Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#111

Post by xkjkls » Thu, May 03, 2018, 6:22 PM UTC

kneel wrote: post #72

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he's Elon Musk and he doesn't care about investor returns Then he shouldn't be the CEO of a public company which continues to sell stock and debt to investors on the promise of a return. Also, Elon Musk very much does care about returns. He has a great track record in that department. He's just learned it's not something that's healthy to focus on in the short-term. Unfortunately, running out of cash forces the com…

I think what he did is awesome. Who cares what wall street thinks? They're mostly a bunch of leeches passing around paper and overreacting to news articles. Tesla will be fine.

The west coast bias in Hacker News is always shocking. The capital markets exist for a reason, and the people he's mocking on this conference call are the ones that he's going to need to be begging for billions if things don't deliver in Q3 or Q4.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#112

Post by ericmcer » Thu, May 03, 2018, 6:23 PM UTC

tensor wrote: post #31

olivermarks wrote: post #20

Musk sounded exhausted. If Smith & Wesson launched a consumer flamethrower there would be outrage...Musk has been able to distract with lots of shiny objects but the clock is ticking, even amongst his niche fan base...I hope all the people who are working so hard in Musk's various companies come out of this ok...

For the sake of society, I hope Musk succeeds. We've spent too much time as a culture celebrating fairly useless achievements and being unwilling to dare to do the things that will truly take us forward.

Its inspiring to see him but it's also ridiculous that Elon Musk is the one pushing the space and auto industries forward. I really hope he succeeds, but it is just stupid that our hopes for scientific and technological advancement have shifted to the private sector.

The private sector has historically been the one that had sane and logical business practices minimizing risk, while government had the funding necessary to take on large, risky projects for the good of their constituents. Somehow taxes have gone further and further up while our expectations of government plummeted, and now we are looking to these single "genius" entrepreneurs to revolutionize science and technology with investor money.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#113

Post by xkjkls » Thu, May 03, 2018, 6:23 PM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #58

danso wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Er, why is asking for something fundamental to running a business (i.e. "How much money do you have/need?") a partly boring/boneheaded/uncool question?

Been running it fine for 10 years. Does sound boring.

Has he? They still deliver less cars than Henry Ford did in the 1930s.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#114

Post by nonbel » Thu, May 03, 2018, 6:24 PM UTC

>'the CEO said an analyst was asking “boring bonehead questions” that were “not cool.”'

The thing is that he isn't wrong. I listened to one of these earnings calls the other day and literally fell asleep.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#115

Post by xkjkls » Thu, May 03, 2018, 6:24 PM UTC

trophycase wrote: post #46

Semirhage wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then, acting within the confines of normality isn't really the trait that may bring the dawn of a new era of humanity. Truly, this sounds divorced from the reality of anything Elon Musk is involved in. He’s making electric cars, rockets, and solar panels, not fusion power or immortality pills. Let’s be realistic! I think it’s important to separate what he actually does from what you desperately hope he may someda…

If colonizing a new planet isn't a new era of humanity, I'm not sure what is...

Tesla isn't doing that though.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#116

Post by moate » Thu, May 03, 2018, 6:24 PM UTC

paulcole wrote: post #79

rawrmaan wrote: post #50

Elon has always seemed to have the attitude of "not everyone should invest in this stock". I find this refreshing. God forbid a CEO do anything except try to drive the share price as high as humanly possible. I don't know if this carries the same weight in a public company, but setting expectations with investors is super important in a startup and prevents a ton of wasted time wrangling investors who don't get the t…

> Elon has always seemed to have the attitude of "not everyone should invest in this stock". Sounds like the CEO equivalent of a movie director saying "I didn't make this one for the critics." Translation, "I know there are problems but I'd rather have my ego stroked by fans than face real criticism."

"I didn't make this one for the critics" frequently means "I made the movie I wanted" or "I made the movie the studio wanted". That statement could boil down to "I'm not concerned about money, I'm making a movie I wanted to make in service of the fans" or "I made a movie that I knew would make a ton of money, because people go to see this junk even if critics don't like it". CEO's don't have critics in the same sense that movies/art does. The financial/business sector work on completely different axes to judge performance.

Elon seems to be more focused on his vision of the Big Picture (solving transportation problems, moving to new planets, fixing the energy crisis, etc) than making money in the short term (which might be over the next 10 years). He appears to be a man convinced he knows how to help fix global problems, and believes in his mission more than making money. You still need money to change the world, so he's also tried to do very well at the business side of it.

I'm not convinced Musk will fix humanity. I'm also not convinced he won't. I just feel that this specific statement, that Tesla isn't a business everyone should be involved in, feels like a "we're mission driven, not money driven" proclamation to me.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#117

Post by gr3yh47 » Thu, May 03, 2018, 6:26 PM UTC

devmunchies wrote: post #84

gr3yh47 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair (edit: figuratively, to state a favorable viewpoint on Elon's decisiont to give more time to one person) he was asking excellent/interesting/challenging questions and it was really interesting to me to hear Elon's answers. I think Elon might have done well to be less brusque with the more run of the mill questions but I really enjoyed listing to the long exchange there

> To be fair he was asking excellent/interesting/challenging questions and it was really interesting to me to hear Elon's answers thats the opposite of being fair, but unfair is fine sometimes.

>thats the opposite of being fair, but unfair is fine sometimes.

fair point ;)

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#118

Post by s2g » Thu, May 03, 2018, 6:26 PM UTC

mephitix wrote: post #17

bjl wrote: post #13

Felt very reminiscent to Skilling's infamous earnings call. I'd have to imagine any TSLA investors are very concerned after that performance.

I’m not too worried. The earnings themselves were better than expected. Elon said this in a tweet but its reiterated in the earnings - projecting positive cash flow in Q3 and Q4. And such dismissive behavior (as much as I am not a fan of it) is not uncommon among stressed-out CEOs - Jobs, Gates..

Elon says lots of stuff.

Elon is frequently full of shit.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#119

Post by ShabbosGoy » Thu, May 03, 2018, 6:27 PM UTC

cat199 wrote: post #69

thaumaturgy wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not defending Elon's behavior here, but speaking more generally: if you're in a place where you need to maintain maximum productivity for a while, because a deadline has slipped for example, meetings can turn into a massive time sink if you don't act like a total nazi during them. In so many meetings, people just want to hear themselves talk, whether to offer some opinion, reiterate some point, or ask some useles…

see that you are not defending, but this is not a meeting. it is an investor conference call - most if not all of the entire point is to clearly and openly answer their questions about financials...

Yeah, it’s not like a weekly status update meeting. It’s a tad unprofessional IMO. As the CEO of a public company, you are accountable above all to your shareholders.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#120

Post by lev99 » Thu, May 03, 2018, 6:27 PM UTC

paulcole wrote: post #79

rawrmaan wrote: post #50

Elon has always seemed to have the attitude of "not everyone should invest in this stock". I find this refreshing. God forbid a CEO do anything except try to drive the share price as high as humanly possible. I don't know if this carries the same weight in a public company, but setting expectations with investors is super important in a startup and prevents a ton of wasted time wrangling investors who don't get the t…

> Elon has always seemed to have the attitude of "not everyone should invest in this stock". Sounds like the CEO equivalent of a movie director saying "I didn't make this one for the critics." Translation, "I know there are problems but I'd rather have my ego stroked by fans than face real criticism."

To me it sounds like him saying the risk is higher than most investors are willing to accept.

I also hold a wildly different interruption of the saying "I didn't make this one for the critics."