What is it Like to Work for Elon Musk?

the Joe Rogan experience now what is the timeline in terms of like does SpaceX have a multiple stage timeline like a timeline for incorporating the dragon crew and then a timeline for the star hopper and then a timeline for additional projects in the future like as is he thinking along these lines of like of like charted out progress oh yeah yeah he's in fact he measures pretty much every major decision by whether or not it brings the day when we have a self-sustainable colony on Mars sooner or later that's the prism by which he makes every like every single decision he makes he makes it through that prism Jesus yeah so he's got an idea and he'll keep pushing and you know he gives us aggressive timelines that we have to work to and we work really hard to try to try to meet him it's hard when you're doing stuff that this does this complicate it to predict exactly how long it's going to take so you know we end up off and falling a little bit behind but we do our best that's the case though with everything that's that crazy right yeah I mean no I mean especially Elon he's never right in his predictions all wacky inventions they're always a little off yeah but we think but but he's so driven you know and he's such a smart guy and and he's he's the most he's really the most driven person I think I've ever met I'll give you a story that to kind of illustrate it once when I first got hired by SpaceX we did a interview with 60 minutes and they interviewed at Elon and and myself and Scott Pelley was a anchor he talked to us and he said to me why did you leave NASA and come work for a space actually had like the best gig in a world you know going up on rockets and stuff why would you do that and I said well if you can go back in time and you were a young engineer and you had the opportunity to like get in on the ground floor and work with Howard Hughes when he was like doing all the crazy stuff he was doing and in his day wouldn't you want to be a part of that Scott Pelley looked at me like with a deer in the headlights Oh cuz I don't think he knew what I was talking about it but I was like that's it but then I realized as soon as I say that like oh my got I just made a terrible strategic error I compared my boss to Howard Hughes and know things didn't end up that well for Howard you know he went crazy right you know what kind of crazy became washed his hands too much and germaphobe he was peeing in jars and like his fingernails grew out like hmm yeah and I was like God now I really kind of stepped in it right you don't say that about the boss right so it took a while it was like months later we were driving in a rental car just the two of us in Florida we were had a meeting at NASA and we're driving back to the airport he got on his airplane to come back to LA and I'm driving the car he's sitting in the passenger seat and I said hey boss remember that time we're on TV and I compared you that Howard Hughes you know I just want you to know I was comparing you to the young dashing starlet dating Howard Hughes not the old decrepit peeing in jars fingernail that's all about the time line yeah and and all I got back was silence now I'm really scared right and I'm sitting there like waiting for him to say something and eland will do this and I he did this on your show right he kind of like if you if he posed to him a serious question he'll consider it and he'll kind of go into this I almost like a trance he'll stare off into spaces and you can see the wheels turning he's like focusing all of his intellect which is considerable on this one question and that's what was happening so I waited and then he turned back to me he said you know Garrett I don't think it's an apt comparison I said okay good good why I'm curious why do you think that and he said well none at Howard none of Howard's designs as brilliant as they were ended up really changing the way we live our lives so we don't send like he made the dispersed goose which is an incredible airplane was all wood you know trying to solve the problem during the war of rationing he said we don't send our our Goods across the oceans and giant wooden airplanes we don't do that the h1 racer was a beautiful airplane but a one-off it never really led to a large designs that changed the way people live their lives so that was his objection was not that like I was comparing him to some creep but that he wants it's really important to him to have the legacy of drastically impacting the way all of us live our lives the kind of the way Steve Jobs did or others that really move the ball downfield for Humanity that's what's driving he's such an unusual human I mean there's very very few people that you could make any kind of rational comparison to other than maybe Nikola Tesla will you really stop and think what he's done yeah and the fact that he does the most simultaneously that he's involved in the boring project he's involved in Tesla and SpaceX all simultaneously and Tesla home solar all the solar panels and the making solar tiles for roofs and he's doing so many different things at the same time it it's it's almost impossible like it I don't understand how he does it yeah I've seen him do it and I still don't understand it you know it's like I've kind of burned myself out just trying to do one of those things yeah there's all of them and and and he does have all the advantages of wealth which helps you know so like he'll have meetings with us and he'll walk out of his last meeting and