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This brand of leadership is how you end up with companies like SpaceX being able to build a Raptor engine per day (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33436918

by memish 4y ago

This brand of leadership is how you end up with companies like SpaceX being able to build a Raptor engine per day (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33436918 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33436918) and Tesla advancing the electric car industry by many years. Now we'll see Twitter pivot from a stagnant rest & vest to high productivity. Here's Andrej Karpathy's (ex-Tesla head of AI) explanation of Elon's leadership style and effectiveness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbxladysbTE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbxladysbTE

SanjayMehta 4y ago
That's an interesting clip and reminiscent of an extremely effective manager I had. He would remove people from trouble projects one at a time to (a) reduce cost and (b) reduce meetings. The worst case project would have the single best engineer left on it. I also saw the complete opposite at two companies which were decades old, but were distracted by CSR and processes. Both ceased to exist a few years ago.
pcj-github 4y ago
I'm going to call B.S. on this one. with SpaceX and Tesla, many employees are driven by a sense of purpose independent of the behavior of their shared/part-time CEO based on the fundamental mission of the company. In Twitter's case, I doubt the notion of whipping engineers to making more advertising revenue via blue check marks is going to rouse a sense of pride, purpose, or productivity. I guess we'll see!
- ryanhuff 4y ago
  I suspect that Musk has more in store than just keeping Twitter as we know it today.
- vincnetas 4y ago
  Elon sees twitter as artificial brain made of humans (each user is a neuron). So i assume he has more ideas what to do with twitter than to just add paid blue marker.
billti 4y ago
That clip resonates strongly with me. I’ve seen exactly the good and bad scenarios he describes there in orgs for the reasons outlined. I think that’s why Apple created so many iconic products under Jobs. You hear stories of Steve using the product and seeing a minor flaw and just flying off the handle that it’s not good enough, for the type of bug you know would have been a “priority 2 - won’t fix” in most large orgs on a product the CEO will never even use. A “big hammer” who cares about the product can make a huge difference.
esoterica 4y ago
> Now we'll see Twitter pivot from a stagnant rest & vest to high productivityNow we'll see Twitter pivot from a stagnant rest & vest to high productivity. SpaceX has higher headcount and less revenue than Twitter. Despite the long hours and hazardous working environment they are dramatically less productive than the lazy woke Twitter employees.

by memish 4y ago

SanjayMehta 4y ago

That's an interesting clip and reminiscent of an extremely effective manager I had. He would remove people from trouble projects one at a time to (a) reduce cost and (b) reduce meetings. The worst case project would have the single best engineer left on it. I also saw the complete opposite at two companies which were decades old, but were distracted by CSR and processes. Both ceased to exist a few years ago.

pcj-github 4y ago

I'm going to call B.S. on this one. with SpaceX and Tesla, many employees are driven by a sense of purpose independent of the behavior of their shared/part-time CEO based on the fundamental mission of the company. In Twitter's case, I doubt the notion of whipping engineers to making more advertising revenue via blue check marks is going to rouse a sense of pride, purpose, or productivity. I guess we'll see!

ryanhuff 4y ago
I suspect that Musk has more in store than just keeping Twitter as we know it today.
vincnetas 4y ago
Elon sees twitter as artificial brain made of humans (each user is a neuron). So i assume he has more ideas what to do with twitter than to just add paid blue marker.

billti 4y ago

That clip resonates strongly with me. I’ve seen exactly the good and bad scenarios he describes there in orgs for the reasons outlined. I think that’s why Apple created so many iconic products under Jobs. You hear stories of Steve using the product and seeing a minor flaw and just flying off the handle that it’s not good enough, for the type of bug you know would have been a “priority 2 - won’t fix” in most large orgs on a product the CEO will never even use. A “big hammer” who cares about the product can make a huge difference.

esoterica 4y ago

> Now we'll see Twitter pivot from a stagnant rest & vest to high productivityNow we'll see Twitter pivot from a stagnant rest & vest to high productivity. SpaceX has higher headcount and less revenue than Twitter. Despite the long hours and hazardous working environment they are dramatically less productive than the lazy woke Twitter employees.