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Tesla seems to get a lot of work out of its employees because of how appealing the company’s mission is, but this seems like a recipe for burnout. Every employe

Tesla seems to get a lot of work out of its employees because of how appealing the company’s mission is, but this seems like a recipe for burnout. Every employee must work 40 hours per week in a main Tesla office, unless Elon Musk himself personally approves the exception. Factory workers apparently have even more required of them.

Bhilai 4y ago
From what I have heard from friends at Tesla, 40 hours is literally the minimum. A particular friend told me that they put 60-70 hours easily every week and so do their teammates.
- nix23 4y ago
  As a European i am astonished that this is even legal, especially in factories where dangerous machines are in every corner.
  - ericmay 4y ago
    The same culture that embraces this is the same culture that will take risks to start a new electric automobile company. It's give and take. If the workers at the factory are hourly they're also being paid overtime to do this work. My parents worked at Honda in Ohio and often worked more than 40 hours/week because they would get paid overtime. Safety incidents happen because that's just life, but most issues are attributable to drugs/alcohol, and people being scumbags. Instead of banning something, I think we need to make sure we're allowing people to seek employment options that work best for them with sensible safety practices of course. Being able to work overtime, for example, afforded my parents a great life and a reasonable "retirement" age. You might say, well they could get paid more and join a union, etc. and while I don't care too much about unions one way or another, Honda employees routinely reject unionization because they're really happy with their employment arrangement. I bet Tesla is similar. Speaking for Honda, many people go straight from high school to work on the factory floor. They work overtime, and they have to do a good job, but if you go and ask the employees or the town of Marysville everyone is pretty happy with the arrangement. Again, I'm not sure why Tesla would be dissimilar except that it's popular so it makes the headlines. In the case of office workers, software engineers, or others who are salaried, well they're professionals and they're paid a lot of money. The first reaction to seeing something like "xyz is happening at Tesla" shouldn't be to ban something that you don't understand.
    - nix23 4y ago
      I was not talking about tesla, i was talking about working 60 hours in a risky environment, but hey why not work 120? Or better, sleep in the factory eat there and pay for it? >My parents worked at Honda in Ohio and often worked more than 40 hours/week because they would get paid overtime. Yes that's normal, sometimes you have to do overtime, but 60 hours at a regular basis is something else.
      - camjohnson26 4y ago
        You’re now accidentally describing the Shanghai factory
        nix23 4y ago
        "accidentally" ;)
  - jamiequint 4y ago
    This general attitude is why Europe has barely produced any great new companies in decades.
    - cdelsolar 4y ago
      HSBC, Airbus, Deutsche Telekom, AXA, Shell, Nestle, Barclays, Metro, L'Oreal, BP, Michelin, AstraZeneca, Air France, Christian Dior, Philips, Anheuser-Busch, Vodafone, Lufthansa, Volkswagen, Siemens, Allianz, Bosch, Unilever, Maersk, Renault, Saint-Gobain, Bayer, Nokia, Ericsson, BT Group, Accenture, Madrigal Elektromotoren GmbH
      - MockObject 4y ago
        You do realize that by including companies from the 19th and early 20th century, you're agreeing with him?
      - nix23 4y ago
        They are all older then a decade (some more then 100 years), he's not wrong that europe has massive problems making "big new company's", however the conclusion that it has something todo with the ~absence of exploitation is probably wrong ;)
        sdze 4y ago
        Europes business landscape is distinctively different. In Europe you have many small global champions (mostly specialized in something that only they can produce well) and only few Mega-Corporations compared to US or Asia. I think this is a better diversification than concentrating all GDP into a few big player.
