> Over the previous year, he had been living out of a suitcase, putting in 13-hour days, seven days a week.
This story is a good reminder not to do this. The company will usually not return the favour, you rarely get properly rewarded for crazy hours, yet it has a major impact on your health (both mental and physical) in the long run. Not worth it.
> It was not a 9 to 5 company. People were already working hard; now Musk was implying they needed to do more.
No wonder things were going to shit. Nobody can do good work if they don't get enough rest and have too much stress.
> Three months after that, it would report profits of $312 million, well beyond Wall Street’s expectations.
How much of this money did the employees get for all the overtime they were forced to work?
> Tesla, ... that some aspects were “overly dramatized,” “abbreviated,” and “ultimately misleading anecdotes that completely lack essential context.” ... “Elon cares very deeply about the people who work at his companies. ...
For the sake of everybody working for him, I really really hope this is true and not just PR firefighting and that the story misrepresented what actually happened. I'm not convinced, based on Musk's twitter outbursts and such, but I still hope this story is mostly false.
Musk is a great marketer and communicator, he convinces people that making luxury cars is saving the world because they are electric. The people buying them also feel like they are heroes saving the world. Humans have a need to feel like they are a part of something bigger than themselves and Musk provides it.
Steve jobs did the same thing, their marketing was all about pushing how apple users think different and are changing the world by being mindless consumers
I just don't get how we just can't over turn them politically state by state in State Elections. How is this not a thing? I live in an At Will State (PA) and it pretty much sucks to have the knowledge I can be fired for any reason and sure I still can sue but I can still lose even though I am 100% in the right.
> This story is a good reminder not to do this. The company will usually not return the favour, you rarely get properly rewarded for crazy hours, yet it has a major impact on your health (both mental and physical) in the long run. Not worth it.
And yet it's also a perfect example of the one time it does make sense to do so, which is when you own a decent chunk of the company that you're doing it for.
> No wonder things were going to shit. Nobody can do good work if they don't get enough rest and have too much stress.
Yeah, that kind of effort is not sustainable for more than a few months at most. Trying to push too hard just burns out your best people, even (especially?) if they're part owners.
I would be quite useful for this conversation to see what the wages/overtime pay and stock options are for past employees and new hires. Without that the conversation is just wild speculation and not really worth pursuing.
I didn't read the article, so perhaps I'm missing something:
> How much of this money did the employees get for all the overtime they were forced to work?
Did someone somehow compel someone else to work those hours? I imagine most Tesla employees are at the top of their field, and have many jobs to choose from. If someone chose to work like that, there must have been a motivation, it doesn't seem like they would have been forced.
... yet Tesla pushed the entire world to electrify transport.
I remember years ago reading article after article and forum post after forum post about how once we finally deplete oil transportation will revert to the 19th century. I don't read that anymore.
I have little doubt that without Tesla you wouldn't see a dozen other EVs on the market. You might have one or two crappy "compliance cars," but nobody else would be striving to make EVs anyone actually wants to buy.
I am not arguing with you. I don't disagree with much of anything that you wrote.
One of the things that keeps me up at night and frankly depresses me is the question: can you lead or otherwise achieve great things without being an asshole?
Steve Jobs? Asshole. Winston Churchill? Asshole. Stanley Kubrick? Asshole. Bill Gates? Quieter, but judging from MS's behavior in the 80s and 90s, asshole. I could go on.
I'm a founder and have been trying for quite a while to build something great without being an asshole or a total workaholic. It's hard, and I sometimes worry that I'm failing.
Anyone got any good inspiring counterexamples?
I have a speculation about why this might be. The human brain is wired for the much slower, simpler life of a hunter-gatherer. In a modern context most people exist in a state of low-grade depression. We're not really all that driven and our appetite for opportunity and action is calibrated for a world where opportunities for those things are much more rare.
There are ways of tweaking oneself chemically (pun intended): caffeine, amphetamine, cocaine, modafinil. Unfortunately all these have side effects. They accelerate thought but they also muddle or impair it.
But...
Occasionally you get people who are naturally wired with an extreme degree of drive and charisma. It's not that these people are necessarily smarter than everyone else, though some are certainly smart. It's that they operate naturally at a pace that fits the modern world.
