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Comment by iancmceachern | Hacker News Reader

Those downvoting please note here why it's OK to ask people to work above 40 hours while also squandering good peoples time doing joke products. Rather than turn the screws on your employees publicly why not simple cut out the non-essential projects and publicly note so? The first approach makes it look like your employees are slacking and need to pick up the slack, the second takes responsibility on himself.

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> ... while also squandering good peoples time doing joke products.

This is irrevalent. No matter employees should not be expected to work more than 40 hrs a week.

Do you consider all marketing to be a waste of time? Because that's what the flamethrowers are. And they're fantastic.

They aren't marketing. They don't sell cars. It's easy to just call everything marketing, but show me hard data on how fossil fueled flamethrowers sell more electric cars and I'll bow out immediately.

Academically, it would fall under “guerrilla marketing”. It is a high risk, high reward technique. If it pays off, you can get quite a lot of attention for very little money.

PR is marketing, and Elon Musk 100% nailed PR. Tesla doesn't do advertising. You know why? Because they 100% nail PR.

Some people claim tesla doesn't do marketing because they don't do advertising, but that is completely wrong. PR is marketing.

Shooting a Tesla into orbit was just brilliant PR. Every news outlet covered it. And for them, because they both have SpaceX and Tesla, it was both unique, and very doable.

And the flamethrower the same thing. We are talking about it now, right? Elon Musk remains at the top of the news pages. Incredible how he can pull that off. If you think PR is easy, try doing PR. I tried doing PR, and I can tell you it's fucking hard.

Yes, we're talking about it, but I don't and won't own a Tesla product. I don't think it's incredible, it's easy. What's incredible is the work product of the engineers and technicians they work for him. Not a man baby making sharp pointy things that burn down the house. That doesn't take vision or knowledge, just no one to tell you "no".

> I don't think it's incredible, it's easy.

I'll give you $5000 if you can get my product rpgplayground.com on top of the mainstream media. If you find it easy, I will be happy to pay you the $5k.

Getting downvoted here. Putting your money where your mouth is doesn't seem to be appreciated here on HN.

Anyway, anybody selling a product will tell you that building the product is the easy part. But of course, if you never ran a company, it's easy to think that the engineering is the hardest part.

It would be easy given his resources (publicist, etc.) I don't have those same resources.

It would be like me saying it's easy to design a 3d printed box, given I have solidworks and the skillset. It doesn't mean it's hard just because someone else may not have those resources. It's still easy.

> a man baby

> It would be easy given his resources (publicist, etc.) I don't have those same resources.

How did he get those resources? Start there. Do what he did to get those resources..

Or don't. Just post online like a hater instead.

Leaving alone whether or not people pointing out definicies in Musk are doing so from a place of uninformed jealousy you seem either uninformed on Musk or in a rather out of touch priveleged position. Start at being born to an emerald mine owner (or equivalent) and use that capital for your first business is not advice that many people can follow, regardless of Musk executing the steps after that to the point that he was richest man in the world.

> Start at being born to an emerald mine owner (or equivalent) and use that capital for your first business

Zip2 was the first company Elon started: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1211064937004589056

"We started Zip2 with ~$2k from me plus my overclocked home-built PC, ~$5k from my bro & ~$8k from Greg Kouri (such a good guy — he is greatly missed).

My Dad provided 10% of a ~$200k angel funding round much later, but by then risk was reduced & round would’ve happened anyway."

> from a place of uninformed jealousy

"Daddy provided the capital for his first business" seems both uninformed and jealous.

Your points here serve to back up the points of the comment you replied to, not yours.

That's probably because your standards are different than mine. I don't call a $20K investment "capital from an emerald mine owner", I call that "pocket money".

Your consultancy firm probably earns more than that in a month. Or not?

> It's still easy.

Congrats, you reached the "Peak of Mount Stupid" on the Dunning-Kruger Effect graph.

Just admit it, you know nothing about marketing or PR.

It's true, I don't. But that doesn't mean he does. He clearly chooses to do PR and marketing differently than 95% of all other businesses. I'm highlighting that, and saying maybe that "good PR" doesn't always equal good for his employees, customers or community. We need to take into account the cost, not just seek PR for PR sake.

> But that doesn't mean he does. He clearly chooses to do PR and marketing differently than 95% of all other businesses.

Probably the reason why he's so successful. Ever considered that?

No marketing, no customers. No customers, no business. No business, no employees.

My point is that extra success you point to above and beyond his peers isn't worth what he does to get it. He could be 90% as successful and 100% less of a dick and that would be a better tradeoff for him, the people that work with and interact with him, the people he harasses, and the rest of us.

