How Elon Musk Runs Tesla

And one of the things I will say about that is I think Tesla's taking a bad rap for some of that sometimes. But really, the one that was so terrible was the, the body and some of the wiring and like fuse blocks and stuff. We had a lot of problems with. Came from Lotus. Right. Which was garbage. Yeah. I never went to the Lotus factory, but I worked with several people that did, and they went to the Lotus factory as representatives. Tesla.

And where was made in Italy?

England.

England.

Yeah.

Well, they can't make car like.

Yeah, that, like the. Supposedly at this Lotus factory, you could get like beer out of the vending machines and stuff. So you got like drunk Englishmen, you know, putting cars halfway together and sending them to California. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So there was a lot of. Yeah, there was definitely a lot of issues with, with some of that stuff.

But so then the decision at Tesla was make your own stuff.

Yeah. Well, figure it out, because I know.

When I went into the factory or whatever, they make their own seats, they make everything. Right.

Yeah.

Okay, so what was, what was it like working for Elon? Like, what was Elon's management style? And I believe that part of Tesla's advantage is the culture. Their culture is better than Ford because they believe they're doing something new and cool. Right. Like, if you work at Ford and you're in charge of making the new Mustang, you're pretty excited because you feel like you're part of a legacy, but everybody else there doesn't feel like that.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? Well, with Tesla, you feel like you're a part of a legacy. You feel like you're a part of the cutting edge new way of doing things.

Yeah.

So that automatically creates a culture change and ingenuity. And think on your feet where in other companies are, like, I don't want change. Why can't we go back to the old way? You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So what was it like working for him?

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely.

You know, I get that question a lot. Like, what was the, what was the biggest difference going from working to BMW, working on BMWs to going and working on Teslas? And I mean, that's like, you know, I don't even.

It's not coconut.

Like, it's, it's not. Yeah, it's apples and oranges for sure. Like, it's, it's way far apart. It's just, it's just completely different. But yeah, the, the, the mindset.

Wasn'T, you know, what's my lane? What do I do anything like that. The mindset's way more, you know, if you see a hat you can wear, wear it. Like it doesn't matter how many hats you're currently wearing. You know, one more. If it pushes the ultimate goal forward for your department, like that's what, that's what the expectation is.

Get it done. What about. So when you went to the headquarters in Silicon Valley, was it like your dry cleaning was picked up, you got free lunch, everybody's playing ping pong, like what, what is the culture like?

Yeah, so it was interesting. So like after new hire orientation, they take us up and you know, our respective managers came and got us and we like get our laptop checked out and we're going to do that and we go up this flight of stairs and we like round this corner and it's just this huge room.

And our manager starts taking us around and introducing us to different people, you know, that we might be working with or be in communication with or whatever. And so I'd met a lot of these people and it was interesting because especially in the engineering departments, you know, everybody had like a Elon story or something of where they had some project or deadline or something and they were behind or whatever. And all of a sudden like maybe they had never met Elon before, never been, had a lot of FaceTime with him or anything like that. And then all of a sudden he's like in their department.

They're on the radar.

Yeah. Like, and, and you know, and he just gets hyper, hyper focused on that. But it's interesting because it did have this, you know, kind of Silicon Valley feel to it.

You know, where it was kind of relaxed and chill and there'd be these like mass group emails. And I felt like I had an interesting view of it too because I'm a remote employee, right. So I'm there every once in a while, but I don't work there every day or anything like that. And so I kind of got this outsider's view.

And you know, these, these emails would go around for like, like the ping pong club or whatever it was. I don't remember exactly what it was. And you know, Elon would jump on some of those and reply to all through the whole company and like shut those things down and refocus on like.

No ping pong tournament.

Yeah, like you guys are worried about this and we have this deadline going on, you know. So the culture is definitely to like any strayed conversation comes back to the performance objective at hand. Like they had a good environment, like it was it was fun and. And people liked what they were a part of, and they're selling the future and you felt a part of that and all that stuff.

But were they nine to five, though?

No, you were nine to. Whenever it got done right. And. And you figure out the best way. Yeah.

They were killed.

Whether it's fixing a car.

Did you feel like an outsider being a car guy?

It's an interesting question.

I've heard that before, that people coming in from. From.

The car side feel like an outsider.

Yeah. I mean, at new hire orientation, I felt like an outsider because I was, you know, sitting in there with a bunch of MIT students and, you know, my knuckles are still busted from the last car I fixed Friday. So there's a disconnect with that for sure. But. But, yeah, no, I think that's a.

Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment.

That's. It's fascinating to me.

How many people break at Tesla. Did you ever see anybody break?

Yeah.

Corner shivering, like I can't take the pressure anymore.

Yeah.

So I've seen that over the years where people just quit.

Yeah.

Big public quit. You know, executives quit on Elon.

Yeah.

They can't handle it a lot. Like people did with Steve Jobs.

Yeah. Yeah. So I think turnover is definitely a thing. But. Yeah, just you asking that question. There was, you know, one guy that I didn't work with directly, but worked with him quite a bit, you know, that was. That the job just was so taxing that he couldn't find a balance between it. And, you know, he was like, hey, it's going to cost me my personal life or my job. One of the two. I got to make a decision and. Yeah.

You chose personal life.

I think he ultimately did. I think he ultimately did. He ultimately ended up quitting.

Yeah. The dedication is insane. It's fun. Cool. Well, that was. That was a fun show. Fascinating to me to talk more about Tesla and just that, like, I feel like I've been to Tesla and I've been to Detroit and I feel like Detroit's fat and slow.

Yeah.

And Tesla is quick and nimble. Yeah, that's what I feel like.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know any other way to describe it, and I don't mean to offend anybody in Detroit, but it feels slow.

Yeah.

Like there's a lot of. Well, you can't do that and you can't do this and.

Right. Right. It.

Tesla. If it makes sense, they're doing it today.

Yeah.

It's not. Well, we're going to talk about it or have a meeting about it, they're like, no, that makes sense. Do that.

Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's definitely not any. That's the way we've always done it.

Yeah. And you just talk about an industry where managers aren't trained, advisors aren't trained. Like you're doing things the same way you've been doing them since 1930. Right?

Yeah.

And there's a better way. But nobody wants, nobody's talking about it because they're too stuck in their, their way of doing it the way it's always been.

For sure.

It's interesting. Thank you so much for watching this clip of Service Drive Revolution. Now you can catch the full episode on YouTube, iTunes, or Spotify or wherever you consume your podcast. If you have any questions, go ahead and post them in the comments below. Make sure you subscribe and hit the bell icon so you're notified when we post new episodes. I'm Chris Collins and you can find me on Facebook and Instagram at Chris Bulldog Collins. And I'll see you again on the next episode.