Tesla has finished building the biggest battery in the world • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla has finished building the biggest battery in the world

#51

Post by simonh » Thu, Nov 23, 2017, 6:00 PM UTC

dingaling wrote: post #48

simonh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair though, if Tesla build say a giant electic powered jet airplane next year, it will happen because Elon Musk decides he wants an electric jet airplane, not because John Doe in the Tesla workshops is really good a welding. Some people really do make that much of a difference. If none of the other people at SpaceX had existed in 2002 when Elon decided to build the company, so he'd had to hire all different pe…

> not because John Doe in the Tesla workshops is really good a welding. As a counterpoint, the idea and concept of the now-successful HondaJet light jet was developed by a then-mid-level Honda engineer, Michimasa Fujino. It took nearly two decades for the idea to take form but at least there was capacity for the organisation to evolve an idea from bottom-up.

Right, so without Fujino it wouldn't have gone anywhere.

My point isn't that welders are crap, it's that when you have a product that exists because of the singular ambition, drive and vision of a single individual pushing a company to achieve their goal, take that individual out of the picture and there's really nothing left but an undistinguished mob of people. That applies to Fujino just as much as to Musk. I say this as a lifelong card carrying member of the mob of people.

Re: Tesla has finished building the biggest battery in the world

#52

Post by simonh » Thu, Nov 23, 2017, 6:03 PM UTC

_yewy wrote: post #45

simonh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair though, if Tesla build say a giant electic powered jet airplane next year, it will happen because Elon Musk decides he wants an electric jet airplane, not because John Doe in the Tesla workshops is really good a welding. Some people really do make that much of a difference. If none of the other people at SpaceX had existed in 2002 when Elon decided to build the company, so he'd had to hire all different pe…

That's orthogonal to my argument though, isn't it? I'm just saying that he didn't build the thing himself. He decided to do it and did whatever he does at Tesla, then a lot of smart people worked like crazy to finish by the deadline. Stretching it a bit (maybe too much): think of going to war. The President gets to decide it, but when you win you don't say "President X won the war". Yet a single soldier is likely as…

The corrollary to that would be that if you have a terrible general leading an army that takes them to the wrong battlefield, issues the wrong equipment and puts the artillery on a position where it's poorly defended and the whole battle is a massacre, really when it comes down to it, it was the soldiers that lost it because they didn't fight hard enough.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen a ‘thousands of little people actualy did all the work’ post on HN and it gets really old. Yes. We know. We’re little people too. Yawn.

Re: Tesla has finished building the biggest battery in the world

#53

Post by simonh » Thu, Nov 23, 2017, 6:06 PM UTC

_yewy wrote: post #47

somezero wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO Above average smart people feel better about themselves, if they keep thinking to themselves that there aren't any obscenely smart successful people that can make decisions and produces results that they could have produced only by being part of a large group. Because if they didn't, then their lack of success would have been attributed to them not being lucky or not being at a right place/time, not that they the…

I think that your reasoning can be applied to a lot of people, independently from the "above average smart" condition. Still, I believe that one can both recognize Musk's abilities and give due credit to the people in the company. As for being at the right place/time, I hope you agree with me in saying that success is a mix of hard work and luck. But again, this is not the point of my first comment. Btw, I had a hard…

So the headlines for such endeavours should be 'big group of people built a thing'. We all know Musk didn't build this thing himself with a screwdriver. Nobody is confused on that point. This is all just complaining for the sake of technically having half a point some people will join in with you to help complain about it.

Re: Tesla has finished building the biggest battery in the world

#54

Post by skybrian » Thu, Nov 23, 2017, 6:48 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #50

skybrian wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for Tesla, that depends on whether Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning would have gotten funding from someone else. Musk wasn't the founder you know.

I know, but the only reason he took over was because they both bailed or got pushed. I suppose it's possible he was behind that, but he must at least have had the backing of the rest of the board and it seems unlikely they'd do that for nothing.

I believe they were pushed out because the Roadster (Tesla's first car) was late and that put the company at risk. It's a bit ironic because every other car Tesla built was also late, and the company has taken on a lot more risk since then.

Re: Tesla has finished building the biggest battery in the world

#55

Post by _yewy » Thu, Nov 23, 2017, 11:04 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #53

_yewy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that your reasoning can be applied to a lot of people, independently from the "above average smart" condition. Still, I believe that one can both recognize Musk's abilities and give due credit to the people in the company. As for being at the right place/time, I hope you agree with me in saying that success is a mix of hard work and luck. But again, this is not the point of my first comment. Btw, I had a hard…

So the headlines for such endeavours should be 'big group of people built a thing'. We all know Musk didn't build this thing himself with a screwdriver. Nobody is confused on that point. This is all just complaining for the sake of technically having half a point some people will join in with you to help complain about it.

The headline should be "Company X build thing Y". As for the rest, it's like, you know, your opinion. This being HN, I'll end it here.

Re: Tesla has finished building the biggest battery in the world

#56

Post by _yewy » Thu, Nov 23, 2017, 11:06 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #52

_yewy wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's orthogonal to my argument though, isn't it? I'm just saying that he didn't build the thing himself. He decided to do it and did whatever he does at Tesla, then a lot of smart people worked like crazy to finish by the deadline. Stretching it a bit (maybe too much): think of going to war. The President gets to decide it, but when you win you don't say "President X won the war". Yet a single soldier is likely as…

The corrollary to that would be that if you have a terrible general leading an army that takes them to the wrong battlefield, issues the wrong equipment and puts the artillery on a position where it's poorly defended and the whole battle is a massacre, really when it comes down to it, it was the soldiers that lost it because they didn't fight hard enough. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen a ‘thousands of li…

Yes.