5 ms·

Man These Elon companies are really the biggest split personality companies I have seen. I have heard stories like what you describe from some people but then y

Man These Elon companies are really the biggest split personality companies I have seen. I have heard stories like what you describe from some people but then you have people like Astronaut Garrett Reisman, Chip Designer Jim Keller, and AI Research Andrej Karpathy all give amazing praise to Elon and his companies. And when the cars are torn down we see top tier engineering execution and innovation while at the same time we see mediocre build quality. I just don't understand how such organizations can be both filled with terrible people and rock stars at the same time and survive for as long as the Elon companies have done so.

jjulius 4y ago
Hot take: The people you mentioned are hired to bring big-name cred to the organization. None of them stuck around (correct me if I'm wrong, I've only done a cursory glance just now), they all left. Eg, they're the "top tier engineering" part of the companies, and other employees (and I've dealt with these employees at Tesla in a past life, so I can attest to their terrible attitude) are the "mediocre build quality".
- adastra22 4y ago
  Might be generally true, but there are some major exceptions. Gwynne Shotwell for example.
  - cma 4y ago
    Based on her TED interview about passenger travel on rockets being in service by 2028 cheaper than business class, I'm gonna say they might be doing well in spite of her rather than because.
    - adastra22 4y ago
      I’m sorry but you clearly know nothing about what you’re talking about. Throughout the entire industry she is absolutely credited with SpaceX’s success. SpaceX dominates because of reliability, and the reliability stems from business units Shotwell manages, not Musk.
      - cma 4y ago
        What do you think the odds are of the passenger service operating in 2028 at those prices?
- nebula8804 4y ago
  Astronaut Garrett Reisman worked for 7 years there and is on record stating that is all the stress he could handle.[1]: Jim Keller has a history of joining a company to start a project and then leaving once it is complete. He did this multiple times in his career and was with Tesla until they completed the self driving computer. He has also left behind a team of stellar well known people. I am not too sure about Andrej Karpathy. I dont know if we have enough of a history to know when he chooses to join and leave companies. There must be a lot of lower level engineers who have to be developing all these amazing subsystems in the car and other products. Wonder what the turn over is for the really skilled people. Maybe the truly burnt out people or just stragglers are the ones you are encountering. [1]:https://youtu.be/GNG6ZzDh9C8?t=420 https://youtu.be/GNG6ZzDh9C8?t=420
  - jjulius 4y ago
    Appreciate the deeper details, thanks.
  - paulryanrogers 4y ago
    I had no idea Tesla self driving hardware was done. Judging by the lawsuits and performance I'd say it's barely even started.
  - sgtnoodle 4y ago
    I overlapped there with Garrett, and while our work rarely overlapped, he was certainly around and "in the trenches". My point is that, from my point of view, he was a real person rather than a figurehead. To some extent I could say the same for Elon, who was certainly around a lot. He was more of a general visiting the trenches, though. Also a real person, but of a different caste. I was one of those lower level engineers building stuff. I stuck around for 3 years, and left when I was happy rather than burnt out. It was my first job after school, and I wanted to try some other companies before settling down.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
rlt 4y ago
In a 10,000+ person org you’re likely to have a huge variation in personalities, then you have pseudonymous internet commenters who may have an axe to grind or other agenda and be happy to cherry-pick one way or the other.
SilverBirch 4y ago
I've learned to be super careful about what senior people say about other senior people. Because it actually reflects well on you to say nice things about already respected people, it's a free PR boost. It makes them sound generous and also knowledgeable. But, I've seen this happen a lot in big companies, someone will say "Well X is a fantastic engineer" or "X does great work" and my first thought is "Well that's interesting, since you have literally never worked with him, seen anything he's produced and have no engineering knowledge". So actually, whilst it sounds like a good endorsement, what is actually happening is that the person is playing politics. This is especially true when talking about public figures - Sam Altman in his recent interviews has been incredibly diplomatic about Elon, despite the fact that it's pretty public knowledge Elon tried to take over OpenAI and now loudly disparages it. Sam is playing politics, and you have to take that into consideration when thinking about these endorsements. Andrej Karpathy wants to have a good career in Silicon Valley and the way to do that is to gush about how fantastic Elon Musk is.... whilst quietly quitting the company having not delivered what he was working on.
- Yoric 4y ago
  My experience, too. As a younger self, when I heard a C-ranked executive talk about X who's a "fantastic engineer", I assumed that I'd have to work hard to reach their level, without realizing that they may actually not have a clue. Now, when I hear a C-ranked executive talk about X who's a "fantastic engineer", I realize it's just name-dropping.
  - zamnos 4y ago
    I am sure that's true for some, but I doubt that's true when a Google exec talks about, eg, Jeff Dean being an absolutely fantastic engineer. Now Jeff Dean being, well, Jeff Dean is one thing, but I'm sure there are engineers at Google who the outside world has never heard of that have done fantastic work internally.
    - Yoric 4y ago
      Quite possible. But, barring any information, my default assumption is now that it's name-dropping.
uxcolumbo 4y ago
Why do those brilliant folks praise him? To stay in his circle of influence or because Elon is indeed a genius even though he doesn’t come across that way.
agumonkey 4y ago
Musk himself is somehow schizoid .. he can be wise at times and then .. he tweets the most retarded thing possible.
- nebula8804 4y ago
  Extreme aspergers?
- NeuroCoder 4y ago
  He's got a lot of good business knowledge around certain industries but is way overconfident in how this translates to other areas
XorNot 4y ago
Quality Assurance is one of the hardest things at any manufacturing company, because it absolutely doesn't care about "rock stars" or any other fluff. If your employees are tired and burned out, then yelling at them won't fix anything because it's not about whether they get it right that time, it's about getting it right every time. Which means rested, attentive employees who are not going to be "rock stars", they're going to do the job correctly and then go home because that's what's required.
- nebula8804 4y ago
  I'm inclined to agree with this. Its just amazing that they still haven't fixed these issues even to this day when it has become a running joke at this point.
rsynnott 4y ago
> I have heard stories like what you describe from some people but then you have people like Astronaut Garrett Reisman, Chip Designer Jim Keller, and AI Research Andrej Karpathy all give amazing praise to Elon and his companies. I mean, only one of these stayed more than five years; one only stayed _two_ years. And, frankly, if you're in a leadership position in a company, you say nice things when you leave after two years. It is What is Done. I don't think you can really read much into these sorts of statements either way; they're pretty much following a formula.
- throwawaymaths 4y ago
  Even if we give them the benefit of doubt that it's not a PR thing, when you're in a leadership/distinguished/emeritus position, the org often looks very different than how it looks when you're a foot soldier.
- 4khilles 4y ago
  No, both Garrett Reisman and Andrej Karpathy worked for Elon for more than 5 years.
  - rsynnott 4y ago
    Karpathy worked for Tesla for 5 years and a matter of weeks. So you're technically correct, which is of course the worst sort of correctness.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
xibalba 4y ago
[dead]

