Elon Musk Decries ‘M.B.A.-ization’ of America

Post by clouddrover » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 9:47 PM UTC

ericd wrote: post #140

orky56 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon isn't taking their market share. He's banking on the future and stealing their market cap. What people are missing is that every car company is a fast follower and Elon's head start and subsequent lead is disappearing as Porsche (VW) and others are stealing the limelight and performance ranks. Similar to Apple, Elon is thinking in terms of profitability and long-term strategy and wants to focus on taking that ov…

How is Porsche stealing the limelight? With the Taycan? Which starts at >$100k, with half the range and slower 0-60 numbers than a lumbering $70k base model Model S? (I know they're not direct competitors, I expect the Porsche to have significantly better fit/finish and handling, and the Taycan doesn't really sit 5 comfortably). At the top end, it looks a bit better, but then it's priced in the range of the 2021 Road…

Post by haolez » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 9:49 PM UTC

mmmBacon wrote: post #79

haolez wrote: post #13

I, for one, sometimes miss the knowledge that an MBA might give me. I'm a technical CTO and I have some trouble with long term planning, budget, managing people, etc.

I report to a CTO and manage a large team. You probably need to delegate your planning and budget activities and serve as mostly an approver for those things. Managing people is hard and it’s unlikely you will learn how to manage people from an MBA. Managing people is an experience thing. If you’re bad at managing people, my advice is that you hire people who are good a managing people and have those people report to…

Post by legulere » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 9:52 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #2

He is onto something there. Bean counting is useful and companies cannot survive without good cashflow, but it should not become Mission A of the company, or engineering (and other) talent will look elsewhere. If one company's de facto mission statement is "We want to grow our market by 8.2 per cent and give our bosses higher Christmas bonuses" and another one comes and says "Guys, we want to fly to fscking Mars!", c…

Post by legulere » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 9:54 PM UTC

MetaWhirledPeas wrote: post #122

Barrin92 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"We want to grow our market by 8.2 per cent and give our bosses higher Christmas bonuses" This isn't a bad thing. Profit and price are, in most cases, still reasonable signals for what consumers want, and growing your market means you're serving real demand in the actual world. This is what creates employment and utility. Flying to Mars and ignoring market share is nice but doesn't serve any actual point, other than…

Right. But the company needs to have a point . Growing market share doesn't mean you're serving your customers' needs. You can grow your market share quite well by acting anti-competitively, or by exploiting your customers' weaknesses (gambling). No thanks.

Post by btian » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #50

sixQuarks wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure where you’re getting your info from. Musk and his brother started and sold zip2 for millions, while living a very frugal existence. He used that money to start x.com, which merged with PayPal, sold to eBay. He used that money to start SpaceX and invest in Tesla.

The Musk's families wealth is common knowledge and widely reported[0][1][2]. But more to the point Elon and Kimbal's dad funded Zip2, which completely undercuts your point. > In Ashlee Vance's biography of Elon Musk, it is claimed that the Musks' father, Errol Musk, provided them with US$28,000 during this time, but Elon Musk later denied this. He later clarified that his dad provided around 10% of US$200,000 as part…