It’s not easy; even with the resources. The Kardashians don’t have the level of resources (money) Warren Buffet or Bill Gates have; but have at least 10x the amount of coverage and top headlines. Elon Musk BUILT his PR. He has some 90M followers on Twitter, that took over a decade to build. Tesla and SpaceX have both been on the verge of complete bankruptcy SEVERAL times.

The fact that Tesla is the ONLY Fortune 100 company in the world without a Public Relations department and STILL manages to be #1 in the news—globally—nearly every single day… It’s insane for you to suggest it’s all because of “resources.”

Why doesn’t Rivian have that kind of coverage? I don’t even know who the CEO of Rivian is. Do you know who runs Intel or AMD? Can you tell me who runs Saudi Aramco or Samsung? What’s Samsung’s latest and most exciting product? What’s Tesla’s?

You probably know, even if you don’t want to admit you know. Cybertruck is one. They got solar roofs, a new Roadster… The craziest part is… You will probably make fun of how these products were already supposed to be in production; but they haven’t been for YEARS, and they are STILL among the most anticipated and highest in-demand products that barely exist. We are talking tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars in revenue of anticipation. WITHOUT ADVERTISING.

The only other company to do that well without advertising is Apple. They have never advertised a new phone before its release. Ever. The iPad was the first iOS device to receive advertising before launch.

"The only other company to do well without advertising is Apple"

Apple heavily advertises. They have many iconic ads that are taught in history classes. The 1984 ad, the white iPad headphone print and ads, the "shot on a iphone" billboards all over SF. Where is this coming from? Apple spent $65 million on search ads in 2020 alone. This is not "not advertising" Apple spends billions a year on advertising. My source noted below specifically contradicts your comments about Apples advertising (or lack there of). It states that they advertise for every new product release, including all phones (which I can personally vouch for as well having personally seen many ads for the newest iPhone tablet the time).

Earlier in this discussion folks say that flamethrowers and boy rescuing submarines are PR, which is marketing, which is advertising. In this comment you note that Tesla and Apple do so well without advertising or marketing.

This has become a circular argument. It's clear that the folks backing Musk are not providing valid arguments with sources. The response is ti saybthat Apple doesn't advertise, but they do. This is all neither here nor there bit what is clear - Elon is loosing his golden boy status in the valley and in popular culture. This is the beginning of his fall from grace, and its his own fault.

Sources: https://titandigital.com/4-powerful-ps-need-know-apples-mark...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/appleinsider.com/articles/21/10...

https://medium.com/seedx-digital-marketing-guru/why-apple-sp...

I can connect you with people that do this. I get calls from them weekly. They offer to write an article about me, my work, my companies, and get it published in a few fairly famous places. All this in exchange for a few thousand dollars. I also know a publicist that was able get an article written about me in a local business journal. I'm not going to invest the funds up front for you, but I'd be happy to connect you with these folks and I'm sure you can get what you want, or close, within your budget. I just don't want to be the middle man.

Get calls weekly? Which companies do you own?

I cannot reply to your comment/question below as it's nested too deeply.

Information about me, my company, and other companies which I'm co-founder and/or co-owner of can be found by googling my name and finding my website, looking at my profile on HN which has links, or searching the patent database for my name.

So you're a freelance mechanical engineer.

Are you sure those calls you get are not just scams?

I run a consultancy (different than simply being a freelancer), among many other things.

Perhaps we take this discussion offline? You now have my contact information. I'm happy to answer any further questions via email, and make the appropriate introductions to get you your PR.

No thanks, I'm wasting enough time here already.

When I want to hire a PR firm, I'll hire a real one. Not one that is desperately calling people, only to get rejected every time.

When someone responds to your defense of Elon schtick, you mockingly dismiss them? I see you’re trying to be Elon already.

I know enough about PR to know that the other person doesn't know enough about PR.

So yeah, when they make suggestions about PR, I indeed dismiss them.

If he claims Elon Musk knows nothing about mechanical design, I'm willing to listen.

Previously the stunts were smart. Now, I'm not so sure. He's in the news cycle at the moment for consistently negative reasons. It's deterred me from buying a Tesla. He might get some traction with a new set of customers by playing the culture wars, but I'd guess he's alienating a number of people who would've otherwise been very interested. Creates a great opportunity for rival manufacturers as they (slowly) bring products to market.

No, but I consider these specific things a waste of time.

It's not okay to write a disingenuous comment that assumes false facts and then act like you're on a high horse while saying it.

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