Post: #26

To be counter to this thread just about, I got a lot of respect for that guy reading his biography and his upbringing , but my main thing is that I bought Tesla stock(And continue to) since when it was a youngin and the returns are astronomical and I gotta respect how he got it there and I believe he'll continue to belt out the shareholder value.

Post: #27

One thing I would not do if I were rich (and I come from the same damn beta nerd background as Musk) is not say the needy things he did during that interview. I might secretly feel that way. I might even confess that to a therapist or close friend, but I would never broadcast that to the world the way he did. To me, I would feel that I'd be flushing my SMV down the toilet. So I think he's in desperate need of a red-pill.

That's mostly what I was hoping people would comment on here, the contradiction between his alpha-like tendency to risk-take and work hard in business on the one hand vs. his pathetic approach to women on the other.

Post: #28

(11-17-2017 12:05 AM)questor70 Wrote:  One thing I would not do if I were rich (and I come from the same damn beta nerd background as Musk) is not say the needy things he did during that interview. I might secretly feel that way. I might even confess that to a therapist or close friend, but I would never broadcast that to the world the way he did. To me, I would feel that I'd be flushing my SMV down the toilet. So I think he's in desperate need of a red-pill.

That's mostly what I was hoping people would comment on here, the contradiction between his alpha-like tendency to risk-take and work hard in business on the one hand vs. his pathetic approach to women on the other.

You may be correct that's he's in some psychological distress about women. There is no way to know unless one is personally close to Musk. In regards to what kind of impact this interview will have on Musk's public life, I wouldn't be so sure your analysis is correct.

Firstly, there is nothing Musk can say that would flush his SMV down the toilet short of coming off as insane or admitting to pedophilia or bestiality and things of that nature. His objective value is simply too high for him to have to try to sound alpha. Let me give you an illustration: Lebron James is a 6'8 physical freak of nature with massive fame and enormous wealth. His SMV will not be lowered by acting a little beta, in fact it will probably be increased because women will find the contrast fascinating. Musk obviously doesn't have the same physicality as Lebron James but the same concept kind of applies. When your SMV is that high, acting a little beta is advantageous.

Secondly, remember the social climate we're in now. The last thing you want to project to the world as a public figure is a "redpill" or "toxic masculinity" persona, particularly when your name is intimately associated with your businesses, and particularly still when those businesses cater to the kind of demographic that Tesla does. Not to mention that Musk is a successful straight white male, and he's not even Jewish. Dude is walking on thin ice just by existing.

Post: #29

(11-16-2017 11:34 PM)Higgs Bosun Wrote:  

(11-16-2017 10:29 PM)RoastBeefCurtains4Me Wrote:  He's launched 17 rockets into space just this year, and has now landed a total of 20 first stages. He launched a secret govt payload today, and saved the govt a shit ton of money over the other usual sources. All the other rocket makers get govt money too, only Musk does it for far less than the others.

He may be beta talking about wanting female companionship, and he may be having problems with Tesla, but he's absolutely kicking ass with the rockets, with absolutely new first stage reuse, and with huge cost savings.

Absolutely. I'm not a fan of Tesla, in fact I hope it fails miserably along with the future of the entire nascent electric/self driving vehicle industry. But that's just my own personal distaste towards what a transformation of the automotive industry in that direction portends for future societal transformation rather than anything particular to Tesla or Musk himself.

With that said, I have to give Musk massive props for what he has achieved and the balls he has brought to entrepreneurship. When you amass a fortune amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars by the time you're in your early 20s and revolutionize an entire industry in the process like Musk had done with Paypal, most dudes would happily rest on their laurels and satisfy themselves with sticking to what has already worked for them.

But Musk? He plowed the entirety of his Paypal windfall into not 1, but 2 industries just about guaranteed to make a much richer man than Musk completely bankrupt: fucking Space Rockets(!) and electric cars. I've already said my bit about Tesla, but Musk doesn't get anywhere near the credit he deserves for SpaceX on this forum. It's an achievement that's completely unprecedented and still unmatched for a private individual acting on his own behalf and not on a government commission (like Boeing, Arianespace, etc) to launch shit into orbit, let alone become an industry leader in the launch industry.

