6 ms·

How does Elon run his companies any differently than the vast majority of tech companies out there?

by beeboop 5y ago

Lamad123 5y ago
He calls himself of founder of some things he never founded!
- panick21_ 5y ago
  People are so obsessed with that detail. Elon and JB wanted to start their own company and they had the money. Tesla had no money and was going nowhere without Musk. Instead of creating his own company he agree to join forces and basically fund Tesla. Seems like not just starting a competitor was the nice thing to do. As doing so would have 100% doomed Tesla.
  - mosselman 5y ago
    I don't care either way. Nor about Tesla, nor about Musk. Calling yourself a founder when you aren't, regardless of the merits of him funding Tesla, is still very odd.
  - joering2 5y ago
    I don't think the OP was referring to Tesla since technically they are a car company, not a "tech" company, but still you can find interviews with real founders of Tesla who stated on record they don't understand why Elon calls himself a "Tesla founder", but since they took his money, he is their boss (or was). I think he was referring to PayPal, a tech company. Even now all over the net you can see articles claiming Musk founded Paypal. Nothing further from the truth. Musk started X.com and designed a very simple page where you put two peoples email addresses and you "could" send them money. It was happening at the same time as PayPal had the same idea and similar website. Problem for PP was that back then no sane bank or financial institution would touch any company that is hooked up to the internet. Musk had a tremendous leverage because of the only bank who would go ahead and plug their gateway into the net (I believe it was Stanford Federal Credit Union, but I don't remember) was okay for doing it because personal leverage of Musk father, who owns multiple diamond mines in ZA, and put a huge collateral "just in case" something goes wrong. Musk didn't have to have a working website to have a $300,000,000 leverage over PayPal and PP knew it will be years before they get any bank to agree to work with them. It was smart for Thiel to offer large stake of PP for Musk just for ability to change which site will be using the bank's gateway. This story was somewhat easy to find and popular back in the old days of the internet, but - putting my conspiracy hat on - these days you find nothing about it at least not by Googling. So I don't really know - to me it doesn't sound he founded PayPal, they would eventually got their permission from some bank but at that point we would be X'ing each other money, not "Paypalling" it.
    - panick21_ 5y ago
      > record they don't understand why Elon calls himself a "Tesla founder" And I explained why it is really not that insane. It was basically him throwing them a bone, they should be grateful. And of course they were horrible and ran Tesla into the ground and hid facts from Elon. > I think he was referring to PayPal I don't think so. > X.com and designed a very simple page where you put two peoples email addresses and you "could" send them money. It was happening at the same time as PayPal had the same idea and similar website This is not true. X.com from the beginning was payment company. Confinity was originally a security company for Palm platform. From there they switched to payments. From Wikipedia: > In March 2000, Confinity merged with x.com, an online financial services company founded in March 1999 by Elon Musk. The two companies merged so all the people of both companies are rightly called founders. And non of the others disagree with that. > because personal leverage of Musk father, who owns multiple diamond mines in ZA Please provide evdience. This 'dimond mine' nonsense has mostly been discredited. The best researched story about that basically showed that it was like a 30k investment sometime in the 80s. Certainty not enough to convince a bank to do anything. Musk father was wealthy because he was an engineer. > This story was somewhat easy to find and popular back in the old days of the internet And well researched probably ...
  - Lamad123 5y ago
    I don't care about all that.. I just think he is a liar for claiming he founded Tesla and for spreading bullshit that he founded PayPal... I literally thought he founded both..
yupper32 5y ago
He compensates below market and his employees are expected to work harder than big tech companies. He can get away with it at SpaceX because, well, spaaacccceeee! I'm not sure how he gets away with it at Tesla.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  They're not slaves. They have choice. In fact, an unending list of jobs available in the tech industry. Why is it Tesla's / SpaceX fault for being a cool company for many people to work at and they're willing to take a pay cut? It is 100% their choice. There is absolutely no counter argument here that I can see. I am trying.
  - yupper32 5y ago
    I was responding to someone asking how they're different than any other tech company. They're known for underpaying and overworking people. That's how they're different than most others. The implication being that if Twitter switched to that culture, then it'd generally be a really bad thing for most of those who currently work there, since they did not sign up for that.
    - systemvoltage 5y ago
      How is this different from M&A or company going bankrupt or getting laid off? Are you saying the software engineers and fully functioning adults that work at Twitter are unaware of this and would be betrayed? They totally signed up for it and has been compensated well for the risks they take and the services they provide.
- ranman 5y ago
  because the stock grew like crazy and everyone got rich?
  - Zelizz 5y ago
    Anyone can buy the stock though, while working at a company that pays better and has better work/life balance. Is the stock grant particularly generous or is there a better-than-average employee discount on stock purchases?
grumple 5y ago
He's known for running his employees into the ground, generally treating people poorly. Pay is sub-par compared both to big tech for tech workers (although not really when the stock does well) and to skilled labor for laborers. You can compare ratings of the company on sites like Indeed to other big tech, and I'm sure you can find some articles about the working conditions (I recall some being published over the years). My former boss went there, his whole team quit shortly after, he got promoted twice and made a boatload of money from stock grants, and now he's one of the higher ranked engineers and a few of his family members went to work there as well. But these guys are workaholics, brilliant but not humans of normal working capacity. I think it a lot depends on your expectations.
- antattack 5y ago
  3.4 out of five stars is not bad. Low score due to lack of advancement. 3.0 for work life balance is pretty good: https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Tesla/reviews https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Tesla/reviews
paxys 5y ago
They have a culture of overwork and moving fast. I was looking at job postings for SpaceX & Tesla a couple years ago, and every single one of them explicitly mentioned that you will be expected to work more than standard work hours and put in time on weekends, which is very different from all the other companies that stress work life balance. I'm sure it works for a lot of people, but you should be sure of what you are getting into. And I don't expect employees will stay happy if/when the Musk stock rally stops.
- ranman 5y ago
  I worked at SpaceX. I was well compensated. It was a good time.
  - jayzalowitz 5y ago
    I didnt even have to find your username to know who this was...
- golergka 5y ago
  As long as it's honestly communicated beforehand, and employees are not deceived about compensation and workload as they voluntary sign the contract, is it bad or immoral in any meaningful way?
  - convery 5y ago
    I'd say no. But given the trend of people calling 20 hours a week "slavery", demanding debt forgiveness; and such. It seems like it's becoming a minority opinion to let consenting adults make their own informed decisions (and deal with the consequences of them)..
    - fortyseven 5y ago
      Oh, bullishit. Corporations will take every inch you give them, right up to the red line. Then that becomes "normal". And then you'll cheer them on for it, probably.

