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In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk

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Re: In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk

#51

Post by MarkMc »

shazow wrote: post #15
wazoox wrote: post #2

> 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.

I don't think the special forces analogy holds water.

Consider this hypothetical example: If special forces train for 40 hours per week then they have a 70% chance of rescuing the hostages, but if they train 50 hours per week they have an 80% chance of success. Is it worth the extra cost? Absolutely. Having one special forces team with 80% chance of success is better than two teams with a 70% chance.

But now imagine that my job is to install headlights into a car chassis. If I work 40 hours per week then I can install 70 headlights, and if I work 50 hours per week then I can install 80 headlights. Is it worth the extra cost? No - two people installing 70 headlights per week is better than one person installing 80 per week.

Having said all that, it may be that "willingness to work 50 hours per week" is a good indication of passion and energy. If you ask a potential employee, "are you passionate?" the reply will always be "Yes". But if you ask, "Are you willing to work 50 hours per week" then you'll be more likely to get someone who loves the work.

Re: In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk

#52

Post by CamperBob2 »

wazoox wrote: post #26
pxlpshr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Bullshit. When you're piling long hours, you make many mistakes, and that's totally independent from your passion, interest of whatever. This is just being tired. BTW in 1998 I've worked 100+ hours/week for a few months; it ended in the hospital. So I think I've seen that from the inside, too. As a high level knowledge worker (CEO or CTO), I may "work" for long hours getting informed on the latest trends reading HN.…

BTW in 1998 I've worked 100+ hours/week for a few months; it ended in the hospital.

Hell of a difference between spending 50 hours a week on the job and spending 100. Everything you've said in this thread is undeniably true at 100 hours/week. Almost nothing you've said in this thread is generally true at 50.

Re: In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk

#53

Post by srik »

> Usually, when people say it's the all-new blah-blah-blah, whatever car, that's bullshit. 40 percent of that car, if not 60 percent of that car, if coming from some parts bin. In our case, two percent is coming from the parts bin.

I was definitely not aware of this practice. Recycling material is one thing, but reusing parts is something customerss need to know about, especially if it's about 40-60 % like Musk claims.

Re: In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk

#54

Post by LockeWatts »

mahyarm wrote: post #48
ComputerGuru wrote: post #30

I must say, I've been on the wall about the Model S, being a hard-core auto enthusiast and really loving my gears (e.g. I only drive stick shift). But this interview, the revelation that Elon Musk is out there personally inspecting each and every car (well, more or less), that the guy designing my cars is even more of an anal-retentive OC-freak than I am who won't laugh and scoff at me like the guy at the Audi dealer…

You must see the model s in person. It's so well designed, I wish you could buy one for $30k new as a hybrid version. Just get rid of the front trunk.

Having a hybrid version of the Model S would completely defeat the purpose of the design.

Re: In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk

#55

Post by confluence »

hinathan wrote: post #6

It was a difficult thing that was made more difficult by one of our investors who was just an absolute bastard, nobody should ever take money from them. Anybody know whom he's referring to? Pretty harsh.

From Crunchbase here are my likely sources of bad investor groups (I've excluded individuals and Google):

> Compass Technology Partners 4 investments - from the start (probably not).

Valor Equity Partners 3 investments - from the start (probably not).

> JP Morgan 2 - maybe (unlikely)

Technology Venture Partners US 1 - (unlikely)

> Capricorn Management 2 - maybe (probably not)

VantagePoint Capital Partners 2 - maybe

Draper Fisher Jurvetson 2 - maybe

Now it seems that Musk didn't expect the investor to act like a douche. So I doubt it's JPMorgan (who are have been historically known to be douches).

It was probably one of the VC funds trying to squeeze Musk on TSLA during the GFC - a firm with whom he has dealt with before. I doubt that it was US tech ventures - since they don't have much weight.

It was probably one of the VC firms. I doubt it was the Europeans (once again not much weight).

So it's either DFJ or Vantage. I remember Sameer Bhatia (of hotmail fame) stating that DFJ loves a good squeeze (they tried to screw him by telling other VCs to back off) - so I wouldn't put it past them.

Vantage point has been known to manipulate deals and are probably the most likely along with DFJ.

This is all speculation - someone else help me narrow it down?

Tesla Investors: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/tesla-motors

DFJ: http://www.thefunded.com/funds/show/Draper+Fisher+Jurvetson

Vantage Point: http://www.thefunded.com/funds/show/VantagePoint+Venture+Par...

