29 ms·

Tesla co-founder and CTO JB Straubel stepping down

152 points by dionmanu 7y ago

sschueller 7y ago
"Eberhard and Tarpenning were the original founders and incorporated Tesla, while Musk, Straubel and Wright joined in a Series A round later on. A lawsuit settlement agreed to by Eberhard and Tesla in September 2009 allows all five to call themselves founders.]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.#cite_note-founders-3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.#cite_note-founders...
- oska 7y ago
  And the 2009 news article properly referenced by that wikipedia article: https://www.cnet.com/news/tesla-motors-founders-now-there-are-five/ https://www.cnet.com/news/tesla-motors-founders-now-there-ar...
- Wiretrip 7y ago
  Just to add that Musk was not a Paypal founder either. In fact they absorbed his company and promptly fired him for making stupid decisions.
rolltiide 7y ago
I think it is super strange that people still derive their confidence in some companies based on executive tenure and employee count Just trade, you'll be better off not getting married to a position, brand, or employer, why hold some of the personnel at a fictional antiquated higher standard? Its a trade for founders and executives too.
iknowstuff 7y ago
I'm going to miss his detailed, technical answers to questions during Q&As. He's been with Tesla since the beginning, for 15 years, and seems to be departing on good terms though.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
hodder 7y ago
Like a rat fleeing a sinking ship. He has been systematically liquidating his holdings and this move was well telegraphed. Here is a question... why would a CTO liquidate the stock and quit a company supposedly on the verge of an economy transforming self driving breakthrough? Because it is a fraudulent claim that full self driving is here or anywhere near for Tesla. Elon Musk has encouraged a lot of engineers and has accomplished great things with these teams, but he has no concept of what is acceptable behaviour for a CEO of a publicly listed company. He regularly commits securities fraud. Faking it til you make it may be a good motto in life, but when it is people’s investments on the line, it is fraud. When it is safety on the line it is fraud. As a trader, frankly it disgusts me that the SEC is so lenient with him. This basically opens up the world to terrifying securities frauds simply bc he is rich and famous. I can assure you if I did anything even close to what he does on a seemingly daily basis when it comes to misrepresentation and fraud, I would be put in prison for years. He gets a pass bc he is Elon Musk and that is disgusting. Elon Musk should be relegated to the non technical cheerleading role he is good at while an adult runs the company and refrains from repetitive securities fraud. Straubel is leaving because he wants no part of what is likely coming. A liquidity crunch and further fraudulent activity. Fraud secured.
- dd36 7y ago
  Then sue for securities fraud? You have a private right of action if you’ve been injured.
- londev 7y ago
  The sooner the music stops on this monumental fraud the better. While initially starting the race and pushing the development of electric cars forward I’ve got a feeling Tesla’s implosion will end up denting people’s confidence in them.
  - elisharobinson 7y ago
    "monumental fraud" i take issue with that statement , they have best in class motors and battery mgmt unit coupled with awesome infotainment . the bad things are some choices on service model and huge bet on auto-taxi network .Still i dont think i want to drive anything other than a tesla.
AlphaWeaver 7y ago
> His departure is the latest in a long string of high-profile executives to leave Tesla in the past year, most recently Steve McManus, a vice president in charge of engineering for car interiors and exteriors at Tesla, who joined Apple. Two other former Tesla executives, Michael Schwekutsch, and chief engineer Doug Field, have also left to join Apple. Not to understate the significance of Tesla losing Straubel, but TechCrunch's claim that Tesla is losing lots of "high-profile executives" seems like a little bit of a stretch. Steve McManus was a vice president in charge of "car interiors." It seems strange to place him on the same level of significance of their CTO.
- thematt 7y ago
  Since January 2018: Jason Mendez, director of manufacturing engineering Will McColl, manager of equipment engineering Jon McNeill, president of global sales and services Eric Branderiz, chief accounting officer Susan Repo, corporate treasurer and vice president of finance Jim Keller, head of Autopilot hardware engineering Georg Ell, director of Western Europe operations Matthew Schwall, director of field performance engineering Ganesh Srivats, vice president overseeing retail, delivery Sarah O'Brien, vice president of communications Gabrielle Toledano, chief people officer Dave Morton, chief accounting officer Liam O'Connor, vice president of global supply management Antoin Abou-Haydar, senior director of production and quality Justin McAnear, vice president of worldwide finance and operations Phil Rothenberg, vice president in the legal department Jeff Jones, head of global security Dan Kim, senior director of global sales Aaron Chew, director of investor relations Todd Maron, general counsel Charles Mwangi, senior director of engineering Cindy Nicola, vice president of global recruiting Dane Butswinkas, general counsel Deepak Ahuja, CFO Praveen Arichandran, director of growth Karl Wagner, senior director of global security Dave Arnold, senior director of global communications Felicia Mayo, vice president of human resources and head of diversity Peter Hochholdinger, vice president of production Steve MacManus, vice president of interior & exterior engineering
