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Tesla.com - "Transitioning to Tesla Vision"

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Let the idiots hate Tesla and doubt Elon. While he makes history every day!
It's quite interesting how many deep Elon defenders need to call the other side "idiots," FUDsters, or other derogatory terms in order to dismiss them without considering their substance at all. It's right out of many propaganda or cult textbooks. It really doesn't help the idea that you are critically considering the information or other positions, or that you are interested in any other point of view except your own. We'd all be well served in these discussions to move away from such language and personal attacks.
 
Elon has his foibles as we all do, but I think it's a massive failure of both understanding and interpretation to categorize him as a greedy liar who hasn't really accomplished much on his own talent.

To ignore or dismiss these foibles is an issue as well. Elon is a liar- communications like "funding secured" make that clear, and his pedo attacks after the Thai cave situation are beyond the pale and show some deep narcissism and willingness to hurt other people out of spite. He's a pretty broken human, which isn't unusual, and his broad communication access and deep resources make this even more harmful.

Anyone who wants to ignore that is equally disingenuous as those who claim he's done nothing on his own. I personally never meant to indicate that, but I do also doubt that he is the primary inventor or designer of most things at Tesla. The "Elon designs everything, is a great person that is just trying his best, and may just be the next Einstein" sounds a bit cult-like. Elon has clearly accomplished much, and in some areas made the world a better place. He's made it worse in some areas too, in ways that he could have easily avoided.

Ask yourself- if Elon dies tomorrow, will Tesla stock go to 25% of the current value? If not, then maybe he isn't really the singular force some people make him out to be.
 
He’s got Aspergers and that effects his behavior/judgement in both good and bad ways depending on your perspective.

Admittedly he may use it to excuse some behavior but a lot of people with disabilities do so in all kinds of ways. I believe some of his missteps are because he’s on the spectrum and he (usually) gets a pass when combined with his myriad achievements which are, IMO, unparalleled in the modern day.
 
He’s got Aspergers and that effects his behavior/judgement in both good and bad ways depending on your perspective.
You mean Elon claimed it once on SNL.
Elon has said a lot of other things that were not true, many to cover his other insecurities and behaviors.
For all we know, he self diagnosed aspergers, just like he self diagnosed FSD being out in two weeks. Why do we believe him here when we're told to ignore other things he says?
 
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I believe him. I’ve known people on the spectrum and they have similar traits. I’ve followed most of his public statements for many years and he’s obviously not your ‘average Joe’ in many subtle/not so subtle ways. I was personally surprised that I didn’t figure it out before he announced it.

you expect him to keep reminding everyone over and over?? He’s probably embarrassed by it, and it obviously took a lot of courage to announce it like he did. Imagining that anyone (especially such a public figure in a very public forum) would lie about something like that is kind of offensive.
 
Imagining that anyone (especially such a public figure in a very public forum) would lie about something like that is kind of offensive.

He lied about having funding secured for taking Tesla private, and he accused someone of being a pedophile with zero evidence. Those are highly offensive things Elon has done that give anyone a good reason to question what he says and what his motivation is. Given Elon's history, it should never be offensive to question something he says, it should be the first step. He's a master marketer, with a very deep understanding of people and what motivates them.

The thing is, it doesn't matter. He does not get a free pass due to Aspergers, so who cares if he has it? Asperger's doesn't make you make up things and post them on twitter, and it doesn't make you say "self driving is a solved problem and is two weeks away" for 5 years straight. It doesn't make you take $5000 for FSD in 2017 when any value for that is years away.
 
...I personally never meant to indicate that [he's done nothing on his own], but I do also doubt that he is the primary inventor or designer of most things at Tesla. The "Elon designs everything, is a great person that is just trying his best, and may just be the next Einstein" sounds a bit cult-like.
I see people saying he's a genius. I cannot say otherwise, but mostly I think he's very important in fostering development of technologies that would otherwise be progressing much more slowly or almost not at all (ironically to this community, self-driving may prove to be the worst example of that statement - depends whether Tesla beats everyone to general affordable L4, or if Tesla gets there somewhat concurrently or even falls behind on failed technical bets). The genius characterization can be taken several ways but I already addressed the use of the Einstein comparison as understandable but maybe not apt.

