calinet6

First, large-scale manufacturing is a different thing from rocket engineering. It ceases to be about building something, and begins to be about understanding and managing people. That's what I challenge Musk is still learning, and far too slowly. He may never be able to learn at all—beliefs about people and management are far more hard-set than those about physics and engineering.

That said, I think he'll get it done, but it's still arrogant (and inefficient) to take all of the learnings of manufacturing and management of the past 30 years and try to "start fresh."

It's a waste. It's a waste of money, a waste of time, a waste of human capital and life and happiness. He's expending energy to learn things we've already learned.

That's the sad part. I'm sure he'll get it done, but at what cost? At what despair and unnecessary strife? And at what level of waste and inefficiency.

Sure, you'll say, necessity is the mother of invention, and new knowledge and innovation will come out of this struggle—but how can we know even more could not be done in a better process? We can't, and this naysaying will go by the wayside. As perhaps it should.

One cannot will anything one wants into existence.

At some point, he'll need to understand how to design an effective large-scale manufacturing system, and not simply yell for one.

Specifically, he should actually learn some things about managing people, and the place that has in producing quality at volume at speed. It's sad, because that's exactly the lesson Toyota was trying to teach at NUMMI, and their legacy has been totally forgotten by its new owner—at great cost. It's simply a shame.

> "According to this, they're using 7 times as many employees and still making less than a 1/5 of the cars NUMMI did when they had the factory." https://insideevs.com/teslas-fremont-factory/ -- via https://twitter.com/Benshooter/status/1012113642689519617

(albeit they're earlier in their maturity, for sure, but still)

Those who know anything about manufacturing are seeing very clearly that this is unlikely, or if achieved will be done at great cost and waste.

https://twitter.com/skabooshka/status/1012000014376230913

All that eyeballing and intuition comes from experience, though, which is experimentation and learning. That's a pretty geeky process in its own right. And if you're in a commercial bakery, the process is down to a science, with exact weights and temperatures and times. You can also do that at home, and if you do, the results do come out better (or at least more consistent).

Bread has this nice property of being both forgiving and playful, as well as highly optimizable with experimentation. Nice combo.

Nor many that need to ;) FWSY is pretty flawless as a whole work, and much more depth than this.

^ 100% agree, that's the best book. It does a great job of explaining the exact reasons, science, and tradeoffs between the critical factors, and you come away with not just instructions, but a deeper understanding of bread and how it really works and why. It's a really great book.

The article is about California, the state. San Francisco is not California.

To be clear, it's absolutely not terrible or backward by any stretch. Please visit and see for yourself.

Expensive, sure. But there's a reason (another word for price in a decent market is 'value'). And not every city in California is San Francisco in terms of cost of living.

There are so many.

My self-treatment for suspected SIBO and diagnosed Microscopic Colitis is Pepto Bismol Max (1 dose) followed by a strong probiotic 12 hours later. The probiotic I've had success with is this one: https://www.renewlife.com/ultimate-flora-extra-care-probioti...

I really can't back this up, it's just the only thing that works for me consistently. That and meditation and yoga to help get the anxiety under control.

But (if you'll allow me to digress) the anxiety is most definitely influenced more by the state of the gut than other factors, in my experience; particularly (as in the original post) if I'm hungry or haven't "fed the bacteria." Anxiety spikes off the charts until I eat some simple proteins and it makes it past my stomach. The first grumble of the stomach emptying, and the anxiety disappears; I feel entirely normal again instantly, no joke. I realize that's weird, but it's my clear cut experience. Back to the medical pinball machine with me...

Try the NVIDIA Web Driver for video. The new Metal-based window manager doesn't play well with something about the stock video driver. NVIDIA's is faster for me.

Try the NVIDIA Web Driver for video. The new Metal-based window manager doesn't play well with something about the stock video driver. NVIDIA's is faster for me.

Secret hint: if it's an older mac, try the NVIDIA Web Driver for the video driver.

This seems like it might be a lead:

> Apple completely rewrote the window server in Metal 2 for High Sierra and seems to have done a very poor job of it.