People point to the fact SpaceX is getting government contracts as if that's evidence of Musk being a public-handout shyster when in reality SpaceX was massively successful before receiving any government attention. Look at who launched shit for the government before SpaceX came along: United Launch Alliance, a consortium of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the Defense Industrial Complex in a nutshell. I'm pretty sure there was very little interest in the Pentagon to let a little upstart kid from South Africa with a paltry $300m in the bank to fuck with Boeing and Lockheed's income stream, and Musk certainly knew that the government was not going to come swooping to the rescue if he wasn't successful in the private launch market on his own merits.

Another thing I'll have to give Musk props for is he was a huge advocate of domestic American manufacturing a decade before the 2016 election. He's always made it a point to build his shit in house rather than being a true "prime contractor" which is literally like assembling glorified legos produced by other companies all over the world. He builds just about every nut and bolt in his rockets in house in the USA, and even Tesla has made strides to bring components previously only available from Asian manufacturers in house. In the beginning Tesla's electric motors were purchased from a Taiwanese supplier, now they're made in Tesla's American plants. Musk has also made a massive (granted hugely subsidized) investment to make the US into a leader in lithium battery cell production, another industry that was previously dominated by Asian suppliers.

I could go on but this should do for now. Do I give a shit about Musk's romantic shenanigans, given what he has accomplished outside of his love life? Nope, he's not a faggot, that's good enough for me. Even here, Musk might have had his missteps but note he's never been involved with dogs unlike many (if not most) of the world's Elite Tier men. Calling Elon Musk a "beta" while extolling the virtues of some no name tatted hoodlum "Alpha" because the latter's great accomplishment of pumping and dumping his women doesn't reflect well on what we're trying to accomplish here I don't think.

This is pretty much my take as a veteran of the aerospace industry. SpaceX also launches commercial satellites which is huge business. SpaceX is so successful that it has forced the other launch providers and rocket companies to up their game.

Not only is SpaceX launching satellites but they are pushing hard to go to Mars. Now I have my doubts that they will do it, at least in their stated time frame (~2024). But NASA is planning to go to Mars sometime in the mid to late 2030's. Can you image if SpaceX has already been on Mars for a decade by the time NASA even gets its first manned mission to Mars? And SpaceX would have done it on a tiny, tiny budget compared to NASA's budget.

As for Musk the man. He's an admitted workaholic and complete control freak. I have friends who have worked for Tesla and SpaceX and I have interviewed with both companies in the past. Both companies have a reputation for driving their workers really hard. And that starts with Musk. He has ambitious goals and he only hires people willing to work long hours and put work ahead of one's personal life. They openly admit if you want life-work balance then Tesla and SpaceX are not for you. The interview process is long and involved with both companies.

1. Interview with HR recruiter.

2. Take a 1 hour engineering test that is emailed to you. (Tesla). SpaceX gave me a design problem to solve. I had a week to do it. I spent about 40 hours on it. They got back to me and said they were not going forward with me. No explanation given.

3. If you "pass" the test you have a phone interview with an engineering manager who will grill you with technical questions.

4. If they like you, you have a second phone interview with a group of engineers.

5. If they still like you, you have an on-site interview where you will give a 45 minute presentation.

6. After the interview you will step outside and they decide if they want to continue the interview. If they like what they heard you continue the interview. If they are not impressed the interview is over.

7. They make a decision to make an offer or not.

Here is where it gets nuts. Musk musk give final approval to ALL new hires for both Tesla and SpaceX. Isn't he busy enough running like 5 companies? I guess he doesn't trust his own people to hire the right people.

Another thing I thought was really strange is that they asked about my grades in college. Now this makes sense for a new college graduate but asking a 18-20 year veteran about 20-25 year old college grades is asinine IMO. I have a portfolio of accomplishments and experiences I can share with them and they care about my grade in calculus from 1992?

Post: #30

Last year, I had a woman on a dating website ask me which school and university I had attended. I was equally dumbfounded.

Post: #31

(11-16-2017 10:29 PM)RoastBeefCurtains4Me Wrote:  [quote='Vasily Zaytsev' pid='1684775' dateline='1510885178']
[quote='RoastBeefCurtains4Me' pid='1684768' dateline='1510884787']
^^^ can barely launch a rocket into space?

