9 ms·

It seems that Musk at this point is completely unaware that he is a walking contradiction. On one hand, he is a technologist. Forward thinking and driving towa

It seems that Musk at this point is completely unaware that he is a walking contradiction. On one hand, he is a technologist. Forward thinking and driving towards the future. On the other hand, he is an old fashioned factory owner. He views his workforce as pure labour and can't accept that he can't force his employees to work under his total control. He also can't accept the gain in life capital for his employees in working from home for his workforce and that the future of work for humanity is probably decentralised offices and WFH, not middle managed, over the shoulder, supervised, centralised offices.

jmeister 4y ago
What if he(and others like me) believe that working in-person really is truly necessary for accomplishing great work?
- wolrah 4y ago
  > What if he(and others like me) believe that working in-person really is truly necessary for accomplishing great work? Well, it's his (and your) right to be wrong but that's a belief that was already on very shaky ground before 2020 and has by this point been absolutely proven wrong. Unless your job actually requires physical interaction with or proximity to a thing or other people it can almost certainly be done equally well remotely. Processes may have to be adjusted to account for remote workers and even the way people work when working remotely, but almost 100% of jobs that take place at a desk in front of a computer can and should be allowed to be remote. The biggest thing that doesn't work in a remote environment is micromanagement, so bad bosses who feel the need to micromanage hate it, but those people are terrible so if they don't like it that's a good thing.
  - zeroonetwothree 4y ago
    I don’t know, it seems not much creatively came out of tech since 2020. It’s all continuing trends started before that or living on past glory. I think you could easily argue that creativity is down in the industry.
    - ashes-of-sol 4y ago
    - JakeTheAndroid 4y ago
      What are you using arrive at this opinion? What creativity existed in a measurable way before 2020 and what does that metric look like now? Who is less creative in this environment and in what ways are they less creative? What amount of creativity is necessary for a business to operate successfully or solve meaningful problems? Not all problems require new or genuinely creative solutions either. And it seems really difficult to try and measure the creative output by individual contributors at any given company. You have no way of gleaning the micro decisions or solutions that people come up with for their internal issues. So this doesn't seem like one could "easily argue" this point at all, in fact it seems quite difficult. Are you suggesting that product offerings are less creative as a whole? And if so, again what metric are you using to arrive at this conclusion? And are there really no trends of this same metric before 2020?
jstx1 4y ago
Cutting edge technologist for the investors, old school factory owner for managing people. Makes perfect sense if you're trying to extract the max amount of money.
- whiskey14 4y ago
  True, but the fact that technology is going to reinvent everything, including work seems to be an oversight. I'm not sure an old school factory owner is going to attract the best people in a highly skilled industry
- shapefrog 4y ago
  > Makes perfect sense if you're trying to extract the max amount of money Offshoring everything to the third world makes perfect sense to the old school factory owner too.
- SturgeonsLaw 4y ago
  Similar to the formula Bezos is using. They are both making a lot of money doing it, just like the robber barons of the Gilded Age did.
  - LegitShady 4y ago
    Not letting people work from home doesn't make you a robber baron.
ukoki 4y ago
The cheapest way to downsize is to have employees quit of their own accord. Removing benefits like WFH incentives this.
- whiskey14 4y ago
  So do you think he'll eventually bring back WFH for Tesla and Twitter when they want to increase headcount?
  - tailspin2019 4y ago
    Based on reasoning in my other comment [0] I think this is highly likely. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33544756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33544756
- tailspin2019 4y ago
  > The cheapest way to downsize is to have employees quit of their own accord. Removing benefits like WFH incentives this. This is why I found reading his published chat messages [0] so interesting. From the horse's mouth (the horse in this case being Jason Calacanis) to Musk, when talking about restructuring: > "2 day a week Office requirement= 20% voluntary departures" So it does seem possible that this could be at least partly driving this. As an aside: The other interesting nugget in the msg logs was discussion about taking Twitter private to restructure (because it would require haemorrhaging users while they cleaned up bots etc. - and also likely because you wouldn't be able to take such aggressive actions re. mass sackings in quite the same way when public) and then going public again once this restructuring process has been completed. [0] https://danluu.com/elon-twitter-texts/ https://danluu.com/elon-twitter-texts/
- DonsDiscountGas 4y ago
  Except that you lose your best people this way, rather than average/worst.
  - zeroonetwothree 4y ago
    Or maybe a mix? Although maybe Musk thinks the in person workers are the best.
watwut 4y ago
