To Understand the Future of Tesla, Look to the History of GM | Hacker News Reader

To Understand the Future of Tesla, Look to the History of GM

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165 pointsJudgmentality106 comments

This is an insightful, thought-provoking article.

It mentions Billy Durant, the exciting, visionary entrepreneur who raised goads of money and built GM from a disruptive startup in 1906 into a company with $10 billion (in today's dollars) in annual car sales by the early 1920's... but who was nonetheless fired by GM's board because, despite the company's rapid growth, it was burning cash and remained dependent on continued capital-raising. The board concluded GM needed someone who could execute a business model, not someone with grand visions who would perpetually need fresh capital to turn them into reality.

The parallels to Tesla's current situation are obvious.

The person who replaced Durant, Alfred P. Sloan Jr., ran GM for three decades with incredible success, turning it into the world's largest automaker.[a] This is the same Sloan as in the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, MIT's Sloan School of Management, Stanford's Sloan program, and Sloan/Kettering Memorial Cancer Center. (Durant died poor, managing a bowling alley in Flint, Michigan.)

PS. The most interesting aspect of this article, for me, is the fact that it was written and published in the first place. It makes me wonder if the mindset of investors with regards to Tesla is changing from "show me an exciting vision" to "show me profitable execution of a business model."

[a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_P._Sloan

The only problem I have with the GM analogy is that GM benefited greatly from WW2, not to mention the reconstruction years after it. In fact GM has essentially even benefited form the German rearmament after the Nazi’s rose to power until essentially the US declaration of war or at least until the revenue payments from Opel stopped crossing the pond.

When Sloan took over, GM was 3x smaller than Ford.

When Sloan retired, GM was 2.3x bigger than Ford.

I’m not saying that Sloan didn’t do wonders he clearly did what I’m saying is that it’s hard to estimate if without WW2 would he had the opportunity to achieve the same outcome.

“During World War II, GM led the largest commercial-to-military war production effort in American history. In 1942, the company converted all of factories to produce $12 billion worth of airplanes, trucks, tanks, guns, and shells for the US military.”

Before the US got into the war GM supplied a 3rd of the trucks used by the Wehrmacht.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opel_Blitz

Well, the same macro economics / historical factors that helped GM, could’ve helped Ford and others. In particular, other 2/3 of trucks must have come from somewhere.

Ford didn’t own 2 major subsidiaries in Europe. While GM was buying every company they could get their hands on Forde was too busy with building Fordlândia in the middle of the Brazilian rainforest the best they managed to get is to enter into a partnership with a Russian car company after the Bolsheviks have already gotten into power.

I think GM was much better positioned and it much more decisively went all out on war production Ford made cars and engines during the war GM made everything from bullets to machines guns to tanks and bombers.

Mars, Solar city, Boring company, Hyperloop...

The articles premise is that Durant was prescient enough to turn his horse carriage company into a car company because he knew it was the future.... Then the author tries to make a parallel with cars propelled by gas vs electricity. It's not really a perfect parallel.

Don't get me wrong, I'm massively rooting for Elon and Tesla. But it seems to be that the original success of GM was because they were in an industry building things that were 1000x better than the old way of doing things. Tesla doesn't seem to be 1000x... Maybe 10x... Until they have fully self driving cars.

So my conclusion is that the electrical car aspect of Tesla is not really the game changer... It's the AI which we have yet to prove out...

Could we argue in comparison that Tesla is benefitting from global warming concerns? In fact Elon's foundation and stated mission is based on this.

I don’t think so, GM made billions from the Nazi war machine then made even more at home when the US woke up it transferred all of its production capacity to support the war effort and was paid well for it for years still after the war has ended. I’m simply not seeing the same opportunity for Tesla to make the analogy truly work.

Fair enough, perhaps not close or a singular enough source of funds (e.g. the war).

it's also important to note that GM managed to make money because of it's production capacity not because of it's technology.

So this is essentially the complete opposite of Tesla if you fully buy in into their technological superiority which I'm not entirely sure is actually there, production is their main problem.

