing work which will really help the world. I'm glad you are using your money for good instead of sitting on it collecting more. I'm a fan of your Giving Pledge and would love to have more super wealthy donate more, especially before they die so we can use it for good sooner.That being said, how do you choose what ideas make it to be funded by the Gates Foundation? And is there a minimum stage for development in terms of product and business to be considered? How often do you get submissions and how many are turned down.Thanks again and keep up the great work!


10. Please forgive me if I have missed this qustion, I never thought I'd get to ask it, and, knowing that the AMA must be closed, please, please, please, please, lovely, polite, and wonderful executive assistant team to Mr. Gates, please please please let this question be asked, as I do not live in the USA, and will definitely not be moving back should Trump win:WHY WONT YOU RUN FOR PRESIDENT? PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. 


Most positive comments by sentiment - Musk


In [170]:
for number, comment in enumerate(musk_comments.sort_values('Sentiment', ascending=False).iloc[:10]['Text'], 1):
    print("{}. {}".format(number, comment.replace('\n','')))
    print('\n')


1. Question | Answer---------|----------[Hi Elon! I'm asking three questions on behalf of the nearly 20,000-strong fan community /r/SpaceX. We consider these the best questions we'd like you to answer for us (trust me, there were hundreds more), so a response to each would be much appreciated! *1.* Falcon Heavy. Some have speculated that at stage separation the Falcon Heavy center core is too far downrange and travelling too fast to be feasibly returned to the launch site. Could you go into some detail on whether you plan to use barge landings permanently for this core, expend it depending on the mission, or take the payload loss and boost back to the launch site? *2.* Mars. Could you please clarify what the Mars Colonial Transporter actually is? Is it a crew module like Dragon, a launch vehicle like Falcon, or a mix of both? Does it have inflatable components? Is MCT just a codename? *3.* Spacesuits. How does SpaceX plan to address the limitations and contribute to the advancement of current spacesuit technology to best serve humans enroute and on the surface of Mars? You mentioned in 2013 that there'd be an update to SpaceX's "spacesuit project" soon - how is it coming along? Thanks for taking the time to do this AMA! Also at some point, /r/SpaceX would love to have an AMA with someone such as Gwynne Shotwell, Steve Jurvetson, Hans Koenigsmann, or even yourself - so if we could organize something for the future that would be great! And finally, just in case your work and this AMA hasn't already made you aware, you're launching Falcon 9 in less than 12 hours (the 19th SpaceX launch & 14th F9 launch no less!), so here's a countdown clock  & website  I built for you. Best of luck with Dragon & the landing! Regards, Lukas.](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfpolr) | [**1.** Yes, the Falcon Heavy center core is seriously hauling a** at stage separation. We can bring it back to the launch site, but the boost back penalty is significant. If we also have to the plane change for geo missions from Cape inclination (28.5 deg) to equatorial, then a downrange platform landing is needed. **2.** The Mars transport system will be a completely new architecture. Am hoping to present that towards the end of this year. Good thing we didn't do it sooner, as we have learned a huge amount from Falcon and Dragon. **3.**Our spacesuit design is finally coming together and will also be unveiled later this year. We are putting a lot of effort into design esthetics, not just utility. It needs to both look like a 21st century spacesuit and work well. Really difficult to achieve both.](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfq5qf)[I’m a teacher, and I always wonder what I can do to help my students achieve big things. What’s something your teachers did for you while you were in school that helped to encourage your ideas and thinking? Or, if they didn't, what's something they could have done better? thanks!](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfq6ae) | [The best teacher I ever had was my elementary school principal. Our math teacher quit for some reason and he decided to sub in himself for math and accelerate the syllabus by a year. We had to work like the house was on fire for the first half of the lesson and do extra homework, but then we got to hear stories of when he was a soldier in WWII. If you didn't do the work, you didn't get to hear the stories. Everybody did the work.](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfrrm9)[Hello Mr. Musk, I sold you a pair of hiking boots at the Sports Authority Elite in Corte Madera. I just wanted to know how your walk through the forest (as you described it) went? Also did you like the boots?](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfq2xx) | [Yeah, they were great](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfqbi1)[What daily habit do you believe has the largest positive impact on your life?](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfpv7q) | [Showering](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfsdy9)[Hi Elon, I'm already saving up for my Model 3. Can you share anything about the Model 3 that we don't already know?](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfpq4s) | [It won't look like other cars](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfqeii)[**tl;dr: How do you learn so much so fast? Lots of people read books and talk to other smart people, but you've taken it to a whole new level.