Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#141

Post by sk5t » Sat, Oct 14, 2017, 12:42 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #139

koevet wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not for Germany only. The majority of EU contries have similar benefits guaranteed by the law.

I always wondered why laws are needed to require benefits. Seems like working for someone is a consensual choice that ought be regulated by the free market itself. Other than physical safety regulations, seems like the rest of it is government overreach. It’s also weird to me that a “contract” covers “workers” rather than a contact negotiated by each worker. Seems rather Marxist to me to consider workers as interchan…

Because asymmetrical bargaining power, guy.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#142

Post by AsyncAwait » Sat, Oct 14, 2017, 12:44 PM UTC

jwdunne wrote: post #64

dmode wrote: post #49

I know someone who just got fired in this round at Tesla. His manager never communicated to him that he was a bad performer. He was not on a PIP or any performance plans. He was also working on Model 3. One fine morning his manager called him and said this would be his last day. He is a single income earner and was so shocked by this news that he is getting borderline depressed. They offered only 2 weeks of severance…

I think firing without giving warnings and opportunity to improve is sick. These people don't even know they were doing badly. I can't tell if they've been told where they screwed up. These people could be spending a lot of time figuring out what went wrong when everything seemed to be going fine. They don't deserve that, regardless of performance. They are people, they have lives and it wasn't anything like gross mi…

Musk seems to think that somebody like Chris Lattner is not good enough for Tesla, so his definition of a 'low performer' definitely seems a bit off. I just hope that the applies the same evaluative metrics to himself.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#143

Post by thegayngler » Sat, Oct 14, 2017, 12:48 PM UTC

omilu wrote: post #130

AsyncAwait wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People always seem to put Musk on a pedestal. Personally, I've always been (and always will be) leery of a company run by a PayPal founder. Bingo! I never quite got the Musk hype train, between how he treats his employees, doesn't respect work life balance, has unrealistic expectations and talks about people not wanting to work for him as less talented, promotes the idea of American exceptionalism etc., I don't see…

He risked everything to make a rocket company from nothing, if ever there was a person that earned the hype, this is the person.

The result was failure. Now we are approaching two failures with other people's money. He has these lofty ideas and unrealistic promises none of which he can deliver on. It's almost like he's an underperforming employee.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#144

Post by emodendroket » Sat, Oct 14, 2017, 12:51 PM UTC

brianwawok wrote: post #117

emodendroket wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla said the performance-based departures were not considered layoffs and not subject to state notifications. It also said the moves have generally boosted worker morale, as high-performing employees have been rewarded. Maybe I'm just paranoid but this part kind of smells to me.

One of my best momemts at bigco was a useless middle manager getting fired. Bad and toxic employees do kill morale for your team.

An unannounced layoff, though?

> Workers spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared reprisals from the company. Employees said the firings have lowered morale through many departments.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#145

Post by rqs » Sat, Oct 14, 2017, 12:56 PM UTC

alphaalpha101 wrote: post #77

jfoster wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of their employees are not good. Some of them disrupt the others. Some of them are negative. They make the other talented employees not want to work at the company. So you remove them. The remainder of the company is then happier and produces better results.

If someone is disruptive or negative, then you should get rid of them immediately.

Disruptive maybe, but negative?

Some people became negative because they saw problems they can't resolve by themselves. Maybe don't fire this kind of people?

But, well, it seems some companies just don't care.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#146

Post by jryle70 » Sat, Oct 14, 2017, 1:01 PM UTC

kwhitefoot wrote: post #44

jryle70 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if OP meant stack ranking, but I've definitely seen approx 20% annual turnover at a well known consulting firm, by design. Either you go up or you are out. Not stack ranking, just performance review. Cut throat environment, but the upside is the firm is able to keep the very sharp ones. Also the alumni usually end up at other firms that can potentially become future clients. Seems to work very well for t…

> Seems to work very well for this consulting company. But is it working for the rest of us?

Maybe. Maybe not. Those who chose to work for that firm know full well what they're getting into. They hope to make it. 20% of them won't. Not much different than startups?

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#147

Post by jaclaz » Sat, Oct 14, 2017, 1:02 PM UTC

CrLf wrote: post #114

The Romans called this style of management "decimation." It's unfortunate that it's still fashionable in the 21st century. Also, this sounds straight out of the Ministry of Peace: "It also said the moves have generally boosted worker morale"

>The Romans called this style of management "decimation."

To be fair to the Romans, decimation was a (correct, if the adjective can be used in this case) random process and was limited to the army.

