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Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

arstechnica.com

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Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#81

Post by gameswithgo »

foxyv wrote: post #31

My partner worked for various solar companies (But not Solar City) as a canvasser hoping to get some sales experience. As a result we got to see first hand how corrupt and underhanded their sales departments could be. Canvassers were exploited mercilessly and commissions never appeared as new requirements were added to the payouts. Paychecks bounced periodically. Canvassers would be told to go door to door in areas w…

> It seems like the entire solar industry is focused more on extracting government subsidies

You made a long, correct rant about aggressive sales tactics, then shifted at the end to government subsidies. That is weird.

I think more generally in businesses where you are selling a commodity, aggressive sketchy sales and marketing come to the fore, since you can't really differentiate any other way. And certainly, as well, you seek out the best subsidies available, as do the Koch Brothers or any other good capitalist trying to survive.

Sales people are gross everywhere, and certainly it is something we should try to fix but its been like that for thousands of years.

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#82

Post by Sgt_Apone »

KirinDave wrote: post #74
mikro2nd wrote: post #44

A trend that's been growing for quite a (long!) while now is exemplified by this article: " Tesla did not respond to Ars’ request for comment on Sunday. " Who in their right minds realistically expects any organisation to respond to some random journalistic enquiry on a Sunday ? The other major variant of this shyster tactic is along the lines of, "Company X failed to respond immediately when asked for comment." No c…

> Who in their right minds realistically expects any organisation to respond to some random journalistic enquiry on a Sunday? My company did it. Heck, we did it when it was just me and my cofounder answering email. I've worked for multiple companies that had folks who specifically had weekend comms duty, actually. When you reach a certain size this is as normal as having an operations expert on call. It's... Weird to…

>It's... Weird to suggest that it's abnormal to be responsive to press within 24 hours for a company as big as Tesla.

Exactly. It's laughable to suggest that the entire Tesla communications department doesn't check email on Sundays, let alone on Monday, another day in which they also had to draft a response.

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#83

Post by mathattack »

Although this is just hearsay, this is something the company will need to react to. High commission sales orgs frequently create bad incentives. It’s hard to work around this, because the most aggressive tend to thrive in this kind of world, until they cross the line. But if you give up commissions, you will lose the highest producing salespeople to your competitors.

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#84

Post by rootusrootus »

ameister14 wrote: post #48
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we've had years of Tesla and Musk puff-pieces and it's only in the last few months that journalists have decided to leave no stone unturned en masse You're complaining about the disease and then complaining about the cure. When Tesla was flush with cash and the recovery was young, the operating and financial envelope was wide. Tesla had the room ( i.e. capital and investors' patience) to screw up. Elon has said he…

>You're complaining about the disease and then complaining about the cure. I'm not, I'm saying when someone treats you badly for ten years then suddenly changes their attitude, it's reasonable to wonder what motivated the change. Tesla stopped being flush with cash and the recovery stopped being young years ago. He's announced ambitious production schedules (and missed them) multiple times. The 'we won't need more ca…

You wandered off into conspiracy theory land.

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#85

Post by krageon »

linuxftw wrote: post #73
foxyv wrote: post #31

My partner worked for various solar companies (But not Solar City) as a canvasser hoping to get some sales experience. As a result we got to see first hand how corrupt and underhanded their sales departments could be. Canvassers were exploited mercilessly and commissions never appeared as new requirements were added to the payouts. Paychecks bounced periodically. Canvassers would be told to go door to door in areas w…

> It seems like the entire solar industry is focused more on extracting government subsidies than on creating long term revenue streams. Some might argue this is the exact nature of government subsidies. People are always going to make choices in their economic self-interest. Either solar needs to be the most cost effective solution for their energy needs, or the government needs to artificially inflate the cost of o…

I don't think you've sufficiently proven the argument which the rest of your statements hinge on: "People are always going to make choices in their economic self-interest". It's an attractive (if somewhat cynical) point, but it's no more reasonable than any other generalisation. Not very.

