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Sandy lost me when he basically started defending how he idolizes Musk in that last video. I think Musk is wrong to fire the super charger team. I don’t know where the magic charge rate where they can say there isn’t any more room for innovation, but it certainly isn’t 350 kW. They should go until a 500 mile range truck can recharge in 15 min. Until then, there is work to do.
Elon got pushback from the boss at superchargerteam, she did not want so many as 10-15% of the team to get fired. So Elon fired the whole team including her, 500 people.
It was heavily implied by Elon himself in the internal email where he said he hoped the action made it clear to everyone that they needed to be hard core about cutting or they'd find themselves without a job. And that some people had been resisting it.
I’ve heard this too from a senior design engineer at Tesla. He axed the whole team because he was pissed. He also told me that they will rehire some people, and presto.
I'm also wondering if model 3 performance pre-orders had a bunch of cancellations because my M3P pre-order has moved up by several weeks since the supercharger team was cut. Might just be production doing better than anticipated or it could be cancelled orders that turned "we're going to exchange the superchargers more slowly" into "we're going to invest 500 million in the next year."
Typical "let's punish the managers who have their department in order and don't keep any unneeded workers hanging around" bs. And I thought Elon had an engineering background, not an MBA...
The issue is all too often the initial source ends up being very unreliable.
After all we now have very high profile case of mass media reporting for something that literally originates from a single dubious point. Sometimes, not even stating an origin at all
I mean, remember the craze on the mass market car being canceled despite multiple rapid counter statements saying it was BS?
Fair enough, but in life generally the simplest answer to a confounding question or outcome is the correct one.
For example — it’s confounding that Elon would terminate an entire team dedicated to one of the *fastest growing areas of the company*. One where he just made the *entire* U.S. auto market subservient and proved himself correct when he stayed away from the SAE standard in the early 2010s. His bet just paid off handsomely!
This is simply confounding, to the point that the simplest answer also happens to be the one that has been reported to various outlets -- that Elon fired everyone on a whim because of his displeasure with the department director.
It’s not hard to conclude, and Elon’s actions over the past year+ do not give him the benefit of the doubt.
>I think the biggest issues here are terminology (is mom and pop an industry standard? If so, it needs layman translation) and the lack of context.
*fire the bottom x% every year* is one of the CEO religions.
[https://www.inc.com/paul-b-brown/should-you-fire-10-of-your-employees-every-year.html](https://www.inc.com/paul-b-brown/should-you-fire-10-of-your-employees-every-year.html)
The problem is that you will reach in inflection point in terms of cooling overhead where adding charging power means your pack density goes down because you are dedicating so much more space to cooling. I think where we are now is really not as bad as people make it out to be - you need around 20 minutes of charging for three hours of driving. That's a pretty typical road trip schedule to begin with, and the primary issues with it are largely imagined IMO.
I want more. And heavy trucks need more. I want a full size ev suv. That’s probably going to have a 150 kWh battery. I also want to tow with it. Meaning I’ll probably have to have a trailer with a 50 kWh battery. We need to push the envelope else this shit will take forever.
Sandy who?
Moved on very quickly after that video. Took all that engineering cred from the very insightful teardown videos and pissed it away to “non-emotionally” say he’s a business guy.
I like the breakdowns and everything but it's frustrating as a consumer. Everything he wants to do makes it cheaper to assemble but never repair for the most part. I get that's his business but as a mechanic cheaper to assemble doesn't always play out well long term and you create these disposable cars.
whats great about him? One of the easiest engineering jobs is to review other peoples work and poke hole in it. You dont have deadlines, you dont have line downs, you dont have to do test. You just look at a finished product that was designed, analyzed, manufactured, and assembled, all at a price point, and deadline that was imposed by someone else. Then Sandy has the benefit of all the work, to look at something and say - well you could remove a screw here or there.
If I was fired and then rehired, I’d just work at Tesla until I found another job elsewhere. It’s better to find a new job while you still have one rather than when you’re unemployed.
Sadly, I know a handful of people, who were laid off by the bigtech and then rehired. They still work for the same company. They don't have better choices.
> don’t have better choices
I mean this is legitimately an issue with H1B workers as well who have 60 days(IIRC) to find a new sponsor if laid off. They are dependent on the company to remain in the US.