Here's where the magic comes in.
Humans are deeply mimetic. We pick up and unconsciously mirror the states of those around us. It's part of why concentrated centers of excellence such as those found in urban settings are often so mysteriously alluring and powerful. When we are around people who are driven to excellence, it increases our drive to excellence.
So you get this positive emotional-mimetic field around these people. Everyone else around them gets tweaked up too.
Unfortunately these traits seem coincident with narcissism, antisocial personality disorders, even full on psychopathy in some cases. So you have these inspiring, driven, animating assholes that seem superhumanly powerful simply because they are not (in modern terms) naturally depressed and anhedonic.
Like I said it's depressing. This is one of those thoughts where if I were proven to be wrong I'd celebrate.
When working for Tesla I can only assume the dynamic is different. For many it IS worth it, and will work crazy hours without recompense, because in their eyes it pushes humanity further forward. They work for the joy of innovation.
One day he will catch an employee stealing, fly into a rage and fire the entire workforce. He'll lock the iron gates to the factory and sequester himself from the public eye for several decades sparking all kinds of rumours about his fate. Then one day he'll announce a competition for children to win golden tickets to visit his once grand factory and we'll finally discover the real story of Elon Musk and his Gigafactory.
> Musk “would say ‘I’ve got to fire someone today,’ and I’d say, ‘No you don’t,’ and he’d say, ‘No, no, I just do. I’ve got to fire somebody,’ ”
Musk really is the asshole abusive boss who gets a pass because of his media fame.
I urge anyone in a situation similar to the employees mentioned in the article to simply quit. Giving up your life and dignity for "the cause" isn't worth it. You aren't changing the world, just killing yourself to make some rich people richer.
It's Lundy Bancroft's, "Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men". It's the single most astute thing I've ever read. The guy spent more than a decade as a counselor for abusive men, most of them ordered to him by the courts. It's clear he heard an ocean of bullshit and became very good at seeing through it.
It's targeted at domestic abuse, but his insights are so clear and well-explained that it's easy to apply the lessons elsewhere. E.g., a couple of years back my boss got pushed out, so suddenly I was being managed by his boss. I walked out of my first meeting with him wondering what the fuck had just happened; everything I said he jumped on aggressively. But the pattern rang a bell, so I thumbed through the book. He lists a variety of abuser styles, and the one called "Mr. Right" fit him perfectly. In one meeting he hit something like 2/3rds of the items in the checklist.
Had I not read that, I would have probably walked away thinking that the problem was me, even though my original boss had been happy with me and my work. Instead, I was prepared for what came next: a couple more abusive meetings and then a surprise, no-notice "layoff" where I and the other manager my boss hired were pushed out. (And where we were asked to sign a no-disparagement clause if we wanted any severance. Seeing it a further abuser-style manipulation, I passed.)
Over the years I've given away maybe 15 copies of the book, often to people who were in abusive relationships without recognizing it. If you ever even begin to wonder, I strongly recommend reading the book.
I posted this article because I'm really afraid that many young entrepreneurs take Elon Musk (and Steve Jobs, etc.) as role models and get the impression that in order to be successful you have to be an abusive brick.
I've recently read Walter Isaacson's "The Innovators" and there seem to be at least a couple of counterexamples (Robert Noyce for instance). Any other examples of tech leaders who lead their companies in a friendly and open manner and are successful despite (or probably because) of that?
You see the same debates about military leadership - some very famous military leaders were apparently pretty unpleasant at a personal level - then at the other end of the spectrum you have people like Leonard Cheshire who was tough but thoroughly decent and treated everyone at all levels with respect:
"He had a great simplicity of manner, and while on a campaign lived as a private soldier, sleeping on straw and contenting himself with the humblest fare.[43] Suvorov was adored by his men and considered victory dependent on the morale, training, and initiative of the front-line soldier. In battle he emphasized speed and mobility, accuracy of gunfire and the use of the bayonet, as well as detailed planning and careful strategy. He abandoned traditional drills and instead communicated with his troops in ways that proved clear and understandable. Suvorov also took great care of his army's supplies and living conditions, reducing cases of illness among his soldiers dramatically."