He's launched 17 rockets into space just this year, and has now landed a total of 20 first stages. He launched a secret govt payload today, and saved the govt a shit ton of money over the other usual sources. All the other rocket makers get govt money too, only Musk does it for far less than the others.

He may be beta talking about wanting female companionship, and he may be having problems with Tesla, but he's absolutely kicking ass with the rockets, with absolutely new first stage reuse, and with huge cost savings.

See the problem is none of Space X's financials are in the public domain so we have no way of knowing much about the financials of that business. At this point, anyone who takes him at his word is a fool who has a good chance of taking major losses on any investments in his businesses.

Post: #32

Elon Musk's ventures will go the same route as Solar Freaking Roadways.

What the hell is Solar Freaking Roadways, you ask?

Well, that's the point.

Post: #33

Name another CEO in America that's at least doing SOMETHING to keep the US on the cutting edge of potential industries of the future. I remain thankful that he came to the US and didn't go somewhere else.

All of the Chinese and European companies that Tesla/SpaceX will compete with in the future receive massive subsidies and preferential contracts. It's par for the course when a company is doing something with insanely high fixed costs and huge spillover benefits. This is a lot harder than just writing computer code.

Post: #34

Anyone questioning Musk's Alpha characteristics is insane. The one thing people forget is masculinity is fragmented for men. Most men are incomplete from being perfect.

You want to know what the ultimate alpha male is? The man stands 6'5"(1.95 m) tall, weighs 240lbs (108kg), has 10% bodyfat, has a networth of $1 trillion USD and compounds at a rate of over 9,000%, has women lined up along the sidewalk to bend over and say "Thank you for raping me", impregnates women by just looking at them, Is older than 1000 years yet still looks like a 28 year old, anything that contradicts his knowledge is wrong, and everytime he has sex, he doesn't shoot his load, he has a stream semen coming out with the PSI of a fire hydrant. Also, he is never out of semen. He just keeps blasting that shit as he is fucking.

You will almost never meet a man who is 100% alpha. Just men who are more complete than others. Just because he lacks game, doesn't mean he isn't alpha. He just happens to be a man that needs to learn seduction.

Post: #35

I don't totally understand the people who are knocking Tesla for creating a shit product

I don't agree with the assessment, but even granting that, Musk has SOLD that product. Other car manufacturers wish they could get the props he does for what he does. I agree that other manufacturers are comparatively undervalued (or that his is dramatically overvalued), but Musk has MADE that valuation through his larger than life persona. Give credit where credit due

Post: #36

It's confusing because as far as his place in the social pecking order, he's alpha, since society these days rewards hard-working nerds. But as far as overall charisma, even Bill Gates comes across as more composed with Musk's stuttering and emotional breakdowns. It's just that Musk isn't as hideous looking as Bill Gates, but he still has the personality of a geek that no amount of hair-plugs and Armani suits can hide.

You'd have to ask Amber Heard but I suspect the reason she left him is she thought she was going to get Tony Stark and she realized that she got Urkel instead, and not just Urkel, but an Urkel who spends 20+ hours a day on the factory floor and probably barely has enough time to bust a quick nut and take a nap each day.

Post: #37

Now one thing I will grant some credit for is SpaceX. It's the only business he has that is addressing an actual need.

As for selling product.....Liz Holmes also "sold product". The degree of fraud is less here because it's expectations rather than the product itself that are fraudulent but I still think you would be a moron to buy Tesla shares.

Post: #38

I don't know a great deal about Elon Musk or his ventures, but FWIW, I've met a lot of high net worth guys over the last few years, to fundraise for my business - guys with £100m+ from their own successful ventures - and who are consistently successful investors. I'd say the proportion of them that own a Tesla, and rave about it, is about 60-70%. Make no mistake, these guys aren't just buying a toy. One of the common themes I've found amongst successful entrepreneurs is that they view their customers as investors. By buying into Tesla, they are backing the company, the product, and the future direction that it is looking to take.

It's also been my observation from all of the very high performing, exceptionally bright, engineers and computer scientists that I've employed and come across over the past few years, that all of them are VERY impressed by Musk and what he's doing.