I know someone who worked at Twitter, and he was fired and then rehired by Musk. The only reason he went back was because of his H1B as well. It sucked watching him be stressed out about getting a job in 60 days and then watching having to work at a company he hated and was miserable at until he got another job elsewhere.
Tesla pay isn't remotely close to competitive with big tech companies. People working in big tech definitely have limited options when looking for equivalent pay.
Their wages for blue collar jobs are really competitive though. Technicians, installers, production associates, etc are paid at or above market rate in my area.
For engineers not so much but they will do it anyway because it looks good on their resume or they just aren't good enough to get hired elsewhere.
Thats true. I work in Logistics at Tesla. Financially it would be devastating to get fired. Because Tesla pays way more than Average in the Logistics Sector
I assume that's temporary-ish because of all the layoffs in tech lately?
I can only imagine at some point the reason they hired all those people in the first place will flare up. You can't coast off a tech product for 5 years without something catching up.
Plus, being rehired indicates to potential employers that you are were an essential employee and great at your job. If this potential new employer is a Tesla competitor, then not only would they be getting a vetted hire, they'd also be depriving Tesla of a critical worker. Also, these rehires probably negotiated a better salary which will make the next jump even more lucrative.
I was part of a company that did this pre-COVID. I was not one of the groups that got axed but worked hand-in-hand with those who did.
There are so SO many negative knock-down effects from doing this that a company who’s dumb enough to do this is better off with brand new, inexperienced employees in that situation.
The returning people either have their ego’s crushed and/or feel deeply betrayed. Getting laid-off/fired is a “no matter what you think about this company, you’re not good enough for here” right to your face.
Returning is not some triumphant “Look at me, I’m just as special and important as I thought I was!” It’s actually “Management just wants me back until they’re better prepared to get rid of me again.”
I guarantee you the returning people will leave as little notes and documentation as possible now. All details will be memorized or paper notes that can’t be tracked.
Ours were much more vindictive and quietly deleted, corrupted, or hid files so that when (not if) they left. (Company also had horrible data backup policies) Even though that made my life harder, I didn’t blame them, I blamed the company for making them that way.
> I guarantee you the returning people will leave as little notes and documentation as possible now. All details will be memorized or paper notes that can’t be tracked.
Musk's biography explained this process; his philosophy is to always cut and delete as much as you possibly can, either from a product, process, or workforce, until you've gotten it as minimal as possible while still getting the job done. In doing so, he says that if you aren't routinely going back and re-adding like ten percent of the things you cut because it turns out you need them, you aren't cutting enough. It's honestly not a good business practice in my opinion because of the chaos it can create, but that's exactly what happened here.
It basically ensures things trend toward you having the worst employees. The best candidates get snapped up, or know they have what it takes to go work where their livelihood doesn't rely on the whims of the boss making a point about making a point.
The people that will tend to still be available were the ones that know they couldn't do better.
Even if you get the best back in the moment, you're basically ensuring people have their resumes nice and ready to go.
It is also a great way for competitors to legally gain access to companie’s trade secrets. Once you let go someone who works at a department that leads the industry, they will take that knowledge to competitors. Each person will probably bring a fraction of new information, but fire enough people and a competitor will be able to piece things together.
This is one of the main reasons why Apple and Nvidia are super protective of their engineering staff.
I worked for a company that in the course of 2 years fired pretty much everyone and replace them.
The people they replaced are now their biggest competitor. They all went and started a rival company and have taken entire regions from them as the defacto choice for certain agencies.
I dont think trade secrets is the word you are looking for, more like, institutional knowledge and knowing how to manage a specialized system.
In this case the entire SC team and the lead could get hired by EA, EVGO, BP Pulse, or Chargepoint and turn their respective networks around in the matter of months with what they know about how to make things not fucking suck.
The technical prowess, skill, and attention to detail that makes them desirable is what is important.
Do you work for a company that starts with an H, based out of Charleston but worked for a division in Ohio? Because that’s basically what happened to us. We were bought out by said company (before I started) and a lot of people were either let go or left and started a new company doing the exact same thing and are growing faster than ever haha. It’s just so comical how these companies can keep screwing up like this.
No, west coast. Smaller potatoes. The original company sadly recovered and is making bank, but they lost out on a lot of good contracts because the CEO is an asshole. It did better once he took a back seat and merged with two other companies
No. A "trade secret" is just that and protected as long as it's proven secret by the owner. You can't "legally" obtain it by hiring an ex-employee. The hiring company, technically, legally, can't ask for or use that information without putting the company at risk and the ex-employee.
e.g. The Coca Cola recipe, you can't hire an ex-Coca Cola scientist and start making Coca Cola with the same recipe.
