Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year • Hacker News Board

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#111

Post by phobosdeimos » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 8:58 AM UTC

tomhoward wrote: post #37

But, he added, “if you have anyone who can do a better job, please let me know. They can have the job. Is there someone who can do the job better? They can have the reins right now.” I think this hits at the crux of the issue around the performance/behaviour of Musk and other leaders of hugely ambitious companies. And I think it highlights the importance of thinking about what kinds of people it will take to lead the…

I'm not American and the arrogance and cognitive dissonance rubs me the wrong way. You are the CEO of a company not a visionary prophet. People like Musk wouldn't last a week here.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#112

Post by cepth » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 9:02 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #11

"Then he got in a Tesla Model S and drove himself to the airport. En route, Mr. Musk typed his fateful message." Don't text while driving. This going private thing is a strange idea. Sell Tesla to the Saudi sovereign wealth fund? The one dedicated to keeping oil a viable industry? Does he want Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud as a boss? That makes no sense. Softbank might make sense. Part of Musk's problem seems to be "O…

Saudi Arabia has the whole Vision 2030 plan in motion. The general thrust is they want to diversify the country away from being a petrostate. The headline numbers for state investment in renewables are nothing to scoff at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-16/saudi-ara...

I can’t find the link right now, but Bloomberg did a short ~30 minute documentary 4-5 years ago on Saudi efforts to build a biofuel research center.

I’d also posit that now is the ideal time to take money from the Saudis, if there ever was a time. The Aramco IPO is going nowhere fast, so a key pillar of Vision 2030 is dead in the water.

I’d humbly suggest that you read up on the Saudi youth bulge. Every Saudi receives an annual Alaska-style oil dividend. A huge portion of the youth population is unemployed. The thousands of US dollars paid out to each idle youth is not sustainable long-run, even if oil prices were to increase.

Assuming this Saudi deal is some kind of preferred stock or hybrid equity-debt structure, Tesla can probably get the most favorable terms possible from the Saudis because they are somewhat desperate at this point.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#113

Post by darkerside » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 9:03 AM UTC

speedplane wrote: post #52

kamaal wrote: post #51

>>He said he had been working up to 120 hours a week recently >>Mr. Musk said he had not taken time off of more than a week since 2001 >>There were times when I didn’t leave the factory for three or four days — days when I didn’t go outside >>This has really come at the expense of seeing my kids. And seeing friends. >>All night — no friends, nothing >>But from a personal pain standpoint, the worst is yet to come. >>I…

You're thinking about it wrong. Working 120 hours a week at a normal job is torture. Working 120 hours at something you love is just living. The 120 hour/week estimates are likely over-inflated folk-lore, but still, when you have a passion for something and care, it's not work, you're just living your life the way you want to. Many say Elon long work-weeks are super-human, they're not. He's just loves doing what he's…

Love it as you may, doing intense work for 120 hours a week (~17 hours a day) will burn you out. Just because I love running or working out doesn't mean I can spend unlimited time doing those activities and continue to improve productively; in fact one would burn out rather quickly. I believe there are aspects to intense mental work that are similarly physically demanding.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#114

Post by piker » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 9:04 AM UTC

speedplane wrote: post #64

simion314 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would really liked for Tesla and Space X to keep the hype down, then we could have discussed here forever technical stuff and not debate the hyped PR stunts.

If they didn’t have hype, they wouldn’t be funded and they wouldn’t get off the ground. Hype is now an unfortunate requirement of any successful company.

"No bucks, no Buck Rogers", as it goes.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#115

Post by darkerside » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 9:06 AM UTC

kentrado wrote: post #71

speedplane wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're thinking about it wrong. Working 120 hours a week at a normal job is torture. Working 120 hours at something you love is just living. The 120 hour/week estimates are likely over-inflated folk-lore, but still, when you have a passion for something and care, it's not work, you're just living your life the way you want to. Many say Elon long work-weeks are super-human, they're not. He's just loves doing what he's…

Also, he is the boss so it is likely just 120 hours of delegating tasks.

Delegating can be more difficult than you might think

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#116

Post by shriver » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 9:06 AM UTC

_gbc wrote: post #72

Saying no to some things would probably help. He is on track to burn out or have a breakdown at the current rate, assuming it hasn't already happened. Personally, I'd love to see him close or sell every company other than SpaceX and focus all of his efforts there.

