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Elon Musk email to Tesla employee about missing an event to witness the birth

businessinsider.com

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Re: Elon Musk email to Tesla employee about missing an event to witness the birth

#41

Post by ssmoot »

the8472 wrote: post #23
DanBC wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's probably better motivated and does better work if you give him time away from work to be with his spouse and child.

Possibly so, but I was merely trying to dismantle the fairly blunt assertion that it's unconditionally making the world of the family worse.

> it's unconditionally making the world of the family worse

It obviously is.

The 48 hours or whatever curing cancer can and will continue another time. Child birth won't.

And if you can't even afford to prioritize your family at such little cost to your work, then I think it's also pretty easy to assert that the world of the family will continually be worse off. Unless you actually cure cancer next year, collect your $1billion and quit your job to focus on your family from then on.

It's much more likely you're going to continually prioritize trivial work events (or in this scenario, non-events) over important family ones.

Re: Elon Musk email to Tesla employee about missing an event to witness the birth

#42

Post by troisx »

StavrosK wrote: post #20

I don't care about Musk either way, so I doubt this is too biased in his favor, but I don't think many people would knowingly say something like the phrase in the article to someone who went to his child's birth. I consider it more likely that Musk didn't know that the person was missing because of the birth, or something similar, than that someone would say "yeah this company event is more important than your child…

I've heard him talking before, and this doesn't surprise me at all. He has a definite mean streak, and he's almost gleeful about being nasty.

Re: Elon Musk email to Tesla employee about missing an event to witness the birth

#43

Post by dreamdu5t »

"Changing the world." The world is bigger than the technology in it. The world consists of relationships too. I didn't learn this early enough. While you're out building rocketships don't forget to build relationships.

What a lonely world it would be if we had everything but nobody to care about us.

Re: Elon Musk email to Tesla employee about missing an event to witness the birth

#44

Post by brianpgordon »

WDCDev wrote: post #12
AstroChimpHam wrote: post #8

All the negative press and comments about this miss the point. The guy has very specific, very ambitious goals that he has a track record of achieving. He prioritizes those literally above everything and expects the same from key employees. Working at Tesla, which has already done a ton to change the entire car industry is a huge privilege, and no one's making you do it. If you can get a job there, you can get a job…

That's ridiculous. No one's commitment to any organization or cause should be questioned if they choose to see their child born vs. coming into work.

I think it's reasonable to expect an astronaut to report to work on the day of a launch regardless of personal circumstances. Also a soldier can't go AWOL in the middle of a mission to see his family. Same with a surgeon in the middle of a surgery. Those are pretty much the only cases I can think of.

I get the sense that, amusingly, Elon Musk sees himself and his company as that important.

Re: Elon Musk email to Tesla employee about missing an event to witness the birth

#45

Post by AceJohnny2 »

fatman wrote: post #39
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am reminded of this famous Stallman incident, where he basically scorns at another developer for having a baby: http://edward.oconnor.cx/2005/04/rms

Wow. It's no surprise that rms lacks empathy or social grace, but I'm kind of shocked one man's availability could single-handedly delay a release of a project like emacs. What if the poor chap had got hit by a bus?

I suspect that in this case it was easier to wait for the person to be available rather than transitioning to someone else.

BTW, since then Emacs development has been handed over to other folk and development has really picked up pace, including being (finally!) hosted in Git.

Re: Elon Musk email to Tesla employee about missing an event to witness the birth

#47

Post by MrGando »

-it true-

I don't know how people here are deffending this kind of attitude. If you decide to bring another person to this planet, you have a huge responsibility. You can balance things out and work a lot and have a family. But if you really want to work 23 hours a day without paying proper attention to your family, for the sake of your children and spouse, just don't form a family. The damage you'll do, is irreversible.

You can't have it all in life... And one has to make hard choices.

Re: Elon Musk email to Tesla employee about missing an event to witness the birth

#48

Post by TeMPOraL »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #32
stevecalifornia wrote: post #16

My first day at SpaceX I ran into a friend. I asked him how he was doing and he said he just had a kid. "How old is she now?" "Oh no, like, my wife just gave birth an hour ago." The guy was working through the birth of his first born. The story continued for months afterwards and it's not a good one. That and many other stories are what led me to quit. I took the summer off and didn't work. I hung out with my dog and…

>> I get working on big goals, I get working hard. I don't get throwing away everything else. It's not just your life it's the people who need a father and a friend. Agreed. The quote which finally got me to realize my family was more important than my job: "When you’re gone would you rather have your gravestone say, ‘He never missed a meeting.’ Or one that said, ‘He was a great father'."

I agree that family is important and it's especially important to be there for other people, but regarding your quote, to the two gravestone inscriptions above I'd much prefer: "He helped mankind make its first steps on Mars.", or "He helped ensure the world is a good place to live for generations to come.".

Re: Elon Musk email to Tesla employee about missing an event to witness the birth

#49

Post by genericuser »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #32
stevecalifornia wrote: post #16

My first day at SpaceX I ran into a friend. I asked him how he was doing and he said he just had a kid. "How old is she now?" "Oh no, like, my wife just gave birth an hour ago." The guy was working through the birth of his first born. The story continued for months afterwards and it's not a good one. That and many other stories are what led me to quit. I took the summer off and didn't work. I hung out with my dog and…

>> I get working on big goals, I get working hard. I don't get throwing away everything else. It's not just your life it's the people who need a father and a friend. Agreed. The quote which finally got me to realize my family was more important than my job: "When you’re gone would you rather have your gravestone say, ‘He never missed a meeting.’ Or one that said, ‘He was a great father'."

I think the point is, that with this job, Musk want's people whose dream and life goal is the success of what the company is trying to do, and not to have a family or any such commonly accepted life goal.

I believe improving space travel is one of a handful of dreams/goals that there are potentially enough talented people out there, that one could find the people who want this to be their life as opposed to that of a more traditional role.

I know this may illicit the typical 'burn out is real' responses, and I know it is but I honestly don't think it occurs if you are a person with a singular passion and you are lucky enough to be pursuing it for your 'work'.

Re: Elon Musk email to Tesla employee about missing an event to witness the birth

#50

Post by the8472 »

fingerprinter wrote: post #25
the8472 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is "changing the world" of the family for worse and not for better Hypothetical counterexample: What if he were busy curing cancer and thus making sure that the future world of that very family would be a nicer place, one where the children would never have to experience that disease?

That is a classic false dichotomy. You never, ever need to choose between those two things. You can have some semblance of both in nearly ALL cases.

I was thinking of a generalization. Choosing between working on something important in the future for many people vs. spending time in the now with a few people you value.

I.e. if you don't single out the event "birth of a child" but look at the more generalized category "spending time with family and friends" then the response may be more understandable.

If Elon truly convinced himself that he's basically trying to do his own contribution to saving the world (climate change and such) then in his mind he may be working to save countless future lives at the expense of some personal time of his own and his employees. And thus "birth of a child" and "going bowling with friends" don't seem all that different.

It's basically a side-effect of convincing himself absolutely of his own mission.

Also note that scolding is not necessarily the same thing as punishment. It's just a harsh way of stating a preference. I.e. that he would prefer if they'd spend more time on saving the world.

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