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Musk may end up being the most influential person to: 1. Electrify our vehicular infrastructure 2. Get humans to the Moon, if not to Mars 3. Accelerate the u
by nocoolnametom 4y ago
Musk may end up being the most influential person to:
1. Electrify our vehicular infrastructure
2. Get humans to the Moon, if not to Mars
3. Accelerate the unionization of Silicon Valley tech workers
His approach to remote-vs-in-office work is less that of a data-informed futurist and more that of an autocrat. Just as he's loudly supporting public free speech as long as it's his speech, I predict within a few months of taking over Twitter (assuming he doesn't just eat the penalties for dropping out of the agreement) he'll be loudly proclaiming his support of democracy as long as it's not within his companies.
- causality0 4y agoAs someone who believes in free speech even for people I despise and opinions I find nauseating, I hate that people like Musk have become the public face of the free speech movement.
- epistasis 4y agoRemember when DeVore got fired from Google, and there was a massive "free speech" outcry? Very odd that it's not happening now. People feel that it's OK to disparage lots of fellow colleagues with bad interpretations of science, but not OK to critique the CEO for specific actions are not a group of people I want to be associated with either, even though I have always been a "free speech" proponent. I just use different terminology.
- leesec 4y agoWhy would companies be democratic? That would be an extreme historical rarity
- nocoolnametom 4y agoUnions are democratic, employee-run institutions which promote higher involvement of employees in the operations and logistical planning of companies. I'm not referring to Twitter becoming a Co-op, that would indeed be nearly unprecedented.
- leesec 4y agoWell then Elon is openly anti-UAW and for good reasons, go listen to the reasons yourself from his own mouth.
- user_named 4y agoHis reason is that they threaten his power. That is all.
- jeffwask 4y agoYou mean so he can't segregate his factories and have a section known as the "Plantation".
- speedgoose 4y agoWhy would governments be democratic? That would be an extreme historical rarity
- mrep 4y agoEh, we vote in the top people but government's are mostly run hierarchal just as companies are and shareholders vote in board members who appoint the ceo who then runs the company hierarchal so I honestly don't see that much difference.
- zja 4y agoWell one difference is that the people who work in the government bureaucracies are still citizens, and are able to vote for or against the leaders that manage them. Workers don’t have a say in who manages the company or how they do it.
- cagey 4y ago> Well one difference is that the people who work in the government bureaucracies are still citizens, and are able to vote for or against the leaders that manage them. While technically true, this seems laughably inaccurate in practice. Government bureaucracies are almost entirely composed of unelected employees. "There are 542 federal offices: President, Vice President, 100 U.S. Senators (two from each state), 435 U.S. Representatives, four delegates to the House of Representatives from U.S. territories and the District of Columbia, and one Resident Commissioner from the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico."[0] "Federal Civilian Employment ... Total, All Areas* 1,869,986"[1] Yes, the latter number includes Dept of Defence civilian employees. Examination of the situation in a state of your choosing is left as an exercise for the reader, however I suspect the ratios for state employees vs elected officeholders will be similar. [0] https://www.fvap.gov/info/about-absentee-voting/elections#:~:text=There%20are%20542%20federal%20offices,the%20Commonwealth%20of%20Puerto%20Rico https://www.fvap.gov/info/about-absentee-voting/elections#:~.... [1] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-documentation/federal-employment-reports/reports-publications/federal-civilian-employment/ https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-docu...
- foobarian 4y agoYeah I find that big Western cos are actually micro-communisms or dictatorships. Tickles me pink to think about it.
- arethuza 4y agoCentral planning is definitely a big thing in large companies.
- djbebs 4y agoCompanies are pretty democratic. It's constituents are the shareholders, not the workers.
- scollet 4y agoWhy the fuck not
- PaulHoule 4y agoWhat's certain is that Musk is going to mobilize increasing amounts of resistance as he gets more aggressive.
- Tepix 4y agoAre the people working at SpaceX and Tesla "Silicon Valley tech workers"? I think most of them aren't. > he'll be loudly proclaiming his support of democracy Unlikely, given his dependence on China - he'll stay quiet, just like Tim Cook does at Apple.