** It seems you have an extremely proficient understanding of aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, software engineering, all various subdisciplines (avionics, power electronics, structural engineering, propulsion, energy storage, AI) ETC ETC nearly all things technical. I know you've read a lot of books and you hire a lot of smart people and soak up what they know, but you have to acknowledge you seem to have found a way to pack more knowledge into your head than nearly anyone else alive. Do you have any advice on learning? How are you so good at it?](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfput4) | [I do kinda feel like my head is full! My context switching penalty is high and my process isolation is not what it used to be. Frankly, though, I think most people can learn a lot more than they think they can. They sell themselves short without trying. One bit of advice: it is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree -- make sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to.](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfre0a)[Hi Elon. A friend of mine is all paranoid about the computer singularity, and used your name as a source of his paranoia. Don't you think it could all be a bunch of hype? Awesome car/rocket/etc stuff you do! Huge fan!](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfq7rp) | [The timeframe is not immediate, but we should be concerned. There needs to be a lot more work on AI safety. And, with all due respect to the Roomba dude, that is not a concern https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of2HU3LGdbo](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfqyf5) [Has the Raptor engine changed in its target thrust since the last number we have officially heard of 1.55Mlbf SL thrust?](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfpmx6) | [Thrust to weight is optimizing for a surprisingly low thrust level, even when accounting for the added mass of plumbing and structure for many engines. Looks like a little over 230 metric tons (~500 klbf) of thrust per engine, but we will have a lot of them :)](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfpuwi)[Hi Elon, I'll leave the technical questions to the experts. **1.** do you plan on getting any sleep tonight and **2.** how will you celebrate if the test is successful? Best of luck! x](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfpmua) | [Yes, but probably only a few hours. Party at Cocoa Beach!](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfpqrh)[Follow-up question: How much do you sleep per night, on average?](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfqekk) | [I actually measured this with my phone! Almost exactly 6 hours on average.](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfrh2q) [Hi Elon, I currently work for Toyota Tsusho in Fremont doing the wheel assembly for Tesla. I want to let you know how proud I am to be however minutely linked to such a powerful and positively influential company such as yours. Keep doing the good work, sir. You are an inspiration to not only myself but countless others around the world. My question: You seem to have had to deal with a tremendous amount of adversity in a few of your ventures. Do you have any advice for those dealing with seemingly insurmountable adversity?](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfsjx3) | [There is a great quote by Churchill: "If you're going through hell, keep going."](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfsrdy)[**1.** Previously, you've stated that you estimate a 50% probability of success with the attempted landing on the automated spaceport drone ship tomorrow. Can you discuss the factors that were considered to make that estimation? **2.** In addition, can you talk more about the grid fins that will be flying tomorrow? How do they compare to maneuvering with cold-gas thrusters?](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfprcf) | [**1.** I pretty much made that up. I have no idea :) **2.** The grid fins are super important for landing with precision. The aerodynamic forces are way too strong for the nitrogen thrusters. In particular, achieving pitch trim is hopeless. Our atmosphere is like molasses at Mach 4!](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfqjjk)


2. I'm sure you won't see this, but I really really hope you're happy. I know nothing about your personal life, but I hope it's comforting and joyful. I can't even remotely imagine how stressful your life is and I'm sure you had to concede a lot to be this successful, but I hope you're happy for it. I [and literally everyone] am certainly thankful for the amazing things you're doing, but I hope you're healthy and happy. Anyway thank you for being one of my biggest professional role models. I've applied to SpaceX and I'll keep trying, but either way you'll remain one of my heroes. Thanks again! Good luck!If you've got a sec, who were your heroes growing up?


