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Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

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Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#141

Post by wellthatsawrap1 »

mcphage wrote: post #132
wellthatsawrap1 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't know anything about this guy, his employment history, if was underperforming in the past, etc. You read yet another hit piece on Elon because he's taking out the trash at Twitter and all of a sudden this one example has TOTALLY changed your opinion. You are being manipulated.

> You don't know anything about this guy, his employment history, if was underperforming in the past, etc. I don't, but then given Elon has been CEO for all of 2 weeks—neither does he. > You are being manipulated. As are you.

Look at the HN new Tab. See all the negative press about Elon and Twitter. You think this is organic?

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#142

Post by notacoward »

cptcobalt wrote: post #121

Yes. Speaking from experience: 1. You're typically working on small teams with some wickedly smart people around you. Very, very few dummies or under performers at his companies. Definitely a community feel where you know everyone in the spheres around you. Also, everyone wants to help you, and so you tend to respond in the same way back to others. 2. You get to question everything, and the first answer is often not…

> You're typically working on small teams with some wickedly smart people around you.

That was already the case at Twitter without Elon. He has destroyed many of those teams.

> You get to question everything

That was already the case at Twitter without Elon. His petulant firings have destroyed that.

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#143

Post by nashashmi »

bheadmaster wrote: post #102
mcphage wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Elon puts a lot of focus on ability and skill over formalities and organizations I'm curious what this means to you, because when I see people from inside Twitter correct him on Twitter, with specific technical statements describing what's going on—and then he fires them—that seems like formalities way outranking ability and skill.

> I'm curious what this means to you In short, it means that doing things better (e.g. making a piece of software faster) for the sake of things being done better is praised, not tolerated, as is the case in the many "let's just ship it, we'll fix it later" software companies. > when I see people from inside Twitter correct him on Twitter, with specific technical statements describing what's going on—and then he fire…

When the guy says stupid stuff, it would be "RUDE" to not correct him. But in his opinion, he thinks it is "rude" to correct him.

He is on a power trip.

I second everything you said about fostering a competitive no bs environment. Reminds me of Jeff Bezos. But Musk's behavior is toxic. Treating people outside the firm (like customers getting into accidents with self drive and losing their life, or journalists critiquing his cars) with disrespect and annihilation is one thing. But treating your own people who you rely on to get stuff done, is entirely another. If the head is garbage, the body is too.

Musk is garbage, and when unbridled, we can see it in its full ugliness.

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#144

Post by dd82 »

bheadmaster wrote: post #19

Considering that Elon puts a lot of focus on ability and skill over formalities and organizations, and that he believes that small team of highly-skilled highly-motivated people can often (always?) out-perform large teams of moderately-skilled moderately-motivated people, I'd say yes. I find a lot of joy in working on challenging problems without having to deal with bureaucracy bullshit. I have a feeling that Elon li…

You really would want to work yourself down to nothing for the worlds richest man with extremely hand-wavy equity value?

There's a difference between being in a focused envcironment and being in a shitshow. Essentially this message is saying "Hey, I want to be taken advantage of, work me as hard as you want, I want more!!!!"

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#145

Post by SimianSci »

wellthatsawrap1 wrote: post #101
haggy wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This ^^^ My answer to this question would have been a VERY weak "Yes" before the Twitter disaster. Now that we're seeing the true Elon alongside real engineer feedback, it's a HARD no.

You don't know anything about this guy, his employment history, if was underperforming in the past, etc. You read yet another hit piece on Elon because he's taking out the trash at Twitter and all of a sudden this one example has TOTALLY changed your opinion. You are being manipulated.

You really can’t conceive of a world where Elon’s actions soiled his reputation?

You think all of this is just some narrative being pushed, or are you just sensing a shift in public opinion and since it’s a deviation from the norm you are assigning it to some unknown “force?”

