upstart writes in with two related stories:
Elon Musk's back-to-office edict reignites debate on remote work:
Elon Musk, CEO of the electric vehicle maker, created a stir this week with emails to employees in which he said he wants them working at least 40 hours a week in the company's offices. Those who seek an exception to that policy will need approval from Musk himself — or they'll just be fired, he suggested.
[...] "Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week," Musk wrote. "Moreover, the office must be where your actual colleagues are located, not some remote pseudo office. If you don't show up, we will assume you have resigned."
"Tesla has and will create and actually manufacture the most exciting and meaningful products of any company on Earth," he added. "This will not happen by phoning it in."
Musk's stance goes against much of the thinking throughout the tech industry, where companies have been slow to put any demands on workers around when or if they return or how much time they need to spend in physical offices. Workers who were sent home at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic have gained critical leverage over the past two years as companies are doing what it takes to appease sought-after tech talent and win recruiting battles.
After remote-work ultimatum, Musk reveals plan to cut 10% of Tesla jobs:
Tesla CEO Elon Musk wants to cut 10 percent of jobs at the electric carmaker because he has a "super bad feeling" about the economy, he wrote in an email to executives, according to Reuters.
Musk sent the message on Thursday with the subject line "pause all hiring worldwide," according to the report. Musk "did not elaborate on the reasons for his 'super bad feeling' about the economic outlook in the brief email seen by Reuters," the news organization wrote.
[...] Tesla reported $18.8 billion in revenue in Q1 2022, a year-over-year increase of 81 percent. Net income was $3.3 billion, a 658 percent year-over-year increase. Tesla said that it "was another record quarter for Tesla by several measures such as revenues, vehicle deliveries, operating profit, and an operating margin of over 19 percent."
[...] In addition to expressing concern about the economy, Musk has been waffling on his commitment to buy Twitter for $44 billion. Given that, the "elephant in the room now remains the radio silence on Twitter deal," Ives wrote.
Was issuing the ultimatum simply a quick and dirty way to get people to leave without having to pay unemployment or buy them out, and is any of this related to buying Twitter?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @05:00PM (7 children)
When the stinky one sent out that e-mail about "40 hours minimum _in the office_"; that smelt like a "we are doing this to 'encourage' folks to resign, we are going to make life harder, so that we don't have to put those who resign on the list of folks that we laid off while still reducing headcount" with a subliminal message of "pray we don't alter the deal any further". It smelt like a PR/newspeak stunt from miles away.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @05:20PM (4 children)
Many (most?) larger companies go through "housecleanings" occasionally. I'd be willing to bet, just on statistical sampling, that some of Tesla's employees are less productive than others, and maybe some are just dead weight. Not necessarily useless people, just not in the right job position.
Corporate management needs to become (much) more agile. People need to move up, down, sideways - more easily, more quickly. Everybody wins.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @08:53PM (3 children)
How is parent post troll?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @12:24AM (2 children)
Whoever is trashing this site, marking good posts as "troll", needs to be outed by admins.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @01:12AM (1 child)
Or specifically deleted from the pool of eligible moderators.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @02:46AM
Absolutely.
I was thinking along the lines of: all the good people ganging up on the a-hole and downmodding them to where they have no karma and no mod points. Digital town stocks, or tar-and-feather, etc.
I wish there'd be an ongoing discussion- special side menu- just to discuss the moderation system. I think it's wrong on far too many levels. I've tried to argue that one downmod will take a post out of view of many readers.
I may have forgotten to mention what I think is obvious: the very purpose of this system, and specifically why anyone would take (waste?) time and effort writing anything here.
Sigh. I'm aware there may be no code monkeys on site, so any functional / structural change to the mod system may be technically impossible anyway.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Opportunist on Tuesday June 07 2022, @06:43AM
If that's the goal, that's probably the worst way to execute it.
If you want to fire people, fire them. If you let your workers choose who quits and who stays, what you retain is the duds. Because everyone who can get another job will do so when you tighten the screws around the balls. The only ones you'll retain is the ones that can't jump ship and have to grin and bear it.
This is the exact opposite of what you want.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Tuesday June 07 2022, @03:42PM
Elon is famous for clearing house. I heard a story of him forcing a brand new manager to have everyone take and pass the entry interview programming assignment. You'll be surprised by the results: some people failed and others up and quit. Also, that new manager looks like a complete dick and has an uphill battle on building his team.