3. Hi Elon!  **What are your thoughts on Tesla developing a Model S *Coupe*?** Is this something the company would consider?  A "Model S Coupe" presents an awesome opportunity for Tesla.  Tesla's flagship sedan is impressive and charming in a lot of ways, but it doesn't offer the satisfaction of ego or vanity that a luxurious grand touring coupe would offer. This market is mainly catered to by luxurious European companies like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Maserati. Currently, the sales of these vehicles present a small but significant market. Catering to this market would require a small production output in order to be enhance the exclusivity of the vehicle and ensure that customers' tastes are catered to. The starting price for vehicles in this market is around $90,000, which is quite far north from the Model S's starting price. Entering this market with a product designed with Tesla's attention to detail and reputation for satisfaction, would draw admiration to the company and allow for a higher starting price, thus larger profit margins, and require relatively low costs for development. Even if Tesla starts the Model S Coupe at $90,000, it would have a significantly higher profit margin due to the added value of status and exclusivity provided in the vehicle. I have not reviewed Tesla's development costs closely, but imagine Tesla can expect a profit of at least $15,000 more per vehicle, compared to the Model S.  Financial costs for development would be relatively low as this model could be developed on top of the Model S platform, which has incredible qualities to build on. A differentiated front and rear designs would be optimal, though smaller changes that amount to a "refresh" could also suffice. Many body parts could be used directly from the Model S. With a similar size and weight, the car can be expected to have very similar driving dynamics which would reduce testing costs. The body can be optimized for similar aerodynamic flow to preserve dynamics and efficiency. A short cockpit and long hood should be considered in order to make it possible for Tesla to break another machine at the NHTSA. Tesla has limited production capacity and is currently using all of it to feed demand for the Model S and upcoming Model X. It is important that Model X production is not affected due to customers' already extended wait times for delivery. But due to the small production run that a coupe would need, something like 2,000 units, would be a very small hit on Model S production and would increase weight times only slightly if spread out over the year. Additionally, due to the similarities in the architecture and parts used between the two vehicles, most parts of the Model S production wouldn't have to change what they're doing. Very few machines would have to be retooled or altered, which further reduces the cost of the endeavor to Tesla. All of this also reduces the risk of the project costing too much or failing, since there is less that can go wrong. Also, if the old Model S isn't a good fit, Tesla could also choose to develop this alongside the next generation Model S which would also offer similar reduced costs.  Tesla would also get a boost to its reputation from producing the vehicle. Tesla has captured the attention of the media and the public by repeatedly achieving impressively ambitious goals. As this vehicle would the the "halo car" of the brand, it could be an opportunity for Tesla to showcase the incredible products and technologies it is capable of creating. This would retain the attention of fans and continue to generate a lot of positive press. Tesla has saved millions on branding by spending almost no revenue on advertising and this would allow it to solidify its brand. Furthermore, when Tesla gets good press and attention, it finds that the government is more eager to work with it, as it saw during its negotiations for building the Gigafactory. **The Model S Coupe would increase profit margins, require limited costs and risks, and solidify Tesla's reputation in the market.** I understand that Tesla is currently focused on bringing a mass market electric car to market - the Model III. But considerable profits can provide greater stability for Tesla to take risks on the Model III and make it truly great!  It could be called the *Model M*.  If you've read this far, thank you! And thank you for taking the time to do this!  P.S. iPhone or Android?


