Tesla co-founder and CTO JB Straubel stepping down

https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/24/tesla-co-founder-and-cto-jb-straubel-stepping-down/

by dionmanu • 7 years ago

152 146 7 years ago

iknowstuff• 7 years ago

I'm going to miss his detailed, technical answers to questions during Q&As. He's been with Tesla since the beginning, for 15 years, and seems to be departing on good terms though.

sschueller• 7 years ago

"Eberhard and Tarpenning were the original founders and incorporated Tesla, while Musk, Straubel and Wright joined in a Series A round later on. A lawsuit settlement agreed to by Eberhard and Tesla in September 2009 allows all five to call themselves founders.]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.#cite_note-founders...

oska• 7 years ago

And the 2009 news article properly referenced by that wikipedia article:

https://www.cnet.com/news/tesla-motors-founders-now-there-ar...

Wiretrip2• 7 years ago

Just to add that Musk was not a Paypal founder either. In fact they absorbed his company and promptly fired him for making stupid decisions.

AlphaWeaver• 7 years ago

His departure is the latest in a long string of high-profile executives to leave Tesla in the past year, most recently Steve McManus, a vice president in charge of engineering for car interiors and exteriors at Tesla, who joined Apple. Two other former Tesla executives, Michael Schwekutsch, and chief engineer Doug Field, have also left to join Apple.

Not to understate the significance of Tesla losing Straubel, but TechCrunch's claim that Tesla is losing lots of "high-profile executives" seems like a little bit of a stretch. Steve McManus was a vice president in charge of "car interiors." It seems strange to place him on the same level of significance of their CTO.

thematt• 7 years ago

Since January 2018:

Jason Mendez, director of manufacturing engineering

Will McColl, manager of equipment engineering

Jon McNeill, president of global sales and services

Eric Branderiz, chief accounting officer

Susan Repo, corporate treasurer and vice president of finance

Jim Keller, head of Autopilot hardware engineering

Georg Ell, director of Western Europe operations

Matthew Schwall, director of field performance engineering

Ganesh Srivats, vice president overseeing retail, delivery

Sarah O'Brien, vice president of communications

Gabrielle Toledano, chief people officer

Dave Morton, chief accounting officer

Liam O'Connor, vice president of global supply management

Antoin Abou-Haydar, senior director of production and quality

Justin McAnear, vice president of worldwide finance and operations

Phil Rothenberg, vice president in the legal department

Jeff Jones, head of global security

Dan Kim, senior director of global sales

Aaron Chew, director of investor relations

Todd Maron, general counsel

Charles Mwangi, senior director of engineering

Cindy Nicola, vice president of global recruiting

Dane Butswinkas, general counsel

Deepak Ahuja, CFO

Praveen Arichandran, director of growth

Karl Wagner, senior director of global security

Dave Arnold, senior director of global communications

Felicia Mayo, vice president of human resources and head of diversity

Peter Hochholdinger, vice president of production

Steve MacManus, vice president of interior & exterior engineering

Robotbeat• 7 years ago

Statistics would be more valuable than a list of titles. How many people have titles such as “president” or “Vice President”? How does this compare to churn at other companies, statistically?

alasdair_• 7 years ago

30 people leaving Tesla with job titles as low as "manager" over the course of a year and a half is almost meaningless without seeing how this stacks up against other tech companies of a similar size.

bufferoverflow• 7 years ago

Mostly managerial positions. Meh.

elisharobinson6• 7 years ago

still they made thier deliveries on time , so how important were they really ??

jaimex2• 7 years ago

BMW's CEO stepped down 2 weeks ago. Ford has had 4 CEOs in the last four years... not a sound from the media.

The janitor at Tesla quits and its a top story about a company in turmoil.

camillomiller• 7 years ago

Even more: the BMW CEO quit basically for being completely unable to deliver on the EV roadmap and squandering the huge advantage BMW had in the field.

praneshp• 7 years ago

Ford has had 4 CEOs in the last four years... not a sound from the media.

You must not read a lot of news

_pmf_• 7 years ago

BMW does not lose half a billion in a quarter and sells it as a huge success.

Traster• 7 years ago

Actually BMW's CEO stepping down was very widely reported. The reason it's not news in the same way as the Tesla news is because it was very public and obvious why he was stepping down - he had basically failed. The reason Tesla's news is more interesting, is because its unexplained. Which means its probably a leading indicator of some news to come. Either dozens of Tesla execs have all suddenly had their own 'A christmas carole' moment and decided to spend more time with their families, or there's something more at play.

heymijo• 7 years ago

Ford has had 4 CEOs in the last four years...

I count two.

