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ChristianKl comments on Open Thread, Jun. 1 - Jun. 7, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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The Elon Musk biography that just came out is quite entertaining, but I didn't any significant actionable knowledge in it.
There's an interesting turn at the end. The author thought at the beginning of the project that Musk was particularly terrible with people. At the end, he says he thinks he gets it: Musk has basically just calculated the work of his companies to be more important that the feelings of its employees, and to go against that calculation would be illogical, which for Musk makes it kind of physically painful. So he'd rather put someone down in 5 seconds than waste another minute that he has a better use for on politeness or common decency. And it isn't that he has no empathy, he just has more empathy for mankind as a whole than for the guy standing in front of him, and he's drawing logical conclusions from that difference.
Now first of all I admire that. But this reminds me that even if I could be that consequentialist, most people would still find it hard to recognize me as one, and comparatively easy to just put me in the asshole category.
That's a risky game. It makes the company culture less enjoyable. That makes hiring harder and can motivate people to quit. Musk can afford this because of the strength of the vision of his company, that makes people to work there but it's still not clear that it's optimal.
But it is clear that Musk isn't the only highly successful entrepreneur that used this strategy successfully Jobs was the same way.
The problem is that both Musk and Jobs likely act in a way that can't be summarized in a paragraph.
If someone tries to copy them based on the idea that his time is more important than the feeling of his employees the person is likely to mess things up.
Basically the ends don't justify the means (Among Humans). We are nowhere near smart enough to think those kinds of decisions (or any decisions really) through past all their consequences (and neither is Elon Musk).
It is possible that Musk is right and (in this specific case) it really is a net benefit to mankind to not take one minute to phrase something in a way that it is less hurtful, but in the history of mankind I would expect that the vast majority of people who believed this were actually just assholes trying to justify their behavior. And besides, how many hurt feelings are 55 seconds of Elon Musks time really worth from a utilitarian standpoint? I don't know, but I doubt Musk has done any calculations on it.
It is a risky game but there are many factors to consider. I used to work for someone who was quite similar in that they would go completely off the rails if someone underperformed (I never got yelled at, thankfully). I actually never observed resentment or quitting due to this behavior (at least, it was never the quoted reason). However, I did observe that when mistakes happened, people tended to try to hide it much harder. There also grew a culture where people would hide the mistakes of their coworkers even if the mistakes were quite serious. All in all, I don't think productivity was much higher than other workplaces I'd been in.
My story is anecdotal of course and I'd love to see actual statistics comparing 'high pressure' workplaces with those that are more lenient.