4. Hope that your day is going well. I realize you must be bombarded with other comments though hopefully you can get some time to respond. Any of your advice would be great! Have you ever thought of investing time into the development and research of commercial drones/multiorotors and the endless possibilities for their use cases in numerous industries?  Your accomplishments are truly amazing, and give hope to people like myself starting small with a big dream for my remote aerial imaging company cinemaflight.com, and my multimedia production company digitalmastermedia.comReading about what you've achieved, and how young you were is part of what inspired me to make drastic changes in my life not too long ago. I could only afford community college and shortly after 2 years I felt that the money I was spending on loans honestly was not going to good use. I learned more online and by going to Barnes & Noble or the library. I decided to drop out of college and begin using that money towards building my business. Since childhood I have always loved aviation and the thought of flight so the hobby of rc aviation quickly became on of my favorites. I made it my goal to take my hobby aviation flying & design skills and create a plausible service to offer as a company. I have relied upon the internet and books to learn many skills ranging from photography, video production, website design, computer science, and electronics to have the capabilities myself to begin my own business from the ground up. I now provide and produce high quality aerial video and photography utilizing drones that I custom build for safety, and long flight times. Taking learning into my own hands was honestly my best decision ever, that's not to say I haven't had some trial and error though. I began my company Cinemaflight.com in 2014 and since then I have acquired numerous clients though it has been rough attempting to grow and scale when the FAA is currently undecided in regards to the regulations that may be set in place. Can you provide any advice, thoughts or recommendations for steps that I should take to grow my business? I have been trying everything I can on my own to market within numerous industries though I feel that I always hit a wall when it comes to getting in contact with company owners and decision makers. I recently met with a millionaire investor that said he sees potential for turning my company cinemaflight into a franchise service provider for the real estate industry. He said that I have good skills, but so do 1 million other people. What makes you unique is that you have the drive and willingness to continue to reach out and seek new business opportunities no matter what it takes. He also mentioned that the reason I am hitting a wall in regards to marketing to owners of big companies is because they honestly receive 1000's of  inquiries and you need someone who has high level contacts that can get your foot in the door with the right people. I had a few business meetings so far though I need to figure out exactly what working with him would entail, I see potential for Cinemaflight.com and dont plan on giving up any ownership unless I truly know it is with a reputable company or mentor that can help me grow. Can you provide any advice in regards to meeting with investors? It was the first time I had ever had a high level meeting with someone so successful and it was a bit overwhelming lol. He gave me a expensive cigar (I Dont Usually Smoke) I got extremely sick and threw up on my way home, though fortunately we had a great meeting and he was able to give me great business advice. My plans for 2015 are to do whatever I can to continue to grow my business and become successful. Any advice you can give me is truly appreciated and I hope that you can be of help. www.cinemaflight.com       


5. Hi Elon, I am just amazed at the power of the internet for me to get in touch with so many amazing and successful and intelligent individuals. A quick bio on me: I read a lot of books. on business, capital allocation, investing, psychology, risk/return, business management, Ive read a lot of articles on how to succeed, make money, etc. I have watched thousands of videos online. Many speeches, lectures, talks and documentaries of successful people (including a one hour one on yourself and your business journey which I found very fascinating) I dont know if youll ever see this. I have so many questions. Your journey was a risky one that I would have thought at first until I learned more about it (technically arguably not so much even financially since you were probably smart enough to do well no matter what)1. ive graduated in a degree from a university and ive considered all the pathways I can take with this and I don't feel happy, passionate or would really enjoy it if I did. Ever since I heard what Warren Buffett has said on the topic I have delved deep into it. I might have to do some compromising in the short run to be financially stable but it's been tough finding a job in that area to begin with. (Got a degree in science) Do you have any advice for this?2. Do you have advice for success? Life advice? 3. What you did plowing everything (I dont know the exact numbers but it seems like almost everything) into Tesla was admirable and quite interesting. I'm starting to see similarities with special situations of concentration rather than diversification for success4. I was literally just pondering SpaceX and the potential for solar-powered energy in space the other day. I was literally picturing what I would say to you about the potential and how you're company is probably the highest chance of doing this. Then I found the wikipedia on it and realized how little I knew. 5. I find certain things about you very interesting. How you have very distinct interests such as enjoying to talk about rocket science on dates. I have had trouble often times because of my niche interests. Don't know if you have any suggestions on this6. Is your memory really photographic? As in you can see a page in a book and just immediately recall it too? any advice for people like me with above average iq's with ambition? 7. I really am struggling to figure out what I can do to that I can love and make a living too. I have to consider things like practicality, reality, competition, etc. I'm really trying to figure this out. I have a youtube on success and my readings right now: http://youtube.com/willyoulaugh Sometimes I think, if I can do anything, within reason (ruling out pro basketball player, etc.) what would it be.. I think it may be something in the entertainment sphere.. although I don't know how realistic that is 


