551–560 of 1001 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plus a little thing called Tesla
Well, that (and SpaceX) are where Musk is supposed to be keeping his focus.
According to whom? If that admonishment had the desired effect and had occurred in his PayPal days, we wouldn’t have SpaceX, Tesla, etc etc etc
To those arguing that this letter is tantamount to insubordination and is therefore a fireable offense: “Insubordination (noun)- refusing to obey orders from someone in authority.” [1] Unless they had received direct orders not to criticize Musk at all, internally or externally, they are not guilty of refusing to obey orders. And if they had received such orders, that only adds to Musk’s burgeoning reputation for pet…
An open letter like this puts management in a difficult position. I'm going to discuss that without considering other perspectives, to keep the comment on point, please don't read that as endorsement of either the system or, well, anything else. The most powerful response is to have a top level stakeholder meeting, identify changes from the letter which need to be made, then: fire everyone who wrote the letter, and m…
I assume they tried making it an internal matter before going public. Pushing your employees to have the feeling they need to go public instead of being able to solve this internally is a failure of the company.
Musk may end up being the most influential person to: 1. Electrify our vehicular infrastructure 2. Get humans to the Moon, if not to Mars 3. Accelerate the unionization of Silicon Valley tech workers His approach to remote-vs-in-office work is less that of a data-informed futurist and more that of an autocrat. Just as he's loudly supporting public free speech as long as it's his speech, I predict within a few months…
> His approach to remote-vs-in-office work is less that of a data-informed futurist and more that of an autocrat. Nobody can read minds of course, but I think it is smart to not always take people at face value and consider all of their motives in saying anything. Personally I think Elon Musk is probably strongly supporting working in the office for 2 reasons. (Obviously pure speculation) 1) Forcing an ultimatum is a…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given this is HN, I'm just mildly curious about how people who knew Musk 15-20 years ago view him now. I mean, I know this is tangential, but pg had an essay talking about what a bad idea it was that Musk demanded Windows over Linux when Musk ran PayPal - I just got the sense that pg was never a fan. Do folks view this as "this is an ambitious, hardworking genius whose lack of social constraints due to his success is…
> How can someone have the time and energy to run THREE major companies?? Delegation.
Did you know that he used to sleep in a bathroom stall at the Tesla plant because he couldn't afford a studio apartment? A true hero
To those arguing that this letter is tantamount to insubordination and is therefore a fireable offense: “Insubordination (noun)- refusing to obey orders from someone in authority.” [1] Unless they had received direct orders not to criticize Musk at all, internally or externally, they are not guilty of refusing to obey orders. And if they had received such orders, that only adds to Musk’s burgeoning reputation for pet…
Their orders are to get to Mars.
Employees that are bikeshedding, sowing internal discord, engaging in mutiny, are not working toward the goal and in fact actively hindering it. That's all the reason needed to prune them from the otherwise focused and ambitious team.
Twitter is the worst thing to happen to Musk. The social media addiction knows no class/age/wealth/religious/creed boundary. It’s like social cancer that slowly destroys your relationship to society. Musk has done great things but these days I think he’s at his lowest point. /I’ve said this about three times now in threads like these.
To those arguing that this letter is tantamount to insubordination and is therefore a fireable offense: “Insubordination (noun)- refusing to obey orders from someone in authority.” [1] Unless they had received direct orders not to criticize Musk at all, internally or externally, they are not guilty of refusing to obey orders. And if they had received such orders, that only adds to Musk’s burgeoning reputation for pet…
An open letter like this puts management in a difficult position. I'm going to discuss that without considering other perspectives, to keep the comment on point, please don't read that as endorsement of either the system or, well, anything else. The most powerful response is to have a top level stakeholder meeting, identify changes from the letter which need to be made, then: fire everyone who wrote the letter, and m…
One could argue that those writing the letter should have known it would be leaked. But you could also say that about any kind of internal criticism. I'd counter that this argument has the 2nd-order effect of preventing any kind of internal criticism, constructive or otherwise, lest it be leaked at some point in the future.
Not to mention, the "demoralizing" label could also be applied to Musk's public behavior, which is the bulk of the point that the letter and its authors are making.
Was this the "free speech" dude? Same dude as this? https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/03/elon-musk...
Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences, if said consequences do not restrict future freedom of speech.
Where these 5 employees went wrong was in writing it as an internal memo, and attempting to rouse the rabble. That's clearly unacceptable and they misjudged how swift and certain the reaction would be. I do wonder what they were expecting.
Where they went wrong was by posting their criticism as an internal memo using internal resources. They should have taken to twitter.