But when there is an army of new grads tripping over themselves to work for you, your company can afford to be picky with talent. The career advancement for most engineers at Elon INC is: School > Tesla/Spacex/other > Burnout > More money & less hours at competitor.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Ken_g6 on Monday June 06 2022, @05:01PM (3 children)
It's 10% of salaried employees. [cleantechnica.com] Basically, middle management.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 06 2022, @06:00PM (2 children)
So, it's Tesla's turn for "rank and yank". Needs to be done periodically. Far better to prune selectively and quietly than demoralizing the whole workforce at once, but hey: nobody ever accused Musky of being a people person.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @07:30PM (1 child)
When that was a fad, my wife was working at a company where they wanted to do that (that's showing great leadership, right?). They went through this stressful and demoralizing process, complete with plenty of management speak about excellence and all that crap. They did the 1-2-3 system and finally sent the rankings out to everybody. Then, it turned out that everyone up the management chain (who apparently weren't evaluated themselves) were confused as to whether "1" meant the best, as in "you're #1!", or whether "3" meant the best, as in the highest number was tops ("you're a 10 out of 10!"). Some managers did it one way and some the other. It was a shitshow of grand proportions.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 06 2022, @08:39PM
Rank and yank has always been a fad... there was a period around 2003-7 where they said the quiet part out loud and tried letting everyone know that was what was happening. It still happens, but the better employers know that it's a great way to get your most valuable employees (you know, the ones that can get another job anytime they want) to jump ship before the axe swings again, so they do everything they can to make it seem like something else is happening.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1, Troll) by Phoenix666 on Monday June 06 2022, @05:26PM (18 children)
I don't know if it's much consolation to Tesla employees, but at least the boss works as hard as he asks them to. He even has several other companies to run, so it could be said that he works harder than anybody else there.
Do any of the big car companies work as hard as the Tesla people do?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @05:49PM (1 child)
Do Musk's many, many children live with him?
He can't be a fulltime dad to all of them from his various ex-wives. My point is, he may have more flexibility to pour all his time into non-family related matters, moreso than his employees. I don't know for sure.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @05:59PM
He probably believes 5 minutes of his opinions is worth months of little people work. So yah, 5 minutes with each brat once a month is more than fair. Ditto company work. Boss comes and calls the play, then it's up to little people to make it work. If they dont... FUCK THEM LosERS.
(Score: 5, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 06 2022, @05:57PM (14 children)
It could be said that NYAN cat farts rainbows, I have certainly seen some graphics suggesting that.
Some time ago, I noticed that most of these guys who "run several companies" spend an awful lot of time between offices - assumed to be working at "others" when not present where you are looking. Getting to know these guys better, they also "optimize their day" with lengthy stops at the spa / hair salon for a trim every week or two, long lunches at nice restaurants "investigating possible new business relationships", and the less creative ones even spend quite a bit of time "networking" on the golf course.
That is a grossly conservative lack of vision right there. First: no, we don't use the rotary dial phone anymore. Second: I can communicate with my colleagues faster and more efficiently by screen share conference than even walking around a small campus for meetings. When the project extends to embrace development centers in other time zones, tele-work gains several orders of magnitude efficiency as compared to the "butts in airplane seats" style of project management - costs be damned, just getting the work done happens 10x faster when you don't have to book travel, setup shared work space, etc. Last time I was shipped out on a plane to "get this project finished ASAP" it was basically a punishment handed out by the project manager: you'll be staying 1000 miles from home until this is done. He's gone now, the rest of us are using Zoom and Teams.
Offices can be more efficient for small projects. If you're going to change the world with big ideas that need big teams to implement them: telework will be how that gets done.
Now, if your employees are abusive and spend their days on message boards instead of getting work done with their colleagues - that's more a failure of leadership than anything else. Punishing them by making them drive into the office daily won't be getting you ahead of the competition.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @06:03PM (3 children)
It's a shame that Elon Musk doesn't have any knowledge or experience with telecommunication.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 06 2022, @08:48PM (2 children)
I never met Musk, but I do know a guy who made many millions brokering the internet service provision agreement to the greater Brisbane area in the mid-late 1990s. Rich enough that all future ventures included a travel provision clause: "will travel for work, employer must pay all expenses including business class or better airfares and hotel of choice." Basically, he enjoyed work enough to keep doing it, but on his terms.