      - badwolf 4y ago
        "but europe didn't make facebook!"
      - fbkr 4y ago
        > Madrigal Elektromotoren GmbH Wait, isn't this a fictitious company from breaking bad?
  - masklinn 4y ago
    FLSA exemptions are great! And if an employee is not exempt you can just misclassify them, they probably have no way to know they're not exempt, and if they complain you can completely coincidentally not-at-all-in-retaliation fire them because at-will employment bebe.
- mnsc 4y ago
  But they get to build cars! Very expensive cars! That fundamentally alter which limited resource we start wars over!
  - nix23 4y ago
    >That fundamentally alter which limited resource we start wars over! Sodium? https://www.unige.ch/communication/communiques/en/2022/un-nouvel-electrolyte-pour-des-piles-plus-vertes-et-plus-sures https://www.unige.ch/communication/communiques/en/2022/un-no...
  - shiftpgdn 4y ago
    It's getting very tiresome to see big oil/right wing talking points repeated on HN constantly. You can go read the Tesla impact report here: https://www.tesla.com/impact https://www.tesla.com/impact and see that they're doing their best to eliminate conflict minerals in their battery chemistry.
    - matthewmacleod 4y ago
      I mean, you can also hit up the Shell website and read all about how good they are for the environment, driving the transition to clean energy etc.
      - shiftpgdn 4y ago
        I know you're taking the piss but I worked for a Shell subsidiary for 2 years very recently and they actually take all the "green" stuff very seriously despite the fact their core business accounts for 2% of global co2 emissions. It's very bizarre and much of the internal "greenwashing" dialog reads like a catholic confessional. With that out of the way there is a difference between corporate PR greenwashing and literally changing battery chemistries to not contain as many rare earth minerals.
- longtimegoogler 4y ago
  It's the same at SpaceX. Everyone I know who has worked there said the pay sucks and the hours are long and the only reason to do it is a passion for the industry. Musk seems to be modeling his companies on the video gaming industry.
  - somenameforme 4y ago
    I wouldn't say it's the industry, but the mission. You can earn more and work less at practically any other major aerospace company, and also get hired more easily. But instead of working on a goal of getting humans living on Mars, you're working on a goal of maximizing quarterly gains for shareholders.
    - notfromhere 4y ago
      You're still maximizing value for shareholders, it's just wrapped in baloney about a Mars mission.
ramesh31 4y ago
>Tesla seems to get a lot of work out of its employees because of how appealing the company’s mission is, but this seems like a recipe for burnout. Even moreso it was Musk's personal brand that made his companies so desirable to work for. A brand that he has spent the last few years torching to the ground on Twitter. He'll still be able to pay senior folks enough to stick around for a while. But the new grad pipeline is most likely drying up at this point.
- turtledove 4y ago
  He's gone from "building cool shit, but holy crap the hours are long" to "long hours for a toxic edgelord who has consistently over promised and under delivered" in the span of a decade.
optimiz3 4y ago
What is eggregious about a 40hr work week at the office?
- ra7 4y ago
  Minimum 40hr work week.
  - optimiz3 4y ago
    Thats how it is in most salaried jobs in FAANMG.
    - ra7 4y ago
      I don't recall any FAANMG CEOs writing threatening emails to employees mandating them to work more than 40 hours. Do you have any examples?
      - optimiz3 4y ago
        Who's mandating more than 40 hours?
        ra7 4y ago
        Did you read his emails? > Anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean *minimum*) of 40 hours per week or depart Tesla. This is less than we ask of factory workers.
        optimiz3 4y ago
        40 hours minimum means you only need to be there 40 hours, like most salaried full time jobs.
        ra7 4y ago
        You're just sticking to semantics. It's well known all his companies require you to work more than 40 hours. Combine that with these emails, it's easy to understand what the expectations are.

