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Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee

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Re: Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee

#571

Post by eindiran »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #569
hateful wrote: post #566

From: Elon Musk To: Everybody Subject: Some concerning news June 17, 2018 11:57 p.m. I can't stand it, I know you planned it I'mma set it straight, this Watergate I can't stand rockin' when I'm in here 'Cause your crystal ball ain't so crystal clear So while you sit back and wonder why I got this fuckin' thorn in my side Oh my god, it's a mirage I'm tellin' y'all, it's sabotage So, so, so, so listen up, 'cause you ca…

I don't get it.

I think OP took the email and replaced the body with lyrics from Sabotage by the Beastie Boys.

https://genius.com/Beastie-boys-sabotage-lyrics

Re: Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee

#572

Post by avs733 »

nickik wrote: post #343
avs733 wrote: post #188

I'm sorry but Musk's email is ridiculous and unprofessional, and the defenses here are extremely concerning. By ArsTechnica's count this is the 5th fire in the plant. 5th. That's insane. Report after report is that things continue to not go well and the email sent out reeks of paranoia and combined with other comments made recently are quite clearly dishonest. They aren't failing at the details of ramping a manufactu…

> When a spaceX rocket blew up, he claimed sabotage. That is false. All they said was that they were looking at all option, he mentioned sabotage as an offhand example of what they were investigating and he explicitly said in that very first comment that they had no evidence. After that the press and twitter got hold of it and blew up story. SpaceX insisted again there was no sabotage and announced that the problem w…

That was not the initial implication[0]

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/implication-...

Re: Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee

#573

Post by XorNot »

gamblor956 wrote: post #542
XorNot wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also even if they did...Tesla can issue new debt to fund it - which would be more valuable to the debt holders because the'd now know there's a good chance they can sell it on. The market can remain irrational a lot longer then you can remain solvent - and no one company is big enough to ignore this.

They could try to issue new debt. But who would want to acquire debt in a company that is about to be forced into bankruptcy by its creditors? The second round of debt would be subordinated to the original round of debt, meaning that new debtholders would make back pennies on the dollar, if that.

Why? Nothing about the valuation has changed in this scenario - the valuation has in fact gone up because a large player has moved into the market and is (1) buying up all the debt instruments (so their value is going up and up and up) and (2) if you're an original investor, you still believe you'll make your money back on Tesla, so all you do is sell your holdings to Big Oil, and then offer the exact same terms again to Tesla to payback the original instrument. And it means you've already made your original money back, so you've got the cash to spare to do it.

Re: Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee

#574

Post by freerobby »

avs733 wrote: post #572
nickik wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When a spaceX rocket blew up, he claimed sabotage. That is false. All they said was that they were looking at all option, he mentioned sabotage as an offhand example of what they were investigating and he explicitly said in that very first comment that they had no evidence. After that the press and twitter got hold of it and blew up story. SpaceX insisted again there was no sabotage and announced that the problem w…

That was not the initial implication[0] [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/implication-...

Your link brings me to a 404.

It was absolutely the initial implication. Musk bent over backwards to downplay that possibility of sabotage at the very first news conference. He also tweeted that it was unlikely and publicly joked about it: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/783567161402888192

Re: Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee

#575

Post by glenneroo »

arcticfox wrote: post #495
mieseratte wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone actively tries to circumvent the policy or the process, odds are that most software shops would fall victim to the same thing. Too often the focus is entirely on outside attacks, with little consideration given to insider attacks. Previous job was at a cyber security firm. We'd routinely come under attack from criminal and, we believed, occasional nation state attacks as our researchers attributed a few…

> Then you'd come back from lunch and find the mantrap doors propped open, or someone left a workstation unlocked with root access to something important, or random guests just wandering around. It's a miracle we never were compromised by a disgruntled employee (of which there were many). Maybe not the most technical solution to this, but one of my previous employers had a workplace culture of setting the desktop bac…

We used to do this at LAN parties in the 90s... of course goatse was the preferred background. People quickly learned never to leave their seats for more than 30 seconds. Most people would just do a 5-10 minute power-nap in their chairs.

Re: Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee

#576

Post by twodave »

supergirl wrote: post #56
twodave wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it the company’s responsibility to rehabilitate someone over probably-criminal action? I agree that promoting someone unstable enough to commit sabotaging changes to a company would be the wrong move. It’s not like he is forcing anyone to work there.

I’m not saying he should be promoted now or before. I’m saying company culture is to blame for this or at least should be the first thing to review instead of blaming the employee immediately. what if the next person that doesn’t get promoted suicides?

I would say that would be an HR responsibility more than a CEO’s responsibility. It’s hard to judge Tesla’s HR philosophy based on a passing comment by Musk.