- mcguire 4y agoI rather suspect that Musk's definition of democracy aligns well with the Chinese government.
- smotched 4y agoWhy does it feel like I'm on reddit? what kind of nonsensical statement is this?
- itsoktocry 4y ago>Are the people working at SpaceX and Tesla "Silicon Valley tech workers"? I think most of them aren't. I think they are. "Silicon Valley" is an idea or abstraction now, rather than a geographic location.
- honkdaddy 4y agoIs it though? I’m a FAANG engineer in NYC and explicitly don’t consider myself an SV engineer.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- nocoolnametom 4y agoI should have just left out the "Silicon Valley" part of that, true. Unionization of developers and technology workers is starting, but remains slow because unions are usually formed when the cost of speaking out becomes worth more than enduring the negatives and unreasonably low pay is usually one of the biggest issues for workers and we don't really have pay issues. Musk's approach to treating his employees as cogs in his machines, to the point of becoming belligerent when they assert their human individuality, could be an accelerant in forming unions even in this high-pay sector.
- yieldcrv 4y agoDo you feel that Elon will exclude some forms of protected speech? I haven't been following that closely
- shagmin 4y agoI would be surprised if he didn't. He has a history of being vindictive towards critics and has a lot of grudges and is more hands-on than typical CEOs.
- blocked_again 4y ago
- slater 4y ago"cry babies who think they deserve everything without doing any work" yes, that's exactly what's happening, and precisely the reason why unionization happens. very perceptive of you.
- charles_kaw 4y agoUnions are when employees get together to demand better working conditions. The only people who should be afraid of unions are those who hold capital.
- blocked_again 4y agoIt's a free market. Find another company who values your skill.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- aaomidi 4y agoA free market implies a freedom to unionize and strike.
- scollet 4y agoHell yeah.
- charles_kaw 4y ago
- blocked_again 4y agoSure. Also for the employer to fire employees for doing that. So doing it is stupidity instead of just finding a better company that values your skill.
- user_named 4y agoWait six month, when the Tesla stock has crashed and he gets margin called. He's going to go nuts and have an epic fall from grace.
- bitexploder 4y agoIf I might be so bold, I don’t think anyone around here really appreciates Musk’s antics very much. However Tesla and SpaceX are fundamentally sound, if overvalued, businesses. Since the start of Tesla he has had loud and obnoxious detractors who have had any number of reasons Tesla is about to implode. Instead they keep churning out solid EVs and SpaceX keeps putting stuff in space. As much as I dislike him, I would not bet against his businesses.
- pclmulqdq 4y agoFundamentally sound doesn't always matter if they are overvalued enough. Companies that take a 99% drop in stock price are likely to end up losing the last percent in a bear market based on lack of confidence from investors.
- diogofranco 4y agoThere is no last percent, it can drop another 99% and then another...
- pclmulqdq 4y agoThere is a "last percent" when you are thinking about drops from peak value, which is how many people think about stock prices.
- BbzzbB 4y agoIf TSLA gets valued down to $7B then we're all fucked, the floor will have fallen from under the stock market as a whole.
- api 4y ago
- andsoitis 4y ago> democracy as long as it's not within his companies. Can you name a single company that operates as a democracy?
- djaychela 4y agoJohn Lewis [1] springs to mind, although I don't know how deep that runs. [1] - https://www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/about.html https://www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/about.html
- jacquesm 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
- germinalphrase 4y agoWhat features of democracy are you concerned with? It’s not hard to find employee-owned and/or cooperatives. CHS, Inc up here in St. Paul does almost 40 billion in revenue as a cooperative.
- Aunche 4y agoCHS Inc is about as democratic as McDonalds. The farmers can vote, just as McDonald's shareholders can, but I'd bet that the Hispanic laborers they rely on have less of a say over their working conditions than McDonald's workers.
- huhwat 4y agoThere are many worker coops that operate as a democracy, some of them quite large. From manufacturing to food service to coding to agriculture, they are in nearly every sector. Maybe this is news to you, but the arrangement isn't that uncommon.
- lp0_on_fire 4y agoNot the person to whom you were responding but lets refine the question: can you name one at the size and scale of Telsa or SpaceX?
