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Comment by Reedx | Hacker News Reader

> Will Elon stop with tweets that hurt Tesla? Appoint a CEO, or COO to run things

People have been saying that for years and years. It's beyond stale. Meanwhile Tesla and SpaceX have continued to succeed beyond expectations for over a decade now. If there's occasional twitter volatility in-between simultaneously landing two rockets returning from space... so be it.

Besides, if it bothers you that much, you don't have to buy their cars or invest or even pay attention to it. The constant handwringing, mind reading and speech policing is ridiculous. That's how we end up with nothing but layers upon layers of focus tested marketing speak and people afraid to challenge orthodoxy.

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> Meanwhile Tesla and SpaceX have continued to succeed beyond expectations for over a decade now.

I think people underestimate how essential Gwynne Shotwell is to SpaceX.

Yeah for process but there’s no spacex without Elon.

I personally feel there's a big overlap between Jobs and Musk—but none more so than the fact that they had the key combination of sufficient intelligence, clear vision, high self-confidence and (most importantly) strong influence over corporate direction.

One of my favourite Steve Jobs quotes is just after he returned to Apple and began dismantling the massive pile of legacy cruft. When asked about a particular (terrible) technology that Apple scrapped, Steve went on a particularly insightful rant that holds numerous insights into what he believes to be key to a successful company. And history proved those insights to be exactly right.

The quote— "Some mistakes will be made along the way. That's good. Because at least some DECISIONS are being made along the way, and we'll find the mistakes and we'll fix them." https://youtu.be/yQ16_YxLbB8?t=3286

In other words, as long as you're right often enough, being decisive is more important than being right every single time. Musk strikes me as sharing that mentality. He's right often enough that it's more efficient to "fix" the mistakes than to suffocate big decisions with big committees. And it's not like any big committee is sure to be right more often than Jobs/Elon anyway.

(That YouTube video is fantastic IMHO. Watched with the benefit of hindsight it shows that Apple's success wasn't an accident. Steve really did understand the formula that ultimately led to it.)

I love this comment. Thanks for sharing.

I don’t think Jobs was ever as irresponsible as Elon is. At least not publically.

Far more in many respects. Treatment of Wozniak, the Apple II project, refusing to correct his vision on the Macintosh, etc. Treatment of key employees. It became public enough.

Steve had personality flaws at least as severe as Elon. The difference was Steve was a much better showman and had a laser focus on the nuances of messaging. Whereas Elon embodies the age of Twitter.

Yes, there are plenty of specific events where any sensible person would have slapped Elon on the back of the head and told him to stop being an idiot. Ultimately though, Elon's "irresponsibility" is largely a problem within the press, the short-sellers and with regulators who are lobbied by aforementioned short-sellers. Whatever. Let them sook. It's not like any of Elon's failings have affected Tesla sales or SpaceX successes.

I differ, in that I don't think Steve Jobs had a clear vision that he could communicate to others. I think he was very, very gifted as someone who could see the right path forward, and he seemed to execute ruthlessly.

The evidence I would put forth is that, in the decade since Steve Jobs died, Apple has added a watch to their lineup, and changed virtually nothing else. Their supply chain efficiencies might be better, but without Steve to look at what the rest of the world was offering, and to say, "That is all shit, THIS is what should be next", Apple has merely been a high-end manufacturer of electronics.

Elon, on the other hand, has a very clear vision, and it can be communicated in simple statements: "Humanity needs to be a multiplanetary species". "Electric vehicles are the only viable, sustainable means of mass short range travel".

When you combine this with the drive he has to succeed, you get people lined up behind him, not because they want to emulate him, but because their goals are aligned. The people who work at SpaceX want humanity to go to Mars - not because Elon says so, but because they know it has to happen for us to survive, and because Elon's company is the best hope we have right now.

> in the decade since Steve Jobs died, Apple has added a watch to their lineup, and changed virtually nothing else

The Watch is incredibly popular, AirPods are a runaway hit, the iPad Pro is killing it, the new Mac Pro is awesome, Apple Music took off, Apple Pay/Card is super popular....

I genuinely don't know why you say they haven't done anything.

If anything it's incredible that the company manages to stay true to itself time and time again. That's a testament to the strength of the culture Steve left behind.

People somehow hope that Apple can create an iPhone every 5/10 years, a product whole sales dwarf the revenues of Microsoft+Google taken entirely probably over the last 10 years. Yeah, not gonna happen. The iPhone is the most profitable consumer electronics product of all time maybe. You can't really re create it again and again.

Yeah and I believe if SJ had twitter at his (prime) time we would have seen a lot of "questionable" moments like we're seeing with Elon.

