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Maybe he should do some math and determine how much time he spends on Tesla vs. His other projects. I would have a hard time being told to work more and harder

Maybe he should do some math and determine how much time he spends on Tesla vs. His other projects. I would have a hard time being told to work more and harder by a leader that spends time on flamethrowers and cave rescue submarines. In the words of the Google leadership, be thoughtful with how you use your employees time.

iancmceachern 4y ago
Those downvoting please note here why it's OK to ask people to work above 40 hours while also squandering good peoples time doing joke products. Rather than turn the screws on your employees publicly why not simple cut out the non-essential projects and publicly note so? The first approach makes it look like your employees are slacking and need to pick up the slack, the second takes responsibility on himself.
- jonas21 4y ago
  Do you consider all marketing to be a waste of time? Because that's what the flamethrowers are. And they're fantastic.
  - iancmceachern 4y ago
    They aren't marketing. They don't sell cars. It's easy to just call everything marketing, but show me hard data on how fossil fueled flamethrowers sell more electric cars and I'll bow out immediately.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - kube-system 4y ago
      Academically, it would fall under “guerrilla marketing”. It is a high risk, high reward technique. If it pays off, you can get quite a lot of attention for very little money.
    - koonsolo 4y ago
      PR is marketing, and Elon Musk 100% nailed PR. Tesla doesn't do advertising. You know why? Because they 100% nail PR. Some people claim tesla doesn't do marketing because they don't do advertising, but that is completely wrong. PR is marketing. Shooting a Tesla into orbit was just brilliant PR. Every news outlet covered it. And for them, because they both have SpaceX and Tesla, it was both unique, and very doable. And the flamethrower the same thing. We are talking about it now, right? Elon Musk remains at the top of the news pages. Incredible how he can pull that off. If you think PR is easy, try doing PR. I tried doing PR, and I can tell you it's fucking hard.
      - iancmceachern 4y ago
        Yes, we're talking about it, but I don't and won't own a Tesla product. I don't think it's incredible, it's easy. What's incredible is the work product of the engineers and technicians they work for him. Not a man baby making sharp pointy things that burn down the house. That doesn't take vision or knowledge, just no one to tell you "no".
        koonsolo 4y ago
        > I don't think it's incredible, it's easy. I'll give you $5000 if you can get my product rpgplayground.com on top of the mainstream media. If you find it easy, I will be happy to pay you the $5k.
        koonsolo 4y ago
        Getting downvoted here. Putting your money where your mouth is doesn't seem to be appreciated here on HN. Anyway, anybody selling a product will tell you that building the product is the easy part. But of course, if you never ran a company, it's easy to think that the engineering is the hardest part.
        iancmceachern 4y ago
        It would be easy given his resources (publicist, etc.) I don't have those same resources. It would be like me saying it's easy to design a 3d printed box, given I have solidworks and the skillset. It doesn't mean it's hard just because someone else may not have those resources. It's still easy.
  - iancmceachern 4y ago
    No, but I consider these specific things a waste of time.
- thow34wqway 4y ago
  > ... while also squandering good peoples time doing joke products. This is irrevalent. No matter employees should not be expected to work more than 40 hrs a week.
- mlindner 4y ago
  It's not okay to write a disingenuous comment that assumes false facts and then act like you're on a high horse while saying it.
oxplot 4y ago
> by a leader that spends time on flamethrowers and cave rescue submarines You are grossly misinformed by how Elon spends his time and seem to have read a few headlines years ago and assume that’s all he does. I suggest you listen to some of his interviews where people specifically ask how many hours he works a week, and on what, and you’ll soon realize, no one, even factory workers can match his work ethics and time spent at the company. He takes his own medicine religiously, that you can count on.
- SilverBirch 4y ago
  Ok, let's take 168 hours in a week. He's got SpaceX, Twitter, Tesla and Boring company. So he's at best working 42 hours a week on each, or there is atleast one company there where he's working less than 42 hours. Oh, and that's assuming he doesn't sleep, and ignores the fact that we can publicly see it's probably 20 hours sleeping 118 hours on twitter and about 10 hours on each of the others right now.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
    I'm seriously amazed people even discuss this. When the employer and the owner of a business hires someone, the employer sets the terms of employment, not the other way around. If the hired person doesn't like the terms, he/she can just walk away and find a more suitable job. Imagine hiring a house cleaner, who would insist you be present in the house when the house is being cleaned?
    - ytpete 4y ago
      This is of course true, but hiring strong engineers is a very competitive market these days. Especially in hot fields like ML for self-driving cars. That's really the root of this discussion - can you offer worse terms than other employers you're competing with for talent, while also being kind of a dick about it, without hurting the success of your company?
      - oxplot 4y ago
alphabetting 4y ago
Forget flamethrowers and cave rescue, the amount of time he spends on Twitter is crazy for the CEO of two large complex companies, soon to be three.
- 93po 4y ago
  Can you tell me how many minutes a day Elon is on twitter?
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    Three hours a day
Sparyjerry 4y ago
No offense but it is impossible for you or I to estimate how they should run their company and whether this decision is good or bad as to their bottom line. We have almost zero knowledge about their internal workings of nearly what 100,000 people do and what projects should get cut and how hard employees are working or should be working and we can only opine on whether you or I prefer or don't prefer to work remote ourselves. If you had data that people were less productive from home, would you change your mind on your personal business? It's odd to assume that he would not have that data before making this decision.
- iancmceachern 4y ago
  That's exactly it. I'm not viewing it from the point of view that optimizing the bottom line is paramount and everything else be damned.
  - Sparyjerry 4y ago
    I'm mistook that you were. You said pretty much he needs to do some math on how he spend his own time because he was wasting it in your opinion and from my read it was an implication that this was a bad decision for employees and the company. Maybe employees prefer having fun, being on the bleeding edge of tech, being part of a profitable company an d job security, and earning higher wages over the convenience of being allowed to work from home. I'm not saying every does or doesn't but this doesn't feel like an everything else be damned scenario just requiring most employees to show up.