Why would anyone get the impression they have to be an abusive brick? No one is claiming that, are you saying young entrepreneurs are sheep and blindly follow Elon's behavioral patterns?
This piece is okay, it provides a number of anecdotes by former employees, how do we verify these are accurate and not misleading? They square with some former reports, but do not square with other positive anecdotes I've read. This is the problem with using anecdotes as evidence.
In my view, executives and other high-ranking individuals are often mean and unfair due to extreme ambition and very high, sustained stress levels. Could someone without extreme ambition have even gotten to this point with Tesla? Do you recall how many bullshit hit pieces, legal obstacles, and issues there have been standing in Tesla's way?
I used to be neutral or slightly positive about Musk but this year really changed my view on him. He's a pathological liar, attention-seeker, vengeful narcissist, obsessed about his public image who's unable to handle criticism.
I guess we all have these things in side of us and given the wrong circumstances people let them out. I am definitely compassionate towards Musk, as I for myself have made the experience that stress can bring out very negative sides within you, if you don't stay aware and relaxed to not get carried away of such feelings. It cannot be an apology and hopefully Musk recognizes that it is not his true self acting but stress and anxiety projected on others.
Why would anyone do what he's doing? There is no way to be be in the public eye and manage this and be total. He grew up outside the US is in the cold war being told every day that a dispute between countries he didn't live in would wipe the world clean. Assange grew up in the same hacker environment. Different tracks for sure. The world gave a smart kid nothing but terror. He said he'll fix it AND leave at the same time. A mix of PTSD, pathalogical demand avoidance, giftedness and opportunity.
No one that had a brain would want the guys job. I'm not using it as an excuse, he's not a savior. He is doing neat shit, but he wants an unreal hat trick and is just the same as the rest of us on this rock. Even if/when he leaves, it'll all still be with him.
I think his cars are fun and rockets are cool, but if I think about the human side... it's more than a bit mad.
It strikes me that many very successful people are incredibly smart and driven but seem to have the emotional maturity, or personal introspection, of a 10 year old. Maybe it's just a necessary combination for this kind of success, but it's also a bit paradoxical. Case in point: buying 5 mansions in Bel Air when you spend all your time at work, literally sleeping under your desk. Another is insisting on burning the candle at both ends by sleeping 4 hours a night, when it has been proven beyond doubt that it's extremely counter-productive to do so, both in terms of mental ability and overall health.
Emotional development and personal growth don't happen automatically with age. Time and effort must be devoted to it - although for most people that is not an issue because the things that allow you to grow are mostly things that we instinctively seek, like interpersonal relationships.
It's a well known fact that people who suffer from severe addictions (drugs, etc) get stuck in the emotional stage of development they were at when the issue started. It wouldn't be crazy to assume that the same effect (to a less extreme degree) will occur for people who devote all their time and effort to very specific facets of their lives.
There's also the fact that the usual social feedback and consequences that regular folk are subjected to don't necessarily apply to successful people: They might not ever be challenged by their circle of yes men, they don't depend on other people to survive so critics can be safely ignored, etc.
He doesn't actually spend all his time at the factory. He's mostly in LA. There are people on Twitter who track the flights of his private jet. He's mostly in LA, he'll go to the bay area maybe for a day a week. More rarely to Reno. If he's spending all his time working, it's at SpaceX of anything. But more likely he spends his time at home searching his own name on Twitter.
The insane work hours stories are just part of the mythology.
Why do you guys say this is a negative article about Musk? Did you read the whole of it? It's quite a fair story about the downs and ups of Tesla in the past couple of years, and some of Musk's weird behaviors.
In the end, as the article mentioned, Tesla got through the 'production hell', October's financial reports were positive and Musk's emotions went back to (more) normal levels.
Even after reading this, I do think Musk genuinely, truly wants to change humanity for the better and believes that that's what he's doing. And I think he actually is to a large extent. But stuff like the examples in this article and his social media behavior show he has no problem regularly being an abusive, cruel, immature, rageful, narcissistic, despotic asshole to individual people to get there - even to the people who've sacrificed and contributed so much to help him get there.
I don't think he should be written off entirely, but he has a lot of learning and growing to do.