There are never any guarantees with starting a business, particularly one's like Musk's. Whether he succeeds or fails though, it seems clear to me that HE is the real deal - the right horse to be backing, and the right guy to give a lot of money to and to then get out of the way of so that he can do his thing. It almost doesn't matter whether he succeeds or fails, someone like him should be backed to the hilt, regardless of individual project outcomes.

It also doesn't really matter whether he is good or bad with women, it's a laughable measure of his value as a man. Guys who are at that end of the achievement spectrum rarely manage balanced lives - it's one of the trade-offs of wild success. 100 hour work weeks do not often lead to rounded living. The drive for a wife is understandable - a guy like Musk probably doesn't want the distraction of chasing tail, but is still likely to be consumed by that need for female companionship. A surprising amount of the successful entrepreneurs I know got married young. That gave them some semblance of stability and comfort amidst all the uncertainty and chaos.

Post: #39

Dude is doing the right thing for humanity.

Clearly he lacks understanding of female nature & will continue with his beta ways, but in the grand scheme of his accomplishments it is trivial.

I don't expect him to ever become "alpha" with women (already is alpha as can be with his career) so don't really care what he chooses to do with his life with females.

Post: #40

Musk is the largest recipient of government welfare in the history of the world. He's become a billionaire off of it. But being a welfare queen is never alpha.

Trump is making moves to end Musk's lifeline, the EV subsidy. Once that happens, it's all over. Just look at Tesla sales in countries with no tax-supported sales - Tesla has sold only a handful of cars in Australia, for example. The same thing happened in Hong Kong, EV subsidy was lifted and sales dropped to 0. Right now, CA is looking at an insane deal to push their state subsidy to as much as $40,000 per car. If that passes, Musk will be bailed out for a few years and make himself richer off moronic taxpayers...I GUESS that's a form of business sense, but it's one I don't respect.

Musk is trying to play it off and say he doesn't want subsidies anymore but it's clear he needs them. Stock and bod prices tanked when Trump said he's cutting the EV credit from his tax plan.

Post: #41

(11-17-2017 01:51 AM)Long Haired Samson Wrote:  This is pretty much my take as a veteran of the aerospace industry. SpaceX also launches commercial satellites which is huge business. SpaceX is so successful that it has forced the other launch providers and rocket companies to up their game.

Not only is SpaceX launching satellites but they are pushing hard to go to Mars. Now I have my doubts that they will do it, at least in their stated time frame (~2024). But NASA is planning to go to Mars sometime in the mid to late 2030's. Can you image if SpaceX has already been on Mars for a decade by the time NASA even gets its first manned mission to Mars? And SpaceX would have done it on a tiny, tiny budget compared to NASA's budget.

As for Musk the man. He's an admitted workaholic and complete control freak. I have friends who have worked for Tesla and SpaceX and I have interviewed with both companies in the past. Both companies have a reputation for driving their workers really hard. And that starts with Musk. He has ambitious goals and he only hires people willing to work long hours and put work ahead of one's personal life. They openly admit if you want life-work balance then Tesla and SpaceX are not for you. The interview process is long and involved with both companies.

1. Interview with HR recruiter.

2. Take a 1 hour engineering test that is emailed to you. (Tesla). SpaceX gave me a design problem to solve. I had a week to do it. I spent about 40 hours on it. They got back to me and said they were not going forward with me. No explanation given.

3. If you "pass" the test you have a phone interview with an engineering manager who will grill you with technical questions.

4. If they like you, you have a second phone interview with a group of engineers.

5. If they still like you, you have an on-site interview where you will give a 45 minute presentation.

6. After the interview you will step outside and they decide if they want to continue the interview. If they like what they heard you continue the interview. If they are not impressed the interview is over.

7. They make a decision to make an offer or not.

Here is where it gets nuts. Musk musk give final approval to ALL new hires for both Tesla and SpaceX. Isn't he busy enough running like 5 companies? I guess he doesn't trust his own people to hire the right people.

Another thing I thought was really strange is that they asked about my grades in college. Now this makes sense for a new college graduate but asking a 18-20 year veteran about 20-25 year old college grades is asinine IMO. I have a portfolio of accomplishments and experiences I can share with them and they care about my grade in calculus from 1992?

