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

businessinsider.com

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

#61

Post by greglindahl »

Jun8 wrote: post #36
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…

"And let's face it...you have quite a few months notice on when the baby is due." This simply is not true! You should understand that the "due date" is a distribution in normal childbirth. Even for cesarian sections, which are scheduled, things can go awry. In fact the second case is precisely what happened to my wife. She still had about 15 days to her scheduled cesarian when she visited the hospital for a routine c…

And you hadn't given work a heads-up that she was getting close?

Edit: Just pointing out that there is an extremely easy way to notify your work, given the uncertain schedule of all childbirth.

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

#62

Post by gclaramunt »

AstroChimpHam wrote: post #8

All the negative press and comments about this miss the point. The guy has very specific, very ambitious goals that he has a track record of achieving. He prioritizes those literally above everything and expects the same from key employees. Working at Tesla, which has already done a ton to change the entire car industry is a huge privilege, and no one's making you do it. If you can get a job there, you can get a job…

Unless the employee has the same reward ($$$) you can't expect the same level of commitment. Witnessing the beginning of a life altering project is not even comparable to help somebody else build a car. What would you think of a founder that misses the launch of his product?

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

#63

Post by paulrpotts »

The wording the article uses is offensive. A dad isn't in the delivery room just to "witness" the birth, or at least he shouldn't be. He's there to support the mother, advocate for her, help her make decisions regarding how the birth goes, support the newborn baby, advocate for him or her, and (maybe) make very difficult medical decisions if either is compromised.

Most of my children were born without a lot of complications, and I didn't have to do much decision-making or advocacy, just support my wife, talk to her, hold her hand, rub her back, cut the cord, take pictures, hold the baby, and all that. My baby girl responded immediately to my voice in a way that she didn't respond to other voices, because she had heard my voice a lot while she was in the womb.

My most recent turned into a difficult birth, with both mother and baby very sick with a rare infection, and an emergency C-section, and then with my newborn son in the hospital for ten days of IV antibiotics. Because my wife was in recovery I had to immediately provide "kangaroo care" -- that is, skin to skin contact with my newborn son, to help him adapt. Also, to hold him as much as possible in the neonatal ICU, while he had IVs stuck in and medication pumped in. My wife was not very mobile at that point.

Once she was a little more mobile the friends we had tapped to watch our other kids were all tapped out and so I had to be a stay-at-home dad for them.

Parenting responsibilities and spouse responsibilities are not like work responsibilities. They just aren't. Anyone who says or behaves otherwise is a sociopath.

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

#64

Post by bmj »

pc86 wrote: post #55
codyb wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, I really enjoy programming but I have yet to be able to come to terms with this idea that if I'd like to be a professional software engineer I have to want to be the world's saving grace rockstar ninja programmer. Isn't it enough to want to wake up refreshed every day, put in a good solid 6-7 hours of professional quality engineering work, and then have the time and energy to want to perform all of the other dut…

Yeah if you can find a job that is okay with you only working 30 hours a week while paying you for 40, hang on to it and never let go.

You missed the "quality engineering work" disclaimer. Any reasonably good project manager knows that, between meetings, email, and water cooler conversation, you get about 30-32 hours of actual project work from someone each week.

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

#65

Post by mikeash »

fingerprinter wrote: post #18
mindcrime wrote: post #3

Musk even scolded a Tesla employee who missed an event to witness the birth of his child If true, that diminishes my respect for Elon just a touch. I mean, OK, I get it... when you're trying to change the world, you want passion, you want commitment, etc. Fine. But here's the thing: in the end, you're just as dead either way. Change the world, you're still dead. Don't change the world: You're dead. The only thing tha…

If this statement is true and in the proper context (who knows), this all but kills my respect for Musk. It basically puts him at the same level as Jobs, Ellison and others who are just egotistical, sociopathic assholes. Look, Musk /is/ out to change the world. His employees might not be, at least to the degree and level as he is. And, if they are, they'll likely not be remembered along with Musk. There is often only…

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.