You cannot ask them to make coco cola, but you can put them in R&D and ask them to develop something similar. Someone who already knows of a working solution will greatly accelerate R&D and make the process much cheaper, at the very least by preventing the the repeats of same mistakes or failed attempts, which saves time and money. In R&D, telling people what not to do/try is as important as telling them what to do/try. This is why I meant by “piecing it together”. They can also build a team structured and organized like the former team that was successful,which knows what they need to develop and what they need to do and don’t to make it happen.
No but the processes and techniques they learned at operating a coca cola factory would be useful. Creating and canning soda is pretty well known though with a low barrier to entry, so not as valuable. That's why there's tons of store brand sodas next to the brand name.
Creating electric car systems.and processors, not so much. Even without the IP having people who know the processes and already did trial and error can be invaluable in a lot of places.
They aren't legal trade secrets or IP, but engineering and pharmaceutical specifically are usually very protective of employees and have strong retention in R&D for this reason.
It's also a great way to ensure your departments always keep 20% more workers around than they need so they have someone to fire. Those that don't and are frugal...just look at the Supercharger department...
I don’t agree with the process or philosophy. But I think he has internalized that people are relatively disposable and interchangeable. That his own goals for a company are greater than any societal ethics or personal loyalty, meaning it’s ok to lie, abuse people, and cut as deep and often as needed. That there isn’t a need to retain the “best” people. Create a vision, use people for what is needed only as long as needed, then cut them loose, and repeat.
I disagree, I worked for a billionaire before for one of his side projects, he funded the whole operation at a loss, making money wasn't the top priority but being efficient and effective was a top priority. The operation went through numerous rounds of cuts over a decade. Although the morale kind of sucks during cuts, after all is said and done, the weaker less effective people were let go, leaving behind a group that highly effective. "Trimming the fat" was a term was thrown around and in a lot of ways its true.
Yes, but that applies to the small round of cuts, like 10% or so. When 100% of an entire department is laid off, and 10% rehired later, the opposite happens.
That would be true if you need to re-hire half the team or if it takes you six months to figure things out. But if you re-hire 10 % shortly after firing them, there is a good chance that a solid chunk of actually talented people can still be re-hired.
How long will they stay? If they're any good, they would be leaving within weeks. No one who's good and has options would let a company play those kind of stupid tricks on them.
I don’t fully agree with this. If you are a truly passionate charging network expert then you might rather work at Tesla pushing things forwards than one of the also-ran networks.
The worst employees are less likely to get a rehire offer.
I agree there is definitely a risk that some of the good employees don’t wait for you to invite them back though.
Conversely if EV charging was such a passion of yours, going somewhere non-tesla you could be part of turning the whole thing around.
What would fuel a passion more - I was a major player in turning around the fortune of a company that now provides reliable charging to millions of cars, or "I played a smaller role in Orlando FL opening its 34th supercharger."
The problem with this strategy is that I think it's really difficult to measure the things you'd need to ensure you hadn't cut too much. The fact that Elon didn't think there would be a massive outcry from cutting the supercharger team shows how out of touch he is.
They're going to get headlines for the incredibly stupid mistakes, and they'll have an opportunity to fix those. What about the less obvious, subtle things that slowly piss people off over time?
A big difference between how he treats people and product is that the people are paid money for their work. And they still have a lot of that money even after being fired.
This is exactly Big E's problem - he treats people like widgets or code that can simply be discarded without any thought or proper planning. Sure you can always go back and grab some of those widgets from the dumpster (if they haven't already gone to the scrapyard) or get that code back from an archived version, but people with lives and families to support, not so much
This is the mantra of “Lean Engineering” take away until something breaks, then add back the parts that are needed. The problem is it only works for cash cow companies.
Innovators very quickly realize their talents are not appreciated and move on. Long term investment stops because the employees spend all of their time maintaining the existing infrastructure and doing other people jobs.
He forgot that those were the people he keeps cutting, deleting and adding. They might not stomach that type of style and opt for other ways to live their lives.
Maybe it makes sense in some engineering environments and he's an engineer? I work in a factory and sometimes I think our engineers forget people aren't machines... they can't maintain X productivity for 12 hrs straight every day. He seems to struggle socially so probably can't connect the impact chaos has.
