Bruce Scott, the co-founder of Oracle says, “I remember Larry very distinctly telling me one time: Bruce, we can’t be successful unless we lie to customers.” And adds: “All the things that you would read in books of somebody being a leader, he wasn’t. But he was tenacious; he would never give up on anything.” [0]
Elon stretches the truth constantly. Should be a good fit.
That's putting it gently. Putting aside his twitter spats, Tesla is still prominently advertising "Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars"[0] even though their cars do not contain LIDAR, which essentially every expert in the field unconnected to Tesla seems to agree is necessary to implement Level 5 self driving cars[1][2].
Level 5 self driving is still theoretical at this point, and theoretically speaking, there is no reason to assume LIDAR is absolutely necessary for it. Computer vision based pipelines are theoretically capable of providing the same depth information as LIDAR, using stereo, camera arrays or even monocular SLAM.
The main obstacle for self-driving car is much more on the processing side than on the sensor side. After all, humans are able to drive with audio + stereo vision that's not even 360 degrees.
It could very well be that the reason Tesla's statement about "full self-driving car HW" is inaccurate is because of the lack of sufficient onboard computing power rather than the lack of sensors (IIRC they have an Nvidia X2 and GP106 onboard, which only have a total of about 4 SPFP TFLOPs).
> their cars do not contain LIDAR, which essentially every expert in the field unconnected to Tesla seems to agree is necessary to implement Level 5 self driving cars
Calm down a second.
Elon/Tesla are trying to do things differently/do things that other people are not or think can't be done.
To name a few"
Every "export in the field" said you can't land an orbital class booster vertically.
Every "expert in the field" has not figured out how to save billions and years digging tunnels.
Every "expert in the field" seems to design electric cars that look like a cartoon joke.
Every "expert in the field" was pretty sure Tesla could never be profitable.
Don't confuse "has never been done before" with "Can't be done". Let the results speak for what's possible.
> But he was tenacious; he would never give up on anything.
To be fair, in my mind this is the one most common trait I find in successful entrepreneurs and leaders. I've seen leaders who I didn't think were particularly bright, or extroverted, or empathic, but man, did they not get stressed out by obstacles that came in their way. They either sidestepped them or overcame them, but they did not dwell on them and let those obstacles lead to self doubt.
This is one reason why I think sociopaths are over-represented in leadership positions. They are not burdened by a conscience that can lead to self doubt in times of stress. Of course, it's possible to have this "does not get discouraged by big obstacles" attitude and not be a sociopath, but it is certainly an area where sociopaths have a natural advantage.
I think there's a driver there that "the rest" of us just don't have. I enjoy an easy life. I don't want to work hard; that's not my driver in life. Therefore by this measure I will never be "successful".
Fortunately for me I'm happy with my own definition of "success".
Is it that they don't get stressed, or that they are great at hiding it to project an air of confidence at all times. And how would you tell the difference?
I agree but I'd like to add that in my opinion "successful" is probably quite risky to use in general, meaning that there are multiple levels (e.g. successful for yourself, for the company/government, for the investors/people, for the future maintainability, etc...) and timelines (e.g. now, in 1 year, in 10 years, ...). For example Stephen Elop can probably be considered "successful" as having managed to be CEO of Nokia for a while, but not the same could be said for the company itself (not sure about its investors)?
In any case I think that it would be safe to say that sociopaths have at least the embedded advantage of being "quicker", as they most probably ponder less than other people about in/direct consequences of their actions.
Larry Ellison is a visionary. Seems like all visionaries have been called liars by some. Steve Jobs is said to have had a “reality distortion field”. Elon Musk is a visionary. Are they all “liars” or do “visions” seem like stretching of the truth to us? Are visions simply extensions of the “truth”?
After his failure, as virtually the only Theranos board member with a high-tech background, to provide any good advice on tech development to Elizabeth Holmes, this seemed incredible to me. Then, I read this in the statement: "Larry is also a big believer in Tesla’s mission, having purchased 3 million shares earlier this year."
So, Musk was required to introduce more outside independence to his board, per agreement with the government. He chose one of the least credible board members he could, and one who owned a lot of shares in Tesla to boot. Aha. I think I understand now.
Owning shares is not a negative. It's a positive. It means that he's more aligned with shareholders than with management.
Boards full of non-shareholders tend to prioritize the paycheck they get as board members, so they tend to not want to rock the boat or get into conflicts with mangement.
Those that are shareholders first tend to have a bigger incentive to confront or fire management if they start doing things that are bad for shareholders.
Does this mean that a company should use somebody who owns a lot of shares during bad times (when some drastic measure is needed to bring the company back into profitability), and normal paycheck-people during normal times (to ensure that no big risk is taken without reason)? (genuinely asking)
Shareholders that own a large enough chunk of the company often do get a seat on the board. That's pretty normal. The board is supposed to represent the shareholders' interests, after all.
