10 ms·

I don't know what Tesla pay is like, but man, you really have to be guzzling the Kool-Aid to stay employed there. Crunching crazy hours, having some asshole gui

I don't know what Tesla pay is like, but man, you really have to be guzzling the Kool-Aid to stay employed there. Crunching crazy hours, having some asshole guilt you for PTO, working for the world's unfunniest meme Lord, etc. Somehow, I have the feeling they're going to have no problem shedding 10% of their workforce this year...

halfmatthalfcat 4y ago
Is it really hard to see why people would want to work there, morally? The goal of playing a part in sustainable/renewable energy is pretty noble.
- Something1234 4y ago
  That is such a freaking joke. Personal automobiles are the worse possible thing for the environment. End cars. Let's get real public transit back. Hyperloop is a lie to kill existing public transit efforts. So many people have documented that so many things have issues. Yes electric cars are good, but not much better than Plugin Hybrids.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    Entire countries have been developed around the car. It’s tone deaf to ignore that and think they’re going away anytime in the next half century, demanding public transportation replace them. Urban planning and refactoring takes significant time. The US shrugs at such an idea and keeps buying 17 million cars a year. Even Norway buys cars (although most are electric cars now). When cars are sold, they should be EVs.
  - Karsteski 4y ago
    > End cars I guess those of us that live in rural areas should just bike 100s of km everywhere then. It's always amusing to see these hyperbolic, clearly unrealistic statements on here. I wonder what's going through the head of someone like you...
    - hedora 4y ago
      Hey, that's easier than razing and rebuilding US cities that were built under the assumption everyone has a car. (Among other things, they have road topologies that make buses and bikes completely infeasible.)
      - evanfarrar 4y ago
        We already razed the cities once to build the roads.
      - vineyardmike 4y ago
        > Among other things, they have road topologies that make buses and bikes completely infeasible If the hilly San Francisco can have lots of bikes and buses (…and cable cars and street cars and light rail and commuter rail) then so can most cities.
        throwntoday 4y ago
        I hardly see any bikes in downtown SF, I can't imagine anyone is riding them elsewhere.
        vineyardmike 4y ago
        You should see the rest of the country, there’s even fewer bikes in most places. But downtown doesn’t need bikes. There’s amble public transit and everything is close by. Most people I know who bike use it for longer distances, eg the base of Bernal Heights to downtown via mission+market. Or going from Caltrain to sunset.
        hedora 4y ago
        Hills aren't the problem. Urban sprawl is, and so are irregular road grids with uniform density everywhere. SF is compact, and has a few main drags where it makes sense to have trollies / bus lines. It also has a well-defined city center, so a hub and spoke transit system mostly works there. In contrast, public transit doesn't even really make sense in South Bay. It was (mostly) laid out when public transit was common, but now there are multiple mini-downtown areas without train service, and many of the tracks have been ripped out.
  - bavell 4y ago
    This is satire, right?
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    > Let's get real public transit back You forgot the tiny detail that public transit sucks bad in most countries (and you won't fix it with government and unions) and it won't get you where you need to go unless you live in the very center of a city.
  - rngname22 4y ago
    If it's that easy to end personal automobiles and increase funding for public transit by 10000%, why don't you just wave your magic wand and do it? Getting a job at Tesla to accelerate electrification of cars is a lot more within someone's personal control than somehow enacting the political will to change legislation and funding away from personal vehicles and towards public transit. But I guess just making HN comments about it is a more feel-good easy solution.
    - ericmay 4y ago
      Presumably because it's not possible to wave a magic wand and do it. I know I would if I could. It would be great to be wealthier as a country (US-centric here), have far fewer c02 emissions for mostly no good reason, have fewer people dead or harmed because of car accidents, and have healthier people because they get out move around more. I'd also suggest examining your perspective. Highways and roads are also public transit. It's a non-sequitur to suggest that highways aren't public transit yet something like bikes or bike lanes are. Unfortunately we've been convinced by big government that we need highways, highway builders, giant departments of transportation, car insurance, tires, gasoline and gas stations, the actual cars themselves, oil changes, AAA, and all of these other industries at the scale that we have them now. It's just a giant jobs program. If we built medium-density, mixed use neighborhoods you wouldn't need a gasoline or electric car to walk a few blocks to a local grocery store. It's manufactured spending. That's why there are so many advertisements and BIG GOVERNMENT programs. If we cared about being efficient or cost-effective we'd just build things differently. But we don't care about that. While electric cars are "better" for c02 emissions than gasoline powered cars (and more fun to drive IMO), it's like doubling down on a solution for a problem that we can just not have by not driving so much and having cars. It's really frustrating when I read comments where people act incredulous at the idea of not spending billions and billions of dollars every year on cars and associated government programs when you could just walk down the street instead. Can you still have a car to drive to the countryside? Yea definitely. Do we literally need to design society around a gigantic SUV so you can drive to Costco and pretend you are saving money buying in bulk? No.
