9 ms·

Some of these I really like, and some of them are well-intentioned but seem disconnected from reality. - Communication should travel via the shortest path nece

Some of these I really like, and some of them are well-intentioned but seem disconnected from reality. - Communication should travel via the shortest path necessary to get the job done This sounds like a great idea, however it can lead to things like the CEO pinging engineers to fix problems he doesn't fully understand. I've seen this happen often, and it's really annoying how often we have to tell the CEO he can't do this (extremely important people have already quit because of it). I love the idea about walking out of meetings though, and just minimizing them as much as possible.

slededit 8y ago
I think he was speaking more from the Individual Contributor level here.
- mieseratte 8y ago
  That was my impression as well. No better way to GSD than talk to your counterpart on the other side of the aisle and figure out a solution. For a CEO, VP, or other "executive" type, practicing seagull management is time inefficient for them in any regards. They should be delegating tasks, and trusting their reports to handle the issue. Of course, sometimes one must become the executive who gets in the weeds as Musk is doing, but that is because the reports have failed in some crucial aspects and one must unfuck the situation.
antris 8y ago
> it's really annoying how often we have to tell the CEO he can't do this Isn't it just another part of the job? Obviously a person doing the actual work is supposed to explain what is and isn't possible, no?
- Merad 8y ago
  How many average workers are willing to push back when the CEO tells them to do something? How many CEOs will respond well when an employee does push back against their directions? There are good reasons that most companies don’t operate this way.
  - garmaine 8y ago
    Elon doesn’t employ average workers. If you can’t work this way, your tenure will be short.
  - xiphias 8y ago
    Ifa person doesn't want to tell something bad to the CEO, she still has the opportunity to ask help.feom her manager.
Mononokay 8y ago
To be entirely fair, Musk is an engineer, so that in general wouldn't happen, I'd imagine.
- matte_black 8y ago
  He’s an engineer on paper, probably not in practice.
  - colordrops 8y ago
    What evidence do you have of that?
    - matte_black 8y ago
      The word “probably” indicates uncertainty. Therefore, there is no evidence, just suspicion he is not doing the actual engineering work himself.
      - colordrops 8y ago
        OK, what reason do you have to suspect he is not doing the actual engineering work?
        bkdonline 8y ago
        He has a BS in physics.
        colordrops 8y ago
        And decades of experience building up engineering firms from almost nothing. Perhaps I'm in a different environment than you, but I know more than one top-tier engineer that didn't even graduate high school let alone get a 4 year degree in physics.
        8y ago
gizmo686 8y ago
Its more than just the CEO (or other high ups), even lateral communication is not without cost. As an engineer, my time is limited. I simply do not have time to immidietly deal with every problem that anyone wants dealt with. The general rule we settled on where I work is to ask the relevant project manager first. If the project manager gives the okay, you can talk directly to the relevant engineer. Otherwise, your request will go on a list and be dealt with "at some point". Of course, in an emergency, you can still go straight to the relevant person. And everything is always an emergency...
krick 8y ago
Exactly. I hate bureaucracy as much as anyone, but it exists for a good reason. An enterprise just isn't a bee-hive, where everyone does a reasonably good job to keep the whole thing alive because they are just born that way. And there cannot be any rapid innovation in a bee-hive anyway. It's silly to dismiss communications and the chain of command within a company as some bothersome thing that "just hurts the actual work". Well, yeah, it is bothersome, but, no — it is actual work. Even if every employee would be good at everything that anyone in the company does — which obviously isn't and cannot be the case — communications aren't this wholly rational process that benefits the company proportionally to how it benefits the agents, and it's unlikely that "factor of ten better precision" could be born as a result of important design decisions taken by some random pairs of lowest-level workers in private discussions, without informing anyone else involved (simply because they don't really understand how anyone is involved/affected by their clever decision). Long story short, even given all this not-entirely-serious image of Musk, I'm kinda surprised to hear so naïve statements from him. He's in business long enough to know already that some idealistic visions just don't work in the real wordld, and it's one thing to tell them to your buyers and inverstors, and another — to your actual employees.
- shanghaiaway 8y ago
  He's never had a normal job. That's why he doesn't understand these things.