Gigafactory or not there are many more players that simply dwarf them in this capacity, GM was also a huge company by the 1930's with world wide logistical channels, production facilities and subsidiaries which is exactly what allowed it to take advantage of the war, it helped build the Nazi war machine through Opel, it supplied the Brits through Vauxhall and then it supplied Uncle Sam.

If i'll have to imagine some near future ecological disaster that forces us to push even more for solar and energy storage I don't see SolarCity or Tesla I see billions of panels and batteries produced by China and maybe India if it wakes up and decides to stop being just the world's call center and chemist.

Government money is the common component; everything he has done has benefited considerably from government money.

Exactly this.

Tesla could still benefit greatly from WW3, and so could SpaceX. The tricky thing about future is that nothing's certain.

SpaceX is utterly irrelevant to this discussion, Tesla is in no position to benefit from WW3 and I've explained it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16893284 so I'm not going to type it again, but they have nothing similar to offer to what GM had during WW2.

The beneficiaries of any WWIII would be whatever plants and animals survive the nuclear holocaust, as well as rock and stick vendors.

As well as "stick as a service" vendors who will make money on both sides of the conflict :-(.

But didn't all auto manufacturers benefit from WW2?

And didn't GM overtake Ford in market share well before WW2 contracts?

If this is just timing, why did GM thrive when Hudson, Packard, Studebaker, and others did not?

Ford didn’t have 2 major European subsidiaries, one in each side so Henry’s fondness for the Nazi’s was under much bigger scrutiny.

Ford also didn’t shift all of their production to war production regardless of type. GM made everything from canned food, helmet liners and ammunition to bombers heck half of the M1919 browning machine guns were produced by GM, same goes for the M1 carbine, GM produced 3.4M out of the 6M produced in WW2 and same goes for nearly every other small arms. To put into perspective IBM yes IBM produced more guns during WW2 than Ford.

I am not sure how Tesla's current situation is obvious. There is more demand and not much on inventory. No one has a decent autopilot (Driver assist) close to Tesla and they have hardware ready for level 5 autonomy(or close to) . I feel this is the real luxury to have. They have largest fleet of vehicles passively collecting all the data to achieve self driving.

Tesla's Autopilot seems to be little more than the same lane keeping and adaptive cruise control everyone else has with the safety tolerances lowered a whole lot, to the detriment of several dead drivers. You can readily buy other cars with the same EyeQ3 board that powered AutoPilot until Tesla's breakup with Mobileye, and their new Nvidia-based clone of it does little more than the original. The _hardware_ for level 5 autonomy is nothing proprietary or impressive, and they've shown zero evidence that the _software_ for level 5 autonomy exists in any state beyond the demo Nvidia hands its DRIVE PX2 customers essentially "out of the box". You're taking their marketing at face value while their EAP/FSD packages have largely been vaporware for 2.5 years now.

> Tesla's Autopilot seems to be little more than the same lane keeping and adaptive cruise control everyone else has with the safety tolerances lowered a whole lot, to the detriment of several dead drivers.

It seems that way to you because you haven't used the system. It is not operating with "tolerances lowered a whole lot" or really, at all.

> You can readily buy other cars with the same EyeQ3 board that powered AutoPilot until Tesla's breakup with Mobileye, and their new Nvidia-based clone of it does little more than the original.

It's quite silly to talk about the hardware when it's obvious that it's the software that will truly differentiate the systems.

Tesla's system is much more impressive than anything else on the market because of the software involved for both hardware revisions. It is able to operate in environments where other systems fail and is able to do so reliably on more roads than their competition.

> You're taking their marketing at face value while their EAP/FSD packages have largely been vaporware for 2.5 years now.

You're correct here, but then again, the same can be said of their competitors.

> It is able to operate in environments where other systems fail and is able to do so reliably on more roads than their competition.

Proof needed. Just because Tesla rolls out their software in risky situations and while other manufacturers play it safe doesnt mean that Tesla is more capable, they are just more riskful.

I have used the system, I disagree with your opinion about its capabilities. I think it is as I described it.

I also don't think "the same can be said of their competitors" is at all true. I don't know any other car maker that is selling non-existent driver assistance features/packages to their customers.

