It was fall 2016 that Musk made 3 unilateral, and delusional strategic decisions: the Alien Dreadnought, Solar City, and HW2. I call it the ASH doctrine: Musk's 3 point plan to reduce Tesla to ashes. Before that, I thought Tesla had a chance, but since late 2016 I've been on Tesla deathwatch. And now, here we are, no solar shingles, no $35k Model 3, no full self driving, no money, no profit, no credibility, and no surprises to anyone who has been watching this without Musk approved rose coloured glasses.
The bonfire of his vanity is gloaming, and yet the fans are still fanning the flames.
Maybe we could look at Uber, but it's too soon to tell. And The new management there seems earnest, but I'm not sure they're looking so hot from an actual business perspective.
I don't know, how visionary and/or toxic would you consider the founders of Tesla to be before they got the boot?
If we're just looking into this question to understand how important neurosis is in creating greatness, I think we need the more obvious counterfactual first.
But better is relative.
Otherwise someone responds with an example and you just say that it doesn't count.
That's what underpins my point of view on this: if we were better at supporting talented-but-flawed people through personal transformation instead treating them with hatred and ridicule every time they misstep, we could have more great leaders and more great companies.
Just for an anecdotal counterpoint, I endured severe burnout and ruined my health to the point of almost dying. I'm still struggling to regain my health 3 years later.
To be fair, it's not 100% sure that the burnout caused my health issues (multiple pancreatitis attacks and major relapse of a dormant neurological condition), but some doctors said it was likely that stress had contributed. Personally, I'm certain that the two are connected.
Things were quite grim for me too and I suspect my life might have been at risk had I continued on the destructive path.
But I was able to correct and turn things around - though the recovery has taken as long as 10 years (depending on when you start measuring from) and is still in progress.
But I know my life is not in danger anymore and I’ve had a long enough period of things steadily getting better that I can be confident of that continuing.
I’m quite confident your stress contributed to your health issues; I’ve extensively researched the mind-body link, and that’s been the key to my recovery.
You can contact me (email in bio) if you’d like any pointers.
Regardless, best wishes in your journey.
Some industries operate under almost continuous crunches, the video games sector is notorious for this, and it might be that this is the case here too, and that my friend is just lucky to be on a team that is spared being overworked. It doesn't matter that people work on something they're passionate about, at a certain point it gets too much for anyone. I also got close to a burnout, and I did learn important lessons about managing my work life balance, working passionately while avoiding toxic stress, etc [wrote too much personal stuff, pasted under].
To get back to the point though, I wonder whether I would be able to remember these lessons and manage my work-life balance correctly, if I thought my work was as world changing as what Tesla and Space X are doing. I am deeply grateful that people like Elon Musk and the many others in these companies are willing to make decisions that might deprive them of time with their loved ones, potentially affect their health too, to bring such a change about.
I mean, the overarching goal of Space X to make life multi-planetary might seem like PR fluff to some, but I agree that we will extinguish ourselves if we stay on one planet. I would prefer that governments pool resources and achieve this public good through public means, as I find dangerous that a private company might end up having a monopoly on affordable space access. However, our governments fail on this and can't even agree on curbing climate change effectively, though it is a much more obvious danger, so I can only support Space X in their endeavor, and wholeheartedly wish them success.
-- [the personal stuff] I once worked 6 months without a single day off (work weeks of about 90 hours), which to some may appear like a manageable amount of stress, but I was in my early 20s and didn't know how to do this properly. We did make our deadline and things that needed to happen in that time frame did, but after it, lo and behold, the cough I'd had for a month for no apparent reason suddenly stopped. Good that it did too, as my throat was so irritated I was coughing a bit of blood in the end. Sorry for the gory detail there, but just to point out that being overworked does have some very real and physical repercussions, besides also leading to painful life choices. Not realizing my grandfather was in his final days when he was admitted to the hospital with a bad cough, and not getting there in time to say goodbye, is my personal low point in this regard, and something I have regretted ever since. I wish I hadn't needed to make such a terrible error in judgement to learn this lesson, but I did not make this mistake again, and prioritizing family and friends over work, however important whatever task or deadline might seem in the instant, is something I very much kept it mind since. It has made me much happier, and hasn't negatively impacted my work output in any way I can measure.
Loosers like to celebrate failures of people doing better than them.
This zero-sum mindset that you're a 'loser' to even suggest ways a company might be a great company, without you know, the founder being an asshole is dangerous and actually shuts down constructive criticism.
> What we _should_ hope for is for the current version of Musk to become a better version of Musk
Or alternatively, he gets punished like he should be (e.g. SEC violations), cedes control and the next person who looks up to people like Musk realizes that there are rules to follow and not following them have real world consequences.
People forget about the issues that come with the concentration of wealth, which is unfortunately one of the negative externalities of letting Musk get away with what he has done.
I too want a world where a company like Tesla succeeds, but I also don't want a world where we mix this acceptance of free markets with acceptance of socialism where it benefits small amounts of individuals much more so than the masses.
I think I agree with everything except that.
What I'm saying is we can't have everything that's positive about Telsa, but completely discard Musk.
What we _should_ hope for is for the current version of Musk to become a better version of Musk - say, one that can build a viable EV company and help bring about a global transition away from combustion-powered transport, but without the vile personal attacks, impulsive stock-price-affecting comments, absurd PR stunts, overworked workforce etc.
I'm well aware that the world doesn't currently have clear answers as to how people can make such profound changes to their personality, but I think it is where more discussion and research needs to be in order for the world to find and develop the leaders who can steer us through the big challenges.