Harry Becker

Father, husband, recovering alcoholic and all around doer. Lots a hats. Verdad— es mi muletilla.

[Harry Becker @beckerman004]

Here I lie Kurash— King of kings

[Harry Becker @beckerman004]

@EmixtraGT cada día pilotos de carros se aprovechan y perjudican el flujo del tránsito. Aparte, son abusivos al querer reincorporarse.

El atajo lo toman en Naranjo Shops y salen antes de la gasolinera Puma. Por favor, pueden ver este tema. Antes habían conos para evitarlo.

[George Mack @george__mack]

How to increase agency *and* have fun:

Get a giant whiteboard in your home.

[Larry Goldberg @TeslaLarry]

A friend whose judgement I trust wrote to me recently that he was getting concerned about Elon stretching himself too thin across all the companies in which he was involved. I gave this some thought, particularly as many have expressed this concern on X. Here are the thoughts that I put into my reply (TL/DR: Elon is not likely "stretched too thin" across his multiple companies due to his hiring practices and operating methods):

On the matter of Elon, your concern about him stretching himself thin is shared by many. There are, I would suggest, many mitigating factors you should consider. I will detail those that come to mind.

Firstly, and this may be among the most important, he has a very strong track record for hiring outstanding people.

This is partly explained by the enormous talent pool he has available - his companies attract many, many millions of applicants - each of the Elon companies are perennially at the top of the list of companies receiving the most engineering/science based applications every year. He, and his companies have proved amazingly adept at choosing from among those the best of the best in terms of not only skill but temperament (i.e. the ability to work under the pressure which his methods impose!)

If you watched last year's Investor Day presentation, you will have seen twenty of the top Tesla managers present their operations, and you would have understood the quality and depth of which I speak.

Secondly, his management, engineering and design approach is to set the methods, the design, the parameters, and then measure results, and this scales very significantly. You should read Walter Isaacson's biography of Musk to understand just how simple are his methods: Elon sums them up in 5 points:

1. Question every requirement. Each should come with the name of the person who made it. You should never accept that a requirement came from a department, such as from “the legal department” or “the safety department.” You need to know the name of the real person who made that requirement. Then you should question it, no matter how smart that person is. Requirements from smart people are the most dangerous, because people are less likely to question them. Always do so, even if the requirement came from me. Then make the requirements less dumb.

2. Delete any part or process you can. You may have to add them back later. In fact, if you do not end up adding back at least 10% of them, then you didn’t delete enough.

3. Simplify and optimize. This should come after step two. A common mistake is to simplify and optimize a part or a process that should not exist.

4. Accelerate cycle time. Every process can be speeded up. But only do this after you have followed the first three steps. In the Tesla factory, I mistakenly spent a lot of time accelerating processes that I later realized should have been deleted.

5. Automate. That comes last. The big mistake in Nevada and at Fremont was that I began by trying to automate every step. We should have waited until all the requirements had been questioned, parts and processes deleted, and the bugs were shaken out.

He adds the following corollaries:

1. All technical managers must have hands-on experience. For example, managers of software teams must spend at least 20% of their time coding. Solar roof managers must spend time on the roofs doing installations. Otherwise, they are like a cavalry leader who can’t ride a horse or a general who can’t use a sword.

2. Comradery is dangerous. It makes it hard for people to challenge each other’s work. There is a tendency to not want to throw a colleague under the bus. That needs to be avoided.

3. It’s OK to be wrong. Just don’t be confident and wrong.

4. Never ask your troops to do something you’re not willing to do.

5. Whenever there are problems to solve, don’t just meet with your managers. Do a skip level, where you meet with the level right below your managers.

6. When hiring, look for people with the right attitude. Skills can be taught. Attitude changes require a brain transplant.

7. A maniacal sense of urgency is our operating principle.

8. The only rules are the ones dictated by the laws of physics. Everything else is a recommendation.

The result is that his companies have an amazing depth of talent, and the people have incredible commitment to success, are generally entirely self-motivated, and extremely productive.

It is also true that there is a consistent turnover of people, driven by Musk’s maniacal cost cutting as well as employee burn-out. The methods and consistent turnover conspire to maintain a rhythm, a counterpoint of experience and fresh re-thinking.

