I guess Goldman knows better how to value a young car company that moves 5 times faster than the rest of the industry, makes mind blowing products that people want to buy without even seeing them, has an unprecedented cult following with many betting their entire 401k on the company, and has survived many near death moments and came out strong... I wonder what gives such armchair analysts conviction to comment on companies like Tesla, Amazon and Netflix who are driven by irrationality and ambition.
Bah. Another listicle... although, #5 (social skills) and #6 (great people) are good enough for me. If you surround yourself with great people, your motivation to do great work is high. If you develop good social skills, you're more effective working in teams. Great people + great collaboration = great career in the long run.
I grew up in a culture where it was normal to hit kids. But my parents never hit me. I was just as bad as any other kid in the block. What that taught me is that love and affection are far more powerful than fear. I've never hit my kids and I never will. Every time they do something that makes me really angry, I think of my parents. It's not ok to hit anyone. There's never a valid reason. Most of the time it's your weakness in action.
The Santa Clara District Attorney simply doesn't get it. I saw a domestic violence case first hand - the husband was arrested, got out on bail, but the DA never filed charges and simply dropped the case because it didn't involve severe damage. For the DA to file charges, they'd have to see a hand or leg broken badly. What they don't understand is the enormous mental pain these women, especially from Asian countries, go through. It's just sad.
Wow. Amazon is probably working on it too. Great that 10 years from now we'll be seeing Teslas, Apples, Googles and Amazons on the road more than Fords, Chevys, Hondas and Nissans. Interesting times.
Social media is more than fickle.. it amplifies the breadth (spreads to lots of people fast) and depth (make it look worse) of incidents. Millions of people have now seen that brutal United video, and remembered that it's all United's fault. Tomorrow when there's another United incident, albeit minor, regular and social media will amplify it - one more hit for the consumer. Each incident in isolation will be forgotten, but the bad taste remains. Look at what's happening with Uber, Bill Oreilly, etc.
In the social era airlines (or any company for that matter) shouldn't be worried about breaching or keeping their contracts on paper... they should be worried about 1-click brand damage from a frustrated customer screaming on Twitter or Facebook. Social media is unforgiving, customer experience is everything.
I'm getting sick of reports like this. Setting up unfair vesting schedules and firing people before their stock vests... somebody should vigorously investigate it and put the CEO in jail. Startups are fucking hard work and a CEO stealing glory is a crime not a culture issue. These guys need fear of God.
Incidents like this are a wake up call to process driven cultures. If the flight crew really cared about the passenger, they would have handled it differently. If the CEO really cared, he would have personally apologized to the passenger and taken care of him by now. No amount of process and regulation can build a brand as much as culture does. That's why I'm a loyal Southwest customer. They've never let me down when it comes to common sense and empathy.
I'd go with the London offer solely based on "man, I'd really love to work with that person". In the early stages of your career, it's best to optimize for people. The best investment you can make is work with people you admire and want to learn from. In the long run, relationships matter more than anything else. All other things - stack, languages, cost of living - are temporal. Quality of people and relationships are valuable long term. Good luck!
"Take the ego out of ideas" is sound advice for investors, not entrepreneurs. Ego is a loaded word, but if you define it, in this context, as an irrational belief that you are right and the world will catch up, then it's essential for every entrepreneur. "New ideas" get no support. You're the only support. You have to strongly believe that the world will get there, do whatever it takes to convince them to get there, and survive long enough to bank on that moment. Without that ego in your idea, you probably won't survive long enough.
If you've seen the front grilles of the new Lexus and Audi, this looks simple. I don't know what's going on with the front grilles these days but boy they're making the cars look like aliens. Ugh.
Possible.. interesting thing to note is that home owners are more inclined to lease panels than buy them (so retail cost doesn't matter much it appears). SolarCity really took off after it started offering the 0 down lease. If that trend continues, Tesla could potentially offer a blanket $x/month for energy production and $y/month for consumption (cars) and lock people in. We know panel cost and batter cost will go down over time, so the game is likely in selling experiences not entities..
Can't predict numbers but some obvious integration points are... a) on the hardware side a solar panel customer could also buy the power wall (natural extension) and car, which can yield very high LTV per consumer; b) on the services side a fully autonomous ride sharing means low operating cost; c) if Solar City continues to lease out the panels then Tesla could become the biggest solar powered grid network on the planet.
Comparing Tesla with Ford is like comparing Ford with (GM + Shell + Hertz). Tesla is an energy company not an automobile company. It plans to sell you new ways to capture (solar panels), store (power wall), and consume (cars) energy. It also plans to make cars fully autonomous and ownership free. Ford will obviously compete with Tesla in some segments is not a primary competition for Tesla.
This tells me your supervisor was never a creator (lorem ipsum is like hello world), lacks good judgment (should have researched the complaint and dismissed it as benign, explained to your naive colleague), and lacks good temperament (scolding is immature). I would look for a better supervisor and company.
I once heard Elon quote these: cost of a launch is roughly $60 million. Assuming the rocket can be reused 60 times it'll go down to about $1000 which is what he wants. IOW, he wants to make space travel ad cheap as international flight travel.
Legally very easy because it's a down road (read up on "VC cram down"). They'd raised $120million prior, and now they're doing a $5-$15million convertible at a $80million valuation (significantly down round). All existing investors will either "play" (invest more at this valuation) or "pay" (suffer significant dilution). When valuation takes a down turn, all rules are off - the board has the fiduciary duty to do whatever it thinks is right for the company, even if it means getting rid of all previous shareholders who are not pitching in to help. VC backed companies are like drugs - feels great as long as you're high but could die in a second.
Reading code without judging is a superpower, because it breaks your mental blocks and makes you versatile. You can work on others code comfortably, fix things, and learn the good parts quickly without getting frustrated. My biggest issue was that - I was expecting everyone to think like me :)
Thanks to you. And me. Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffet have our paychecks covered. Warren's companies take most of what we spend offline, Jeff's companies take most of what we spend online.