Live data from Hacker News

Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

wsj.com

171–180 of 358 posts

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#171
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that this doesn't bode well for Tesla. My biggest complaint with Tesla is that they don't provide service manuals or have an open parts department for their vehicles. For comparison, pretty much every other major auto maker will sell you a book telling you how to fix anything on your vehicle, and will sell you the parts and special tools to do so. Not Tesla, and given what we know about Ellison, I very mu…

Apple started the path to normalizing this, and I believe it's core to being responsible for the entire user experience. Personally, I'm not a fan of this, but I understand the motives aside from profit. If a Tesla gets poor maintenance by an unskilled shop, when the vehicle crashes and kills the driver, Tesla gets the black eye and has to defend itself in the media and in front of the NHTSA. Tesla's stock takes the…

> and in front of the NHTSA

Hardly. A fatality collision is rarely the subject of an NHTSA investigation, and "serviced by unqualified/unlicensed auto repair facility" is one, a big get out of jail card, and two, hands a whole world of liability... to said facility, not Tesla.

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple started the path to normalizing this, and I believe it's core to being responsible for the entire user experience. Personally, I'm not a fan of this, but I understand the motives aside from profit. If a Tesla gets poor maintenance by an unskilled shop, when the vehicle crashes and kills the driver, Tesla gets the black eye and has to defend itself in the media and in front of the NHTSA. Tesla's stock takes the…

This are very bad excuses, Did BMW,Ford or other car manufacturer had issues because people use a car service that is not "official" but is very convenient? Is Tesla planing to open car services in all locations were regular services are or you will have to send the car back to the dealer so they send it back to Tesla and wait 3 weeks like you have to do with Apple. About Apple, -1 Apple sells expensive products and…

> Is Tesla planing to open car services in all locations were regular services are or you will have to send the car back to the dealer so they send it back to Tesla and wait 3 weeks like you have to do with Apple.

If you're really "lucky" it will happen while you're traveling out of state, and Tesla will tow your vehicle to the nearest facility and give you one of their rentals or partnered rentals, some of whom have "no out of state" policies on the replacement vehicle (remember, you're already 'out of state' - how are you planning to get home?).

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#173

Glad to hear Tesla is adding more women. I truly think women in leadership are a grossly underutilized resource. EDIT: Doubly so women of color. If anyone needs a different perspective, it’s Elon. I hope he listens.

No, the person is valuable because it’s own independent thoughts leadership and vision etc.

It has little to do with gender. Please do not pay attention to gender and potentially downplay woman’s own intellectual power.

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#174

Expect software updates for Tesla automobiles to become progressively more expensive and more difficult to install, they will also be packaged with adware. All patents will be closed and litigation against all other electric car makes will ensue.

License audit! "You've been running the car on the wrong kind of tires for the last three years. You owe us 80 million dollars"

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#175
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All well and good -- solid arguments except when you consider things like: Apple's Mac Pro (the big tower) had upgradeable RAM and video, and the newer versions (the little black shiny pretty cylinder) were soldered on. That's less about lawsuits and support costs -- it's memory for God's sake and everyone else lets the consumer physically upgrade it, even many laptops. It's about going through the cartel to get the…

Playing devils advocate. RAM is the #1 cause if computers crashes largely because people think cheap or overclocked RAM is fine. Windows would have a vastly better reputation if it was always paired up with good hardware.

Most RAM in the world is produced by the same three(?) manufacturers. I'm not sure what Mac allows you to overclock RAM either...

No. This is the same Apple who one year ago was charging $1200 for 48GB of memory.

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#176

Glad to hear Tesla is adding more women. I truly think women in leadership are a grossly underutilized resource. EDIT: Doubly so women of color. If anyone needs a different perspective, it’s Elon. I hope he listens.

No, the person is valuable because it’s own independent thoughts leadership and vision etc. It has little to do with gender. Please do not pay attention to gender and potentially downplay woman’s own intellectual power.

Please do not pay attention to gender and potentially downplay woman’s own intellectual power.

Right. Valuing people more or less depending on what chromosomes they have or how the flesh they have under their clothes is formed is wrong and dehumanizing. People should be valued by what they do and make, not by how they are born and raised. This is how you separate real social justice from embittered identitarians posing as "social justice" -- are they truly against valuing people on the basis of identity, or do they use and exploit such tribal impulses for their own ends?

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing different in this context, I mean it in the universal sense: https://www.google.com/search?q=awakened+consciousness&oq=aw... Could also look at it as Spiral Dynamics Turquoise: https://www.google.com/search?q=spiral+dynamics+turquoise&so...

At a glance, Spiral Dynamics looks like a mix of Donella Meadow style System Dynamics and a copious amount of LSD. (Excuse my flippancy, I did my Master's on a subject related to System Dynamics and was turned off by the field's relativist philosophical outlook.)

I think it's useful as a rough framework. Definitely overlays well over a lot of my own observations of life and people. And, yes, LSD is always helpful in these matters.

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no fan of Ellison or Oracle. But a guy worth $60 billion with decades long ties and influence in media and government investing in TSLA and serving on its board is not something that should make shorts happy.

This. It’s not surprising at all how emotional and “short” sighted people are being about Ellison because “Oracle sucks”. I despise Oracle as much as the next guy but if I were in Elon’s shoes I’d want Ellison on my board. The car business is tough, really tough. At one point the database business was really tough. Ellison achieved a near monopoly. Despite our views on the quality his software. Tech people were not h…

As far as I can tell, the positive qualities that Ellison could bring to the table (sales skills, toughness) are ones that Musk largely already has, and, what's more worrying, it seems likely that Ellison will enable the character flaws in Musk that the two share (hyperbole, unscrupulousness).

Meanwhile, Ellison adds nothing I can see in terms of manufacturing and and little in terms of adult leadership.

I would argue that the ideal director in terms of complementary skills would be somebody like Tim Cook (even though Tim himself would probably be too likely to have conflicts of interest to serve).

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#179
post #89

Yup, that Larry Ellison. I'm not sure whether this is good news or not.

I would label it as extremely bad. You're talking about a guy who has no shame in using a publicly traded company (Oracle) to bail himself out of personal investments gone wrong (See Pillar Data). He's literally everything that is wrong with capitalism embodied. He's made a living off holding customers hostage and milking them for every last penny. Tesla has made a living off customer service.

> Tesla has made a living off customer service.

I'm curious what gives you this impression. I'm a Tesla owner and consider their customer service their biggest shortcoming at present. Fortunately, the quality of the vehicles and mission make up for it in my mind.

Post reply on HN