> he can't force his employees to work under his total control That is because he actually can force them to be under his control. > He also can't accept the gain in life capital for his employees in working from home for his workforce and that the future of work for humanity is probably decentralized offices and WFH, not middle managed, over the shoulder, supervised, centralized offices. I don't think he cares about their lives. Meanwhile, long hours in office have multiple advantages for controlling CEO like Musk. The people are removed from outside influences (friends, family, time to read) and closed in his own echo chamber. Whatever he wants to normalize, it will be harder for them to see is not normal outside of that bubble. It is another variant on what cults, monasteries, armies etc do ... the more they isolate you from outside influences, the better you surrender own agency. Plus, people not comfortable with above self exclude. It is win win win for ceo. Not necessary effective, but produces strong loyalty and obeisance. Which has advantages also for productivity.
- whiskey14 4y ago
  I get what you’re saying but does that produce the most effective, creative and innovative workforce required to compete in the technology industry?
  - watwut 4y ago
    Creative and innovative - absolutely not. Effective - mostly not, except in some situations. There are many ways how to be ineffective tho, this is one of them many. I think that you dont need to be super effective to compete in the technology industry. Will he be able to compete? I dont know. Musk twitter moves seem incompetent overall to me. But so far, his charizma and money (to certain people) did allowed him to get quite far in his previous companies. He did treated his previous employees pretty much the same way.
    - MrMan 4y ago
      if you look at musk and his friends talking about how to restructure twitter it looks less incompetent. if you remember that he is under a mountain of financial pressure you can also see that these moves are for survival, not to make twitter more awesome. a decimated shell of a company is preferable, for someone who just massively overpaid for a non-growth company, to a much larger organization with higher cost structure. I dont understand why he wanted twitter and I think the incompetence is in the way he pursued the deal, but once one is saddled with such a problem the steps to get out from under it (or at least minimize the damage) are clear. forcing employees out is necessary.
lakomen 4y ago
He's not a technologist, he's a ruthless capitalist playing with other people's money. Idk why he gets so much support. That guy is a wolf in sheep's clothing. He doesn't care about the planet, or the people, he cares about his bottom line and nothing else.
- infamouscow 4y ago
  Do you have anything of substance to add besides ad hominem attacks that don't really even make sense? Let's break this down: > He's not a technologist, he's a ruthless capitalist playing with other people's money. Idk why he gets so much support. Calling someone a capitalist isn't the dig you think it is, especially on a website run by a VC firm. Musk has a track record for returning profit to investors. > That guy is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Calling someone the boogeyman convinces nobody. What exactly are you warning about? > He doesn't care about the planet, or the people, he cares about his bottom line and nothing else. Have you heard of Tesla EVs?
  - helf 4y ago
    > Have you heard of Tesla EVs? Have you heard that didn't invent them or even start the company or even cofound it? Anyways, yes, he has done a lot of good and is actually smart. But it has also gone to his head and the more power and wealth he accrues the more it shows. Like with most people. Mindlessly bashing him is just as much of a waste of time as mindlessly sucking his knob. It is all sooo boooooring.
    - Gwypaas 4y ago
      > Tesla was founded (as Tesla Motors) on July 1, 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in San Carlos, California. [...] Ian Wright was the third employee, joining a few months later.[2] The three went looking for venture capital (VC) funding in January 2004[2] and connected with Elon Musk, who contributed US$6.5 million of the initial (Series A) US$7.5 million[10] round of investment in February 2004 and became chairman of the board of directors.[2] Musk then appointed Eberhard as the CEO.[11] J.B. Straubel joined in May 2004[2] as the fifth employee.[12] A lawsuit settlement agreed to by Eberhard and Tesla in September 2009 allows all five (Eberhard, Tarpenning, Wright, Musk and Straubel) to call themselves co-founders.[13] > Musk took an active role within the company and oversaw Roadster product design at a detailed level, but was not deeply involved in day-to-day business operations.[14] Eberhard acknowledged that Musk was the person who insisted from the beginning on a carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer body and that Musk led design of components ranging from the power electronics module to the headlamps and other styling.[15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tesla,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tesla,_Inc. I would suggest going to the source rather than writing Reddit level comments.
lithos 4y ago
Why are you surprised? He wants employees in space and on Mars where he'll have even greater control (when employees start/leave employment, all information in/out of their station, the amount of mass employees will own, and even control when authorities are allowed on the station if at all).