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#87

Post by samstave »

foxyv wrote: post #31

My partner worked for various solar companies (But not Solar City) as a canvasser hoping to get some sales experience. As a result we got to see first hand how corrupt and underhanded their sales departments could be. Canvassers were exploited mercilessly and commissions never appeared as new requirements were added to the payouts. Paychecks bounced periodically. Canvassers would be told to go door to door in areas w…

> It seems like the entire solar industry is focused more on extracting government subsidies than on creating long term revenue streams.

Maybe you have heard of Solyndra, who took $500 million dollars from the DOE

http://fortune.com/2015/08/27/remember-solyndra-mistake/

Google them for a ton of other articles.

Of note: some people I had known had gone there, and after looking at the SEC filings during the collapse of Solyndra, saw that they were handing out massive bonuses to employees and C-suite staff just prior to literally locking their employees out.

They had their IT lead shut down all accounts/remote access and email, then locked the front doors. Employees showed up to the office the next morning and the doors were locked, this is how they informed them that they were out of a job.

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#88

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ameister14 wrote: post #48
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we've had years of Tesla and Musk puff-pieces and it's only in the last few months that journalists have decided to leave no stone unturned en masse You're complaining about the disease and then complaining about the cure. When Tesla was flush with cash and the recovery was young, the operating and financial envelope was wide. Tesla had the room ( i.e. capital and investors' patience) to screw up. Elon has said he…

>You're complaining about the disease and then complaining about the cure. I'm not, I'm saying when someone treats you badly for ten years then suddenly changes their attitude, it's reasonable to wonder what motivated the change. Tesla stopped being flush with cash and the recovery stopped being young years ago. He's announced ambitious production schedules (and missed them) multiple times. The 'we won't need more ca…

> The real difference I see this time is a perceived closeness with Trump and general misbehavior on twitter

Financial markets aren't known to be sensitive to leaders' political proclivities. Yet the bonds are down and stock's volatility up.

Could part of the negative coverage be motivated by Elon's personality and politics? Sure. But the risk profile of the company changed with the SolarCity acquisition and Model 3 announcement in 2016, bond issuance in 2017 and CAPEX and production delays in 2018. One representation of this risk profile is runway, i.e. TTM operating burn + CAPEX / Cash on hand. It is compressed. That concerns existing investors, excites bankers (who might get a stock or bond offering out of it) and entices new investors. Increased attention + narrow envelope leads to concerned/cautious/negative coverage.

(It is also difficult to disentangle the increased `general volatility in the markets post-tariffs from Tesla's inherent volatility, which is also linked to the tariff discussion.)

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#89

Post by megamindbrian2 »

onepremise wrote: post #23

Idk, all this hearsay and the saboteur rebranded whistleblower coming out against TSLA/SolarCity with no real substantial proof. Still cant help but wonder if it's just the usual stock shorters creating new opportunities for themselves or fossil fuel supporters and baby boomers looking for new ways to destroy TSLA.

I'm sueing Solar City for lying to me about the terms of the lease. It isn't made up. Something fishy is going on.

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#90

Post by dv_dt »

linuxftw wrote: post #73
foxyv wrote: post #31

My partner worked for various solar companies (But not Solar City) as a canvasser hoping to get some sales experience. As a result we got to see first hand how corrupt and underhanded their sales departments could be. Canvassers were exploited mercilessly and commissions never appeared as new requirements were added to the payouts. Paychecks bounced periodically. Canvassers would be told to go door to door in areas w…

> It seems like the entire solar industry is focused more on extracting government subsidies than on creating long term revenue streams. Some might argue this is the exact nature of government subsidies. People are always going to make choices in their economic self-interest. Either solar needs to be the most cost effective solution for their energy needs, or the government needs to artificially inflate the cost of o…

> Every time a hurricane knocks out a town's electric grid and federal funds are used to repair it, that's a subsidy. When government authority to exercise eminent domain acquires easements or land to erect power distribution, that's a subsidy.

This is anti-government fervor carried to absurdity. No man is an island. What is the point of government if not to provide care in disastrous situations? And yes this is the peoples self-interest in carrying on a stable society. I support this kind of "subsidy" 100%.

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