Re: In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk

#56

Post by skrebbel »

srik wrote: post #53

> Usually, when people say it's the all-new blah-blah-blah, whatever car, that's bullshit. 40 percent of that car, if not 60 percent of that car, if coming from some parts bin. In our case, two percent is coming from the parts bin. I was definitely not aware of this practice. Recycling material is one thing, but reusing parts is something customerss need to know about, especially if it's about 40-60 % like Musk claim…

I agree. Reusing well-working and trusted components is a horrible engineering practice and customers should be notified of this.

In other news, I told my boss that I'm going to be pushing native code in a hex editor until my assembler is done.

Re: In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk

#57

Post by [deleted] »

wazoox wrote: post #28
shazow wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People who want to be pilots love flying. Nonetheless they're not allowed to fly more than a number of hours, because passion, motivation and whatever you want won't prevent you from messing up when you're tired. Amphetamines were invented for the military and particularly the special ops, mind you. As you know they come with their problems, too. So please stop bullshitting yourself. As much as I like and respect Elo…

[deleted]

Re: In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk

#58

Post by 6ren »

wazoox wrote: post #28
shazow wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People who want to be pilots love flying. Nonetheless they're not allowed to fly more than a number of hours, because passion, motivation and whatever you want won't prevent you from messing up when you're tired. Amphetamines were invented for the military and particularly the special ops, mind you. As you know they come with their problems, too. So please stop bullshitting yourself. As much as I like and respect Elo…

  Some people are working seven days a week – I do – but for a lot of people, working seven days a week is not sustainable.

Re: In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk

#59

Post by mkramlich »

srik wrote: post #53

> Usually, when people say it's the all-new blah-blah-blah, whatever car, that's bullshit. 40 percent of that car, if not 60 percent of that car, if coming from some parts bin. In our case, two percent is coming from the parts bin. I was definitely not aware of this practice. Recycling material is one thing, but reusing parts is something customerss need to know about, especially if it's about 40-60 % like Musk claim…

I'm pretty sure he didn't mean recycling previously owned/installed/used/worn parts. I think he meant using previously designed parts --- parts that are components because they have been used in other models before. In other words he's saying most of the parts in this Tesla are debutting with this model, for the first time, anyway. So there's going to be teething issues. R&D rather than pure heads-down production.

Re: In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk

#60

Post by mkramlich »

guimarin wrote: post #33

I really enjoy this article and hope tesla succeeds, but I am always turned off by plug-in EVs. Say for example, he does achieve 30 minutes charging for 3 hours driving. And say I drive from SF to LA. after about 3 hours, there is this one in n out station, that everyone stops at, are we going to have 20 superchargers at that station? in off hours of the day, those will not all be utilized, thus lose money. It seems…

When there's a much smaller number of electric cars you can get away with a much smaller number of recharging/swapping stations and "pumps". They can incrementally add more stations as more electric cars are operating. Swapping stations would probably take a greater real estate footprint and require more human staffing than a charging station, which can be fairly small and automated (picture a coin-operated tire air machine). I would not be surprised if somebody at Tesla has already put R&D time into the idea of not only setting up a swapping station, but also automating it and designing a car model that works well with it. But it takes time, and devil in the details. As Elon (or any good engineer would say), there are a lot of constraints and trade-offs involved. For now, for launch, they're confident a network of roadside charging stations will suffice for the number of vehicles they expect, at least the first few years, and for the kind of buyer who will be buying early -- folks that have the most wealth and/or most want the shiny and/or most are about having an electric car rather than having everything work exactly like a gas car. As Elon has said too, I think, they'll have to deliver different features and tradeoffs in long run to be able to sell to a broader mix of customer types. But never let the perfect be the enemy of the better than what you have today. Sell to a certain customer segment. Ship product. Then later expand to other segments with different products. They could launch with what they have now, then later create new models or variants designed to allow battery swapping. That is not mutually exclusive with the charging approach, strategy-wise.

Also since they're following a "we only build what people have actually ordered" approach, they also have the opportunity to forecast, much more accurately, where there's going to be increased demand for charging/swapping stations. But regardless, they can do the cow pathing technique. (Or MIT sidewalk laying technique.) Watch where the cows/students go. Add sidewalks there. More students/cows? Widen paths or add more paths. Put one station in each major city. Add more stations and more nodes to match demand. Add stations along journey mid-points (bisections). Rinse, repeat, scale up.

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