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Poll: Would You Work for Elon?

• homeland221 4y ago
  Right now USA has not seen the peak IT layoffs yet...it just started. Ask this question again in April 2023. I pity a lot of those Twitter staffs that survived the first cut but quit. They will find it difficult to find similar paying job for the next 6mths. When if one do secure a job, they will be on the first to let go chopping list when layoffs quota needed. Or getting substantial pay cut. I have been on HR for couple decades on a lot of firmwares probably across Fortune 5000 all the way to 10. This is by far the most spookies with at least 3-4 layoffs planned almost per quarter for 2023. Some middle management even discussing padding departments with expandable staffs to lessen the damage to core veteran staffs.
• rogerkirkness 4y ago
  Yes, absolutely. I have two kids under five at the moment, so the long hours in office requirement might not currently work. But I'd consider taking an engineering IC role in future. Elon is a wartime CEO. Tim Cook is probably the best peacetime CEO active. Working for either would be an extremely interesting experience.
  • joshuahutt 4y ago
    Well said.
  • drogus 4y ago
    Even after reports of him firing people who disagree with him? I would hate to work for someone with such a big ego. Short way to have a team of bootlickers and opportunists.
  • divided 4y ago
    I respect your choice and to each their own, but to characterize Elon as a wartime CEO when he’s caused 80% of the crisis is a very generous characterization. His “leadership” thus far has been sporadic, ill thought out, and reckless.
    • srfvtgb 4y ago
      Elon is a wartime CEO in the same way that Putin is a wartime president.
    • lr4444lr 4y ago
      I dunno where you come up with that number. Twitter was in real straits with investors compared with other companies in its class well before Musk was even on its radar. Two activist shareholder coups later and ousting of Dorsey, lackluster profits in good times, plenty of its own culture war scandals despite people piling on FB... can't pin that on Musk.
      • divided 4y ago
        The peer comment to mine by dragontamer sums it up better than I could. I’m not saying problems didn’t exist before Elon, but Musk has been a net negative for the company who thus far has only managed to make a bad situation worse.
  • dragontamer 4y ago
    Twitter's problems were caused by Elon though. Elon structured the deal (or at least signed the deal) such that Twitter is $13 Billion in debt upon signing, and therefore losing an estimated 4-million a day because of it. Elon did not have to structure the deal like this. Elon did not have to push for the unsustainable $44 Billion buyout price like this. Heck, I'm pretty sure that Elon has enough money to buy out the $13 Billion debt (which is only worth $9 or maybe $8 Billion now on the open market) and solve this problem right now. ------ But instead, Elon _chooses_ to fire half the staff at Twitter. Elon _CHOOSES_ to get into public arguments with his engineers (and fires them afterwards). Etc. etc. This calamity is a series of unforced errors. If the debt is too much of a burden, buy out the debt (or don't get into the debt to begin with). Its really not that hard of a problem. -------- I've posted elsewhere on this. But the gist is, Elon took Twitter, a company losing $200 million/year, and instantly turned it into a company that was losing $1500 million/year. (And that's not counting the advertising exodus, which has been estimated at another $600 million of revenue lost due to Elon's poor decisions). Of course he's in panic mode right now, that's a lot of losses. But Elon _caused_ all of this, with his crappy leadership.
• temptemptemp111 4y ago
• arthurgibson 4y ago
  I’d invest in any company he runs, good enough middle ground without drama.
• prionassembly 4y ago
  Not as an engineer, but as some kind of high-ranking advisor, yes. Like the "Chief of Theory" in Don deLilo's Cosmopolis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVRpA-_jzV4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVRpA-_jzV4
• CloudRecondite 4y ago
  Maybe if the pay was extremely hardcore, but let’s be honest
  • wombat-man 4y ago
    I thought I heard pay was solid at Tesla and spacex as long as the stock keeps going up. Twitter is probably all cash and not as great a deal anymore?
• jason-phillips 4y ago
  > gaslight That's a loaded term, used at the outset to poison the well, so to speak, so one has to question whether the question was asked in good faith and therefore would answering be worth the trouble.
