4 ms·

So why is he able to get smart people around him? Its not like he pays them a lot or offer a good work/life balance in their job.

by pkaye 4y ago

renewiltord 4y ago
Elon offers people a chance to operate at a true 100% on a thing that matters. Next to that, work-life balance pales. And comp? Comp follows company glory. Tesla engineers are rich, man.
robryan 4y ago
Sells them on the mission. Things like a colony on Mars and full self driving are pretty compelling goals for some people.
- mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
  Yeah but I feel like "work on twitter" is way less of a .... shall we say noble/socially fulfilling job. I'd value working on sending people to mars (not to live, just to do a walk on it), it'd make me part of something historic. One day people would write books and make documentaries about the work done to make it happen, and even if I weren't featured for the entire rest of my life if I could tell people "I worked on the software for the Mars shuttle" or whatever and have them go "Oh cool!". Hell, even before it succeeds I think it'd have social capital with the right crowd: pushing boundaries to put someone on mars is a cool job.... Twitter on the other hand... "Oh I work at twitter doing software". That's.... nowhere near as exciting or epic a thing to tell people that you do. So he might have a harder time finding smart people willing to work for less than market rates at twitter compared to finding them for SpaceX and Tesla
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    I'm sure Elon will have a mission statement that will appeal to some people. Imagine a new form of news and communication that solves all of our social woes, allows people to be informed, and have constructive discourse. That would be world changing. I'm not saying Twitter could ever be that. But maybe someone else could be convinced it is possible.
    - mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
      > Imagine a new form of news and communication that solves all of our social woes, allows people to be informed, and have constructive discourse. I did imagine that happening once - I imagined the internet would lead to that. The state of things now is very different from what the me of 15 years ago imagined, in part because of things like twitter in fact. I now believe that social woes have significant parts that aren't just misunderstandings they are big problems that can't be solved only through dialogue. Further many of the misunderstandings are actually deliberate misrepresentations - how many people who are pro-choice have you seen making the incredibly bad faith argument that pro-lifers just want to control/punish women? (Note I am pro-choice myself, but that particular argument is a really shitty obviously untrue argument and I see it constantly and it really gives me the shits). > I'm sure Elon will have a mission statement that will appeal to some people. This I do agree with, but I think the pool of people that are willing to work crazy hours at sub-standard pay is smaller when the work is making whatever Musk's improved version of twitter looks like than it is for putting someone on mars or making electric cars mainstream.
      - s1artibartfast 4y ago
        I don't think the communication problems are inherent to the internet but I'm sympathetic to your greater point. I think the gamification of communication on the Internet is one of the worst inventions, feeding into a lot of very negative neural architecture. Encourages people to seek quick validation from there like-minded peers, and encourages a sense of superiority people can only get from knocking down strawman. This is exacerbated by brief and content without any Nuance or resemblance to reality. In a lot of ways, Twitter incorporates the worst aspects of this. Reddit is arguably worse in terms of gamification, but at least it doesn't have a 144 character limit and tools to curate your consumption.
        mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
        I don't think the problems are inherent to the internet... sadly I think they are inherent to human beings. Twitter by design exacerbates a lot of these problems though IMO. Character limits, the way replies work and things are displayed such as to make any particularly active comment section practically impossible to follow, etc EDIT: I do actually genuinely hope that Twitter dies, but I am scared that is a monkey paw where whatever the next thing happens to be it ends up being worse
  - brianmurphy 4y ago
    Your mistake is looking at what twitter has been in the past and not what it could be with a fast moving entrepreneur driving the ship. Twitter has been too complacent in the market of communication apps. By all reports, including from Elon himself, big changes are on the way.
    - mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
      Twitter is a social media platform, that space is never going to have the kind of social cache novel space exploration does. It doesn't matter how amazing of a communication app or social media platform it is, as a job it is less epic than working on getting a guy to mars - this is my documentary argument from earlier.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
awb 4y ago
What would you rather have on your resume, Tesla or IBM?
- dwaite 4y ago
  Are those seriously my only two choices?
rtpg 4y ago
Mission, and there are a lot of smart people in the world. Also, some people identify with him because he acts completely the same as That One Guy in the university who had studied programming before getting to the CS classes. I think that a lot of people also don't have to directly work with him, and there are a lot of assholes running companies. That being said, Musk's behavior personally turned me off from all of his companies' products, despite maybe 5 years ago thinking "if I ever buy a car, it'll be a Tesla"
- abledon 4y ago
  >he acts completely the same as That One Guy in the university who had studied programming before getting to the CS classes. I don't get this reference, how does a person like that act in uni?
  - rtpg 4y ago
    Like a certain real gungho-ness and actual knowledge that then turns into their whole personality. Assuming they actually know everything the world has to offer because they figured a bunch of stuff out on their own in this one domain in the past. Someone who ends up getting something done, but in the most chaotic manner possible and with loads of unforced errors because they are not absorbing information from their peers.