Bhilai 4y ago

From what I have heard from friends at Tesla, 40 hours is literally the minimum. A particular friend told me that they put 60-70 hours easily every week and so do their teammates.

nix23 4y ago
As a European i am astonished that this is even legal, especially in factories where dangerous machines are in every corner.
- ericmay 4y ago
  The same culture that embraces this is the same culture that will take risks to start a new electric automobile company. It's give and take. If the workers at the factory are hourly they're also being paid overtime to do this work. My parents worked at Honda in Ohio and often worked more than 40 hours/week because they would get paid overtime. Safety incidents happen because that's just life, but most issues are attributable to drugs/alcohol, and people being scumbags. Instead of banning something, I think we need to make sure we're allowing people to seek employment options that work best for them with sensible safety practices of course. Being able to work overtime, for example, afforded my parents a great life and a reasonable "retirement" age. You might say, well they could get paid more and join a union, etc. and while I don't care too much about unions one way or another, Honda employees routinely reject unionization because they're really happy with their employment arrangement. I bet Tesla is similar. Speaking for Honda, many people go straight from high school to work on the factory floor. They work overtime, and they have to do a good job, but if you go and ask the employees or the town of Marysville everyone is pretty happy with the arrangement. Again, I'm not sure why Tesla would be dissimilar except that it's popular so it makes the headlines. In the case of office workers, software engineers, or others who are salaried, well they're professionals and they're paid a lot of money. The first reaction to seeing something like "xyz is happening at Tesla" shouldn't be to ban something that you don't understand.
  - nix23 4y ago
    I was not talking about tesla, i was talking about working 60 hours in a risky environment, but hey why not work 120? Or better, sleep in the factory eat there and pay for it? >My parents worked at Honda in Ohio and often worked more than 40 hours/week because they would get paid overtime. Yes that's normal, sometimes you have to do overtime, but 60 hours at a regular basis is something else.
    - camjohnson26 4y ago
      You’re now accidentally describing the Shanghai factory
      - nix23 4y ago
        "accidentally" ;)
- jamiequint 4y ago
  This general attitude is why Europe has barely produced any great new companies in decades.
  - cdelsolar 4y ago
    HSBC, Airbus, Deutsche Telekom, AXA, Shell, Nestle, Barclays, Metro, L'Oreal, BP, Michelin, AstraZeneca, Air France, Christian Dior, Philips, Anheuser-Busch, Vodafone, Lufthansa, Volkswagen, Siemens, Allianz, Bosch, Unilever, Maersk, Renault, Saint-Gobain, Bayer, Nokia, Ericsson, BT Group, Accenture, Madrigal Elektromotoren GmbH
    - MockObject 4y ago
      You do realize that by including companies from the 19th and early 20th century, you're agreeing with him?
    - nix23 4y ago
      They are all older then a decade (some more then 100 years), he's not wrong that europe has massive problems making "big new company's", however the conclusion that it has something todo with the ~absence of exploitation is probably wrong ;)
      - sdze 4y ago
        Europes business landscape is distinctively different. In Europe you have many small global champions (mostly specialized in something that only they can produce well) and only few Mega-Corporations compared to US or Asia. I think this is a better diversification than concentrating all GDP into a few big player.
    - badwolf 4y ago
      "but europe didn't make facebook!"
    - fbkr 4y ago
      > Madrigal Elektromotoren GmbH Wait, isn't this a fictitious company from breaking bad?
- masklinn 4y ago
  FLSA exemptions are great! And if an employee is not exempt you can just misclassify them, they probably have no way to know they're not exempt, and if they complain you can completely coincidentally not-at-all-in-retaliation fire them because at-will employment bebe.
mnsc 4y ago
But they get to build cars! Very expensive cars! That fundamentally alter which limited resource we start wars over!
- nix23 4y ago
  >That fundamentally alter which limited resource we start wars over! Sodium? https://www.unige.ch/communication/communiques/en/2022/un-nouvel-electrolyte-pour-des-piles-plus-vertes-et-plus-sures https://www.unige.ch/communication/communiques/en/2022/un-no...
- shiftpgdn 4y ago
  It's getting very tiresome to see big oil/right wing talking points repeated on HN constantly. You can go read the Tesla impact report here: https://www.tesla.com/impact https://www.tesla.com/impact and see that they're doing their best to eliminate conflict minerals in their battery chemistry.
  - matthewmacleod 4y ago
    I mean, you can also hit up the Shell website and read all about how good they are for the environment, driving the transition to clean energy etc.
    - shiftpgdn 4y ago
      I know you're taking the piss but I worked for a Shell subsidiary for 2 years very recently and they actually take all the "green" stuff very seriously despite the fact their core business accounts for 2% of global co2 emissions. It's very bizarre and much of the internal "greenwashing" dialog reads like a catholic confessional. With that out of the way there is a difference between corporate PR greenwashing and literally changing battery chemistries to not contain as many rare earth minerals.
longtimegoogler 4y ago
It's the same at SpaceX. Everyone I know who has worked there said the pay sucks and the hours are long and the only reason to do it is a passion for the industry. Musk seems to be modeling his companies on the video gaming industry.
- somenameforme 4y ago
  I wouldn't say it's the industry, but the mission. You can earn more and work less at practically any other major aerospace company, and also get hired more easily. But instead of working on a goal of getting humans living on Mars, you're working on a goal of maximizing quarterly gains for shareholders.
  - notfromhere 4y ago
    You're still maximizing value for shareholders, it's just wrapped in baloney about a Mars mission.

ramesh31 4y ago

>Tesla seems to get a lot of work out of its employees because of how appealing the company’s mission is, but this seems like a recipe for burnout. Even moreso it was Musk's personal brand that made his companies so desirable to work for. A brand that he has spent the last few years torching to the ground on Twitter. He'll still be able to pay senior folks enough to stick around for a while. But the new grad pipeline is most likely drying up at this point.

turtledove 4y ago
He's gone from "building cool shit, but holy crap the hours are long" to "long hours for a toxic edgelord who has consistently over promised and under delivered" in the span of a decade.

optimiz3 4y ago

What is eggregious about a 40hr work week at the office?

ra7 4y ago
Minimum 40hr work week.
- optimiz3 4y ago
  Thats how it is in most salaried jobs in FAANMG.
  - ra7 4y ago
    I don't recall any FAANMG CEOs writing threatening emails to employees mandating them to work more than 40 hours. Do you have any examples?
    - optimiz3 4y ago
      Who's mandating more than 40 hours?
      - ra7 4y ago
        Did you read his emails? > Anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean *minimum*) of 40 hours per week or depart Tesla. This is less than we ask of factory workers.
        optimiz3 4y ago
        40 hours minimum means you only need to be there 40 hours, like most salaried full time jobs.
        ra7 4y ago
        You're just sticking to semantics. It's well known all his companies require you to work more than 40 hours. Combine that with these emails, it's easy to understand what the expectations are.