Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges

#71

Post by dunpeal » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 2:12 PM UTC

this_user wrote: post #49

chollida1 wrote: post #3

And their Chief People Officer, is not coming back from her leave. From the outside it looks like Telsa is about going to go into a tough winter like moment. They are almost losing by winning. They are at capacity in their Fremont factory but still not making a profit. They need to start designing and building out manufacturing facilities for their next car and the help bolster Model X manufacturing. Stop and think f…

> they have about a year of cash runway left( optimistically) Much less than that actually. At their current burn rate they won't even be making it to the end of this year without either selling enough M3 to generate some real cash, or by raising some new money from the market. Also, they have a lot of debt come due next year (and even more over the following years) while yields are up to over 8%. However, M3 product…

Don't they also have some heavy debt obligations coming due very soon?

Re: Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges

#72

Post by cosmon0t » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 2:12 PM UTC

OscarCunningham wrote: post #42

api wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend who bought a Tesla and is now asking for a buy-back. His experience has convinced me the negative hype isn't all just shorts propagandizing and "Musk fatigue." This company has huge, huge problems. When he first got the Tesla it had huge body panel alignment problems. Eventually these were fixed, but it took too long and was difficult to get Tesla to fully acknowledge them. After that he had a range o…

Sorry to take things off-topic but >Needless to say we will not be uploading consciousness anytime soon I'd say that uploading consciousness is an entirely orthogonal problem to AI. Uploading a consciousness is all about scanning the brain and simulating it accurately. It doesn't involve any AI since the intelligence already exists. Conversely if you succeeded with uploading it wouldn't necessarily help with AI, sinc…

I feel like the comment was poking fun at the "fields", which are so hyped that they might as well be called hunting for the philosopher's stone.

Re: Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges

#73

Post by dgritsko » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 2:13 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #62

I just watched a part of the Joe Rogan podcast with Musk and I have to say he looks very unhealthy. Maybe I am wrong but to me he looks like he is drinking a lot or on some other drugs. I can imagine working with a CEO who is pushing himself way other the limit is a pretty unpleasant experience.

Didn't he actually smoke weed live as part of that broadcast?

Re: Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges

#74

Post by jonknee » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 2:14 PM UTC

mathattack wrote: post #5

chollida1 wrote: post #3

And their Chief People Officer, is not coming back from her leave. From the outside it looks like Telsa is about going to go into a tough winter like moment. They are almost losing by winning. They are at capacity in their Fremont factory but still not making a profit. They need to start designing and building out manufacturing facilities for their next car and the help bolster Model X manufacturing. Stop and think f…

If they are at capacity, why don’t they charge more money?

Who says they aren't? They're already charging $60k for their "mass market" $35k sedan.

Update: I guess technically it's $50k, the other day I read the average selling price was $60k and that was stuck in my head. Regardless, far away from $35k!

Re: Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges

#75

Post by dnomad » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 2:17 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #46

fencepost wrote: post #35

As someone who's not obsessively following Tesla, I'm a bit jaded by these. I'm sure there are problems, but what feels like massive PR efforts by the "shorts" has effectively poisoned the well for negative news. As a casual observer I can't tell what's actual bad news and what's well-orchestrated market-manipulation "OMG WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE" by people trying to drop the price, and I don't actually care enough about…

> I'm sure there are problems, but what feels like massive PR efforts by the "shorts" has effectively poisoned the well for negative news. What kind of PR effort do you need when every CFO you hire keeps leaving? Think about it. The person in the company who completely knows the financials stays for a month and bounces? Why? Could it be that the financials are so bad they are unfixable? Could it be that that person i…

> What kind of PR effort do you need when every CFO you hire keeps leaving?

It's really gotten to a point where all the Musk-haters now believe their own bullshit. This post (and many others in HN's bi-weekly anti-Musk thread) is a classic example. Tesla had had a grand total of two CFOs since Musk took over.

> Could it be that that person is being pushed to stretch things a bit here and there to make them look better?

Could it be that that person is an alien sent from Venus to stop Musk from returning to Mars?

See, it's easy to ask stupidly leading questions and spout completely baseless speculation. What's more difficult is actually examining the facts and drawing a rational conclusion.