jmeister 4y ago

What if he(and others like me) believe that working in-person really is truly necessary for accomplishing great work?

wolrah 4y ago
> What if he(and others like me) believe that working in-person really is truly necessary for accomplishing great work? Well, it's his (and your) right to be wrong but that's a belief that was already on very shaky ground before 2020 and has by this point been absolutely proven wrong. Unless your job actually requires physical interaction with or proximity to a thing or other people it can almost certainly be done equally well remotely. Processes may have to be adjusted to account for remote workers and even the way people work when working remotely, but almost 100% of jobs that take place at a desk in front of a computer can and should be allowed to be remote. The biggest thing that doesn't work in a remote environment is micromanagement, so bad bosses who feel the need to micromanage hate it, but those people are terrible so if they don't like it that's a good thing.
- zeroonetwothree 4y ago
  I don’t know, it seems not much creatively came out of tech since 2020. It’s all continuing trends started before that or living on past glory. I think you could easily argue that creativity is down in the industry.
  - ashes-of-sol 4y ago
  - JakeTheAndroid 4y ago
    What are you using arrive at this opinion? What creativity existed in a measurable way before 2020 and what does that metric look like now? Who is less creative in this environment and in what ways are they less creative? What amount of creativity is necessary for a business to operate successfully or solve meaningful problems? Not all problems require new or genuinely creative solutions either. And it seems really difficult to try and measure the creative output by individual contributors at any given company. You have no way of gleaning the micro decisions or solutions that people come up with for their internal issues. So this doesn't seem like one could "easily argue" this point at all, in fact it seems quite difficult. Are you suggesting that product offerings are less creative as a whole? And if so, again what metric are you using to arrive at this conclusion? And are there really no trends of this same metric before 2020?

jstx1 4y ago

Cutting edge technologist for the investors, old school factory owner for managing people. Makes perfect sense if you're trying to extract the max amount of money.

whiskey14 4y ago
True, but the fact that technology is going to reinvent everything, including work seems to be an oversight. I'm not sure an old school factory owner is going to attract the best people in a highly skilled industry
shapefrog 4y ago
> Makes perfect sense if you're trying to extract the max amount of money Offshoring everything to the third world makes perfect sense to the old school factory owner too.
SturgeonsLaw 4y ago
Similar to the formula Bezos is using. They are both making a lot of money doing it, just like the robber barons of the Gilded Age did.
- LegitShady 4y ago
  Not letting people work from home doesn't make you a robber baron.

ukoki 4y ago

The cheapest way to downsize is to have employees quit of their own accord. Removing benefits like WFH incentives this.

whiskey14 4y ago
So do you think he'll eventually bring back WFH for Tesla and Twitter when they want to increase headcount?
- tailspin2019 4y ago
  Based on reasoning in my other comment [0] I think this is highly likely. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33544756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33544756
tailspin2019 4y ago
> The cheapest way to downsize is to have employees quit of their own accord. Removing benefits like WFH incentives this. This is why I found reading his published chat messages [0] so interesting. From the horse's mouth (the horse in this case being Jason Calacanis) to Musk, when talking about restructuring: > "2 day a week Office requirement= 20% voluntary departures" So it does seem possible that this could be at least partly driving this. As an aside: The other interesting nugget in the msg logs was discussion about taking Twitter private to restructure (because it would require haemorrhaging users while they cleaned up bots etc. - and also likely because you wouldn't be able to take such aggressive actions re. mass sackings in quite the same way when public) and then going public again once this restructuring process has been completed. [0] https://danluu.com/elon-twitter-texts/ https://danluu.com/elon-twitter-texts/
DonsDiscountGas 4y ago
Except that you lose your best people this way, rather than average/worst.
- zeroonetwothree 4y ago
  Or maybe a mix? Although maybe Musk thinks the in person workers are the best.

