
Tesla CEO Musk Says Company Is Flattening Management Structure in Reorganization - Jerry2
https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-ceo-musk-says-company-is-flattening-management-structure-inreorganization-1526308678
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this_user
Bloomberg article on the same topic:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-14/tesla-
s-c...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-14/tesla-s-churn-
making-it-tougher-for-musk-to-burn-short-sellers)

They also point out that those executives left behind their option packages
which is somewhat of a red flag and begs the question what is going on behind
the scenes.

~~~
InTheArena
Supposedly Doug is taking time off before getting started on the Model Y in a
few months.

We'll see.

~~~
twblalock
I'd have no problem believing it really is a leave of absence. Almost everyone
would be burned out after dealing with the intense pressure and really long
hours for months on end.

I wouldn't necessarily take this as a sign he is planning to jump ship.

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InTheArena
There are rumors floating around that Tesla was very close to their late June
target of 5k/wk after their latest line closure. If that so, I think they have
turned the corner here.

The steps they are taking sure seem to look more like optimize cash-flow after
the R&D is done, rather then a continue full-build to get to max capacity.

Edit since some are downvoting:

Report from Freemont on Model 3 Production line 5/13/2018 (midday):

* 4290- Last 7 days production of M3 * 638- Last 24hrs production of M3

The last line shutdown/retooling had a significant improvement on the speed of
the M3 line. Everything is working in conjunction like intended and no
bottlenecks anywhere. The upcoming May line shutdown for retooling is going to
be much shorter than past, and currently scheduled for May 26-27th weekend.
Shutdown could get moved up if production continues to increase at its current
rate. The sentiment from the line is 5k sustained is pretty much guaranteed
and 6k before end of June is very likely. Bottom line is I was told this is as
good as Tesla employees have felt about the M3 production since production
began.

~~~
mkirklions
>Tesla was very close to their late June target of 5k/wk after their latest
line closure

According to Tesla...

Their numbers this entire year have been highly highly questionable.

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InTheArena
not according to Tesla. This was a leaked report.

Bloomberg is also projecting near 4k/week.

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crb002
I'm curious to see Elon publish rough stochastic simulations of his Tesla
Model 3 assembly lines. Both current and proposed. Full automation without
buffering at several stages requires massive uptime for all segments.

~~~
froindt
I don't avidly follow Tesla, but love reading about production processes. Did
he mention the simulations would be released somewhere?

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vermontdevil
In other words, Tesla losing executives and not able to replace them quickly
enough.

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mkirklions
Depending on the article, it either is Pro-Tesla, or saying what you post.

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Havoc
Musk is sounding a tiny bit out of control lately...

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mkirklions
While I dont believe in Tesla, I still decided to buy Bitcoin instead of short
selling Tesla.

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aerovistae
every single little thing that involves this company has to be front page
finance news, it's so irritating. yesterday there was literally an article
that said "Tesla model S rear ends truck" and if you click into the article,
it didn't even involve autopilot....it was just a normal accident. imagine a
headline that read "Toyota Camry rear ends truck!"

it's so fucking annoying.

~~~
ropeadopepope
They pay a PR company good money to make that happen.

~~~
pooya13
So your theory is that Tesla has hired a PR firm to launch a negative news
campaign against themselves?

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mkirklions
Its not negative news, its news.

Plus, if they pay a company to write a negative article, its not 'really'
negative.

It might look like a negative article, but the words are to convince you that
it really isnt bad.

~~~
pooya13
Do you have any evidence to support that? I would argue that that scenario is
way less likely than ICE / oil companies spending resources on a negative
campaign givsn the current trend of negative Tesla stories making it to the
national news, where as the positive ones do not to the same effect.

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sidcool
Paywall :( Perhaps a better way to earn money than tracking users.

~~~
Kalium
Three business models have emerged for newspapers:

* Be a sponsor's mouthpiece. This works pretty well if you're OK with your news being nothing more than someone's PR department.

* Advertising. This, as you say, hinges entirely on tracking users.

* Subscriptions. Also hinges on tracking users.

In short, you're _absolutely right!_ There could be a better way! I just don't
know of any and can't think of any.

I'm 100% convinced this failure of imagination is just my personal failing,
through. I'm very interested in knowing what this better way could be, and I'm
sure the news industry would similarly be deeply curious. What do you have in
mind that's practical, workable, reliable enough to build a business around,
and in no way, shape, form, or manner involves tracking users?

~~~
dr_
Charge me per article I want to read. 25 or 50 cents? Make it seamless so I
can hit Apple Pay and then read the article. I would do it, and I bet so would
many others.

~~~
AlimJaffer
I genuinely don't see many people doing it, at least not enough to make a
tangible difference to the papers bottom line. The only answer these days is a
subscription service, but I don't want to subscribe to 50+ different ones...
be nice if there was a general 'internet' bill included in your ISP that
distributed the money according to the sites you visited the most. Though
that's a whole tracking/privacy problem once again.

~~~
redfern314
This is similar to the idea mentioned, but again... requires you to be logged
in and tracked. I liked the first implementation of it, not sure about the
current form.
[https://contributor.google.com/v/beta](https://contributor.google.com/v/beta)

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staunch
The key to Elon Musk making Tesla work well is figuring out how Apple works so
well. I have no real idea how Apple manages to be effective and innovative
with 100,000+ employees. I don't think Elon Musk really understands what
they're doing either but I really hope he can replicate it.

The most obvious answer is that Tesla becomes a division of Apple and Tim Cook
helps scale Tesla, as he helped Steve Jobs scale Apple.

~~~
InTheArena
Tim cook is a awesome COO. As a CEO, Apple is squandering all of the
advantages that Steve Jobs left them with. They have been without any clear
direction or product vision for a while now, and continuing debacles like the
Mac Pro situation (5+ years and counting since Apple has a had a competitive
pro stand alone machine), the poor quality of the new Macbook Pro (bad
keyboard, dongle hell), the absolute joke that is the Mac Mini indicates that
Apple is loosing the ability to even evolutionary improve their products.

This is because you don't have a guy with product vision at the top. Instead
you have someone who is great at optimization.

So yes to Tim Cook. No to running Tesla.

~~~
stcredzero
_Tim cook is a awesome COO...So yes to Tim Cook. No to running Tesla._

Isn't operations what Tesla needs right now?

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InTheArena
Operations is, but not at the expense of having a vision of what to deliver.

You can hire and define operations, you can't do the same for product vision.

~~~
InTheArena
What elon needs is a clone of Shotwell from SpaceX. Someone who shares the
vision, but can execute the day to day.