6. I am an audio engineer/composer and it is my dream to work for spaceX or NASA jpl. How do I make that happen since I never see job postings for those positions? Just by chance or good fortune? I have been looking for half a decade but I can't find a way in so that I can contribute to a world of better sounding broadcasting.Oh by the way you're a pretty awesome billionaire. I wish more billionaires were like you and shared a positive vision for a better, more enviromentally reaponsible future. Thanks for being awesome. I admire you greatly, as I'm sure everyone else here does too.


7. Dear Elon Musk,I love what you're doing with SpaceX, it has enormous potential to change the world. Space is an enormous frontier that really inspires the imagination. I, along with countless others I'm sure, hope we'll one day live amongst the stars!However one of the biggest challenges facing humanity here on Earth today, is of course global climate change. I understand you've been trying to address this with ventures such as Solar City. However Solar is diffuse, and intermittent, and in countries such as the UK, isn't really viable as an energy source - there simply isn't enough energy falling on each square foot of land. Storage and transmission is enormously expensive, and could take a long time to roll out.One potential technology that I and many others believe could change the world, is Molten Salt Reactors, which are a radically different way of doing Nuclear Power. I wondered if you were aware of them, and if you felt it might be expedient to invest in such a venture?The most interesting Molten Salt Reactor project I've seen thus far comes from an engineer with an amazing career history in ship building. He hasn't just designed a new reactor, he has designed an entire mass manufacturing process, in addition to ongoing maintenance through to final decommissioning. More information can be found here:http://www.prweb.com/releases/2015/01/prweb12422236.htmAs well as on the homepage:http://thorconpower.com/The most exciting part of this is that if realised, it has the potential to generate electricity <b>cheaper than coal</b>. If you have an energy source cheaper than coal, you don't need political willpower, because market forces, economics and the profit motive will take care of the rest.It is effectively a blueprint for solving climate change, as existing coal plants can be refitted with these, hooked up to the existing steam generators and transmission systems.I believe strongly that this type of technology is our energy future. All it requires is a bold person with a passion for disruptive technologies and a vision of a brighter world.Mr Musk, would you ever consider looking into this further, given the potential benefits?Kind Regards,Alasdair Lumsden


8. I'm so excited to see what happens tomorrow! I hope it's a huge success! For a while now I have really been personally upset that I may never reach space but I do want to at least play a part in the future of space travel. It would be awesome to have man kind reach beyond our planet! My question would be how much of a part does the IT department play in making SpaceX projects a success? How much of a role do they play? Odd question I know but I saw a position I could totally fill in your IT department. Though I lack a college degree and am considering getting that fixed! I love knowledge am a very curious person and space is something that fascinates me! I wish SpaceX luck in your endeavors tomorrow! This is truly an exciting time! 


9. I know I'm extremely late to the conversation, but I do want to know why SpaceX is trying to be NASA without all the development time. I see more and more goals set as if for publicity than focus on the original task (low cost LEO transport). I'd love to work for a spaceflight company after I graduate, but the largest hesitation with applying to SpaceX is that I see a push for great things, which is good, but I also want the company to achieve those great things as well. Why should I pour out my passion for space travel in a company talking about going to Mars that has yet to put a man into space?In summary, it's important to have high goals because they inspire us to reach higher, but if we set our goals too high without grasping and understanding the supporting picture of things, it can become a slope of discouraging defeat. Just as you said previously, it is important to understand the supporting background so that the related knowledge and in this case, gains, don't fall away.I'd love to discuss this with you one day to better understand your goals.


