Ask HN: Would You Work for Elon?
Simple question with not so simple answers…
Watching Elon gaslight current and former Twitter employees in the public square, I couldn’t help but wonder if any engineers would actually work for this guy going forward and why?
257 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 279 ms ] threadEthics, self-respect, integrity.
> Like Donald Trump, But For Nerds
But if he did I would have no problem. I see employment as a transactional situation and don’t make it my life or a political crusade. I’ve also heard Elon overpays high performers which keeps them loyal.
I also agree with firing people who are posting messages about hating their job / boss / strategy. Why do you want toxic people around your org? If they don’t quit voluntarily then you have to get rid of them.
Guess he should fire himself, because based on the last few weeks Elon Musk is one of the most toxic persons you could have in your organization.
All that said, yes, I would if the pay was right XD
Elon Musk's trajectory is a lot like Alexander the Great's. He started off as the somewhat scrappy upstart and has become the somewhat corrupted corporate despot.
His enormous success, which has been truly amazing and largely good for humanity, has led him astray. He's bought into the image of himself as a genius that can do no wrong. He's become arrogant, temperamental, and prone to impulsive behavior.
Alexander became quick to kill his managers that pissed him off. Elon Musk just fires people, thankfully.
Probably a lot of his problems are due to the same kind of "men [that] have always corrupted the character of kings and will never cease to ruin the interests of those who happen to be reigning" as Arrian wrote of Alexander's yes-men courtiers.
My impression is that Musk is going through a severe case of burn out and this is how he's responding. And since he's got so much pressure on him there's no practical way for him to take the break he needs without risking everything.
If you are compensated in shares, then the strategic direction of the company is a valid thing to look at. I'm not sure this applies to Twitter anymore as I don't think employees are still paid with shares.
You also have to factor in the corporate culture - it should be fun. It seems pretty unhealthy at Twitter at the moment. The current drama will blow over, of course, but I think you can get a good idea of toxicity in the specific group you'll work in if you ask the right questions during the interview.
...but bottom line is, if you're obsessed with either loving or hating Elon Musk personally, then no, don't go work for Twitter. If you cannot keep your emotions out of your work, then don't put yourself in a workplace that will constantly trigger you.
On the other hand, if the role is a good opportunity (salary/career), the group you're going to work for is also full of adults, and you can separate your emotional twelve-year-old self from company drama, then go for it.
7 contribs in the last year.
16 in 2021
9 in 2020
6 in 2019.
I am awestruck indeed.
Do private projects not exist in your version of the world?
If all the legends about him were true (superhuman BS detector, genius level IQ, laser sharp focus) I'd be happy to be part of the team.
Unfortunately, I think his main talent is the uncanny ability to overhype himself.
He is lucky that a side effect of this ability helped him hire and motivate really good engineers.
Thay might not be sufficient in the long run, the vaporware bubble will pop at some point.
https://elonmusk.today/
Now that he’s showing his true colors, it’s clear that they are not.
The guy think he is Tony Stark.
The sad news is that nobody is going to Mars yet.
Maybe he’s playing 4D chess, but I don’t know if there’s a lot of superhuman chess behind signing a binding agreement waiving due diligence at a meme price. The man is a walking unforced error.
Given the downturn of access to free money I wonder what happens next for him (and other “innovators” in general , see SoftBank funds)
This is extremely naive. Most people likely use their inner "PR team" when posting.
But with Twitter, there are less checks going on, and... well... some people are good at filtering, some people are less good at it (they might be totally great at other parts of their jobs!).
Elon legend is not 100% BS like SBF.
But what about all the undelivered promises?
Just because it looks cool doesn't mean they provide quality of life. Saturn V rockets were way cooler and way bigger and sane people had to pull the plug because they were a money sinkhole.
As the global population becomes increasingly urbanised the whole demand for sat-internet will drop even more, as they'll all be using fiber or 5g. Then what? Sat-TV is already dead, what's left? How many GPS satellites are really needed?
The whole space race is something that caused a huge hole in US and USSR budgets without any ROI to show for, and will bankrupt Musk for sure. Maybe Bezos and Branson will avoid the same destiny, ironically thanks to their vices and passion for trophy assets such as private islands, yachts and football teams which at least hold their value, matter of fact they appreciate and produce revenues.
