News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Tesla meets self-imposed deadline for Model 3, rolls out 5000 cars in a week. Parent comment

Re:Tesla meets self-imposed deadline for Model 3, rolls out ... by grey-area on Sunday July 01, 2018 @03:32PM (#17437116)
I think the reason he does it this way is to avoid reaching the same local maximum competitors are already stuck in - you can’t out-compete incumbents with more of the same but a little better. It is arrogant in many ways but there is a reason behind it, it’s not just hubris, and crucially it requires finding the right frustrated talented people and listening to them, it would be a mistake to think he comes up with all the ideas.

I disagree that he’s not good at managing people, he just has very different success criteria, which do not highly rate the welfare of his workers. I think like Jobs, Bezos and many other successful business leaders he’s good at finding talented people, selling them a dream, and wringing every last ounce of life out of them in service of his dreams, then finding someone else to keep it going. A lot of people will be broken along the way, a lot of people will produce their best work.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Tesla meets self-imposed deadline for Model 3, rolls out ... by HeyLaughingBoy on Monday July 02, 2018 @12:39PM (#17443140)
It's possibly(?) tangential to the discussion, but I would say that if he does not "highly rate the welfare of his workers" then, he is by definition not good at managing people.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Tesla meets self-imposed deadline for Model 3, rolls out ... by grey-area on Monday July 02, 2018 @04:37PM (#17445125)
I mostly agree; I wouldn't want to work for someone like that, there is some ambiguity though as usually they are themselves driven to excel at all costs, and sometimes they encourage people to excel in ways they would not without the pressure (even if at great personal cost). I think he is highly skilled at manipulating and motivating people to do what he wants, whether you want to call that 'good at managing' is another discussion, mostly centred around the moral connotations of 'good'.
[ Parent | on HN ]