Yes, he knew how to use a computer, and he knew a thing or two about internet service. He still couldn't keep his e-mail working, didn't really know why our teleconference was all stuttery other than "bad connection" and really didn't appreciate or care how his personal work ethic / attitude (almost entirely negatively) impacted the company he was working for's chances of securing the funding they needed to grow. Fun guy: check. Right place at the right time with the right connections and not such an idiot that he bungled the deal: check. Someone you would go to for advice about... much of anything beyond his personal connections? Not at all.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 08 2022, @07:26PM (1 child)
Forgive me, but it does rather sound like your personal experiences with your rich guy and perhaps your personal politics have rather colored your take on Elon Musk and his companies. Many have soured on Tesla because he has tried to buy Twitter.
The fact remains that he has started and built not one, but several, groundbreaking companies that are making real advances for mankind. That's admirable, even if it wouldn't necessarily be fun to work for the guy, who is reportedly incredibly demanding, or be one of his kids, who have probably never seen him for longer for five minutes and probably not ever had even one minute of his full attention, or one of his romantic partners, who have been just as neglected as the kids have.
A lot of those pitfalls seem to have been true of Steve Jobs, too, who doesn't seem to garner nearly the same level of hipster hate that Elon Musk now is. Isn't that curious?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 08 2022, @08:25PM
Admirable, yes. Walks on water? Absolutely not - fanbois adulation not withstanding.
It seems that most of these "super-performer" serial lucky guys are not fun to work for. Jobs, Musk, also Kamen (of Segway fame). All had the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time and not screw up badly enough to get completely thrown under the bus after the rocket ignited.
I spent (a very little) time with Kamen - 1/1000 bright guy, for sure. That means there are a few hundred thousand guys, in the US alone, equally or more bright. Kamen suffers a bit from lack of touch with reality. Sure, his standing wheelchair makes sense big-picture economically, people should be throwing money at them so the wheelchair bound have good access to existing buildings TODAY at $20K per chair, instead of rebuilding ALL the existing buildings at a cost of millions each over the coming decades. Maybe even save millions+ on new construction with the change that "wheelchair accessible" undergoes with a Kamen chair. But... he doesn't (or, didn't at the time) really _get_ how opposed to giving cripples $20K wheelchairs a significant slice of the American public, and their elected officials, are. Then he followed up with the absolutely out of touch $5K scooter that few are willing to spring for, and NOBODY is going to rebuild their cities to accommodate... yeah, they're rebuilding the cities for ADA, no, they're not rebuilding them for snazzy scooters that only unusually deep pockets will spring for. As for working for Kamen: his employees I met in his shop practically semaphored to me that he's a PITA as he was walking in the room. Extensive conversations with an ex-DEKA employee confirmed it: low pay, semi-demoralizing working conditions - at least he's not afraid to hire people "at his level" mentally, but he doesn't really listen to them most of the time.
From a distance, Musk seems less out of touch than Kamen, but he does occasionally make statements that lean in that direction.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @06:03PM (1 child)
AKA executive time. That shit is normalized by the previous Commander In Thief. "Smart" I believe it's referred to as. Smart for them, but for you... lazy. Back to 40hr face time you cheating scum.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 06 2022, @08:51PM
Yeah, we just got a serious demonstration of 2nd generation Executive time in action. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/04/trump-syria-chocolate-cake-mar-a-lago/ [motherjones.com]
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @06:51PM (2 children)
> First: no, we don't use the rotary dial phone anymore.
It's an expression with a known specific meaning. You and those giving you modpoints are trying to desperately twist into an argument.
> I can communicate with my colleagues faster and more efficiently by screen share conference t [..]
Yeah, Mr/Mrs/Ms/Xs/Xrs Perfect, too bad your online claims are not reflected in actual studies about video conferencing in an office environment.
You know, this recent report: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=22/04/29/2034224 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 06 2022, @08:56PM
There are reports bolstering both sides of the argument. I know how things have changed at my work... they happen about the same as they did before, but without all the commute time and instead of fending off time-wasting colleagues I spend a bit of time/effort fending off family demands.
