There’s a fine line between abusing employees and expecting high performing employees.
Certainly not all cars are high performing cars, and naturally not all cars can be driven as such. Pushing and expecting a Civic to perform like a Ferrari is probably abuse but perhaps a high performer could handle Elon Musk as a driver just fine. So if Elon managed to hire a bunch of high performers and let the lowered performers be wash out or just leave voluntarily… no wonder he’s able to get ahead of his competition.
However, if Elon is truly being unrealistic and abusing people, then Tesla and SpaceX burning out will just be a matter of time.
We’ll just have to wait and see.
The thing that’s easiest to see is wage. If employees are not even making living wages, that’s clearly abuse. Next would be hours. If employees must stay in the factory and sleep with him on the factory floor, that’s also clearly abuse!
All the other stuffs, it should be between him and his employees, right? Just because you think it’s abuse doesn’t make it so. Just as just because you think Hillary should win, doesn’t mean everyone else agrees with you.
When you start your own company, then you can decide what kind of boss you want to be. As long as there’s fair wage, reasonable hours and Elon not hitting on the employees, why should we interfere?
Just out of curiosity, how would you guys interfere? Government intervention? Boycott his products? Tesla sure, but how do you plan on boycotting SpaceX?
You guys don’t think there are other scummier billionaires to worry about?
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btw, after rereading my post, I just want to clarify that I'm not implying retsmah is a low performer! I'm probably not high performing enough too considering how many posts I can make on this forum on a daily basis... Seriously, I have a friend/colleague who I thought is an amazing performer at our company... he makes more money than me and I do believe he's worth the company's every penny. He applied to SpaceX and got rejected. I think mainly due to the reason that he requested to be able to work more from home in order to avoid traffic... So anyway, yeah, SpaceX is pretty selective at picking their 'slaves'. I've never applied there, but after seeing what happened to my friend, my chances of working at SpaceX is probably not high either. Especially considering now that I've moved away.
Oh, I have another older colleague, expert in composites. He got hired by Elon, but as soon as Elon decided to build steel starships, this old colleague of mine got let go. Luckily he's already at retirement age. He wanted to do something special with SpaceX at the twilight of his career, too bad that didn't work out. However, that's not capitalism's fault, right?
Anyway, I just think it's important to make sure we all enjoy the same equal fundamental rights. We shouldn't allow fellow human beings to fall thru the crack by living under poverty. However, no need to strive for 'equality' by dragging all billionaires down to the same level as the rest of us. We just need to make sure they're not doing anything illegal and pay their fair share of taxes too. As long as they are making an 'honest' living, like I said, I don't see any problems with trillionaires. Not all cars are equal. Similarly, not everyone is equal. Capitalism simply allows higher performing folks with better fortunes to be able to get further ahead than the rest of us. Same goes with IQ as well. We are all born with different IQs, not equal IQs, all decided by luck or God. People with higher IQs will have better chance as succeeding. No need to make it harder for them to succeed further just because rest of us are too dumb to catch up. OTOH, society needs to take care of people with lower IQs... and don't view them as useless deplorables. I really don't see socialism as means for 'production'... it's just not realistic for everyone to be the boss of a company. We can at most be the bosses of our own lives and grow that way. Capitalism is really good for collective growth, as demonstrated by China. Socialism is good for collective careing for those who need a helping hand, as demonstrated by all the socialistic nations during an pandemic. I think we can have the best of both worlds. As much as I hate the CCP, I do believe China is probably utilizing both capitalism and socialism the most... I just wish China could have less totalitarianism... or at least be a 'nicer' totalitarian. Rather than constantly threatening Taiwan by force, show Taiwanese why it's so good to be part of China again... The day Dalai Lama feels safe to return home to Tibet is the day China will truly be great again. USA will definitely lose it's place as a global superpower then.