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

#66

Post by codyb »

pc86 wrote: post #55
codyb wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, I really enjoy programming but I have yet to be able to come to terms with this idea that if I'd like to be a professional software engineer I have to want to be the world's saving grace rockstar ninja programmer. Isn't it enough to want to wake up refreshed every day, put in a good solid 6-7 hours of professional quality engineering work, and then have the time and energy to want to perform all of the other dut…

Yeah if you can find a job that is okay with you only working 30 hours a week while paying you for 40, hang on to it and never let go.

Oh haha, I wasn't even thinking in that regard, I'd gladly take the pay drop for the time since it'd still be a pretty decent salary generally.

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

#67

Post by pbreit »

StavrosK wrote: post #20

I don't care about Musk either way, so I doubt this is too biased in his favor, but I don't think many people would knowingly say something like the phrase in the article to someone who went to his child's birth. I consider it more likely that Musk didn't know that the person was missing because of the birth, or something similar, than that someone would say "yeah this company event is more important than your child…

I tend to agree. Without much information on the other side, it's hard to figure out exactly what the context was. I doubt the employee was expected to miss the actual birth but was expected to return to the event/office, perhaps sooner than other employers might expect.

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

#68

Post by clavalle »

codyb wrote: post #52
stevecalifornia wrote: post #16

My first day at SpaceX I ran into a friend. I asked him how he was doing and he said he just had a kid. "How old is she now?" "Oh no, like, my wife just gave birth an hour ago." The guy was working through the birth of his first born. The story continued for months afterwards and it's not a good one. That and many other stories are what led me to quit. I took the summer off and didn't work. I hung out with my dog and…

Yea, I really enjoy programming but I have yet to be able to come to terms with this idea that if I'd like to be a professional software engineer I have to want to be the world's saving grace rockstar ninja programmer. Isn't it enough to want to wake up refreshed every day, put in a good solid 6-7 hours of professional quality engineering work, and then have the time and energy to want to perform all of the other dut…

That is enough. Anyone that tries to convince you otherwise wants to leverage your Life for their benefit.

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

#69

Post by TeMPOraL »

fingerprinter wrote: post #18
mindcrime wrote: post #3

Musk even scolded a Tesla employee who missed an event to witness the birth of his child If true, that diminishes my respect for Elon just a touch. I mean, OK, I get it... when you're trying to change the world, you want passion, you want commitment, etc. Fine. But here's the thing: in the end, you're just as dead either way. Change the world, you're still dead. Don't change the world: You're dead. The only thing tha…

If this statement is true and in the proper context (who knows), this all but kills my respect for Musk. It basically puts him at the same level as Jobs, Ellison and others who are just egotistical, sociopathic assholes. Look, Musk /is/ out to change the world. His employees might not be, at least to the degree and level as he is. And, if they are, they'll likely not be remembered along with Musk. There is often only…

> And, sadly, Musk probably doesn't realize because he is so wrapped up in his own world, but having a child IS changing the world for a few folks. But, ya know, sociopaths don't care about other people, just themselves.

I'm partial about this. The reply (assuming it's true, context, etc.) seemed very harsh and inconsiderate, and struck me as not his style (but I never worked for him so I don't know how he is day-to-day).

But the celebration of family I see in these comments is weird for me as well. Ok, so having a child is changing the world for a few folks. But the work done at Tesla and SpaceX will quite likely change the world for better for hundreds of millions or even billions of people. It's not the typical SV "change the world" = "build a mobile social spyware app", it's actually fixing some of the biggest problems humanity faces. Call me sociopath, but were I working for SpaceX or Tesla on some critical components, I probably wouldn't consider my own family more important than this work. Same if I was working for cutting-edge cure-cancer stuff. There are more important things than myself and my personal life.

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

#70

Post by tna »

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, you must be what you are, which means that happiness is more or less beside the point."

...continued at: http://www.quora.com/How-can-I-be-as-great-as-Bill-Gates-Ste... (answered by Justine herself)

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