Of course he didn’t single-handedly do this. Of course other engineers were invaluable in the process. But he forced Tesla and SpaceX into existence when everyone thought it was guaranteed to fail.
We saw people trying with electric cars and new kinds of rockets before him. From General Motors to Burt Rutan, none succeeded. Elon had a viable vision and pushed it like a maniac and now it’s real, and mainstream. It’s incredible.
If I can do this with a single project, I’d consider my life a smashing success.
Rockets are real.
Cars are real, but aren't particularly good given the reports, so he'll likely run into trouble with the competition soon.
Solar panels seem to be doing very so-so, the reports I've heard is that their solar roof stuff is very troublesome.
The tunnels suck. He dug extremely narrow deathtraps that for some reason are driven through in a car, and that will kill people as soon as there's an accident.
Musk’s introduction to Tesla was being amazed by a working prototype with awesome acceleration. He took over Tesla when it already had a viable product and business strategy. The company started July 1 2003 and Musk’s early contribution was an early funding round and a board seat. He get’s to call himself a founder based on a lawsuit in 2009 and kicking the actual founders out.
Even if Tesla fails, which seems unlikely given their pile of cash and very popular cars, he has already succeeded in his stated goal of getting the switch to electric cars started.
A big chunk of Tesla’s early revenue was selling drivetrains to over EV companies. The transition was real and Tesla successfully road the wave, props to a successfully executed business strategy but technology wise it really didn’t change much.
People talk about the EV1, but the Toyota RAV4 EV was produced from 1997–2003, and then 2012–2014 the second version was even a collaboration with Tesla. Where it failed was not targeting the sports car market. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV
Just as an aside, it's not possible to make more than zero cars without developing a hell of a lot of technology; especially if you mass produce them. Even if every aspect of the car is completely old hat, which Teslas aren't.
The initial Roadster was the first production EV to have a range of 200 miles which then sold 2,450 cars. That’s a milestone, but Musk wasn’t even the CEO when it was released. I give him credit for being part of the funding round A though not a seed investor, an actual founder, or really all that critical to the process while acknowledging he very much was part of the process.
He had a larger role when it comes to the Model S, but by that point they had all the elements of a car and it really came down to execution. He helped turn a 100 million dollar company into a 100 billion dollar company, that is impressive. You don’t need to try and exaggerate his importance.
-Tunnels are BS
-Hyperloop is dumb BS
-TeslaBot demos are embarassingly bad
-Neuralink seems to be BS
-Solar Tiles are BS
-The PowerWall is semi-legit but overpriced
-The roadster/semi/cybertruck are suspiciously late
-A lot of the Mars plans are weak/delusional
EDIT: The guy is sending rockets to freaking space and has a fleet of satellites that provide intenet, are you not entertained??
Everything he has done successfully relied on old/proven technology. I am not saying that this is bullshit or not impressive.
But that does not prove anything about his claims on AI, transportation or Mars colonization.
I would love to see him succeed, but at this stage I am pretty much convinced that he won't, too many red flags.
The Spruce Goose is marvelous and innovative too, the Apollo rockets, the ISS, you name it.
All those things had their plug pulled or are about to be because they are giant money sinkholes which failed to pay for themselves or provide any ROI in terms of money or quality of life.
Electric Cars and rockets have not yet graduated to a point where it's safe to say that they won't be just a fad.
If people stop caring about climate then EVs have no reason to exist. Similarly as the population becomes more and more urbanised they will rely on fiber as opposed to Sat-Internet so Starlink has no reason to exist.
All those things you are enthusiastic about are mostly overhyped fads which Musk himself is pumping and self-promoting while the real innovation which is life changing for all of us will come from some small and quiet biotech company, away from all the media fanfare. Oh wait, it already happened with Moderna and people can't even comprehend it because they are busy following the last PR stunt of this fraud.
So valuation comes from speculation of course, but what are people speculating will happen? If Toyota, the biggest car manufacturer in the world, is valued less than Tesla is now, then the end goal of Tesla matching or besting Toyota's operations should see it's real value be... much less than it currently is.
Now incumbent manufacturers are delivering EVs and in brands, form-factors and levels of quality more people can care about, I just don't see how Tesla is differentiated in a way that even remotely justifies it's valuation.
Why?
