SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk • Hacker News Board

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#711

Post by JackFr » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 4:53 PM UTC

anonporridge wrote: post #588

mc32 wrote: post #532

I mean, this whole bruhaha was spearheaded by five (5!) people. Articles were presenting this as if it had been representative of a larger portion of the workforce there. I think companies are realizing "activist" workers are a disruption that suck productivity from a company and are taking steps to dial that down, including progressive stalwarts like Netflix.

Serious question, why wouldn't that include a CEO who is increasingly making public political commentary? I agree that activist workers are a problem for productivity, but the same could be said for activist CEOs.

> Serious question, why wouldn't that include a CEO who is increasingly making public political commentary?

It absolutely would, and the CEO is responsible to the board. In such a case the board of directors would be well within their rights to can the CEO.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#712

Post by nr2x » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 4:53 PM UTC

memish wrote: post #556

toomanyrichies wrote: post #434

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…

SpaceX is the most ambitious company on Earth, working toward the goal of making humans a multi-planetary species. 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.

Yes, Elon should have his twitter taken away for distracting from the mission. 100% agree.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#713

Post by toomanyrichies » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 4:53 PM UTC

JackFr wrote: post #683

toomanyrichies wrote: post #434

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…

tan·ta·mount /ˈtan(t)əˌmount/ equivalent in seriousness to;

I'm confused, are you saying I used the term incorrectly? Because the definition you provided seems to fit the context in which I used the term.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#714

Post by kerblang » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 4:54 PM UTC

concordDance wrote: post #700

kerblang wrote: post #617

One of the demands from the letter: > Define and uniformly respond to all forms of unacceptable behavior. Clearly define what exactly is intended by SpaceX’s “no-asshole” and “zero tolerance” policies and enforce them consistently. That's exactly the problem with companies that like to brag about their "we-don't-allow-jerks-here" culture: It's arbitrary. If you focus on creating a culture of objectivity, facts and ho…

> But inasmuch as he embraces dishonesty (one example: the "pedo" incident from way back) That wasn't dishonesty, he genuinely thought the guy was a pedo (the con artist he hired to investigate also (falsely) reafirmed this).

But he utterly & completely failed at objectivity.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#715

Post by throwaway0a5e » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 4:54 PM UTC

anonporridge wrote: post #588

mc32 wrote: post #532

I mean, this whole bruhaha was spearheaded by five (5!) people. Articles were presenting this as if it had been representative of a larger portion of the workforce there. I think companies are realizing "activist" workers are a disruption that suck productivity from a company and are taking steps to dial that down, including progressive stalwarts like Netflix.

Serious question, why wouldn't that include a CEO who is increasingly making public political commentary? I agree that activist workers are a problem for productivity, but the same could be said for activist CEOs.

It does. There are plenty of investors who want to see Musk's publicly traded companies run by "an adult" but they're outnumbered by the people who think that his lack of fucks to give is a greater positive to the company than the ire of the people he irritates is a negative.

This is fundamentally the same kind of calculation that brands make when deciding to public-ally sponsor things that people feel strongly about.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#716

Post by willis936 » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 4:54 PM UTC

logifail wrote: post #654

HillRat wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even so, they're not protected against being fired -- circulating an internal letter criticizing leadership is, in a right to work state without existing workplace union agreements and outside of a whistleblower or other protected situation, enough to get you fired, though not fired for cause. Are the optics bad? Yes. Is it indicative that "free speech absolutist" Musk believes your right to speech ends where his fee…

> Musk believes your right to speech ends where his feelings get hurt? It could be that Musk recognises that a significant group of his staff - likely the majority - simply don't want a loud minority group - possibly a tiny minority - "making waves" and intimidating others into joining their cause. I've just started Nassim Nicholas Taleb's latest book, but in previous work he wrote about "The Most Intolerant Wins: Th…

This take seems to flip reality on its head. The tiny minority is Musk and his followers.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#717

Post by jdlshore » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 4:54 PM UTC

kerblang wrote: post #617

One of the demands from the letter: > Define and uniformly respond to all forms of unacceptable behavior. Clearly define what exactly is intended by SpaceX’s “no-asshole” and “zero tolerance” policies and enforce them consistently. That's exactly the problem with companies that like to brag about their "we-don't-allow-jerks-here" culture: It's arbitrary. If you focus on creating a culture of objectivity, facts and ho…

> If you focus on creating a culture of objectivity, facts and honesty, you'll solve most of your jerk problems without having to figure out what "jerk" means.

Are you speaking from experience? As a consultant, I occasionally run into companies that have an asshole problem (it’s pretty rare, fortunately), and your comment seems like wishful thinking to the point of naivety. In fact, overly blunt and “honest” communication is one of the ways assholes express themselves.

The other thing about assholes in companies is that they’ve made themselves indispensable—often raising themselves up by pushing the people around them down—because the ones who don’t, don’t survive.

For every company I’ve been in that had an asshole problem, management was aware that they had an asshole problem, but felt they couldn’t resolve it because the asshole was a “star performer.” (They weren’t really. Overall performance typically increases when they leave, because previously-suppressed people are now able to step up and grow.)

Objectivity, honesty, and facts do nothing to fix this problem, except in a fantasy world where everything is measured and the impact of people’s actions is perfectly visible. That world doesn’t exist.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#718

Post by whatevenisthat » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 4:54 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #532

I mean, this whole bruhaha was spearheaded by five (5!) people. Articles were presenting this as if it had been representative of a larger portion of the workforce there. I think companies are realizing "activist" workers are a disruption that suck productivity from a company and are taking steps to dial that down, including progressive stalwarts like Netflix.

Hopefully the tech layoffs are from the activist types so the rest of us can just focus on the code and design in peace and quiet. So far everywhere I worked in SV the activists were vocal but unliked by the majority. And they were also the least productive employees by far.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#719

Post by oh_sigh » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 4:54 PM UTC

kerblang wrote: post #617

One of the demands from the letter: > Define and uniformly respond to all forms of unacceptable behavior. Clearly define what exactly is intended by SpaceX’s “no-asshole” and “zero tolerance” policies and enforce them consistently. That's exactly the problem with companies that like to brag about their "we-don't-allow-jerks-here" culture: It's arbitrary. If you focus on creating a culture of objectivity, facts and ho…

Isn't a "no asshole" policy better than a "define all forms of unacceptable behavior" policy, so long as you have confidence in leadership? And if you don't have confidence, you should leave regardless.

How can you even define all forms of unacceptable behavior? If someone doesn't put "pooping on coworkers desk" in the document, does that mean I won't be punished for it now?

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#720

Post by guerrilla » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 4:55 PM UTC

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #517

>The letter asked SpaceX management to publicly separate the company from Mr. Musk’s personal brand. This is not realistic. It will not happen. Elon Musk is the founder, chairman, CEO and CTO. He owns 47% of the company and 78% of voting control. A company you work for is not a democracy. You are not an owner. You don't get to call out, to make governance decisions, to create pressure campaigns, etc. This is doubly t…

> This is not realistic. It will not happen. Elon Musk is the founder, chairman, CEO and CTO. He owns 47% of the company and 78% of voting control.

You do realize this was true of most blue chips at some point in history right? Know who those people and their cults are now? No? Right, nobody does.