(Or at least it would have leaked much easier through the grapevine)

> I differ, in that I don't think Steve Jobs had a clear vision that he could communicate to others.

I never said he was a good communicator of vision. That said, just because Jobs failed to steer Apple from the grave isn’t evidence of failure on his part. The value of a person like Steve can’t be distilled into reproducible learnings—his value was in his ability to make real time decisions in service of a clear unified vision.

Even if you could find some replacement person who shared his vision, that doesn’t mean you can get everyone to cede to their proclamations like they would have with Steve.

He was an expert "editor" -- he knew what to say no to, and that's more powerful often than what to say yes to.

> Elon, on the other hand, has a very clear vision, and it can be communicated in simple statements

That’s only because Elon’s particular house style lends to such vacuous motherhood statements. I have no problem with vacuous motherhood statements, but please recognise that they are fan service, not company vision.

Elon’s style is great for growing a niche fan base. Steve perfected the art of turning niche fan base into mass market appeal.

> I don't think Steve Jobs had a clear vision that he could communicate to others

What are you basing this on? Seems to me that Apple leadership is pretty well aligned on a shared vision despite however large it's grown. That speaks to the fact that he managed to put (or at least didn't prevent) a successful leadership structure in place that continues to succeed regardless of his presence. It's a supremely difficult challenge & aligns with a lot of the insights that David Marquet makes in Turn This Ship Around. Regardless of any of the detail differences, the only way to measure successful leadership is it's resilience to changing out individuals in any given position.

I don't feel like she's underestimated. I do feel she's under-spoken.

Anyone who scratches the surface of SpaceX knows she's an absolute force.

Elon says things during press conferences ranging from semi-ridiculous to full on crazy and Shotwell rarely comments, but when she does, it's taken rather seriously.

> Shotwell rarely comments, but when she does, it's taken rather seriously

That's for sure. Elon can spout whatever he wants and space reporters, etc, will be like "Ok, Elon says this, but temper your expectations". When Gwynne Shotwell says something, the response is usually pretty much "Ok, this is happening."

I love Shotwell, but there are a number of people who could do a fair job to run rocket operations. Its not like other rocket companies have major issues with running operations. The part that no other company can do is the part that Elon does, and that is ultimately why the operation side is so successful.

Yeah, I don't see Dave Calhoun, Tory Bruno, or Peter Ruddock sleeping on the factory floor. That said, they don't need to. I'd want to work for Elon in my 20s. I'm not sure I'd want Elon to be my CEO one year before my pension vests.

"Its not like other rocket companies have major issues with running operations."

I think in light of the issues with SLS, you might want to reconsider this in terms of Boeing.

Boeing doesn't have rocket operations right now. They are building a rocket as a NASA contractor. NASA runs the operations and NASA made the design of SLS.

Is it so much to ask for him to tweet responsibly so we can enjoy the fun future stuff without all the bullshit?

> Is it so much to ask for him to tweet responsibly so we can enjoy the fun future stuff without all the bullshit?

I don't know, that rave cave in Berlin sounds pretty awesome, and that was from a tweet. The Pedo thing was in poor taste, sure, but they got Tesla guys working on a sub to get some kids out of the cave, so you have to see the positive outweighing the negative. Besides, he won that case and no one here cared.

The Truth is that his controversy is part of his Branding Prowess, him smoking weed on JRE created way much more awareness for everything he is involved in amongst the masses more than I thought it would. And I saw it happen live.

> - TSLA trying to run an amazon HQ2 like process for Truck and Model Y factories, look for small, southern, and poor cities to bid and probably win

Does this apply to Cybertruck or Semi? I was thinking of putting a deposit on a dual motor Cybertruck but I'm waiting to see where it will be built.

Fremont was already building Y does that mean they will stop if they get another US based factory online? I just don't understand why Sparks isn't being utilized, its so f'ing massive!

I didn't say he shouldn't tweet about having a dance club, try to save kids, smoke weed, or be weird.

He just shouldn't do irresponsible things like spread misinformation about a global pandemic or lie.

> The Pedo thing was in poor taste, sure

Poor taste is one thing, potentially ruining someone's life is another.

To be clear, he tried to destroy an innocent man/hero's life because said guy dared criticize his attempt to take the glory for himself. He then doubled and tripled down on it and hired a fraudulent private investigator to prove it (he did not). There are those of us that care very much and find actions like that horrific, but we're in the silent minority apparently. It struck me as the actions of a sociopath.

Why do you feel like that is appropriate behavior?

> Why do you feel like that is appropriate behavior?

Honestly, its a means to an end. He has beceome the defacto person for the EV movement, Mars colonization, and to a degree AI (for good or for bad).

many have tried before him, but none had the savvyness or presence that he has.