I think when you look back at the pedo comments, and the market manipulation tweets you can easily see him as being in the middle of the breakdown. The question isn't whether he'll break down, but what his next outlandish fuck up will be and how far it'll go before someone steps in.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#117

Post by mft_ » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 9:09 AM UTC

close04 wrote: post #94

skrebbel wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a hidden false dichotomy there: That Tesla and Space X couldn't exist / succeed without Musk working his employees and himself into a burnout. I'm not sure that that is true. The same Musk with the same employees could've perfectly well done these companies at a sane pace - maybe even without losing speed in the grand scheme of things given that less stuff would've gone wrong.

> Do we actually want Tesla and SpaceX to fail? Is their success hanging on Musk calling someone a pedo ? Because much of that hate came from unwarranted stuff like this.

Just not true. I've been following the subjects for years, and there's been a long-term swing against him, with articles critical (particularly) Tesla and also Musk personally.

Him doing stupid things (arguably getting involved in the Thai cave situation at all, let alone calling the guy rude names) has added more fuel to the fire recently, but it was definitely a fire that was already burning strongly.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#118

Post by tomp » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 9:11 AM UTC

PinguTS wrote: post #101

tomhoward wrote: post #37

But, he added, “if you have anyone who can do a better job, please let me know. They can have the job. Is there someone who can do the job better? They can have the reins right now.” I think this hits at the crux of the issue around the performance/behaviour of Musk and other leaders of hugely ambitious companies. And I think it highlights the importance of thinking about what kinds of people it will take to lead the…

I just want to emphasis that Elon Musk was never and never will be the founder of Tesla. Instead, Elon Musk booted to 3 original founders out of Tesla. The original Tesla Roadster was no idea of Elon Musk and also not developed by Elon Musk. It was 3 engineers from the Valley who had the idea of the Tesla Roadster. Elon Musk was a Series A VC at Tesla at the time being. The founders had the idea of developing a hybri…

Thank god he did, otherwise we'd just have another company noone has ever heard of.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#119

Post by thaumaturgy » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 9:12 AM UTC

Fnoord wrote: post #39

tomhoward wrote: post #37

But, he added, “if you have anyone who can do a better job, please let me know. They can have the job. Is there someone who can do the job better? They can have the reins right now.” I think this hits at the crux of the issue around the performance/behaviour of Musk and other leaders of hugely ambitious companies. And I think it highlights the importance of thinking about what kinds of people it will take to lead the…

Its easy to say that because the chance of it happening is slim, and it allows for him to bail out if that's occurring short-term. For me, Musk's major failure was with the children who were lost in a cave and his pedophile tweet. Everyone has flaws and makes mistakes, but that mistake showed me how flawed his personality is. It was classic narcissism behaviour, right from textbook.

You're aware that one of the leads of the Thai rescue operation personally had an email with Musk asking him to continue working on the sub concept "in as timely a manner as feasible"? (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dhv9BppUwAArP8X.jpg)

Further, Musk didn't get involved until asked to do so, deferred to other experts, and praised the efforts of everyone else involved: https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-full-story-behind-Elon-Musks...

Clearly narcissistic behavior.

I think there are very few among us that could juggle the responsibilities he's got and keep up the schedule he's got and not get tilted now and again. It's part of being human, which seems to be lost on a lot of people today. It's also why a schedule like that is a really bad idea, for anyone, and why one of the most productive things an ambitious person can do is build a good team.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#120

Post by tomhoward » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 9:12 AM UTC

skrebbel wrote: post #92

tomhoward wrote: post #37

But, he added, “if you have anyone who can do a better job, please let me know. They can have the job. Is there someone who can do the job better? They can have the reins right now.” I think this hits at the crux of the issue around the performance/behaviour of Musk and other leaders of hugely ambitious companies. And I think it highlights the importance of thinking about what kinds of people it will take to lead the…

There's a hidden false dichotomy there: That Tesla and Space X couldn't exist / succeed without Musk working his employees and himself into a burnout. I'm not sure that that is true. The same Musk with the same employees could've perfectly well done these companies at a sane pace - maybe even without losing speed in the grand scheme of things given that less stuff would've gone wrong.

The same Musk with the same employees

I think I agree with everything except that.

What I'm saying is we can't have everything that's positive about Telsa, but completely discard Musk.

What we _should_ hope for is for the current version of Musk to become a better version of Musk - say, one that can build a viable EV company and help bring about a global transition away from combustion-powered transport, but without the vile personal attacks, impulsive stock-price-affecting comments, absurd PR stunts, overworked workforce etc.

I'm well aware that the world doesn't currently have clear answers as to how people can make such profound changes to their personality, but I think it is where more discussion and research needs to be in order for the world to find and develop the leaders who can steer us through the big challenges.