  - Robotbeat 7y ago
    Statistics would be more valuable than a list of titles. How many people have titles such as “president” or “Vice President”? How does this compare to churn at other companies, statistically?
utopian3 7y ago
The fonts are so wacky on this webpage, that it looks like they copy/pasted from elsewhere
mikorym 7y ago
To me the question is whether 1) the people who are leaving are the best in their field 2) they are the best for Tesla's long term plan and 3) whether this is normal / not normal for a high profile company or a disruptive tech company in 2019.
randomsearch 7y ago
Why do some many people hate Tesla and want them to fail? Do they also want SpaceX to fail? Elon can be an asshat sometimes, and he oversells and is over-optimistic. But even if the short sellers are right and Tesla will go bankrupt (which, btw, does not equal failure in many ways), why are so many people excited about that? Most tech giants of recent times have done things I would consider to have made the world a much worse place. Why is Tesla, which has done a lot for humanity and is a key advancement in tackling climate change, hated so much? Why not save your hate for companies damaging democracy or workers rights, which seem like more serious charges?
- MegaButts 7y ago
  Personally I dislike Tesla because I think Autopilot causes preventable deaths.
  - KptMarchewa 7y ago
    Humans driving cars cause preventable deaths.
    - Angostura 7y ago
      It’s not a monetised feature, though.
      - jayd16 7y ago
        Driving a car is indeed a monetized feature of cars. He's saying even if a self driving car is more dangerous than a human, a human driven car is still dangerous and we all accept that. So its not about whether the deaths were preventable. We accept human driven cars therefore we accept preventable death. We're now forced to consider the fact that this is an argument about the fuzzy math of risk vs reward as we have crossed the threshold of preventable deaths long ago.
    - schuke 7y ago
      I guess OP means preventable by others who are knowledgeable of the preventability?
narnianal 7y ago
You can't really blame people for looking out for themselves in the short run, but still I think it's a little weak to leave one of the biggest tech endeavours to do something else. Honestly, if I would work in a key role in Tesla I would rather take a demotion to non-C-level before I accept to leave that company. And if you don't think just short term, it's also the biggest financial opportunity, even if Tesla loses. All the knowledge, connections etc that you can build in that time will pay off in the end. There is not a single company in that size where losing for the company necessarily also means a loss for its ambitious talent. Think about how America and the Arabs hired the biggest Nazi talent after second world war. Even losing and being clearly labelled as the devil is not enough to stop talent from being successful. Always keep fighting!
jonplackett 7y ago
"His role cannot be understated" Is this a typo or another think you crazy Americans do backwards, like "I can hardly wait"
- swarnie_ 7y ago
  They did some terrible things to our language after appropriating it but i'll give this one a pass. "Its impossible to understate the importance of his role"
- pas 7y ago
  It seems to mean that any statement that is relatively correct will have to detail the amazing performance of the person in question, exactly because it was so essential. It was so good that no one can even try to badmouth it. (So it's a hyperbole of course.)
- neogodless 7y ago
  If his role is important, this should read, "his role cannot be overstated." Just like people they don't care at all should be saying "I couldn't care less." It annoys me, too!
  - breakintheweb 7y ago
    I would argue that overstated would be wrong because you could surely overstate his role. "He was the only reason Tesla existed, would be overstating his role. I think "his role shouldn't be understated" would be the correct phrase given the context.
    - neogodless 7y ago
      I agree with you. Can I blame "first thing in the morning" posting on my error? Either way, I was incorrect and you have corrected me.
bitL 7y ago
I am wondering how much Andrej Karpathy changed; from a happy Stanford lecturer to somebody whose immature tech killed/maimed a few people already due to managerial pressure from Elon...
- dang 7y ago
  Personal attacks are not ok on HN, regardless of whom you're attacking. Please don't do this again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

