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From my time at Tesla, this is 100% the case. When Elon asked for something, it was “drop what you are doing and deliver it”, then you got pressed to still deli

From my time at Tesla, this is 100% the case. When Elon asked for something, it was “drop what you are doing and deliver it”, then you got pressed to still deliver the thing you were already working on against the original timeline before the interrupt.

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
exe34 7mo ago
yeah that wouldn't work for me. when my boss asks me to do something unexpected, I ask, what do you want me to drop this week? if he doesn't want to pick, I ask, so what do you want first?
- jarrettcoggin 7mo ago
  Agreed. Tesla taught me the hard way about work/life boundaries. I spent a lot of time working a full 8-9 hours during the day, then doing deployments during the nights, weekends, and on “vacations”. A 60-hour week was a “light” week at Tesla. Didn’t have kids or friends at the time and was going through a breakup, so I was okay with throwing myself at the job for a while. Once my situation got better, all those hours didn’t make as much sense, so I started looking for another job. The very next job was an immediate pay bump of 20% for half the amount of work. These days, I clearly restate what is being asked (per my understanding), what I’m currently working on, if the thing is being asked is more important or not, and if the requestor is willing to delay the original timeline by the amount of time the interrupt will take plus context switching time. Most often, the answer is no.
dgxyz 7mo ago
Oh I worked at one of them. I found the best thing to do was to ignore the interrupts and carry on until they kick you on the street. Then watch from a safe distance as all the stuff you were holding together shits the bed.
- echelon 7mo ago
  Why did Tesla work initially? Because they were first to market and people were willing to overlook flaws? When did it start falling apart? Why hasn't the same happened to SpaceX? (Gov contracts, too big to fail, national defense, no competition yet, etc.?) And honestly, why hasn't anyone domestically put up a decent fight against Tesla? Best I can think of is Rivian, and those have their own issues.
  - Rover222 7mo ago
    How is Tesla falling apart? Cybertruck was a flop, but Model Y is still one of the best selling cars in the world, and very well reviewed.
    - tapoxi 7mo ago
      Deliveries have been falling for the past two years.
      - MegaDeKay 7mo ago
        To make matters worse, falling while the deliveries of their competitors are rising.
    - onlypassingthru 7mo ago
      If you're in the market for a new X, S or Cybertruck, you're one of dozen(s)!
      - Rover222 7mo ago
        Yes now compare those numbers to all othere EVs sold in the US.
    - mjamesaustin 7mo ago
      To be considered successful, most companies need to sell more of their existing products and/or introduce new products. Tesla is doing neither – they have reduced the number of models they sell and are also selling their existing models in lower numbers.
zimpenfish 7mo ago
> When Elon asked for something, it was “drop what you are doing and deliver it”, then you got pressed to still deliver the thing you were already working on against the original timeline before the interrupt. To be fair, I've experienced that in a good 50% of my employment career[0] and I've not once worked for any of his companies. [0] Ignoring the "servers are melting" flavour of "drop what you are doing" because that's an understandable kind of interruption if you're a BAU specialist like me.
- jarrettcoggin 7mo ago
  I’ve experienced it at other places as well, just not the frequency or indirectness as Tesla. During the first 24 hours of the Model 3 pre-order launch, Elon tweeted that we would support another 3-4 currencies than we had built and tested for. The team literally found out because of his tweet and had not planned for those currencies. That wasn’t the first time that sort of deal happened where we found out about a feature because of one of his tweets.
  - zimpenfish 7mo ago
    > That wasn’t the first time that sort of deal happened where we found out about a feature because of one of his tweets. Thankfully I've never (yet) had to experience "planning by management tweet". That does sound like absolute bullshit to deal with.
    - davidmurdoch 7mo ago
      Still better than jira.
      - AlexeyBelov 7mo ago
        In what way?!
        davidmurdoch 7mo ago
jesterson 7mo ago
I wonder why this is surprising. In other type of organizations when CEO demands something everyone is usually behaves like naah, screw it, i rather do what i like, isn't it? Or everyone yells yes sir and runs around? You may not like Elon - I got it, but let's not pretend he is running xAI/Tesal substantially different from competitors.
- Valodim 7mo ago
  In other companies they don't make this explicit during the interview, so something is different
- general1465 7mo ago
  I am calling my approach to these tasks to make them rot away. If CEO/customer wants something, I will ignore it until he will start demanding it repeatedly then I will start thinking like working on it. Because it can also happen that CEO/customer will want shiny thing you will deliver the shiny thing and he will have no clue why did you do that, because he forgot that he wanted that - the task has rot away.
  - jesterson 7mo ago
    I wish i could have a machine to detect workforce like you and not to hire those people.
    - general1465 7mo ago
      Consider it self-regulating system. If task can't survive in a mind of a wisher for more then few days, it was not needed from the start. Now you are saving resources and time to company which you can redirect to actually required tasks instead of some silly whims.
      - jesterson 7mo ago
        It's not a "regulating system" of any kind, but plain passive aggressive arrogance. I know better what to do so I would just pretend like I am going to do what you suggested. Unfortunately this trait is not so uncommon across IT engineers.
ekianjo 7mo ago
This is not specific to Tesla. If the CEO wants something done in most companies you follow the CEO's order first and drop everything else.
- mort96 7mo ago
  Yes, but in most well functioning large organizations, that happens very rarely.
thordenmark 7mo ago
This is the case at every company I've worked at. When the CEO says jump, the response is to jump or pack your stuff. What's special about xAI/Tesla/SpaceX?
- blinding-streak 7mo ago
  I think most people would agree that Elon is a particularly fickle, childish, petty, and unstable human being.
  - mancerayder 7mo ago
    But the person you're replying to's point is that CEOs often behave like this. What if the difference is that this one tweets all day long, while the others behave the same to their staff but sit behind expensive shiny wooden desks?
- AlexeyBelov 7mo ago
  Neither me nor my friends ever worked at such companies. C-suite sets direction in a stategic way, department heads (or whatever, managers between C-suite and you) set tactical goals, product managers think up "things we should do", and product teams deliver those things (and manage this delivery together, e.g. timelines and such). It would be ridiculous for a CEO, or really anyone who's not my manager, to ask the team personally to do anything. If they had an important task they'd have to trade-off something else from the immediate backlog, by going through the product manager. Even in small companies you generally have a PM in front of a team.