10. To Elon Musk Personally Direcly. Elon, I am Author of inventions equal to pioneer, as Tesla. Situation is the same as it was with every major thing that changed the world (history of pioneer inventions is history of humanity). For example book "Xerox. the billions nobody wanted". More than 100 years ago Nikola Tesla was thrown into garbage can, nobody helped him and his inventions(for benefit of all) were vanishing. Only one true human, true philanthropist, true businessman was found in the world, Mr. George Westinghouse, he gave Tesla money, not to let him dye of poverty, and took his inventions to life for benefit of all (today each and everybody uses them, because all about electricity is made basing on his inventions). Elon, we have true great inventions for most important problems of all. Hydrogen fuel (tens or hundreds times simply, cheaper, safer, efficiency), hydrogen fuel cell, rocket fuel (another quality), solution to huge forest fires (if fireworkers would use my algorithms, than some most horrible forest fire could be stopped in five minutes easily and cheap), prevention of damage like focusima, new materials, true nano technologies etc. Especially I ask You to pay attention to our hydrogen fuel breakthroughs, because as each our invention, this is not modernization of old, this is essencially another. All today hydrogen tehcnologies are total deadlock: complexity, expensive, no safety, no efficiency. Our hydrogen fuel is true, cheaper safer efficiency etc by tens or hundreds times. Why don't You want to become owner and master of these great inventions. Why don't You want to become true philanthropist (like George Westinghouse was). Why don't You want to get our cooperation completely ? (if You will help us, than I will give You all our inventions, knowledge and author rights). This is all true, I have all materials and documents, regarding hydrogen it is totally practical approved. This is all lifetime work of 55+ years for now. The great knowledge equal to Tesla inventions (or Roentgen/ First antibiotics), true key things that come to life ones in hundreds years, are all vanishing. I ask Your help. Please reply sergbloomkin@gmail.com Serg Bloomkin Russia Ekaterinburg Independent author inventor www.true-inventors.com (Russian). sergbloomkin@gmail.com +79226166807 cell phone. Why don't You want to help true inventors as Tesla ?


Voting and VADER

There is some disagreement between Reddit's voting system and VADER, when it comes to determining the most negative and most positive comments within each AMA.

With Reddit's system, negative comments tend to be characterized by overly personal language. This includes insults regarding the interviewee's personal appearance, pleas for items or experiences that would personally benefit the asker, or statements that represent the personal beliefs of the asker but are phrased as a question. Examples include:

  • 'I notice you have abnormally large nose holes. What's up with that?'
  • 'Can I have a Top of the line Tesla? It'd be cool for a first time dad :)'
  • 'Hi Bill, how much money have you spent so far on trying to buy Gun Control influence, directly attacking my (and your) 2nd Amendment right?'

While there is some overlap, VADER appears to be more sensitive to negative sentiment as it occurs on a larger scale than the personal. Comments interested in the relationship between the interviewee and his company, or the interviewee and the law, or the interviewee and the enviroment are assigned the most negative sentiment scores, rather than any comments that explicitly involve the person of the interviewee. Examples include:

  • '[...] Do you think you will be remembered more for your later philanthropic work, or your earlier robber-baron tactics?'
  • 'Why won't you help the FBI unlock the phone of terrorist? [...]'
  • 'Elon, regarding Tesla, how do you plan to solve the future battery waste problem? [...]'

Regarding the most positive comments, the same seems to apply. Comments that are shorter and less personal/more neutral in phrasing tend to have a higher score. Examples include:

  • 'What are your thoughts on the FBI/DOJ vs Apple ordeal at the moment?'
  • 'What's a technological advancement that's come about in the past few years that you think we were actually better off without?'
  • 'Hi Elon. A friend of mine is all paranoid about the computer singularity, and used your name as a source of his paranoia. Don't you think it could all be a bunch of hype?'