152 points by dionmanu 7y ago

"Eberhard and Tarpenning were the original founders and incorporated Tesla, while Musk, Straubel and Wright joined in a Series A round later on. A lawsuit settlement agreed to by Eberhard and Tesla in September 2009 allows all five to call themselves founders.]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.#cite_note-founders-3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.#cite_note-founders...

oska 7y ago
And the 2009 news article properly referenced by that wikipedia article: https://www.cnet.com/news/tesla-motors-founders-now-there-are-five/ https://www.cnet.com/news/tesla-motors-founders-now-there-ar...
Wiretrip 7y ago
Just to add that Musk was not a Paypal founder either. In fact they absorbed his company and promptly fired him for making stupid decisions.

rolltiide 7y ago

I think it is super strange that people still derive their confidence in some companies based on executive tenure and employee count Just trade, you'll be better off not getting married to a position, brand, or employer, why hold some of the personnel at a fictional antiquated higher standard? Its a trade for founders and executives too.

iknowstuff 7y ago

I'm going to miss his detailed, technical answers to questions during Q&As. He's been with Tesla since the beginning, for 15 years, and seems to be departing on good terms though.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

hodder 7y ago

Like a rat fleeing a sinking ship. He has been systematically liquidating his holdings and this move was well telegraphed. Here is a question... why would a CTO liquidate the stock and quit a company supposedly on the verge of an economy transforming self driving breakthrough? Because it is a fraudulent claim that full self driving is here or anywhere near for Tesla. Elon Musk has encouraged a lot of engineers and has accomplished great things with these teams, but he has no concept of what is acceptable behaviour for a CEO of a publicly listed company. He regularly commits securities fraud. Faking it til you make it may be a good motto in life, but when it is people’s investments on the line, it is fraud. When it is safety on the line it is fraud. As a trader, frankly it disgusts me that the SEC is so lenient with him. This basically opens up the world to terrifying securities frauds simply bc he is rich and famous. I can assure you if I did anything even close to what he does on a seemingly daily basis when it comes to misrepresentation and fraud, I would be put in prison for years. He gets a pass bc he is Elon Musk and that is disgusting. Elon Musk should be relegated to the non technical cheerleading role he is good at while an adult runs the company and refrains from repetitive securities fraud. Straubel is leaving because he wants no part of what is likely coming. A liquidity crunch and further fraudulent activity. Fraud secured.

dd36 7y ago
Then sue for securities fraud? You have a private right of action if you’ve been injured.
londev 7y ago
The sooner the music stops on this monumental fraud the better. While initially starting the race and pushing the development of electric cars forward I’ve got a feeling Tesla’s implosion will end up denting people’s confidence in them.
- elisharobinson 7y ago
  "monumental fraud" i take issue with that statement , they have best in class motors and battery mgmt unit coupled with awesome infotainment . the bad things are some choices on service model and huge bet on auto-taxi network .Still i dont think i want to drive anything other than a tesla.

AlphaWeaver 7y ago

> His departure is the latest in a long string of high-profile executives to leave Tesla in the past year, most recently Steve McManus, a vice president in charge of engineering for car interiors and exteriors at Tesla, who joined Apple. Two other former Tesla executives, Michael Schwekutsch, and chief engineer Doug Field, have also left to join Apple. Not to understate the significance of Tesla losing Straubel, but TechCrunch's claim that Tesla is losing lots of "high-profile executives" seems like a little bit of a stretch. Steve McManus was a vice president in charge of "car interiors." It seems strange to place him on the same level of significance of their CTO.