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

exe34 7mo ago

yeah that wouldn't work for me. when my boss asks me to do something unexpected, I ask, what do you want me to drop this week? if he doesn't want to pick, I ask, so what do you want first?

jarrettcoggin 7mo ago
Agreed. Tesla taught me the hard way about work/life boundaries. I spent a lot of time working a full 8-9 hours during the day, then doing deployments during the nights, weekends, and on “vacations”. A 60-hour week was a “light” week at Tesla. Didn’t have kids or friends at the time and was going through a breakup, so I was okay with throwing myself at the job for a while. Once my situation got better, all those hours didn’t make as much sense, so I started looking for another job. The very next job was an immediate pay bump of 20% for half the amount of work. These days, I clearly restate what is being asked (per my understanding), what I’m currently working on, if the thing is being asked is more important or not, and if the requestor is willing to delay the original timeline by the amount of time the interrupt will take plus context switching time. Most often, the answer is no.

dgxyz 7mo ago

Oh I worked at one of them. I found the best thing to do was to ignore the interrupts and carry on until they kick you on the street. Then watch from a safe distance as all the stuff you were holding together shits the bed.

echelon 7mo ago
Why did Tesla work initially? Because they were first to market and people were willing to overlook flaws? When did it start falling apart? Why hasn't the same happened to SpaceX? (Gov contracts, too big to fail, national defense, no competition yet, etc.?) And honestly, why hasn't anyone domestically put up a decent fight against Tesla? Best I can think of is Rivian, and those have their own issues.
- Rover222 7mo ago
  How is Tesla falling apart? Cybertruck was a flop, but Model Y is still one of the best selling cars in the world, and very well reviewed.
  - tapoxi 7mo ago
    Deliveries have been falling for the past two years.
    - MegaDeKay 7mo ago
      To make matters worse, falling while the deliveries of their competitors are rising.
  - onlypassingthru 7mo ago
    If you're in the market for a new X, S or Cybertruck, you're one of dozen(s)!
    - Rover222 7mo ago
      Yes now compare those numbers to all othere EVs sold in the US.
  - mjamesaustin 7mo ago
    To be considered successful, most companies need to sell more of their existing products and/or introduce new products. Tesla is doing neither – they have reduced the number of models they sell and are also selling their existing models in lower numbers.