he'll walk across the street to Hawthorne Airport hop on his jet and he's at Palo Alto in a couple hours and he could be first thing in the morning at Tesla right and he's got a staff to help some and you know he's got those advantages but he he that isn't in any way described what do you or that doesn't explain why he's able to do what he does I don't know how he does it to be honest oh well he's the next stage of humanity yeah if people are evolving he's he's like looking at us from the next spot he's like hey guys I've got some ideas yeah he's just an idea Factory and and he his uh what's really remarkable to me is is is the breadth of his knowledge I mean I've met a lot of super super smart people but they're usually super super smart on one thing and he's able to have conversations with our top engineers about the software and you know the most arcane aspects of that and then he'll turn to our manufacturing engineers and and have discussions about some really esoteric welding process for some crazy alloy and and he'll just go back and forth and his ability to do that across all the different technologies that go into rockets and cars and everything else he does that's what really impresses me well also the lack of burnout because he's been doing it at this incredible rate 16 hours a day for how long is whole life I think that's nuts I know and he's still hungry for it and he is still taking on these new projects and new ideas and yeah you know at that pace seven years was a bad as like as much as I could take I just don't I'd you know I mean I'm very happy exists you know yeah but it's very confusing to me I just feel so stupid when I'm around him the conversations I've had with him like goddamn I'm dumb do what you got to do with what you got I would go that far so his his ultimate goal is to create some sort of a colony on Mars but he believes that this technology will continue to expand to the point where we will be leaving our solar system we will be making human trips into other solar systems into actual deep space yeah I mean certainly hopefully that's you know at some point if we're going to survive you take the really long view you know the solar system is not gonna last forever right it's gonna last plenty long and if my kids are listening at home don't forget freaking out right now no we got plenty of time couple billion years kids relax not in our lifetime they're so funny but but eventually we're gonna have to find a new home if we're gonna last forever mmm and we all hope that we last forever as a species right so at least most of us do so eventually we got to get there but we got plenty of time in it short term the important thing is at least getting out so not in just one place in the solar system because this you know something bad could happen to this planet surely we've got no backup right and particularly if there is a natural situation supervolcano super vodka to interact more you know we're doing a pretty good job of trash in this place all on her own yes yeah we don't really need an asteroid to hit us we're kind of going down the road of making this place an uninhabitable well what we need is someone like Elon who concentrates on the solutions I mean he's always obviously got a full plate in many full plates but someone like him to concentrate on solutions to some of the environmental problems that we've created for ourselves here well that's really that's that was the thought behind Tesla I mean so so Tesla's kind of like plan a he saved this planet and SpaceX was kind of Plan B if you look at it that way it's just so weird to have a guy like that amongst us you know especially having as your boss if you talked to him at all about simulation theory we never a thing is what every time I talk to him we focused on and this is what he does you know he focuses on the thing that we are working on mm-hmm so he just that's one of the ways he does his time management that's one of the ways he is able to do all these things it's like he doesn't sit around and and and and and BS with you about like what's going on with was a neuro-link the company was making the chips at going oh that's right I forgot about that that's the other thing he does that was he does in the way humans interface with data he never said to me like Garrett what do you think about having a chip in your head that like never he doesn't do that he talks to the people who really know about chips and people and putting chips in people's head he talks to them about it so you gonna sign up for that no your face [Laughter] expression you made like no my website got hacked and it freaked me out well they're gonna put wires in your head yeah right that's the idea behind it idea Christ he's probably gonna be inevitable it once it happens I mean I don't want to be an early adopter but once it does happen and it really does remarkably increase your your ability to interface with data is that's the idea right it said it ramps up the bandwidth in which people can access ideas and information it's gonna change the way we interface yeah I mean I could see it being kind of an extreme haves and have-nots situation like you think wow how far behind you are today how left behind you are if you have no internet access right and then this will be kind of it this could be like another level of that yeah I'm worried I'm worried about that yeah I got other things that keep me up at night I get yeah I mean what is it getting crazy nine-year-old and real real world problems [Applause]

