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Comment by stormbrew | Hacker News Reader

This article reads like an abused partner defending their abuser. This kind of double-sidedness is extremely common in abusive relationships, in large part because it's a really effective method of exerting control over someone while encouraging them to blame themselves for being abused.

> If there are employees not aligned with that vision, he will chew them out and he will do it in a vicious way, which is his right as owner.

Is it?

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No one has a right to chew you out in a vicious way. As owner he has a right to fire you, but if I were a Twitter employee and he raised his voice to me, I'd be right in face at twice the volume. I'd have to get paid a lot more than a "competitive" salary to be viciously chewed out.

The guy has money and acolytes in high places. Quit if you want, but dont make an enemy of someone who can blacklist you. Just leave. Dont make a scene.

This.

We're talking about a guy who publicly falsely accused a guy he was jealous of of being a pedo without evidence. Just imagine what he would do if he could get away with it without backlash

I wouldn't want to gez on his bad side because I think he has the power and pettiness to ruin my life

And now he controls twitter. I doubt he will self-censor. Such allegations may well live on in search results for many years.

You can grovel in front of an abuser, giving up all human dignity, if you want. In the end, he is just a man, and evil one at that.

Leaving is not groveling.

You don’t have to imagine: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon...

Link https://archive.ph/LPghE

Tesla CEO Elon Musk Admits He May Have Bipolar Disorder https://yourdost.com/blog/2017/08/is-elon-musk-bipolar.html

That’s ugly. Alright, y’all have convinced me to not stand up to him. And more depressingly try to never cross his path, much less work for him.

This article gets more terrifying the more you read

That just feels like a cheap way to live. Maybe it's prudent, but I feel like I couldn't live with myself.

Read Sun Tzu, live like a great general, pick your battles wisely, and make the cost worth the gain. You will make more of a difference and live a life of more power than 'trying to not live a cheap way'.

It probably makes sense not to work for someone who can destroy your life and is inclined to do so on a whim. The calculus in dealing with those people is apparently different than just about anyone else you'll encounter in life.

God help us if he colonizes mars and has total control of air water and heat. He won’t stop at baselessly accusing you of terrible crimes. (Which by the way he has yet to apologize for, meaning he’s not sorry and he’ll make no effort to stop)

At a certain point we need to agree that his bad behavior is not worth the vision.

I would never willing put myself at his mercy. Too bad he’s now in charge of defining free speech in this democracy.

> God help us if he colonizes mars and has total control of air water and heat.

We've already seen this play out in the movie Total Recall: https://youtu.be/X8lT-Sn-HqE

Acting out makes you look like a buffoon even if someone else started it.

Maybe. But if I was in a meeting and Musk was tearing into someone unfairly and viciously and that person just sat there, I'd feel bad for them and a little disgusted. Conversely, I think it would be empowering to see them stand up to Musk.

The thing is, Musk has enough money to treat everyone horribly and just have them quit. He would feel nothing. He'll just hire the next guy. But standing up to him I bet is something that happens nearly never.

This sounds pragmatic. But it also sounds… I’m not sure but it set my alarm off.

Abusers and bullies need to be stood up to.

Yes, but it’s also worth keeping in mind which fights one can win. Nothing to win there by yelling back.

I think the relevant aphorism is: you can be right or you can be happy, but usually not both.

Totally

This guy worked with elon for 1 year. He's says in the article that he didn't enjoy that style of management and left. Sounds like he's the perfect candidate for this topic rather than a yes man from elon

Twenty years ago. I’ve no doubt Musk is mercurial, but the time gap alone is enough to render the article likely moot.

You don’t think musk is mercurial anymore? Are you paying any attention at all?

I think you need to re-read what I wrote.

> This article reads like an abused partner defending their abuser.

You should read a few stories about working for Steve Jobs (or head to YouTube and watch interviews). This article is extremely mild, in comparison.

Very horrible vs. extremely horrible. Spot the difference.

If I were younger, I’d work for either of them. I’m not fragile.

> I’d work for either of them.

Why? You could work in a less toxic environment and just buy their stock if you believe in the mission.

Why not work for Elon now then?

I've got young children and am not willing to move (for any amount of money). If he'll let me work remote, then I'm down!

I don't like toxic people. And I wouldn't work for them for any amount of money.

I feel the same way about accounts of working with most (if not all) modern arch-capitalists, trust me.

>> > If there are employees not aligned with that vision, he will chew them out and he will do it in a vicious way, which is his right as owner.

Is it? >>

Yes, this is the sentence that stopped me in my tracks. No-one has that "right". But more importantly, it isn't right...

We're all adults, don't like his style, don't work for him. It's that simple. Obviously enough people don't think his style is harsh or vicious, as described in the article, otherwise his numerous companies wouldn't have a line out the door of prospective employees.

My take on the article was Musk drives you like a good highschool sports coach. Demanding, hard, unforgiving... and you either live up to the high expectations or you are weeded out.

