4 ms·

Elon Musk’s Antics Turn Owners and Would-Be Buyers Against Tesla

16 points by CrankyBear 4y ago

jqpabc123 4y ago
Musk is technically smart but kinda immature. Maybe this works if geeks are your target audience ... but they are not the majority. Playing to a minority is not very smart from a business perspective.
- theandrewbailey 4y ago
  > Playing to a minority is not very smart from a business perspective. Yet every major corporation rebrands for pride month.
  - MrMan 4y ago
    I love pride month thanks for mentioning it
  - richbell 4y ago
    Celebrating pride is the zeitgeist; they're doing it because they think it boosts their brand/is profitable.
    - kennend3 4y ago
      Agreed. it is a simple calculus for them. Probability the public will "call them out" for not participating and the financial impact if this were to take place VS The cost to change the colouring of the logo for a month.
  - pschuegr 4y ago
    That's because people who support pride are not a minority.
  - jqpabc123 4y ago
    To clarify, what I meant was playing to a minority "and alienating the majority". My impression is that pride month is kinda indifferent to the majority. It ain't my thing personally but I don't have any strong feelings against it. It doesn't hurt me in any way. Live and let live. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you --- etc, etc, yadda, yadda.
- smt88 4y ago
  Serious question: is he technically smart? Or is he just a rich kid who got lucky and understands how to manipulate situations to his advantage? Some of his ideas are good, but others (like Hyperloop) are idiotic and are worse than existing technology. He seems to just dream things up and then throw money at good engineers until they accomplish them. This works with some things (SpaceX, Tesla) and fails with others (Boring). The situation with the kids in the cave revealed how poorly he understands a lot of things he claims to be a genius in.
  - jqpabc123 4y ago
    He seems to just dream things up and then throw money at good engineers until they accomplish them. By all accounts from those who have worked for him, he is heavily involved and pretty hands on in terms of engineering and design. You can't just be a rich hands on idiot and have the success he has had. Just hiring a team of good engineers takes a certain level of technical insight.
    - smt88 4y ago
      > By all accounts from those who have worked for him, he is heavily involved and pretty hands on in terms of engineering and design. I've heard that too, but I've also heard that he kind of goes in, drops a bomb on his engineers, like "This needs to be 25% more efficient by next year," and then leaves it to them to figure it out -- even if it isn't technically possible. Sometimes the breakthroughs are very hard but actually possible (like reusable launch systems at SpaceX) and sometimes they're just not possible (like reaching L4/5 SDCs in a few years without even having LIDAR). So the question I'd ask is, can anyone achieve a few breakthroughs if they constantly repeat this formula? 1. Make huge promises about advancements in technology. 2. Hire excited engineers. 3. Give them lots of money and unreasonably optimistic deadlines. 4. Repeat. Musk himself hasn't succeeded seemingly even 50% of the time with this formula, but he is one of the few people with enough money to keep trying it over and over again. Google is the same: they have so many moonshots, one of them was guaranteed to be a breakthrough like Waymo while a lot of the others were going to be more like Loon[1] or Calico[2]. 1. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55761172 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55761172 2. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/4/27/15409672/google-calico-secretive-aging-mortality-research https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/4/27/15409672/go...

16 points by CrankyBear 4y ago

Musk is technically smart but kinda immature. Maybe this works if geeks are your target audience ... but they are not the majority. Playing to a minority is not very smart from a business perspective.

theandrewbailey 4y ago
> Playing to a minority is not very smart from a business perspective. Yet every major corporation rebrands for pride month.
- MrMan 4y ago
  I love pride month thanks for mentioning it
- richbell 4y ago
  Celebrating pride is the zeitgeist; they're doing it because they think it boosts their brand/is profitable.
  - kennend3 4y ago
    Agreed. it is a simple calculus for them. Probability the public will "call them out" for not participating and the financial impact if this were to take place VS The cost to change the colouring of the logo for a month.
- pschuegr 4y ago
  That's because people who support pride are not a minority.
- jqpabc123 4y ago
  To clarify, what I meant was playing to a minority "and alienating the majority". My impression is that pride month is kinda indifferent to the majority. It ain't my thing personally but I don't have any strong feelings against it. It doesn't hurt me in any way. Live and let live. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you --- etc, etc, yadda, yadda.
smt88 4y ago
Serious question: is he technically smart? Or is he just a rich kid who got lucky and understands how to manipulate situations to his advantage? Some of his ideas are good, but others (like Hyperloop) are idiotic and are worse than existing technology. He seems to just dream things up and then throw money at good engineers until they accomplish them. This works with some things (SpaceX, Tesla) and fails with others (Boring). The situation with the kids in the cave revealed how poorly he understands a lot of things he claims to be a genius in.
- jqpabc123 4y ago
  He seems to just dream things up and then throw money at good engineers until they accomplish them. By all accounts from those who have worked for him, he is heavily involved and pretty hands on in terms of engineering and design. You can't just be a rich hands on idiot and have the success he has had. Just hiring a team of good engineers takes a certain level of technical insight.
  - smt88 4y ago
    > By all accounts from those who have worked for him, he is heavily involved and pretty hands on in terms of engineering and design. I've heard that too, but I've also heard that he kind of goes in, drops a bomb on his engineers, like "This needs to be 25% more efficient by next year," and then leaves it to them to figure it out -- even if it isn't technically possible. Sometimes the breakthroughs are very hard but actually possible (like reusable launch systems at SpaceX) and sometimes they're just not possible (like reaching L4/5 SDCs in a few years without even having LIDAR). So the question I'd ask is, can anyone achieve a few breakthroughs if they constantly repeat this formula? 1. Make huge promises about advancements in technology. 2. Hire excited engineers. 3. Give them lots of money and unreasonably optimistic deadlines. 4. Repeat. Musk himself hasn't succeeded seemingly even 50% of the time with this formula, but he is one of the few people with enough money to keep trying it over and over again. Google is the same: they have so many moonshots, one of them was guaranteed to be a breakthrough like Waymo while a lot of the others were going to be more like Loon[1] or Calico[2]. 1. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55761172 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55761172 2. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/4/27/15409672/google-calico-secretive-aging-mortality-research https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/4/27/15409672/go...