Because Elon himself is seen as a super-genius and a savior of humanity by a lot of people, including smart dudes like Geohot or Lex Fridman.
Also, Telsa valuation is tied to L5 (full autonomy), and the TelsaBot and the impressive giga factories and the AI hype, and the Solar panels etc.
But most of that will flop...
Lex Friedman is Lex Friedman.
So no, those guys are smart dudes.
Von Braun was a very smart dude but he was making the Nazi salute and fawning over Hitler all the times.
When he moved to the US he was fawning over Eisenhower all the times.
Similarly this Friedman guy has 4 years worth of videos in which he fawns over Putin.
Technical abilities and critical thinking in the social realm are 2 very different sets of competences. It's very rare to find somebody who is extremely technically gifted and is also able to realize that the leader of a big organization is not a god but a regular guy like anybody else who happened to be positioned in the right spot to ride the wave of social consensus.
If the greatest story ever told and 2000+ years of compounding marketing and outreach had no chance of getting god in my brain and heart, I'll let you figure what are the odds for Musk self-promoting himself via bullying and cheap outreach.
> let people's accomplishments speak for themselves
Musk and all the other 2500 billionaires in the world have as much agency over their so called accomplishments as lottery winners.
When I am in SV/SF I have lots of fun acting and pretending that I am a believer brainwashed too. Musk fans especially throw the most bizzarre parties, only second to crypto-guys. Maybe they hope that the cult leader would show up. I got a private jet ride in a G3 because I "believe in Elon" whatever the fuck that means lol.
That still doesn't give them any right to crap over people. At least treat people with basic human decency or in the long run they won't give a crap about you.
If his behaviour continues like this, sooner or later, Musk will find out that history is not kind to him ... or maybe not.
All vaporware, all the time.
If you trust Karpathy as a source, it seems like working for Elon would be the opposite of working for a bureaucracy.
Honestly, I can’t even imagine running that company worse than what he does right now.
Imo, if you're running a social media business, a key metric to optimize for is traffic and engagement. Elon seems to be doing that well enough at least.
I find a lot of joy in working on challenging problems without having to deal with bureaucracy bullshit. I have a feeling that Elon likes to foster this kind of environment in his places of employment.
On the other hand, I don't know if I'm good enough for such standards. But if Elon wanted to hire me, I'd definitely say yes.
I'm curious what this means to you, because when I see people from inside Twitter correct him on Twitter, with specific technical statements describing what's going on—and then he fires them—that seems like formalities way outranking ability and skill.
I don't, but then given Elon has been CEO for all of 2 weeks—neither does he.
> You are being manipulated.
As are you.
Well, it certainly hasn't been going great. I have no idea if it's organic, but the tech press reporting bad news about an ongoing tire fire is expected. Why would you even need to manipulate the news, when the company itself is generating bad news at such a rapid clip?
You think all of this is just some narrative being pushed, or are you just sensing a shift in public opinion and since it’s a deviation from the norm you are assigning it to some unknown “force?”
On a related note, I heard in a podcast recently that Walter Isaacson has been following Musk around for a bio.
In short, it means that doing things better (e.g. making a piece of software faster) for the sake of things being done better is praised, not tolerated, as is the case in the many "let's just ship it, we'll fix it later" software companies.
> when I see people from inside Twitter correct him on Twitter, with specific technical statements describing what's going on—and then he fires them
As far as I remember, the guy just said something along the lines "as the person who actually works on this, it's not 1000 RPCs.", to which Elon asked for a specific number, the guy replied with vague answers like "it only does like 50 RPCs all of which are async, but the software is full of bloat and various features slowing them down" which sounded nothing like "specific technical statements" to me. But I can't find the Tweet thread right now, so I won't stand by this opinion completely.
Regardless - even assuming the guy is 100% in the right - I don't think that publicly going against your boss in such a passive-aggressive way, at the same time portraying him as "the guy that doesn't know what he's talking about", is a right way of handling false information. Maybe another engineer told him 1000s of RPCs are being made, or he just made a hyperbole for the sake of explanation. Benefit of doubt, and all that.
Being rude will get you fired, no matter how right you are, that's kind of a given.
It's very possible that it's just smoke and mirrors, but if I were given an offer, I'd at least try it for a while. If it's true, I gain a lot - if it's false, I gain a useful reference in my CV.
working somewhere a while and thriving in that environment? But I get it, ethics can easily fly out the window when you choose, especially when there's alot of money in play to bribe your feelings.