That's even worse than my interview experience. They shit on my GPA/transcript, too, but instead of making me do a week of free engineering work for them and put on a dog and pony show about it, they tried manipulating me into giving them proprietary info right during the interview. They had cruder but less imposing methods back in their early days.

I really hope SpaceX succeeds - as others have said, it's the one Musk company that's actually working out, and it's having a salutary effect on that industry overall by pushing the old guard companies to innovate too and opening the door to other new players. I don't care about Tesla any further than I want them to stop being subsidized, directly or through ridiculous tax incentives - e.g.: where in some states you can deduct over half of the purchase price from your taxes because green. Tax dollars should not subsidize or offset the purchase of any car, let alone a luxury car - especially when the subsidy alone is greater than the cost of comparable alternatives. If your product can't survive in the marketplace against competition or alternatives that don't receive massive subsidies, then there is something wrong with your product and it needs to die off.

As for Musk, having met him, I'm not impressed. It's hard to put my finger on exactly why, but he strikes me as a situational-alpha, a man who has found his way into an alpha role through legitimate effort and success but is (in his case) actually a gamma at heart. I definitely got the "secret king" vibe from him back then - only, since he was the real king in that context, came across as a peculiar kind of snotty condescension in which it was very important to him for you to understand that he was the king, and better than you in every way, and that he would decide your fate (in the interview) personally. The brown-bagging of his failed relationships is another gamma tell, the only hitch being that he's maudlin about it rather than bitter and angry.

Or, if you don't like the SMV categories, just think of him as a high-functioning narcissistic sociopath. Everything is about him, his wants and needs are the only things that matter, he has no empathy for others, and no concern with rules (he explicitly stated this to me). He grows petulant and whiny when his personal needs aren't addressed and tyrannical when others don't do what he wants, because he can't conceive of other people as human beings with their own wills rather than as instruments to satisfy his own.

Post: #42

(11-17-2017 08:11 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  Elon Musk's ventures will go the same route as Solar Freaking Roadways.

What the hell is Solar Freaking Roadways, you ask?

Well, that's the point.

Don't underestimate the power of SOLAR FREAKING ROADWAYS. They are the best current technology to harvest the power of bullshit. They are also great at harvesting... government funds.

Post: #43

(11-17-2017 09:43 AM)Sonoma Wrote:  Musk has MADE that valuation through his larger than life persona. Give credit where credit due

Actually it was created by vastly overpromising and making wild proclamations that naive gullible people who don't actually understand the industries eat up. If you listen carefully to some of the things he says some of them show a scary level of ignorance (or willful misrepresentation of, can't say for sure which one it is yet) to the actual methodologies and implementation required to support the business, specifically production related. But very few who own Tesla shares actually understand that business.

Go listen to their last quarterly conference call. He reminds me of an awkward high school kid winging a class presentation. He also had a month to prepare for that presentation by the way.

Post: #44

(11-17-2017 01:51 AM)Long Haired Samson Wrote:  As for Musk the man. He's an admitted workaholic and complete control freak. I have friends who have worked for Tesla and SpaceX and I have interviewed with both companies in the past. Both companies have a reputation for driving their workers really hard. And that starts with Musk. He has ambitious goals and he only hires people willing to work long hours and put work ahead of one's personal life. They openly admit if you want life-work balance then Tesla and SpaceX are not for you. The interview process is long and involved with both companies.

1. Interview with HR recruiter.

2. Take a 1 hour engineering test that is emailed to you. (Tesla). SpaceX gave me a design problem to solve. I had a week to do it. I spent about 40 hours on it. They got back to me and said they were not going forward with me. No explanation given.

3. If you "pass" the test you have a phone interview with an engineering manager who will grill you with technical questions.

4. If they like you, you have a second phone interview with a group of engineers.

5. If they still like you, you have an on-site interview where you will give a 45 minute presentation.

6. After the interview you will step outside and they decide if they want to continue the interview. If they like what they heard you continue the interview. If they are not impressed the interview is over.

7. They make a decision to make an offer or not.
[/b]
Here is where it gets nuts. Musk musk give final approval to ALL new hires for both Tesla and SpaceX. Isn't he busy enough running like 5 companies? I guess he doesn't trust his own people to hire the right people.

