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"Huibert Mees is the Chassis Systems Technical Fellow responsible for the design and engineering of the Model S chassis systems. He joined Tesla from Ford Motor
by krschultz 14y ago
"Huibert Mees is the Chassis Systems Technical Fellow responsible for the design and engineering of the Model S chassis systems. He joined Tesla from Ford Motor Company, where he was responsible for all the chassis systems and vehicle structure of the Ford GT supercar. Huibert has been working in the automotive industry for over 20 years, and was responsible for the rear suspension design of the Lincoln LS and Jaguar S-type as well as numerous advanced chassis design concepts at Ford."
Both SpaceX and Tesla are largely built on skimming the superstars out of the entrenched players. There are plenty of people that are really really good at their jobs at Boeing, Lockheed, Ford, General Dynamicsm, etc. They are generally underpaid, undervalued, and given little freedom relative to their skillset. But they stick around in those companies because that's where you have to be in order to work on really cool stuff like the Ford GT 40 or a space rocket.
Tesla and SpaceX offer the same cool stuff to work on, without the crappy low-value coworkers that never get fired, legacy systems holding you back, and the opportunity to do things as you believe they should be done.
This is part of why the old companies will have a hard time noncompeting. Not only are SpaceX and Tesla disrupting their business, but Elon Musk is stealing from their top tier talent pool that could defend against disruption.
- tocomment 14y agoHow specifically did he recruit them? Did he just show up at the factory one day? (I'm really interested in the detailed logistical steps of how one starts a brand new car company)
- ChuckMcM 14y agoIf its like the tech industry once he made it clear he was serious (and sometimes even before that) they might reach out to him.
- krschultz 14y agoI don't know about step 1, but growing the team is more about providing a safe refuge and the best guys will find you.
- revelation 14y agoIf you want to take Tesla as an example for how to start a brand new car company: 1) Spend 6 years at an insanely high burn rate with zero revenue for research and development to create a marketable car 2) Have enough brand loyalty to delay delivery to your high-earning clientele multiple times 3) Hustle Daimler into investing to do payroll at the height of the financial crisis, with Daimler themselves having no money 4) Hustle the DOE into funding your fully electric sedan while having only a taped together basic model to show for it, with your competition (Toyota) being granted billions just to refit a factory
- nijk 14y ago5) design and build and deliver a car.
- toomuchtodo 14y agoStep 1: Find amazing talent Step 2: Remove all barriers stopping them from being awesome at what they do. Pay them well. Appreciate them. Step 3: Profit
- tokenadult 14y agoStep 3: Profit I wish them well, but the "profit" part still remains to be seen for both SpaceX and Tesla Motors.
- toomuchtodo 14y agoIf the market is any indicator, it believes Tesla is going to be successful. I bought several thousand shares at $17/share right after the IPO. TSLA closed today at 54.55/share.
- marvin 14y agoAnd 45% of the current price came in the last month, so obviously more than one person is thinking what you're thinking.
- jcampbell1 14y ago> given little freedom relative to their skillset. When I worked for Ford, I would overhear conversations like this: Manager: Customers are complaining, the pedal is to hard to press on the Town Car. Engineer: The pedal is too fucking soft as is. If we make it any softer, people won't know if they are even pressing it. Manager: Just make it softer. It is showing up as a problem on the TGW report.
- nijk 14y agoSounds like both sides of that convo forget to check of they are speaking the same language and understand the problem.
- nutjob123 14y agoSounds great in theory however I have heard on a few occasions that Tesla is run like a sweat shop for engineers.
- nijk 14y agoA big company invented "skunk works". Lockheed, I believe. It is totally doable. Bit of a tangent, but CarMax was created by Circuit City