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Fair enough, I stand corrected. I guess I expected more from someone who is actually an engineer. Like to be smart enough to see WFH isn't some evil thing (and

Fair enough, I stand corrected. I guess I expected more from someone who is actually an engineer. Like to be smart enough to see WFH isn't some evil thing (and if instead it's a move to get people to leave on their own then he is just an asshole, I mean he is a well established asshole/troll, it would just further cement that legacy). My hat is old and pretty gross though so instead I hope you'll accept a donation to the EFF: https://cs.joshstrange.com/xVwcRY https://cs.joshstrange.com/xVwcRY

gw98 4y ago
Having worked with a lot of intelligent engineers (mostly EE) I would suggest that they are no more capable of making rational business decisions than anyone else. The only thing I really took from the experience is to learn from other people’s mistakes because it hurts less than learning from your own. My take home is that you should use a proper decision analysis framework for issues like this to test your own biases, reasonings and criteria. Sometimes your conclusion is not what you expected. Much pain saved.
theonething 4y ago
Hat's off (ha!) for your admission. When encountering the same scenario on Reddit, people there invariably just double down in the face of undeniable facts. A donation to the EFF is more than enough. I was actually going to just let you off the hook based on your honest response and strengthening my faith in HN:) As for WFH, for some perspective, Apple, Google (and others) asked their employees to come back to the office this year. Is management there stupid too? I think a more nuanced view is there are significant pros and cons to WFH and Musk decided that the cons outweigh in this case.
- joshstrange 4y ago
  > Apple, Google (and others) asks their employees to come back to the office this year. Is management there stupid too? I do and I've consistently voiced that opinion no matter the CEO/company. I don't think they think it is stupid, I know they have their reasons. I disagree with their reasons, I think there is more at play than only logical thinking on this point (real estate, asses in chair, etc), and I think it's shortsighted. WFH is an amazing perk and while I get not everyone wants it there are a large number of people who do and to cut off that entire group is incredibly short-sighted. It's fine though, I'll never work for any of those companies, I have zero desire to do so, I much prefer smaller companies that understand WFH. Though I'd make 1 exception I think, for Apple, to gut and replace App Store Connect/The Developer Portal or at least have better feedback/errors/displaying the current state (which is a common complaint I have with Apple when their software needs to talk to server, the feedback is always lackluster or non-existent). Those websites look broken and/or are confusing/vague way too often. At least the Google Play dev console is so busy and incoherent that you'd not notice most issues. Though props to the Google Play devs for making apk/aab upload/release errors as confusing as possible in most cases :chefs-kiss:
- lazyasciiart 4y ago
  Apple at least has always been bizarre about work conditions and anti-WFH, so that seems expected. It seems optimistic to think that Musk made a careful decision based on nuanced factors that just happened to have exactly the same outcome as every other company he owns.
- seadan83 4y ago
  In Elon's case, and WFH, it is really hard to know whether he is trying to prove a point or if he has "playing 3d chess" decision making going on The man loves proving a point, and "covid is stupid" is one of them So, very ambiguous whether this is a reasoned move or or something more emotional and ego driven
  - theonething 4y ago
    I don't think he's trying to prove a point or play 3D chess. I think it's much simpler. He's basing his decision on his beliefs about and experience with in-office vs WFH. He believes in-office is more productive.
    - seadan83 4y ago
      I would postulate the belief in-office is more productive is somewhat akin to 3d chess. AFAIK the data is mixed and I've seen some data that suggests WFH is more productive (but the jury certainly still seems TBD on this debate)
stephen_g 4y ago
It's not an intelligence thing (yes, he's not a genius but that's not to say he's not very intelligent and has some deep technical knowledge in some areas) - I think the thing is that Musk has generally demonstrated poor judgement and low ethics in many areas (think Solar City acquisition, tweets leading to SEC legal action, Thai cave diver slur, some of the cryptocurrency stuff, now this whole Twitter thing, etc.). People expect intelligence to lead to good judgement but I'm more and more convinced that (assuming a decent baseline of intelligence) they're fairly separate and unconnected things.
agumonkey 4y ago
Rest assured, it's very confusing to see him act so stupidly with this twitter event. I have difficulties wrapping my head around the spacex-smart vs twitter-fool contrast. I guess he doesn't use the same part of his brain on these two topics.. i'm sure he was sharper because tesla/spacex were hardscience dreams of his, whereas twitter is just "i've succeeded twice, let's just handwave that thing"