People like Musk are necessary. You can't create great things without a mind outside of the norm, and a mind outside of the norm is often unstable. Most people wouldn't manage (psychologically) to be in Musk's position, much less get to the point where he is now.
It isn't fair (what happened to this engineer), but hardly anything in life is fair. What's important is to realize this and be able to move on. As an engineer in the US, he is already one of the luckiest people on Earth.
There are several billion people on this planet. If we push out the asshole savants, then there will be room for the respectful savants who have been there all along.
There are too many well-educated, compassionate, clever people out there for “nobody else can do it but this specific abusive asshole” to stand up as an argument.
I agree. Without somewhat maniacal (of the obsessive enthusiasm variety) personalities grand achievements would be difficult to realize. It takes that kind of person.
I tend to dislike hatchet-jobs like this article, as they're flush with stories that appear absolutely bonkers on the surface, and very light on detail of positive interactions of any kind. The man may be a bit bananas, but all great men and women are, at least a bit. As a cautionary tale, it's a powerful article. But I hardly see it has objective in it's reporting, and serving a somewhat click-baity audience already dubious of the man.
Watching inside spacex there seemed to me to be a very tense and cautious relationship between Musk and people who had to interact with him. Apart from any nerves about launching. This article clarifies what I saw.
For the last year or so, the mass of Tesla negativity around here at least used to pretend to be around their product or market or finances. Now that they're doing really well, all thats left is a torrent of increasingly comical over-the-top denunciations of Musk.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, there are a lot of parallels to Jobs' Macintosh factory. He was similarly overeager with automation, and even coerced the executives to have the machines painted.
Jobs kind of had a point. Americans appear to have a tolerance for filth and grime in the workplace that people from other developed countries do not. I'm to understand that German auto mechanics, for instance, keep their workplaces spotlessly clean in contrast to the "grease monkeys" that prevail in the USA. And Jobs had always wanted to bring the same style and refinement from the best European product design studios to his own products...
Musk reminds me of the North Korean man-child, touring the factories to dole out his expertise. The only difference is Musk can’t put you in a concentration camp.
And to think that some people think of him like he is/was some sort of demi-god, saviour, genious, mankind's last hope. In fact guys like Musk or Steve Jobs are just arrogant assholes with big egos, happy to take credit for the hard work of all the fruits of their engineers doing bulk of the work.
None of us should aspire to emulate this way to greatness. You'll lose everything and for your reward, people will say, he was successful. If you can ever find someone who does not know you, maybe you could pretend to be different and they might like you, but you won't like yourself.
Why would anyone work there if this is the case? I agree that Tesla cars are very futuristic, but glory all goes to the company and Elon. Do employee get like a huge bonus or something if they survived long enough? There's got be a reason this article is not mentioning.
The entire Mars, gonna save the world shtick? It's a recruitment ploy. Most of his claims don't hold up to closer scrutiny, but it's aimed at young tech professionals who _really want_ for their job to make sense, so much, that they're willing to overlook both the evidence it might not _and_ the bad quality of a job offer, just to hook themselves to someone who has a "bright vision."
Truth is, much of tech nowadays doesn't even pretend to care about any benefit to society. And spotting a scam, when a part of the scam is literally offering you a sense of self-worth? That requires some rather painful introspection.
I find it very strange that I’ve never seen a single article like this about SpaceX. Doesn’t it stand to reason that if musk runs both companies, there would also be a juicy scoop about SpaceX employees and their hardship? I suppose it has nothing to do with the fact that Tesla is publicly traded and SpaceX is not.
Elon musk was totally rational during the Thai submarine thing. He posted a series of very logical and straightforward suggestions, was then asked by the divers to implement the submarine, and was consequently called a fraud by some random person who had associated himself with the rescue. It was quite rude. Elon responses in kind and in my opinion he was very measured in his reply considering he had just received a very unfair and mean molestation of his character. But all this wired article says is that he called someone a pedo, as if he had lost his mind. A lack of essential context is conspicuously absent.
I wish more people realised the truth behind the PR construction that is Elon Musk and stop calling him an 'inventor' and 'engineer'. He is neither. He got lucky a few times and has somehow managed to persuade people that he 'invented' Paypal (he didn't - and was in fact sacked when X.com was bought), that he 'invented' the electric car (nope, the Victorians did that), that he 'invented' the Hyperloop (again, the Victorians) and that he 'invented' reusable rockets (again, not him). He is a massive fraud and a paper tiger.
