“Go hardcore”.
That is to say give it your alldevote yourself to something intensely, push hard.
It’s a concept that Elon Musk repeated and tucked into the conversation he had with Twitter employees often on the future of social media and above all of the company. A “question and answer” particularly interesting because it highlighted (also) Musk’s ideas on the management and organization of work. The managerial philosophy, in short, at the basis of the success of his companies. Not surprisingly, the entrepreneur has mentioned several times Tesla e SpaceX.
The meeting
Videos, payments and ecommerce. Musk explains his Twitter to employees: “But we can fail”
by Arcangelo Rociola
“The reason we’re so hardcore about subscriptions is to keep Twitter alive.” He doesn’t mince words, Musk, when he explains that “the company will face tough times” and that “only the paranoid will survive.”
“Only the paranoid survive”.
It is a phrase that belongs to Andrew Grovelegendary engineer and CEO of Intel from 1987 to 1997. Elon Musk made it his own, the impression is that he is wandering around like a mantra in his thoughts.
“I went through the recession of 2000 and 2001 and that of 2008-9 and got a little paranoid about not making it through recessions,” Musk said. I have PTSD from keeping X.com and PayPal alive during the 2000 recession. And keeping Tesla alive during the 2009 recession. It is worth remembering that in 2009 both General Motors and Chrysler went bankrupt. Tesla didn’t, despite being an electric vehicle company in full swing. It was extremely difficult to keep us alive in 2009. And the reason we were able to do that is because we were paranoid. Well then [anche qui a Twitter] we will be paranoid and survive ”.
Paranoia is a disorder based on mistrust and suspicion. It can be used to keep your guard up. But to achieve the objectives you need more. “Being hardcore”, in fact.
“What works in SpaceX and Tesla – Musk explained to Twitter employees – is that people are in the office and they are hardcore. A small team can do a huge amount of work. If you take the team working on Tesla’s Autopilot, that’s about 150 engineers. And they are doing better than competitor teams of 3,000 engineers. I strongly believe that a small number of outstanding people can be highly motivated and can do better than a large number of fairly good but moderately motivated people. This is my philosophy ”.
The case
The Musk Method for Squeezing Employees
by Pier Luigi Pisa
Few and fierce. Like the heroes of Sparta, in short, in the battle of Thermopylae.
But for Musk, the essential thing is that the war for the survival (or success) of a company is conducted in the presence. In the same office.
“With all due respect to remote working, a policy that I also pursue at Tesla and SpaceX, I think you have to spend a reasonable amount of time in the office. Not an insane number of hours. I’ll be doing crazy hours in the office, but I’m not asking everyone else to do it myself. It’s my philosophy: people are much more productive when they are in person because communication is so much better ”.