I worked for Kimabl and approached him several times while at work and I can tell you right now, I would never try that with Elon. My friend asked if I saw Elon at either Tesla or SpaceX when I went to my interviews, I told him if he was I'd walk other way. Definitely say thank you in passing, but that's about it.

He's not someone I'd bother, I like what he does and how it effects all the movements I care about, that's how I justify it. The polemics from his twitter antics can be entertaining at times, and that's engaging a broader audience so I encourage it as well.

His stance on COVID was misinformed to say the least, but he isn't an epidemiologist so I'm not going to listen to him on that. When i want to hear about Starship SN4 I'm all ears.

He’s not an epidemiologist. He’s not an engineer. He’s a businessman. And by pissing so many people off, he’s definitely not being a good businessman.

> He’s not an epidemiologist. He’s not an engineer. He’s a businessman. And by pissing so many people off, he’s definitely not being a good businessman.

Sure.

But you're pointing your ire at the wrong person, I'm not in the 'Cult of Elon' and here to defend his antics; I'm responding to someone asking why I accept it for what it is, and how it benefits the things I care about. I forgot to mention Starlink, too.

But, last I checked he is actually the Chief Engineer of SpaceX and Starship [1].

I don't entirely disagree with your assessment, but as I said, its a means to an end.

And the truth is he actually can piss off who ever he wants, and still be a good business man so long as he gets the Best Talent in the World lining up work for him (for little money) and people falling over themselves to give him funding and politicians letting him prototype stuff underground in one of the most seismically active places in N. America (SoCal/San Andreas Fault line) because he 'gets things done.'

1: https://www.spacex.com/news/2019/09/30/starship-update

And because I can't edit my first post:

Cybertruck is being made in Texas:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/tesla-will-build-i...

Interesting choice, there were rumors at the SpaceX launch facility in Boca Chica that he was thinking of Texas as a new giga factory. But also, Texas has some of the cheapest gas in all of the US, I hadn't seen 99 cent gas since 1999 and yet on my trip there I saw it multiple times in various cities in Texas and there were so many big lifted trucks going 100 MPH everywhere.

He's definitely an engineer. He's going into his companies' factor floor, making engineering decisions day in and day out. Good or bad, the bucks stopped with him.

Is it so much to ask of the world to just get over the fact that sometimes highly intelligent and highly effective people are also sometimes highly disagreeable? I would argue this is often the case, but most of them are never allowed to flourish. Forcing everything to be cookie cutter agreeable niceness is how you achieve stagnation.

It's entirely normal and healthy to constantly question whether we've gone too far by locking everyone up inside for months on end. Even if that answer is mostly: no, it's not.

It seems people today are okay with trying to weed out anyone who they think is "wrong" from being able to communicate. That scares me more than Elon tweeting.

I strongly believe it's good having "crazy" or "wrong" people challenging the norms, especially when they have good intentions and contribute meaningfully to the conversation. Society has always had these sorts of people on the edges/fringes and the world didn't end. Frequently they helped move things along for the better.

That doesn't mean we should kill any conversation before it even starts - or, even crazier, calling to prevent them from running their own companies because they express unpopular opinions in their spare time.

You're talking as if he was frank but rude, or exprimed himself in crude words, "à la" Linus.

Elon is the one that leaked/lied about Saudi investment money, or chose to call a rescuer a pedophile (and by extension all expats in thailand pedophiles) just because the man in question was focusing on saving kids and couldn't be bothered with Elon's constant attention seeking during that crisis.

High executives being incisive, direct and sometimes not socially good enough is expected; only the best of the best manage to do that (one exemple in the tech world would be Gates). But being insulting and losing control is not.

Yes! it´s too much to ask someone who is trying to do non-conformist things to conform. You can´t have your cake and eat it too.

Also what you call bullshit is not bullshit to everyone. You don´t like it? dont invest. Leave the rest of us be.

Investor fraud isn't just whimsy nonconformism.

That's not what OP is saying. OP is saying what makes Elon good at his job is always what makes him say a meme tweet that gets him in trouble with the SEC. You get both.

Though he might have visionary moments of non-conformity, it sets an awful precedent to allow people to violate common ethics in order to allow them to just "be themselves."

It would be awful but ethics change often so what can you do.

> meme tweet that gets him in trouble with the SEC

The "meme tweet" defrauded investors. He barely got in any trouble with the SEC relative to what it was.

> non-conformist

I'd use the word "immature" instead.

For some definition of mature. You can think of behavior as being convergent or divergent. When performing optimally, convergent behavior follows the herd and produces incremental innovation. Again when performing optimally, divergent behavior shoots off in unexpected directions and produces disruptive innovation.