I disagree. Systems from other manufacturers (BMW, Mercedes, Audi/VW) are as capable but they prevent you from using them above certain speeds for safety reasons. Tesla can do little more than lane assist and adaptive cruise control, as recent events have shown.

Most any manufacturer has "autopilot" as good or better than Tesla's, they just prefer not killing their customers. What Tesla has is mindshare and marketing.

> No one has a decent autopilot (Driver assist) close to Tesla and they have hardware ready for level 5 autonomy(or close to)

Unsubstantiated claims. I don't buy tesla marketing as easily you have.

Just because Tesla decided to hand over the driving reins to a lane keeping assist doesn't make it superior. It has killed and will kill people who think Tesla autopilot is anymore than a lane keeping assist that notifies you when you deviate from a lane.

I am a huge Tesla fan (and Elon fan). I own stock (shortly after IPO). I have a model 3 reservation. I have been singing their praises for a long time. Elon is an incredible visionary and probably an incredible engineer. This is a great combination for making the impossible possible.

And I totally agree with this article. If not a new CEO, Tesla needs a good COO. They need excellent, consistent execution, not novel, groundbreaking execution. They have 100's of thousands of reservations for the 3 (and I don't know how many powerwall and solar roof reservations). If they can just execute on this, the world is theirs. But if they continue to have delays and major, public mistakes like the model 3 ramp, my stock purchase may have been a poor choice.

Musk is not an engineer.

He holds a BS in Engineering Physics.

That doesn't make him an engineer.

There seem to be two different senses of what an "engineer" is. In one sense, it is "someone who has trained as an engineer", and in the other it is "someone who does engineering". Elon Musk fits the first, because he has trained as an engineer, but does not fit the second, because he is currently employed as CEO. I fit the second, because I am currently employed as an engineer, but do not fit the first, because I was trained as a physicist.

If you are arguing semantics, please take care to understand that not everybody has the same definitions of words as you do. Without the context of how you interpret words, your posts will fail to convey reasonable information.

In a lot of places, "engineer" is only for those who have the recognition of their professional body.

But those (while they might be good professionals) are not doing what Elon is doing.

So if that's the case I might say that saying Elon is not an engineer is a compliment.

He's the second too.

"But actually almost all my time, like 80% of it, is spent on engineering and design. Engineering and design, so it's developing next-generation product. That's 80% of it."

"At Tesla, it's working on the Model3 and, yeah, so I'm in the design studio, take up a half a day a week, dealing with aesthetics and look-and-feel things. And then most of the rest of the week is just going through engineering of the car itself as well as engineering of the factory."

https://www.quora.com/In-Tesla-and-SpaceX-how-much-of-the-te...

He's not a licensed one, but he's a better engineer than 99.9% of HN and all the engineers I employ. So, call it what you want.

I think the US definition of engineer is the best. Around here, anyone who works on any device is an "engineer".

It's fucking hilarious when a Gas Safe registered "engineer" can't figure out how to replace your boiler pump. What a racket.

They only have delays from their CEO's promises. Had he set expectations more realistically the stock might not be such a roller coaster and deposit holders would have had more accurate estimates.

If you eliminate every time table Musk has said and evaluate Tesla only what they've done so far, which is a simple Model 3 ramp up from scratch, perhaps they look more impressive.

I expect a more conservative CEO would have been better at setting and meeting expectations, worse at marketing, and maybe worse at thereby gaining access to capital under favorable terms (including via reservations). A traditional CEO would have been better for investors looking for low volatility (but then why are they in TSLA?); maybe not so good for Tesla and its supporters.

There will come a time when Musk needs to step away from Tesla, but that day is not today. He's publicly mused about stepping away (SpaceX is his real fav), but had his tenure renewed recently.

If all Tesla did was sell pretty good cars, they'd probably get crushed by the incumbents. Tesla, is selling way more than that - they're selling the idea of a brighter, better future. You're not just buying an EV, but you're helping climate change, you're reducing pollution, you'll be reducing human death and suffering and ending traffic jams and hey - it all comes in a exclusive, technologically-advanced, aesthetically pleasing package.