Which actually sounds wonderful... working with an entire organization that is aligned in thought and motivations, and everyone bringing their 'A' game. Compare that to your current job...

Not to mention the guy in the article only worked with Musk for less than 1 year, over 20 years ago. I don't know about you, but I'm not the same person I was 20 year ago...

Nobody at Twitter asked to work for him. They woke up one day and found that he was their CEO, after months of legal games where he demonstrated extreme reluctance to honor his deal.

Shit happens that is outside your control. You control how you respond to it. If the new boss is a dick and you don’t want to work for him, you quit.

I do not see the point.

Musk owns Twitter, and Twitter doesn't owe anyone a job. If you are not on board with the goals and vision the owner has, then you need a different job.

It is that simple. Time to be mature folks... don't like Musk's style - don't work for him. Someone else will fill your place in a heartbeat.

> Which actually sounds wonderful... working with an entire organization that is aligned in thought and motivations, and everyone bringing their 'A' game. Compare that to your current job...

Join a cult?

> Not to mention the guy in the article only worked with Musk for less than 1 year, over 20 years ago.

He's likely much worse now. A person's nature doesn't change so much over the years but the experiences they have influences how those traits come out. What happens when someone like this has acquired wealth and success, has been surrounded by sycophants, and repeatedly gets away with shit behavior. Who's really going to stop a 'bad Elon' day for him? As we saw on the Twitter thing, nobody can stop a 'good Elon' idea that he maybe shouldn't have done either.

> Join a cult?

I remember, just a little over a year ago where the fever surrounding anything Musk related could only be reasonably described as a cult.

It was amazing to witness... the guy could do no wrong, ever. It didn't matter how outlandish the idea was, how uninformed the plan was, how badly he went about it... he was god on earth.

Then he says a few things Californian's disagreed with during the peak of Covid insanity and suddenly, nearly overnight, he's a super villain.

The transformation has been truly breathtaking to witness.

He's still the same guy from a year ago folks. Let that sink in...

Your recollection is distorted. Most of the people who don't like what he does now didn't like him a year ago either.

He is not. He is a parody of himself. Screaming delusional maniac.

> Musk drives you like a good highschool sports coach

Which might be good to get results from traumatized teenagers for a few years but probably not adults.

Also, child or adult, you shouldn’t have a tyrant able to abuse you at will until you quit.

You make it sound like you're a hostage or something at one of his companies.

Get a different job. Twitter/Musk doesn't owe you a thing. It's not Musk's responsibility to ensure you have food on your table... it's yours. Don't like your situation, move on.

If enough people found Musk intolerable then his companies would fail all on their own.

The difference is your sports coach knows what good looks like. Musk is a bloviating idiot demanding on-paper code review.

The guy literally earned hundreds of millions of dollars by writing code. I think that qualifies him to do code reviews however he wants... no?

My code has earned me zero millions so far...

> The difference is your sports coach knows what good looks like

How can we honestly say Musk doesn't? Has his numerous successes not demonstrated he clearly knows what he's doing? All of his thousands and thousands of employees are just... hostages I guess?

I get it's fashionable to hate on Musk right now - and if you review my comment record you will see very few have been more bearish on Musk since the very beginning, but this latest round of criticisms are really just not reality.

What code has Musk ever written?

Zip2 and X.com (later PayPal after a merger).

These two ventures are what propelled Musk to where he is today.

Even according to Ashlee Vance's fawning biography the original Zip2 was a shambling mess that segfaulted constantly and had to be urgently rewritten from scratch.

I think the larger dependency is on the investors, not on employees. There seems to be quite a bit of support and good will from investors towards Musk. And this is understandable, no one wanted to see a failure to electrify vehicles. But taking money from Tesla and putting it into Twitter is bound to ruffle some investor's feathers. And bound to increase the attack surface (i.e. big automotive withdrawing advertisements from Twitter).

As to 'A' game, it is strange how often that everyone is so convinced that the 'A' game is being played. And yet there is very little market impact. And a lot of investors money is getting burned. While the 'long game' is paying all the bills.

my org is like that, and it’s not full of narcissists who fire people, yell at people, and treat others with contempt. no one acts as if they are the arbiter of all decisions, or that they know some untold secret of the universe. we also put things into space and help humankind, so idk mileage may vary i guess.

> Musk drives you like a good highschool sports coach.

That doesn't even sound like a good high school coach, let alone the CEO of a corporation has people who are going to play more than a couple of seasons.

Kinda agreeing, but I have to say sometimes there's a thin line between sport coach and bad leader. You gotta ensure tact and fairness.

I think given Elon's obvious numerous successes, despite this latest frenzy of "Musk Bad", he's objectively a great leader.

You do not get to where he is by being a bad leader. His entire job is leading, despite what people like to think (ie. that he's actually designing rockets or whatever...)

I’d say Musk is the rare combination of a great leader, who also has the ability to learn arbitrary subjects quickly enough to tell whether he’s being bullshitted.

Fair point but I feel there's a large difference between his previous ventures and twitter, this one is purposeless and highly political. We'll see.

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