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Comment by nebula8804 | Hacker News Reader

Man These Elon companies are really the biggest split personality companies I have seen. I have heard stories like what you describe from some people but then you have people like Astronaut Garrett Reisman, Chip Designer Jim Keller, and AI Research Andrej Karpathy all give amazing praise to Elon and his companies.

And when the cars are torn down we see top tier engineering execution and innovation while at the same time we see mediocre build quality. I just don't understand how such organizations can be both filled with terrible people and rock stars at the same time and survive for as long as the Elon companies have done so.

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> I have heard stories like what you describe from some people but then you have people like Astronaut Garrett Reisman, Chip Designer Jim Keller, and AI Research Andrej Karpathy all give amazing praise to Elon and his companies.

I mean, only one of these stayed more than five years; one only stayed _two_ years. And, frankly, if you're in a leadership position in a company, you say nice things when you leave after two years. It is What is Done. I don't think you can really read much into these sorts of statements either way; they're pretty much following a formula.

Even if we give them the benefit of doubt that it's not a PR thing, when you're in a leadership/distinguished/emeritus position, the org often looks very different than how it looks when you're a foot soldier.

No, both Garrett Reisman and Andrej Karpathy worked for Elon for more than 5 years.

Karpathy worked for Tesla for 5 years and a matter of weeks. So you're technically correct, which is of course the worst sort of correctness.

In a 10,000+ person org you’re likely to have a huge variation in personalities, then you have pseudonymous internet commenters who may have an axe to grind or other agenda and be happy to cherry-pick one way or the other.

I've learned to be super careful about what senior people say about other senior people. Because it actually reflects well on you to say nice things about already respected people, it's a free PR boost. It makes them sound generous and also knowledgeable. But, I've seen this happen a lot in big companies, someone will say "Well X is a fantastic engineer" or "X does great work" and my first thought is "Well that's interesting, since you have literally never worked with him, seen anything he's produced and have no engineering knowledge". So actually, whilst it sounds like a good endorsement, what is actually happening is that the person is playing politics. This is especially true when talking about public figures - Sam Altman in his recent interviews has been incredibly diplomatic about Elon, despite the fact that it's pretty public knowledge Elon tried to take over OpenAI and now loudly disparages it. Sam is playing politics, and you have to take that into consideration when thinking about these endorsements. Andrej Karpathy wants to have a good career in Silicon Valley and the way to do that is to gush about how fantastic Elon Musk is.... whilst quietly quitting the company having not delivered what he was working on.

My experience, too.

As a younger self, when I heard a C-ranked executive talk about X who's a "fantastic engineer", I assumed that I'd have to work hard to reach their level, without realizing that they may actually not have a clue.

Now, when I hear a C-ranked executive talk about X who's a "fantastic engineer", I realize it's just name-dropping.

I am sure that's true for some, but I doubt that's true when a Google exec talks about, eg, Jeff Dean being an absolutely fantastic engineer. Now Jeff Dean being, well, Jeff Dean is one thing, but I'm sure there are engineers at Google who the outside world has never heard of that have done fantastic work internally.

Quite possible.

But, barring any information, my default assumption is now that it's name-dropping.

> This is especially true when talking about public figures - Sam Altman in his recent interviews has been incredibly diplomatic about Elon, despite the fact that it's pretty public knowledge Elon tried to take over OpenAI and now loudly disparages it.

OpenAI was co-founded by Altman and Musk together at the same time, with a huge amount of Musk's money, without which it would've never gotten off the ground in the first place. Also please give a citation for this "public knowledge". I'd counter that it's instead pretty public knowledge that OpenAI basically stole Elon's money on a promise of making an AI company that wouldn't lock things behind proprietary walls, but now has turned out to be the complete opposite. Sam Altman pulled a fast one on Musk and then pushed him out of the company.

Here's the reporting on the takeover attempt[1], it also mentions he didn't provide anything like the amount of funding that was initially expected. Sam has been quite open about what is going on with OpenAI - namely that what they needed to develop the tech was billions of dollars, and the only way they would get that money is a private venture, which they've negotiated with terms that actually limit the upside with profits beyond a certain point returning to the non-profit entity, as well as the issues with dumping potentially dangerous tech straight into the public domain. Also, OpenAI was never a partnership between just Musk and Altman, there were half a dozen other people involved including Thiel and Reid Hoffman, there is no way that Altman unilaterally pushed Musk out. It looks a lot more like Musk wanted to be in charge, and doesn't like that OpenAI ended up succeeding without him.

[1]:https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/24/23654701/openai-elon-musk...

Do you have a source that's not the Verge? I've learned to not trust them for anything Musk related as they have a history of incorrect and biased reporting.

> it also mentions he didn't provide anything like the amount of funding that was initially expected

Elon provided $100M, were they expecting more than that? That's quite a lot of money for an early company.

> Also, OpenAI was never a partnership between just Musk and Altman, there were half a dozen other people involved including Thiel and Reid Hoffman, there is no way that Altman unilaterally pushed Musk out. It looks a lot more like Musk wanted to be in charge, and doesn't like that OpenAI ended up succeeding without him.

It doesn't surprise me that Elon wanted to be in control, given that they started to go against the joint vision established by Sam and Elon from the get go. You mention it was "half a dozen other people", but it was Elon and Sam that were the public leaders for the vision of the company.

Occam's razor is in effect. Elon is not good and smart. The onus is on your to proof otherwise.