Most of the things you claim that he says he never did say. The idea that he claims that he invented the electric car or reusable rockets is utter nonsense and you will not find one quote that makes that statment.
Claiming that he is not an engineer is just more nonsense. He is the chief engineer of the falcon rocket and many people inside and outside of SpaceX have said to be highly impressed with what he does.
If you don't like Elon that is fine, but this post is just nonsense.
[+] [-] dkersten|7 years ago|reply
> Over the previous year, he had been living out of a suitcase, putting in 13-hour days, seven days a week.
This story is a good reminder not to do this. The company will usually not return the favour, you rarely get properly rewarded for crazy hours, yet it has a major impact on your health (both mental and physical) in the long run. Not worth it.
> It was not a 9 to 5 company. People were already working hard; now Musk was implying they needed to do more.
No wonder things were going to shit. Nobody can do good work if they don't get enough rest and have too much stress.
> Three months after that, it would report profits of $312 million, well beyond Wall Street’s expectations.
How much of this money did the employees get for all the overtime they were forced to work?
> Tesla, ... that some aspects were “overly dramatized,” “abbreviated,” and “ultimately misleading anecdotes that completely lack essential context.” ... “Elon cares very deeply about the people who work at his companies. ...
For the sake of everybody working for him, I really really hope this is true and not just PR firefighting and that the story misrepresented what actually happened. I'm not convinced, based on Musk's twitter outbursts and such, but I still hope this story is mostly false.
[+] [-] hopefulengineer|7 years ago|reply
Steve jobs did the same thing, their marketing was all about pushing how apple users think different and are changing the world by being mindless consumers
[+] [-] baldfat|7 years ago|reply
I just don't get how we just can't over turn them politically state by state in State Elections. How is this not a thing? I live in an At Will State (PA) and it pretty much sucks to have the knowledge I can be fired for any reason and sure I still can sue but I can still lose even though I am 100% in the right.
[+] [-] taneq|7 years ago|reply
And yet it's also a perfect example of the one time it does make sense to do so, which is when you own a decent chunk of the company that you're doing it for.
> No wonder things were going to shit. Nobody can do good work if they don't get enough rest and have too much stress.
Yeah, that kind of effort is not sustainable for more than a few months at most. Trying to push too hard just burns out your best people, even (especially?) if they're part owners.
[+] [-] njarboe|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whiddershins|7 years ago|reply
> How much of this money did the employees get for all the overtime they were forced to work?
Did someone somehow compel someone else to work those hours? I imagine most Tesla employees are at the top of their field, and have many jobs to choose from. If someone chose to work like that, there must have been a motivation, it doesn't seem like they would have been forced.
[+] [-] api|7 years ago|reply
I remember years ago reading article after article and forum post after forum post about how once we finally deplete oil transportation will revert to the 19th century. I don't read that anymore.
I have little doubt that without Tesla you wouldn't see a dozen other EVs on the market. You might have one or two crappy "compliance cars," but nobody else would be striving to make EVs anyone actually wants to buy.
I am not arguing with you. I don't disagree with much of anything that you wrote.
One of the things that keeps me up at night and frankly depresses me is the question: can you lead or otherwise achieve great things without being an asshole?
Steve Jobs? Asshole. Winston Churchill? Asshole. Stanley Kubrick? Asshole. Bill Gates? Quieter, but judging from MS's behavior in the 80s and 90s, asshole. I could go on.
I'm a founder and have been trying for quite a while to build something great without being an asshole or a total workaholic. It's hard, and I sometimes worry that I'm failing.
Anyone got any good inspiring counterexamples?
I have a speculation about why this might be. The human brain is wired for the much slower, simpler life of a hunter-gatherer. In a modern context most people exist in a state of low-grade depression. We're not really all that driven and our appetite for opportunity and action is calibrated for a world where opportunities for those things are much more rare.
There are ways of tweaking oneself chemically (pun intended): caffeine, amphetamine, cocaine, modafinil. Unfortunately all these have side effects. They accelerate thought but they also muddle or impair it.
