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I keep saying this he knows what he doing. You can tell he knows what's happening. Which is rare for a CEO to know this level of detail.

selectodude 8y ago
Which might explain why he's a crummy CEO. If your job is to strategize for the entire company and you're busy learning the minutiae that you spend a lot of money for other people to worry about, maybe you need to consider using your time a little better. If you want to build neural nets, keep your stock, fire yourself and go build neural nets.
- DeonPenny 8y ago
  But then you have the major car company problem and the phone companies before steve jobs. You have people who don't know what's possible, don't know who are the best people to hire, and can guide a vision. if you know capacitive touch screens are possible no one has ever tried it makes it easier to implement. Same with google and how their CEO are all engineers. So pitching the CEO on AI project becomes easy
- outworlder 8y ago
  > If your job is to strategize for the entire company and you're busy learning the minutiae that you spend a lot of money for other people to worry about, maybe you need to consider using your time a little better This is what everyone that is not Tesla or SpaceX are doing. And have been doing for a long time. If the CEO is not an engineer at heart, what are they? I seriously doubt Elon Musk has more engineering knowledge than the people he hires on their specific fields. However, he can make pretty well informed strategic decisions if he knows WTF the engineers are talking about without taking their word – not even that, as explanations have to be dumbed down. This is not a new thing. Bill Gates was like that (1). Steve Jobs was no dummy and had an engineering background, but not at the same level – he did parter with a genius engineer, however. I think Musk is doing the right thing. > Which might explain why he's a crummy CEO That's quite debatable, I'd say. Isn't he getting results? (1) https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/06/16/my-first-billg-review/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/06/16/my-first-billg-rev...
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    > This is what everyone that is not Tesla or SpaceX are doing. I think it's very important to point out here that Elon does not run SpaceX. It's well known that he's a front man for that company, and that all day to day operations are run by an actual executive who does the job of being an executive. This is why SpaceX is doing much better than Tesla.
  - selectodude 8y ago
    >That's quite debatable, I'd say. Isn't he getting results? Sure, if you call burning billions of dollars a result.
  - cjhopman 8y ago
    > This is what everyone that is not Tesla or SpaceX are doing. If your goal is to make money, I'd follow anyone but Tesla or SpaceX's example.
    - breakyerself 8y ago
      How is SpaceX a bad example? They've managed to undercut everyone in the space launch sector while bringing in a larger profit per launch.
      - cjhopman 8y ago
        SpaceX isn't public or open about their financials, but there's a lot of evidence that they are simply losing money. Ex. they were raising a lot of money last year, profitable companies don't do that. Also read https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/7/18129539/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-water-landing-valuation-investors https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/7/18129539/spacex-falcon-9-...
        breakyerself 8y ago
        Yeah that article seems like a lot of tea leaf reading to me. All evidence points to SpaceX building orbital rockets cheaper than just about anyone else before reuse, but even if not reuse should drop their costs well below anyone else until blue origin comes online or until ULA decides to shake off the crust of old age. It's not at all surprising that investors are told not to expect to take a profit for 15 years because SpaceX is focused on growth and development. I wouldn't expect them to reinvest any less than 100% of their profits at this time. It makes just as much sense to assume they raised money to keep development moving at the pace they want which wasn't fast enough using profits alone. Despite the fact that I own a Model 3 and own shares in Tesla I often find the critics make good points and just hope for the best anyways because I want electric cars to take over and I want self driving cars to develop sooner than later because driving is dangerous and tedious. The SpaceX hate seems much less justified to me. SpaceX has been building launching, landing, and reusing rockets for years now. They've ushered in a new lower cost space age.
- imtringued 8y ago
  Actually being aware of the technical details of your core business is a very useful skill to have as a CEO. But it doesn't seem to actually result in any benefits with Tesla. He probably knows the limitations of neural networks but that doesn't stop him from using the tried and true startup strategy of promising the world and delivering very late. Building a car that can stop on red traffic lights is something they should have had by 2016 already. But it's 2019 and their self driving technology they have demonstrated in their demo blatantly ignores the speed limits on the highway by roughly 10mph.
navigatesol 8y ago
Funny, I get the opposite impression; the more I hear Musk talk about technical specifications, the less I think he actually understands.
- penny45 8y ago
  Can you elaborate on this and give us some specific examples?

selectodude 8y ago

Which might explain why he's a crummy CEO. If your job is to strategize for the entire company and you're busy learning the minutiae that you spend a lot of money for other people to worry about, maybe you need to consider using your time a little better. If you want to build neural nets, keep your stock, fire yourself and go build neural nets.