It is two very large egos. But, wasn't Ellison a board member for Apple when Steve Jobs was CEO? So apparently he can get along with other big egos pretty well.
My thoughts exactly. I've lusted over the Model S for years, and the minute that they become available in my country I'll be the first in line.
But, now that means doing business with a company owned by One Real Asshole Called Larry Ellison? I wouldn't dare. The way his most well-known company treats its clients is so grotesque that I wouldn't even want to work at a company that uses its products. They are extremely abusive.
For the first time in Tesla's history, with all its obstacles and negative press, I now fear for the brand reputation.
Tesla is not “owned” by Larry Ellison. He is just one among many directors in the board, who have a limited set of responsibility to advocate for shareholders and provide corporate governance. They don’t really play major role in execution let alone ownership. Tesla is a public company and is owned by shareholders.
Larry's second day:let's introduce a pricing model that confuses customers, nickels and dimes them constantly and requires enormously expensive upgrades to do things the current car and all our competitors already do for free.
3 million shares. Am I doing the math wrong or is that somewhere in the ball park of 500M to 1B depending on when they were purchased? That's quite a display of confidence.
The same guy who encouraged Elizabeth Holmes to ignore her engineers in favor of over the top promotion. Also a board member who failed (or chose not) to detect the underlying fraud...
Every time I consider closing out my Tesla short position something like this happens and I get more confident that something is awry.
I'm no fan of Ellison or Oracle. But a guy worth $60 billion with decades long ties and influence in media and government investing in TSLA and serving on its board is not something that should make shorts happy.
This. It’s not surprising at all how emotional and “short” sighted people are being about Ellison because “Oracle sucks”.
I despise Oracle as much as the next guy but if I were in Elon’s shoes I’d want Ellison on my board. The car business is tough, really tough. At one point the database business was really tough. Ellison achieved a near monopoly. Despite our views on the quality his software. Tech people were not his customers, CIO’s were. He gave them exactly what they wanted.
Ellison is shrewd, not stupid. Churning out shit cars would be stupid. Helping Elon cut waste and increase sales would be shrewd. Perhaps Ellison, if anything, could temper Elon’s boundless optimism and pet projects.
This guy built a company that services most of the data infrastructure of the world and pumps 15 billion of cash every year- but you remember him by what advice he gave to one person ; that just seems unfair.
Oracle does not serve most of the data infrastructure anymore. That is a thing of the past. They are struggling terribly and it probably will get worse considering how the big 3 cloud providers move successfully forward and Oracle loses ground daily.
This was my thinking... Ellison spend the early part of Oracle's career overselling, then locking people into a product which they were now stuck with using. It also had the double impact of pricing out honest competitors.
One of the BIGGEST things we need to do is STOP punishing honest companies and politicians.
In the 2008 financial crisis we BAILED OUT banks who basically gambled.
Banks who were honest didn't benefit by being honest. They should have been able to buy up the entire industry at a penny.
The political system has the same issue now. Trump lies and the GOP continues to support him. Honest politicians lose because people want to be told what they already "know" not hard truths.
It's impressive how if we just took women's allegations of sexual assault seriously we would also employ a lot less incompetent, over-compensated rich men to jobs they are terrible at.
Have opened and closed a tesla short multiple times and it only ever frustrates me more each time. I'm hoping this bear market will push it down where it should be for once and all.
Cripes. The "pedo guy" thing made me cringe and reaffirmed that Elon is a fallible human, but this is the first time as a Tesla owner I'm worried about the leadership of the company.
Lazlo Bock, who held a similar position at Google (head of HR) doesn’t seem to have had his own Wikipedia page until the publication of his book in 2015 (the coincidental timing suggests either people didn’t take note of him until the book, or his PR people helped get the Wikipedia article going).
I think the issue with these kinds of things is generally coming up with enough citable facts to create a full article. This seems easier with actors and musicians than with executives.
"Senior manager" isn't a remarkable achievement. It's just a role or position in a company that needs to be filled in. She happened to be the one who got picked (for various reasons). If she founded a company with $1B profits a year, it would be a different story.
This was downvoted, perhaps because people read your comment as being dismissive or contemptuous of her achievements, which I don't think you really meant to do.
I think the point you meant to make is that being a senior manager at a big company doesn't rate highly enough to warrant a dedicated Wikipedia page - which is more a comment on Wikipedia's notability criteria.
Let's agree that it is impressive and commendable for her to have achieved such a level of seniority at Walgreen's.
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Elon stretches the truth constantly. Should be a good fit.
[0]: https://techcrunch.com/2010/12/01/larry-ellison-hearsay-we-c...