gw98 4y ago

Having worked with a lot of intelligent engineers (mostly EE) I would suggest that they are no more capable of making rational business decisions than anyone else. The only thing I really took from the experience is to learn from other people’s mistakes because it hurts less than learning from your own. My take home is that you should use a proper decision analysis framework for issues like this to test your own biases, reasonings and criteria. Sometimes your conclusion is not what you expected. Much pain saved.

theonething 4y ago

Hat's off (ha!) for your admission. When encountering the same scenario on Reddit, people there invariably just double down in the face of undeniable facts. A donation to the EFF is more than enough. I was actually going to just let you off the hook based on your honest response and strengthening my faith in HN:) As for WFH, for some perspective, Apple, Google (and others) asked their employees to come back to the office this year. Is management there stupid too? I think a more nuanced view is there are significant pros and cons to WFH and Musk decided that the cons outweigh in this case.

joshstrange 4y ago
> Apple, Google (and others) asks their employees to come back to the office this year. Is management there stupid too? I do and I've consistently voiced that opinion no matter the CEO/company. I don't think they think it is stupid, I know they have their reasons. I disagree with their reasons, I think there is more at play than only logical thinking on this point (real estate, asses in chair, etc), and I think it's shortsighted. WFH is an amazing perk and while I get not everyone wants it there are a large number of people who do and to cut off that entire group is incredibly short-sighted. It's fine though, I'll never work for any of those companies, I have zero desire to do so, I much prefer smaller companies that understand WFH. Though I'd make 1 exception I think, for Apple, to gut and replace App Store Connect/The Developer Portal or at least have better feedback/errors/displaying the current state (which is a common complaint I have with Apple when their software needs to talk to server, the feedback is always lackluster or non-existent). Those websites look broken and/or are confusing/vague way too often. At least the Google Play dev console is so busy and incoherent that you'd not notice most issues. Though props to the Google Play devs for making apk/aab upload/release errors as confusing as possible in most cases :chefs-kiss:
lazyasciiart 4y ago
Apple at least has always been bizarre about work conditions and anti-WFH, so that seems expected. It seems optimistic to think that Musk made a careful decision based on nuanced factors that just happened to have exactly the same outcome as every other company he owns.
seadan83 4y ago
In Elon's case, and WFH, it is really hard to know whether he is trying to prove a point or if he has "playing 3d chess" decision making going on The man loves proving a point, and "covid is stupid" is one of them So, very ambiguous whether this is a reasoned move or or something more emotional and ego driven
- theonething 4y ago
  I don't think he's trying to prove a point or play 3D chess. I think it's much simpler. He's basing his decision on his beliefs about and experience with in-office vs WFH. He believes in-office is more productive.
  - seadan83 4y ago
    I would postulate the belief in-office is more productive is somewhat akin to 3d chess. AFAIK the data is mixed and I've seen some data that suggests WFH is more productive (but the jury certainly still seems TBD on this debate)

stephen_g 4y ago

It's not an intelligence thing (yes, he's not a genius but that's not to say he's not very intelligent and has some deep technical knowledge in some areas) - I think the thing is that Musk has generally demonstrated poor judgement and low ethics in many areas (think Solar City acquisition, tweets leading to SEC legal action, Thai cave diver slur, some of the cryptocurrency stuff, now this whole Twitter thing, etc.). People expect intelligence to lead to good judgement but I'm more and more convinced that (assuming a decent baseline of intelligence) they're fairly separate and unconnected things.

agumonkey 4y ago

Rest assured, it's very confusing to see him act so stupidly with this twitter event. I have difficulties wrapping my head around the spacex-smart vs twitter-fool contrast. I guess he doesn't use the same part of his brain on these two topics.. i'm sure he was sharper because tesla/spacex were hardscience dreams of his, whereas twitter is just "i've succeeded twice, let's just handwave that thing"