Now, some might object that this is largely a bunch of marketing/PR bullshit, and you will likely be technically correct, but would still miss the point. If people wanted a nice, efficient EV, they'd buy the Bolt, which by all accounts, is pretty damn good. But Tesla sells this "bullshit" because it's what people actually want to buy, and EVs happen to be the delivery vehicle. So as much as you might dislike this "bullshit", it's a core reason why Tesla even exists in 2018.

Where does Musk fit into this? He happens to be the personification of this idea today. In the popular mind he is "cool" so when you buy a Tesla, you're also implicitly buying part of this cool, much like buying an iPhone back in the day got you a part of Jobs' cool. Eventually Tesla will become it's own thing (as Apple is today) and outgrow Musk, but that's still years away.

OTOH, if you want to know what's actually going on at Tesla and what they need, this will probably give you the best idea out of any material on the internet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpCrkO1x-Qo

It's an in-depth interview with a guy who owns a consultancy which disassembles, analyses and sells reports on vehicles, both for manufacturers looking for research on their competitors and at improving their own products. His findings are extremely interesting - he's downright astounded at how incredible parts of the car are (battery, electronics) and thinks established companies should be quacking in their boots. OTOH, he thinks they've made a number of blunders in other parts, such as their production line design or parts of the car (for example, he thinks the body is 20-25% heavier than it needs to be, with parts that serve no discernable purpose)

I wonder how many people buy Teslas because they think it will save the planet vs because they think it has a lot of torque

I wish these people understood that the aluminum in the Tesla is mined in Australia, sent to China, sent to Iceland, sent back to China, sent to the USA. Almost the same with the new process lithium they use.

These cars will NEVER outpace their own footprint. But try explaining truth to people who just “want to believe”.

That sounds bad but transport by ship is very cheap, even for long distances. I'd want to see the numbers.

Cheap, yea. But also extremely dirty. What is the mpg ona tanker using crude diesel again? Cool, now swing that tanker three or four times through Singapore.

Okay, but you have to divide by the entire cargo of the ship, which is quite enormous. So I still don't think it's something easy to estimate without doing the math.

Cargo ships are flagged in countries of convenience and don’t meet many standards.

The top 15 biggest polluting ships produce more pollutants like sulfur oxide than all cars

It's way better than anything else. Seriously.

The bunker fuel used by cargo ships is a byproduct of the refining process after they extract the higher quality fuels.

The fuel has to go somewhere. We could bury it back in the ground because we don't want to burn it, but we need some fuel to power international trade.

In terms of energy per ton mile, you can't really beat a cargo ship.

Horribly long link from Google, pdf warning.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://...

Ships use heavy fuel oil, which is the dirtiest transportation fuel in use today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_oil#Bunker_fuel

You appear to be concerned about the environment. Do you have a better plan for accelerating the transition to sustainable transportation?

Fooling gullible people into what is (steel) and what isn’t sustainable (aluminum, lithium, composites) is a good first start.

Not to crap on composites because I work with them, but carbon fiver for example is extremely bad for environment.

At least aluminum recycles well. Lithium does to but not cost effective so “environmental” companies like Tesla don’t do it.

I don't think Tesla's goal is to use more lithium or aluminum. It's to switch the world's main energy source for transportation from fossil fuels to electricity (yes, I know electricity isn't an energy source, and that fossil fuels are stored solar energy).

Tesla can't solve all the world's environmental problems. But the one they are helping solve seems important. Do you think they should stop because they aren't also solving how to use lithium sustainably?

Most of what Tesla is doing right, is using very light and strong materials to get an advantage over typical vehicle designs. This only happens with aluminum and composites.

Tesla also does the marketing game extremely well. Including marketing to the government for tax breaks.

I will admit their engineering on the power delivery is good, but that’s such a tiny thing compared to the marketing.

Short version... Tesla doesn’t exist if they made actually environmentally friendly vehicles (I like to explain most Teslas are coal powered cars), and doesn’t exist without their amazing marketing.

Thank you for a reasonable response on a polarizing topic. Maybe you're right, and in fact maybe today an environmentally friendly car can't be made profitability, at least not without impurities in the process.