But...
Occasionally you get people who are naturally wired with an extreme degree of drive and charisma. It's not that these people are necessarily smarter than everyone else, though some are certainly smart. It's that they operate naturally at a pace that fits the modern world.
Here's where the magic comes in.
Humans are deeply mimetic. We pick up and unconsciously mirror the states of those around us. It's part of why concentrated centers of excellence such as those found in urban settings are often so mysteriously alluring and powerful. When we are around people who are driven to excellence, it increases our drive to excellence.
So you get this positive emotional-mimetic field around these people. Everyone else around them gets tweaked up too.
Unfortunately these traits seem coincident with narcissism, antisocial personality disorders, even full on psychopathy in some cases. So you have these inspiring, driven, animating assholes that seem superhumanly powerful simply because they are not (in modern terms) naturally depressed and anhedonic.
Like I said it's depressing. This is one of those thoughts where if I were proven to be wrong I'd celebrate.
[+] [-] Aromaisn|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spuz|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|7 years ago|reply
https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/6i5aef/wp_a...
[+] [-] grecy|7 years ago|reply
I feel like this is exactly the kind of quirky thing he'd do anyway, without all that negative stuff.
[+] [-] Derek_MK|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Graham24|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stuntkite|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paxys|7 years ago|reply
Musk really is the asshole abusive boss who gets a pass because of his media fame.
I urge anyone in a situation similar to the employees mentioned in the article to simply quit. Giving up your life and dignity for "the cause" isn't worth it. You aren't changing the world, just killing yourself to make some rich people richer.
[+] [-] wpietri|7 years ago|reply
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000Q9J0RO
It's Lundy Bancroft's, "Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men". It's the single most astute thing I've ever read. The guy spent more than a decade as a counselor for abusive men, most of them ordered to him by the courts. It's clear he heard an ocean of bullshit and became very good at seeing through it.
It's targeted at domestic abuse, but his insights are so clear and well-explained that it's easy to apply the lessons elsewhere. E.g., a couple of years back my boss got pushed out, so suddenly I was being managed by his boss. I walked out of my first meeting with him wondering what the fuck had just happened; everything I said he jumped on aggressively. But the pattern rang a bell, so I thumbed through the book. He lists a variety of abuser styles, and the one called "Mr. Right" fit him perfectly. In one meeting he hit something like 2/3rds of the items in the checklist.
Had I not read that, I would have probably walked away thinking that the problem was me, even though my original boss had been happy with me and my work. Instead, I was prepared for what came next: a couple more abusive meetings and then a surprise, no-notice "layoff" where I and the other manager my boss hired were pushed out. (And where we were asked to sign a no-disparagement clause if we wanted any severance. Seeing it a further abuser-style manipulation, I passed.)
Over the years I've given away maybe 15 copies of the book, often to people who were in abusive relationships without recognizing it. If you ever even begin to wonder, I strongly recommend reading the book.
[+] [-] nem000|7 years ago|reply
I've recently read Walter Isaacson's "The Innovators" and there seem to be at least a couple of counterexamples (Robert Noyce for instance). Any other examples of tech leaders who lead their companies in a friendly and open manner and are successful despite (or probably because) of that?
[+] [-] arethuza|7 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cheshire
Edit:
Worth reading the list of missions he was on then the description of how he led:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cheshire#Cheshire_as_o...
[+] [-] tk75x|7 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Suvorov#Assessment
"He had a great simplicity of manner, and while on a campaign lived as a private soldier, sleeping on straw and contenting himself with the humblest fare.[43] Suvorov was adored by his men and considered victory dependent on the morale, training, and initiative of the front-line soldier. In battle he emphasized speed and mobility, accuracy of gunfire and the use of the bayonet, as well as detailed planning and careful strategy. He abandoned traditional drills and instead communicated with his troops in ways that proved clear and understandable. Suvorov also took great care of his army's supplies and living conditions, reducing cases of illness among his soldiers dramatically."
[+] [-] WhompingWindows|7 years ago|reply
This piece is okay, it provides a number of anecdotes by former employees, how do we verify these are accurate and not misleading? They square with some former reports, but do not square with other positive anecdotes I've read. This is the problem with using anecdotes as evidence.