Re: Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges

#76

Post by nradov » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 2:17 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #27

api wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend who bought a Tesla and is now asking for a buy-back. His experience has convinced me the negative hype isn't all just shorts propagandizing and "Musk fatigue." This company has huge, huge problems. When he first got the Tesla it had huge body panel alignment problems. Eventually these were fixed, but it took too long and was difficult to get Tesla to fully acknowledge them. After that he had a range o…

> After that he had a range of little annoying problems, many of which were likely software bugs, but then he (actually his GF) experienced something in autopilot mode known on the Tesla forums as "shadow braking" -- the car braking hard on the highway because it seems to see the shadow of an overpass and think it's a wall. This is extremely dangerous. It was on the I-405 (SoCal) going 70-80mph, and such a thing coul…

It's clearly a software defect. I don't know how you could possibly claim otherwise. The reasons behind the defect are irrelevant from a customer standpoint.

A human driver who did that during a driver's license test would be failed.

Re: Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges

#77

Post by chooseaname » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 2:18 PM UTC

gbear605 wrote: post #57

chooseaname wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he's visionary. We all want to play with rockets and electric cars. He just happens to have enough money to go out and do it.

Then why is Musk (and Bezos with Blue Origin) the only ones who have done so? There are a lot of people who have more money than Musk had when he founded SpaceX and Tesla.

Interest?

Look at Bill Gates. He could certainly build rockets, but he'd rather help people solve other, arguably more important, problems.

Or Larry Ellison. He'd rather go race boats and play with swords.

Re: Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges

#78

Post by compcoffee » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 2:18 PM UTC

this_user wrote: post #49

chollida1 wrote: post #3

And their Chief People Officer, is not coming back from her leave. From the outside it looks like Telsa is about going to go into a tough winter like moment. They are almost losing by winning. They are at capacity in their Fremont factory but still not making a profit. They need to start designing and building out manufacturing facilities for their next car and the help bolster Model X manufacturing. Stop and think f…

> they have about a year of cash runway left( optimistically) Much less than that actually. At their current burn rate they won't even be making it to the end of this year without either selling enough M3 to generate some real cash, or by raising some new money from the market. Also, they have a lot of debt come due next year (and even more over the following years) while yields are up to over 8%. However, M3 product…

>However, M3 production numbers are actually looking good now, and they are hitting their targets for the first time.

Really? Where can I read the official quarterly numbers? Of what quality are these cars? Do they all need to be reworked?

>Musk has repeatedly stated that the company will not need to raise new money

He said that prior to raising cash the last 3 times. He also said he was going to take the company private at $420. For some reason, I'm doubtful.

Re: Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges

#79

Post by api » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 2:18 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #67

ModernMech wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm starting to understand why all the other self-drive companies use active sensors like lidar. Every roboticist since the DARPA Grand Challenge knew this, as every team that finished had a Velodyne LIDAR. It was THE piece of tech that made that race possible. So for everyone who learned that lesson, to then see Telsas out on public roads with a feature called "autopilot" that did not have any LIDAR sensor attache…

I think it's a little early for people who don't "do" to call it that LIDAR is mandatory, and that optics and radar aren't sufficient. Autopilot is still in development.

LIDAR is not necessarily categorically mandatory, but shadow braking and other autopilot failure modes demonstrate that it or something with its capabilities are probably necessary right now to enable today's "AI" to safely drive a car. My point about active sensing being able to decide edge cases explains why this is likely the case.

IMHO doing without precise active sensing would require a breakthrough in AI that hasn't happened yet.

On the plus side the fact that Tesla's autopilot is able to work as well as it does without lidar might indicte that with a lidar system it might be the best autopilot on the market. Who knows.

Re: Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges

#80

Post by chollida1 » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 2:18 PM UTC

nickik wrote: post #54

chollida1 wrote: post #3

And their Chief People Officer, is not coming back from her leave. From the outside it looks like Telsa is about going to go into a tough winter like moment. They are almost losing by winning. They are at capacity in their Fremont factory but still not making a profit. They need to start designing and building out manufacturing facilities for their next car and the help bolster Model X manufacturing. Stop and think f…

With their current production rate they have 11 billion in revenue from the Model 3 alone. They guidance suggest they should be profitable this quarter because as of right now they are hitting their production target.

May i see your napkin math for the 11 Billion figure?