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

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

#291

Post by allthenews »

Paul-ish wrote: post #263
toomuchtodo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Tesla investor, I'm very curious what the conversion rate is of Home Depot/Big Box customers vs Tesla stores. My guess would be it's much higher in Tesla stores. No one likes being bothered at Home Depot by sales staff when they've just popped in for a part.

Maybe this would go too far into the "uncanny valley", but why not have teleconferencing sales people? Eg have a terminal near the solar products where you can hit a button and immediately be connected to a remote sales rep. This way you can cut down the sales reps to, say 0.2 per store. And you never talk to one unless you want to either.

I have trouble imagining that people would use such a service.

I think the point of intrusive, unsolicited salesmanship is to convince people to look into products that they would otherwise ignore. People go to home depot to buy hardware, not to meet with salespeople.

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

#292

Post by mikestew »

kjksf wrote: post #218
mikestew wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many tech workers would stand before a judge in court and let another person represent their interests? I'm probably about as skilled at negotiating terms of my employment as I am at arguing law. Oh, I think I'm good at it, but I'll bet a union rep would laugh at my naivety. But it would appear that many tech workers not only overestimate their negotiating skills, they also think that a tech workers union would w…

Really bad analogy. A lawyer that you hired and pay for represents your interest 100%. A union rep represents union interest first and then your interest. But if union interest is at odd with your interest, you loose 100%. For example when GM hit hard times UAW agreed to firing all UAW members in California factory, the one that Tesla then bought and is operating. As you might imagine, none of the UAW members that lo…

It apparently bears repeating: the U. A. W. is not the only union model out there. It could even be argued that it is one of the worst, hence the reason I specifically called them out.

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

#293

Post by bdcravens »

txsh wrote: post #259
bdcravens wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His CEO pay is $37k/year.

I was referring to the recklessly poor decisions, not the salary.

A comment I oft make about startup layoffs, which is unpopular: (and apropos whether you consider Tesla a "startup")

Reckless decision making leads to positions that are usually unnecessary, so many layoffs in such companies are positions that shouldn't have been hired for to begin with.

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

#294

Post by sulam »

madeofpalk wrote: post #178
gk1 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's definitely cases where removing a person from a project speeds it up. Just to name a few:

* the person removed is a distraction to the team in some way, possibly outside of their control

* the team is over the two-pizza limit, and coordination costs are out of control

* roles between individuals aren't clear, and removing one of them makes it obvious, removing a source of confusion

[edit: added some examples]

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

#295

Post by jeffreyrogers »

chasely wrote: post #205
DiabloD3 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't even aware they HAD a contract. My local Home Depot has zero mention of any product Tesla makes.

I was approached by a Tesla contractor in Home Depot on a few days ago. It was honestly not a good experience. For one, I was approached cold. I too had no idea that they had this agreement, so I was looking at something when someone came up and asked me something like "what type of project are you working on?" So I naturally just described what I was doing and before realizing this was not a HD employee. He asks me…

I had a similar experience, although in my case the Tesla guy could at least tell me where the screws I was looking for were.

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

#296

Post by [deleted] »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #9

Friendly PSA: always negotiate severance. Companies can always be forced to restructure like this or even just choose to on a whim. Pressure from the board, hiring a new CTO who wants to bring in his or her own people, etc. etc. Always make sure you are happy with what type of offsetting compensation you’ll receive in this eventuality before taking the job, and consider it a huge timesaver if an employer passes on yo…

[deleted]

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

#297

Post by duderific »

RivieraKid wrote: post #264
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've become increasingly annoyed by Musk's personality, ego, Twitter tantrums and his deceptive statements. I used to be a big fan and follower of anything Elon-related. Still a fan of SpaceX. Having said that, I think they make well-designed, innovative and inspiring products. Build quality and financials are terrible though. > A fund manager can be as risky as she likes This is off-topic but... am I the only one th…

Yes, you see that everywhere nowadays... why not just say "A fund manager can be as risky as they like" and leave it at that.

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

#298

Post by kraig911 »

adventured wrote: post #127
neffy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can recommend it. The way it works in civilised countries is that you can still attempt to negotiate your terms, however the union negotiates annual across the board increases, and critically circulates reliable information on what the salary ranges and compensation packages are. Which as you might imagine, makes it much easier to effectively negotiate. They also provide additional insurances for things like glasse…

And here we are, US tech workers dramatically out-earn all other nations except for Switzerland. The average programmer in the US earns 30% more than they do in Norway (a particularly rich nation); and ~75% more than in Sweden. Apparently the way your 'civilized' nations work, is they pay labor a lot less. France, infamous for their powerful unions, has enjoyed annual wage growth about 80% lower than the US over the…

I'm not following your numbers here. In my recollection our wages have largely been stagnant since 2004? Do you have means to back up your claims? Meanwhile wage growth from what I've seen in the EU has grown. Especially say in England and Norway?

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

#299

Post by ManFromUranus »

chillingeffect wrote: post #171
ManFromUranus wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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...

That won't happen. I don't think 'regime change' is going to come off the foreign policy menu, nor is paying back all the debt that is owed. So the space money is going to be eaten by debt payments and more 'regime change' initiatives around the world. I forgot all about foreign policy, I thought there would be no money before, now i KNOW there will be no money for any of that.

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

#300

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #285
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are quite simply wrong. When you negotiate severance in an at-will employment agreement, it will involve the same kinds of contractual documents you have to sign as when you are offered severance upon a sudden termination. There are usually documents relating to non-disparagement and possibly enhanced agreements about non-disclosure or non-compete that extend beyond things in the company handbook. They include sp…

As a hiring manager myself I have not run across this situation, but now I am curious. I'm going to get together with our HR folks and ask them what would happen if a candidate made such a demand. I don't work for a huge company, but with a couple thousand U.S. employees we are not tiny either. I am interested in what I hear back. I would certainly never have negotiated this myself while looking for a job so it will…

I’m surprised to hear that it’s not that common for your firm. Negotiating severance is common enough that e.g. when I talk to third party recruiting firms for hiring for my team, it’s one of the first questions they ask.

Large firms usually have a very low baseline severance plan calculated something like 1 week of pay for each year of tenure, and they may say in the handbook it is only offered on a discretionary basis at the time of termination.

But I’ve always had no problem negotiating a customized severance package regardless of whether a firm had that sort of policy, especially because severance should fairly reflect compensation for any time or opportunity costs an employee might endure due to a non-compete agreement, etc., which means usually it should be at least several months of salary and possibly continuation of benefits (e.g. not externalizing that cost to the employee through COBRA but actually continuing to pay their premiums for a set amount of months).

Huge companies are harder to convince of this, and in that case I was able to negotiate the severance amount to instead be paid as a sign-on bonus, so that saving the money to cover costs in the event of being terminated was my responsibility, but the company still agreed to pay for it.

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