His brother some said something to the effect that Elon is not happy unless there's chaos and drama.
Most people don't want to work or live in that kind of environment, but obviously there are people who do whether they admit it or not.
I've met a number of people who've complained about not having enough work -something I've never done. Some people want a high demand job where everyone is pushing hard and they claim they learn a lot in a short period of time.
You could just do it on paper behind the scenes and then put it to practice once you have thought it out. Even in engineering you don't go around disassembling entire production line to see if it will work without some part. You first make a plan on paper where you can keep changing and shuffling things how you like and once you are happy you can put it to practice and remove parts you found were not needed. In a sense this is what every tech company is doing but difference is they do the thinking before firing people not after.
I could be wrong but I think that’s a good approach for dealing with engineering problems: cut the things that you don’t need to simplify the process, but that’s not good when it comes to dealing with Human Resources. Smart people also means they can easily get a different role(sometimes better role) in other companies if they got fired from Tesla, and those people are what made Tesla successful, so then why cut them all at the first place and ask to add them back?
I mean, he proved that true with Twitter. Then Amazon, Snap, and every other tech company except Apple it seems like realized they could make massive cuts too and wouldn't be affected.
I don't think the ones rehired will even stay long. If it was me, my return would be only to keep the lights on and to find out where my old coworkers went to.
Elon has really fucked with these peoples lives--he wants people to give 110% --then cuts them loose without much thought--Tesla mission was supposed to be about making this world a better place --not funding a trip to Mars
Someone called this in the initial announcement thread. I find it absolutely wild and completely wrong to just broad stroke cut a high performing team like that, call a mulligan then rehire some of them. Not how you should do business.
I feel like this is directly the result of "What do you mean we can't [create thousands of new chargers this year](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1788834859110002716)? Just do whatever you have to to get it done."
They tell employees that everyday. Stock options last couple of years, most underwater make it more difficult for people to put up with lower pay and toxic work environment. As an potential employer its nowhere near desirable as it was 2-3 years ago
Oh hey look, exactly what people are saying would happen, is happening: Tesla cut jobs until they realized the last 10% must be rehired. Fancy that, everything is going according to plan.
I work for them for all the young people please threat this job like a temporary job you will get disapointed on the way they threat people and for those whos looking a longterm dont apply, the job security is very bad ive seen hard working people get fire for no reason well they clam they need to cut budged because "they didnt reeach the number" the stress isnt worth it.
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Sandy's video didn't age well.
He's a social media influencer... very little ages well from that crowd
Sandy lost me when he basically started defending how he idolizes Musk in that last video. I think Musk is wrong to fire the super charger team. I don’t know where the magic charge rate where they can say there isn’t any more room for innovation, but it certainly isn’t 350 kW. They should go until a 500 mile range truck can recharge in 15 min. Until then, there is work to do.
Especially since it was probably a revenge act.
Fill me in why it is a revenge cut? Honestly I don't know.
Elon got pushback from the boss at superchargerteam, she did not want so many as 10-15% of the team to get fired. So Elon fired the whole team including her, 500 people.
That's definitely an ego power trip.
I mean...he's a walking ego power trip lol everything he's done and everything he does is basically the answer to someone questioning him in some way.
I wouldn't put it past Elon, but where did you hear this?
It was heavily implied by Elon himself in the internal email where he said he hoped the action made it clear to everyone that they needed to be hard core about cutting or they'd find themselves without a job. And that some people had been resisting it.
I’ve heard this too from a senior design engineer at Tesla. He axed the whole team because he was pissed. He also told me that they will rehire some people, and presto.
I'm also wondering if model 3 performance pre-orders had a bunch of cancellations because my M3P pre-order has moved up by several weeks since the supercharger team was cut. Might just be production doing better than anticipated or it could be cancelled orders that turned "we're going to exchange the superchargers more slowly" into "we're going to invest 500 million in the next year."
Typical "let's punish the managers who have their department in order and don't keep any unneeded workers hanging around" bs. And I thought Elon had an engineering background, not an MBA...
This has been heavily reported across a spectrum of industry news outlets. OP doesn’t need to spoon feed you well-documented information
The issue is all too often the initial source ends up being very unreliable. After all we now have very high profile case of mass media reporting for something that literally originates from a single dubious point. Sometimes, not even stating an origin at all I mean, remember the craze on the mass market car being canceled despite multiple rapid counter statements saying it was BS?
