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I'm so sick of this. Yes Gwynne is great, but to deny or downplay that Elon is by far the most important person at the company is just nonsense that she wouldn'

by nickik 6y ago

I'm so sick of this. Yes Gwynne is great, but to deny or downplay that Elon is by far the most important person at the company is just nonsense that she wouldn't even agree with. I hate to talk against here because she is awesome. But this social trick where everytime SpaceX does anything, the Anti-Elon crowed have to truck out the 'actually its all the enlighted levelheaded female president' not the 'nasty meme-obscessed man child asshole' is actually responsable for all the success argument, its so fucking tiered and inaccurate. You didn't go there fully but the amount of people who argue that SpaceX achieves what it does despite Elon is just stagering. People seem to believe any bullshit if it confirms their bias. Again, I love Gwynne she is great and so are others who work at SpaceX now or have done in the past. They achieve what they do as a team, at the same time its no question who leads the team, who makes the most important choices, who owns and controls the company.

atonse 6y ago
I actually like to use Gwynne Shotwell as a great example between Tesla and SpaceX. There's no doubt that Elon is gifted from the engineering and vision side. But Gwynne is the one that actually (paraphrasing her words) turns his seemingly crazy vision into an actual project with milestones and how to get there. I think they complement each other really well. You can see how much of a mess Tesla is, without having someone like that to complement Elon's skills. SpaceX (also because of the domain) seems like it is run by a grownup. Tesla on the other hand seems like it's run by a bunch of people who excel at the tough engineering challenges (contrast the cars themselves with the service experience), but have less interest in the easier stuff (running a well stocked service center). Look at the way they confusingly change pricing so often. Tesla needs an Elon Musk but they badly need a Gwynne Shotwell.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 6y ago
  Tesla is a public company with many betting against it, trying to make it fail for any reason. Elon Musk deliberately takes the front seat and attract any criticism to protect those who work behind the scene. It's been 2 years since Jérôme Guillen has become Tesla's President of Automotive. You wouldn't know.
- nickik 6y ago
  > You can see how much of a mess Tesla is Based on what objective metric?
  - atonse 6y ago
    Numerous manufacturing delays, the dismal perception of their service centers (I'm a part of Tesla owner groups and nothing gets people riled up like talking about their service experiences), the constantly changing prices, the consistently missed deadlines. Let me be clear. I own a Model 3, and I love it. I also own Tesla stock. And I cheer when their sales go up. My criticism is from wanting them to be better. They've got all the really difficult stuff right (the car is amazing, comfortable, and we all love it). It's the easy stuff that's "boring grown up stuff of running a business" where they need a lot of help.
    - nickik 6y ago
      > Numerous manufacturing delays SpaceX has that and they have Gwynne. So do pretty much all other car manufactures, specifically with electric cars. Having great service while scaling is insanely difficult. Just having some other influentual manager is not gone magically solve that incredibly difficult problem. Overall the company has been anything but messy, rather they have been executing pretty well, better then most people expected.
      - atonse 6y ago
        For what it’s worth, I feel they are also doing things that are tougher than most other companies. And actually moving the industry forward in some ways. I don’t know what people expected but I expect them to miss deadlines with the harder stuff where they’re trailblazers (like autopilot). But building a reliable car is largely a solved problem. Even Elon has admitted they over engineered the manufacturing before they had to just use more people.
        nickik 6y ago
        Tesla had issues with manufacturing, like everybody. That is why there are not more car companies. But they have mastered this and massively improved each generations, go look at the tear down of the 3 and the Y. They have managed to make China Model 3 cheaper and have achieved pretty good margin. They continue to innovate and have been strategically investing in becoming a battery provider and building and expanding factories in all the important markets. And building EV at good margin is defiantly not a solved problem.

by nickik 6y ago

atonse 6y ago

I actually like to use Gwynne Shotwell as a great example between Tesla and SpaceX. There's no doubt that Elon is gifted from the engineering and vision side. But Gwynne is the one that actually (paraphrasing her words) turns his seemingly crazy vision into an actual project with milestones and how to get there. I think they complement each other really well. You can see how much of a mess Tesla is, without having someone like that to complement Elon's skills. SpaceX (also because of the domain) seems like it is run by a grownup. Tesla on the other hand seems like it's run by a bunch of people who excel at the tough engineering challenges (contrast the cars themselves with the service experience), but have less interest in the easier stuff (running a well stocked service center). Look at the way they confusingly change pricing so often. Tesla needs an Elon Musk but they badly need a Gwynne Shotwell.

rcMgD2BwE72F 6y ago
Tesla is a public company with many betting against it, trying to make it fail for any reason. Elon Musk deliberately takes the front seat and attract any criticism to protect those who work behind the scene. It's been 2 years since Jérôme Guillen has become Tesla's President of Automotive. You wouldn't know.
nickik 6y ago
> You can see how much of a mess Tesla is Based on what objective metric?
- atonse 6y ago
  Numerous manufacturing delays, the dismal perception of their service centers (I'm a part of Tesla owner groups and nothing gets people riled up like talking about their service experiences), the constantly changing prices, the consistently missed deadlines. Let me be clear. I own a Model 3, and I love it. I also own Tesla stock. And I cheer when their sales go up. My criticism is from wanting them to be better. They've got all the really difficult stuff right (the car is amazing, comfortable, and we all love it). It's the easy stuff that's "boring grown up stuff of running a business" where they need a lot of help.
  - nickik 6y ago
    > Numerous manufacturing delays SpaceX has that and they have Gwynne. So do pretty much all other car manufactures, specifically with electric cars. Having great service while scaling is insanely difficult. Just having some other influentual manager is not gone magically solve that incredibly difficult problem. Overall the company has been anything but messy, rather they have been executing pretty well, better then most people expected.
    - atonse 6y ago
      For what it’s worth, I feel they are also doing things that are tougher than most other companies. And actually moving the industry forward in some ways. I don’t know what people expected but I expect them to miss deadlines with the harder stuff where they’re trailblazers (like autopilot). But building a reliable car is largely a solved problem. Even Elon has admitted they over engineered the manufacturing before they had to just use more people.
      - nickik 6y ago
        Tesla had issues with manufacturing, like everybody. That is why there are not more car companies. But they have mastered this and massively improved each generations, go look at the tear down of the 3 and the Y. They have managed to make China Model 3 cheaper and have achieved pretty good margin. They continue to innovate and have been strategically investing in becoming a battery provider and building and expanding factories in all the important markets. And building EV at good margin is defiantly not a solved problem.