Tesla is laying off ‘about 9%’ of its workforce as it ‘restructures’ the company • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla is laying off ‘about 9%’ of its workforce as it ‘restructures’ the company

#171

Post by chillingeffect » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 7:17 PM UTC

ManFromUranus wrote: post #150

riantogo wrote: post #117

Somewhere along the way I have come to appreciate that as a society we need to optimize better for psychological, financial and physical wellbeing of people prioritized by proximity: employees, community, humanity. It will definitely slow down innovation. We might go to Mars 20yrs late, no self driving cars for 10 more yrs, walk around the city some more before electric scooter land etc. Of course it is in conflict w…

>It will definitely slow down innovation It will definitely slow down innovation. Some projects / aspirations will come off the table completely. Mars? Forget about it. All your mars money will be treating AIDS/Malaria/Cancer/Whatever. All NASA and space exploration money will go to feeding poor people and refugees and all manner of charitable causes, these causes will only ever multiply ad infinitum. I think there i…

Maybe instead of NASA, the money could come from the war budget instead? [1]

[1] http://www.newsweek.com/how-many-trillions-war-has-cost-us-t...

Re: Tesla is laying off ‘about 9%’ of its workforce as it ‘restructures’ the company

#172

Post by entee » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 7:17 PM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #135

Just reading the first few comments.... I really don't get the Tesla hate. Is it hacker-ish contrarianism? Have they done something? What's the deal HN, why are we cheering against the home team? Overall Musk has been pretty straightforward and explicit with what he's doing. Tesla (and spacex) set extremely ambitious goals, like none of their competitors do. They take big risks. They're not interested in reducing ris…

Personally I don't disagree with the notion of taking huge risks and going all out. Tesla and SpaceX have made the world a better place in my view, and they've definitely made the world more interesting.

That said, the overhyping, recklessness and hubris at this stage on the Tesla front seems like instead of helping achieve the wildly ambitious goal, they're making it more likely to fail. If Tesla was slightly more reasonable, and extended their timelines out a bit, it's entirely likely they'd be selling more, better cars.

At some point the company needs to mature a bit and become a little more structured, especially when you're dealing with devices that can literally kill people. I don't think at this stage they'd be less likely to hit their marks if they just got a little more down to earth, on the contrary I think it would help them.

And like it or not, a fund manager can be risky because they're making dozens of bets. Musk has 2, and both are in areas that can directly harm people if things go sideways, it's not the same thing.

Re: Tesla is laying off ‘about 9%’ of its workforce as it ‘restructures’ the company

#173

Post by _Codemonkeyism » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 7:17 PM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #135

Just reading the first few comments.... I really don't get the Tesla hate. Is it hacker-ish contrarianism? Have they done something? What's the deal HN, why are we cheering against the home team? Overall Musk has been pretty straightforward and explicit with what he's doing. Tesla (and spacex) set extremely ambitious goals, like none of their competitors do. They take big risks. They're not interested in reducing ris…

I never understood the fanboyism on HN. Tesla builds electric cars with a subpar autopilot. They are nice cars but it's far from revolutionary. Tesla is not SpaceX.

Tesla is not Apple, the car industry is not Nokia. Many people on HN seem to be confused here. I do think SpaceX should be renamed Tesla though, it would help selling Tesla cars.

Re: Tesla is laying off ‘about 9%’ of its workforce as it ‘restructures’ the company

#174

Post by jhayward » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 7:17 PM UTC

IBM wrote: post #19

This is definitely the move of a company in the process of scaling up production of their mass market vehicle that their valuation hinges on. Definitely not about managing cash flow.

How many lines of business is Tesla in? What lines of business are these cuts concentrated in?

Lacking the above info, it could very well be the move of a company concentrating resources on a full-scale ramp effort and pruning back non-core or non-scaling lines of business.