Channel: JRE Clips

Views: 3,334,832

Rating: 4.9201446 out of 5

Keywords: Joe Rogan, JRE, Joe Rogan Experience, JRE Clips, PowerfulJRE, Joe Rogan Fan Page, Joe Rogan Podcast, podcast, MMA, Joe Rogan MMA Show, UFC, comedy, comedian, stand up, funny, clip, favorite, best of

Id: GNG6ZzDh9C8

Length: 11min 57sec (717 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 07 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/RandomCollection]

Fecal Friday notwithstanding, I have worked with a former Tesla employee and met a few.

There does appear to be a large level of organizational problems in the company. One worked in engineering and reports that one of the problems is that it is a bit too autocratic around Musk who at times micromanaged details normally not left to someone that high up. There also appear to be work life balance issues. There is a very strong mentality of hustling, so to speak, which is common in Silicon Valley among startups. Compensation is not competitive salary wise, even less so factoring in that the West Coast of the US has very high costs of living. He did not put a lot of faith in the stock, which swung wildly.

At the plant level, Musk came in once a week and there was pressure on the employees to tidy up ones workstations to look good for Musk. While that does happen at every supplier (when the customer comes in), the amount of pressure appears to be far higher. There does appear to be quite a bit of disorganization and one issue was that for many employees, lateral movement within the company was comparatively difficult. The plant does not, as commonly alluded to, have a strong safety culture, quite the opposite.

Training was not adequate for the tasks that they were done and there does seem to be a culture of not being super open to feedback. There does seem to be a lot of office politics and on the plant level, the supervisors tend to have a much worse problem of "picking favourites" than at other plants the former employee has worked at.

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I've also met a few in the sales teams at the dealer locations. Many are actually quite distressed - they wanted to make good quality cars and in many cases were forced to ship to meet targets bad quality products. There does appear to be significant pressure at the service centre locations.

Morale took a large hit after Musk announced that they were going online only and were closing their sales, which did not entirely recover since they reversed course - that's around the time that employee left and he reportedly still keeps in touch with his colleagues, many of whom have left.

There do appear to be serious job security concerns among those who remain.

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On the upside, the people there are usually "true believers" in the mission, which many of the former employees liked.

One thing the staff liked was the more casual dress code, which is common. Not all organizations have that (I have always found this ridiculous in the car industry - business attire is not well suited for factories, even those who are salaried who mostly remain in the office), and even business casual tends to get dirty in many plants if you have to go on the floor every now and then (as I do).

When Elon is not micromanaging, for reportedly the organization is more flat, so sometimes (again there is a huge variance on this), feedback can move up quickly. Again, note earlier I said the organization is not super open to feedback - so employees have to be very careful here. On one hand, this can mean new ideas are rapidly embraced, so long as senior management does not oppose them, but on the other, it means that the ideas can be rolled out without more validation that would be accepted in the rest of the industry. On the other hand, speaking out can be very risky too and may mean termination of employment. Again, feedback is very risky and often not done.

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A lot of it comes down as well I was told to the supervisor and colleagues. The standard deviation of good vs bad colleagues in the organization appears to be much higher than the norm.

The store managers and service staff enjoyed driving the vehicles (and it was considered a perk of the job).

This is however anecdotal information, but again, working in the industry, people come and go across companies. I can however see why Tesla is having difficulties attracting talent in the existing auto industry.

[u/Imthecoolestnoiam]

Anyone thinkin they are in some sort of computer simulation is a lunatic. Now I know where some come up with that lunacy, cause they heard elon talk bout it and oh yes since he is so smart it could actually be true, right? No..

[u/orincoro]

Just look at those hostage video eyes. Ok guyz. Let me translate. I speak both Rogan and Tesla.

Question: Is Elon really practical and organized? Is he a good leader?

Answer: This man is a lunatic who thinks his daily routine is going to help humanity colonize other planets like a fucking supervillain. He has no idea how long anything takes and so he expects whims that change day to day to be delivered in unreasonable time frames and if you don't do what he wants you're killing the future of humanity. I'm dying inside.

Question: Well, that sounds like a living hell of existential dread. Particularly because the lunatic you're talking about is unhinged from reality and believes he's a 1950s Flash Gordon character who can make space death lasers.