Another thing I thought was really strange is that[b] they asked about my grades in college. Now this makes sense for a new college graduate but asking a 18-20 year veteran about 20-25 year old college grades is asinine IMO. I have a portfolio of accomplishments and experiences I can share with them and they care about my grade in calculus from 1992?

It's obvious they are shit testing for compliance and possibly getting people to solve problems for free. I wonder if they even took you serious to begin with if you have 20 years in the industry and they troll you (that's essentially what they did) about your grades from 25 years ago.


Also great way to get problems solved cheap
Claim there is a position available, get 20-40 people to come up with a solution for free.

Post: #45

(11-17-2017 10:52 AM)Captainstabbin Wrote:  Musk is the largest recipient of government welfare in the history of the world. He's become a billionaire off of it. But being a welfare queen is never alpha.

Trump is making moves to end Musk's lifeline, the EV subsidy. Once that happens, it's all over. Just look at Tesla sales in countries with no tax-supported sales - Tesla has sold only a handful of cars in Australia, for example. The same thing happened in Hong Kong, EV subsidy was lifted and sales dropped to 0. Right now, CA is looking at an insane deal to push their state subsidy to as much as $40,000 per car. If that passes, Musk will be bailed out for a few years and make himself richer off moronic taxpayers...I GUESS that's a form of business sense, but it's one I don't respect.

Musk is trying to play it off and say he doesn't want subsidies anymore but it's clear he needs them. Stock and bod prices tanked when Trump said he's cutting the EV credit from his tax plan.

The CA bill for the subsidy was turned into a research study instead after some of the legislature complained that it was financing the rich. Won't be implemented for years if ever.

The ZEV credit needs to go away - it is corporate welfare based on climate change propaganda. This is Tesla's only profitable product. The EV tax credit needs to go away as well. It is essentially the middle class subsidizing the weekend cars (2nd and 3rd cars) of the wealthy. Also, in areas where electricity is generated primarily by fossil fuels, the Tesla's are more polluting to the environment to produce and operate than gas powered vehicles. So we are essentially subsidizing the rich to increase their pollution.

Tesla is also a drain on investment in the sustainability space. I'm sure there are many much smaller profitable businesses that are not getting the investments they need to expand because they are drowned out by Tesla's massive hype machine and perpetual cycle of capital raising.

Post: #46

(11-17-2017 10:23 AM)H1N1 Wrote:  I don't know a great deal about Elon Musk or his ventures, but FWIW, I've met a lot of high net worth guys over the last few years, to fundraise for my business - guys with £100m+ from their own successful ventures - and who are consistently successful investors. I'd say the proportion of them that own a Tesla, and rave about it, is about 60-70%. Make no mistake, these guys aren't just buying a toy. One of the common themes I've found amongst successful entrepreneurs is that they view their customers as investors. By buying into Tesla, they are backing the company, the product, and the future direction that it is looking to take.

That's a naive way of looking at it because automobile production is actually one of the worst industries you could invest in next to airlines. Very capital intensive and bankruptcies (strategic or not) are common. Tesla has already made too many mistakes to avoid a bankruptcy from what I can tell. It's not a tech company. Nearly all of their revenues can be tied to automobiles. They don't have any IP like a tech company would and they don't have access to any tech that other automakers can't easily duplicate. They are behind Waymo and maybe even GM now in autonomous driving. They don't have the money to continue making the necessary investments in this area. They created the appearance of being ahead of the competition by rolling out a product that wasn't adequately tested in the AP1 which was later scaled back after driver deaths. Their business appears to be structurally unprofitable. Solar City is a complete mess. The company may have legal issues in the near future with bailing out the Rives at Solar City which still has yet to make any meaningful financial contribution to Tesla's bottom line. They also have some very questionable accounting methods that the company conceals and refuses to clarify. Some very odd things there that don't make sense like losses increasing proportionally with increasing number of vehicles sold. It's possible they could be doing fraudulent things with the accounting. And we could go on all day about the misrepresentations to company has made related to production that have come up far short of estimates which will certainly bring on an avalanche of lawsuits once the stock begins to fall for good. They should also be worried about any misrepresentations they may have made prior to capital raises. Curiously the two largest underwriters for their prior capital raises (Goldman and Morgan Stanley) appear to have distanced themselves from investment in the stock. Over the last few quarters Morgan Stanley has sold out of about 95% of their original position. It makes you wonder if they saw something they didn't like in the company's internal books.