thematt 7y ago
Since January 2018: Jason Mendez, director of manufacturing engineering Will McColl, manager of equipment engineering Jon McNeill, president of global sales and services Eric Branderiz, chief accounting officer Susan Repo, corporate treasurer and vice president of finance Jim Keller, head of Autopilot hardware engineering Georg Ell, director of Western Europe operations Matthew Schwall, director of field performance engineering Ganesh Srivats, vice president overseeing retail, delivery Sarah O'Brien, vice president of communications Gabrielle Toledano, chief people officer Dave Morton, chief accounting officer Liam O'Connor, vice president of global supply management Antoin Abou-Haydar, senior director of production and quality Justin McAnear, vice president of worldwide finance and operations Phil Rothenberg, vice president in the legal department Jeff Jones, head of global security Dan Kim, senior director of global sales Aaron Chew, director of investor relations Todd Maron, general counsel Charles Mwangi, senior director of engineering Cindy Nicola, vice president of global recruiting Dane Butswinkas, general counsel Deepak Ahuja, CFO Praveen Arichandran, director of growth Karl Wagner, senior director of global security Dave Arnold, senior director of global communications Felicia Mayo, vice president of human resources and head of diversity Peter Hochholdinger, vice president of production Steve MacManus, vice president of interior & exterior engineering
- Robotbeat 7y ago
  Statistics would be more valuable than a list of titles. How many people have titles such as “president” or “Vice President”? How does this compare to churn at other companies, statistically?

utopian3 7y ago

The fonts are so wacky on this webpage, that it looks like they copy/pasted from elsewhere

mikorym 7y ago

To me the question is whether 1) the people who are leaving are the best in their field 2) they are the best for Tesla's long term plan and 3) whether this is normal / not normal for a high profile company or a disruptive tech company in 2019.

randomsearch 7y ago

Why do some many people hate Tesla and want them to fail? Do they also want SpaceX to fail? Elon can be an asshat sometimes, and he oversells and is over-optimistic. But even if the short sellers are right and Tesla will go bankrupt (which, btw, does not equal failure in many ways), why are so many people excited about that? Most tech giants of recent times have done things I would consider to have made the world a much worse place. Why is Tesla, which has done a lot for humanity and is a key advancement in tackling climate change, hated so much? Why not save your hate for companies damaging democracy or workers rights, which seem like more serious charges?

MegaButts 7y ago
Personally I dislike Tesla because I think Autopilot causes preventable deaths.
- KptMarchewa 7y ago
  Humans driving cars cause preventable deaths.
  - Angostura 7y ago
    It’s not a monetised feature, though.
    - jayd16 7y ago
      Driving a car is indeed a monetized feature of cars. He's saying even if a self driving car is more dangerous than a human, a human driven car is still dangerous and we all accept that. So its not about whether the deaths were preventable. We accept human driven cars therefore we accept preventable death. We're now forced to consider the fact that this is an argument about the fuzzy math of risk vs reward as we have crossed the threshold of preventable deaths long ago.
  - schuke 7y ago
    I guess OP means preventable by others who are knowledgeable of the preventability?

narnianal 7y ago

You can't really blame people for looking out for themselves in the short run, but still I think it's a little weak to leave one of the biggest tech endeavours to do something else. Honestly, if I would work in a key role in Tesla I would rather take a demotion to non-C-level before I accept to leave that company. And if you don't think just short term, it's also the biggest financial opportunity, even if Tesla loses. All the knowledge, connections etc that you can build in that time will pay off in the end. There is not a single company in that size where losing for the company necessarily also means a loss for its ambitious talent. Think about how America and the Arabs hired the biggest Nazi talent after second world war. Even losing and being clearly labelled as the devil is not enough to stop talent from being successful. Always keep fighting!

jonplackett 7y ago

"His role cannot be understated" Is this a typo or another think you crazy Americans do backwards, like "I can hardly wait"

swarnie_ 7y ago
They did some terrible things to our language after appropriating it but i'll give this one a pass. "Its impossible to understate the importance of his role"
pas 7y ago
It seems to mean that any statement that is relatively correct will have to detail the amazing performance of the person in question, exactly because it was so essential. It was so good that no one can even try to badmouth it. (So it's a hyperbole of course.)
neogodless 7y ago
If his role is important, this should read, "his role cannot be overstated." Just like people they don't care at all should be saying "I couldn't care less." It annoys me, too!
- breakintheweb 7y ago
  I would argue that overstated would be wrong because you could surely overstate his role. "He was the only reason Tesla existed, would be overstating his role. I think "his role shouldn't be understated" would be the correct phrase given the context.
  - neogodless 7y ago
    I agree with you. Can I blame "first thing in the morning" posting on my error? Either way, I was incorrect and you have corrected me.

bitL 7y ago

I am wondering how much Andrej Karpathy changed; from a happy Stanford lecturer to somebody whose immature tech killed/maimed a few people already due to managerial pressure from Elon...

dang 7y ago
Personal attacks are not ok on HN, regardless of whom you're attacking. Please don't do this again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html