With regard to how recruitment works, I've never been on a team where a recruiter got final say over whether someone is hired. As an engineer, I've had a lot of say in that decision many times. As for whether those feelings are projected, well… just look at which way the sentiment is going in this thread. Would you really want to take that gamble?
Ridiculous IMO.
He is on a power trip.
I second everything you said about fostering a competitive no bs environment. Reminds me of Jeff Bezos. But Musk's behavior is toxic. Treating people outside the firm (like customers getting into accidents with self drive and losing their life, or journalists critiquing his cars) with disrespect and annihilation is one thing. But treating your own people who you rely on to get stuff done, is entirely another. If the head is garbage, the body is too.
Musk is garbage, and when unbridled, we can see it in its full ugliness.
But Elon has this "my way or highway" blinded racehorse mentality. He overruns people if he doesn't get his way.
So you're saying you can be passive-aggressive all you want and your bosses can't fire you?
Well, good for you. You've reached Dr. House status. Enjoy it while it lasts.
I'm curious... do you not understand why this person was fired?
If I publicly corrected my CEO, I would expect to be fired. I do not work for Elon, and I make this statement independent of whoever I happen to be working for right now. Being a bit arrogant about it didn't help, but it wouldn't have helped to publicly and humbly correct the CEO.
Moreover, it would not just be because the CEO had his precious fee fees hurt and he was lashing out in anger. There are perfectly sensible business reasons why it is an unacceptable risk to have someone running around publicly "correcting" the CEO while having a position within the organization. There are even legal reasons, with regard to what public statements made by an employee can legally commit the company too, and the kinds of ammunition it can hand to any future lawsuits. (Making public statements like this is not exactly like taking the stand in your own trial without a lawyer, but it's not entirely dissimilar from it either!) There is no way my value to the company, no matter how good I am, could overcome the business risks associated with such a loose cannon. It is way easier to destroy than to create. Even the best creator can't help but be able to destroy more than they can create. Businesses can't afford some random guy to anoint himself the face of the company just because he write code goodly.
Like Elon, hate him, I don't care. My feelings are decidedly mixed and probably trend negative overall, though not to the extent the HN gestalt would necessarily like, and for different reasons. But if you look at this interaction in befuddlement, you need to understand what's really going on and remove your hatred from Elon from the equation, because you need to know that you, too can get fired from your job for doing the exact same thing, even if you work for a company that isn't run by Elon. In fact most people who understand this sort of thing would see the CEO not firing you as being a show of extreme weakness from the CEO.
I mean, if that's how you want to go out, by all means, be my guest. There's a time and a place for it. Maybe you would personally judge this as one of them. I don't, "nuh-uh we don't make that many RPC calls for that" is not the hill I would choose to die on, but there are hills worth dying on; "whistleblowing" looks a lot like this and can be very valuable to society. I'm not saying this is never a valid move; I want the reader who is befuddled by Elon firing this person to understand the why, and that it is not even remotely Elon-specific, so that if you ever choose to do this sort of thing, at least your model of what is likely to happen in the world is accurate. This post is not a defense of Elon, this post is a public service announcement. I have no problem with people making bold choices, heck, I think our society is too risk averse to bold choices, but I think people ought to have accurate understandings of the cost/benefits of such choices.
especially when the CEO is spouting a ton of bullshit and doesn't want his aura of perfection impigned in any way.
But doing it in public, sharing internal data, and with the tone the guy used on a brand new owner? I don't know what he expected. Getting fired is the expected outcome.
Elon basically can't not fire the guy. It wasn't even an option, so criticizing him for failing to take the non-option is missing the point. It wouldn't have been an option for Jack, it wouldn't have been an option for any other CEO. You don't get license to speak publicly for the company just because you don't like the CEO.
If anything, sorry to the HN gestalt, this is a prime example of just how out-of-touch with reality Silicon Valley liberals have become, that they are so secure that they will be protected because they have the "right opinions" or hate the "right people" that they be surprised that they are fired for mouthing off in public at the company CEO. So disconnect from reality that they have a 180 degree wrong read of the situation. And this is not special. It is completely and utterly a mundane fact of life. This person isn't being specially persecuted by the horribleevilElon. This person is just living a normal life the rest of us live, and as I said, there are indeed good and sensible reasons people live this way. Anyone who is just shocked, shocked by this firing is very out of touch with the entire rest of the world, and I'm trying to help at least a fraction of such people reconnect with reality before this bites them personally.
