
Elon Musk: Just walk out of bad meetings - ikeyany
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43809674
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djrogers
That's not actually what he said - the article cuts his quote in half, and
seems to attribute sentiment that's not there:

"Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t
adding value. It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and
waste their time."

This is a weird, and somewhat sensational, interpretation of that line in the
memo. It is clear that the mandate is to only hold useful meetings, only as
often, and for as long as they're necessary. Nothing strange about that kind
of mentality...

~~~
mehrdadn
Could you explain what the massive implication difference between the quote
and the paraphrase is? I'm not seeing it for some reason.

~~~
carlosdp
I think the big difference is in the actual quote, he's not saying walk in to
a meeting and say "this is dumb" and leave. He's saying the meeting might
start out being useful, but then end up slowing down or going into a tangent,
and when it just becomes corporate speak and the topic doesn't actually
interest you, you should leave or the meeting should probably end there.

~~~
noselasd
Not only that - the meeting might be highly useful and productive, but not to
_everyone_ summoned.

i.e. those that find themselves in a meeting where they are not needed or have
nothing to contribute should leave - however that isn't saying anything about
the actual meeting being good or bad.

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LandR
I hate time wasting meetings, I was on a conference call one time that had
gone on for over 90 minutes over a completely inane decision. At one point I
got up from my desk, left the building and went and bought a box of doughnuts
from a store five minutes from office. I came back a d had missed nothing and
no one had noticed I was gone. utterly pointless.

I'm sure the majority of these pointless meetings are just organised by
"business" people to justify their jobs. If they aren't in meetings what would
they actually do with their day...

The meeting was a discussion for what limit to put on number of items for a
proposed new kanban column. 90 minutes to discuss if it should be zero or one,
they couldn't agree so ditched the entire column proposal altogether.. Sigh.

Thus was at a time where we already I think 13 columns on our kanban because
of someone spending all day seemingly working on dev process and i guess
columns were there way to show they had done somethinf....

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erikb
says the guy who still has a few millions on the bank when he drops all his
jobs. This is really the kind of stuff where an entrepreneur who never really
worked a real job to pay rent (i.e. because he has no alternative) is a really
bad manager. The advise sounds reasonable on paper, but that's simply not how
people work.

~~~
Reedx
Eh, I don't think that's fair. You're talking about someone who used to budget
$1/day for food and showered at the YMCA.

~~~
shanghaiaway
Completely different. It isn't about being wealthy or not. Musk has never had
a 9 to 5 job so he doesn't understand how that world works. Nobody just walks
out of meetings like that.

~~~
erikb
I agree, however I don't think it's "just" the 9-5 job. If you had a big
safety net and could move into your moms big house when sh*t hits the fan,
even then having a 9-5 job you would still not follow some rules. But when you
are so poor (like most people) that you really require not to lose your job,
then is when you really have to do things you don't like just so your manager
doesn't get pissed about you.

~~~
rofrol
Yup, that's why Elon is making a company rule to leave a meeting when you
think you don't contribute to anymore.

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rmason
I shudder to think how much more I could have accomplished if I'd worked for a
CEO who had my back like that! I've had jobs where half my time was coding and
the other half was in meetings. When all I wanted to do was code. Guess that
might be why I was attracted to startups in the first place!

~~~
mehrdadn
He didn't say walk out of meetings if you like to code instead; he said walk
out of unproductive meetings, if they're wasting people's time. There's a fine
line there...

~~~
theseanstewart
The point the parent comment is trying to make is that meetings _are_ a waste
of people's time. Most software engineers will agree that the majority of
meetings are unproductive.

~~~
sidlls
Most software engineers often fail to see value in things that aren't of
immediate interest to them. That doesn't mean meetings are a waste of people's
time.

~~~
mehrdadn
I'm actually worried this is going to backfire massively precisely because
people interpret it so liberally. I hope he realizes what judgment calls he's
asking everyone to make.

~~~
staticautomatic
It will be a test of whether he's hired good people.

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gtirloni
It must be hard to manage a company in the age of online outrage and excessive
media attention. I imagine people will censor themselves in meetings/emails
for fear of it getting 'leaked'. A bit similar to the kind of self-censoring
people will do in authoritarian governments.

~~~
shanghaiaway
This email was meant to leak.

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rwcarlsen
The actual quote has a slightly different meaning than what many are assuming
- as far as I understand the actual quote was this:

> "Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you
> aren't adding value. It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone
> stay and waste their time," Musk writes.

from [http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-productivity-tip-
le...](http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-productivity-tip-leave-
meetings-if-theyre-not-productive-2018-4)

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remir
_" In general, always pick common sense as your guide. If following a “company
rule” is obviously ridiculous in a particular situation, such that it would
make for a great Dilbert cartoon, then the rule should change."_

The entire memo: [https://electrek.co/2018/04/17/tesla-model-3-production-
goal...](https://electrek.co/2018/04/17/tesla-model-3-production-
goal-6000-units-per-week/)

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pascalxus
Come on, would it really be the end of the world, if they got another small
round of investment just until they hit that 6000 a week mark?

If tesla really is as good of an investment as they say it is, then the
situation is nowhere near that dire. From the sounds of it, they're going to
make their 6K per week, it's just a question of when. By all means, be
efficient and cancel those meetings. But you don't need to push employees to
the brink of failure.

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sillysaurus3
_A leaked email outlined other ways staff could help streamline operations.

These include walking out of meetings, sidestepping the chain of command and
ignoring company rules on occasion._

Thought experiment: Imagine you were reading this about Uber, not Tesla. Why
would you feel differently? How about back when Kalanick was CEO?

~~~
madamelic
I'd imagine at a large enough company there are bound to be obviously dumb
rules that some low-level manager invented to power-trip ("All employees must
walk on the right-hand side to walk to the left-most bathroom past 3pm").

My only concern is that it will be less "ignore obviously dumb rules" and more
"ignore safety precautions".

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purplezooey
Elon Musk always has advice for other people that we can't follow because
we're not also rich. Just walk out of meetings. OK.