  - xnx 4y ago
    In theory, public transit seems like it would have less impact on the environment, but in practice (in the US at least), public transit has all-in unsubsidized cost (and therefore environmental impact) per passenger mile often greater than private cars.
    - aoeusnth1 4y ago
      If cost is equal to environmental impact, are you arguing that Tesla helps the environment?
  - mlindner 4y ago
    Cars aren't going anywhere. This is simply delusional. Cars existed long before there were any subsidies in the form of government road development. They're not going away even if you take any kind of funding away for car infrastructure and build lots of other infrastructure. I suggest exploring outside cities and widening your horizons. You apparently don't know much about the world. Also even if implemented, hyperloop isn't for transport inside cities. It's for intermediate distances that are only a little too short to travel by plane with but too far for rapid travel on train/car. Elon was never interested in implementing hyperloop anyway. So this is a red herring.
    - vineyardmike 4y ago
      Cars gained popularity in America with the rise of road systems that allowed for suburban life. Car companies has a huge history of damaging public transit infrastructure goals in cities to further their cars. In LA car companies literally bought rail car lines and turned them into buses. Hyper loop is absolutely an interest of Elon but yes it is a red herring. He’s doing it to distract from other goals so more people want teslas. Eg the Las Vegas tunnels that use teslas instead of train cars. https://inhabitat.com/what-happened-to-los-angeles-streetcars/ https://inhabitat.com/what-happened-to-los-angeles-streetcar... https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/elon-musk-s-boring-company-to-start-full-scale-hyperloop-test-this-year/ar-AAWF5xx https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/elon-musk-s-boring-c...
      - mlindner 4y ago
        > Hyper loop is absolutely an interest of Elon but yes it is a red herring. He’s doing it to distract from other goals so more people want teslas. Eg the Las Vegas tunnels that use teslas instead of train cars. I said he had no interest in implementing it, not that it wasn't an interest. He doesn't have the time and the level of interest in his other tasks is much higher.
- maxerickson 4y ago
  Tesla is a noble bet that the performance/price curve of batteries is relatively predictable. Notice how lots of companies are able to make big expensive batteries?
- justapassenger 4y ago
  $60k+ luxury cars with $12k DLCs aren’t going to change the world. Tesla morphed long time ago from sustainable energy transformation to car manufacturer/AI hype company. Even Musk says their future is in AI/Teslabot/whatever he comes up with next.
  - halfmatthalfcat 4y ago
    Solar, Powerwall, Megapack, Autobidder?
    - justapassenger 4y ago
      All of them are either shrinking/stagnant or VC level pitches.
      - halfmatthalfcat 4y ago
        Based on? From their quarterly reports, they seem to be headed in the opposite direction (up).
        justapassenger 4y ago
        Tesla’s solar is down almost 4x compared to high of Solarcity.
  - speedgoose 4y ago
    Without Tesla we would have not much better than a Nissan Leaf or a Renault Zoe.
    - justapassenger 4y ago
      They contributed it it, and likely sped it up, sure. But government regulations were/are much bigger driver of it.
      - 4y ago
nemothekid 4y ago
People have worked for worse companies who's stock hasn't done nearly as well. See Facebook.
- fsociety 4y ago
  Rofl in terms of workplace Facebook has been the best by far for myself. Given the most trust and responsibility, everyone I met was helpful, honest, and blunt. People came from wildly different backgrounds. Anytime I had a question about a random area I’d get to meet the lead engineer for 30 minutes to an hour and they give an in-depth breakdown of how their tech work. I was always encouraged to help others and it reflected well in performance review. When I had my interview with Tesla, the engineer sounded incredibly burnt out and was honest about how horrible it was.
  - nemothekid 4y ago
    The Kool-aid is powerful; I don't blame you and the pay is probably great. It makes it all that much easier to ignore the external harm Facebook causes. I'm not playing moral judge; just that someone can list a bunch of reasons why it's awesome to work for Tesla and mention none of the downsides.
  - throwntoday 4y ago
    Except at the end of the day facebook is morally bankrupt and you supported that by working for them. At least Tesla's mission is noble and is having a positive effect on human civilization and the planet.
- duped 4y ago
  Facebook may be evil, but I've never heard anything but good things about the work culture
me_me_mu_mu 4y ago
bUt ThE mIsSiOn BrO (Make Elon/Bezos/Zuc/etc Richer)

halfmatthalfcat 4y ago

Is it really hard to see why people would want to work there, morally? The goal of playing a part in sustainable/renewable energy is pretty noble.

