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Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

nytimes.com

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Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#261

Post by m23khan »

Edison, Einstein, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk...

These guys have changed the World and they all have seriously strange, weird personalities - but they did change the world.

Let's learn a lesson over here -- geniuses and industry disrupters are more often than not --- just weird and strange bunch of folks. Hence, learn to respect them and do what you can to make sure they succeed as Human innovation depends on them.

The super-smart and inventors like these guys have always been weird, and somewhat not friendly bunch of folks. It is the rest of us who have started to complain and bicker too much and are becoming extremely judgemental and emotionally fragile by the day.

Call it by product of the extremely opinionated media or the capability of anonymously posting anger on the internet -- but this isn't helpful behavior from us.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#262

Post by leot »

grosjona wrote: post #220
tomhoward wrote: post #37

But, he added, “if you have anyone who can do a better job, please let me know. They can have the job. Is there someone who can do the job better? They can have the reins right now.” I think this hits at the crux of the issue around the performance/behaviour of Musk and other leaders of hugely ambitious companies. And I think it highlights the importance of thinking about what kinds of people it will take to lead the…

I think that there are lots of people who could do a better job than Elon Musk but they will never have the opportunity to prove it. The vast majority of people would know that calling the Thai cave diver/rescuer a 'pedo-guy' was a bad decision. Also, announcing that some funding was secured when it actually wasn't - That was a bad decision as well. To suggest that Elon Musk is irreplaceable is ridiculous. People use…

Name a time when a genuinely ambitious and innovative company booted its visionary founders, and it went well.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#263

Post by deegles »

rthomas6 wrote: post #254
tomhoward wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with that: it's been my own experience of enduring severe burnout and coming out the other side in much better shape. That's what underpins my point of view on this: if we were better at supporting talented-but-flawed people through personal transformation instead treating them with hatred and ridicule every time they misstep, we could have more great leaders and more great companies.

It's bizarre and absurd to me that the public opinion even has a role in supporting corporate leaders, let alone a large one. Why should it influence Tesla and SpaceX whether or not the public supports him, apart from investing and buying the products? What matters is tangible results, not personal opinions of the masses.

I think the public/social media influences him because he lets it happen, so he gets more feedback, and it's become a vicious cycle.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#264

Post by mbesto »

tomhoward wrote: post #120
skrebbel wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a hidden false dichotomy there: That Tesla and Space X couldn't exist / succeed without Musk working his employees and himself into a burnout. I'm not sure that that is true. The same Musk with the same employees could've perfectly well done these companies at a sane pace - maybe even without losing speed in the grand scheme of things given that less stuff would've gone wrong.

The same Musk with the same employees I think I agree with everything except that. What I'm saying is we can't have everything that's positive about Telsa, but completely discard Musk. What we _should_ hope for is for the current version of Musk to become a better version of Musk - say, one that can build a viable EV company and help bring about a global transition away from combustion-powered transport, but without…

Why does Musk get a hall-pass?

> What we _should_ hope for is for the current version of Musk to become a better version of Musk

Or alternatively, he gets punished like he should be (e.g. SEC violations), cedes control and the next person who looks up to people like Musk realizes that there are rules to follow and not following them have real world consequences.

People forget about the issues that come with the concentration of wealth, which is unfortunately one of the negative externalities of letting Musk get away with what he has done.

I too want a world where a company like Tesla succeeds, but I also don't want a world where we mix this acceptance of free markets with acceptance of socialism where it benefits small amounts of individuals much more so than the masses.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#265

Post by rayiner »

tomp wrote: post #143
stdbrouw wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NASA is betting on both SpaceX and Boeing for its next manned missions, and Tesla has made electric cars fashionable, but there is no reason to expect that a couple of years from now its cars will be any better than the offering from major car companies. Clearly SpaceX and Tesla are special companies, but it's easy to overstate exactly how special.

They're so special that they both completely revolutionized their respective industries. What makes them even more special, is that neither made any big technological breakthrough. All the technology has been available for years (decades?), just not productionized. Which tells you that the "major companies" in both industries were literally sitting on their asses, enjoying their oligopolistic/monopolistic profits and…

The moralizing is unwarranted. Tesla, for example, happened when it did because of several convergent phenomena:

1) Increasingly more expensive gas and more rigorous fuel-consumption standards.

2) Massive increase in lithium ion battery production from consumer electronics;

3) A willingness of VCs to bankroll years of massive losses;

4) A federal program of offering massive subsidies to electric cars.

