I guess. That’s at least not a completely unreasonable argument. But consider that Musk was a Burning Man regular up until recently. I don’t think anyone would have batted an eye had he gone last week, aside from people complaining that he wasn’t focusing on Tesla. A lot more than MJ use goes on there.
I think Musk probably *does *have an Ambien problem; or at the least, he simply needs a work schedule that doesn’t require prescription aids to allow sleep. But the idea that a single toke (on a show with a known pothead) has anything to do with this is bizarre to me. They’re simply unrelated things.
The entire job of the CEO consists of presenting a public image of stability and innovation, providing an overall practicable vision for the development of the company, and recruiting high level talent to actually manage day to day operations. Elon Musk is 0-for-3 in that regard, hence why investors are showing signs of increasing nervousness. If the company were meeting its production goals and showing signs of profitability that might justify its massive overvaluation, nobody would give a GWF about what Musk was doing in his private life. I can’t recall any press paying attention to, say, former GM vice chairman Bob Lutz, and the only personal detail I could tell you about him without looking it up is that he changes his own oil on his cars. Musk is engaging in slander over Twitter, selling flamethrowers, and boasting about his 120 hour a week work schedule. That’s not “mock outrage”; it is a response to what appears to be an emotional breakdown in progress by the guy who won’t give up control over any aspect of a company that is increasingly demonstrating an inability to meet production goals.
A company the size of and with the ambitions of Tesla should have had a qualified COO four or five years ago. Even if they can attract a top executive talent to the role today, it would take months for that person to get their arms around everything and start making positive changes even without the inevitable interference of Musk. A COO’s entire job is dealing with the details of day-to-day operations and delegating authority to qualified people, which is something Musk seemingly just cannot let go of. Elon Musk is his own worst enemy at this point.
I saw a video clip of Musk’s walk down crazy street. What stoner doesn’t want to play with a sword?. He’s in much more personal distress than I thought.
That’s a pretty weird breakdown, but in any case I don’t see how you can come up with “0 for 3”. Tesla may not present an image of stability but they sure as hell present one of innovation. And they absolutely have a practicable vision for company development. If there’s one thing they’ve been incredibly consistent on, it’s been their plan on going from low-volume supercar to mid-volume luxury car to high-volume midrange car. That’s exactly what they’ve done and despite schedule misses they’ve adhered to that plan very closely, and served them well. By your standard, I give that 1.5/3 points.
No argument there. Shotwells don’t grow on trees.
Well, if Tesla can make it through the next couple of quarters without a giant meltdown, I think they can take a breather. The Model Y will have a much easier development and Model 3 revenue will largely pay for things. The competition is still years away.
Every other car company has one, inasmuch as they have COOs and manufacturing chiefs who seem to know what they’re doing. If, however, you mean “people who can competently run an organization while also fending off a mercurial, erratic, interfering CEO” then you might have a point. But in that case, the solution is not to address the symptoms (find a chief who can run things and deal with Elon’s bullshit) but address the problem itself (get Elon the fuck away from day-to-day operations.)
hell, Steve Jobs was well known to be an unctuous prick, and even he knew well enough to leave Tim Cook alone to keep Apple humming along.
Cook is a weird case to me. On one hand, he’s successfully turned Apple in to a trillion dollar company. No small feat. On the other hand, I’m hard-pressed to say that Apple has done anything truly innovative since Jobs died. There has been nothing remotely as world-changing as the iPod, iPhone, and iPad with him as CEO. Of course, Apple no longer needs that; those three products are sufficient to sustain them for a very long time. So maybe it was the right time for a transition. I don’t think Tesla is quite there yet, but they’re close.
As for Jobs vs. Musk–well, at least Musk hasn’t literally killed himself with pseudoscientific bullshit. I’ll take a few Twitter rants over juicing the cancer away.
Note that this was written in 2006, well before the Roadster even shipped. They are, 12 years later, finally completing that plan. I don’t think anyone can argue that it more or less worked or that they didn’t follow it almost exactly. Most car startups fail before shipping more than a few prototypes, but Tesla is on their third generation of vehicles. Whatever else you might say about them, the basic Tesla business plan–articulated by Musk very early on–was solid.
that’s because you’re assuming the anomaly is actually the norm, when it isn’t. Steve Jobs being both CEO of Apple and their product guru is pretty rare in companies of Apple’s age and size. Apple surely needs a product guru. Tim Cook doesn’t have to be that person just because Jobs was.
Obviously, I do hope that his Ambien use is at safe levels. I don’t think a toke on a podcast has much to do with that, but in any case I don’t think the possibility of abuse should be ignored.
Right. And that’s effectively the dynamic that works pretty smoothly at SpaceX–Musk as guru, Shotwell to run the company. Both Jobs and Musk/Tesla are edge cases.
And yes, part of the job description of any COO is going to be dealing with Musk’s impulses. I’m sure that Cook had to deal with plenty of that as well.
The post describes the Model S pretty much as they shipped it (well, their predicted price was too low).
But in any case, I was responding to Stranger on a Train, who said it was the job of the CEO to lay out a practicable vision for company development. That is, by necessity, a high level thing. Nevertheless, it is specific enough that we could have identified a “pivot” had they made one. They didn’t; they’re still making cars according to their original plan.
I grant that this is all speculation, but if his only use of substances is Ambien to sleep, a rare toke, and some alcohol now and then, I’ll promptly donate my base Model 3 to charity. That is, if it ever works out that there is such a car when I’m in the market.
While I agree that it’s probably time for Musk to take some vacation time and that smoking pot normally wouldn’t be that big a deal but combined with his other behavior is a bad idea, is ODing or the traditional public-figure-meteor-disintegration likely?
There are rumors of drug use but not the kind that usually kill people like benzos, opioids and alcohol or ones that burn people out like speed or cocaine.
I’ve heard that psychedelics and eugeroics are common enough in the tech industry. Is that just a rumor? It sounds like the kind of thing Musk would do and may explain some of his speeches and behavior.
that’s what’s really sad. on another site there was a post about Elon being on Joe Rogan’s podcast. some commenter was fawning about how Elon went into “meticulous engineering detail” about all of his ideas, when he did nothing of the sort.
As MichaelEmouse suggested, I would add psychedelics. I don’t know how common they are across the tech industry as a whole, but they are essentially universal at Burning Man. But really not much addiction risk there.
Modafinil use is pretty common, I think, but seems counterindicated by Ambien use. The stories are of Musk sleeping under meeting room tables, not 72-hour binge workathons.
You talked about a vision for development, not a detailed plan. What would be an example of what you are talking about, if not something at this level? Frankly, it’s rare that CEOs talk about future development even at this level of detail.