I do think Tesla is closer than anyone else, though, and while I personally think they'll make it, even if they don't, they'll certainly inspire or goad someone else into doing it, and that's a form of progress.

“The Union of Concerned Scientists did the best and most rigorous assessment[1] of the carbon footprint of Tesla's and other electric vehicles vs internal combustion vehicles including hybrids. They found that the manufacturing of a full-sized Tesla Model S rear-wheel drive car with an 85 KWH battery was equivalent to a full-sized internal combustion car except for the battery, which added 15% or one metric ton of CO2 emissions to the total manufacturing.

“However, they found that this was trivial compared to the emissions avoided due to not burning fossil fuels to move the car. Before anyone says ‘But electricity is generated from coal!’, they took that into account too, and it's included in the 53% overall reduction.” — Michael Barnard, Quora. <https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-carbon-foot-print-of-manuf...

[1] Rachael Nealer, David Reichmuth, and Don Anair, _Cleaner Cars from Cradle to Grave_, The Union of Concerned Scientists, November 2015. <https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/11/Cl... (PDF)

> These cars will NEVER outpace their own footprint

Can you provide citations and numbers for this claim? This seems extremely unlikely to me. A gas powered car that runs for 150,000 miles in it's lifetime could burn 6000 gallons of gasoline. Are you arguing that it takes more than 6000 gallons of gasoline worth of energy to manufacture a car? I would need to see hard data to believe this, as that seems like an incredible claim to me.

Any TLDR version of this video?

This is a common misunderstanding in my opinion. People don't really care about the environment/climate change that much. People may think they do, but in practice the amount of people that would convert that sentiment to a purchase on a high-ticket item is probably a tiny niche, and not something you would build a business strategy around for something so capital intensive.

The point of Tesla is to force electrification simply by making cars that are better than gas cars, because then the broader market does most of the remaining work. Tesla has always known that the whole environmentalism thing is insufficient and unnecessary.

I think what throws people off is Tesla's stock price and brand. People who don't understand what can go into these assume it must be "hype and dreams," and they conclude that Tesla is popular because of marketing tricks.

The brilliant stroke of Musk was to market the electric car to sports car buyers. They don't care about high cost, short range, and performance at sub zero temperatures.

This talk show is amazing. Thanks

He also thinks that the the suspension system is amazing and comments that anything having to do with the "skateboard" (floorboards, suspension, lower chassis) are absolutely phenomenally good.

So, you have a car with highly advanced electronics that drives spectacularly well but has lousy fit and finish. That combination has produced a lot of very profitable cars over the years.

Basically, the stuff that can be improved gradually got pushed down on the list while the core stuff is correct from start.

https://youtu.be/CpCrkO1x-Qo?t=2176 "Anybody that's in the car industry that ignores this car is doing it at their own peril."

He intends to step away from Tesla, but he doesn't think now is the right time. His vision and leadership are necessary to get Tesla to the point where the Model 3 has taken off -- after that, he'll hand over the reigns and focus on other stuff (SpaceX, Neuralink).

That's not the only issue they face. Tesla is on a downward spiral and can't make money off a 35k base model. They owe a lot of money to creditors and all it takes is for one of them to recall the debt owed and other creditors will follow. I'd strongly suggest reading this article:

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04-19/more-hilarious-fac...

I was really interested in what you had to say, since it was relatively different from what I've heard, then I saw a link to ZeroHedge and... well, do you have another source that isn't ridiculous?

Zero Hedge is a joke

> it takes is for one of them to recall the debt owed

That’s not how corporate bonds work.

Exactly, it was simply fearmongering. People can't just call loans due because they want to.

Bonds can be sold, thus lowering their price and making it harder for Tesla to sell new bonds.

In that vein there are many people who believe Apple’s* most important hire was not Jony Ive but Tim Cook. Tim built the machine that allowed for the type of manufacturing and logistics execution you see at Apple today.

* I say Apple’s hire because Jony joined during Steve’s gap in tenure

As long as Elon is learning, increasing his understanding, and implementing improvements to these systems and efficiencies - and he does publicly discuss these fairly often - then they'll be fine.