I was going to comment on how this article is a Musk PR move. It's quite clear why the first thing he guts in a company is PR. He has simp's that will do it for free and because there is no official PR channel, a literal reality distortion field is created because only fanbois get access to the man, the myth, the legend.

Elon Fucking Musk!

I suggest taking a look at the hacker news guidelines as you don't seem to be interested in following them.

I mean, I can't walk into a car dealership with $10,000 and tell them that's a big pile of money, and walk out with a $100,000 car, so I'm not sure why $100 million should get you $1,000 million of company, just because you asked for it.

I don't know man. What breaks that argument is that multiple people make the same positive claims about Elon: That he can handle unimaginable amounts of stress that would break others, that he seems to have a breath of deep knowledge in various different engineering disciplines and that he is committed to his vision. Your theory would make more sense if everyone was making up random praise about him but the interviews with the three people I mentioned were conducted years apart and weirdly all mention these same praises. Its possible that there is some coordination going on but across so many people from his different companies? There must be some sort of truth to the statements.

Elon M fried his braincells over at Tesla in an unwinnable situation which was saved by angel investors at the last moment. From that point in time to the present compare the advanced chips made at Tesla to Ford, GM for proof of Elon M and the vision thing. The Elon M companies fit together to tell a story that feels futuristic.

GM's Cruise, though it was an acquisition, feels more futuristic than FSD. They are operating driverless.

> the interviews with the three people I mentioned were conducted years apart and weirdly all mention these same praises

Or it means they had little enough good to say about him that they had to google it.

I work in a industry with around 1000 engineers in that field in my location. There must be like 10 big companies where I can work in the area. Basically everyone knows each other and when you interview someone, it's easy to get the person's reputation.

I just got a new guy in January (didn't do the interview myself, I was away), I know his ex boss very well and of course I phoned him to know how he's like. He depicted me a kind of bad picture of him.

After 3 months I agree that he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But unlike my friend, I'm not asking for perfect code, I'm asking for throughput and bold moves in the wilderness. With that consideration, the guy is actually ok compared to others!

I've come to learn to not rely a lot on outside advice on people, and I prefer to judge it myself in situ. The team, the company, the project or simply personal life can greatly affect someone's performances, and it is not because someone is great at company A that he will be great at company B.

This is exactly why I hate term “A-player”. There’s so much of the team and work culture that impacts someone’s capabilities.

Quality Assurance is one of the hardest things at any manufacturing company, because it absolutely doesn't care about "rock stars" or any other fluff. If your employees are tired and burned out, then yelling at them won't fix anything because it's not about whether they get it right that time, it's about getting it right every time.

Which means rested, attentive employees who are not going to be "rock stars", they're going to do the job correctly and then go home because that's what's required.

I'm inclined to agree with this. Its just amazing that they still haven't fixed these issues even to this day when it has become a running joke at this point.

Hot take: The people you mentioned are hired to bring big-name cred to the organization. None of them stuck around (correct me if I'm wrong, I've only done a cursory glance just now), they all left. Eg, they're the "top tier engineering" part of the companies, and other employees (and I've dealt with these employees at Tesla in a past life, so I can attest to their terrible attitude) are the "mediocre build quality".

Might be generally true, but there are some major exceptions. Gwynne Shotwell for example.

Based on her TED interview about passenger travel on rockets being in service by 2028 cheaper than business class, I'm gonna say they might be doing well in spite of her rather than because.

I’m sorry but you clearly know nothing about what you’re talking about. Throughout the entire industry she is absolutely credited with SpaceX’s success. SpaceX dominates because of reliability, and the reliability stems from business units Shotwell manages, not Musk.

What do you think the odds are of the passenger service operating in 2028 at those prices?

Astronaut Garrett Reisman worked for 7 years there and is on record stating that is all the stress he could handle.[1]:

Jim Keller has a history of joining a company to start a project and then leaving once it is complete. He did this multiple times in his career and was with Tesla until they completed the self driving computer. He has also left behind a team of stellar well known people.

I am not too sure about Andrej Karpathy. I dont know if we have enough of a history to know when he chooses to join and leave companies.

There must be a lot of lower level engineers who have to be developing all these amazing subsystems in the car and other products.

Wonder what the turn over is for the really skilled people. Maybe the truly burnt out people or just stragglers are the ones you are encountering.

[1]:https://youtu.be/GNG6ZzDh9C8?t=420

Appreciate the deeper details, thanks.

I had no idea Tesla self driving hardware was done. Judging by the lawsuits and performance I'd say it's barely even started.

I overlapped there with Garrett, and while our work rarely overlapped, he was certainly around and "in the trenches". My point is that, from my point of view, he was a real person rather than a figurehead.

To some extent I could say the same for Elon, who was certainly around a lot. He was more of a general visiting the trenches, though. Also a real person, but of a different caste.

I was one of those lower level engineers building stuff. I stuck around for 3 years, and left when I was happy rather than burnt out. It was my first job after school, and I wanted to try some other companies before settling down.

Why do those brilliant folks praise him?

To stay in his circle of influence or because Elon is indeed a genius even though he doesn’t come across that way.

Musk himself is somehow schizoid .. he can be wise at times and then .. he tweets the most retarded thing possible.

Extreme aspergers?

He's got a lot of good business knowledge around certain industries but is way overconfident in how this translates to other areas

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