iancmceachern 4y ago

Those downvoting please note here why it's OK to ask people to work above 40 hours while also squandering good peoples time doing joke products. Rather than turn the screws on your employees publicly why not simple cut out the non-essential projects and publicly note so? The first approach makes it look like your employees are slacking and need to pick up the slack, the second takes responsibility on himself.

jonas21 4y ago
Do you consider all marketing to be a waste of time? Because that's what the flamethrowers are. And they're fantastic.
- iancmceachern 4y ago
  They aren't marketing. They don't sell cars. It's easy to just call everything marketing, but show me hard data on how fossil fueled flamethrowers sell more electric cars and I'll bow out immediately.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - kube-system 4y ago
    Academically, it would fall under “guerrilla marketing”. It is a high risk, high reward technique. If it pays off, you can get quite a lot of attention for very little money.
  - koonsolo 4y ago
    PR is marketing, and Elon Musk 100% nailed PR. Tesla doesn't do advertising. You know why? Because they 100% nail PR. Some people claim tesla doesn't do marketing because they don't do advertising, but that is completely wrong. PR is marketing. Shooting a Tesla into orbit was just brilliant PR. Every news outlet covered it. And for them, because they both have SpaceX and Tesla, it was both unique, and very doable. And the flamethrower the same thing. We are talking about it now, right? Elon Musk remains at the top of the news pages. Incredible how he can pull that off. If you think PR is easy, try doing PR. I tried doing PR, and I can tell you it's fucking hard.
    - iancmceachern 4y ago
      Yes, we're talking about it, but I don't and won't own a Tesla product. I don't think it's incredible, it's easy. What's incredible is the work product of the engineers and technicians they work for him. Not a man baby making sharp pointy things that burn down the house. That doesn't take vision or knowledge, just no one to tell you "no".
      - koonsolo 4y ago
        > I don't think it's incredible, it's easy. I'll give you $5000 if you can get my product rpgplayground.com on top of the mainstream media. If you find it easy, I will be happy to pay you the $5k.
        koonsolo 4y ago
        Getting downvoted here. Putting your money where your mouth is doesn't seem to be appreciated here on HN. Anyway, anybody selling a product will tell you that building the product is the easy part. But of course, if you never ran a company, it's easy to think that the engineering is the hardest part.
        iancmceachern 4y ago
        It would be easy given his resources (publicist, etc.) I don't have those same resources. It would be like me saying it's easy to design a 3d printed box, given I have solidworks and the skillset. It doesn't mean it's hard just because someone else may not have those resources. It's still easy.
- iancmceachern 4y ago
  No, but I consider these specific things a waste of time.
thow34wqway 4y ago
> ... while also squandering good peoples time doing joke products. This is irrevalent. No matter employees should not be expected to work more than 40 hrs a week.
mlindner 4y ago
It's not okay to write a disingenuous comment that assumes false facts and then act like you're on a high horse while saying it.