- Thaxll 4y ago2. Get humans to the Moon, if not to Mars I think there is a misconception here, SpaceX does not send anyone to space, NASA, ESA etc .. does. SpaceX builds rockets that's it, they don't train astronaut or have a program for space exploration or missions.
- voxic11 4y agoCan you explain how NASA, ESA, ect.. were involved in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspiration4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspiration4 mission?
- aidenn0 4y agoThat's like saying "guns don't kill people" while technically true, having a rocket certainly helps get people into space...
- mulcahey 4y agoThis is incorrect. Inspiration4 sent astronauts they trained. This was largely true for the Axiom mission as well, and will be for the Polaris missions.
- Thaxll 4y agoWell if you call 4month training "astronauts", those kind of training won't get anyone on the moon or on mars. I think that's why they call them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_astronaut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_astronaut To me it's more space tourism that anything else, there is a reason why it takes years to train astronauts.
- oittaa 4y ago
- colinmhayes 4y agoAs far as I can tell NASA had no plans to return to the moon until spaceX came around with starship. Hard for me to say spaceX isn’t the direct reason for the planned mission
- logicalmonster 4y ago> His approach to remote-vs-in-office work is less that of a data-informed futurist and more that of an autocrat. Nobody can read minds of course, but I think it is smart to not always take people at face value and consider all of their motives in saying anything. Personally I think Elon Musk is probably strongly supporting working in the office for 2 reasons. (Obviously pure speculation) 1) Forcing an ultimatum is a means of achieving a stealth layoff. Tesla probably wants a few percent of people to quit and trim expenses without losing investor confidence, as their stock price is of course inflated. (My prediction is that many businesses are probably going to be needlessly promoting working from the office to try and effectively achieve a round of layoffs by having a percentage of people quit) 2) The people who are the loudest about working from home probably are the biggest workplace trouble-makers about relative non-issues. To give an example: I know that this is genuinely a sensitive issue for some, but we all know that there are at least some people who are loudly trying to milk Covid-19 for eternity so they can stay home from work and meanwhile are going out to eat at restaurants and living life care-free.
- joyeuse6701 4y agoWhat’s wrong with living life care free and restaurants? If they get their work done I see nothing wrong with a positive outlook on life and supporting the economy with restaurant dining. If someone’s productivity slips from wfh then address the issue sure.
- logicalmonster 4y ago> What’s wrong with living life care free and restaurants? There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. That's what I've been strongly advocating for during the last 2 years. Go out there and live your life normally as you see fit. One problem is that at least some people out there are trying to milk Covid-19. Publicly, they tell their employer they're too scared of Covid-19 to come to the office so they get to stay home. Privately, they go out every weekend and interact with people normally and live their life.
- scarab92 4y agoNot sure about the stealth layoff take. It's too unfocused, you'll lose people you want to keep and keep people you want to lose. Severance isn't that expensive and gives a lot more control. Agree with your second point though. There's even people absuing remote work to work multiple jobs simultaneously.
- shswkna 4y ago> as long as it's not within his companies Where does the idea originate that there has to be a democracy in a private company? If I were to take my money and start a company, and risk it all, I would go to great lengths (within the law) to make decisions that make my venture successful. That does involve exercising my rights to choose employees that further this goal, and firing those that don’t. Democracy in politics where we have an inalienable right to vote, happens in a different domain. I fail to understand why everyone gets so worked up.
- joyeuse6701 4y agoBecause he markets himself one way but acts another. As you point out, one can be both a champion of democracy and someone who runs a company with a standard hierarchy, but he doesn’t market himself that way. It’s fugazzi.
- dlkf 4y ago> His approach to remote-vs-in-office work is less that of a data-informed futurist and more that of an autocrat. We don’t have the data to determine the long term viability of work from home. Maybe we never will - causation is not correlation, and I don’t see any RCTs happening. Like most decisions, we can’t simply consult ”science” or ”the experts” - we have to use our instincts and our priors.
- option 4y agoYou added (3) because of your personal agenda. It may or may not be true, but it is a minuscule detail compared to first two.
- scollet 4y agoIf you were not paid to write this comment I feel really bad for you. It must suck to simp a sociopath who doesn't even know your birthdate.