Live data from Hacker News

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

inc.com

71–77 of 77 posts

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

#71
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As good as your past intentions sound, if somebody I didn't know from another department just came and sat next to me to watch me work, without me knowing it would happen beforehand, I'd put in a complaint too.

Your behavior in that case will be less than ideal. It will be better to talk to your reportee and the individual and understand what's going on if you weren't in the loop. This could have easily been the birth of a strong partnership between sales and the dev team to understand how people both really use and demo the product. Assume positive intent. This business of putting in complaints behind someone's back (bear…

Exactly. The sales manager most likely perceived me as a threat. If I come in & automate her job she could be out of work. Like a bank teller afraid of being replaced by an ATM so they get in the engineer's way & cause drama. Instead she could have politely introduced herself as the sales manager, asked what I was doing & offered to help, like write up a report of what the problems were. I would have thanked her & gone back to coding at my desk while I await her report. I didn't even know she existed, let alone intend to threaten her.

By the way the employee didnt complain. They were happy to have someone fixing their companies app. The sales manager was watching from afar with dissent. Plus I tried asking the programming manager about the app first, so he could follow company hierarchy. He was too busy playing video games on his PC & just shrugged his shoulders. My choices were basically slack off like him, snitch on him to the CEO, or go get the answer elsewhere. The latter seemed most appropriate.

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

#72
post #48

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.

Yep. It's particularly bad at NASA; when I started there the first thing I did was to start compiling a glossary, because emails (etc) were full of so many acronyms that might be defined in many different documents. Maybe they've gotten better -- Emily Lakdawalla posted the other day a photo labeling Mars rover parts like "secondary thwack arm" and "rabbit hole".

If you give things short vivid names you'll be less tempted to acronym them.

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

#73
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean this without any intention of belittling or suggestion that you should do otherwise, but why? Not that you need justify anything to me, of course. It's so fundamentally opposite to my experience, and I'm curious about what's driving you to work like this.

Because its fun. I can't sleep because I'm excited to code. It interests me more than most other activities.

Thanks for sharing. It's cool that you've found something you're so passionate about.

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

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my personaly anecdotal experience, it eventulally leads to burnout, health and relationship problems. After doing two startups and working way too much for way too little, I now strongly believe in a healthy work-life balance. Hell, I’m looking at reducing my worked hours (for less pay) because I now value my non-work free time much much more than I did before. But.. to each thir own, I suppose.

Yes you have to find balance. It might be 100 hours one week & 10 hours the next. I work just as much as everyone else over time, it just comes in bursts of creativity. Some light bulb goes off & then I can't sleep until I have my idea working.

Ah, bursts of creativity/activity I can understand and do myself. I suppose my point is more that its not sustainable to work such long hours, not that it can’t be done successfully every so often without long term problems :)

I also find that sometimes “my time” looks an awful lot like work in the sense that I might do very similar things (hey, I enjoy programming!), the difference is that one is done on my terms, when and how I want and I do it to relax, have fun or otherwise do something I want, while the other is something I do because I have to.

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

#75
post #2

I am definitely in favour of the notion of avoiding "management silos" but I would echo the sentiment left at the end that it seems to be much easier said than done in practice. "you can talk directly to a VP in another dept., you can talk to me, you can talk to anyone without anyone else's permission." I imagine someone in such a high position would then receive an influx of e-mails to the point where it is counter…

The other rule that helps with this is to train employees to always put the conclusion at the top of the email. And it should fit in a short sentence. Give me the bottom line first and I can get through a lot of emails.

I very rarely need all the details someone thinks are important in order to make a decision.

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

#76
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean this without any intention of belittling or suggestion that you should do otherwise, but why? Not that you need justify anything to me, of course. It's so fundamentally opposite to my experience, and I'm curious about what's driving you to work like this.

Because its fun. I can't sleep because I'm excited to code. It interests me more than most other activities.

How did you get "100 hours a week"-excited to code? The only thing I am waiting for is this shit to click, but for the last five years, it hasn't happened. And I dreadfully want it to.

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

#77
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

self-reported and therefore not reliable.

some executives never stop working, even when not on site they consider time spent solving problems in their head or sitting at their computer/tablet/etc as work. myself I have been around some six to six executives who even at parties talk shop. hell we used to joke that when one went on vacation it only made his emails longer

Yes, I'm sure they do and I would too but that is not the vernacular "working".
Post reply on HN