I certainly don't have the impression that Elon himself, though he is quite technically-minded, has ever claimed that he designs all the FSD stuff himself. In the well-known Autonomy Day presentation He enthusiastically put Andrej Karpathy for ML explanation, Pete Bannon for the silicon design etc., praised their expertise glowingly, and never intimated that he Elon really made the key design decisions.

If people say that Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world, that Solomon built the great Temple, that Edison invented the modern light bulb, those statements are not meant to imply solitary personal action. These were accomplished be armies, civilizations and technical teams. But the immortalized leaders deserve their fame and credit (or blame) for inspiring and directing events.
Elon has clearly accomplished much, and in some areas made the world a better place. He's made it worse in some areas too, in ways that he could have easily avoided.

Ask yourself- if Elon dies tomorrow, will Tesla stock go to 25% of the current value? If not, then maybe he isn't really the singular force some people make him out to be.
Actually I'd guess it would have a shock short-term effect but one would be a fool to put a number on it. Tesla might go on without Elon Musk like Apple goes on without Steve Jobs, but that is actually a credit to their influence rather than a demonstration of their irrelevance.

I can say that if Elon hadn't come along, it's vastly more likely that Tesla (had it even survived) would have continued to be somewhat of an automotive curiosity rather than a burgeoning, pioneering worldwide giant in cars, solar energy and potentially HVAC. Outside of Tesla, the already stunning importance of SpaceX and very possibly a yet-to-be realized major contribution of Boring are all attributable to Elon's direction. Elon has already been a singular force in all these, despite that he doesn't architect, design and manufacture the products with his own two hands. I see no evidence that he ever narcissistically claimed such fantasies; it would be laughable.
 
This is rich, coming from somebody that started a thread on these forums questioning whether Elon Musk was an engineer or not!

🤡🤣🙄
musk is no genius. he's a greedy ceo who makes a ton of mistakes.

not at all clear to me why he has such a fanbase. then again, the orange idiot has a huge fanbase too.

tesla, as a company, is a major group effort and would continue along - I'd argue even better - if elon left and someone else more mature and responsible took over. the cars have some very good points and some truly horrid points. the designs have some good and some bad. they lead the industry in some areas and lag behind sorely on others.

I see no sign of genius, here. just a ceo with a time edge over other vendors - and the lead is lessening by the year as the others get to do their 1.0 efforts without making the design and implementation mistakes that tesla did by being one of the first. that means that in 5 years or less, there will be competition in this space and you'll find that other vendors may also have some really cool features and design elements.

elon did take a risk earlier and I'll give him credit for that, but a genius - nah. not even partially close. he was at the right place at the right time and had the right amount of capital to spend/invest.

I'm still waiting to hear what designs HE is 100% responsible for. all I hear is bragging words but nothing that HE has done to warrant such hero worship, to this extreme.

his company gets more credit for pushing out the tesla cars than he does. I never give ceo's credit when its the workers who design and build and debug them. he writes the checks and gives some orders but he's not the designer even though many of you seem to THINK that's the case!
 
musk is no genius. he's a greedy ceo who makes a ton of mistakes.

not at all clear to me why he has such a fanbase. then again, the orange idiot has a huge fanbase too.

tesla, as a company, is a major group effort and would continue along - I'd argue even better - if elon left and someone else more mature and responsible took over. the cars have some very good points and some truly horrid points. the designs have some good and some bad. they lead the industry in some areas and lag behind sorely on others.

I see no sign of genius, here. just a ceo with a time edge over other vendors - and the lead is lessening by the year as the others get to do their 1.0 efforts without making the design and implementation mistakes that tesla did by being one of the first. that means that in 5 years or less, there will be competition in this space and you'll find that other vendors may also have some really cool features and design elements.

elon did take a risk earlier and I'll give him credit for that, but a genius - nah. not even partially close. he was at the right place at the right time and had the right amount of capital to spend/invest.

I'm still waiting to hear what designs HE is 100% responsible for. all I hear is bragging words but nothing that HE has done to warrant such hero worship, to this extreme.

his company gets more credit for pushing out the tesla cars than he does. I never give ceo's credit when its the workers who design and build and debug them. he writes the checks and gives some orders but he's not the designer even though many of you seem to THINK that's the case!

My dude, you live in Silicon Valley, surely you must have run into some people who've worked with Musk. I know a handful who've worked directly with him.

Dude is highly competent.
 