oxplot 4y ago

> by a leader that spends time on flamethrowers and cave rescue submarines You are grossly misinformed by how Elon spends his time and seem to have read a few headlines years ago and assume that’s all he does. I suggest you listen to some of his interviews where people specifically ask how many hours he works a week, and on what, and you’ll soon realize, no one, even factory workers can match his work ethics and time spent at the company. He takes his own medicine religiously, that you can count on.

SilverBirch 4y ago
Ok, let's take 168 hours in a week. He's got SpaceX, Twitter, Tesla and Boring company. So he's at best working 42 hours a week on each, or there is atleast one company there where he's working less than 42 hours. Oh, and that's assuming he doesn't sleep, and ignores the fact that we can publicly see it's probably 20 hours sleeping 118 hours on twitter and about 10 hours on each of the others right now.
- Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
  I'm seriously amazed people even discuss this. When the employer and the owner of a business hires someone, the employer sets the terms of employment, not the other way around. If the hired person doesn't like the terms, he/she can just walk away and find a more suitable job. Imagine hiring a house cleaner, who would insist you be present in the house when the house is being cleaned?
  - ytpete 4y ago
    This is of course true, but hiring strong engineers is a very competitive market these days. Especially in hot fields like ML for self-driving cars. That's really the root of this discussion - can you offer worse terms than other employers you're competing with for talent, while also being kind of a dick about it, without hurting the success of your company?
    - oxplot 4y ago

alphabetting 4y ago

Forget flamethrowers and cave rescue, the amount of time he spends on Twitter is crazy for the CEO of two large complex companies, soon to be three.

93po 4y ago
Can you tell me how many minutes a day Elon is on twitter?
- skinnymuch 4y ago
  Three hours a day

Sparyjerry 4y ago

No offense but it is impossible for you or I to estimate how they should run their company and whether this decision is good or bad as to their bottom line. We have almost zero knowledge about their internal workings of nearly what 100,000 people do and what projects should get cut and how hard employees are working or should be working and we can only opine on whether you or I prefer or don't prefer to work remote ourselves. If you had data that people were less productive from home, would you change your mind on your personal business? It's odd to assume that he would not have that data before making this decision.

iancmceachern 4y ago
That's exactly it. I'm not viewing it from the point of view that optimizing the bottom line is paramount and everything else be damned.
- Sparyjerry 4y ago
  I'm mistook that you were. You said pretty much he needs to do some math on how he spend his own time because he was wasting it in your opinion and from my read it was an implication that this was a bad decision for employees and the company. Maybe employees prefer having fun, being on the bleeding edge of tech, being part of a profitable company an d job security, and earning higher wages over the convenience of being allowed to work from home. I'm not saying every does or doesn't but this doesn't feel like an everything else be damned scenario just requiring most employees to show up.