slededit 8y ago

I think he was speaking more from the Individual Contributor level here.

mieseratte 8y ago
That was my impression as well. No better way to GSD than talk to your counterpart on the other side of the aisle and figure out a solution. For a CEO, VP, or other "executive" type, practicing seagull management is time inefficient for them in any regards. They should be delegating tasks, and trusting their reports to handle the issue. Of course, sometimes one must become the executive who gets in the weeds as Musk is doing, but that is because the reports have failed in some crucial aspects and one must unfuck the situation.

antris 8y ago

> it's really annoying how often we have to tell the CEO he can't do this Isn't it just another part of the job? Obviously a person doing the actual work is supposed to explain what is and isn't possible, no?

Merad 8y ago
How many average workers are willing to push back when the CEO tells them to do something? How many CEOs will respond well when an employee does push back against their directions? There are good reasons that most companies don’t operate this way.
- garmaine 8y ago
  Elon doesn’t employ average workers. If you can’t work this way, your tenure will be short.
- xiphias 8y ago
  Ifa person doesn't want to tell something bad to the CEO, she still has the opportunity to ask help.feom her manager.

Mononokay 8y ago

To be entirely fair, Musk is an engineer, so that in general wouldn't happen, I'd imagine.

matte_black 8y ago
He’s an engineer on paper, probably not in practice.
- colordrops 8y ago
  What evidence do you have of that?
  - matte_black 8y ago
    The word “probably” indicates uncertainty. Therefore, there is no evidence, just suspicion he is not doing the actual engineering work himself.
    - colordrops 8y ago
      OK, what reason do you have to suspect he is not doing the actual engineering work?
      - bkdonline 8y ago
        He has a BS in physics.
        colordrops 8y ago
        And decades of experience building up engineering firms from almost nothing. Perhaps I'm in a different environment than you, but I know more than one top-tier engineer that didn't even graduate high school let alone get a 4 year degree in physics.
        8y ago

gizmo686 8y ago

Its more than just the CEO (or other high ups), even lateral communication is not without cost. As an engineer, my time is limited. I simply do not have time to immidietly deal with every problem that anyone wants dealt with. The general rule we settled on where I work is to ask the relevant project manager first. If the project manager gives the okay, you can talk directly to the relevant engineer. Otherwise, your request will go on a list and be dealt with "at some point". Of course, in an emergency, you can still go straight to the relevant person. And everything is always an emergency...

krick 8y ago

Exactly. I hate bureaucracy as much as anyone, but it exists for a good reason. An enterprise just isn't a bee-hive, where everyone does a reasonably good job to keep the whole thing alive because they are just born that way. And there cannot be any rapid innovation in a bee-hive anyway. It's silly to dismiss communications and the chain of command within a company as some bothersome thing that "just hurts the actual work". Well, yeah, it is bothersome, but, no — it is actual work. Even if every employee would be good at everything that anyone in the company does — which obviously isn't and cannot be the case — communications aren't this wholly rational process that benefits the company proportionally to how it benefits the agents, and it's unlikely that "factor of ten better precision" could be born as a result of important design decisions taken by some random pairs of lowest-level workers in private discussions, without informing anyone else involved (simply because they don't really understand how anyone is involved/affected by their clever decision). Long story short, even given all this not-entirely-serious image of Musk, I'm kinda surprised to hear so naïve statements from him. He's in business long enough to know already that some idealistic visions just don't work in the real wordld, and it's one thing to tell them to your buyers and inverstors, and another — to your actual employees.

shanghaiaway 8y ago
He's never had a normal job. That's why he doesn't understand these things.