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An email from Elon Musk to employees: “Communication Within Tesla”

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Re: An email from Elon Musk to employees: “Communication Within Tesla”

#41

Post by thanksgiving »

netzone wrote: post #20
joshribakoff wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often start at 7am and go until 10pm. My girlfriend makes me food and brings my caffeine. I have no time for "non work activities"though. I'll be in bed watching Netflix but really working on my laptop. Even when I have to goto the grocery store my mind is always on work. Being a remote employee, the line is blurred. If I'm out and about but all I can do is daydream about a new algorithm, I consider that working.

Do you bill those hours also?

This is why billing by the hour is broken. Too bad we can't have anything better that people will not immediately abuse.

Re: An email from Elon Musk to employees: “Communication Within Tesla”

#42

Post by throw2016 »

hacker_9 wrote: post #3

"Musk works about 100 hours per week at the electric carmaker" 7 / 100 = 14.3 hours a day. Or 100 / 5 = 20 hours a day. Does he not require food then? Or any non-work activities? Talk about hyperbole.

The ability to work uninterrupted is a privilege. First time sink is family, spouses, partners, kids, friends and social obligations. Take 2 hours minimum.

Organizing food and eating - another 2 hours. If cooking add an hour to that so 3 hours for food.

For cleaning and basic home maintenance - minimum 1 hour. Personal hygiene - add an hour so total 2 hours.

Commuting if necessary - 1 hour minimum.

Add 8 hours or let's be harder and take 6 hours for sleep. That's a total of 14 hours that can't be negotiated leaving you with 10 hours for work.

Given the brain will not operate at that stretch you need distraction, so web, tv, books, games, movies - another 2-3 hours. So 7-8 hours seems to the the maximum any human being can work.

If you don't have family and friends and someone takes care of food and maintenance you can get an additional 4 hours. So anything beyond 10-12 hours seems physically impossible, and this is with 6 hours sleep, no family and all responsibilities taken care of.

Re: An email from Elon Musk to employees: “Communication Within Tesla”

#43

Post by tomw2005 »

hacker_9 wrote: post #3

"Musk works about 100 hours per week at the electric carmaker" 7 / 100 = 14.3 hours a day. Or 100 / 5 = 20 hours a day. Does he not require food then? Or any non-work activities? Talk about hyperbole.

I recently analysed a load of my time tracking data.[1] I only managed to get up to 11h37m per day when I'm travelling for work. That includes flights as 'work'.

It does seem pretty unlikely unless he's counting Networking/social type events in the evenings and stuff.

[1] https://www.tinkertailorsoldiersponge.com/toggl

Re: An email from Elon Musk to employees: “Communication Within Tesla”

#44

Post by jsjohnst »

joshribakoff wrote: post #9

I got "in trouble" at this one company for just doing my job. I walked onto the sales floor and asked a sales person if I can silently watch over their shoulder so I can learn about how the companies CRM was used. The sales manager felt I infringed on her team and complained to the lead programmer who in turn begrudgingly "warned" me not to do that ever again. I think I lasted like another 6 weeks there before puttin…

You made the right decision in quitting imho. I've done the exact same before in my career.

Re: An email from Elon Musk to employees: “Communication Within Tesla”

#45

Post by jsjohnst »

throw2016 wrote: post #42
hacker_9 wrote: post #3

"Musk works about 100 hours per week at the electric carmaker" 7 / 100 = 14.3 hours a day. Or 100 / 5 = 20 hours a day. Does he not require food then? Or any non-work activities? Talk about hyperbole.

The ability to work uninterrupted is a privilege. First time sink is family, spouses, partners, kids, friends and social obligations. Take 2 hours minimum. Organizing food and eating - another 2 hours. If cooking add an hour to that so 3 hours for food. For cleaning and basic home maintenance - minimum 1 hour. Personal hygiene - add an hour so total 2 hours. Commuting if necessary - 1 hour minimum. Add 8 hours or let…

The vast majority of what you mention is wrong for me, and I'm not remotely of the paygrade of someone like Elon Musk.

