4 ms·

It's honest. Every engineer knows PR is shit, don't they?

burkaman 4y ago
No, they don't. I am proud of what I'm making and I want people to know about it, and I would not hire someone with this attitude.
- misssocrates 4y ago
  Tesla doesn't have a PR department and everyone knows about it. PR is just McKinsey style marketing bullshit.
  - danenania 4y ago
    Musk is a PR department in human form.
  - burkaman 4y ago
    They had a PR department for 17 years. Also, they still do PR: https://www.tesla.com/blog https://www.tesla.com/blog. "Eliminating the PR department" was itself a PR move.
  - phailhaus 4y ago
    PR is just Public Relations. The only way you know about Tesla is because they still do tons and tons of PR.
  - freejazz 4y ago
    You are just using McKinsey as a buzzword here to get people riled up, it's otherwise a completely baseless comment
    - eastbayjake 4y ago
      It's like people don't read the guidelines anymore: "Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes." "Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
1attice 4y ago
https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Golgafrinchan_Ark_Fleet_Ship_B https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Golgafrinchan_Ark_Fleet_... I imagine those engineers, having dispensed with the telephone sanitizers, will die of an infected telephone
tene80i 4y ago
That opinion is nothing to do with engineering. Contacting companies for comment is a routine part of journalism. And even if they don’t want to reply, this response is unprofessional and juvenile.
- misssocrates 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - paulgb 4y ago
    I'm so tired of tech's lumping of all journalism into one bucket. It comes off as knee-jerk cynicism to absolve ourselves of the work of having to develop the media literacy to tell good journalism from bad. In the case of the posted article, there's nothing that stands out to me as an exaggeration of fact or biased take. If there is to you, that would be an interesting comment. A tired cynical take about journalism in general is not.
kevingadd 4y ago
Without good PR, people won't buy an engineer's products. Maybe the engineer does PR themselves if they're at a small company or are doing open source, but you aren't going to pay rent without PR. Replacing your PR department with a poop emoji bot is something you can only get away with if you're rich and don't care about the impact your actions have on other people. To be fair, some of Elon's other stuff has good PR even without a PR department - Tesla and SpaceX have a bunch of die-hards who do free PR for them. But I don't consider that "no PR", just "unpaid PR". Nobody's out there doing that for Twitter.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
AlexandrB 4y ago
Isn't this just occupational Dunning Kruger? "I don't know anything about PR, so they must not be important."

No, they don't. I am proud of what I'm making and I want people to know about it, and I would not hire someone with this attitude.

misssocrates 4y ago
Tesla doesn't have a PR department and everyone knows about it. PR is just McKinsey style marketing bullshit.
- danenania 4y ago
  Musk is a PR department in human form.
- burkaman 4y ago
  They had a PR department for 17 years. Also, they still do PR: https://www.tesla.com/blog https://www.tesla.com/blog. "Eliminating the PR department" was itself a PR move.
- phailhaus 4y ago
  PR is just Public Relations. The only way you know about Tesla is because they still do tons and tons of PR.
- freejazz 4y ago
  You are just using McKinsey as a buzzword here to get people riled up, it's otherwise a completely baseless comment
  - eastbayjake 4y ago
    It's like people don't read the guidelines anymore: "Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes." "Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

1attice 4y ago

https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Golgafrinchan_Ark_Fleet_Ship_B https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Golgafrinchan_Ark_Fleet_... I imagine those engineers, having dispensed with the telephone sanitizers, will die of an infected telephone

tene80i 4y ago

That opinion is nothing to do with engineering. Contacting companies for comment is a routine part of journalism. And even if they don’t want to reply, this response is unprofessional and juvenile.

misssocrates 4y ago
[flagged]
- paulgb 4y ago
  I'm so tired of tech's lumping of all journalism into one bucket. It comes off as knee-jerk cynicism to absolve ourselves of the work of having to develop the media literacy to tell good journalism from bad. In the case of the posted article, there's nothing that stands out to me as an exaggeration of fact or biased take. If there is to you, that would be an interesting comment. A tired cynical take about journalism in general is not.

kevingadd 4y ago

Without good PR, people won't buy an engineer's products. Maybe the engineer does PR themselves if they're at a small company or are doing open source, but you aren't going to pay rent without PR. Replacing your PR department with a poop emoji bot is something you can only get away with if you're rich and don't care about the impact your actions have on other people. To be fair, some of Elon's other stuff has good PR even without a PR department - Tesla and SpaceX have a bunch of die-hards who do free PR for them. But I don't consider that "no PR", just "unpaid PR". Nobody's out there doing that for Twitter.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

AlexandrB 4y ago

Isn't this just occupational Dunning Kruger? "I don't know anything about PR, so they must not be important."