The idea was that when a large group (a cohort or 480 people) severely underperformed (it happened in case of rebellion/mutiny or blatant cowardy), AFTER having executed on the spot those that led the rebellion or that were manifestly coward or leading the mutiny, the remaining were divided in groups of ten, then in each group one was selected by drawing lots, and was executed by the remaining 9 comrades.

This had two advantages (in the eye of the Roman leaders), the army would not have been exterminated (unlike in more "traditional" repression of rebellions) and the 9/10 remaining would have been motivated to contribute to the group.

So, there was not an evaluation of the performance (or non-performance) of the single, the responsability was attributed to the group as a whole, and then out of the 10 people subset the 1 to be killed was chosen by Fate.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#148

Post by Someone » Sat, Oct 14, 2017, 1:02 PM UTC

spatulon wrote: post #110

throwingerman wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it is exactly this style of management that is causing problems at the German automation plant he aquired (see my comment in the duplicate thread). It is probably a reason why production of the Model 3 is behind -- the company he acquired builds the factory robots needed for advanced automation. Smart move to acquire it then and it explains why the timing is now off. You can't run a German plant like an American…

Presumably one bit of Tesla culture they can't bring to Germany is firing low performers. I worked for a German company for over a decade. I don't know if it was due to their culture or their laws, but I never saw anyone get fired for poor performance (except for failing the initial 6-month probation after joining). And it's not like we didn't have low performers — once I got into management it became quite clear tha…

The idea in large parts of western europe is that it is OK to fire employees who aren’t fit for their job, but that “low performing”, at best, only is a low quality indicator of the former.

For example, management can stifle productivity in ways that individual workers have little influence on.

Also, employees may be ‘useless’ for a while, but then improve again, for example if they are going through a divorce, the death of a relative, etc. Firing people because they perform worse for a few months is frowned upon in some circles.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#149

Post by Nokinside » Sat, Oct 14, 2017, 1:05 PM UTC

AsyncAwait wrote: post #128

Steeeve wrote: post #37

I'm not a fan of this style of management at all. I won't knowingly go to work for a company that behaves in this manner. I've read that Netflix does it, and I've seen inferences that they acquired the practice from Disney. If you have a low performing employee that you want to get rid of, fine. Arbitrarily destroying the lives of a percentage of your workforce in an annual purge is not OK. People always seem to put…

> People always seem to put Musk on a pedestal. Personally, I've always been (and always will be) leery of a company run by a PayPal founder. Bingo! I never quite got the Musk hype train, between how he treats his employees, doesn't respect work life balance, has unrealistic expectations and talks about people not wanting to work for him as less talented, promotes the idea of American exceptionalism etc., I don't see…

Musk is many things.

* As an investor I would not invest money in Musk's business. It's too risky and ego driven. He finances his endeavors just as creatively as he does technology and takes lots of risk. He is clearly not after money. Money is just tool for him. It's either Mars or bust. Inspiring but not good thing from investor point of view.

* From a technological point of view I admire what Musk has accomplished. His single mindedness has moved space technology forward. He should be admired for what he has done. He has deserved his hype. He has knack of getting things done while stretching everything very close to failure. Even if his businesses fails and he loses everything, that technology is there and others buy it.

* From a humanistic point of view, I understand that Musk will throw people under the bus if they are in the way of his goals. I would not want to be dependent on him any way.

Musk is very typical driven tech industry titan. You have to prioritize. If personal ambition is high, all other issues must come second. Musk, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates all have documented mean streaks towards other people and workers. We should understand that highest level of accomplished very often comes with high human cost. There is a choice.

This is where government regulations should come in.

Musk is not treating people badly because he is malevolent. It's just means to the end. If mistreatment of workers can't be used to gain competitive edge, it stops.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#150

Post by stuaxo » Sat, Oct 14, 2017, 1:05 PM UTC

fmueller wrote: post #97

Steeeve wrote: post #37

I'm not a fan of this style of management at all. I won't knowingly go to work for a company that behaves in this manner. I've read that Netflix does it, and I've seen inferences that they acquired the practice from Disney. If you have a low performing employee that you want to get rid of, fine. Arbitrarily destroying the lives of a percentage of your workforce in an annual purge is not OK. People always seem to put…

Firing a person should not destroy their life. Something else is really wrong if this is the case.

Leaving at the same time as a whole bunch of your colleagues are dumped on the job market makes it more difficult to find a job.

Having news stories that you are in an underperforming two percent won't help either.

This is a pretty callous move and no surprise it has affected morale.