How does Elon run his companies any differently than the vast majority of tech companies out there?

Lamad123 5y ago

He calls himself of founder of some things he never founded!

panick21_ 5y ago
People are so obsessed with that detail. Elon and JB wanted to start their own company and they had the money. Tesla had no money and was going nowhere without Musk. Instead of creating his own company he agree to join forces and basically fund Tesla. Seems like not just starting a competitor was the nice thing to do. As doing so would have 100% doomed Tesla.
- mosselman 5y ago
  I don't care either way. Nor about Tesla, nor about Musk. Calling yourself a founder when you aren't, regardless of the merits of him funding Tesla, is still very odd.
- joering2 5y ago
  I don't think the OP was referring to Tesla since technically they are a car company, not a "tech" company, but still you can find interviews with real founders of Tesla who stated on record they don't understand why Elon calls himself a "Tesla founder", but since they took his money, he is their boss (or was). I think he was referring to PayPal, a tech company. Even now all over the net you can see articles claiming Musk founded Paypal. Nothing further from the truth. Musk started X.com and designed a very simple page where you put two peoples email addresses and you "could" send them money. It was happening at the same time as PayPal had the same idea and similar website. Problem for PP was that back then no sane bank or financial institution would touch any company that is hooked up to the internet. Musk had a tremendous leverage because of the only bank who would go ahead and plug their gateway into the net (I believe it was Stanford Federal Credit Union, but I don't remember) was okay for doing it because personal leverage of Musk father, who owns multiple diamond mines in ZA, and put a huge collateral "just in case" something goes wrong. Musk didn't have to have a working website to have a $300,000,000 leverage over PayPal and PP knew it will be years before they get any bank to agree to work with them. It was smart for Thiel to offer large stake of PP for Musk just for ability to change which site will be using the bank's gateway. This story was somewhat easy to find and popular back in the old days of the internet, but - putting my conspiracy hat on - these days you find nothing about it at least not by Googling. So I don't really know - to me it doesn't sound he founded PayPal, they would eventually got their permission from some bank but at that point we would be X'ing each other money, not "Paypalling" it.
  - panick21_ 5y ago
    > record they don't understand why Elon calls himself a "Tesla founder" And I explained why it is really not that insane. It was basically him throwing them a bone, they should be grateful. And of course they were horrible and ran Tesla into the ground and hid facts from Elon. > I think he was referring to PayPal I don't think so. > X.com and designed a very simple page where you put two peoples email addresses and you "could" send them money. It was happening at the same time as PayPal had the same idea and similar website This is not true. X.com from the beginning was payment company. Confinity was originally a security company for Palm platform. From there they switched to payments. From Wikipedia: > In March 2000, Confinity merged with x.com, an online financial services company founded in March 1999 by Elon Musk. The two companies merged so all the people of both companies are rightly called founders. And non of the others disagree with that. > because personal leverage of Musk father, who owns multiple diamond mines in ZA Please provide evdience. This 'dimond mine' nonsense has mostly been discredited. The best researched story about that basically showed that it was like a 30k investment sometime in the 80s. Certainty not enough to convince a bank to do anything. Musk father was wealthy because he was an engineer. > This story was somewhat easy to find and popular back in the old days of the internet And well researched probably ...
- Lamad123 5y ago
  I don't care about all that.. I just think he is a liar for claiming he founded Tesla and for spreading bullshit that he founded PayPal... I literally thought he founded both..