We tend to associate maturity with convergent behavior. Musk is clearly divergent so, in that sense, he is immature. As he should be.

Both behaviors are needed for society as a whole to progress. There is not one better optimization choice. Many Musk detractors or supporters make the error of assuming one optimization is better than the other, when it is not clearly the case.

Can we accept Musk as an immature valid individual? We should.

> We tend to associate maturity with convergent behavior.

Not me. A lot of very mature people were/are going against the flow, because their maturity does not allow them to participate in the madness that is the preexisting reality they find themselves in. For a trivial example, see for example how a lot of older, more mature developers have harder time adapting to shitty companies. For more extreme cases, see Simone Veil, Ghandi etc.

Ideally, yes, it's too much to ask - ever - since people should just brush off the bullshit and get on with their lives. However, society in general has developed a really thin skin over the past couple of decades, so realistically, no, it's not too much to ask - right now.

>That's how we end up with nothing but layers upon layers of focus tested marketing speak and people afraid to challenge orthodoxy.

A billionaire with a massive social media presence publicly mocking some random guy in Thailand: speaking truth to power.

A billionaire lying about his company going private: speaking the truth that others dare not.

Of course what Musk does matters. He's the CEO.

And his erratic and reprehensible behaviour is degrading the Tesla brand as well as reaffirming the long held idea amongst shareholders that he is too unstable to be running the company.

Nobody is perfect. Mr. Musk shown that he could build from the ground up and manage several large companies. Could he be even better ? Maybe. But until Tesla and SpaceX can find someone unequivocally better than Mr. Musk, those companies will have to do (and maybe fail) with him.

I can think of no important way in which Tesla or SpaceX would be significantly more successful today if Musk had publicly communicated more like a standard CEO.

It's not degrading the Tesla brand though. Tesla is the second largest automaker in the world by market cap. Toyota, the only company larger than Tesla, was founded 65 years before Tesla. What Musk (and all Tesla employees) have built so far is nothing short of astounding. To imply he's leading them to ruin with his unfiltered twitter account could not be farther from the truth.

There would be no Tesla brand without him. The brand is quite literally "We are building electric cars, get the fuck out of our way!" so I think it's pretty on brand for him to be saying what he's saying.

The man demands action, if he didn't he wouldn't be running the most ambitious companies on the planet.

"There would be no Tesla brand without him."

> Founded as Tesla Motors, Tesla was incorporated on July 1, 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.

Yeah and who knew about it? Nobody.

Sure but being a good publicist doesn’t mean you’re a good CEO.

What products did they have before Elon?

Before Elon Tesla was 2 guys with a piece of paper saying 'we should build Electric cars'.

Elon provided most of the funding, and it wouldn't have gotten of the ground without him.

Next Eberhard ran the company straight into the ground and Elon had to take over.

Then Elon had to invest even more money to save the company.

From there he made it one of the most valuable car companies in the world.

Thus, anybody who thinks Tesla would actually exist without Elon is just a fool.

>> And his erratic and reprehensible behaviour is degrading the Tesla brand as well as reaffirming the long held idea amongst shareholders that he is too unstable to be running the company.

Good point. Stock is collapsing relative to SPY and the Q1 report was just brutal, wasn't it?

As Peter Thiel famously said, "Never bet against Elon Musk."

I'm a shareholder. I expect that Elon's leadership will make my shares go up an incredible amount in the future.

I have over half of my life savings at stake on TSLA, so I have a lot of skin in the game. If you think he's so bad, why don't you short his stock?

It would be fun to check back in six months and compare how we did!

> As Peter Thiel famously said, "Never bet against Elon Musk."

Yes, because for better or worse Elon is "seeing the future" and has the capability to execute it.

In a world where a lot of CxOs and Senior Executives "didn't believe" in remote work in January of this year, you see that the average group vision is poor and execution ability is even poorer

I think it's very helpful that Musk has an actual goal to achieve with his companies, that isn't "raking in tons of money" or "seeing the stocks soar". Most companies seem to be the real-world equivalent of clicker games. Do $whatever to make money. Use that money to do $whatever faster and better to make money. Ad infinitum. What that $whatever is is immaterial.

I sometimes call these "toilet paper companies", i.e. companies that would happily pivot from whatever they're doing into selling toilet paper if they could make more money with it. But with TP being a quite sensitive topic these days, I guess I'll need to find a better analogy.

Well, this was just unfortunate timing. I hope it sorts itself out in six months for you.

> as well as reaffirming the long held idea amongst shareholders that he is too unstable to be running the company.

I don't know a single person that believes this. This is what people who hate Elon and Tesla believe about Tesla stockholders.

Its honestly crazy if you look at what Tesla has done since Elon took over, to think that he is a problem. He is the opposite.

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