Something1234 4y ago
That is such a freaking joke. Personal automobiles are the worse possible thing for the environment. End cars. Let's get real public transit back. Hyperloop is a lie to kill existing public transit efforts. So many people have documented that so many things have issues. Yes electric cars are good, but not much better than Plugin Hybrids.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  Entire countries have been developed around the car. It’s tone deaf to ignore that and think they’re going away anytime in the next half century, demanding public transportation replace them. Urban planning and refactoring takes significant time. The US shrugs at such an idea and keeps buying 17 million cars a year. Even Norway buys cars (although most are electric cars now). When cars are sold, they should be EVs.
- Karsteski 4y ago
  > End cars I guess those of us that live in rural areas should just bike 100s of km everywhere then. It's always amusing to see these hyperbolic, clearly unrealistic statements on here. I wonder what's going through the head of someone like you...
  - hedora 4y ago
    Hey, that's easier than razing and rebuilding US cities that were built under the assumption everyone has a car. (Among other things, they have road topologies that make buses and bikes completely infeasible.)
    - evanfarrar 4y ago
      We already razed the cities once to build the roads.
    - vineyardmike 4y ago
      > Among other things, they have road topologies that make buses and bikes completely infeasible If the hilly San Francisco can have lots of bikes and buses (…and cable cars and street cars and light rail and commuter rail) then so can most cities.
      - throwntoday 4y ago
        I hardly see any bikes in downtown SF, I can't imagine anyone is riding them elsewhere.
        vineyardmike 4y ago
        You should see the rest of the country, there’s even fewer bikes in most places. But downtown doesn’t need bikes. There’s amble public transit and everything is close by. Most people I know who bike use it for longer distances, eg the base of Bernal Heights to downtown via mission+market. Or going from Caltrain to sunset.
      - hedora 4y ago
        Hills aren't the problem. Urban sprawl is, and so are irregular road grids with uniform density everywhere. SF is compact, and has a few main drags where it makes sense to have trollies / bus lines. It also has a well-defined city center, so a hub and spoke transit system mostly works there. In contrast, public transit doesn't even really make sense in South Bay. It was (mostly) laid out when public transit was common, but now there are multiple mini-downtown areas without train service, and many of the tracks have been ripped out.
- bavell 4y ago
  This is satire, right?
- ekianjo 4y ago
  > Let's get real public transit back You forgot the tiny detail that public transit sucks bad in most countries (and you won't fix it with government and unions) and it won't get you where you need to go unless you live in the very center of a city.
- rngname22 4y ago
  If it's that easy to end personal automobiles and increase funding for public transit by 10000%, why don't you just wave your magic wand and do it? Getting a job at Tesla to accelerate electrification of cars is a lot more within someone's personal control than somehow enacting the political will to change legislation and funding away from personal vehicles and towards public transit. But I guess just making HN comments about it is a more feel-good easy solution.
  - ericmay 4y ago
    Presumably because it's not possible to wave a magic wand and do it. I know I would if I could. It would be great to be wealthier as a country (US-centric here), have far fewer c02 emissions for mostly no good reason, have fewer people dead or harmed because of car accidents, and have healthier people because they get out move around more. I'd also suggest examining your perspective. Highways and roads are also public transit. It's a non-sequitur to suggest that highways aren't public transit yet something like bikes or bike lanes are. Unfortunately we've been convinced by big government that we need highways, highway builders, giant departments of transportation, car insurance, tires, gasoline and gas stations, the actual cars themselves, oil changes, AAA, and all of these other industries at the scale that we have them now. It's just a giant jobs program. If we built medium-density, mixed use neighborhoods you wouldn't need a gasoline or electric car to walk a few blocks to a local grocery store. It's manufactured spending. That's why there are so many advertisements and BIG GOVERNMENT programs. If we cared about being efficient or cost-effective we'd just build things differently. But we don't care about that. While electric cars are "better" for c02 emissions than gasoline powered cars (and more fun to drive IMO), it's like doubling down on a solution for a problem that we can just not have by not driving so much and having cars. It's really frustrating when I read comments where people act incredulous at the idea of not spending billions and billions of dollars every year on cars and associated government programs when you could just walk down the street instead. Can you still have a car to drive to the countryside? Yea definitely. Do we literally need to design society around a gigantic SUV so you can drive to Costco and pretend you are saving money buying in bulk? No.