  • mpalmer 4y ago
    No, it's not loaded (charged with an underlying meaning or implication), unless you're bringing along your own associations. But it _is_ a careless misuse of a word that has a specific definition. Frankly, I can't remember the last time I saw it used properly. It means "to manipulate someone by psychological means into questioning their own sanity". It's from a 1940s film where a husband convinces his wife she's going insane, by manipulating the lights in their house.
  • tovej 4y ago
    You should call a spade a spade.
    • jason-phillips 4y ago
      Then quit with the disengenuous, cowardly half-speech and just say it, rather than couching it in the form of a pretend question. It's embarrassing and reflects more upon one's lack of character, frankly.
  • wolrah 4y ago
    When a person does bad things and then is accurately described as having done those bad things it's not poisoning the well, it's putting up a sign saying "this well was poisoned".
    • tdehnel 4y ago
      Can you state any good things about working for Elon? Or are the 1000s who do all idiots drinking poisoned water?
• sonoffett 4y ago
  I’ve done it (years ago). 4 managers fired in 8 months. I had to leave so I could do actual work. Seeing these Twitter reports is giving me flashbacks.
• viraptor 4y ago
  Today, no way. Maybe 2 decades ago when I was a teenager and valued money way more. But regardless of his business outcomes, I'm not going to ever work for a manchild throwing public tantrums, who can't be criticised for valid reasons. His decision making process of throwing stuff and seeing what sticks is also something I don't want to deal with every day at work. Life's too short to be a dictator's puppet.
  • pyuser583 4y ago
    I value money a lot more than I did two decades ago. Two decades ago I was a young, “fight the system”, James Dean want-to-be. Now I have a family, mortgage, and the kids need braces. And my water heater is making weird sounds.
    • Brian_K_White 4y ago
      I don't think any of that justifies anything except in thevery short term. You gotta do what you gotta do sometimes, but not for life. Your family would rather have their dad than their dads paycheck. It doesn't require 120hours of hell at work just to secure food and shelter. Why do I care? Everyone who is willing to abase themselves and suffer abuse makes the world suck more for everyone else who would demand a little basic dignity.
      • pyuser583 4y ago
        I was responding to a post about being willing to work for Elon Musk … not work 120 hours a week or abase myself. For example, if I found myself being pushed into “voluntary” meditation sessions where I chant “I am not me but, We™” I’d be out of there fast. Or if my boss wanted me to do something horribly unethical like provide fine grained tracking data for users. But AFAIK Tesla, SpaceX, Boring Company, etc. are pretty typical in regards to work life balance, pay, etc.
    • viraptor 4y ago
      Yeah, but there are other places that pay decently. I've got 2 decades of experience now, and get paid enough in a good place. I know where I could get paid more, but even with a family, we don't need more. I even reduced my work to 4 days a week with the 20% hit and it's still enough. For software engineers this is often simple to achieve.
• bluedevilzn 4y ago
  At Elon’s companies working hard is a requirement but you don’t get rewarded in return. Tesla/SpaceX pays peanuts despite Tesla’s outsized stock returns. If you believe in the mission, that’d be the only reason to join.
  • uxp100 4y ago
    I have to imagine Tesla does RSUs though right? So engineers are doing great over a 5 year timeline. When I knew people at Tesla they were real fanboys of the car, which isn’t a bad thing, but if you’re trying to hire, like, ISO26262 certification experts I’d focus on paying a few experts well. The 24 year old fanboys can do the grunt work, but some well paid experts need to lead that process, and I doubt they’ll be that motivated by wanting to work for fast car guy.
    • wombat-man 4y ago
      I think that was true when TSLA was a gravity defying rocket ship. Not sure that's something we can rely on to happen at this point. More players are getting serious about EVs.
• mmmlinux 4y ago
  Sure, I doubt he has any need for me. but why not, itll look good on the resume.
  • bluedevilzn 4y ago
    There’s a dozen other companies that would look better on a resume.