Re: Tesla is laying off ‘about 9%’ of its workforce as it ‘restructures’ the company

#175

Post by sid- » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 7:18 PM UTC

riantogo wrote: post #117

Somewhere along the way I have come to appreciate that as a society we need to optimize better for psychological, financial and physical wellbeing of people prioritized by proximity: employees, community, humanity. It will definitely slow down innovation. We might go to Mars 20yrs late, no self driving cars for 10 more yrs, walk around the city some more before electric scooter land etc. Of course it is in conflict w…

Elon musk is probably thinking in the reverse order as you ? humanity, community, employees

Re: Tesla is laying off ‘about 9%’ of its workforce as it ‘restructures’ the company

#176

Post by qaq » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 7:18 PM UTC

pstuart wrote: post #141

dalbasal wrote: post #135

Just reading the first few comments.... I really don't get the Tesla hate. Is it hacker-ish contrarianism? Have they done something? What's the deal HN, why are we cheering against the home team? Overall Musk has been pretty straightforward and explicit with what he's doing. Tesla (and spacex) set extremely ambitious goals, like none of their competitors do. They take big risks. They're not interested in reducing ris…

Many here likely feel that they've been subjected to too much hype.

I would generally agree, but on HN? With people hyping as much Uber for hairbrush type products that will "change the world" Tesla and SpaceX hype is fairly warranted.

Re: Tesla is laying off ‘about 9%’ of its workforce as it ‘restructures’ the company

#177

Post by _Codemonkeyism » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 7:18 PM UTC

entee wrote: post #172

dalbasal wrote: post #135

Just reading the first few comments.... I really don't get the Tesla hate. Is it hacker-ish contrarianism? Have they done something? What's the deal HN, why are we cheering against the home team? Overall Musk has been pretty straightforward and explicit with what he's doing. Tesla (and spacex) set extremely ambitious goals, like none of their competitors do. They take big risks. They're not interested in reducing ris…

Personally I don't disagree with the notion of taking huge risks and going all out. Tesla and SpaceX have made the world a better place in my view, and they've definitely made the world more interesting. That said, the overhyping, recklessness and hubris at this stage on the Tesla front seems like instead of helping achieve the wildly ambitious goal, they're making it more likely to fail. If Tesla was slightly more r…

Tesla has zero impact on the world right now. And probably never will.

Re: Tesla is laying off ‘about 9%’ of its workforce as it ‘restructures’ the company

#178

Post by madeofpalk » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 7:19 PM UTC

gk1 wrote: post #17

whatok wrote: post #3

Claims no production staff were affected. Don't know the employee breakdown but imagine production is a huge portion of it. Hard to believe entire other divisions weren't completely eliminated if production not touched.

Given they admitted to over-relying on automation, I doubt they'd be cutting production staff now. It's not difficult to find 9% of the workforce in other departments: sales, marketing, operations, engineering, etc.

Also given they're having trouble with that manufacturing output, I can't imagine firing those people would help things out. AFAIK there's no such thing has the "reverse mythical man month" - removing people from a late running project speeds it up.

Re: Tesla is laying off ‘about 9%’ of its workforce as it ‘restructures’ the company

#179

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 7:19 PM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #135

Just reading the first few comments.... I really don't get the Tesla hate. Is it hacker-ish contrarianism? Have they done something? What's the deal HN, why are we cheering against the home team? Overall Musk has been pretty straightforward and explicit with what he's doing. Tesla (and spacex) set extremely ambitious goals, like none of their competitors do. They take big risks. They're not interested in reducing ris…

[deleted]

Re: Tesla is laying off ‘about 9%’ of its workforce as it ‘restructures’ the company

#180

Post by dalbasal » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 7:20 PM UTC

madeofpalk wrote: post #160

dalbasal wrote: post #135

Just reading the first few comments.... I really don't get the Tesla hate. Is it hacker-ish contrarianism? Have they done something? What's the deal HN, why are we cheering against the home team? Overall Musk has been pretty straightforward and explicit with what he's doing. Tesla (and spacex) set extremely ambitious goals, like none of their competitors do. They take big risks. They're not interested in reducing ris…

I think this crux of it comes down to: 1. People thinking Tesla is overhyped 2. People thinking Musk is overhyped 3. Failings of the two (autopilot, product/shipping delays, etc)

I dunno... I'm beginning to think HN sees this as hype=overhype.

On failing... thats unconsciounable. Of any place, this should be the site where we don't hate on failure. Failure is a definitive property of risk. Risk is the one thing that makes Musk unique, at the scale he's acting on. He puts everything on the line for a chance at an ambitious goal. This is exactly the ethic I come to this site for.