Jim Hackett: May 22, 2017 to present (CEO) Mark Fields: July 1, 2014 to May 22, 2017 (CEO)

celim307• 7 years ago

I'd say a big draw of Tesla is their well executed styling, both inside and out. I'm not sure if his purview was design, QC, supply chain, or all of the above for interiors, but thats akin to say, the VP in charge of displays leaving apple. Big portion of the product.

But I'm not in the hardware biz so /shrug

navigatesol4• 7 years ago

There is only one executive left from their proxy filing one year ago: Elon Musk.

utopian3• 7 years ago

The fonts are so wacky on this webpage, that it looks like they copy/pasted from elsewhere

mikorym• 7 years ago

To me the question is whether 1) the people who are leaving are the best in their field 2) they are the best for Tesla's long term plan and 3) whether this is normal / not normal for a high profile company or a disruptive tech company in 2019.

randomsearch4• 7 years ago

Why do some many people hate Tesla and want them to fail? Do they also want SpaceX to fail?

Elon can be an asshat sometimes, and he oversells and is over-optimistic. But even if the short sellers are right and Tesla will go bankrupt (which, btw, does not equal failure in many ways), why are so many people excited about that?

Most tech giants of recent times have done things I would consider to have made the world a much worse place. Why is Tesla, which has done a lot for humanity and is a key advancement in tackling climate change, hated so much? Why not save your hate for companies damaging democracy or workers rights, which seem like more serious charges?

MegaButts5• 7 years ago

Personally I dislike Tesla because I think Autopilot causes preventable deaths.

KptMarchewa• 7 years ago

Humans driving cars cause preventable deaths.

bsaul• 7 years ago

I don’t understand the downvotes. This was actually the same reason for me that changed my perception of the company and of musk, from something fantastic to something dangerous.

When they went from saying « we’re aiming at self driving car in the future » to « our car are able to do it right now », leaving all kinds of ambiguity just for the sake of hyping the brand, they crossed the red line.

jnwatson• 7 years ago

Musk’s hubris is annoying, but how many lives did he save by not waiting until the autopilot was “ready”? It is probably in the dozens at this point.

hoseja• 7 years ago

Do you dislike drunk-drivers and phone-drivers with the same passion and focus? Do you expect them to gradually become better and better at driving through natural evolution?

Tepix• 7 years ago

If we arrive at a working solution faster (i.e. something that prevents more deaths than it causes), it makes sense to speed up its development to get to that state faster.

The question remains if we accept a death by software bug (i.e. human software developer error) in the same way we accept a death by human driving error.

narnianal2• 7 years ago

Because they are involved in other car companies and they would lose something if Tesla beats the car companies they are involved with. For instance if you are a supplier and have super good relationships with Ford then you don't want Tesla to beat Ford. Who knows if you can have a similarly profitable and trustable relationship at Tesla.

randomsearch4• 7 years ago

I agree it seems likely that other car companies are against Tesla.

But why are geeks against Tesla? Why is there so much hate for them on Hacker News on Twitter, from tech people working for big tech companies? That's my question.

thomersch_• 7 years ago

For me it's because they do damage their workers' rights and their fans are so insufferable: The denial that they have quality issues, the repeated lies ("we are going to build a factory in weeks", while everyone knows that it will take years), the massive overvaluation. It's either you are on team Tesla and celebrating every of Elon's brainfarts or you are "big oil" that is trying to destroy them: Just look what happens when countries try to introduce standardised charing cables.

I just wish they would be frank about what they can and cannot do.

EDIT: And by the way about that pathetic "climate change" argument. Right, they are now selling Fiat their CO2 certificates thus enabling them to do wonderful green washing.

randomsearch4• 7 years ago

So, you made me realise I'd been ambiguous here, sorry.

I'll have to name companies to explain: Uber have undermined workers' rights in a systematic way, through the development of their concept of contract employees and the gig economy.

I have heard plenty of stories about SpaceX (not Tesla, but I'll assume similar stories exist) not treating their employees well. So yes, they've hurt workers rights too, so I accept your point. It's different kind of issue though, because it's particular to one company and not systemic, which is what I originally meant to say.