- xnx 4y ago
  In theory, public transit seems like it would have less impact on the environment, but in practice (in the US at least), public transit has all-in unsubsidized cost (and therefore environmental impact) per passenger mile often greater than private cars.
  - aoeusnth1 4y ago
    If cost is equal to environmental impact, are you arguing that Tesla helps the environment?
- mlindner 4y ago
  Cars aren't going anywhere. This is simply delusional. Cars existed long before there were any subsidies in the form of government road development. They're not going away even if you take any kind of funding away for car infrastructure and build lots of other infrastructure. I suggest exploring outside cities and widening your horizons. You apparently don't know much about the world. Also even if implemented, hyperloop isn't for transport inside cities. It's for intermediate distances that are only a little too short to travel by plane with but too far for rapid travel on train/car. Elon was never interested in implementing hyperloop anyway. So this is a red herring.
  - vineyardmike 4y ago
    Cars gained popularity in America with the rise of road systems that allowed for suburban life. Car companies has a huge history of damaging public transit infrastructure goals in cities to further their cars. In LA car companies literally bought rail car lines and turned them into buses. Hyper loop is absolutely an interest of Elon but yes it is a red herring. He’s doing it to distract from other goals so more people want teslas. Eg the Las Vegas tunnels that use teslas instead of train cars. https://inhabitat.com/what-happened-to-los-angeles-streetcars/ https://inhabitat.com/what-happened-to-los-angeles-streetcar... https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/elon-musk-s-boring-company-to-start-full-scale-hyperloop-test-this-year/ar-AAWF5xx https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/elon-musk-s-boring-c...
    - mlindner 4y ago
      > Hyper loop is absolutely an interest of Elon but yes it is a red herring. He’s doing it to distract from other goals so more people want teslas. Eg the Las Vegas tunnels that use teslas instead of train cars. I said he had no interest in implementing it, not that it wasn't an interest. He doesn't have the time and the level of interest in his other tasks is much higher.
maxerickson 4y ago
Tesla is a noble bet that the performance/price curve of batteries is relatively predictable. Notice how lots of companies are able to make big expensive batteries?
justapassenger 4y ago
$60k+ luxury cars with $12k DLCs aren’t going to change the world. Tesla morphed long time ago from sustainable energy transformation to car manufacturer/AI hype company. Even Musk says their future is in AI/Teslabot/whatever he comes up with next.
- halfmatthalfcat 4y ago
  Solar, Powerwall, Megapack, Autobidder?
  - justapassenger 4y ago
    All of them are either shrinking/stagnant or VC level pitches.
    - halfmatthalfcat 4y ago
      Based on? From their quarterly reports, they seem to be headed in the opposite direction (up).
      - justapassenger 4y ago
        Tesla’s solar is down almost 4x compared to high of Solarcity.
- speedgoose 4y ago
  Without Tesla we would have not much better than a Nissan Leaf or a Renault Zoe.
  - justapassenger 4y ago
    They contributed it it, and likely sped it up, sure. But government regulations were/are much bigger driver of it.
    - 4y ago

nemothekid 4y ago

People have worked for worse companies who's stock hasn't done nearly as well. See Facebook.

fsociety 4y ago
Rofl in terms of workplace Facebook has been the best by far for myself. Given the most trust and responsibility, everyone I met was helpful, honest, and blunt. People came from wildly different backgrounds. Anytime I had a question about a random area I’d get to meet the lead engineer for 30 minutes to an hour and they give an in-depth breakdown of how their tech work. I was always encouraged to help others and it reflected well in performance review. When I had my interview with Tesla, the engineer sounded incredibly burnt out and was honest about how horrible it was.
- nemothekid 4y ago
  The Kool-aid is powerful; I don't blame you and the pay is probably great. It makes it all that much easier to ignore the external harm Facebook causes. I'm not playing moral judge; just that someone can list a bunch of reasons why it's awesome to work for Tesla and mention none of the downsides.
- throwntoday 4y ago
  Except at the end of the day facebook is morally bankrupt and you supported that by working for them. At least Tesla's mission is noble and is having a positive effect on human civilization and the planet.
duped 4y ago
Facebook may be evil, but I've never heard anything but good things about the work culture

me_me_mu_mu 4y ago

bUt ThE mIsSiOn BrO (Make Elon/Bezos/Zuc/etc Richer)