• api 4y ago
  I'd work for Elon 10 years ago when he was focused on things like making life multi planetary and advancing the electrification of transport. If I didn't have a family I'd work for SpaceX 10 years ago for 1/2 my current pay and pull 80 hour weeks. Elon today seems to be focusing most of his energy on political concerns that are frankly beneath him and very very stupid. Someone with his means and skills should not care about anything with a <50 year time horizon. My only hope for him now is that he doesn't destroy SpaceX or cannibalize it financially for some vastly less important reason. Related tangent: a lot of people are reading way too much into what Elon is doing now. I see a lot of Qanon quality speculations from his detractors. I think it's pretty simple. Elon went and got himself "pilled" by the same BS that "pilled" probably 1/3 of the Hacker News audience over the past 10 years. I wonder if he's been on the 'chans. Ockham's razor says no more complex explanation is necessary.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • tdehnel 4y ago
    What if freedom of discourse was more important than spaceships or electric cars or solar panels? I think it is. My guess is Elon does too.
    • AlexandrB 4y ago
      Elon has completely failed to communicate what he means by "freedom of discourse". Judged by his actions so far it seems like it means "mostly the same as Twitter's existing policies, but you can't impersonate people and you especially can't impersonate Elon". Which seems like it's less freedom than before(?) It honestly seems like he hasn't thought about the problem deeply enough to have a coherent vision here. We'll see, I guess.
      • tdehnel 4y ago
        I’m glad he’s giving it a shot. No idea if it will work, but I am quite sure that progress as a species is dependent on a culture of open conjecture and criticism. Old Twitter was trending the other way imo, esp when it came to working with the government to decide what was true or not.
• rc_mob 4y ago
  I would also never work for Amazon. Their recruiting has contacted me many times over the years. But not in a million year would I work for them.
  • stuff4ben 4y ago
    Same. I value my work/life balance too much these days.
  • Zensynthium 4y ago
    Why not? I've heard about Amazon's horrible conditions for drivers, but haven't heard too much about how it is in their developer department.
  • wombat-man 4y ago
    I've concluded amazon is a dice roll. I know people who work there and it's a chill deal, and I've heard plenty of stories who bounce out before they get their initial vest. You just have to be ready to put in solid effort and know that you might end up with a bad situation.
  • syrgian 4y ago
    Just to provide my data point. I am an okay SDE, average for this site. I enjoy working at AWS. My team is particularly good to belong to, but I know at least 5 teams I would enjoy working at, and just 1 I would avoid. I work normal hours, have phenomenal pay and benefits, and the scale is very satisfying. The only thing I dislike is the yearly performance review (I really really hate boasting about my achievements), but I heard all the large tech companies are like this, so I probably will have to deal with them for the rest of my career.
• emaro 4y ago
  I think I could not work with a boss I couldn't have a disagreement with. Just beeing a yes-man is not health for you, your boss and your work. Nobody knows everything better. Criticism is hard to learn.
  • tdehnel 4y ago
    I have 2 friends who work for Elon (in meetings with him regularly). You can disagree with the man. It’s allowed. You better be standing on solid ground through because the man is smart. Also, I cannot think of many bosses who you could publicly disagree with on Twitter where being fired isn’t a likely outcome.
    • pavlov 4y ago
      I also can't think of many bosses who would publicly disparage your work on Twitter to pressure you to work longer hours.
      • tdehnel 4y ago
        Those are the conditions though. Your options are to work for him or not. What else are you going to do? Complain about it on HN? For what?
        • PestoDiRucola 4y ago
          Those are not the conditions Twitter employees signed for when they started working for Twitter.
          • recuter 4y ago
            Ever see a shitty restaurant with a big sign that says "under new management"? Things change, can't be a retirement home for millennials while losing money indefinitely. Twitter is in San Francisco, not Portland. There is a good chance this company will simply run out of money and go bankrupt. You could play the speculation game of whether it has a better fighting chance with or without Elon (people who don't like his politics and personality will no doubt take the opportunity to screech uninteresting things on this matter) but here we are. If it doesn't energize people who work there and they want to throw in the towel that's alright. But people who stay need to be clear eyed that the road ahead is uncertain and difficult. Especially in this economy. If you work for twitter the memelord posting things you find objectionable is the least of your problems. Not to mention highly ironic.
• rootbear 4y ago
  I’d work at SpaceX, maybe Tesla, depending on where, but not Twitter.
• tdehnel 4y ago
  This poll question is written so poorly that no one should trust the results at all. A more neutral version would be: Would you work for Elon Musk? Or On one hand, Elon Musk can be contentious to work with, but on the other, he has a track record of bringing incredible new products to market. Would you work for him or not, and why?