Comments that are longer and more personal in nature tend to have a higher positive sentiment, though a lower score. Examples include:

  • 'Hi Steve. I don't know if you'll see this post or not but here goes it: I just finished your IWoz audiobook and it was really great and has really inspired me to continue my pursuit of being an engineer and inventor.[...]'
  • 'Hello Mr Gates, I just wanted to say I really respect the work you and your wife do and enjoy reading your blog. I am actually currently reading The Road to Character which is one of the books you wrote about and I really recommend it so far.[...]'
  • 'I'm sure you won't see this, but I really really hope you're happy.[...]'

The Musk AMA slightly differs from the above model in that comments that are both high scoring and have high positive sentiment contain personal language, either as it relates to Musk, the user, or (more commonly) to both. This suggests that users--both those who post the top-level comments and those who upvote these top-level comments--want to connect with Musk on an emotional level both individually and collectively, using the sentiment-rich language of memory, flattery, and comparison.

Examples of personal language in high score Musk comments include:

  • 'I’m a teacher, and I always wonder what I can do to help my students achieve big things. What’s something your teachers did for you while you were in school that helped to encourage your ideas and thinking?'
  • 'Hello Mr. Musk, I sold you a pair of hiking boots at the Sports Authority Elite in Corte Madera. I just wanted to know how your walk through the forest (as you described it) went? Also did you like the boots?'
  • 'How do you learn so much so fast? Lots of people read books and talk to other smart people, but you've taken it to a whole new level.'

Examples of personal language in high positive sentiment Musk comments include:

  • 'Hope that your day is going well. [...] Your accomplishments are truly amazing, and give hope to people like myself starting small with a big dream for my remote aerial imaging company cinemaflight.com [...]'
  • 'Hi Elon, I am just amazed at the power of the internet for me to get in touch with so many amazing and successful and intelligent individuals. A quick bio on me: […]'
  • 'I am an audio engineer/composer and it is my dream to work for spaceX or NASA jpl. How do I make that happen since I never see job postings for those positions?'

Conclusions and Next Steps

From this sentiment analysis of top-level comments submitted by Reddit users, we can see users feel positively toward technology as it is represented here by the figures of Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk.

Users feel particularly positively toward Musk; almost 70% of comments on his AMA are positive, 24% neutral, and only 9% negative. Users feel positively towards Gates as well; 58% of comments on his AMA are positive, 28% neutral, and 13% negative. Users feel the least positively toward Wozniak; 55% of comments on his AMA are positive, 32% neutral, and 12% negative.

I contend that a primary reason why users feel so positively toward Musk is that they associate him with the future, particularly with the future of space exploration. Words like "space", "future", and "mars" are some of the most frequent used in questions posed to him, for instance. The most frequent word in his AMA is his own first name, "Elon", which suggests that his personal brand eclipses his technologies even as they rely on one another to create positivity toward both.

In another way, Gates has also become associated with the future, but here, it's the potential future of the world to be a more humane place, and is thus a future we can work toward right now. Words like "world" and "people" occur frequently in questions posed to him. His own last name, "Gates", is also the most frequent word in his AMA, which again suggests that Gates' personal brand has eclipsed that of Microsoft's, even as the terms remain connected.

For Wozniak, however, the past is a heavy chain. Words like "apple" and "jobs" (i.e. Steve Jobs) occur frequently in questions posed to him, suggesting that users associate him with the past of an organization and of a deceased person, and it is of these things that Wozniak is asked to speak again and again. Unfortunately for him, users take issue with one or both of these things, which may very well be why Wozniak's AMA is the least positive. The most frequent word used in questions posed to him is not, after all, his name; instead, it's "apple".

And the secret to getting a highly-scored comment? Keep it shortish and neutral-positive (unless you're talking to Elon Musk, in which case longish and fawning are fine).

To fully understand sentiment in Reddit AMAs, the next step could involve performing a sentiment analysis on the top Reddit AMAs. One could then situate these results within this larger view of how sentiment works in Reddit. It would also be promising to track individual users across these three tech-oriented AMAs, to determine at the granular level of the individual commenter if the same people have participated in more than one AMA, and if so, if their sentiments change or remain the same across all three.

WORKS CONSULTED/REFERENCED