watwut 4y ago

> he can't force his employees to work under his total control That is because he actually can force them to be under his control. > He also can't accept the gain in life capital for his employees in working from home for his workforce and that the future of work for humanity is probably decentralized offices and WFH, not middle managed, over the shoulder, supervised, centralized offices. I don't think he cares about their lives. Meanwhile, long hours in office have multiple advantages for controlling CEO like Musk. The people are removed from outside influences (friends, family, time to read) and closed in his own echo chamber. Whatever he wants to normalize, it will be harder for them to see is not normal outside of that bubble. It is another variant on what cults, monasteries, armies etc do ... the more they isolate you from outside influences, the better you surrender own agency. Plus, people not comfortable with above self exclude. It is win win win for ceo. Not necessary effective, but produces strong loyalty and obeisance. Which has advantages also for productivity.

whiskey14 4y ago
I get what you’re saying but does that produce the most effective, creative and innovative workforce required to compete in the technology industry?
- watwut 4y ago
  Creative and innovative - absolutely not. Effective - mostly not, except in some situations. There are many ways how to be ineffective tho, this is one of them many. I think that you dont need to be super effective to compete in the technology industry. Will he be able to compete? I dont know. Musk twitter moves seem incompetent overall to me. But so far, his charizma and money (to certain people) did allowed him to get quite far in his previous companies. He did treated his previous employees pretty much the same way.
  - MrMan 4y ago
    if you look at musk and his friends talking about how to restructure twitter it looks less incompetent. if you remember that he is under a mountain of financial pressure you can also see that these moves are for survival, not to make twitter more awesome. a decimated shell of a company is preferable, for someone who just massively overpaid for a non-growth company, to a much larger organization with higher cost structure. I dont understand why he wanted twitter and I think the incompetence is in the way he pursued the deal, but once one is saddled with such a problem the steps to get out from under it (or at least minimize the damage) are clear. forcing employees out is necessary.

lakomen 4y ago

He's not a technologist, he's a ruthless capitalist playing with other people's money. Idk why he gets so much support. That guy is a wolf in sheep's clothing. He doesn't care about the planet, or the people, he cares about his bottom line and nothing else.

infamouscow 4y ago
Do you have anything of substance to add besides ad hominem attacks that don't really even make sense? Let's break this down: > He's not a technologist, he's a ruthless capitalist playing with other people's money. Idk why he gets so much support. Calling someone a capitalist isn't the dig you think it is, especially on a website run by a VC firm. Musk has a track record for returning profit to investors. > That guy is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Calling someone the boogeyman convinces nobody. What exactly are you warning about? > He doesn't care about the planet, or the people, he cares about his bottom line and nothing else. Have you heard of Tesla EVs?
- helf 4y ago
  > Have you heard of Tesla EVs? Have you heard that didn't invent them or even start the company or even cofound it? Anyways, yes, he has done a lot of good and is actually smart. But it has also gone to his head and the more power and wealth he accrues the more it shows. Like with most people. Mindlessly bashing him is just as much of a waste of time as mindlessly sucking his knob. It is all sooo boooooring.
  - Gwypaas 4y ago
    > Tesla was founded (as Tesla Motors) on July 1, 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in San Carlos, California. [...] Ian Wright was the third employee, joining a few months later.[2] The three went looking for venture capital (VC) funding in January 2004[2] and connected with Elon Musk, who contributed US$6.5 million of the initial (Series A) US$7.5 million[10] round of investment in February 2004 and became chairman of the board of directors.[2] Musk then appointed Eberhard as the CEO.[11] J.B. Straubel joined in May 2004[2] as the fifth employee.[12] A lawsuit settlement agreed to by Eberhard and Tesla in September 2009 allows all five (Eberhard, Tarpenning, Wright, Musk and Straubel) to call themselves co-founders.[13] > Musk took an active role within the company and oversaw Roadster product design at a detailed level, but was not deeply involved in day-to-day business operations.[14] Eberhard acknowledged that Musk was the person who insisted from the beginning on a carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer body and that Musk led design of components ranging from the power electronics module to the headlamps and other styling.[15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tesla,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tesla,_Inc. I would suggest going to the source rather than writing Reddit level comments.

lithos 4y ago

Why are you surprised? He wants employees in space and on Mars where he'll have even greater control (when employees start/leave employment, all information in/out of their station, the amount of mass employees will own, and even control when authorities are allowed on the station if at all).