I've run into tons of those issues with my 2012 MBP. Slight tangent that might be useful to someone.

If you experience jerkiness, lagginess, slow display updates, just general slow feeling, one thing to try is the NVIDIA Web Driver video drivers, rather than the stock ones.

It resolved all of the slowness for me, maybe just applies to slightly older macs but made a big difference.

This is really interesting. Clearly they're trying to control for sensitive variables that make little sense even to them, and yet they're still using rodents as subjects and publishing studies likely without mention of these oddities. Not saying everyone is doing it wrong, but wow.

Most design in tech hardware prioritizes functionality over look.

Just because some colors pop doesn't mean the opposite.

The simpler explanation is just that we aren't very good (as an industry) at hardware design look or functionality design right now. We need to get better at both.

But making an all-gray phone with no stylistic touches isn't going to re-prioritize functionality, promise you that. Different problem entirely.

Great article, highlighting some great design history.

Google's new design also kinda reminds me of trends in the outdoor/sports apparel & footwear industry from about 2-3 years ago. Contrast stitching and zippers, muted tones with bright pastels, resurgence of 1970's bright colors and mountaineering styles. Patagonia's catalog from 2014 would be representative, as would lululemon around that time, and Nike and UnderArmour shoes and casual sport.

Tech is putting a new spin on it, but many of the themes are similar. I like it! The diversity and experimentation, with respectful nods to the past and adaptation for current trends is a great thing.

The diminishing returns must be staggering.

I can only imagine their management practices are comparably dismal with their focus on individual talent.

Thank you—that's revelatory and mildly disappointing. I'll have to look into it more closely.

That's a much less lazy argument. Horowitz should take notes.

This assumes a specific philosophy of how companies work (good individuals) while an alternative model of good working systems is also effective. A systems view is less dependent on good individuals.

As W. Edwards Deming said, "A bad system beats a good person every time."

Isn't that an argument not to pay based on deals won? Doesn't that make it a random or unpredictable reward structure, and therefore not very effective?

Not competitive exactly (it's not necessary when you don't have commission) but Pluralsight: https://www.inc.com/aaron-skonnard/why-sales-commissions-don...

Do you though? At an individual level? The only measurement that matters is profit, which is pretty easy to measure.

A strong argument would at least consider the systemic consequences of commissions, rather than just extolling the assumed virtues in a circular argument. What is their impact on product? On support? Engineering morale? On the customer experience itself? Just a myriad of effects not even considered here when commissions are looked at in isolation, the system be damned.

It's probably very true that it's not plausible to do anything but commission-based sales in this market, and competing with other companies offering so much more money for the same job is just not worth the effort. But it's lazy to assume that their isn't a better holistic model, taking into account the whole company system, and not solely myopic sales metrics.

Edit: is Pluralsight a big enough counterexample? Maybe some food for thought from Aaron Skonnard here: https://www.inc.com/aaron-skonnard/why-sales-commissions-don...

Hat tip to Carl Sagan reference in the title.

"Maybe the good life is not about trying to achieve some sort of illusory balance. Instead, maybe it’s about pursuing your interests fully, but with enough internal self-awareness to regularly evaluate what you’re not pursuing as a result — and make changes if necessary. Living in this manner..."

...IS balance. Period.

Systems are funny. People do what works. Don't think about it too hard.

And the future of operating systems is the command line.

We deserve better than this reductionist thinking. Constraints can breed innovation; but they can also just constrain.

The older I get, the more I realize: pretty much every organization everywhere is highly flawed in some (usually many) ways. This has been an extremely useful observation in my career and life, and I have found exactly zero exceptions.

What was the impact of management and efficiency of operation, production process, and improvement process within these companies? Surely not none. In the decades post WWII they were simply able to produce better product faster and with more predictability and consistency—that was not an accident, nor was it simply capacity, world economy, or internal policy.

"If Japan Can, Why Can't We?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcG_Pmt_Ny4

The opportunity still exists to make a sea change in industry through the widespread improvement of the management of people.