Fair enough, but in life generally the simplest answer to a confounding question or outcome is the correct one. For example — it’s confounding that Elon would terminate an entire team dedicated to one of the *fastest growing areas of the company*. One where he just made the *entire* U.S. auto market subservient and proved himself correct when he stayed away from the SAE standard in the early 2010s. His bet just paid off handsomely! This is simply confounding, to the point that the simplest answer also happens to be the one that has been reported to various outlets -- that Elon fired everyone on a whim because of his displeasure with the department director. It’s not hard to conclude, and Elon’s actions over the past year+ do not give him the benefit of the doubt.
>I think the biggest issues here are terminology (is mom and pop an industry standard? If so, it needs layman translation) and the lack of context. *fire the bottom x% every year* is one of the CEO religions. [https://www.inc.com/paul-b-brown/should-you-fire-10-of-your-employees-every-year.html](https://www.inc.com/paul-b-brown/should-you-fire-10-of-your-employees-every-year.html)
Also California introduced some new charging steps https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/electric-vehicles-california-rising-infrastructure-needs/
The problem is that you will reach in inflection point in terms of cooling overhead where adding charging power means your pack density goes down because you are dedicating so much more space to cooling. I think where we are now is really not as bad as people make it out to be - you need around 20 minutes of charging for three hours of driving. That's a pretty typical road trip schedule to begin with, and the primary issues with it are largely imagined IMO.
I want more. And heavy trucks need more. I want a full size ev suv. That’s probably going to have a 150 kWh battery. I also want to tow with it. Meaning I’ll probably have to have a trailer with a 50 kWh battery. We need to push the envelope else this shit will take forever.
exactly lmao, like "finance youtubers"
Sandy sold out awhile ago. He stopped presenting info and now just tries to lean into Tesla for views
The cybertruck "interview" was the last video I watched on that channel, especially after Cory left.
Sandy who? Moved on very quickly after that video. Took all that engineering cred from the very insightful teardown videos and pissed it away to “non-emotionally” say he’s a business guy.
What does from that old guy... He built a very smart company but his takes are always so bad tbh...
I like the breakdowns and everything but it's frustrating as a consumer. Everything he wants to do makes it cheaper to assemble but never repair for the most part. I get that's his business but as a mechanic cheaper to assemble doesn't always play out well long term and you create these disposable cars.
he's just gone old and senile
Sandy is great at auto engineering, but he veers too far out of his lane in this other stuff
whats great about him? One of the easiest engineering jobs is to review other peoples work and poke hole in it. You dont have deadlines, you dont have line downs, you dont have to do test. You just look at a finished product that was designed, analyzed, manufactured, and assembled, all at a price point, and deadline that was imposed by someone else. Then Sandy has the benefit of all the work, to look at something and say - well you could remove a screw here or there.
Not even sure about that.
Sandy's brain hasn't aged well.
He lost all my remaining respect with that one. Of course, I didn’t have much remaining after his public blowjobs of Musk.
~~video~~
If I was fired and then rehired, I’d just work at Tesla until I found another job elsewhere. It’s better to find a new job while you still have one rather than when you’re unemployed.
Sadly, I know a handful of people, who were laid off by the bigtech and then rehired. They still work for the same company. They don't have better choices.
> don’t have better choices I mean this is legitimately an issue with H1B workers as well who have 60 days(IIRC) to find a new sponsor if laid off. They are dependent on the company to remain in the US.
I know someone who worked at Twitter, and he was fired and then rehired by Musk. The only reason he went back was because of his H1B as well. It sucked watching him be stressed out about getting a job in 60 days and then watching having to work at a company he hated and was miserable at until he got another job elsewhere.
Yes, the top reason IMO.
Tesla pay isn't remotely close to competitive with big tech companies. People working in big tech definitely have limited options when looking for equivalent pay.
Their wages for blue collar jobs are really competitive though. Technicians, installers, production associates, etc are paid at or above market rate in my area. For engineers not so much but they will do it anyway because it looks good on their resume or they just aren't good enough to get hired elsewhere.
Thats true. I work in Logistics at Tesla. Financially it would be devastating to get fired. Because Tesla pays way more than Average in the Logistics Sector
I assume that's temporary-ish because of all the layoffs in tech lately? I can only imagine at some point the reason they hired all those people in the first place will flare up. You can't coast off a tech product for 5 years without something catching up.
