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Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

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Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#111

Post by stephc_int13 »

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…

The rockets and the cars are real.

-Tunnels are BS

-Hyperloop is dumb BS

-TeslaBot demos are embarassingly bad

-Neuralink seems to be BS

-Solar Tiles are BS

-The PowerWall is semi-legit but overpriced

-The roadster/semi/cybertruck are suspiciously late

-A lot of the Mars plans are weak/delusional

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#112

Post by leokennis »

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 always get the feeling Musk is cosplaying the "startup mentality" without wanting to sacrifice his own need to bully people into submission.

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#113

Post by wellthatsawrap1 »

pavlov wrote: post #40

I’m not interested in working for anyone who thinks it’s a great idea to send out a mandatory web link where you either sign a statement saying “I pledge to work hardcore and tirelessly for the singular product vision of our mighty leader” or you’re immediately fired. This happened last night: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/16/musk-tw... At this point he’s just actively looking to surround himself…

No, he's looking to get rid of all the bloat at Twitter and retain the engineers that want to work on engineering problems and not play at politics and activism. Good riddance.

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#114

Post by randomh3r0 »

whymauri wrote: post #61
abujazar wrote: post #14

Life’s too short to willingly work for toxic and totally unpredictable narcissists

Already did it once, no way in hell I'd do it again.

Same. I've no interest in working for someone like this again... no matter how incredible the team they've build around them may be.

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#116

Post by clauderoux »

I'm always fascinated by these Billionaires who expect employees to work 24/7 for their company. Basically as an employee you give your company your work force against a salary, you don't sell your life to it.

As an employee you are not a samouraï ready to die for your daimyo.

If you don't have a life beyond your job, you are basically ready for your next burn out.

These Billionaires might commit 100% of their time to their company, but it is for their personal gain. On the other hand, as an employee, you will never really earn more than what was contractually signed on your contract, when they will tremendously benefit from your work, your creativity and your intelligence.

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#117

Post by Jemm »

For a premium I would and if the project was something that benefited humanity and not just made rich people more money. Yeah. Elon is no worse than most corporations, he is just much much worse at hiding it.

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#118

Post by pavlov »

wellthatsawrap1 wrote: post #113
pavlov wrote: post #40

I’m not interested in working for anyone who thinks it’s a great idea to send out a mandatory web link where you either sign a statement saying “I pledge to work hardcore and tirelessly for the singular product vision of our mighty leader” or you’re immediately fired. This happened last night: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/16/musk-tw... At this point he’s just actively looking to surround himself…

No, he's looking to get rid of all the bloat at Twitter and retain the engineers that want to work on engineering problems and not play at politics and activism. Good riddance.

Anyone who doesn’t like his management style is playing at politics?

People leave jobs (or don’t take them) all the time because they don’t like how the boss uses their power. It’s a personal choice and doesn’t have anything to do with activism.

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#119

Post by FredPret »

Retric wrote: post #107
FredPret wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

OK, and then he proceeded to turn that fledgling entity into a massive industry-launching company. This is enough to be considered a business genius.

Even if Tesla fails, which seems unlikely given their pile of cash and very popular cars, he has already succeeded in his stated goal of getting the switch to electric cars started.

Re: Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?

#120

Post by giraffe_lady »

baremetal wrote: post #103
giraffe_lady wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's an incredibly high bar but this may be one of the most foolish comments I've ever read. I'm not even going to bother have a good life dude.
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