zimpenfish 7mo ago

> When Elon asked for something, it was “drop what you are doing and deliver it”, then you got pressed to still deliver the thing you were already working on against the original timeline before the interrupt. To be fair, I've experienced that in a good 50% of my employment career[0] and I've not once worked for any of his companies. [0] Ignoring the "servers are melting" flavour of "drop what you are doing" because that's an understandable kind of interruption if you're a BAU specialist like me.

jarrettcoggin 7mo ago
I’ve experienced it at other places as well, just not the frequency or indirectness as Tesla. During the first 24 hours of the Model 3 pre-order launch, Elon tweeted that we would support another 3-4 currencies than we had built and tested for. The team literally found out because of his tweet and had not planned for those currencies. That wasn’t the first time that sort of deal happened where we found out about a feature because of one of his tweets.
- zimpenfish 7mo ago
  > That wasn’t the first time that sort of deal happened where we found out about a feature because of one of his tweets. Thankfully I've never (yet) had to experience "planning by management tweet". That does sound like absolute bullshit to deal with.
  - davidmurdoch 7mo ago
    Still better than jira.
    - AlexeyBelov 7mo ago
      In what way?!
      - davidmurdoch 7mo ago

jesterson 7mo ago

I wonder why this is surprising. In other type of organizations when CEO demands something everyone is usually behaves like naah, screw it, i rather do what i like, isn't it? Or everyone yells yes sir and runs around? You may not like Elon - I got it, but let's not pretend he is running xAI/Tesal substantially different from competitors.

Valodim 7mo ago
In other companies they don't make this explicit during the interview, so something is different
general1465 7mo ago
I am calling my approach to these tasks to make them rot away. If CEO/customer wants something, I will ignore it until he will start demanding it repeatedly then I will start thinking like working on it. Because it can also happen that CEO/customer will want shiny thing you will deliver the shiny thing and he will have no clue why did you do that, because he forgot that he wanted that - the task has rot away.
- jesterson 7mo ago
  I wish i could have a machine to detect workforce like you and not to hire those people.
  - general1465 7mo ago
    Consider it self-regulating system. If task can't survive in a mind of a wisher for more then few days, it was not needed from the start. Now you are saving resources and time to company which you can redirect to actually required tasks instead of some silly whims.
    - jesterson 7mo ago
      It's not a "regulating system" of any kind, but plain passive aggressive arrogance. I know better what to do so I would just pretend like I am going to do what you suggested. Unfortunately this trait is not so uncommon across IT engineers.

ekianjo 7mo ago

This is not specific to Tesla. If the CEO wants something done in most companies you follow the CEO's order first and drop everything else.

mort96 7mo ago
Yes, but in most well functioning large organizations, that happens very rarely.

thordenmark 7mo ago

This is the case at every company I've worked at. When the CEO says jump, the response is to jump or pack your stuff. What's special about xAI/Tesla/SpaceX?

blinding-streak 7mo ago
I think most people would agree that Elon is a particularly fickle, childish, petty, and unstable human being.
- mancerayder 7mo ago
  But the person you're replying to's point is that CEOs often behave like this. What if the difference is that this one tweets all day long, while the others behave the same to their staff but sit behind expensive shiny wooden desks?
AlexeyBelov 7mo ago
Neither me nor my friends ever worked at such companies. C-suite sets direction in a stategic way, department heads (or whatever, managers between C-suite and you) set tactical goals, product managers think up "things we should do", and product teams deliver those things (and manage this delivery together, e.g. timelines and such). It would be ridiculous for a CEO, or really anyone who's not my manager, to ask the team personally to do anything. If they had an important task they'd have to trade-off something else from the immediate backlog, by going through the product manager. Even in small companies you generally have a PM in front of a team.