That's putting it gently. Putting aside his twitter spats, Tesla is still prominently advertising "Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars"[0] even though their cars do not contain LIDAR, which essentially every expert in the field unconnected to Tesla seems to agree is necessary to implement Level 5 self driving cars[1][2].
[0] https://www.tesla.com/autopilot
[1] https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/mobileye-ceo-tesla-self-d...
[2]https://www.wired.com/story/lidar-self-driving-cars-luminar-...
The main obstacle for self-driving car is much more on the processing side than on the sensor side. After all, humans are able to drive with audio + stereo vision that's not even 360 degrees.
It could very well be that the reason Tesla's statement about "full self-driving car HW" is inaccurate is because of the lack of sufficient onboard computing power rather than the lack of sensors (IIRC they have an Nvidia X2 and GP106 onboard, which only have a total of about 4 SPFP TFLOPs).
As someone that doesn't know anything about self-driving cars, how can this be true? Humans can drive cars with only visual input. Why can't AI?
Calm down a second.
Elon/Tesla are trying to do things differently/do things that other people are not or think can't be done.
To name a few"
Every "export in the field" said you can't land an orbital class booster vertically.
Every "expert in the field" has not figured out how to save billions and years digging tunnels.
Every "expert in the field" seems to design electric cars that look like a cartoon joke.
Every "expert in the field" was pretty sure Tesla could never be profitable.
Don't confuse "has never been done before" with "Can't be done". Let the results speak for what's possible.
To be fair, in my mind this is the one most common trait I find in successful entrepreneurs and leaders. I've seen leaders who I didn't think were particularly bright, or extroverted, or empathic, but man, did they not get stressed out by obstacles that came in their way. They either sidestepped them or overcame them, but they did not dwell on them and let those obstacles lead to self doubt.
This is one reason why I think sociopaths are over-represented in leadership positions. They are not burdened by a conscience that can lead to self doubt in times of stress. Of course, it's possible to have this "does not get discouraged by big obstacles" attitude and not be a sociopath, but it is certainly an area where sociopaths have a natural advantage.
Fortunately for me I'm happy with my own definition of "success".
In any case I think that it would be safe to say that sociopaths have at least the embedded advantage of being "quicker", as they most probably ponder less than other people about in/direct consequences of their actions.
So, Musk was required to introduce more outside independence to his board, per agreement with the government. He chose one of the least credible board members he could, and one who owned a lot of shares in Tesla to boot. Aha. I think I understand now.
Boards full of non-shareholders tend to prioritize the paycheck they get as board members, so they tend to not want to rock the boat or get into conflicts with mangement.
Those that are shareholders first tend to have a bigger incentive to confront or fire management if they start doing things that are bad for shareholders.
Dead Comment
But, now that means doing business with a company owned by One Real Asshole Called Larry Ellison? I wouldn't dare. The way his most well-known company treats its clients is so grotesque that I wouldn't even want to work at a company that uses its products. They are extremely abusive.
For the first time in Tesla's history, with all its obstacles and negative press, I now fear for the brand reputation.
Edit: reading others’ posts about him in this thread. Okay, wow. Not sure how accurate this information is though.
Which Sun didn't have any issue with Google about the use of Java for Android. But Larry did. He saw $$$.
Maybe I am wrong about the above but that is my impression of what I have read. Open to corrections.
Dead Comment
Every time I consider closing out my Tesla short position something like this happens and I get more confident that something is awry.
I despise Oracle as much as the next guy but if I were in Elon’s shoes I’d want Ellison on my board. The car business is tough, really tough. At one point the database business was really tough. Ellison achieved a near monopoly. Despite our views on the quality his software. Tech people were not his customers, CIO’s were. He gave them exactly what they wanted.
Ellison is shrewd, not stupid. Churning out shit cars would be stupid. Helping Elon cut waste and increase sales would be shrewd. Perhaps Ellison, if anything, could temper Elon’s boundless optimism and pet projects.
One of the BIGGEST things we need to do is STOP punishing honest companies and politicians.
In the 2008 financial crisis we BAILED OUT banks who basically gambled.
Banks who were honest didn't benefit by being honest. They should have been able to buy up the entire industry at a penny.
The political system has the same issue now. Trump lies and the GOP continues to support him. Honest politicians lose because people want to be told what they already "know" not hard truths.
Their position on coal is a good example.
There was no "gambling." The system was rigged, and the bailout proved that the rigging went all the way to the top.
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:History/Laszlo_Bock
http://www.walgreensbootsalliance.com/about/senior-managemen...
Deleted Comment
I think the point you meant to make is that being a senior manager at a big company doesn't rate highly enough to warrant a dedicated Wikipedia page - which is more a comment on Wikipedia's notability criteria.
Let's agree that it is impressive and commendable for her to have achieved such a level of seniority at Walgreen's.
Dead Comment