If you think Elon Musk spends 2-3 hours per day on eating, then I'm not sure what I can say further.

Re: An email from Elon Musk to employees: “Communication Within Tesla”

#46

Post by Gustomaximus »

MarkEthan wrote: post #7
hacker_9 wrote: post #3

"Musk works about 100 hours per week at the electric carmaker" 7 / 100 = 14.3 hours a day. Or 100 / 5 = 20 hours a day. Does he not require food then? Or any non-work activities? Talk about hyperbole.

I'd imagine he has an impressively comprehensive team around him ensuring he doesn't need to focus on anything other than his work. That said, working over 14 hours per day 7 days a week is implausible to me. Maybe in short bursts but I doubt he does that for any stretch of time. The Elon Musk PR machine & cult of public enthusiasm is a massive business asset. When you're in the business of selling dreams to investor…

'Work' can include things like travel and lunches. Both of which can be downtime but are classed as 'work'.

Overall its hard to believe considering he also has Space x and other investments and im suresomeone is streching the truth. But I dont doubt the guy lives and breaths his work.

Re: An email from Elon Musk to employees: “Communication Within Tesla”

#47

Post by throw2016 »

jsjohnst wrote: post #45
throw2016 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ability to work uninterrupted is a privilege. First time sink is family, spouses, partners, kids, friends and social obligations. Take 2 hours minimum. Organizing food and eating - another 2 hours. If cooking add an hour to that so 3 hours for food. For cleaning and basic home maintenance - minimum 1 hour. Personal hygiene - add an hour so total 2 hours. Commuting if necessary - 1 hour minimum. Add 8 hours or let…

The vast majority of what you mention is wrong for me, and I'm not remotely of the paygrade of someone like Elon Musk. If you think Elon Musk spends 2-3 hours per day on eating, then I'm not sure what I can say further.

I doubt food magically appears on your plate? You seem to have left out the 'Organizing food' part of the eating entry above which includes the time required to get the food.

You either have to source food from markets and cook it, have it cooked, eat at a restaurant or order out, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. All this takes time as does time to actually eat the food.

If you have a family multiply the time required. If you can do all the above in less than 3 hours it's worth sharing.

Re: An email from Elon Musk to employees: “Communication Within Tesla”

#48

Post by Vinnl »

One other Musk policy that sounded really well (I haven't experienced it actually implemented yet, but I try to keep myself to it) is to avoid non-common acronyms: https://twitter.com/davejohnson/status/602951117413216256

Starting at a company and having to come to grasp with tens of acronyms before even knowing what the thing they stand for does seriously harms your ramp-up speed, I think.

Re: An email from Elon Musk to employees: “Communication Within Tesla”

#49

Post by DanBC »

throw2016 wrote: post #47
jsjohnst wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of what you mention is wrong for me, and I'm not remotely of the paygrade of someone like Elon Musk. If you think Elon Musk spends 2-3 hours per day on eating, then I'm not sure what I can say further.

I doubt food magically appears on your plate? You seem to have left out the 'Organizing food' part of the eating entry above which includes the time required to get the food. You either have to source food from markets and cook it, have it cooked, eat at a restaurant or order out, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. All this takes time as does time to actually eat the food. If you have a family multiply the time require…

Very rich people don't need to do any of that. They hire kitchen staff who'll do everything but eat the food.

Re: An email from Elon Musk to employees: “Communication Within Tesla”

#50

Post by kbutler »

throw2016 wrote: post #47
jsjohnst wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of what you mention is wrong for me, and I'm not remotely of the paygrade of someone like Elon Musk. If you think Elon Musk spends 2-3 hours per day on eating, then I'm not sure what I can say further.

I doubt food magically appears on your plate? You seem to have left out the 'Organizing food' part of the eating entry above which includes the time required to get the food. You either have to source food from markets and cook it, have it cooked, eat at a restaurant or order out, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. All this takes time as does time to actually eat the food. If you have a family multiply the time require…

Hire a cook.

Trivial if you consider your time to be worth > $1,000 / hour.

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