Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 168 posts

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

#101

Post by TeMPOraL »

clavalle wrote: post #93
TeMPOraL wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTOH the future my kid would live in would be better. But honestly though, if I knew I'm doing work I consider that important, I wouldn't decide to have a kid in the first place.

My uncle did that. Spent his life on eliminating malaria. Good work. Now he's dead and there are no kids in his line that might carry his intellectual legacy or create their own. Human life is short term. Good genes and culture are long term. If everyone capable burned through their 50 or so years attempting to create a better world in such a hurry there'd be few with the capacity to perpetuate that vision or create…

I'm sorry that your uncle passed away. I wish I could thank him while he was alive for the work he did.

You have an interesting point about passing on legacy, but then again there are so many people born every day, that there will be more than enough people to perpetuate the vision if they can learn about it. Having a child furthers memory only temporary. I myself don't know much about my grand-grandparents and have no clue about who their parents were. I doubt many people do. In the end, we all get forgotten, but our work may improve the lives of next generations.

> It is not an either/or proposition. It is worth in in the long term to find balance, not for yourself, but for the future of humanity.

I strongly agree, and that's how I try to look at it. I don't want to burn out, but I personally don't consider starting a family to be an important goal for me. I respect that it is for many others, and I believe they should be supported. Some people sacrifice themselves for others to have better lives. Some people are the others. And many are in the middle. I don't think any of them are making a bad choice.

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

#102

Post by Omniusaspirer »

tna wrote: post #70

From Justine Musk, Elon Musk's wife during those times: "Extreme success results from an extreme personality and comes at the cost of many other things. Extreme success is different from what I suppose you could just consider 'success', so know that you don't have to be Richard or Elon to be affluent and accomplished and maintain a great lifestyle. Your odds of happiness are better that way. But if you're extreme, yo…

This is a thought I've been having myself a lot lately. None of the successes I have actually leave me happier at the end of the day, they just kind of exist. Trying to balance success with happiness is a curious dilemma since to so many people the two are intertwined.

Very interesting read though- I appreciate you linking it here.

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

#103

Post by [deleted] »

gclaramunt wrote: post #81
pc86 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is about whether you'd have it say that or that you were a great father. It's rare to be able to do both, particularly if the company's CEO says having a child is "no excuse" to miss an event. Not a deadline or a board presentation or an earnings report. An event .

Pretty sure the ppl of Nasa/JPL who actually put a man on the moon, worked reasonable hours and almost never missed dinner with family. So, I don't think they're mutually exclusive EDIT: So, everybody was screwed then? I must have mixed anecdotes :)

[deleted]

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

#104

Post by TeMPOraL »

chrisbennet wrote: post #90
TeMPOraL wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.".

Neither of those things will matter to people who love you but I suppose it would help a selfish person rationalize loving their jobs more than their family.

That's kind of the point I'm making. Given a choice, why should I promote few people in my inner circle over hundreds, thousands or more other people?

This really bothers me. There's a common mentality that says it's OK to harm countless of strangers in order to support yourself and your family. I think that is selfish.

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

#105

Post by genericuser »

gclaramunt wrote: post #81
pc86 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is about whether you'd have it say that or that you were a great father. It's rare to be able to do both, particularly if the company's CEO says having a child is "no excuse" to miss an event. Not a deadline or a board presentation or an earnings report. An event .

Pretty sure the ppl of Nasa/JPL who actually put a man on the moon, worked reasonable hours and almost never missed dinner with family. So, I don't think they're mutually exclusive EDIT: So, everybody was screwed then? I must have mixed anecdotes :)

I am pretty sure that is completely false, from what I have read of the early space program, it sounds like it had a way of devouring lives.

"The Apollo 11 crew calculated they spent 2000 hours in simulators between their selection in January and their flight in July 1969." http://history.nasa.gov/SP-350/ch-8-3.html

And the book makes numerous references to others at NASA working long hours too.

"Apollo had become intimately interwoven in the fabric of the waking hours of my life and often caused the remaining hours to be fewer than they should have been." http://history.nasa.gov/SP-350/ch-7-1.html

"I'd be checking on alertness, especially among men who had been working long hours. Were they fatigued? Were they concentrating on the dials? Was there any unnecessary chit-chat going on?" http://history.nasa.gov/SP-350/ch-6-3.html

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

#106

Post by mikeash »

fingerprinter wrote: post #75
mikeash wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm mostly just happy that we've largely figured out how to channel driven sociopaths into relatively productive pursuits like building rockets (and, yes, less productive things like finance) instead of conquering, pillaging, and salting the earth.

This is easily the best 'glass half full' statement on corporate sociopaths I've ever seen. Thank you!

Heh, you're welcome!

I truly do think that one of the keys of modern civilization is that we've figured out a system where the best way to get ahead is to give people something they want, rather than by killing and stealing.

These people might be the ones tossing books into the Tigris until it runs black with ink, but instead they're "just" abusing people because of their family obligations, bending labor laws, etc.

Not to defend that sort of behavior in any way, but it's better!

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

#107

Post by TeMPOraL »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #97
gclaramunt wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure the ppl of Nasa/JPL who actually put a man on the moon, worked reasonable hours and almost never missed dinner with family. So, I don't think they're mutually exclusive EDIT: So, everybody was screwed then? I must have mixed anecdotes :)

"The room, the hours that we worked were incredible. I don't think anyone ever worked anything less than 10 to 12 hours each day. Saturday was a normal day of work; in fact, that's the way we felt it should be. We were given this impossible dream by President Kennedy, and we were living it. We were doing the kinds of things that engineers would kill for. And as part of this process, we'd go and open up our pay—we wer…

Gene Kranz is an interesting case here. He had a loving and very supporting wife who would make him new vests for every mission, which became symbolic for the team he worked with.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gene-kranzs-apollo-ves...

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

#108

Post by chrisbennet »

the8472 wrote: post #50
fingerprinter wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's just a rationalization. I really doubt Elon cares about anything but his own driving ambition. People who can't prioritize their own loved ones over their jobs, surely don't care for "humanity". They are the very definition of selfish. They simply do what they want first and then rationalize it afterwards.

On top of that, these selfish people expect/demand that their employees work infinitely harder than they do on a ROI basis. Example: A start up founder may worked twice as many hours as the founding engineer but the founder stands to make a lot more than twice as much when the company has it's liquidation event.

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

#109

Post by Cshelton »

fingerprinter wrote: post #34
Cshelton wrote: post #11

Before anybody jumps to conclusions about Musk, we need to first know the source is accurate and the email is real, and also we need to know the context of the email. It could be very well that the employee failed to communicate the fact his wife may go into labor prior to the event, and with no heads up of any kind, he gave the excuse after missing the event. In which case, I completely agree with Musk, if any emplo…

Yes, you have a rough idea when babies are due. My middle child was born 5 weeks early, however. My last was born 3 weeks early. I've had employees send me a note a day after saying 'sorry, baby came early. more later'. If you have any reaction other than "oh, ok, hope everyone is healthy", you are probably a terrible human being.

Regardless of the actual timing, if you have informed your employer that you are having a baby and it could be anywhere in the time frame, I think that should be accepted. However, if one day you are just gone and then came back and say 'we just had a baby', and that's the first time your employer has heard about it, then yeah, I can see that as a real problem.

In this kind of situation, it is much better to keep people you are obligated to as informed as possible, not keep it a secret. No matter if the baby comes a month early, at least they know you may be out and not wondering why you would miss without any indication you were expecting a child.

Post reply on HN