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Tesla CEO berated employees, investors and tried to get rid of safety measures

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Re: Tesla CEO berated employees, investors and tried to get rid of safety measures

#41

Post by fallingknife »

> About thirty minutes into the call, one Wall Street analyst asked when the company would reach its gross margin target for the Model 3, which, he said, the company had seemingly pushed back by six to nine months. Musk interrupted as his CFO tried to explain, saying it would be resolved in a few months. “Don’t make a federal case out of it,” Musk said snarkily. The analyst turned to Tesla’s cash needs. Musk interrupted again as the analyst elaborated. “Boring, bonehead questions are not cool,” he said. “Next.”

Not how I would have handled it, but actually correct. Tesla at that point was just starting mass production and was trading at a VC valuation multiple. Elon was absolutely correct to focus on ramping production and selling as many cars as possible. Would have been a waste of time to focus on financial metrics like gross margin in the near term. Oh, and those investors who sold after the call? TSLA stock is up ~20x since then.

Re: Tesla CEO berated employees, investors and tried to get rid of safety measures

#42

Post by rebelos »

andi999 wrote: post #24
peakaboo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may sound a bit weird but haven't you noticed they all are psychopaths? Although high functioning ones. Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezoz... These are not healthy people mentally. But they are rich and powerful.

Gates seems pretty normal to me.

Gates was a ruthless tyrant in his Microsoft days. He worked very hard to rehab his image after leaving. Work that might be completely undone if the nature of his alleged involvement with Epstein and the reprehensible things that may have entailed ever surface. He appears to have lost his wife because of the cloud of suspicion there.

Re: Tesla CEO berated employees, investors and tried to get rid of safety measures

#43

Post by socialist_pig »

andi999 wrote: post #24
peakaboo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may sound a bit weird but haven't you noticed they all are psychopaths? Although high functioning ones. Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezoz... These are not healthy people mentally. But they are rich and powerful.

Gates seems pretty normal to me.

Check out the recent Epstein case evidences that points to Gates being a close friend with Epstein, he was even in discussions to have Epstein be part of the Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation, in order to clear his public image

Re: Tesla CEO berated employees, investors and tried to get rid of safety measures

#44

Post by rglover »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #31
andi999 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gates seems pretty normal to me.

He's gone out of his way to cultivate that image.

You mean the well-timed documentary humanizing him as a caring genius just before all this started was intentional?! Nah...

Re: Tesla CEO berated employees, investors and tried to get rid of safety measures

#45

Post by happytoexplain »

underseacables wrote: post #6

Oh no, a CEO yelled at employees, investors, and cut corners. Steve Jobs must be rolling in his grave. I think the record shows that Tesla, and Musk, have undergone a lot of growing pains and mistakes, but the results speak for themselves.

Outside of politics and sports, the binary side-taking problem seems most constant in the views on public personalities. You're writing in a tone that suggests one can not both be applauded for succeeding in business and criticized for behaving in a way that normalizes pettiness and disrespect.

Re: Tesla CEO berated employees, investors and tried to get rid of safety measures

#47

Post by dragontamer »

bob33212 wrote: post #38
rebelos wrote: post #8

I've always found the reports of his behind the scenes behavior and its stark contrast with his public persona to be incredibly disturbing, because it paints a picture of someone with psychopathic tendencies. I suspect there's something really dark with him that originates in his childhood (suffered through horrific bullying and a hellishly awful father).

It is really frustrating when you are a very hard worker and very good at your job and then find out that other people are not getting things done. Watch the Michael Jordan documentary if you don't understand this.

Its very frustrating when you're a competent worker, and someone else is putting a lot of effort spinning wheels on worthless ideas and then trying to convince everyone else that the useless work is in fact useful.

Elon Musk made the wrong call on "alien dreadnaught". Elon did not understand automation, and fired the man who did. Then complained about having 10,000+ more workers than originally planned (because his original plans were terrible).

The article doesn't say anything about "hard worker". Its about Elon making the wrong call, and then angrily firing the executives who tried to make it work. When there wasn't enough space, Elon set up the "tent" outside to expand manual assembly (since the factory was never designed to house this many workers).

-----------

But that's fine. Elon can run his company however he likes under normal circumstances. The thing that pisses me off is his flaunting of COVID19 lockdowns last year. This internal politics thing is just that: internal politics that happen everywhere.

But its no longer internal when it comes to disease. We have to work together, and Elon Musk spreading COVID19 lies and disinformation so that he can keep his Fremont factory open really made me angry.

Re: Tesla CEO berated employees, investors and tried to get rid of safety measures

#48

Post by ziziyO »

breck wrote: post #20
rebelos wrote: post #8

I've always found the reports of his behind the scenes behavior and its stark contrast with his public persona to be incredibly disturbing, because it paints a picture of someone with psychopathic tendencies. I suspect there's something really dark with him that originates in his childhood (suffered through horrific bullying and a hellishly awful father).

Anger is a natural human emotion. There's a time and a place for it. If you're in the NFL, on the field. If you're in the NFL of car making, on the factory floor. Tom Brady isn't so polite for 60 minutes on Sundays. Never once in my life have I met a world class performer who doesn't have some "field" where anger and profanity are permitted. If you want to be the best you can be I don't see how you can hit that witho…

No. Those are unhealthy behaviors that are dehumanizing to the recipient. You don’t treat your employees like this.

Re: Tesla CEO berated employees, investors and tried to get rid of safety measures

#49

Post by threeseed »

iamcreasy wrote: post #2

I guess there are some true facts in this book but I am overall very skeptic of the picture the author is trying to paint or the conclusions he is drawing from those facts. For example, the book says Elon wanted to be Apple's CEO post Tesla acquisition on a phone call. But Elon said it many times over the years that he rather spend his time on engineering and design over management. Edit: Also Tim Cook mentioned in a…

> But Elon said it many times over the years that he rather spend his time on engineering and design over management

But yet he is still the CEO of Tesla.

Just because someone says they want to do something doesn't mean they will.

Re: Tesla CEO berated employees, investors and tried to get rid of safety measures

#50

Post by JohnWhigham »

breck wrote: post #20
rebelos wrote: post #8

I've always found the reports of his behind the scenes behavior and its stark contrast with his public persona to be incredibly disturbing, because it paints a picture of someone with psychopathic tendencies. I suspect there's something really dark with him that originates in his childhood (suffered through horrific bullying and a hellishly awful father).

Anger is a natural human emotion. There's a time and a place for it. If you're in the NFL, on the field. If you're in the NFL of car making, on the factory floor. Tom Brady isn't so polite for 60 minutes on Sundays. Never once in my life have I met a world class performer who doesn't have some "field" where anger and profanity are permitted. If you want to be the best you can be I don't see how you can hit that witho…

This is something I think about every now and then. The problem is that the Jobs/Gates/Musks are the shining exceptions. Survivorship bias basically. For every one of them, there's probably 100 other people in leadership positions that have similarly nasty temperaments, but nowhere near as successful as they are.
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