Cite away, I'm not playing, you know where to find all the counter-studies if you care to do so.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday June 07 2022, @05:04PM
Your link does not compare it's results to in-person meetings in any way. So it does not support your claim that tele meetings are worse than in person meetings.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by corey on Monday June 06 2022, @11:08PM (4 children)
I used to push back against the people here commenting negatively against Musk, in general. But my recent opinion of him has changed given these ongoing outbursts of immaturity.
I used to think he was a pretty good leader, who was visionary and could get people together to achieve great things. But of late all I hear is basically a narrow minded and arrogant prick. That’s far from good leadership. He seems to always be manipulating the crypto markets to make money too, which is arseholery.
I predict with the shit going on with Twitter - trying to buy them, then trying to come up with excuses to can the deal because the value has dropped a heap - and with this plus the spats he’s constantly getting into (eg with Mike Cannon-Brookes, who is a total champ), he’s in decline and will be seen as a has been (if not already). People will buy Teslas because they’re nice cars but they won’t buy into his own brand. Good engineers and leaders will leave Tesla and they will struggle for a while to innovate.
But then again he kind of got away with the lowlife shit he said about the cave diver who saved the kids in Thailand (“pedo man” or something).
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @11:47PM
He had a pretty rabid fanbase who would defend his honor for any and all perceived slights, but those days seem to be passing [washingtonpost.com]. However, there will be another high if/when he lands something/somebody on the Moon/Mars, so his adulation index will rise and fall like a manipulated crypto value.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 07 2022, @01:20AM
There will always be a large number of people willing to kiss any ass richer, more powerful or more famous than their own. Between SpaceX and Tesla, Musk is managing to get some impressive stuff done, not quite Howard Hughes level of impressive, but up there, including Spruce Goose level "throw shit at the wall until something sticks" crackpottery with the Boring company, etc.
The biggest difference between Hughes and Musk is probably that we get more real time access to the crazy, less press filter.
Ranting about 40 hours in office is just out of touch conservatism leaking out.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @02:12AM (1 child)
I'll defend SpaceX, but not necessarily Elon Musk any more. Gwynne Shotwell is the adult supervision, and it's not as if Musk was ever the one designing the rocket engines.
If he adds anything, it's his willingness to go outside convention. A CEO who prefers creative solutions can infuse the whole company with that ethos. The main benefit of any CEO is on corporate culture.
Jeff Bezos infused Amazon with his customer centric attitude and preference for data-driven solutions.
Steve Jobs infused Apple with his impeccable taste.
Warren Buffett brings his ethical standards and philosophy of employee empowerment to all his companies.
And there are a million bean counter CEOs that bring nothing but a focus on cost cutting and the next quarterly report.
Elon Musk brings a sense of wonder and excitement to his companies. Considering what they do, that's really useful. Would a company led by any other CEO decide to make rockets out of stainless steel, or base everything around going to Mars?
I don't have to like him personally or think he's wise or benevolent to appreciate what his companies are doing for the world.
(Score: 2) by corey on Tuesday June 07 2022, @02:57AM
Agree, this is why I don’t like attribution for spaceX success given to Musk, when I think it’s more suitable for the engineers and local management at spaceX. Same for the other corps.
I would happily buy a Tesla if I could afford it.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @07:26PM
Hahaha you really bought into the Prosperity Gospel eh.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @07:35PM (2 children)
Just smoke that joint and blow that snow and leave the actual business to someone who knows how to do it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @03:29AM (1 child)
Yeah, which is why he's broke and you're a multi-billionaire. Oh, wait...
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Tuesday June 07 2022, @06:46AM
If anything, Musk is a prime example that success in business is more a matter of blind luck than any kind of skill or talent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @07:50PM (2 children)
i agree! getting those 99 belli... err...million barrels per day number down is gonna take some work. preferably not by using more oil.
one good way would prolly be to take those net profit numbers down (in oil coupons) by trading them e.cars for less oil coupons? everybody wins :P
not sure one can carry parts or operate machines via tele-presence (yet) so it's kindda obvious, someone has to be "in the office" (tho they have cut open, presumably repaired and closed up some sick people from far away?) as for paper pushing ...*shrug*
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @08:38PM (1 child)
Depends. The mining industry managed to do it quite fine - many a miner now work from the city [ndy.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 06 2022, @09:02PM
>mining industry managed to do it quite fine
Cool, like flying drones out of Nellis, except you try NOT to kill people in the process!
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end