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Elon Musk’s Surprise Pick for Tesla CFO Is a Relative Unknown
- neonate 8y agohttps://outline.com/Ts4ZUj https://outline.com/Ts4ZUj
- CedarHill 8y agoThank you for this!
- danhak 8y agoHe seems pretty well-known within the company. First joined Tesla 9 years ago, Wharton undergrad, Harvard MBA. He’s obviously qualified, what’s with all the ageist comments? 34 years old is a “kid” now? On HN of all places? Who cares if he’s a “relative unknown” according to WSJ. Is notoriety an important qualification for CFO?
- kgwgk 8y agoWould you be so cool if he was replacing Musk while he did a reconnaissance trip to Mars or something?
- Voloskaya 8y agoWhy not? Not being famous makes you a bad CEO? Who knew about Satya Nadella except MS employee before he was named CEO?
- kgwgk 8y agoNadella had been for a few years the president of the servers and tools division (revenue $20bn, profits $8bn), getting a $700k salary. I’m pretty sure many people outside Microsoft had heard of him.
- skh 8y agoI think it is noteworthy given the notoriety of Musk and the high pressure situation being CFO of a company whose CEO makes numerous unsubstantiated claims. If I were an investor in TSLA this would not be welcome news to me. Is this person, relatively young for CFO, in a position to stand up to Musk? Is this person going to be just a yes man so to speak?
- SECProto 8y ago> Is this person, relatively young for CFO, in a position to stand up to Musk? Is this person going to be just a yes man so to speak? My guess: Musk would be more likely to listen to someone who knows the company inside and out and has been with them for years, as opposed to a qualified outsider.
- skh 8y agoI don’t know Musk but from what I’ve read about him from an ex-wife of his and those who have worked for him Must is most likely not going to listen to anyone he doesn’t have to. He appears to have a Trumpian incapacity for admitting wrondoing or admitting that a decision was wrong. I would not want to invest in a company run by him if it didn’t have strong people in key positions.
- ecpottinger 8y agoA qualified outsider who in turn is really unqualified as being an outsider means they know little about how the company really works.
- BurningFrog 8y ago> Is this person, relatively young for CFO, in a position to stand up to Musk? Maybe not, but is that even the job of a CFO? The CFO works for the CEO, right?
- skh 8y agoI would not want to invest in a company in which high ranking officers did not have the ability to push back against the CEO. Rarely is one person always correct. Steve Jobs famously did not want to port iTunes to Windows but angrily consented to doing so due to pushback by people who reported to him. Musk has a very strong personality and an investor ought to want equally strong personalities in key positions since TSLA ought not be a dictatorship.
- berberous 8y agoWhen the last CFO left in under 2 years, and many other senior execs seem to be fleeing, the worrisome implication is that TSLA has trouble attracting and retaining senior talent given the work pressure and thin financial margin, so they are instead turning to a relatively green home-bred 34 yo. At the end of the day, I'm not personally worried about this and think this guy will likely do just fine, but this is sufficiently unusual that I don't think the WSJ article is odd.
- pbrb 8y agoI think you called it... was thinking similar thoughts, that they can't get anyone from the outside and this kid on the inside is hungry, with perceived though not yet proven externally, capability. I like it.
- jklinger410 8y ago>the worrisome implication is that TSLA has trouble attracting and retaining senior talent given the work pressure and thin financial margin A lot of "senior talent" are probably entitled, slow, and pedestrian. A lot of companies like these people because they are good at maintaining a caste system and shaking hands. I think Tesla, as a disruptor, both needs and hates these employees. They need someone who has "done it before" so they can get out ahead of rookie mistakes. But they also need someone who will work hard, fast, and not get caught up thinking that they know everything. I have never been bothered by high churn for execs at Tesla. Have any of you ever even met or worked for/with "senior talent?" I bet Musk would rather be in the room with engineers who hate having reports than people-people.
- gamblor956 8y agoYes, I work with senior talent all the time. Musk is precisely the bad kind of senior talent--imperious, oblivious, and completely unwilling to listen to advice from others even when he's been shown to be wrong. The senior talent that's spent the last 3 years leaving Tesla? They've got documented success at other companies within their respective niches. With Finance, especially, you want someone with experience and knowledge because Finance is quite literally the heart of your company. The CFOs and other CxOs that have left Tesla have done good jobs at other companies, so the fact that so many of them are leaving Tesla, especially within such a short window and without replacement positions lined up, is good evidence that Tesla's books are in bad shape. No CFO of a publicly traded company leaves the job voluntarily if everything's fine.
- bytematic 8y agoThis is what tech journalism has come too, essentially celebrity news and gossip
- gamblor956 8y agoFor a CFO position of a publicly traded company, 34 years old isn't a kid--it's practically a toddler. But the bigger issue is that he simply doesn't have the experience that would be expected of a CFO of a publicly traded company, especially one that employs so many non-standard accounting metrics.