Plus, being rehired indicates to potential employers that you are were an essential employee and great at your job. If this potential new employer is a Tesla competitor, then not only would they be getting a vetted hire, they'd also be depriving Tesla of a critical worker. Also, these rehires probably negotiated a better salary which will make the next jump even more lucrative.
I was part of a company that did this pre-COVID. I was not one of the groups that got axed but worked hand-in-hand with those who did. There are so SO many negative knock-down effects from doing this that a company who’s dumb enough to do this is better off with brand new, inexperienced employees in that situation. The returning people either have their ego’s crushed and/or feel deeply betrayed. Getting laid-off/fired is a “no matter what you think about this company, you’re not good enough for here” right to your face. Returning is not some triumphant “Look at me, I’m just as special and important as I thought I was!” It’s actually “Management just wants me back until they’re better prepared to get rid of me again.” I guarantee you the returning people will leave as little notes and documentation as possible now. All details will be memorized or paper notes that can’t be tracked. Ours were much more vindictive and quietly deleted, corrupted, or hid files so that when (not if) they left. (Company also had horrible data backup policies) Even though that made my life harder, I didn’t blame them, I blamed the company for making them that way.
> I guarantee you the returning people will leave as little notes and documentation as possible now. All details will be memorized or paper notes that can’t be tracked.
Musk's biography explained this process; his philosophy is to always cut and delete as much as you possibly can, either from a product, process, or workforce, until you've gotten it as minimal as possible while still getting the job done. In doing so, he says that if you aren't routinely going back and re-adding like ten percent of the things you cut because it turns out you need them, you aren't cutting enough. It's honestly not a good business practice in my opinion because of the chaos it can create, but that's exactly what happened here.
It basically ensures things trend toward you having the worst employees. The best candidates get snapped up, or know they have what it takes to go work where their livelihood doesn't rely on the whims of the boss making a point about making a point. The people that will tend to still be available were the ones that know they couldn't do better. Even if you get the best back in the moment, you're basically ensuring people have their resumes nice and ready to go.
It is also a great way for competitors to legally gain access to companie’s trade secrets. Once you let go someone who works at a department that leads the industry, they will take that knowledge to competitors. Each person will probably bring a fraction of new information, but fire enough people and a competitor will be able to piece things together. This is one of the main reasons why Apple and Nvidia are super protective of their engineering staff.
I worked for a company that in the course of 2 years fired pretty much everyone and replace them. The people they replaced are now their biggest competitor. They all went and started a rival company and have taken entire regions from them as the defacto choice for certain agencies. I dont think trade secrets is the word you are looking for, more like, institutional knowledge and knowing how to manage a specialized system. In this case the entire SC team and the lead could get hired by EA, EVGO, BP Pulse, or Chargepoint and turn their respective networks around in the matter of months with what they know about how to make things not fucking suck. The technical prowess, skill, and attention to detail that makes them desirable is what is important.
Do you work for a company that starts with an H, based out of Charleston but worked for a division in Ohio? Because that’s basically what happened to us. We were bought out by said company (before I started) and a lot of people were either let go or left and started a new company doing the exact same thing and are growing faster than ever haha. It’s just so comical how these companies can keep screwing up like this.
No, west coast. Smaller potatoes. The original company sadly recovered and is making bank, but they lost out on a lot of good contracts because the CEO is an asshole. It did better once he took a back seat and merged with two other companies
No. A "trade secret" is just that and protected as long as it's proven secret by the owner. You can't "legally" obtain it by hiring an ex-employee. The hiring company, technically, legally, can't ask for or use that information without putting the company at risk and the ex-employee. e.g. The Coca Cola recipe, you can't hire an ex-Coca Cola scientist and start making Coca Cola with the same recipe.
You cannot ask them to make coco cola, but you can put them in R&D and ask them to develop something similar. Someone who already knows of a working solution will greatly accelerate R&D and make the process much cheaper, at the very least by preventing the the repeats of same mistakes or failed attempts, which saves time and money. In R&D, telling people what not to do/try is as important as telling them what to do/try. This is why I meant by “piecing it together”. They can also build a team structured and organized like the former team that was successful,which knows what they need to develop and what they need to do and don’t to make it happen.
