This is a great article, full of interesting details you wouldn't get from an interview with the CEO of Ford or Toyota. The 'bastard investor'; the knight-in-shining-armour who rescued the company; the big-name suppliers who 'can't get their shit together'; Musk's personal attention to detail and quality of every single car. If he writes an autobiography I'll be the first to buy it.
In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk
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Re: In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk
#12> But if you work for Tesla, the minimum is really a 50-hour week and there are times when it'll be 60- to 80-hour weeks. And we recently saw statistics here on HN proving that working more than 40 hours/week for long durations is counter-productive. Alas, I'm sorry to see Elon Musk falling for this "tough men work hard" nonsense.
Well at least he's upfront about it. Better than an org that says you should work 40 hr weeks then presses deadlines so hard you have no choice than to go over.
That's a good point. It sucks to work overtime constantly when you had other plans, commitments, etc, especially when the bosses are ungrateful.
On the other hand, when working on something that you know upfront is going to be an enormous challenge, and you really love what you're doing, the hours don't seem to matter. The problem for me becomes more of a physical thing. I can work a 70+ hour week or two, but then it takes a week to get back to the same level of output.
Re: In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk
#13> But if you work for Tesla, the minimum is really a 50-hour week and there are times when it'll be 60- to 80-hour weeks. And we recently saw statistics here on HN proving that working more than 40 hours/week for long durations is counter-productive. Alas, I'm sorry to see Elon Musk falling for this "tough men work hard" nonsense.
Statistics aren't people. In other words, Your Mileage May Vary.
I imagine this varies with the kind of work. I suspect creative work degrades more quickly beyond 40 hours/week than repetetive work does.
Re: In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk
#14Who am I to criticize Elon Musk, but several things in this interview seemed puzzling to me, and concerning if I were an investor in Tesla. And I'm not even talking about the explicit discussions of their corporate finances.
> ... deliver cars to customers who have been waiting for a long time
If the demand for Tesla cars at a given price point exceeds their supply, shouldn't they be charging more?
> Q: Have you had cars come back from customers, where you noticed a mistake ... A: No.
If the CEO is inspecting every single car, sending lots of them back for (what in some cases sound like) extremely minor tweaks, despite the fact that they haven't had any real complaints about quality, while potential customers are on long waiting lists -- might the CEO's well-intentioned perfectionism be hurting them?
I mean, it's great to see someone obsessed about quality, but I want to see Tesla turn a profit and become an established force in the market, and this article makes me continue to wonder if they'll make it.
Re: In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk
#15> But if you work for Tesla, the minimum is really a 50-hour week and there are times when it'll be 60- to 80-hour weeks. And we recently saw statistics here on HN proving that working more than 40 hours/week for long durations is counter-productive. Alas, I'm sorry to see Elon Musk falling for this "tough men work hard" nonsense.
I suspect that people who expect and look forward to working +50 hours/week would perform much better than people who are guilted into it. Also sounds like they're well compensated for it.
I liked his "special forces" analogy.
Re: In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk
#16Who am I to criticize Elon Musk, but several things in this interview seemed puzzling to me, and concerning if I were an investor in Tesla. And I'm not even talking about the explicit discussions of their corporate finances. > ... deliver cars to customers who have been waiting for a long time If the demand for Tesla cars at a given price point exceeds their supply, shouldn't they be charging more? > Q: Have you had…
Minor imperfections are very often indicative of bigger underlying problems. We're talking about a physical product here. Variations in the output demonstrate a need to tighten up the process. You can't just redeploy, like with software. I think it makes all kinds of sense to get it right before you ship on a massive scale. Recalls and warranty work erode margins.
Re: In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk
#17Who am I to criticize Elon Musk, but several things in this interview seemed puzzling to me, and concerning if I were an investor in Tesla. And I'm not even talking about the explicit discussions of their corporate finances. > ... deliver cars to customers who have been waiting for a long time If the demand for Tesla cars at a given price point exceeds their supply, shouldn't they be charging more? > Q: Have you had…
He is doing the right thing. They start out low volume and are ramping up. Little issues that are ignored can end up being really big issues (and expensive) once combined with all the other little issues at higher volumes. Additionally every single one of them can be learned from. Maybe you need to tweak the design to improve things, maybe a new machine will help, perhaps a supplier is having issues which will blow up as volume ramps.
When you are doing manufacturing there is something they call the learning curve which is roughly the rate at which efficiency improves. The more attention and learning you can do earlier on, the steeper that curve can be which will also affect your profitability. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_curve_effects
For example current estimates are that Boeing are losing $100m on each 787 manufactured. They expect that their learning curve will bring them into profitability down the road, which much debate as to how steep the curve is, whether it will be better than prior planes (eg 777), and if Boeing was the capital to keep this up.
Re: In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk
#18> But if you work for Tesla, the minimum is really a 50-hour week and there are times when it'll be 60- to 80-hour weeks. And we recently saw statistics here on HN proving that working more than 40 hours/week for long durations is counter-productive. Alas, I'm sorry to see Elon Musk falling for this "tough men work hard" nonsense.
It's not considered 'work'.
You're counting hours as if the 40 hour ceiling is of importance; no offense but it doesn't seem like you understand passion.
Re: In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk
#19I think Elon Musk has surpassed Steve Jobs as the best entrepreneur of the century (IMHO)
Oh my gosh no. Elon hasn't changed the world anywhere NEAR as much as Steve.
Re: In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk
#20It's amazing just how real Elon Musk is -- he doesn't sugar coat answers and isn't furtive when describing Tesla's many weaknesses, unlike most other automaker CEOs.