My biggest takeaway from this article is that Tesla's very aggressive, forward-looking growth plan could be absolutely destroyed by a recession in the US economy.

Durant's companies ran fine with him as CEO until recession hit and he ran out of money.

What happens to Tesla if a recession hits? All of their products, while undoubtedly groundbreaking, are luxury goods purchased with discretionary income. Even the Model 3 - reliable, commodity transportation can be had for far less than $35,000.

How will Tesla handle the pool of buyers for a $75,000 sedan and $900/mo lessees shrinking dramatically?

Of course all auto manufacturers face this problem. But a company run by an aggressive, visionary CEO like Musk faces far more risk.

My takeaway building on yours is that Tesla could survive but Elon Musk would be booted out in a recession.

Lets not forget that Tesla has impressive IPs wanted by generally most car companies and very well-trained staff, factories and huge customer demand (over-subscribing their orders) so if Tesla was to be sold for cheap in a recessionary period, any car company would raise money to buy Tesla.

Interesting point, seems obvious but isn't something I had directly thought about when considering Tesla's value.

I would wonder how long that demand holds, consumer "brand desire" if you will, if Elon is no longer at the helm. Maybe it wouldn't be affected much right away, but would it once they focused more on execution instead of innovation perhaps? Nonetheless, is an interesting line of thought.

_Can_ Elon Musk be booted if the board wanted to? I'd bet he still has a ton of control.

Ranges from either a Steve Jobs booted out of Apple to Travis Kalanick from Uber.

Based on those, if a board really wanted to boot you out, they will work hard to cut off any control as Steve Jobs had to wait quite a while and then get his company Next bought to come back.

If anything, their problem is that Tesla is not luxurious enough. Luxurious brands resist recessions better than mid-level brands.

That is correct. The type of people who can comfortably afford $300,000 cars tend to not be affected by recessions.

In that case, the main competition is not GM or Ford but Porsche. If their electric line is good enough, many Tesla buyers that will remain loyal through a recession could wander off.

Tesla did experience a recession in the early years of the company when trying to raise money and sell prototype visions. It nearly crushed the company but they came out on the other side. Today they're much better capitalized and Elon structured debt specifically to guard against dips in the economy.

Not saying he can't be wiped out with one or two bad decisions + a recession, but this isn't new territory for Tesla.

> and Elon structured debt specifically to guard against dips in the economy

Please elaborate. Everything I've heard suggests the opposite.

>better capitalized and Elon structured debt specifically

This goes against everything I know about Tesla's finances. You really have to provides sources if you want us to believe this.

musk took over as CEO in october 2008; the height of the recession. prior to that he was board chairman

Unless it's a global recession, I imagine they'll be able to find money.

Also, Tesla and Elon aren't just an electric vehicle company and a founder of a single company either, and this might give him the credibility and belief in him for a recession to be moot.

Tesla has multiple revenue streams though.

Solar installations (via SolarCity acquisition) should ramp up during recession if they still provide cost savings to consumers compared to utility rates.

Semi trucks are also a product line that at scale should be able to deliver savings to large delivery fleets.

Solar installations are a very competitive market. Semis are great, but Tesla manufactures very few.

Recessions generally cause oil prices to fall.

You have to pay most up-front for solar. If you don't have the money at hand, forget about getting a credit when recession strikes. It's a good investment if you expect money devaluation without high interest rates but in a recession you expect deflation first and cash is king.

> All of their products, while undoubtedly groundbreaking

But that's not true. None of their products are groundbreaking. It's all decades old battery tech. What was revolutionary was musk's ability to brand old tech as new/hip and get the government to bail out and subsidize Tesla.

What tesla is great at is marketing and attaining government funding. Just like solar city.

> How will Tesla handle the pool of buyers for a $75,000 sedan and $900/mo lessees shrinking dramatically?

It'll go bankrupt or get a bailout.

https://techcrunch.com/2009/06/23/the-government-comes-throu...

People forget that we've already seen this movie before with TSLA. It was saved from bankruptcy by Obama. I doubt Trump will come to Musk's rescue.

