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How about reading the article instead of the headline. "Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a “super bad feeling” about the economy and needs to cut about 10% of jobs at t

How about reading the article instead of the headline. "Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a “super bad feeling” about the economy and needs to cut about 10% of jobs at the electric carmaker" "Musk has warned in recent weeks about the risk of a recession, but his email ordering a hiring freeze and staff cuts was the most direct and high-profile message of its kind from the head of an automaker." "Musk’s gloomy outlook echoes recent comments from executives including JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs President John Waldron. A “hurricane is right out there down the road coming our way,” Dimon said this week." In other words, he's doing his job and preparing the company to weather a very likely recession. Judging from the tone of your comment though, I imagine you would prefer if he neglected his responsibility to the company and its shareholders in order to spare some of his workers the inconvenience of looking for another job. That way the entire company can suffer together and lose even more positions.

lapcat 4y ago
> How about reading the article instead of the headline. "Please don't comment on whether someone read an article." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
photochemsyn 4y ago
This is a fundamental problem with the US corporate model: responsibility to shareholders should carry no more weight than responsibility to employees. This is more the German model (see VW) where a company's workers and a company's shareholders have similar representation on the corporate board and both share in the decision-making process. It's also no surprise that the main pushback against the 'back to the office' move is coming from workers in Germany. Probably in this case the shareholder representatives on the board are privately pressuring Musk to do layoffs. People seem either ignorant of this fact or unwilling to comment on this fact, but the major shareholders (mutual and institutional funds) can be seen here: https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?symb=TSLA&subView=institutional https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?s... Maybe the bigger point is that while blue-collar workers in the USA have been treated like disposable units for years under the neoliberal program, now the white-collar workers who thought they were above all that are going to get the same treatment, much to their shock and dismay. Should have seen it coming.
- throwaway4aday 4y ago
  A company is not formed for the benefit of the employees and private industry shouldn't be run like a welfare system. What you see as disposable units I see as free agents, adding more regulation and removing the freedom of choice of both the employer and the employee is ruinous to both. We should be striving to make it easy to fire as well as easy to hire, if you tie up one side or the other or both then you end up with unproductive workers or stagnant businesses or both.
  - photochemsyn 4y ago
    I'd argue that in most corporations, the majority of seats on the board of directors are the optimal candidates for AI automation: all they really do is report to the shareholders. And what practical value do shareholders bring to a corporation? To they have skills in the corporation's business domain? Are they improving the quality of the products? Are they streamlining and improving the manufacturing lines? What value does a shareholder have, really? Now, if the shareholders were all working employees of the corporation, that would make sense. Otherwise what role do they serve?
    - throwaway4aday 4y ago
      Absolutely, any position within a corporation should be automated if it makes sense and improves the performance of the company as a whole. The original purchasers of the shares served the purpose of providing money to the corporation, the subsequent purchasers are participating in a secondary market and help in adjusting the value of the corporation's shares. The corporation can benefit from this by issuing new shares to generate further funding. Voting shares also provide input from outside the company which can be a healthy perspective to have especially when it is coming from serious analysts who spend a lot of time looking at other corporations in the same industry, it can be detrimental as well but because the share owners have skin in the game they are less likely to vote against their own interests and those with the most interest have the most votes. I have nothing against employee owned corporations. If people want to get together and run and work for their own corporation then more power to them. I don't think it should be the only type of corporation though, we need a variety of models to adapt to changing circumstances and service different needs.
deleted 4y ago
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lapcat 4y ago

> How about reading the article instead of the headline. "Please don't comment on whether someone read an article." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

photochemsyn 4y ago

This is a fundamental problem with the US corporate model: responsibility to shareholders should carry no more weight than responsibility to employees. This is more the German model (see VW) where a company's workers and a company's shareholders have similar representation on the corporate board and both share in the decision-making process. It's also no surprise that the main pushback against the 'back to the office' move is coming from workers in Germany. Probably in this case the shareholder representatives on the board are privately pressuring Musk to do layoffs. People seem either ignorant of this fact or unwilling to comment on this fact, but the major shareholders (mutual and institutional funds) can be seen here: https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?symb=TSLA&subView=institutional https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?s... Maybe the bigger point is that while blue-collar workers in the USA have been treated like disposable units for years under the neoliberal program, now the white-collar workers who thought they were above all that are going to get the same treatment, much to their shock and dismay. Should have seen it coming.

throwaway4aday 4y ago
A company is not formed for the benefit of the employees and private industry shouldn't be run like a welfare system. What you see as disposable units I see as free agents, adding more regulation and removing the freedom of choice of both the employer and the employee is ruinous to both. We should be striving to make it easy to fire as well as easy to hire, if you tie up one side or the other or both then you end up with unproductive workers or stagnant businesses or both.
- photochemsyn 4y ago
  I'd argue that in most corporations, the majority of seats on the board of directors are the optimal candidates for AI automation: all they really do is report to the shareholders. And what practical value do shareholders bring to a corporation? To they have skills in the corporation's business domain? Are they improving the quality of the products? Are they streamlining and improving the manufacturing lines? What value does a shareholder have, really? Now, if the shareholders were all working employees of the corporation, that would make sense. Otherwise what role do they serve?
  - throwaway4aday 4y ago
    Absolutely, any position within a corporation should be automated if it makes sense and improves the performance of the company as a whole. The original purchasers of the shares served the purpose of providing money to the corporation, the subsequent purchasers are participating in a secondary market and help in adjusting the value of the corporation's shares. The corporation can benefit from this by issuing new shares to generate further funding. Voting shares also provide input from outside the company which can be a healthy perspective to have especially when it is coming from serious analysts who spend a lot of time looking at other corporations in the same industry, it can be detrimental as well but because the share owners have skin in the game they are less likely to vote against their own interests and those with the most interest have the most votes. I have nothing against employee owned corporations. If people want to get together and run and work for their own corporation then more power to them. I don't think it should be the only type of corporation though, we need a variety of models to adapt to changing circumstances and service different needs.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]