Answer: This man cannot be stopped. I cannot escape. Please save me. Joe. Save me. I'm dying Joe. Let me tell you a story: I left a real government position of prominence as a respected engineer to join a cult. They made me shoot a hostage video. I compared my new boss to a manic depressive borderline personality obsessive compulsive serial fraudster who used his power to stalk and intimidate women and once locked himself in a movie theater eating chicken and chocolate and drinking milk collecting his urine in bottles and failing to bathe until his aides managed to extract him and place him in the care of professionals who then monitored him at all times while he devolved into a complete lunatic. The interviewer looked at me in shock and horror and I suddenly feared for my life and regretted this change in my life. For months I obsessively watched for signs that i might be suddenly garroted from behind like in a mob movie. One day I was driving my new boss around in a car like a fucking menial chauffeur when I have 4 PHDs and he was doing lines of coke off the ass of a platinum blond and I asked him: "Sire I commit myself to you in all things and pledge my undying loyalty forever." He paused and tortured me with the emotional anguish of existential fear. Then he said that I was not worthy to enter the kingdom of heaven.

I begged for forgiveness from the God king. The God king then told me that my other gods were false gods. And that in truth they had had no power. That nothing they had ever done was of any meaning. That their impacts on the world were meaningless compared to him. They were all false idols.

I bowed before the one true God. Save me Joe.

Interviewer: This sounds insane and irrational, and I'm afraid that you have lost your mind. I have heard of such figures in my travels. Such as Nikola Tesla. What nectar quantum vacuum energy upon which does he sup to glean such power, if a mere mortal could presume to understand? This is a religious experience for me.

Answer: I am questioning my reality moment by moment. I am lost and alone. I fear that I have lost my soul. Joe. Save me. Save me Joe. Also the God King is extremely rich and can buy many things and people and I now fear a total loss of agency in my life. I cannot escape this hell Joe. I cannot escape.

Interview: Bow before this new God and repent your sins for the sake of all mankind. Elon is your God.

Answer: I want to believe this Joe. They're listening Joe. I can't maintain this pretense for long Joe. Help me. He is everywhere. He thinks he knows everything. He talks to everyone. He gets into every detail of my life and controls it. I cannot sleep. I cannot eat. Joe: I have no mouth but I must scream!!!

Interviewer: His power is unparalleled. There is no escape. There is no end.

Answer: For seven years I endured this agony of being and nothingness. I am no one. My soul is dead. My mind is a fallen leaf. Time is a flat circle. I must escape.

Interviewer: Praise God. Fear God. I am nothing. I am scum. I have sinned.

Answer: I am ALIVE

Interviewer: What does his new testament fortell of our future under his powerful command?

Answer: Elon will rule the universe and change all of existence and outlast our sun and our galaxy and reverse entropy and become one with all of existence.

Interviewer: We are nothing in this world.

Answer: You and I are nothing. I want to die. I must escape. Help me to escape.

Interviewer: We are scum. We are shit. We need our God. We need the arrival of His Son.

Answer: Tesla is our Torah. SpaceX is our Bible.

Interviewer: This conversation makes me deeply uncomfortable. Do you question all of reality?

Answer: God does not answer all my prayers. God does not speak with me. God does not favor me with his light. I am not worthy. He is all. He is existence.

Interviewer: You are dying. You are dying. They will consume you.

Answer: I don't want to go.

Interviewer: It is innevitable. You will love it.

Answer: Joe, this is the end of humanity. I do not sleep. I am dead Joe. I am nothing. Cells interlinked within cells interlinked within cells interlinked within one stem.

[u/OperatorPK]

Highly disturbing

[u/[deleted]]

I'm glad Elon isn't actually in control of SpaceX the way he is of Tesla. Crew Dragon would have been launched over a year ago and there'd be a memorial to the astronauts and whoever else was killed in the process.

[u/alexlesuper]

The guy is a former NASA astronaut that worked for Elon Musk for 7 years at SpaceX. He seemed to have kept the high esteem for the man before and after working for him.

[u/ElonDrumpf]

I am the best employer. People say it all the time, that Elon, he's a great boss. People love me! Everyone else is a loser.