• recuter 4y ago
  > I couldn’t help but wonder if any engineers would actually work for this guy going forward and why? Why not? I like money. I don't care about his politics. Or yours. It is called work not daycare for adults. My self esteem is also not wrapped up in the recognition of my peers or whomever I "report" to. Edit: I like how people are downvoting because I answered the wrong way in an open poll. What a bunch of brats. Makes me want to work for Elon even more.
  • vitno 4y ago
    Nobody is talking about his politics. They are talking about his management style.
    • rc_mob 4y ago
      I mean his politics are junk also. Its a big turn-off
      • recuter 4y ago
        I bet your politics are junk too. Why do I need to care about your 2 cents about this or that "issue" if we are writing code? I am not interested in your inner world or opinions. We aren't friends. We are coworkers. I have a life outside the job for that.
    • recuter 4y ago
      Well, well, speak of gaslighting. The twitter employees have been hostile to him since before him buying this dumpster fire was ever a rumor. People are almost exclusively talking about his politics. Unless I report to him directly his management style is hardly my problem. Even if it is directly, well.. honestly don't find that stressful either. If he is being a stupid idiot I'd tell him just that, have in the past. Sometimes, folks like that are even appreciative of the candid feedback. What is the worst that can happen, I get fired? Please. At worst it isn't a fit, I honestly don't get the big deal and people get so emotionally invested in this stuff. I get hired to problem solve. If management is not living in reality part of the gig is to push back. Don't value my input we can part amicably, it is only a gig, not life and death.
• jagged-chisel 4y ago
  Depends on how desperate he gets to hire folks indicated by increase in the salaries he offers.
• mcculley 4y ago
  No way. He is undoubtedly smart and well-documented as unwise. I have seen enough organizations run by smart, unwise people.
  • prox 4y ago
    It’s not often you see people distinguish between smart and unwise. I agree with your assessment. For me, smart is about navigating difficult obstacles and overcoming them. Wisdom is overseeing and having insight in what your actions (including what you say) have for an impact.
    • mcculley 4y ago
      Impact is a good way to put it. At least dumb, unwise people have less impact.
• tester756 4y ago
  >=40k usd/year after tax on remote and I'd work
  • bluedevilzn 4y ago
    Elon specifically does not allow remote work. Your comment is equivalent to I’ll work for anyone and irrelevant to the discussion.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
• bheadmaster 4y ago
  > Watching Elon gaslight current and former Twitter employees in the public square People are using "gaslight" in contexts where it doesn't apply way too much these days.
  • jagged-chisel 4y ago
    What you’re saying is: > People keep using that word. I don’t think it means what they think it means. And I agree.
    • sshine 4y ago
      My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
• aero-glide2 4y ago
  Yes, but at SpaceX, not Twitter.
• stuff4ben 4y ago
  It's akin to working for Trump IMO. Narcissists are a hard no from me.
• CoastalCoder 4y ago
  We should qualify the poll question with: "... assuming current pay rates and working conditions." I suspect that nearly 100% would vote "yes" under the right conditions. E.g., $1e7 USD/day, no strings attached.
• ibic 4y ago
  no
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• newbieuser 4y ago
  I would like to work in order to see closely what kind of ego he has
• noelsusman 4y ago
  No and it's not close. I can sort of understand why people put up with it to work for companies like SpaceX, but I find it difficult to understand why anyone would not take the severance that Elon offered every Twitter employee this morning.
• _gtly 4y ago
  I'd only work for him if he allowed remote work.
• Kiro 4y ago
  Yes, I've worked for way worse managers than him. Straight-up lunatics and it was a great experience. You never knew what to expect from day to day. Way more fun than just chugging along like I do now.
• bentt 4y ago
  To be honest, I was a fan and explained away every offense he has made to date UNTIL he fired the Twitter Android app engineer publicly on Twitter. I felt that this engineer was engaging Elon about the problems at hand in a way that was admirable considering the circumstances. It was like the engineer knew he was falling on the sword, but at the same time was rational in his explanations of the current state of the app. I felt like he was being constructive. When Elon decided that this type of person needed to go, I flipped on him. He might succeed, but I really don't like him any more. To him it's the cost of doing business, but in my opinion that single event will put more of a chill on his future hiring than any of his prior bullshit.
