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Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

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Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#101

Post by wellthatsawrap1 »

haggy wrote: post #91
mcphage wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Elon puts a lot of focus on ability and skill over formalities and organizations I'm curious what this means to you, because when I see people from inside Twitter correct him on Twitter, with specific technical statements describing what's going on—and then he fires them—that seems like formalities way outranking ability and skill.

This ^^^ My answer to this question would have been a VERY weak "Yes" before the Twitter disaster. Now that we're seeing the true Elon alongside real engineer feedback, it's a HARD no.

You don't know anything about this guy, his employment history, if was underperforming in the past, etc. You read yet another hit piece on Elon because he's taking out the trash at Twitter and all of a sudden this one example has TOTALLY changed your opinion. You are being manipulated.

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#102

Post by bheadmaster »

mcphage wrote: post #64
bheadmaster wrote: post #19

Considering that Elon puts a lot of focus on ability and skill over formalities and organizations, and that he believes that small team of highly-skilled highly-motivated people can often (always?) out-perform large teams of moderately-skilled moderately-motivated people, I'd say yes. I find a lot of joy in working on challenging problems without having to deal with bureaucracy bullshit. I have a feeling that Elon li…

> Elon puts a lot of focus on ability and skill over formalities and organizations I'm curious what this means to you, because when I see people from inside Twitter correct him on Twitter, with specific technical statements describing what's going on—and then he fires them—that seems like formalities way outranking ability and skill.

> I'm curious what this means to you

In short, it means that doing things better (e.g. making a piece of software faster) for the sake of things being done better is praised, not tolerated, as is the case in the many "let's just ship it, we'll fix it later" software companies.

> when I see people from inside Twitter correct him on Twitter, with specific technical statements describing what's going on—and then he fires them

As far as I remember, the guy just said something along the lines "as the person who actually works on this, it's not 1000 RPCs.", to which Elon asked for a specific number, the guy replied with vague answers like "it only does like 50 RPCs all of which are async, but the software is full of bloat and various features slowing them down" which sounded nothing like "specific technical statements" to me. But I can't find the Tweet thread right now, so I won't stand by this opinion completely.

Regardless - even assuming the guy is 100% in the right - I don't think that publicly going against your boss in such a passive-aggressive way, at the same time portraying him as "the guy that doesn't know what he's talking about", is a right way of handling false information. Maybe another engineer told him 1000s of RPCs are being made, or he just made a hyperbole for the sake of explanation. Benefit of doubt, and all that.

Being rude will get you fired, no matter how right you are, that's kind of a given.

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#103

Post by baremetal »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #82
elif wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you take the side of every cringing junior engineer as gospel, Elon's technical explanations can only be believed to be deceit.

sasha solomon is legendarily competent. I've never even worked with her but she's one of the handful of engineers I know by reputation because everyone I work with who has worked with her is awestruck by how good at her job she is. "cringing junior engineer" indeed.

https://github.com/sachee

7 contribs in the last year.

16 in 2021

9 in 2020

6 in 2019.

I am awestruck indeed.

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#106

Post by SimianSci »

eric4smith wrote: post #50

Yes. A big part of being a business owner is that you fall on the spectrum of being an asshole. A little bit or a lot. It takes being an asshole to do large things. And people end up hating you for it. The bigger things you do, the bigger of an asshole you end up being. Quick, name me the leader of a large company who is not an asshole… And if they are not publicly one, privately they are. The traits of a leader requ…

Your own limited exposure to CEOs looks to have produced a bias that you are applying to all people who hold the title.

Leaders who require themselves to be “assholes” find themselves surrounded by enemies and poison their company culture.

Leaders can sometimes be required to be forceful as they overcome forces of entropy, but only the weak ones need to rely on the style Elon does.

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#107

Post by Retric »

FredPret wrote: post #72
stephc_int13 wrote: post #18

His management style is not the worst thing about the guy. If all the legends about him were true (superhuman BS detector, genius level IQ, laser sharp focus) I'd be happy to be part of the team. Unfortunately, I think his main talent is the uncanny ability to overhype himself. He is lucky that a side effect of this ability helped him hire and motivate really good engineers. Thay might not be sufficient in the long r…

I don’t get what people mean by this. I have mixed feelings about the guy, but vaporware? Are the rockets not real? Are the cars and solar panels and tunnels and Paypal not real? Of course he didn’t single-handedly do this. Of course other engineers were invaluable in the process. But he forced Tesla and SpaceX into existence when everyone thought it was guaranteed to fail. We saw people trying with electric cars and…

SpaceX is a major success for him.

Musk’s introduction to Tesla was being amazed by a working prototype with awesome acceleration. He took over Tesla when it already had a viable product and business strategy. The company started July 1 2003 and Musk’s early contribution was an early funding round and a board seat. He get’s to call himself a founder based on a lawsuit in 2009 and kicking the actual founders out.

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#108

Post by aczerepinski »

Absolutely not. He’s very publicly an a-hole and there’s no way that doesn’t seep into the company culture at large.

As for the hardcore long-hour expectations, who’s supposed to be raising the employees’ children? A nanny plus occasional weekend facetime?

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#109

Post by zmxz »

Invictus0 wrote: post #66
zmxz wrote: post #57

Yes. Twitter is unprofitable. People working there come off as lazy and entitled. They openly attack Elon, not contributing anything tangible except "rich man evil, worker good". Previous management wasted investor's money. Culture born in Twitter is awful, it's as if no one is proud of their work and low performers are loud and toxic. I have no problem with Elon's stance, I don't even view him as narcissist like som…

> Elon's not someone who'll fire a person who is good at what they do. Insulting 3500 people at once, nice.

Insulting? It's true. It's not an insult. You're using mental gymnastics right now to make your point.

3500 people employed in a company that has no oversight of what they do, which is capable of getting huge investment and which wastes that money without any care in the world.

It sounds like an awesome place for people who aren't really good at what they do. Recent letting go spree is a result of unproductive employees. You can call it insulting, but I didn't create this situation and if you're deliberately oblivious to what's in front of you - that's your choice.

I did not create this situation, I'm an observer and it's trivial to observe and assert that IT is full of terrible employees, many of whom are really, really bad at what they do.

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#110

Post by aczerepinski »

wellthatsawrap1 wrote: post #101
haggy wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This ^^^ My answer to this question would have been a VERY weak "Yes" before the Twitter disaster. Now that we're seeing the true Elon alongside real engineer feedback, it's a HARD no.

You don't know anything about this guy, his employment history, if was underperforming in the past, etc. You read yet another hit piece on Elon because he's taking out the trash at Twitter and all of a sudden this one example has TOTALLY changed your opinion. You are being manipulated.

Neither does Elon.
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