Disagree strongly about the climate change/greenwashing argument. I believe Tesla is a net positive in tackling climate change, which is what matters.

adim86• 7 years ago

To be honest it really disturbs why people hate Tesla so much. Citing your reason for them being over-optimistic or over-promising, how else do people change the world? I don't mean this message as an attack but something to think about. These guys are working on something No one has EVER done in the history of mankind and we require them to stick to timetables and if they don't the punishment is we wish them failure and celebrate it? If Tesla is to succeed all our lives will be better for it, why are their mistakes and obstacles celebrated? Why do we care if the company is overvalued? This is the same sentiment towards Apple when the iPhone first came out till it no longer could be ignored. Tesla is far from a perfect company, but their mission is true and the real question we should be asking ourselves rather than if we like Elon, or if the company is overvalued or if they over promise and under deliver. the real question is, Is this company really trying to fulfill its mission statement, If yes, would we want such a mission to succeed?

rcMgD2BwE72F2• 7 years ago

"we are going to build a factory in weeks"

Where did you read that? What is your source?

rcMgD2BwE72F2• 7 years ago

they are now selling Fiat their CO2 certificates thus enabling them to do wonderful green washing.

SO they should not use the cash that the government made accessible to them (because Fiat refuse to manufacture electric vehicles) and thus, not increase their EV production capacity?

This makes no sense. That's up to regulators to prevent Fiat from selling polluting cars, not to Tesla to refuse financial help that allow them to accelerate their growth.

meowface• 7 years ago

The rest of your arguments are valid, but the CO2 credit system is working as intended there. That's why it's called a credit. That's a lot of money that gets to be directly invested into getting electric cars in the hands of more people, which is what will actually reduce emissions in the long run.

Fiat's emissions already happened; they can't turn back time. Selling the credits to them will result in a net decrease in emissions (assuming they don't spend all the money on flamethrowers or something). If they didn't sell the credits, Fiat still put out exactly the same amount of emissions, and would be likely to do so in the future even with the fines.

If you've helped accelerate climate change, you're supposed to buy credits to offset the damage you've caused. If you've helped mitigate climate change, you're supposed to sell the credits, because the credits are there in the first place to incentivize mitigating climate change. This system obviously isn't sufficient to halt climate change all by itself, and maybe there are some other reasons it's a bad system, but it seems like the credit system is working exactly as it was supposed to. At the very least, I don't see what Tesla's doing wrong when it comes to that particular area.

AtlasBarfed2• 7 years ago

Tesla is singularly responsible for the destruction of workers rights? OK. If you want real worker rights bugbears, look at Uber and Lyft.

Their quality issues may exist, but they aren't that bad. They're not. Every person you talk to has lemon stories about every car in existence.

Tesla does not have a monopoly on irrational exuberance in what a company will accomplish. You are commenting on ground zero of internet startups. Tesla actually built cars.

CO2 credit sales are part of a market that actually forces companies to pay for CO2. There is nothing bad about that.

Massive overvaluation: Again, you are commenting on ground zero of wannabe unicorn internet startups. Uber's app can be replicated by a team of 10 in a month. Tesla has a competitive advantage in battery tech, vertical integration, and design, and could displace Toyota in a couple decades.

Fans are insufferable: ok, true.

austhrow743• 7 years ago

SpaceX isn't a big name in consumer tech the same way Tesla or those tech giants you're thinking of are. It's less known and even less within the public conscious. Less seen so less talked about.

People on a deep subconscious level understand that they're not in an environment where they belong. They've been robbed of their humanity and turned in to half cog half husk of a person. They've don't and can't live an authentic life but rather a simulation. They're a shark in a tank. They understand that the scientist, the academic, and above all the technologist is responsible for this.

Large well known technology companies are therefore a good outlet of this disapproval. They're viewed as the enemy and the missteps they make that we consciously understand as negatives are amplified by our subconscious understanding that they're existentially damaging to us at their very core. People do hate the tech giants. Tesla though is largely unique in that it doesn't sell to the masses, at least not yet, so criticism aimed at it feels less hypocritical than that of a company whose products and services we use.

That's why SpaceX doesn't get criticised pretty much at all, normal tech giants get criticised a bit, and Tesla gets dogpiled.

Barrin922• 7 years ago

Why do some many people hate Tesla and want them to fail? Do they also want SpaceX to fail?

For me personally the treatment of their workers, their anti-unionisation efforts, and their misleading advertisement of the autopilot, together with Musks extremely off-putting public behaviour. And no I don't want spaceX to fail.

Why not save your hate for companies damaging democracy or workers rights, which seem like more serious charges?

I think many people, including myself at this point have similar opinions about Facebook et al. There are relatively few large tech companies left that I look at optimistically.

canada_dry• 7 years ago

Like the saying goes: 'when someone shows you who they really are, believe them'.

The whole Thai cave rescue really showed who Elon Musk is: an incorrigible sociopath who's shortcomings make it difficult to celebrate any success he has.

vanattab• 7 years ago

and their misleading advertisement of the autopilot

This 100%. People have already died as a result of the marketing and more people are going to die going forward because they insisted calling a pretty good lane assist feature "autopilot".