The 20 execs that presented on Investor Day had been with the company for 9 years on average. Since that day, 15 months ago, several of those execs have left the company and been replaced (by other experienced people).

But to understand the employees outlook at Elon companies, I will append a post that was made this morning:. It is written by a US Army vet., who is in charge of “Booster Integration” at the Boca Chica Texas factory/launch site for the giant new rocket SpaceX are developing. He ends the post with this: “We are on the brink of something monumental, and together, we will make history.”

It’s the kind of refrain I hear everywhere I go in visiting Musk companies. Few Investment Analysts understand the power of this passion.

That’s why I am sanguine about Musk “stretching himself thin”. Currently he employs, across all his companies, about 110,000 people, across 5 principal business entities.

On the other hand, Amazon, for example, employs 1.5m, Berkshire Hathaway 396,000. Both have many more businesses than the 5 Elon covers, and the diversity of those two behemoths is much greater – to an extreme degree – than the diversity of Elon’s businesses.

Other than Boring Company, there is a very strong relationship between the companies, and their core competencies are in compute and AI dependence, automated manufacturing design and build skills.

I Hope that gives you hope.

https://t.co/s0erw03552.

[George Mack @george__mack]

Stop scrolling. Appreciate the device you're reading this on has more computing power than all of your ancestors had combined. Soak in that for a second. Take a deep breath. Ok. Carry on scrolling.

[Harry Becker @beckerman004]

@vinayp10 Ooook 😒

[Chema Pamundi @chemapamundirl]

Ganar la Copa del Rey con el Real Madrid dando vergüenza institucional en la previa, con el árbitro soplándonos dos penaltis, con el gol de la victoria generado por un pase pocho de Modric y con Rudiger en modo psicópata al final. Gracias diosito.

[James Clear @JamesClear]

It's never the right time, but right now is usually the best time.

[Wolf of X @WolfofX]

Parents

1.

[Harry Becker @beckerman004]

There is no courage without fear

[Harry Becker @beckerman004]

Lo de hoy no fue solo una victoria, fue una exhibición.

Arsenal dominando en Europa como en los mejores tiempos.

Y Declan Rice firmando dos obras de arte a balón parado.
🔥🔴⚪️ #COYG #ChampionsLeague #Arsenal

[Harry Becker @beckerman004]

"The only true test of intelligence is--
if you get what you want out of life."
- Naval

[Harry Becker @beckerman004]

En los Añejos.

La gente comiendo a las 5 am 😦

[giovanni fratti @frattigiovanni]

TIENE TODA LA RAZON!!! YA DEJEMOS DE IDIOTECES de semilla y ministros del MARN guerrilleros !!! lo que quieren SON MORDIDAS PARA NO COBRAR MULTAS! NO LES INTERESA EL MEDIO AMBIENTE ! NI SEPARAR LA BASURA AYUDA EN NADA! SI NINGUN BASURERO DEL PAIS TIENE PLANTAS RECICLADORAS!!!

[Naval @naval]

If you don’t lie awake at night thinking about it, you don’t want it badly enough.

[Fermín Suárez @FerminSuarez03]

Calafiori será en el fútbol lo que él quiera. Tiene una jerarquía inaudita para salir con el balón. Si quisiera, podría ir fintando hasta el área rival sin despeinarse. Encima es esbelto, grácil, zurdo y con una plasticidad de movimiento bestial

[Harry Becker @beckerman004]

A rising tide, lifts all boats.

[Kevin S. Xu @kevinsxu]

@bgurley One German exec of an industrial company recently told me he and other European companies are in China because it's a "fitness center"

For many sectors, staying fit and ahead means competing with Chinese counterparts or risk falling further behind

[Jim Fan @DrJimFan]

Grok just passed my sanity check

[Jeremy Howard @jeremyphoward]

OK everyone's asking me for my take on the OpenAI stuff, so here it is. I have a strong feeling about what's going on, but no internal info so this is just me talking.

The first point to make is that the Dev Day was (IMO) an absolute embarrassment.

[Ilya Sutskever @ilyasut]

if you value intelligence above all other human qualities, you’re gonna have a bad time