It might make sense for the company to fire employees for public corrections, but it also makes sense for the employees to correct these lies for their long term career prospects. This entire scenario was created by Elon Musk. Your context-free take implies that the employees damaged the company unnecessarily when it was a reasonable reaction to targeted slander. Avoiding the liability of this public correction was easy, none of these employees were new, what was new was Elon's unprovoked slander. Maybe if you don't want the legal liability of an employee saying things that might be ammunition, don't do it to them first.
If you want to know what happens when this kind of slander goes unchecked, look up Mick Gordon. On top of his professional reputation being muddied, he received harassment and death threats over a company's false allegation that he was responsible for the incompetent failure of the Doom Eternal soundtrack.
> My twitter account was protected at the time, so I can only assume this was for not showing 100% loyalty in slack. I’ve heard the same thing has happened to many others now.
No public corrections, only internal Slack messages.
There is, of course, another possibility, which is that Elon does in fact put a lot of focus on ability and skill over formalities, but not in literally every single situation.
Which one do you think is more likely?
There's a difference between being in a focused envcironment and being in a shitshow. Essentially this message is saying "Hey, I want to be taken advantage of, work me as hard as you want, I want more!!!!"
If I'm being challenged enough to have fun, I don't see why not. I like building software, it's my passion, and if I can get paid good money for doing interesting things while working for Elon, then good for him. Especially if the alternative is "do mind-dulling tasks 8 hours a day" for the world's richest men in some other megacorp.
> There's a difference between being in a focused envcironment and being in a shitshow
Yes, I don't want to be in a shitshow, I want to be in a focused environment. I don't see where the disagreement is.
Perhaps you're implying I'm wrong about Musk's places of employment being as I see them - you might as well be right, but you might as well be wrong. Unless I start working for them, I guess I'll never know for sure.
The disagreement here is Twitter is a shitshow under his leadership, and your words come across as you finding that interesting and place where you would like to be.
One of the first things he did when he acquired Twitter is point out there are much more managers than engineers. He got rid of many of them. In my opinion, that's a sign of progress towards the more engineering-first environment, not regression.
Interesting that you and many others see this behavior as an admirable trait and not a regression.
If you have any concrete examples, with reliable sources (not random Tweets from literal whos or yellow press), I'd love to know about these "horrible things" he's done. Sincere request - I'd love to hate on the guy, I hate billionaires in general, but in his case I just didn't have any real reason so far.
He's fired half the team, he's making radical changes very quickly, he's requiring long hours, and likely any new employee needs to figure out how to do their job on their own because it seems he fired people without much thought and so it's very possible that the people who know how stuff works are gone or too busy to help.
Meanwhile, revenue seems to be going down, and the perception is that it may all go down the drain.
That seems a very un-fun situation to be in, with very little to gain or learn from it.
Now, if he somehow left or sold the company to somebody else, then trying to pick up the pieces afterwards might be an interesting challenge, assuming the new management is supportive.
I would love to work for him for a coupe years, had I trusted my mental fortitude more.
Back in the 90's, it was exhilarating, and he made you feel like you were an important person working on important things for an important company.
To give you an idea of what this company was like, the employee sexual harassment manual came in a huge white three-ring binder. The binder contained a single page, with a single sentence: "Use your common sense." Each employee had to sign the bottom of the page and return it to HR.
The CEO's personal stationery had a monogram of a butt on it.
Looking back, that feeling of invincibility and righteousness was probably just the CEO exploiting the youthful optimism of employees like me.
I wouldn't do it again. It's exhausting, and hollow. I'm a better person today than I was then.
Long answer: fuck, no.
Longer answer: Even if he wasn't the big douche he is, I don't like his work philosophy and the kind of workplace that he seems to build, and I don't share his beliefs that they are necessary to build great things.
Consider the difference between...
"Would you actually support an addled-brained radical leftist like Joe Biden if he ran for President in 2024?"
"Would you support Joe Biden if he ran for President in 2024?"
The latter would elicit more honest answers than the former.