Fins2• 7 years ago

This. Tesla's carts do not work for me from practicality POV, but even if they released the most bestest car in the world, I will never, ever give Elon a red cent.

pasabagi2• 7 years ago

For my part, it's just that Elon is the paramount example of what happens when the ROI plummets, and there's an amazing amount of investor cash floating around.

You see it in history: the victorians built a ridiculously over-engineered, insanely extensive rail network. It didn't make any money, but at the time, there wasn't really anything else to invest in with a reasonable return rate. So everybody went in on the one thing that had the possibility of a massive pay-off. Recognize the unicorn-logic here?

Tesla kind of takes all the decades of Toyota kicking ass, and gets the lesson completely wrong - the 'machine that builds the machine' is exactly what GM was doing. Toyota was good at building cars because they were far less automated than their american competitors.

Then it works because electric cars are a great idea, batteries are massively subsidized by the phone industry, and incumbent car makers don't really have relevant expertise (since they're really good at building internal combustion engines, and a lot of the other stuff is a secondary concern). Also, because Tesla has an enormous amount of investor cash.

So why does all this bother me? It's because of where the cash comes from. Tech companies don't really pay taxes, and they don't have (relative to revenue) employees. If you imagine how many jobs Microsoft Office has replaced, you get the picture. All this is fine in itself (minus the tax thing), but when the money just gets poured into these obvious money spouts, into a company that's pretty obviously only workable because it sits at the bottom of one of those money spouts, lead by a guy who's clearly not as smart as he thinks he is - well, it feels a bit like a great example of the waste and unfairness of the system itself.

jonplackett2• 7 years ago

Would just like to point out that in the UK we're still massively benefitting from the Victorian's far-sighted investments. They made stuff to last 100s of years. Bridges, railways, sewers, the house I'm living in. Thanks Victorians.

karambahh• 7 years ago

Would you have sources about Toyota factories being less automated than their US competitors?

I've been told in the past that the key factor in Toyota success is their relationship with their suppliers. A top notch supply chain with just in time processes bundled with reasonable proxy stocks?

Would love to read about their automation level compared to US or EU companies

otalp• 7 years ago

Of the top of my head, these are a few things that if Tesla can get away with while having a huge fanbase and no repercussions, every future startup is going to try:

1) Tesla Had 3 Times as Many OSHA Violations as the 10 Largest US Plants Combined[1]

2) Elon Musk personally doxxing a market analyst who provided in-depth analysis of Tesla financials, by calling his boss and threatening to sue if he continued his side project of covering Tesla [2]

3) Committing blatant securities fraud by claiming he would sell Tesla to Saudi Arabian investors for $420 a share, and promising 'the short burn of the century' a few weeks before doing so.

4) Bailing out a failing Solar City run by Musk's family(cousins) with Tesla shareholder money on the promise of a product that turned out to be vaporware. [3] After the merger solar city sales are now approaching zero and it's becoming increasingly clear it was a bailout [4]. Multiple lawsuits are ongoing.

5) Claiming that Tesla cars bought today will appreciate in value to over $250,000, so it's actually an investment not a purchase.[5]. Generally making crazy statements about imminent "million robotaxis" while still not having a 'Summon' featured promised in a few weeks months ago because "parking lots are very hard"(recent tweet)

For me at least, the transition was a slow one - from "What they're doing is hard, but I hope they succeed" to "They're probably going to fail, but at least they have good intentions" to "If they don't fail, the precedent set is staggering to what you can get away with".

There's the famous James Comey saying of 'The Chickenshit Club' - prosecutors unwilling to take on corporations for fear that a loss or long case would damage their win ratio, leading to entities with a large legal team getting away with anything they want. Fundamentally the problem is consistently making statement that they know to be untrue under the guise of this being targets to be met. A generous person would of course call them "ambitious goal". But someone who has studied them closely would know it's an attempt to pump stock that has historically worked, but has recently started failing.

When blatant market manipulations, hazardous working conditions, highly questionable accounting practices, false marketing claims, doxxing critics and lies are allowed to succeed, laws don't really exist and companies operate within their bounds only because they don't want to take the 0.1% risk that they'll actually be punished in a way that threatens their continued operations.

If you believe in capitalism and regulated efficient markets, you will hope that a company that breaks the rules as often as Tesla doesn't go unpunished. But the SEC will never bring down a company who's stock is still high, as their primary goal is to protect shareholder value. To fully uncover the extent of their damage, they will have to fail first.

[1] https://www.thedrive.com/news/26727/tesla-had-3-times-as-man...

[2] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/elon-musk-allegedly-silenc...