So why is he able to get smart people around him? Its not like he pays them a lot or offer a good work/life balance in their job.

by pkaye 4y ago

So why is he able to get smart people around him? Its not like he pays them a lot or offer a good work/life balance in their job.

renewiltord 4y ago

Elon offers people a chance to operate at a true 100% on a thing that matters. Next to that, work-life balance pales. And comp? Comp follows company glory. Tesla engineers are rich, man.

robryan 4y ago

Sells them on the mission. Things like a colony on Mars and full self driving are pretty compelling goals for some people.

mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
Yeah but I feel like "work on twitter" is way less of a .... shall we say noble/socially fulfilling job. I'd value working on sending people to mars (not to live, just to do a walk on it), it'd make me part of something historic. One day people would write books and make documentaries about the work done to make it happen, and even if I weren't featured for the entire rest of my life if I could tell people "I worked on the software for the Mars shuttle" or whatever and have them go "Oh cool!". Hell, even before it succeeds I think it'd have social capital with the right crowd: pushing boundaries to put someone on mars is a cool job.... Twitter on the other hand... "Oh I work at twitter doing software". That's.... nowhere near as exciting or epic a thing to tell people that you do. So he might have a harder time finding smart people willing to work for less than market rates at twitter compared to finding them for SpaceX and Tesla
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  I'm sure Elon will have a mission statement that will appeal to some people. Imagine a new form of news and communication that solves all of our social woes, allows people to be informed, and have constructive discourse. That would be world changing. I'm not saying Twitter could ever be that. But maybe someone else could be convinced it is possible.
  - mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
    > Imagine a new form of news and communication that solves all of our social woes, allows people to be informed, and have constructive discourse. I did imagine that happening once - I imagined the internet would lead to that. The state of things now is very different from what the me of 15 years ago imagined, in part because of things like twitter in fact. I now believe that social woes have significant parts that aren't just misunderstandings they are big problems that can't be solved only through dialogue. Further many of the misunderstandings are actually deliberate misrepresentations - how many people who are pro-choice have you seen making the incredibly bad faith argument that pro-lifers just want to control/punish women? (Note I am pro-choice myself, but that particular argument is a really shitty obviously untrue argument and I see it constantly and it really gives me the shits). > I'm sure Elon will have a mission statement that will appeal to some people. This I do agree with, but I think the pool of people that are willing to work crazy hours at sub-standard pay is smaller when the work is making whatever Musk's improved version of twitter looks like than it is for putting someone on mars or making electric cars mainstream.
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago
      I don't think the communication problems are inherent to the internet but I'm sympathetic to your greater point. I think the gamification of communication on the Internet is one of the worst inventions, feeding into a lot of very negative neural architecture. Encourages people to seek quick validation from there like-minded peers, and encourages a sense of superiority people can only get from knocking down strawman. This is exacerbated by brief and content without any Nuance or resemblance to reality. In a lot of ways, Twitter incorporates the worst aspects of this. Reddit is arguably worse in terms of gamification, but at least it doesn't have a 144 character limit and tools to curate your consumption.
      - mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
        I don't think the problems are inherent to the internet... sadly I think they are inherent to human beings. Twitter by design exacerbates a lot of these problems though IMO. Character limits, the way replies work and things are displayed such as to make any particularly active comment section practically impossible to follow, etc EDIT: I do actually genuinely hope that Twitter dies, but I am scared that is a monkey paw where whatever the next thing happens to be it ends up being worse
- brianmurphy 4y ago
  Your mistake is looking at what twitter has been in the past and not what it could be with a fast moving entrepreneur driving the ship. Twitter has been too complacent in the market of communication apps. By all reports, including from Elon himself, big changes are on the way.
  - mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
    Twitter is a social media platform, that space is never going to have the kind of social cache novel space exploration does. It doesn't matter how amazing of a communication app or social media platform it is, as a job it is less epic than working on getting a guy to mars - this is my documentary argument from earlier.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

awb 4y ago

What would you rather have on your resume, Tesla or IBM?

dwaite 4y ago
Are those seriously my only two choices?

rtpg 4y ago

Mission, and there are a lot of smart people in the world. Also, some people identify with him because he acts completely the same as That One Guy in the university who had studied programming before getting to the CS classes. I think that a lot of people also don't have to directly work with him, and there are a lot of assholes running companies. That being said, Musk's behavior personally turned me off from all of his companies' products, despite maybe 5 years ago thinking "if I ever buy a car, it'll be a Tesla"

abledon 4y ago
>he acts completely the same as That One Guy in the university who had studied programming before getting to the CS classes. I don't get this reference, how does a person like that act in uni?
- rtpg 4y ago
  Like a certain real gungho-ness and actual knowledge that then turns into their whole personality. Assuming they actually know everything the world has to offer because they figured a bunch of stuff out on their own in this one domain in the past. Someone who ends up getting something done, but in the most chaotic manner possible and with loads of unforced errors because they are not absorbing information from their peers.