Earlier quoted context omitted.
Remember when Marissa Mayer eliminated WFH at Yahoo? Seemed to work out well for them.
Do you really think Yahoo would have avoided its fate if it had continued allowing WFH? I don't think it was a good decision, but Yahoo had/has way more issues with its business than whether or not it allows employees to WFH.
Tesla to Cut 10% of Jobs
411–420 of 613 posts
Re: Tesla to Cut 10% of Jobs
#412Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is par for the course. Every time there is big news expected, Elon’s antics are elevated and a coordinated distraction by way of a tweet is posted. See the “political attacks on me” tweet as an example, which coincidentally was posted the day prior to his sexual assault allegations. The man has bought Twitter for the purposes of distracting and manipulating the public.
The man has bought Twitter for the purposes of distracting and manipulating the public. To be fair, twitter ownership is not required to use twitter for this purpose.
I understood that remark as a reference to the way Musk's bid to buy Twitter with no intention to follow-through, in light of other shameless PR ploys like the absurd political persecution claim, looks like a shameless attempt to distract people from other problems affecting Musk, such as Tesla's tanking stock price.
Re: Tesla to Cut 10% of Jobs
#413Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For example maybe people don't go to lots of inner city coffee bars in business districts any more but local cafes near residential areas are thriving. People don't buy coffee on the way to work, people don't buy coffee on the way home, people don't buy sandwiches and snacks, people don't spend money on commuting, people don't spend money at resturants for launch, companies stop having team lunches. People don't go…
> People don't buy coffee on the way to work, people don't buy coffee on the way home, people don't buy sandwiches and snacks, people don't spend money on commuting, people don't spend money at resturants for launch, companies stop having team lunches. And this money just goes poof instead of being reallocated elsewhere?
Re: Tesla to Cut 10% of Jobs
#414Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not defending Tesla or Musk specifically here, but this happens all the time. Until you're ready to announce to internal staff (and publicly, if you're large enough) that you're in a hiring freeze and/or doing layoffs, you need to keep up appearances that things are operating normally, even if that means keeping up the recruiting pipeline for positions that you have no intention of hiring. The absolute worst thing yo…
> you need to keep up appearances that things are operating normally, even if that means keeping up the recruiting pipeline for positions that you have no intention of hiring This reminds me what I once read about the challenges of zookeeping big cats. They tend to appear very often perfectly healthy until one day they just die. And when you do an autopsy on them you realise that they were sick since weeks or even mo…
Re: Tesla to Cut 10% of Jobs
#415Earlier quoted context omitted.
Despite the zealous beliefs of the visionary, thought-leader techbro space that Musk's every move was to drive civilization forward in some kind of libertarian, technocrat utopia, it seems very clear at this point every one of these moves was absolutely a self-serving narrative shield around incredibly typical corporate/rich-person bad behavior. Oh but who could have seen this coming except oh wait everyone. The scha…
This is of course, correct, but it is something not exclusive to Elon Musk, you just have to read the stream of accolades some of the darlings of this site receive here when they are just your run of the mill capitalists with all the usual interests and biases.
Brian Chesky directly ripped off a popular free product called CouchSurfing then said “ok same thing but I get to be a billionaire, local housing markets lose long term rentals in exchange for teenage keg parties, and I get to buy virtue signaling billboards all over SF cause I get to be rich AND morally superior.”
Then after we lionize those guys we can make fun of the Musk fan club.
Re: Tesla to Cut 10% of Jobs
#416Earlier quoted context omitted.
This reminds me of Musk's recent comments about "political attacks against him in the coming days". It has since been learned that he had been reached by Business Insider to comment about the sexual abuse case beforehand. He already knew that an article against him was coming so he framed the narrative before it even reached the public. I would not be surprised this was the same here. Tell everyone "Leave if you don'…
I'm starting to wonder more and more whether Musk has forgotten to think about the individuals negatively affected by his actions. I wouldn't be surprised if he really cares about humanity and wants to save the world by going to Mars, but I'm not so sure though whether the end justifies the means.
Re: Tesla to Cut 10% of Jobs
#417Earlier quoted context omitted.
Strongly disagree. I'm completely ambivalent as to whether the accusation is true or not – I have literally no idea and probably never will. Elon didn't come out and say, "hey there are accusations coming about an issue that was settled long ago outside of court, I maintain position X." He said, "I am switching to the Republican party, expect political hit pieces." He has turned his legal issue into a Republican vs D…
Again, in order to think it's slimy, you have to make assumptions about what is true. In the instance you just described, you still have to assume that the "hit piece" isn't because he was starting to lean more Republican. I don't think we know why the accusation re-surfaced, do we?
Re: Tesla to Cut 10% of Jobs
#418Doesn't these company fire the low 10% ranked employer like every year? Maybe it's news this year because it stopped the during covid, but it's a pretty standard modus operandi.
That's an IBM-ism that has a lot of mind-share but is far from the standard operating procedure of most tech cos.
Re: Tesla to Cut 10% of Jobs
#419Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's not legally the same thing. Since doing things to get people to quit have to be larger than you need to work at your place of employment. It's moving them across the country, making them work unsocialable hours, etc. Not returning to the office, which the goverment actually wants. Remote work is bad for the economy.
Remote work is bad for the economy. I've seen this claim a few times now. Are we actually sure it's true? Or does it just shift long-term spending trends? For example maybe people don't go to lots of inner city coffee bars in business districts any more but local cafes near residential areas are thriving. Maybe people don't stop in big stores on their way home from work but home delivery services are thriving. Maybe…
> I've seen this claim a few times now. Are we actually sure it's true? Or does it just shift long-term spending trends?
Yes. This is a very good example of what is known in economics as the "broken window" fallacy. It's very easy to only account for the effects you measure and ignore what might otherwise have happened. [1]
"It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented."
[1] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Essays_on_Political_Economy/T...
Re: Tesla to Cut 10% of Jobs
#420Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those producing cars in the factory have never worked from home. The discussion is only about R&D, legal, finance whatever. And most of those don't differ significantly between Yahoo or Tesla.
It's an incredibly unpopular view on HN, but I don't think we can categorically conclude yet that WFH is always equally good as working in-person for all white-collar jobs that have good prerequisites for WFH. For me personally, the train has left the station and I would not expect to ever consider a non-WFH job again in my career. But that's a completely different question than asking whether companies that require…
But a company shouldn't have to mandate in-office work permanentely and for all. It should be obvious from the job profile and the working conditions, when it is advantageous to be in the office rather than at home.