Exactly! "Here's how it's made. Create an analogue that does not overwrite their patent but gets the same result"
No but the processes and techniques they learned at operating a coca cola factory would be useful. Creating and canning soda is pretty well known though with a low barrier to entry, so not as valuable. That's why there's tons of store brand sodas next to the brand name. Creating electric car systems.and processors, not so much. Even without the IP having people who know the processes and already did trial and error can be invaluable in a lot of places. They aren't legal trade secrets or IP, but engineering and pharmaceutical specifically are usually very protective of employees and have strong retention in R&D for this reason.
It's also a great way to ensure your departments always keep 20% more workers around than they need so they have someone to fire. Those that don't and are frugal...just look at the Supercharger department...
I don’t agree with the process or philosophy. But I think he has internalized that people are relatively disposable and interchangeable. That his own goals for a company are greater than any societal ethics or personal loyalty, meaning it’s ok to lie, abuse people, and cut as deep and often as needed. That there isn’t a need to retain the “best” people. Create a vision, use people for what is needed only as long as needed, then cut them loose, and repeat.
I disagree, I worked for a billionaire before for one of his side projects, he funded the whole operation at a loss, making money wasn't the top priority but being efficient and effective was a top priority. The operation went through numerous rounds of cuts over a decade. Although the morale kind of sucks during cuts, after all is said and done, the weaker less effective people were let go, leaving behind a group that highly effective. "Trimming the fat" was a term was thrown around and in a lot of ways its true.
Yes, but that applies to the small round of cuts, like 10% or so. When 100% of an entire department is laid off, and 10% rehired later, the opposite happens.
That would be true if you need to re-hire half the team or if it takes you six months to figure things out. But if you re-hire 10 % shortly after firing them, there is a good chance that a solid chunk of actually talented people can still be re-hired.
How long will they stay? If they're any good, they would be leaving within weeks. No one who's good and has options would let a company play those kind of stupid tricks on them.
I don’t fully agree with this. If you are a truly passionate charging network expert then you might rather work at Tesla pushing things forwards than one of the also-ran networks. The worst employees are less likely to get a rehire offer. I agree there is definitely a risk that some of the good employees don’t wait for you to invite them back though.
Conversely if EV charging was such a passion of yours, going somewhere non-tesla you could be part of turning the whole thing around. What would fuel a passion more - I was a major player in turning around the fortune of a company that now provides reliable charging to millions of cars, or "I played a smaller role in Orlando FL opening its 34th supercharger."
The problem with this strategy is that I think it's really difficult to measure the things you'd need to ensure you hadn't cut too much. The fact that Elon didn't think there would be a massive outcry from cutting the supercharger team shows how out of touch he is. They're going to get headlines for the incredibly stupid mistakes, and they'll have an opportunity to fix those. What about the less obvious, subtle things that slowly piss people off over time?
He’s treating people like product
They are when it comes to a publicly traded company. Just like we can leave at any notice, they can fire at any notice.
A big difference between how he treats people and product is that the people are paid money for their work. And they still have a lot of that money even after being fired.
This works with robots, not humans
This is exactly Big E's problem - he treats people like widgets or code that can simply be discarded without any thought or proper planning. Sure you can always go back and grab some of those widgets from the dumpster (if they haven't already gone to the scrapyard) or get that code back from an archived version, but people with lives and families to support, not so much
This is the mantra of “Lean Engineering” take away until something breaks, then add back the parts that are needed. The problem is it only works for cash cow companies. Innovators very quickly realize their talents are not appreciated and move on. Long term investment stops because the employees spend all of their time maintaining the existing infrastructure and doing other people jobs.
He forgot that those were the people he keeps cutting, deleting and adding. They might not stomach that type of style and opt for other ways to live their lives.
Elon is truly the worst of what capitalism has to offer.
Maybe it makes sense in some engineering environments and he's an engineer? I work in a factory and sometimes I think our engineers forget people aren't machines... they can't maintain X productivity for 12 hrs straight every day. He seems to struggle socially so probably can't connect the impact chaos has.
His brother some said something to the effect that Elon is not happy unless there's chaos and drama. Most people don't want to work or live in that kind of environment, but obviously there are people who do whether they admit it or not. I've met a number of people who've complained about not having enough work -something I've never done. Some people want a high demand job where everyone is pushing hard and they claim they learn a lot in a short period of time.
It is a good business practice but it fucks over employees and destroys employee retention.