DeonPenny 8y ago
But then you have the major car company problem and the phone companies before steve jobs. You have people who don't know what's possible, don't know who are the best people to hire, and can guide a vision. if you know capacitive touch screens are possible no one has ever tried it makes it easier to implement. Same with google and how their CEO are all engineers. So pitching the CEO on AI project becomes easy
outworlder 8y ago
> If your job is to strategize for the entire company and you're busy learning the minutiae that you spend a lot of money for other people to worry about, maybe you need to consider using your time a little better This is what everyone that is not Tesla or SpaceX are doing. And have been doing for a long time. If the CEO is not an engineer at heart, what are they? I seriously doubt Elon Musk has more engineering knowledge than the people he hires on their specific fields. However, he can make pretty well informed strategic decisions if he knows WTF the engineers are talking about without taking their word – not even that, as explanations have to be dumbed down. This is not a new thing. Bill Gates was like that (1). Steve Jobs was no dummy and had an engineering background, but not at the same level – he did parter with a genius engineer, however. I think Musk is doing the right thing. > Which might explain why he's a crummy CEO That's quite debatable, I'd say. Isn't he getting results? (1) https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/06/16/my-first-billg-review/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/06/16/my-first-billg-rev...
- village-idiot 8y ago
  > This is what everyone that is not Tesla or SpaceX are doing. I think it's very important to point out here that Elon does not run SpaceX. It's well known that he's a front man for that company, and that all day to day operations are run by an actual executive who does the job of being an executive. This is why SpaceX is doing much better than Tesla.
- selectodude 8y ago
  >That's quite debatable, I'd say. Isn't he getting results? Sure, if you call burning billions of dollars a result.
- cjhopman 8y ago
  > This is what everyone that is not Tesla or SpaceX are doing. If your goal is to make money, I'd follow anyone but Tesla or SpaceX's example.
  - breakyerself 8y ago
    How is SpaceX a bad example? They've managed to undercut everyone in the space launch sector while bringing in a larger profit per launch.
    - cjhopman 8y ago
      SpaceX isn't public or open about their financials, but there's a lot of evidence that they are simply losing money. Ex. they were raising a lot of money last year, profitable companies don't do that. Also read https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/7/18129539/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-water-landing-valuation-investors https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/7/18129539/spacex-falcon-9-...
      - breakyerself 8y ago
        Yeah that article seems like a lot of tea leaf reading to me. All evidence points to SpaceX building orbital rockets cheaper than just about anyone else before reuse, but even if not reuse should drop their costs well below anyone else until blue origin comes online or until ULA decides to shake off the crust of old age. It's not at all surprising that investors are told not to expect to take a profit for 15 years because SpaceX is focused on growth and development. I wouldn't expect them to reinvest any less than 100% of their profits at this time. It makes just as much sense to assume they raised money to keep development moving at the pace they want which wasn't fast enough using profits alone. Despite the fact that I own a Model 3 and own shares in Tesla I often find the critics make good points and just hope for the best anyways because I want electric cars to take over and I want self driving cars to develop sooner than later because driving is dangerous and tedious. The SpaceX hate seems much less justified to me. SpaceX has been building launching, landing, and reusing rockets for years now. They've ushered in a new lower cost space age.
imtringued 8y ago
Actually being aware of the technical details of your core business is a very useful skill to have as a CEO. But it doesn't seem to actually result in any benefits with Tesla. He probably knows the limitations of neural networks but that doesn't stop him from using the tried and true startup strategy of promising the world and delivering very late. Building a car that can stop on red traffic lights is something they should have had by 2016 already. But it's 2019 and their self driving technology they have demonstrated in their demo blatantly ignores the speed limits on the highway by roughly 10mph.

navigatesol 8y ago

Funny, I get the opposite impression; the more I hear Musk talk about technical specifications, the less I think he actually understands.

penny45 8y ago
Can you elaborate on this and give us some specific examples?