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#146

Post by nashashmi »

wordyskeleton wrote: post #125
bheadmaster wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm curious what this means to you In short, it means that doing things better (e.g. making a piece of software faster) for the sake of things being done better is praised, not tolerated, as is the case in the many "let's just ship it, we'll fix it later" software companies. > when I see people from inside Twitter correct him on Twitter, with specific technical statements describing what's going on—and then he fire…

How can you characterize Twitter's current modus operandi under Musk as anything but "let's just ship it, we'll fix it later"? They're on iteration 5 or 6 of the checkmarks within the last week.

This is another point. People who have been at twitter have known what works and what does not. Elon comes out of nowhere, thinks he knows better, and has people actually spend countless hours extra on these stupid ideas. And then spend extra, extra hours to reverse and try something else.

Ridiculous IMO.

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#147

Post by nashashmi »

bheadmaster wrote: post #136
wordyskeleton wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you characterize Twitter's current modus operandi under Musk as anything but "let's just ship it, we'll fix it later"? They're on iteration 5 or 6 of the checkmarks within the last week.

I have no reliable information about the current modus operandi under Musk, nor about modus operandi of any of his companies. I just have a vague feeling derived from the random information about his companies and employees I've read over the years. It's very possible that it's just smoke and mirrors, but if I were given an offer, I'd at least try it for a while. If it's true, I gain a lot - if it's false, I gain a u…

you give him benefit of the doubt, a bit too much.

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#148

Post by [deleted] »

wellthatsawrap1 wrote: post #141
mcphage wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't know anything about this guy, his employment history, if was underperforming in the past, etc. I don't, but then given Elon has been CEO for all of 2 weeks—neither does he. > You are being manipulated. As are you.

Look at the HN new Tab. See all the negative press about Elon and Twitter. You think this is organic?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#149

Post by stephc_int13 »

ehnto wrote: post #137
FredPret wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t get what people mean by this. I have mixed feelings about the guy, but vaporware? Are the rockets not real? Are the cars and solar panels and tunnels and Paypal not real? Of course he didn’t single-handedly do this. Of course other engineers were invaluable in the process. But he forced Tesla and SpaceX into existence when everyone thought it was guaranteed to fail. We saw people trying with electric cars and…

I think what could potentially be vapor is the money in the valuations. In two years, Tesla went from 75billion market cap to 1 trillion, in the middle of a pandemic. How can a car company, of any kind, suddenly be delivering 925 billion dollars more value to the world. Tesla is one of the biggest car manufacturers by market cap, yet almost every other car company is out-producing them by a landslide, and even as ind…

Tesla seems to be a moderately successful but enormously overvalued car company.

Why?

Because Elon himself is seen as a super-genius and a savior of humanity by a lot of people, including smart dudes like Geohot or Lex Fridman.

Also, Telsa valuation is tied to L5 (full autonomy), and the TelsaBot and the impressive giga factories and the AI hype, and the Solar panels etc.

But most of that will flop...

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#150

Post by bheadmaster »

dd82 wrote: post #144
bheadmaster wrote: post #19

Considering that Elon puts a lot of focus on ability and skill over formalities and organizations, and that he believes that small team of highly-skilled highly-motivated people can often (always?) out-perform large teams of moderately-skilled moderately-motivated people, I'd say yes. I find a lot of joy in working on challenging problems without having to deal with bureaucracy bullshit. I have a feeling that Elon li…

You really would want to work yourself down to nothing for the worlds richest man with extremely hand-wavy equity value? There's a difference between being in a focused envcironment and being in a shitshow. Essentially this message is saying "Hey, I want to be taken advantage of, work me as hard as you want, I want more!!!!"

> You really would want to work yourself down to nothing for the worlds richest man with extremely hand-wavy equity value?

If I'm being challenged enough to have fun, I don't see why not. I like building software, it's my passion, and if I can get paid good money for doing interesting things while working for Elon, then good for him. Especially if the alternative is "do mind-dulling tasks 8 hours a day" for the world's richest men in some other megacorp.

> There's a difference between being in a focused envcironment and being in a shitshow

Yes, I don't want to be in a shitshow, I want to be in a focused environment. I don't see where the disagreement is.

Perhaps you're implying I'm wrong about Musk's places of employment being as I see them - you might as well be right, but you might as well be wrong. Unless I start working for them, I guess I'll never know for sure.

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