  • Workaccount2 4y ago
    Elon publicly apologized that the android app was terrible, without naming anyone. Then this guy responded publicly calling out Elon. I don't know any CEO that would be cool with that. If Elon named him, sure, rip him apart. But Elon simply referenced the android app, and this guy took it personally in the worst way.
    • taylodl 4y ago
      So in other words Elon is just like every other CEO in your estimation? Wasn't the whole point of the image Elon has been building that he's somehow different from everybody else? Then he reveals himself to just be the same old same old crap we've become accustomed to.
    • AlexandrB 4y ago
      My read on that thread was that Elon was the one who took being corrected personally. The guy just pointed out that what Elon said about "1000 requests" was not correct nor was it the root cause of the performance issue Elon mentioned. If he had just said "sorry the Android app is slow, we're working on it", I suspect no one would have replied to him.
      • wombat-man 4y ago
        Yeah it was weird that Elon dropped that technical info, I assume he's talking about requests that happen on the backend that have nothing to do with android specifically? He couldn't have really thought 1000 round trips were happening between the phone and twitter. At least I hope not.
• tapoxi 4y ago
  I can't imagine why anyone would want to work at Twitter right now. Forced to live in the most expensive area of the country at a company that's burning money going into a recession, massive turnover, a CEO known for irrational and impulsive decisions, and at the end of the day its just a microblogging service. There is no awesome vision that I can see for it. Mental health is way more important.
• skymast 4y ago
  I would work for him, I would take a cut in pay to work for him. He is a visionary, and visionaries are not always easy to get along with, or anticipate but they do get things done. would you have worked for Da Vinci? Or the original Tesla? I would have worked for them for free.
  • conradfr 4y ago
    Do you think Twitter Blue was visionary?
• skc 4y ago
  He appears to have terrible interpersonal skills, but he gets shit done. If you can put up with it (I can't) you probably come out the other side feeling you accomplished something great. Slight parallels with Jobs.
• haunter 4y ago
  >Watching Elon gaslight You don't know what the word gaslight means
• TigeriusKirk 4y ago
  Absolutely, without hesitation. Very interesting projects and a lot of action. I can handle a lot of things, but I can't handle being bored.
• wombat-man 4y ago
  Speaking more to the twitter situation. Hard to say what's really happening inside. But assuming nobody is being needlessly abrasive with him, if he's really firing people for questioning his asks or correcting wrong assumptions he's made then that feels risky. That plus a sudden transition to long hours. I'm willing to go to bat if the chips are down, but the idea of working 60, 70 hour or more weeks to entertain asks that haven't been thought through sounds really stressful. I've been in a situation like that where we were driving to add features that were removed the next week/month and it sucks. If I were currently at Twitter, I don't know that I would take the severance. If I were job hunting, they probably wouldn't be high on the list.
• bigbillheck 4y ago
  Absolutely not. I saw him for who he was years ago because of how he ran Tesla. If he were to buy my employer, and I couldn't line up a new job before it went through, I'd make him fire me for union agitation.
• ochronus 4y ago
  Most probably no. For a really, really exciting product, I'd consider.
• lawn 4y ago
  No. His companies don't pay well. Employees are cogs in a wheel to him, resources to exploited as much as possible. He's a psychopath/sociopath. He doesn't allow remote work. I don't like his companies (well, SpaceX maybe). I don't believe in his visions or his random outbursts.
• srhtftw 4y ago
  I would never work for him (or those like him) unless I was very very desperate.
• AlexandrB 4y ago
  In related news: https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/16/23462026/elon-musk-twitter-email-hardcore-or-severance https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/16/23462026/elon-musk-twitt... One of the craziest management approaches I've heard of. Wild stuff. Is he just trying to get people to quit so he's technically not "firing" them?
• GuB-42 4y ago
  Musk wants his employees to be workaholics, just like him. I will work for him if he makes me a billionaire, just like him. So, no.