Also, TSLA's biggest problem isn't a recession. Just like solar city's biggest problem wasn't a recession. It's low energy prices and removal of favorable government policies along with our love of large vehicles.

http://6abc.com/automotive/ford-getting-rid-of-all-its-cars-...

TSLA might be doing well in norway, but it's just a blip in the rest of europe, north america and china. It's a testament to musk that he is able to keep such a marginal and ineffective company in the spotlight day after day. The guy is truly one of the great marketers of our time.

GM had inventory >> demand, Tesla has demand >> inventory. Durant micro-managed; Musk both has obvious tendencies there, but also just broadcast a memo directing employees communicate directly, without going up and down a chain of command. And, as noted in other comments, Musk took over the company from its founders — like Sloan, and unlike Durant.

There’s ingredients here for a Tesla:GM and Musk:Durant story, or for its opposite.

To make the argument compelling, I’d want a justification for including only the similarities while omitting these differences. Without this, the comparison seems ad hoc.

Great storytelling, but it concludes rather abruptly. An argument of analogy and anecdote. Further, Musk is not the founder of Tesla, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning are.

Wikipedia has five people listed, and says that while it was registered by those two, they consider the rest as co-founders. Now, Wikipedia isn't the greatest source, but it seems to be consistent with most media coverage.

in the Elon Musk book its mostly Martin Eberhard who was obsessed and created prototype of electric vehicle and started a company. Musk joined as an investor and then changed the company's direction

Well this is an advertisement for Harvard Business School, and it's namesake.

I can do the same for my Alma Mater, Purdue University.

First CS department in the US.

More astronauts than any other university. Some of the greatest names in aviation history: Armstrong, Cernan, Sullenberger, etc.

Tuition has been frozen for the last seven years, and they still print money.

Students from every nation on Earth.

It turns out, if you can last 150 years, good stuff eventually happens. If you can last 400 years, triply so.

HBR articles are not advertisements for HBR. Sloan went to MIT.

My mistake. You know Boston, and it's odd layout. After a while those multi-billion dollar endowments kind of run together.

Flying circus indeed

There's a fine line between learning lessons from history and assuming that a lesson from history will inevitably happen again in the future. People, companies and life have elements of chaos and luck that have so far made consistent, accurate future predictions unreliable.

People are good at identifying patterns, but we sometimes make the mistake of predicting the future based on past patterns. A classic example is the stock market where no one has reliably predicted the future without insider information.

So, yeah it's good to know the history of GM, but let's be careful about projecting that onto Tesla.

Look to the history of Delorean.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeLorean_Motor_Company

Are you suggesting Musk selling suitcases full of coke to fund Tesla?

Flamethrowers should do it: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/boring-company-flame-throw...

A better comparison to Durant's amazing entrepreneurship as auto manufacturing scaled would be Steve Jobs.

Very similar situation to Durant, fired by Apple (who ironically were trying to impose sloan style metrics on everything) comes back and builds the biggest consumer brand on the planet. Look at Apple now, it's sliding back into mid management mediocrity...

I'm not a Musk fan particularly but slowing down innovation and sizzle at this point in their scary journey would be a disaster IMO

Billy Durant was a bad ass. My father told me a story he heard from someone who was in the room. Durant crashes a GM board meeting and is told he has no standing and must leave.

He starts toward the door, says something and in file a series of Western Union boys who bring in bags of telegrams which at Durant's direction they empty on the board table.

Durant announces to the stunned board that these telegrams give me voting control of General Motors and it is you who have to leave - and they did!

I'm just surprised that no one has ever done a movie about him.

This is conventional B-school wisdom (where B = biology or business): the most successful adaptations are enabled by new DNA. In business, firms that grow from one of many to leading firms must adapt because leading firms face different threats, of which, celebrity CEO may nowadays be the biggest.

Another parallel: Over-automation https://youtu.be/CpCrkO1x-Qo?t=3045 (the whole thing is worth watching if you are into this sort of thing)

Musk should hire away executives from Toyota or Honda to manage the execution of vehicle assembly at scale.

He has scoffed at the Toyota Production System, so while I agree with you, I find this unlikely to happen. He seems to be backing into it with comments like "humans are underrated" since I would imagine his ego can't allow a backtrack any faster.

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