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A comment on Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors. Parent comment

Re:Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as ... by sanderjd on Friday December 28, 2018 @11:30AM (#18777703)
It seems to me that you just made the argument for the opposition. We know that Ellison was successful in a business that involved selling big contracts to a small number of purchasers spending from a budget of company or taxpayer money. But that's not Tesla's business. Does Ellison know how to sell to individuals spending large amounts of their own money on a product with lots of similar competitors? Maybe? But he doesn't have a track record of doing that.

The retort here might be that people who have a track record of being "good at business" are good at all business. I personally don't buy that. I think too much executive decision-making is guesswork based on pattern-matching to prior experience for that to hold; if you have no prior experiences with a matching pattern, you're no more or less qualified than the next smart person making it up as they go.

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Re:Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as ... by ryanmarsh on Friday December 28, 2018 @12:47PM (#18778210)
I think too much executive decision-making is guesswork based on pattern-matching to prior experience

Well now we’re just tossing back and forth our own biases and hypothesis. I understand your point. It makes sense. Not sure I agree.

The only thing I would add is, cars are big purchases for people. Oracle was a big purchase for CIO’s. Don’t forget for a second that Oracle was sold to a person. Talk to some Oracle sales people about this. I think you’ll find it similar to car sales in many ways.

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Re:Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as ... by cat199 on Friday December 28, 2018 @04:41PM (#18779673)
> Does Ellison know how to sell to individuals spending large amounts of their own money on a product with lots of similar competitors?

are you buying a battery-backed electric power storage substation?

didn't think so..

tesla isn't just about cars

which isn't to say i like musk or ellison

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Re:Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as ... by sanderjd on Friday December 28, 2018 @05:06PM (#18779841)
Hmm, that's a good point. I'm definitely more bullish on their power storage business, so if Ellison pushes them further that direction since it's more similar to the kind of business he knows, then maybe that's a good idea. Maybe Tesla is also big enough at this point to support multiple divisions with different customer bases and business models.
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