• fattybob 4y ago
  Sure, as long as he pays well
• moe091 4y ago
  I've thought about it and he'd have to pay me ~4x what I could make at my current job, and even then I'd do it for a couple years tops then take my money and leave. My ultimate goal is to retire very early but I also don't want to sacrifice my current life/sanity/morals, so it'd take a lot of money for that side of the equation to win out
• jterrys 4y ago
  I've worked for worse
• 0xbadc0de5 4y ago
  Or alternatively - I may not pursue working for him, but I've certainly made huge returns investing in his companies.
• dsq 4y ago
  Work? Probably not, I think it's for people who are very dialed in on the mission. Buy stock in his conpanies though? That's a very different story. If and when spaceX goes public (probably far in the future) I believe it will be the most valued stock in history.
• poweredger640 4y ago
  Elon's companies aren't known for paying well, so why take the stress? For passion, probably, and neither Twitter nor Tesla meet my passions. Now, SpaceX, sure, if I had maybe had a completely different life
• Brian_K_White 4y ago
  Elno
• cvhashim04 4y ago
  Only if I’m making >1m.
• mikequinlan 4y ago
  Today: hard no When I was in my thirties: possibly When I was in my twenties: hard yes (I've since read some other comments and money is not the issue; the chance to work on something possibly world changing [Musk's Application X] is the issue).
  • jmknoll 4y ago
    5-10 years ago I would have said yes to either SpaceX or Tesla, if my skills were aligned with what they were working on. I was younger, and the chance to change the world would have justified the lower pay. But working at Twitter isn’t a chance to change the world. It’s a chance to do the same stuff I’ve done I’ve done a million times before, but with worse pay, worse culture, and an asshole CEO.
• ryandrake 4y ago
  I voted "no" but honestly it depends entirely on the job market. It's amazing how low your standards go when you're jobless and have a family to feed. Back in 2008 I took a job with a founder I'd describe as a Mini-Elon and it really sucked, but what sucks more is living in your car.
  • freedom2099 4y ago
    This tells me you live in the US!
• vernon99 4y ago
  Yes. I also feel that a lot of people may be misunderstanding the motivation here. I think Musk is saying what he’s saying for a very specific simple reason. To weed out people who are just cruising along and being paid not doing much. I doubt he’ll continue pushing this narrative that much when he gets the desired result, getting back to a more reasonable typical startup execution mode. And I never was a fanboy, I just worked myself at Meta for almost 4 years and this is literally what I would do if (god forbid lol) I’d be given a chance to take over as a CEO. Let go of 50-70% of slackers or just people doing random shit and shut down some ridiculous orgs. Make sure everybody understands the culture changed. And then proceed in a more normal fashion. If you haven’t been at Meta/Goog, it’s really hard to believe how bad is it there. There’re even memes like “rest and vest”. In a normal starup, people like that would be goners very quickly. In these large bloated money-corrupted orgs with no critical oversight on many layers you can survive literally for years doing literally close to nothing if you built a good enough initial rep. Not saying all the engineers/folks he fired are like that, of course. But I’m pretty sure a lot are. And having worked in the company for many years is actually a negative signal here from that perspective. Because old-timers may have a lot of internal cred not necessarily based on their most recent accomplishments. Edit: typos
  • sidibe 4y ago
    The old timers in mature code bases who spend 35 hours a week are far better for the organization than the driven hardcore out of college ambitious employees. I am certain that what happens after Elon is done dropping the former is an urge to do rewrites instead of learn the (often necessary) complexities of the existing systems, while in the meantime services get flaky and new working features come to a halt.
    • vernon99 4y ago
      They are better if you want maintanance. They are worse if you want radical changes. I’ve seen it a lot of times myself, people like that actually create a lot of friction similarly to this fired Android guy, having a stake in the game of justifying existing status quo.
• jsrober 4y ago
  It depends on the stage of life you're in. My kids are out of college and in collage and it's all funded (529). I'd love to pour myself into achieving something incredible.
• thr83away 4y ago
  No. I don't mind long working hours. Its about dignity. The way he treated twitter engineers publicly is very disrespectful. I am deeply saddened. Now I wish he does not reach mars first. That would set a terrible culture on mars.
• tmaly 4y ago
  I think it would depend on compensation, working hours, and if the project was interesting.