Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Austin K. Russell


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete.  Arbitrarily0  ( talk ) 14:00, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Austin K. Russell

 * – ( View AfD View log )

No effective references. Fails WP:BIO, WP:SIGCOV.  scope_creep Talk  12:14, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone  12:25, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone  12:25, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone  12:25, 5 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete- His company might be notable, but it is not established for the person. MrsSnoozyTurtle (talk) 07:55, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep His company is definitely notable. Austin K. Russell is obviously notable: he is one of the youngest billionaires, a prodigy engineer, Stanford dropout and Thiel fellow. I find it ridiculous that we are discussing deletion of this page, and at the same time keep pages for, say, the Kardashian family. Magicheader (talk) 15:20, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * None of Stanford, Peter Thiel, nor a billion dollars automatically confer notability, and articles aren't awarded for success in life. FalconK (talk) 03:19, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep If anything the article should be expanded. Currently world's youngest self-made billionaire. Founder of a NASDAQ listed company. MIT 35 under 35. Forbes 30 under 30. Thiel Fellow. Absolutely meets the WP:BIO test of being "worthy of notice", as evidenced by all the WP:SIGCOV in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, FastCompany, Wired, CNBC, ArsTechnica, Sky, The Independent, MSN, and more. These predate the IPO and can be found going back to 2017. The subject himself, and not just the company he founded, is the main topic of many of the references. I have added more of these to the article. ―StvnW talk 17:07, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The above two editors are WP:SPAs.   scope_creep Talk  18:02, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I am not an SPA. ―StvnW talk 15:24, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Magicheader doesn't look like an SPA either to me. Jmill1806 (talk) 18:07, 23 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Comment Lets examine the references. I have removed extensive additions of Forbes which are deprecated. They are very low-quality and have no place on Wikipedia.
 * * Luminar founder and CEO Austin Russell told Spectrum earlier this year that for autonomous cars, “Cost is not the most important issue; performance is.” Reliable, independent but is dependent, primary source.
 * * This is reliable, independent, but is essentially a company reference. It is not significant. This is BLP.
 * * Patents. Non-RS.
 * * “No other company has released actual raw data from their sensor,” he says. “Frankly there are a lot of slideshows in this space, not actual hardware.” Reliable but dependent.
 * * Reliable and independent but not significant. Essentially a name drop.
 * * Press-release.
 * * “Autonomous cars can’t reliably see today,” Russell says. “We need fundamentally better hardware, fundamentally better data.” Reliable but dependent, and not significant. Passing mention.
 * * “AID is an ideal partner for Luminar, with the backing and resources of the world’s largest OEM while maintaining a fresh software-minded spirit of a high-growth startup,” he said Reliable but dependent sources and not significant. Passing mention.
 * * Not reliable, nor significant. Press-release.


 * The rest of the references are routine announcements, passing mentions and non-notable puffy award page. These references are poor. Essentially they are all passing mentions, routine announcements, or press releases. There is not significant in-depth coverage, suitable for a BLP.   scope_creep Talk  18:31, 7 December 2020 (UTC)


 * * The first and second Forbes references are written by Forbes staff. The third is for the 30 Under 30 list. All three are RS according to WP:RSP, with WP:FORBES addressing these specifically. There is a distinction made between articles authored by staff which have editorial oversight, and the lesser-quality WP:FORBESCON posts which do not. The former are not deprecated and I have therefore undone their removal.
 * * Similarly, the Fox Business reference is also RS per WP:FOXNEWS.
 * * The FastCompany article is included to substantiate the subject's birthday.
 * * Issued patents are RS for the existence of patents. One is free to argue that their mention does not belong in the article in the first place, but if included then the citation is both needed and appropriate.
 * * The TechCrunch article is written by a senior staff member and appears credible enough to ascertain the existence of a deal between Luminar and Volvo. Again, whether that relationship should be included here is a separate matter, but if so then the citation is appropriate.
 * * The Daimler reference can be replaced with one from Bloomberg, same qualification. ―StvnW talk 18:56, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Missvain (talk) 02:42, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Looking at the references above:
 * Russell told FOX Business Network's “The Claman Countdown” on Thursday that he took up entrepreneur Peter Thiel’s challenge to quit college in exchange for a $100,000 investment. Newly-minted by Forbes magazine as the youngest self-made billionaire, Russell explained that the risk was clearly worth the reward. “I always knew academia wasn’t going to be the right route for this,” he said. “Because if you really want to make a huge impact into the world, being stuck in a given lab is not the right way to do it. You have to be able to commercialize it ... You have to make it economically viable.” This is an interview. It is a reliable but it is dependent source.
 * “It’s been insanely intense, grueling . . . everything through every day that we’ve had to go through, scaling this up. And of course it’s incredibly rewarding to have an opportunity to be able to get out there now and get into the public markets and scale through this IPO SPAC,” 25-year-old Russell tells Forb It is an interview and a dependent source also.
 * . This a profile page. It is non-rs. Nobody writes these types of profile It is machine-generated, from Bloomberg data and it is entirely non-rs.
 * This a duplicate:
 * Within a few seconds of talking to Russell, I begin to forget about his age. This is also a dependent source.
 * This is a passing mention. It is a corporate article of a merger. startup has continued to improve its lidar as well as attract investors. Luminar announced last year it had raised $100 million It fails WP:CORPDEPTH. standard notices, brief announcements, and routine coverage, such as: of a product or a product line launch, sale, change, or discontinuance, of a capital transaction, such as raised capital.
 * * Notice of a partnership. Routine coverage. Press-release.
 * * [] Bloomberg, 404, but likely a paid promotion. Everything that is on Bloomberg is paid for.

These references are very poor. They are all dependent sources, where the interviewee can say pretty much anything he wants and it will be reported, but that doesn't make a good quality source. When people list these types of references, its almost like when they see a page in a reliable site, then as long page is from site, they assume valid. That is the wrong approach. It is the quality of the content in the page that matters now. Only the quality of content that matters now, NOT the location. This isn't 2010, when any kind of reference could be used, where is was assumed if came from a good site, it was valid. Things have changed in the last decade and the notability standards have been tightened up to reflect that.  scope_creep Talk  15:10, 14 December 2020 (UTC)


 * KEEP: meets BASIC and CREATIVE The Ace in Spades (talk) 12:03, 15 December 2020 (UTC) — The Ace in Spades (talk • contribs) is a confirmed sock puppet of Waskerton (talk • contribs).
 * This person above is another WP:SPA editor specifically sent in to fudge the Afd.   scope_creep Talk  13:00, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete. Nothing in here indicates the subject of the article is notable; notability isn't inherited from the company and there's nothing to say about this person otherwise.  FalconK (talk) 04:58, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Missvain (talk) 00:51, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete. As others have said, nothing to indicate notability of Russell, just notability of Luminar Technologies (which I happen to think is sufficiently notable for a page, but that's not the topic of this discussion). Jmill1806 (talk) 18:04, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete - the company is notable, he doesn't meet WP:SIGCOV.  Onel 5969  TT me 03:23, 29 December 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.