Elon Musk in a nutshell - a great visionary and stock salesman, unquestionably the worst CEO of any large cap stock in the market today when it comes to execution of the business, which will ultimately be the reason for his downfall.

Post: #47

(11-17-2017 02:55 AM)Nordwand Wrote:  Last year, I had a woman on a dating website ask me which school and university I had attended. I was equally dumbfounded.

I think she was trying to take a measure of your social/economic standing.

Think of it this way, how do you think it would make an impression on her if you told her you had gone to a top tier school (Harvard/Yale/Stanford) verses a 2 year college?

Post: #48

(11-17-2017 04:38 PM)Svoboda Wrote:  

(11-17-2017 01:51 AM)Long Haired Samson Wrote:  As for Musk the man. He's an admitted workaholic and complete control freak. I have friends who have worked for Tesla and SpaceX and I have interviewed with both companies in the past. Both companies have a reputation for driving their workers really hard. And that starts with Musk. He has ambitious goals and he only hires people willing to work long hours and put work ahead of one's personal life. They openly admit if you want life-work balance then Tesla and SpaceX are not for you. The interview process is long and involved with both companies.

1. Interview with HR recruiter.

2. Take a 1 hour engineering test that is emailed to you. (Tesla). SpaceX gave me a design problem to solve. I had a week to do it. I spent about 40 hours on it. They got back to me and said they were not going forward with me. No explanation given.

3. If you "pass" the test you have a phone interview with an engineering manager who will grill you with technical questions.

4. If they like you, you have a second phone interview with a group of engineers.

5. If they still like you, you have an on-site interview where you will give a 45 minute presentation.

6. After the interview you will step outside and they decide if they want to continue the interview. If they like what they heard you continue the interview. If they are not impressed the interview is over.

7. They make a decision to make an offer or not.
[/b]
Here is where it gets nuts. Musk musk give final approval to ALL new hires for both Tesla and SpaceX. Isn't he busy enough running like 5 companies? I guess he doesn't trust his own people to hire the right people.

Another thing I thought was really strange is that[b] they asked about my grades in college. Now this makes sense for a new college graduate but asking a 18-20 year veteran about 20-25 year old college grades is asinine IMO. I have a portfolio of accomplishments and experiences I can share with them and they care about my grade in calculus from 1992?

It's obvious they are shit testing for compliance and possibly getting people to solve problems for free. I wonder if they even took you serious to begin with if you have 20 years in the industry and they troll you (that's essentially what they did) about your grades from 25 years ago.


Also great way to get problems solved cheap
Claim there is a position available, get 20-40 people to come up with a solution for free.

No, not at all. They ask all candidates the exact same problem to answer.

It's a way to see how a person thinks through solving an issue. What they're interested in how the person thinks much more than if the answer is right or wrong.

It's also wrong to mock them for not questioning someone with 20 years experience. That's say like saying all 20 year military lifers are the same. Some are still at sergeant, most are in the middle of the pack, will the top are generals. Experience is a plus, but not all experience is equal.

Post: #49

(11-17-2017 04:01 PM)Razor Beast Wrote:  Go listen to their last quarterly conference call. He reminds me of an awkward high school kid winging a class presentation. He also had a month to prepare for that presentation by the way.

Well he is a nerd. Many articles have said that he can be awkward and thus he's become an anti-hero of sorts to the typical Harvard-groomed WASPy CEO.

It's inaccurate to say he had 1 month to prepare for it. He's running 2 billion dollar companies. If you've ever been a team leader or manager before you know it's fucking hard managing 5 people and there's not enough time in a day to do that to accomplish your objectives. Imagine doing that to two billion dollar companies.

Post: #50

(11-16-2017 09:24 PM)Monty_Brogan Wrote:  Electric semis... hahahah!

This is America, not the EU! Our semis run on diesel and run to the moon and back!

The issue is efficiency, and thus cost.

The most efficient gasoline combustion engines only covert 40% of gas into usable energy. Most average around 15-20%

My understanding is that electric vehicles convert around 80% of that.

This all translates to dollars and cents, and will eventually bring down the real cost of goods since transportation is a major component of all pricing.