In my view, executives and other high-ranking individuals are often mean and unfair due to extreme ambition and very high, sustained stress levels. Could someone without extreme ambition have even gotten to this point with Tesla? Do you recall how many bullshit hit pieces, legal obstacles, and issues there have been standing in Tesla's way?
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] RivieraKid|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kire2345|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stuntkite|7 years ago|reply
No one that had a brain would want the guys job. I'm not using it as an excuse, he's not a savior. He is doing neat shit, but he wants an unreal hat trick and is just the same as the rest of us on this rock. Even if/when he leaves, it'll all still be with him.
I think his cars are fun and rockets are cool, but if I think about the human side... it's more than a bit mad.
[+] [-] VBprogrammer|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] purplethinking|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kace91|7 years ago|reply
It's a well known fact that people who suffer from severe addictions (drugs, etc) get stuck in the emotional stage of development they were at when the issue started. It wouldn't be crazy to assume that the same effect (to a less extreme degree) will occur for people who devote all their time and effort to very specific facets of their lives.
There's also the fact that the usual social feedback and consequences that regular folk are subjected to don't necessarily apply to successful people: They might not ever be challenged by their circle of yes men, they don't depend on other people to survive so critics can be safely ignored, etc.
[+] [-] mhermher|7 years ago|reply
The insane work hours stories are just part of the mythology.
[+] [-] RivieraKid|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wilonth|7 years ago|reply
In the end, as the article mentioned, Tesla got through the 'production hell', October's financial reports were positive and Musk's emotions went back to (more) normal levels.
[+] [-] meowface|7 years ago|reply
I don't think he should be written off entirely, but he has a lot of learning and growing to do.
[+] [-] dgut|7 years ago|reply
It isn't fair (what happened to this engineer), but hardly anything in life is fair. What's important is to realize this and be able to move on. As an engineer in the US, he is already one of the luckiest people on Earth.
[+] [-] gilrain|7 years ago|reply
There are too many well-educated, compassionate, clever people out there for “nobody else can do it but this specific abusive asshole” to stand up as an argument.
[+] [-] andrew_|7 years ago|reply
I tend to dislike hatchet-jobs like this article, as they're flush with stories that appear absolutely bonkers on the surface, and very light on detail of positive interactions of any kind. The man may be a bit bananas, but all great men and women are, at least a bit. As a cautionary tale, it's a powerful article. But I hardly see it has objective in it's reporting, and serving a somewhat click-baity audience already dubious of the man.
[+] [-] LaGrange|7 years ago|reply
That sounds like Kim in a factory posing as important. You have to wonder if he even knew what "this" was.
[+] [-] rezeroed|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] martythemaniak|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thisacctforreal|7 years ago|reply
Excerpts from Walter Isaacson's biography: https://imgur.com/a/WlJ7wsD
Some videos: http://strategosinc.com/articles/strategy/apple-foxconn-stra...
[+] [-] bitwize|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madengr|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ensiferum|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pcunite|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ConfusedDog|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LaGrange|7 years ago|reply
Truth is, much of tech nowadays doesn't even pretend to care about any benefit to society. And spotting a scam, when a part of the scam is literally offering you a sense of self-worth? That requires some rather painful introspection.
[+] [-] nuguy|7 years ago|reply
Elon musk was totally rational during the Thai submarine thing. He posted a series of very logical and straightforward suggestions, was then asked by the divers to implement the submarine, and was consequently called a fraud by some random person who had associated himself with the rescue. It was quite rude. Elon responses in kind and in my opinion he was very measured in his reply considering he had just received a very unfair and mean molestation of his character. But all this wired article says is that he called someone a pedo, as if he had lost his mind. A lack of essential context is conspicuously absent.
[+] [-] danzig13|7 years ago|reply
It is just sad that Tesla could be a much healthier and successful company if all those first string people where still there.
[+] [-] Wiretrip|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickik|7 years ago|reply
Claiming that he is not an engineer is just more nonsense. He is the chief engineer of the falcon rocket and many people inside and outside of SpaceX have said to be highly impressed with what he does.
If you don't like Elon that is fine, but this post is just nonsense.