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Elon Musk survived the Great Recession when other car companies needed bailouts, that is pretty good line item. Ford probably would have needed one as well if

Elon Musk survived the Great Recession when other car companies needed bailouts, that is pretty good line item. Ford probably would have needed one as well if Ford's didn't still run it. Elon is also an engineer first, that is needed at innovative companies, not some metric focused MBA C-level executive just looking to cash out. Musk actually cares about what he is building and has done a smashing job considering the pressure in my opinion. Tesla is made with love, a car/product people want, not just for the short term numbers.

kazen44 8y ago
> Elon Musk survived the Great Recession when other car companies needed bailouts, that is pretty good line item. Ford probably would have needed one as well if Ford's didn't still run it. This has little to do with producing cars, and more to do with (financial) management. (Also, most major european car makers survived the great recession just fine).
- drawkbox 8y ago
  > most major european car makers survived the great recession just fine Most of the European (Mercedes/BMW) engineering and product people have power. Even Honda for a long time engineers/product people drove most of the decisions and power structures. American car companies not so much, most MBA / bizdev lead over engineering and product people. Germany is unique in that engineering and the product quality is highly respected over short term gains only. Additionally, BMW/Mercedes/etc cars also target the upper classes that weren't as affected by the Great Recession so they didn't have the pressures as much as the US car companies that needed bailouts. American industries targeting consumers in upper class and wealth didn't suffer as much.
rleigh 8y ago
When your company is a tiny player, needing bailouts is largely irrelevant. Tesla didn't have anything like the risk and exposure which required the bailouts. Most of the major manufacturers didn't require bailouts either… Your comments regarding being "made with love" doesn't square with all the other articles I've read recently regarding the poor fit and finish of new Teslas. They are having problems scaling up, and it looks like quality took a hit as a result. Running a large scale industrial manufacturing operation means extensive delegation. Those "metric-focussed" executives actually have an important role to play at this scale. Product design and engineering happen well before scaling up for production. The production side is all about supply chains, efficient assembly and QA. No one should be changing the design at that point; however talented Musk might be as an engineer, I can't see him specifically having much to bring to the table for sorting out manufacturing issues. (I have worked doing QA in an industrial setting. ISO 9001, six-sigma and all the rest do start to have a point when you are working at scale and want to guarantee quality, throughput, efficiency, customer deadlines etc.) Tesla is bringing nothing new to the table on these fronts that I have seen.
- drawkbox 8y ago
  Musk can easily bring in process people and metric focused people to help. Removing the product/engineering focused CEO that is part of the product innovation and success is a very bad idea. You do need a focused innovative leader to run innovative companies that are competing with big players, if you get a metrics guy as the CEO or one calling the shots they will fade away. Taking away the founder/creator is like how Python is without Guido and Linux kernel without Linus, they will eventually run out of momentum and get convoluted with many directions trying to take the lead for short term needs, similar to how node went for a long time or Microsoft under Ballmer or Apple under John Sculley (they thought an exec guy from Pepsi could run a technology company). The typical process only focused metric MBA guys should come in when the innovating is done and it is time to focus on short term revenues over product, which eventually runs out everytime as it is milked and research and development is killed. There is a reason Amazon is so successful still, Bezos is an engineer/product guy first that is laser focused on taking profits and putting them back into R&D, hard to beat that as you can see.

kazen44 8y ago

> Elon Musk survived the Great Recession when other car companies needed bailouts, that is pretty good line item. Ford probably would have needed one as well if Ford's didn't still run it. This has little to do with producing cars, and more to do with (financial) management. (Also, most major european car makers survived the great recession just fine).

drawkbox 8y ago
> most major european car makers survived the great recession just fine Most of the European (Mercedes/BMW) engineering and product people have power. Even Honda for a long time engineers/product people drove most of the decisions and power structures. American car companies not so much, most MBA / bizdev lead over engineering and product people. Germany is unique in that engineering and the product quality is highly respected over short term gains only. Additionally, BMW/Mercedes/etc cars also target the upper classes that weren't as affected by the Great Recession so they didn't have the pressures as much as the US car companies that needed bailouts. American industries targeting consumers in upper class and wealth didn't suffer as much.

rleigh 8y ago

When your company is a tiny player, needing bailouts is largely irrelevant. Tesla didn't have anything like the risk and exposure which required the bailouts. Most of the major manufacturers didn't require bailouts either… Your comments regarding being "made with love" doesn't square with all the other articles I've read recently regarding the poor fit and finish of new Teslas. They are having problems scaling up, and it looks like quality took a hit as a result. Running a large scale industrial manufacturing operation means extensive delegation. Those "metric-focussed" executives actually have an important role to play at this scale. Product design and engineering happen well before scaling up for production. The production side is all about supply chains, efficient assembly and QA. No one should be changing the design at that point; however talented Musk might be as an engineer, I can't see him specifically having much to bring to the table for sorting out manufacturing issues. (I have worked doing QA in an industrial setting. ISO 9001, six-sigma and all the rest do start to have a point when you are working at scale and want to guarantee quality, throughput, efficiency, customer deadlines etc.) Tesla is bringing nothing new to the table on these fronts that I have seen.

drawkbox 8y ago
Musk can easily bring in process people and metric focused people to help. Removing the product/engineering focused CEO that is part of the product innovation and success is a very bad idea. You do need a focused innovative leader to run innovative companies that are competing with big players, if you get a metrics guy as the CEO or one calling the shots they will fade away. Taking away the founder/creator is like how Python is without Guido and Linux kernel without Linus, they will eventually run out of momentum and get convoluted with many directions trying to take the lead for short term needs, similar to how node went for a long time or Microsoft under Ballmer or Apple under John Sculley (they thought an exec guy from Pepsi could run a technology company). The typical process only focused metric MBA guys should come in when the innovating is done and it is time to focus on short term revenues over product, which eventually runs out everytime as it is milked and research and development is killed. There is a reason Amazon is so successful still, Bezos is an engineer/product guy first that is laser focused on taking profits and putting them back into R&D, hard to beat that as you can see.