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Tesla is laying off ‘about 9%’ of its workforce as it ‘restructures’ the company

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Re: Tesla is laying off ‘about 9%’ of its workforce as it ‘restructures’ the company

#181

Post by rayiner »

dalbasal wrote: post #135

Just reading the first few comments.... I really don't get the Tesla hate. Is it hacker-ish contrarianism? Have they done something? What's the deal HN, why are we cheering against the home team? Overall Musk has been pretty straightforward and explicit with what he's doing. Tesla (and spacex) set extremely ambitious goals, like none of their competitors do. They take big risks. They're not interested in reducing ris…

Interestingly, I see this from the exact opposite view. I'm surprised it's taken this long for the rubber to meet the road. Tesla sells the most electric vehicles, but it's hardly the sort of delta you describe ("extremely ambitious goals, like none of their competitors do"). Nissan and Tesla both hit the 300,000 car mark in January/February of 2018. And let's not forget the recent NTSB report, which revealed that "Autopilot" is just a better-marketed version of the lane-keeping everyone else is doing.

As to SpaceX--it's an extremely interesting attempt to tread a well-worn path. Commercial exploitation of space travel is a really neat concept. But again your comparison is completely unmoored from reality. SpaceX disappearing will "hurt our changes of landing people on other worlds anytime soon?" Who exactly do you think got us into space, then to the moon? Who is responsible for almost all the progress in space exploration to date, including developing the RP-1 based rocket designs that SpaceX is refining half a century later? It was U.S. defense contractors! It's worth keeping in mind that the Saturn V developed by Boeing/NAA/Douglas in the 1960s could hurl three times as much weight to the moon as the Falcon Heavy. To date, the only proven model for treading new ground in space is large defense contractors spending gobs of State money.

The real question is: why does Tesla/SpaceX generate so much sophomoric positivity?

Re: Tesla is laying off ‘about 9%’ of its workforce as it ‘restructures’ the company

#182

Post by madeofpalk »

anoncoward111 wrote: post #124
arkis22 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't think of a single instance where people have thought poorly of business guys for firing people?

It's really revolting, but these days, Wall Street will buy stocks that are announcing layoffs. "Better margins!!!" is all Wall Street hears from layoffs now, not "market headwinds". And of course the human aspect of losing a job is completely immaterial to the Wall Street trader's mind. EDIT: A downvote without a rebuttal enriches none of our minds.

They're investors. What else are they supposed to do?

Re: Tesla is laying off ‘about 9%’ of its workforce as it ‘restructures’ the company

#183

Post by newman8r »

dalbasal wrote: post #165
newman8r wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently Musk really pissed off the media with his talks about creating a media ratings/fact-checking site. I'm actually following it closely because I'm also working on a fact-checking project. Maybe the hate predates this incident and has little to do with it, but a few weeks of negative articles can do a lot to change some people's attitudes. At one point CNN had an opinion piece on the homepage titled "Elon Mus…

Ok, so that covers the media. What did he do to piss of hn?

I assume most HN readers are impacted by attitudes in the media. We like to think all of our opinions are our own but it's not always the case.

Re: Tesla is laying off ‘about 9%’ of its workforce as it ‘restructures’ the company

#184

Post by knuththetruth »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #173
dalbasal wrote: post #135

Just reading the first few comments.... I really don't get the Tesla hate. Is it hacker-ish contrarianism? Have they done something? What's the deal HN, why are we cheering against the home team? Overall Musk has been pretty straightforward and explicit with what he's doing. Tesla (and spacex) set extremely ambitious goals, like none of their competitors do. They take big risks. They're not interested in reducing ris…

I never understood the fanboyism on HN. Tesla builds electric cars with a subpar autopilot. They are nice cars but it's far from revolutionary. Tesla is not SpaceX. Tesla is not Apple, the car industry is not Nokia. Many people on HN seem to be confused here. I do think SpaceX should be renamed Tesla though, it would help selling Tesla cars.

Musk's greatest skill is as a self-promoter, conflating technological progress with the success of his business ventures. Many fall for this marketing.

Re: Tesla is laying off ‘about 9%’ of its workforce as it ‘restructures’ the company

#185

Post by [deleted] »

StillBored wrote: post #158
toomuchtodo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Tesla investor, I'm very curious what the conversion rate is of Home Depot/Big Box customers vs Tesla stores. My guess would be it's much higher in Tesla stores. No one likes being bothered at Home Depot by sales staff when they've just popped in for a part.

The powerwall is next to the AC/insulation guy that seems like he is there about 50% of the time. He hooks people with "free home efficiency audits". I've seen a tesla rep there with lower frequency, but I'm having a hard time understanding how many they actually sell, because frankly where I live the only use case is going to be people with large enough solar installations to go off grid, as the power company doesn'…

[deleted]

Re: Tesla is laying off ‘about 9%’ of its workforce as it ‘restructures’ the company

#186

Post by dalbasal »

stevievee wrote: post #153
dalbasal wrote: post #135

Just reading the first few comments.... I really don't get the Tesla hate. Is it hacker-ish contrarianism? Have they done something? What's the deal HN, why are we cheering against the home team? Overall Musk has been pretty straightforward and explicit with what he's doing. Tesla (and spacex) set extremely ambitious goals, like none of their competitors do. They take big risks. They're not interested in reducing ris…

My problem has always been that he pushes these altruistic goals "green earth"/"space travel" and then executes it with the most extreme version of capitalism available. It's like an ad campaign to him.

The most extreme (or normal actually) version of capitalism is to milk anything riskless. Build moats. Lock in customers create network effects and entrench your position regardless of how good your future products will be.

Musk is criticised for doing exactly the opposite. Risking shareholders money by (for example) insisting on going to mars, when there are lower risk options available.

Re: Tesla is laying off ‘about 9%’ of its workforce as it ‘restructures’ the company

#187

Post by newman8r »

madeofpalk wrote: post #163
newman8r wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently Musk really pissed off the media with his talks about creating a media ratings/fact-checking site. I'm actually following it closely because I'm also working on a fact-checking project. Maybe the hate predates this incident and has little to do with it, but a few weeks of negative articles can do a lot to change some people's attitudes. At one point CNN had an opinion piece on the homepage titled "Elon Mus…

Scepticism for Musk/Tesla has been around for much much longer than the fact-checking site idea.

True, although I'd never seen him attacked as harshly as he has been recently. This time it was a lot more personal.

Re: Tesla is laying off ‘about 9%’ of its workforce as it ‘restructures’ the company

#189

Post by [deleted] »

dalbasal wrote: post #135

Just reading the first few comments.... I really don't get the Tesla hate. Is it hacker-ish contrarianism? Have they done something? What's the deal HN, why are we cheering against the home team? Overall Musk has been pretty straightforward and explicit with what he's doing. Tesla (and spacex) set extremely ambitious goals, like none of their competitors do. They take big risks. They're not interested in reducing ris…

[deleted]

Re: Tesla is laying off ‘about 9%’ of its workforce as it ‘restructures’ the company

#190

Post by apeace »

bduerst wrote: post #41
zer00eyz wrote: post #30

I wonder if some of this is finalizing the digestion of solar city. How many accountants, tech, and office workers did the combine company have that were redundant? Have there been layoffs from the merger (if there were I missed them) - I'm curious to see if this is the end result of that combination.

There were some pretty massive layoffs with the merger already, leading into it, at least according to someone I know who was part of those lay offs.

And according to this article:

> After the acquisition of SolarCity, Tesla had another round of layoffs to restructure and remove duplicate positions from the acquisition, which resulted in about 20% of SolarCity’s workforce being let go.

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