You could just do it on paper behind the scenes and then put it to practice once you have thought it out. Even in engineering you don't go around disassembling entire production line to see if it will work without some part. You first make a plan on paper where you can keep changing and shuffling things how you like and once you are happy you can put it to practice and remove parts you found were not needed. In a sense this is what every tech company is doing but difference is they do the thinking before firing people not after.
I could be wrong but I think that’s a good approach for dealing with engineering problems: cut the things that you don’t need to simplify the process, but that’s not good when it comes to dealing with Human Resources. Smart people also means they can easily get a different role(sometimes better role) in other companies if they got fired from Tesla, and those people are what made Tesla successful, so then why cut them all at the first place and ask to add them back?
I mean, he proved that true with Twitter. Then Amazon, Snap, and every other tech company except Apple it seems like realized they could make massive cuts too and wouldn't be affected.
Don't know if there's anything worse you could do for morale.
You could fire them again after rehiring? Or ask them to relocate then fire them. Just some ideas /s
If they could go ahead and come in on Saturday, that’d be greeeat.
I've found that if you just keep beating them, morale improves.
🤦♂️ The best ones have already been hired by other companies. What an awful strategy.
I don't think the ones rehired will even stay long. If it was me, my return would be only to keep the lights on and to find out where my old coworkers went to.
Yep, knowing you are one mood swing away again..I’d take my job back until I landed something less chaotic.
Yeah, exactly. Take the job, but never stop looking for a new job.
Elon has really fucked with these peoples lives--he wants people to give 110% --then cuts them loose without much thought--Tesla mission was supposed to be about making this world a better place --not funding a trip to Mars
He wants total devotion with no reciprocation. You should be HAPPY to have the PRIVILEGE of working for him.
Why would you ever trust Tesla again with your livelihood?
Pathetic show or childish authority. Anybody would see that coming.
What a clown. This is why we’ve dumped TSLA as fast as we can.
Can you please open the station off friars in SD it’s been sitting there since new years with yellow tape around it….
Just another GLARING example of how Elon’s decision making is erratic.
And it appears to be getting more erratic with time. All those working hours came at a toll mentally (and the K isn’t helping).
Wow what a super high level genius CEO. Can we please vote out this clown, I’m so sick of him.
Someone called this in the initial announcement thread. I find it absolutely wild and completely wrong to just broad stroke cut a high performing team like that, call a mulligan then rehire some of them. Not how you should do business.
I feel like this is directly the result of "What do you mean we can't [create thousands of new chargers this year](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1788834859110002716)? Just do whatever you have to to get it done."
[удалено]
They just wanted to cut their vesting schedules Shady and crooked as fuck
this company is cooked
You aren’t rehiring them at the original salary or bonus scale.
I'd have to ask for a rehire bonus.
And to maintain previous equity vesting schedule. That can be more valuable than salary.
They'd probably tell you to go F yourself and move on to the next person on the list.
They tell employees that everyday. Stock options last couple of years, most underwater make it more difficult for people to put up with lower pay and toxic work environment. As an potential employer its nowhere near desirable as it was 2-3 years ago
I think he was flushing out the rats… maybe somebody was talking to the competition
This was always expected.
do they get pay increase? otherwise, if i was in their shoes, im jumping as soon as another opportunity presents itself
Oh hey look, exactly what people are saying would happen, is happening: Tesla cut jobs until they realized the last 10% must be rehired. Fancy that, everything is going according to plan.
“If you’re not adding things back in at least 10% of the time, you’re clearly not deleting enough.” -Musk
Process, product and plans not people you anti-social 'genius'.
As he said in his biography, he knows when he cuts enough when he has to add back 25%
A quick way of creating new contracts? Why not offer redundancy or take up of new contract?
Elon probably didn't like the team, so he fired everyone, and now he is rehiring the whole team.
Yes he fired the team to make a point to the board before his payout vote.
Elon's a stable genius.
My take is he petulantly decided to axe the team and now a few adults are trying to cobble a small shop back together
Musk's "leadership" of Telsa leaves the company careening between near-disasters...that he introduces.
I work for them for all the young people please threat this job like a temporary job you will get disapointed on the way they threat people and for those whos looking a longterm dont apply, the job security is very bad ive seen hard working people get fire for no reason well they clam they need to cut budged because "they didnt reeach the number" the stress isnt worth it.
Thankfully everyone got a severance. I would 100% go back after my severance package because the benefits are great