jjulius 4y ago

Hot take: The people you mentioned are hired to bring big-name cred to the organization. None of them stuck around (correct me if I'm wrong, I've only done a cursory glance just now), they all left. Eg, they're the "top tier engineering" part of the companies, and other employees (and I've dealt with these employees at Tesla in a past life, so I can attest to their terrible attitude) are the "mediocre build quality".

adastra22 4y ago
Might be generally true, but there are some major exceptions. Gwynne Shotwell for example.
- cma 4y ago
  Based on her TED interview about passenger travel on rockets being in service by 2028 cheaper than business class, I'm gonna say they might be doing well in spite of her rather than because.
  - adastra22 4y ago
    I’m sorry but you clearly know nothing about what you’re talking about. Throughout the entire industry she is absolutely credited with SpaceX’s success. SpaceX dominates because of reliability, and the reliability stems from business units Shotwell manages, not Musk.
    - cma 4y ago
      What do you think the odds are of the passenger service operating in 2028 at those prices?
nebula8804 4y ago
Astronaut Garrett Reisman worked for 7 years there and is on record stating that is all the stress he could handle.[1]: Jim Keller has a history of joining a company to start a project and then leaving once it is complete. He did this multiple times in his career and was with Tesla until they completed the self driving computer. He has also left behind a team of stellar well known people. I am not too sure about Andrej Karpathy. I dont know if we have enough of a history to know when he chooses to join and leave companies. There must be a lot of lower level engineers who have to be developing all these amazing subsystems in the car and other products. Wonder what the turn over is for the really skilled people. Maybe the truly burnt out people or just stragglers are the ones you are encountering. [1]:https://youtu.be/GNG6ZzDh9C8?t=420 https://youtu.be/GNG6ZzDh9C8?t=420
- jjulius 4y ago
  Appreciate the deeper details, thanks.
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  I had no idea Tesla self driving hardware was done. Judging by the lawsuits and performance I'd say it's barely even started.
- sgtnoodle 4y ago
  I overlapped there with Garrett, and while our work rarely overlapped, he was certainly around and "in the trenches". My point is that, from my point of view, he was a real person rather than a figurehead. To some extent I could say the same for Elon, who was certainly around a lot. He was more of a general visiting the trenches, though. Also a real person, but of a different caste. I was one of those lower level engineers building stuff. I stuck around for 3 years, and left when I was happy rather than burnt out. It was my first job after school, and I wanted to try some other companies before settling down.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