Re: Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee

#577

Post by rorykoehler »

pwinnski wrote: post #527
rorykoehler wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what they meant was that the label "conspiracy theory" is often used to discredit the truth, At this stage we have so many examples of conspiracy theories turning out to be straight up conspiracies that you would be unwise to not look further for yourself when you hear someone roll-out the conspiracy theory label.

I disagree with "often," "so many," and the general idea that anything more than a small percentage of things labeled conspiracy theories have ever turned out to be true. Conspiracy theories tend to be unfalsifiable claims without counter-explanations, while later-revealed conspiracies have tended to unravel based on credible counter-explanations from the beginning. Yes, the US government imported drugs into inner ci…

Flat earth is not exactly what i had in mind when i made my comment. Let's be real here, there is an incredible amount of nefarious bullshit happening in business and politics all the time. There always has been, which if you enjoy reading history you would know. I see no evidence that it is slowing down. If anything it is accelerating.

Added to that corporate espionage and disgruntled employees are not opposites. One provides opportunity for the other.

Re: Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee

#578

Post by neotek »

mmjaa wrote: post #369
neotek wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying, or investing in, existing companies and then using his marketing skills to convince other investors (and governments) to pour billions of dollars into them is hardly the same thing as "building rockets that land themselves" - you can thank the engineers and visionaries at SpaceX for that. And his cars absolutely do not drive themselves despite his constant reassurances that they'll be able to do so Real Soon…

If life were only about making claims one can fulfil, it'd be entirely boring and hardly worth any effort at all. This predilection towards 'maximum correctness, always' seems to me to be a thinly veiled attempt at justifying totalitarianism. You don't get to the moon by doing everything you can not to break things - you get to the moon by not minding if things break, if it means you can improve conditions in life. W…

...what on earth are you talking about? How is any of that relevant to any of the points I've made? Did I at any point state or even imply anything even remotely approaching "maximum correctness, always"? Did I advocate for "mundane, boring, safe things"? Are you going to address the actual points I made regarding Tesla's misleading marketing and the literal, actual deaths that have resulted from it?

Why is it so difficult to hold any kind of honest discussion with Muskovites on the subject of his intentionally misleading claims and absurd pie-in-the-sky overreaches? What drives you to make excuses for a loudmouthed anti-worker billionaire who has so constantly and consistently failed to live up to his promises?

Re: Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee

#579

Post by topspin »

flyingswift wrote: post #58
tlb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a vanilla git configuration, it's as easy as: $ vi centrifuge_rpm_controller.cc $ git commit --author "Bob Goodguy " -a -m "Totally harmless changes" $ git push In a high-stakes environment, it's probably worth signing commits. https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Signing-Your-Work

Are we really saying that Tesla, a company building highly sensitive software, is not employing basic branch policies? How is it that these changes could have made it through a code review process and deployed to 'production'? What I take away from this is that one malicious actor was able to single handedly deploy malicious code and that there were no processes in place to stop this. That is a far more worrying issu…

"Are we really saying that Tesla, a company building highly sensitive software, is not employing basic branch policies?"

I suspect they aren't. They're trying to hit a number. Elon is on site personally stepping on anything that might impede that goal. They're in desperation mode, running a car company like a startup, erecting tents to house parts of the plant, firing contractors left and right. Are some of their coders banging in changes with little to no review and pushing to "production" -- such as it is -- right off master? Would not surprise me at all.

I don't know what to believe. On one hand Elon claims they've got some sort of admission from someone. On the other I remember the theories he entertained when a Falcon 9 blew up on the pad; “We literally thought someone had shot the rocket.” I tried to explain how infeasible that would be but people don't want to hear it; lots irrational thinking around all things Musk/Telsa.

Anyhow, sabotage isn't uncommon in big plants. Grievances emerge and people sometimes pull some Bolt Weevil stunts to hit back. Usually manufacturers deal with the problem as quietly as possible. Elon, knowing perfectly well his email would leak, decided to make a splash instead. Maybe looking to line up some excuses if they miss the number. Who knows...

"That is a far more worrying issue"

Not for me. We have filled the world with safety; everyone playing by Marquess of Queensberry rules. Nice to see an exception. Yes, even if it costs a few lives.

Re: Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee

#580

Post by Fins »

abc_lisper wrote: post #526
Fins wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, is it being pulled by magical unicorns, while you blissfully float on a cloud of unicorn farts? Eh, no, it's a car. Not particularly great or luxurious at that.

I heard this defense before. It's the same as saying Mac is just a computer and iPhone is just a phone.

"Defense" seems to be a strange choice of word here.

And seriously, iPhone isn't just a phone, seriously?

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