I have worked with people who worked with him. they ALL highly advise against working with him. I swear to ${DEITY} I'm not making this up. VP's and managers and invidual contributors - all saying the same thing. all ex-employees of the company that went on to the next 'car thing'.

as you said, I'm right in the middle of silicon valley and I'm in the same field. I'm so very aware of what's going on for autonomous efforts in the bay area - and that's one reason why I'm just NOT as impressed with tesla as some of you seem to be. I write firmware, I work on the hardware, I run lots of tests and I get updates on the industry regularly. people join our company and some some from tesla. some leave and they go on to other bay area startups, most staying in the auto field.

we all talk. we all know what's going on. I guess its a benefit of being 'here' and being in the field.

for those that want to listen and possibly hear an uncomfortable truth, tesla has no super powers that other vendors don't also have (ie, hiring ability and budgets to get things done). tesla had a time advantage but that is also a liability in that once you invest so much in one direction of code and design, to forklift undo that is a huge effort. if you start 'late', you get to see the mistakes others made and you skip them.

the other vendors are not long behind tesla. and a lot of tesla guys left tesla and went elsewhere. its what happens in the bay area. 2 years stay in a job and then move on to give/get more experience elsewhere.

I don't have any reason to think that retention at tesla is any higher than other bay area companies. elon pisses people off and sooner or later, you'll get tired of that. they all do. toxic personalities like his only attract people for so long before they throw in the towel.

again, all typical bay area. and tesla is, in many ways, just another bay area company. they make a great product in many ways, but hey, silicon valley is known for fostering innovation and this was not super unique. there may not be 1000's of examples but there are certainly 100's of them. tesla is firmly planted in that group, but I would not say they are more important than that.
 
Karpathy on working with Elon Musk: "He's an incredible person, I'm still trying to map out his superpowers. Incredible intuition even with lack of information. Great judgement. He's a double edged sword because he wants the future yesterday. You have to have a certain attitude to tolerate that. If you can, you will thrive at Tesla."

I'll trust Karpathy over some anon on the interwebs. After all, Karpathy led the traffic control, fsd beta, and Tesla Vision features, which are above and beyond what any other company can achieve now and (for the next 1-3 years IMO).

Karpathy is not prone to hyperbole. He speaks of the challenges and unknowns of fsd development in his talks. I trust his intuition. He's also sacrificed a lot for Elon, Tesla, and the pursuit of fsd. You can tell he's poured his heart and soul into it, so we have to wonder if Elon is such a horrible person to work for, why does Karpathy "fall for it."
 
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if Elon is such a horrible person to work for, why does Karpathy "fall for it."



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Karpathy might care about his vision but money still counts. I am sure Tesla pays him really well.
its usually about the stock, not the pay, at that level.

they have very different comp packages from regular workers. every company that has a tech edge has a few key people and they are held with 'golden handcuffs'. the rest, they get some - a calculated amount that is enough to keep them for their useful duration while not rewarding them too much (lest the commoners get spoiled).

the golden handcuffs thing does not happen every place, but when it does happen to you, you'll stay thru quite a lot.
 
He would be at waymo if it was about the money for him.

For Karpathy it's all about his vision of software 2.0 and putting it into practice.
LOL

if he's independanty wealthy, then maybe. but usually it IS about the money and/or stock.

what world do you live in? by the things you say, I really wonder sometimes.
 
Karpathy is not prone to hyperbole. He speaks of the challenges and unknowns of fsd development in his talks. I trust his intuition. He's also sacrificed a lot for Elon, Tesla, and the pursuit of fsd. You can tell he's poured his heart and soul into it, so we have to wonder if Elon is such a horrible person to work for, why does Karpathy "fall for it."
what people say in an interview is entirely separate from how they feel inside. that goes without saying - and yet ...

in fact, its more the rule than the exception that you end up staying because the job is paying well (or will pay well in the future), because you are growing and learning things, because you feel you are making a real diff in the world. nowhere is the statement 'the boss is why I am staying'. in fact, its usually the boss that makes you want to leave, not the tech or even your co-workers!

when you invest a lot in your algorithms and design and codebase, even if the boss is a total jerk, as long as you are allowed to continue, you'll be happy. the boss being good or bad is often way down in the prio list IF you are really close to amazing tech and the opportunity (and company name) have a high value in peoples' minds.