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> In the same breath he wants people who LOVE their jobs and super-productivity, but yet also understand its only a job. You can't have the super-productivity t

> In the same breath he wants people who LOVE their jobs and super-productivity, but yet also understand its only a job. You can't have the super-productivity that comes with intrinsic motivation if the environment is boring and lacks anything that might produce intrinsic motivation Both are not exclusive. Your job can be interesting and fulfilling and yet be only a job meanwhile your heart is at home with family and friends. > People love that he's crazy enough to build spaceships and electric cars He does not build any of that. His employees do. Volkswagen or Volvo also make electric cars without needing a grab attention CEO. For each Elon or Jobs there are a million similar guys that fail misserably. Survivor bias is a thing.

njarboe 6y ago
Elon Musk is not CEO of SpaceX. He is CTO and is in the trenches building the rockets. He is fully cognizant of the whole machine and he expects his engineers to be also. That way the design can be changed without regard to departmental infighting, etc. The best part is no part and always trying to get little improvements. Not something NASA can do with specs fixed in place for manufacturing in 40 different states 5 years in advance. Of course he does not "build" the whole thing, but he has a vision that inspires people and the technical chops to lead from the front lines. And the endurance to put in productive 80-100hr work weeks for decades.
- tristor 6y ago
  >And the endurance to put in productive 80-100hr work weeks for decades. That's called drugs. I am not being flippant, I think there's a whole other segment not fully touched on by this article that needs to be addressed in this subthread. More hours is not always better, and folks who can sustain this typically are using some sort of substance to do so. Whether that substance is as mild as caffeine in the 10 shots of espresso they have a day or they're railing lines of coke in between high-stress meetings, they aren't doing this off their own natural energy, and it takes a serious toll on their physical and mental health which they may not even be aware of. I speak this from experience. I'm one of those people who was known as a "super-hacker" doing "80-100hr work weeks", and what most people didn't realize was I was downing between 20-30 shots of espresso a day. I actually ended up hospitalized at one point due to severe dehydration caused by constant mass intake of caffeine and not enough fluids. It almost caused me to have renal failure, and basically was the wake up call that represented a turning point in how I thought about work-life balance. It certainly helped advance my career and gave me a mythical reputation, but it was in no way healthy, and it ultimately didn't serve the interests of my team at that company, only the interests of the executive leadership who profited off my extra hours of work for which I was not compensated fairly.

njarboe 6y ago

Elon Musk is not CEO of SpaceX. He is CTO and is in the trenches building the rockets. He is fully cognizant of the whole machine and he expects his engineers to be also. That way the design can be changed without regard to departmental infighting, etc. The best part is no part and always trying to get little improvements. Not something NASA can do with specs fixed in place for manufacturing in 40 different states 5 years in advance. Of course he does not "build" the whole thing, but he has a vision that inspires people and the technical chops to lead from the front lines. And the endurance to put in productive 80-100hr work weeks for decades.

tristor 6y ago
>And the endurance to put in productive 80-100hr work weeks for decades. That's called drugs. I am not being flippant, I think there's a whole other segment not fully touched on by this article that needs to be addressed in this subthread. More hours is not always better, and folks who can sustain this typically are using some sort of substance to do so. Whether that substance is as mild as caffeine in the 10 shots of espresso they have a day or they're railing lines of coke in between high-stress meetings, they aren't doing this off their own natural energy, and it takes a serious toll on their physical and mental health which they may not even be aware of. I speak this from experience. I'm one of those people who was known as a "super-hacker" doing "80-100hr work weeks", and what most people didn't realize was I was downing between 20-30 shots of espresso a day. I actually ended up hospitalized at one point due to severe dehydration caused by constant mass intake of caffeine and not enough fluids. It almost caused me to have renal failure, and basically was the wake up call that represented a turning point in how I thought about work-life balance. It certainly helped advance my career and gave me a mythical reputation, but it was in no way healthy, and it ultimately didn't serve the interests of my team at that company, only the interests of the executive leadership who profited off my extra hours of work for which I was not compensated fairly.