yupper32 5y ago

He compensates below market and his employees are expected to work harder than big tech companies. He can get away with it at SpaceX because, well, spaaacccceeee! I'm not sure how he gets away with it at Tesla.

systemvoltage 5y ago
They're not slaves. They have choice. In fact, an unending list of jobs available in the tech industry. Why is it Tesla's / SpaceX fault for being a cool company for many people to work at and they're willing to take a pay cut? It is 100% their choice. There is absolutely no counter argument here that I can see. I am trying.
- yupper32 5y ago
  I was responding to someone asking how they're different than any other tech company. They're known for underpaying and overworking people. That's how they're different than most others. The implication being that if Twitter switched to that culture, then it'd generally be a really bad thing for most of those who currently work there, since they did not sign up for that.
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    How is this different from M&A or company going bankrupt or getting laid off? Are you saying the software engineers and fully functioning adults that work at Twitter are unaware of this and would be betrayed? They totally signed up for it and has been compensated well for the risks they take and the services they provide.
ranman 5y ago
because the stock grew like crazy and everyone got rich?
- Zelizz 5y ago
  Anyone can buy the stock though, while working at a company that pays better and has better work/life balance. Is the stock grant particularly generous or is there a better-than-average employee discount on stock purchases?

grumple 5y ago

He's known for running his employees into the ground, generally treating people poorly. Pay is sub-par compared both to big tech for tech workers (although not really when the stock does well) and to skilled labor for laborers. You can compare ratings of the company on sites like Indeed to other big tech, and I'm sure you can find some articles about the working conditions (I recall some being published over the years). My former boss went there, his whole team quit shortly after, he got promoted twice and made a boatload of money from stock grants, and now he's one of the higher ranked engineers and a few of his family members went to work there as well. But these guys are workaholics, brilliant but not humans of normal working capacity. I think it a lot depends on your expectations.

antattack 5y ago
3.4 out of five stars is not bad. Low score due to lack of advancement. 3.0 for work life balance is pretty good: https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Tesla/reviews https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Tesla/reviews

paxys 5y ago

They have a culture of overwork and moving fast. I was looking at job postings for SpaceX & Tesla a couple years ago, and every single one of them explicitly mentioned that you will be expected to work more than standard work hours and put in time on weekends, which is very different from all the other companies that stress work life balance. I'm sure it works for a lot of people, but you should be sure of what you are getting into. And I don't expect employees will stay happy if/when the Musk stock rally stops.

ranman 5y ago
I worked at SpaceX. I was well compensated. It was a good time.
- jayzalowitz 5y ago
  I didnt even have to find your username to know who this was...
golergka 5y ago
As long as it's honestly communicated beforehand, and employees are not deceived about compensation and workload as they voluntary sign the contract, is it bad or immoral in any meaningful way?
- convery 5y ago
  I'd say no. But given the trend of people calling 20 hours a week "slavery", demanding debt forgiveness; and such. It seems like it's becoming a minority opinion to let consenting adults make their own informed decisions (and deal with the consequences of them)..
  - fortyseven 5y ago
    Oh, bullishit. Corporations will take every inch you give them, right up to the red line. Then that becomes "normal". And then you'll cheer them on for it, probably.