These things didn't exist 15 years ago. (Which is not to say that Tesla doesn't deserve a lot of credit for capitalizing on them, but Tesla's success is not evidence that existing car manufacturers were "sitting on their asses." It's also just factually wrong. Toyota and GM both produced electric cars in late 1990s, early aughts, way before Tesla was founded. But at the time, consumer surveys showed that they would only buy electric cars if they were sold for tens of thousands of dollars less than a gasoline car. All those phenomena closed that gap: exploding gas prices made gasoline cars relatively more expensive; federal and stage governments offered up to $10,000 in total incentives for buying an EV; and lithium ion battery technology resulted in major improvements in weight and range.)

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#266

Post by yAnonymous »

maeln wrote: post #209
yAnonymous wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Working 120 hours a week is not productive. My WoW character disagrees. Seriously though, if you enjoy what you're doing, doing a lot of it is fine.

If you really work 120h/weeks, it means that you are left with 48h per week for sleeping/eating/doing other things. Unless he included those hours in the work hour, 48h in 7 days is just not sustainable, it's barely enough just for sleep.

Almost 7 hours of sleep per night is more than sustainable. There are people who can get along with 5 hours of sleep per night without any impact to their health.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#267

Post by billylindeman »

that_jojo wrote: post #241
fabizeid wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it have to be the current version of Musk to be a better version of Musk? Why can't we consider that Musk or his type was instrumental to launch Tesla but at this point a different person is better fit to grow it? Maybe skills needed to sustain a company might be different than the skills needed to launch it.

Completely just to play devil's advocate, here: When has a major innovative company ever done better after ousting a visionary but perhaps somewhat toxic founder? Maybe we could look at Uber, but it's too soon to tell. And The new management there seems earnest, but I'm not sure they're looking so hot from an actual business perspective.

General Motors. William durant vs Alfred Sloan.

But better is relative.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#268

Post by whamlastxmas »

maeln wrote: post #209
yAnonymous wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Working 120 hours a week is not productive. My WoW character disagrees. Seriously though, if you enjoy what you're doing, doing a lot of it is fine.

If you really work 120h/weeks, it means that you are left with 48h per week for sleeping/eating/doing other things. Unless he included those hours in the work hour, 48h in 7 days is just not sustainable, it's barely enough just for sleep.

It sounds like he sleeps at the office so that makes sense.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#269

Post by fullshark »

leot wrote: post #262
grosjona wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that there are lots of people who could do a better job than Elon Musk but they will never have the opportunity to prove it. The vast majority of people would know that calling the Thai cave diver/rescuer a 'pedo-guy' was a bad decision. Also, announcing that some funding was secured when it actually wasn't - That was a bad decision as well. To suggest that Elon Musk is irreplaceable is ridiculous. People use…

Name a time when a genuinely ambitious and innovative company booted its visionary founders, and it went well.

Tesla

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#270

Post by Fricken »

akmiller wrote: post #244
fabizeid wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it have to be the current version of Musk to be a better version of Musk? Why can't we consider that Musk or his type was instrumental to launch Tesla but at this point a different person is better fit to grow it? Maybe skills needed to sustain a company might be different than the skills needed to launch it.

I've never bought into this, and without significant evidence proving it to be true, I never will. Removing the soul of the company is never good. I've followed leaders who were passionate about their business and I've worked for companies where there is no passion. Hard to commit to the latter!

Tim Cook is a pretty boring guy, but he's an adult and he's responsible, and Apple has grown 4 times since he took the reins. Cook has the temerity to consult the experts he's surrounded by before making a big decision. Musk ignores the experts he (used to be) surrounded by and fires them if they resist his efforts to decouple Tesla from reality. Musk has never been a good leader, he's a full-blown textbook narcissist, replete with the deception, cruelty, and delusions of grandeur that it comes with.

It was fall 2016 that Musk made 3 unilateral, and delusional strategic decisions: the Alien Dreadnought, Solar City, and HW2. I call it the ASH doctrine: Musk's 3 point plan to reduce Tesla to ashes. Before that, I thought Tesla had a chance, but since late 2016 I've been on Tesla deathwatch. And now, here we are, no solar shingles, no $35k Model 3, no full self driving, no money, no profit, no credibility, and no surprises to anyone who has been watching this without Musk approved rose coloured glasses.

The bonfire of his vanity is gloaming, and yet the fans are still fanning the flames.

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