- ameister14 8y agoI mean, the CFO of GM is 39, Keith Cozza became CFO of Icahn at 27, David Knopf became CFO of Kraft Heinz at 29, Andrew Power of Digital Realty at 27
- airstrike 8y agoThose are some cherry-picked examples... definitely not the norm and half of those aren't even comparable companies
- ameister14 8y agoYep, you're right - average age of a S&P 500 CFO in 2012 was 42, seems to have gone up a bit since. Just saying, not a toddler.
- hopler 8y agoThe average CFO of a Fortune 500 or S&P 500 company is 52.
- ameister14 8y ago48, actually. Where'd you get 52?
- ecpottinger 8y agoBut the claim is age means he can not be good, then when shown example of young CFO you claim cherry picking, but leave out the possibility that he could also be of the same caliber.
- airstrike 8y ago> Who cares if he’s a “relative unknown” according to WSJ. Is notoriety an important qualification for CFO? No, but experience is. Apple's CFO is 55 years old. That's about the age you'd expect the CFO of a huge public company to be.
- rchaud 8y agoBecause it sounds suspiciously like a battlefield promotion. The ex-CFO is 'retiring' at age 56, shortly after returning to the company? And the guy replacing him had just been appointed to a VP role mere weeks ago. Pretty big step up.
- aboutruby 8y agoWSJ seems like they try to find every excuse possible to pick on Tesla
- rchaud 8y agoBy providing information about the new CFO, one that the CEO didn't even bother providing a last name for?
- lordnacho 8y agoThere's no obvious reason he couldn't do this job. Executive roles are very culturally sensitive, and this guy knows the firm. Given decreasing margin returns to experience, how much more experience does he need? The guy who turned around LEGO was also in his 30s when he took over, seemed to go fine. In case you're wondering whether I think everyone in their 30s can take a leading role, I think there's a fair chance assuming the person has been exposed to some management content.
- gamblor956 8y agoThe issue isn't that he wouldn't be great in a VP of Finance or Controller role--the issue is that he's been appointed the CFO of a publicly traded company with serious past, present, and future financial and regulatory challenges. And he has absolutely no experience dealing with the regulatory challenges, which is more than half of a CFO's job.
- lordnacho 8y agoI don't know the details of his history, but chances are he's worked on those things under the previous CFO? I would think someone who's worked in the finance office of such a firm would know what needs to be done, even if he wasn't the head of the office. If everyone needed to have direct experience, there'd never be anyone considered qualified.
- perryh2 8y agoA relatively young pick motivated to prove himself in a highly visible position that others have left seems perfect to me. I think he will be a stable choice and stay for a while.
- mempko 8y agoLooks like Musk found the fall guy.
- relaunched 8y agoThis is a huge red flag, in my opinion. A CFO is legally responsible for compliance to exchange regulations, SEC, etc. Reporting is based on judgement, regarding the interpretation of very complex rules. I would have liked to see someone with external experience that has a frame of reference as to how other companies do things, in a high-pressure, regulated environment; a la Ruth Porat. Musk is a big personality, with a my way or the highway attitude. Ultimately, I'd feel more comfortable with someone who could unequivocally walk away, and in doing so, would send a huge signal that something doesn't smell right. In my experience, someone who grew up drinking the coolaide won't have the experience / ability to pull the company back from disaster. Think about all the folks at Uber. It's sad, but you need experienced and ethical leadership, that has an obligation beyond just to the CEO, in Legal / Compliance and Accounting. Especially given the wild ride at Tesla, this is more important now than ever.
- Pharmakon 8y agoI’m starting to get worried myself. Seeing finance people who would have to take responsibility for things like signing the financials over to audit leaving is not unlike seeing rats dive off the deck of a ship. Maybe they’re just tired of the ride, but maybe they’re aware of something the crew isn’t. Either way, ignoring that sign and making excuses because of love or Tesla is a bad move. A lot of major financial implosions in the past gave off plenty of warning signs that many people ignored. Until it all finally comes out, the naysayers expressing concern about HugePopularEndeavor X are usually shouted down as pessimists or saboteurs. Then things fall apart and suddenly everyone wants to know how it wasn’t seen coming. A stream of people unwilling to sign on the dotted line for the audit is worrying. Replacing them with a totally inexperienced person for a $50b market cap company smells like burning sails and timbers to me.
- fatlasp 8y agoIn grad school I had a corporate finance professor that said when you see the CFO leaving it's almost always a bad sign. Finance guys don't leave when everything looks like it's going to be smooth sailing for years to come
- byron_fast 8y agoCredentials like Wharton and Harvard mean something to the HN crowd? I'm sure this guy is fine, but Tesla - Musk - needs someone who will eat the shit on their plate.