
Elon Musk hires 2 Newfoundland interns who solved problems at Tesla factory - ranit
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/elon-musk-tesla-newfoundland-interns-hired-1.4663270
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cjensen
Interns are awesome and smart. Never give them garbage work. Give them a
challenge and see if they can handle it. Worst case scenario, you throw away
their work after they leave, and they have learned some stuff.

~~~
toomanybeersies
I thought this was the whole point of summer interns, the other point of
summer interns being that it's a trial run before you decide to hire them full
time after graduation.

That's what my old company used to do (who originally hired me as an intern).
The interns were tasked with a brand new project, something that wasn't
business critical but would be a great new addition to the product.

Then when we came on board full time were were slotted into the regular
development flow.

Using interns as grunts seems like a poor allocation of resources.

~~~
walshemj
Unfortunately a lot of non tier 1 status companies especially in Europe and
the developing world treat "interns" as a way to get cheap workers and abuse
the system.

Non high end tech interns where always treated like grunts especially in high
status industries and often had to work for free.

~~~
felipemnoa
>>often had to work for free.

At least in the USA it is illegal for an intern to work for free if that
intern is adding value to the company.

The relevant guideline is this:

"The employer doesn’t benefit from work the intern is doing, “and on occasion
its operations may actually be impeded.” [1]

[1] [https://www.propublica.org/article/when-interns-should-be-
pa...](https://www.propublica.org/article/when-interns-should-be-paid-
explained)

~~~
true_religion
If you don't have tier one interns and you're not the kind of employer who
knows Nobel laureates like elsewhere in this thread... Then you can probably
just throw away your interns work after the summer. They are just "normal"
college students after all. Personally, I know none of my student work should
have been used in production.

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vonzeppelin
I was really hoping this was about dogs.

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yurishimo
I think this is a nice motivational story for local kids to get excited about
finding their place in the workforce.

When I started working I had no idea that the key to success was as simple as
giving a crap and being consistent in your good work. I figured that it would
take me decades to work on some secret skills to move up, but now I know
that's not true.

~~~
macavity23
Amen. Turn up when you say you will, deliver what you promised, on time, and
generally give a minimal damn, and you’re already ahead of 95% of your co-
workers. I don’t think it will ever stop amazing me.

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misja111
Why is this news? This happens in pretty much every company.

~~~
elhudy
Getting personally hired by the CEO of a $50B company happens in pretty much
every company?

~~~
aerigniobio
GM is worth $50 billion. Do you _really_ want to claim that Tesla is as big as
GM? Tesla has 1/5 the employees of GM, 10% of the revenue, and has sold about
200,000 cars total compared to the 9.6 million GM shipped last year alone. The
story is the same for any other big manufacturer.

Tesla is a pipsqueak. It's just ludicrously overpriced.

~~~
ggg9990
Tesla has 10% of GM’s employees? That’s nuts. Does GM have a lot more
contractors?

~~~
bearcobra
This is based on the wikipedia stats, but GM built ~9,600,000 vehicles with
~180,000 employees in 2017. Telsa built ~100,000 vehicles with ~35,000
employees in 2017

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davebryand
I'm curious in what characteristics Elon saw in these individuals. Solving a
problem once is great, but Elon clearly saw something deeper in them. I wonder
if he sees what Nikola Tesla called the "finer fibers"...

“But instinct is something which transcends knowledge. We have, undoubtedly,
certain finer fibers that enable us to perceive truths when logical deduction,
or any other willful effort of the brain, is futile.” Nikola Tesla

~~~
jannes
Well, according to the article they solved two different problems.

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aphextron
"Startup hires 2 interns." is A1 news.

Can we say this is peak Tesla hype yet?

~~~
swagasaurus-rex
The hype could pull a 787

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ct0
I wish we learned about what problem they solved.

~~~
grecy
Elon did say they were having a hackathon to fix problems on the two major
bottleneck robots the other day...

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patrickg_zill
It has an undertone of humor, because in Canada people from Newfoundland are
often the butt of jokes, sort of like in America we have jokes about rednecks
or Fark-style "oh, Florida again!" observations.

So to have 2 "Newfies" fix problems at a high tech enterprise like Tesla is
both a bit of pride and a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor.

~~~
KSS42
Woah, there! Don't use the N word. It's Newfoundlander.

[https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-
newfoundlande...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-
newfoundlanders-call-out-anthony-bourdains-tv-show-for-using/)

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Endama
Honest question here, it's my understanding that a bunch of states have laws
that state something along the lines of:

Interns can only be interns if they do work that A. Primarily benefit their
learning and growth and B. Their labor would not normally be done by a full
time employee.

Is this understanding correct? If it is, wouldn't these two interns constitute
a breach of said policy?

~~~
filoleg
The rule you mentioned is for unpaid interns only. Paid interns can do any
work that full time employees do, and that's exactly what all big tech
internships are about.

~~~
Endama
Ah, thank you for the clarification!

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zerr
I guess they never got a chance to negotiate offers...

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ballenf
Great for these guys.

But it really makes me think that Tesla has big problems. There just shouldn't
exist problems that relatively untrained eyes can spot and fix in short order.
Maybe this is related to production difficulties overall?

And don't get me wrong, the fact that the solution was accepted, implemented
and rewarded so quickly is a testament to Musk (and his managers). My point is
just that either this was lightning striking or the production line has
inexcusable issues -- that is low-hanging opportunities for improvement.

~~~
freyir
> _There just shouldn 't exist problems that relatively untrained eyes can
> spot and fix in short order_

Many companies have big glaring inefficiencies that employees become blind to
over time. Often times, new hires will be acutely aware of them, but won't
speak up because they're new. Within a few weeks or months, they just become
acclimated to the situation and work around it.

~~~
zafka
I second this. I work in a rather large company, and believe me, there are
"opportunities" everywhere. The trouble is there is usually such a level of
bureaucracy, that it takes real effort to push a change.

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NVRM
What a pile load of propaganda.

~~~
graeham
For Tesla or Newfies?

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sparrish
TLDR; Two engineers with marketable skills get jobs. Slow news day in
Newfoundland?

~~~
r-s
I was traveling in Newfoundland last summer (Deer Lake) and someone phoned
into the radio station reporting that they saw an overly large moose. This may
be the biggest story of the year.

~~~
maxxxxx
Having to listen to CNN during lunch breaks this is refreshing. The world
needs less exciting news.

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tytytytytytytyt
What actual problems did they solve?

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vzaliva
As somebody who has been in a similar situation, I must warn that accepting
Elon's offer could be perilous to them in long term. It looks like at least
one of them will be dropping out of school before graduating to start working
for Tesla. Later in his career, he might regret that. It is cool to impress
big company and get a job, but if he is as smart as it sounds, he will have no
problem finding a job after graduation.

~~~
DubiousPusher
Speaking from the software side, it pretty much always seems better to take
the job and leave school if you have to. Once a person has a couple years work
experience I don't really even care if they went to school at all.

~~~
walshemj
Not all employers are as broadminded I suspect I didn't get past a screen for
one of the FANGS. I suspect the Spanish recruiter saw I had not got a degree.
But ignored the fact my fist Job was on the campus of Cranfield at a world
leading RnD organisation - Cranfield being a Masters and Phd only University
at the time :-)