rlt 4y ago

In a 10,000+ person org you’re likely to have a huge variation in personalities, then you have pseudonymous internet commenters who may have an axe to grind or other agenda and be happy to cherry-pick one way or the other.

SilverBirch 4y ago

I've learned to be super careful about what senior people say about other senior people. Because it actually reflects well on you to say nice things about already respected people, it's a free PR boost. It makes them sound generous and also knowledgeable. But, I've seen this happen a lot in big companies, someone will say "Well X is a fantastic engineer" or "X does great work" and my first thought is "Well that's interesting, since you have literally never worked with him, seen anything he's produced and have no engineering knowledge". So actually, whilst it sounds like a good endorsement, what is actually happening is that the person is playing politics. This is especially true when talking about public figures - Sam Altman in his recent interviews has been incredibly diplomatic about Elon, despite the fact that it's pretty public knowledge Elon tried to take over OpenAI and now loudly disparages it. Sam is playing politics, and you have to take that into consideration when thinking about these endorsements. Andrej Karpathy wants to have a good career in Silicon Valley and the way to do that is to gush about how fantastic Elon Musk is.... whilst quietly quitting the company having not delivered what he was working on.

Yoric 4y ago
My experience, too. As a younger self, when I heard a C-ranked executive talk about X who's a "fantastic engineer", I assumed that I'd have to work hard to reach their level, without realizing that they may actually not have a clue. Now, when I hear a C-ranked executive talk about X who's a "fantastic engineer", I realize it's just name-dropping.
- zamnos 4y ago
  I am sure that's true for some, but I doubt that's true when a Google exec talks about, eg, Jeff Dean being an absolutely fantastic engineer. Now Jeff Dean being, well, Jeff Dean is one thing, but I'm sure there are engineers at Google who the outside world has never heard of that have done fantastic work internally.
  - Yoric 4y ago
    Quite possible. But, barring any information, my default assumption is now that it's name-dropping.

uxcolumbo 4y ago

Why do those brilliant folks praise him? To stay in his circle of influence or because Elon is indeed a genius even though he doesn’t come across that way.

agumonkey 4y ago

Musk himself is somehow schizoid .. he can be wise at times and then .. he tweets the most retarded thing possible.

nebula8804 4y ago
Extreme aspergers?
NeuroCoder 4y ago
He's got a lot of good business knowledge around certain industries but is way overconfident in how this translates to other areas

XorNot 4y ago

Quality Assurance is one of the hardest things at any manufacturing company, because it absolutely doesn't care about "rock stars" or any other fluff. If your employees are tired and burned out, then yelling at them won't fix anything because it's not about whether they get it right that time, it's about getting it right every time. Which means rested, attentive employees who are not going to be "rock stars", they're going to do the job correctly and then go home because that's what's required.

nebula8804 4y ago
I'm inclined to agree with this. Its just amazing that they still haven't fixed these issues even to this day when it has become a running joke at this point.

rsynnott 4y ago

> I have heard stories like what you describe from some people but then you have people like Astronaut Garrett Reisman, Chip Designer Jim Keller, and AI Research Andrej Karpathy all give amazing praise to Elon and his companies. I mean, only one of these stayed more than five years; one only stayed _two_ years. And, frankly, if you're in a leadership position in a company, you say nice things when you leave after two years. It is What is Done. I don't think you can really read much into these sorts of statements either way; they're pretty much following a formula.

throwawaymaths 4y ago
Even if we give them the benefit of doubt that it's not a PR thing, when you're in a leadership/distinguished/emeritus position, the org often looks very different than how it looks when you're a foot soldier.
4khilles 4y ago
No, both Garrett Reisman and Andrej Karpathy worked for Elon for more than 5 years.
- rsynnott 4y ago
  Karpathy worked for Tesla for 5 years and a matter of weeks. So you're technically correct, which is of course the worst sort of correctness.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

xibalba 4y ago

[dead]