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Comment by frgtpsswrdlame | Hacker News Reader

So everybody seems to be getting a bit skiddish because of Elon's recent behavior. The question to me is, are these people departing because Tesla is a house of cards and Elon is shaking the table? Or are they leaving because they believe Elon threatens even a stable company what with the SEC investigation and everything?

I'd love to be a fly on the wall for the after drinks conversations between finance people in TSLA.

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Musk's strategy seems to make himself more of a distraction, in order to deflect away from the poor financials and performance of the company.

On it's current trajectory, Tesla is burning. But hey, here's a picture of me smoking weed. Did you know we are going to go private? Psych.

Tesla: Deloreane circa 2010s

Or they change jobs as much as we do and its not newsworthy at all?

Finance people don't change jobs that frequently. They usually spend years at gigs before leaving.

It is especially unusual for finance executives to leave so shortly after joining a new company. Barring serious family issues, it generally indicates serious financial problems at the new employer.

They’re leaving because they can make a lot more money elsewhere. TSLA has been very volatile while everything else has been going hockey stick for the past two years.

Dave Morton left after one month.

And left a $10 million vesting stock grant on the table.

They are probably leaving because Elon works them like he works his engineers. They want nice cushy executive jobs and Elon does not give those to them. Finance people are a dime a dozen. It's not as if any actual irreplaceable knowledge is being lost here.

It always amazes me how some people dismiss and underestimate every profession except their own, but fail to see the irony and hypocrisy in that.

But isn't that right though? Tesla build cars, not fintech products. What irreplaceable knowledge are they losing in this particular case?

Leading finance for a capital intensive company like Tesla is not a 'dime a dozen' job.

Tesla builds cars by relying on very complex financing. Financing is critical to Tesla existing for the long term.

Any knowledge which wasn't transferred into a document of some kind will either be lost or have to be re-learned by experience.

High turnover in any sector is terrible for business. This is true even for relatively "unskilled" labor: informal, often unwritten practices between workers are essential to any kind of collaborative work. See the "slightly different sense" here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule

Tesla is asking suppliers to return money already paid to them. Turnover in the finance department probably impedes those negotiations.

Not in this case. The only reason Tesla is known is solely because of engineering and design.

Finance workers are used to working insane hours, especially on Wall St., so I'm not sure I buy that. My theory - finance people are more familiar with the law and less willing to skirt it. They know the consequence can lead to them personally going to jail or getting their CPA revoked.

It's only insane hours for 4-10 years right?

From what I can tell, I-bankers put in their time and either rise to a cushier role within the bank or they get into something else.

It depends on the role. If you rise into a position where you are managing customer relationships or otherwise have a P&L that is directly attributable to you, your hours become - not necessarily shorter - but not the primary thing you are judged on. An M&A banker who spends two days a week on the golf course and only rolls into the office once a week on a Thursday afternoon to tell his colleagues about the new mandate he secured for the firm isn't going to get shit from anyone. On the other hand - above a certain level, no sales = good night, sweet prince.

Juniors are judged by long hours and making sure their commas are perfect (in documents rarely read by clients) because there is nothing else to judge them on.

You are aware that not allowing boss to take advantage of you when you have choice is a good thing?

Like, Musk abuses his engineers who meekly accept that sort of thing. The theory that finance people standind up to it is something bad is absurd.

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