You will find out how much un-sexy but highly important work was done by those underperforming non-hardcore people. Which is usually quite a lot, including keeping the literal lights on.

Yea, I don’t want to exclude the possibility of that outcome. If Elon does run this $44 billion social experiment I will watch very carefully though. It will be very interesting indeed.

(And my feeling is that a lot of the Elon-hate comes from people who fear that the outcome will be more in line with my expectations than yours.)

Imagine the relief of not filling out dozens of useless forms for five layers of management that do not really understand what you do anyway. One could really GSD at that point.

Supposing that the "correct" 80% is getting cut in this exercise - Musk is still essentially promising sweatshop work conditions for those who remain. It's evident that what he wants is for engineers to work early mornings, late nights, weekends, holidays, maximally in the office, under a trigger-happy boss who shit-talks you, your company and your work on social media, and is motivated by pure financial desperation.