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I think this is it, good people will sacrifice a lot to work very hard on rockets or cool cars. Selling ads on social media not so much.

by rr808 4y ago

Zigurd 4y ago
Let's say you are an engineer at SpaceX who thinks Starship is a stainless steel Spruce Goose. Won't work. Waaay under-engineered. Space internet always fails. Etc. What would you do? Work for Boeing, with their management? A capricious boss and working on a fool's errand can look pretty good in comparison with typical defense aerospace alternatives. Tesla is a profitable public company that can offer serious upside to employees. Even if you think Tesla is overvalued, it is at least a conventional bet on whether it will continue to be overvalued.
m_fayer 4y ago
Agreed. While it's possible with some straining and twisting to make the case that Twitter represents an idealistic change for a better future, it doesn't take any straining at all to see the incredible potential of electrified transport and easy access to space. Also, with some straining and twisting, it's possible to make a case for Twitter changing the future (and present) for the worse. That's much harder to do with the other companies.
m_fayer 4y ago
It says a lot about Musk that he mistook people's desire to work hard for the cool projects he's behind for a desire to work hard for him.
bilbo0s 4y ago
It's this in a nutshell. I made extremely sophisticated backends for biomedical software. For medical imaging software. And for molecular imaging software. I was very aware that the graphics, biophysics, and mathematics work I was doing at those companies was important. I was on site often collaborating in cross-functional teams at NIH, Carnegie-Mellon, Cleveland Clinic and Sloan Kettering among others. And there was always a core of people on those teams who often wouldn't go home in some situations. Now, when I had enough exits, and I got into making graphics and physics backends for video games? Well, sorry, I was just very aware that I was doing something with a lower level of importance. Dressing it up as pushing the boundaries of what some political opportunist wants to call "free speech" would still not have moved the needle for me. If I were at Twitter, I'd be in the camp of "I'm not going to work 18 hours a day on your political campaign as though it's critical to mankind's continuance big guy." However, that's just a data point of 1. Others might feel different.

I think this is it, good people will sacrifice a lot to work very hard on rockets or cool cars. Selling ads on social media not so much.

by rr808 4y ago

I think this is it, good people will sacrifice a lot to work very hard on rockets or cool cars. Selling ads on social media not so much.

Zigurd 4y ago

Let's say you are an engineer at SpaceX who thinks Starship is a stainless steel Spruce Goose. Won't work. Waaay under-engineered. Space internet always fails. Etc. What would you do? Work for Boeing, with their management? A capricious boss and working on a fool's errand can look pretty good in comparison with typical defense aerospace alternatives. Tesla is a profitable public company that can offer serious upside to employees. Even if you think Tesla is overvalued, it is at least a conventional bet on whether it will continue to be overvalued.

m_fayer 4y ago

Agreed. While it's possible with some straining and twisting to make the case that Twitter represents an idealistic change for a better future, it doesn't take any straining at all to see the incredible potential of electrified transport and easy access to space. Also, with some straining and twisting, it's possible to make a case for Twitter changing the future (and present) for the worse. That's much harder to do with the other companies.

m_fayer 4y ago

It says a lot about Musk that he mistook people's desire to work hard for the cool projects he's behind for a desire to work hard for him.

bilbo0s 4y ago

It's this in a nutshell. I made extremely sophisticated backends for biomedical software. For medical imaging software. And for molecular imaging software. I was very aware that the graphics, biophysics, and mathematics work I was doing at those companies was important. I was on site often collaborating in cross-functional teams at NIH, Carnegie-Mellon, Cleveland Clinic and Sloan Kettering among others. And there was always a core of people on those teams who often wouldn't go home in some situations. Now, when I had enough exits, and I got into making graphics and physics backends for video games? Well, sorry, I was just very aware that I was doing something with a lower level of importance. Dressing it up as pushing the boundaries of what some political opportunist wants to call "free speech" would still not have moved the needle for me. If I were at Twitter, I'd be in the camp of "I'm not going to work 18 hours a day on your political campaign as though it's critical to mankind's continuance big guy." However, that's just a data point of 1. Others might feel different.