[3] https://mansionengineer.com/2018/08/10/elon-musk-tesla-and-t...

[4] https://i.imgur.com/iQUJkbE.jpg

[5] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-16/musk-stan...

navigatesol4• 7 years ago

This is a great post summarizing why I could care less if Tesla folds. And when some of this stuff is settled,there are going to be many in the tech influencer world with egg on their faces.

gopher2• 7 years ago

For me it's mostly that I don't like overly-promotional liars. And the "saving the world" schtick wears thin. Hate would be a strong word though.

sergiosgc6• 7 years ago

Every CEO is a salesman. Anyone who believes every word of a salesman is a fool. I'd not paint it as Trump-style, bona fide lying. It's just inflating promises, or being overly optimistic. Par for the course.

swarnie_2• 7 years ago

Tesla - Ok cars but build quality is meh.

SpaceX - Love what they're doing.

Online fans of the two - insufferable cultists.

Lazare4• 7 years ago

Why do some many people hate Tesla and want them to fail?

My feeling is that the overwhelming majority of Tesla critics do not hate Tesla, and do not want Tesla to fail. Rather, they see Tesla as a small, unimportant, poorly run company that gets far more press (positive and negative) than it deserves, and who respond by needling Tesla super-fans. The super fans, in turn, react by treating this as shocking, but it's not really. Tesla critics are treating Tesla like a normal company, and most companies are not particularly well-liked. Nobody cares if Amalgamated Widgets rises and falls except it's investors and competitors.

Do they also want SpaceX to fail?

No. But also, Tesla critics, I believe, view SpaceX as a VERY different company. Tesla is just another car company making just another car. SpaceX is something else entirely.

If your mental model is "Tesla is like SpaceX", this probably feels weird to you, and the way Tesla gets covered in the press - as if it was merely a car company! - must be maddening. If your mental model is "Tesla is like Saab", this seems pretty obvious.

Most tech giants of recent times have done things I would consider to have made the world a much worse place.

I would never dream of calling Tesla a "tech giant". It's a car company, it's not making very good cars, it's not making them very well, it's not making very many of them, and it's not making a lot of money off them. I am incredibly tired of hearing about Tesla. Even if it wins, the Tesla end-game is to be another big successful car company, and I don't care about big successful car companies.

FrojoS3• 7 years ago

Tesla has advanced the advent of BEV by something like 10y. There are multiple statements by old car CEOs who admit that Tesla forced their hand to finally take electric cars seriously. So no, Tesla is not unimportant. At all.

sergiosgc6• 7 years ago

Rather, they see Tesla as a small, unimportant, poorly run company (...)
(...)
Tesla is just another car company making just another car.

Definitely false. Q2 revenue was 25% of Nissan's (which crossed my radar recently due to layoffs). That may be small, for some definition of small, but it's definitely not "small, unimportant". I won't comment on poorly run -- a qualitative assessment that does not lead to a definitive conclusion. I'd challenge with a comparison to a well run startup in the automotive space, but there is none to compare it with.

As for another car company making just another car, I don't understand how can you even write those words together. A Tesla may be a good car, a poor car, depending on who you ask. What it is definitely not is your average Volkswagen.

navigatesol4• 7 years ago

Building a handful of electric cars while milking investors is not doing a lot for humanity.

blaser-waffle• 7 years ago

Why do some many people hate Tesla and want them to fail? Do they also want SpaceX to fail?

Aside from the obvious fanboy vs anti-fanboy thing, all of the other players in these spheres tend to be huge companies and government contractors, who can afford large and aggressive marketing budgets. This will almost certainly include some sort of online forum monitoring and consensus building.

ZeroGravitas2• 7 years ago

One factor I think is "the Copenhagen interpretation of ethics" which means if you point out that there are people starving on the planet, and you don't immediately give up your entire wealth to do something about it then you are judged as worse than people doing their best to not focus on bad stuff outside of their immediate vision.

https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...

Tesla/Musk obviously fall into this trap with climate change.

Also the parallels in some attacks with what gets used for people like Al Gore makes me think that pointing out a problem that people have staked their political capital on being a hoax, provokes a certain reaction too.

AtlasBarfed2• 7 years ago

1) Elon is a nerd. The media loves to do stories on darling nerds transforming the world and then tearing them down with classic American anti-intellectualism and clickbait links at every stage of the Hype Cycle.

2) Oil and big auto hate them. A small company made the technological offerings of car companies and are threatening oil to become obsolete? And the car companies have been whining about CAFE and the inability to make EVs for three decades now.

3) Stock speculators and shorters producing volatility and doing bets.

4) Americans are attached to cars, so all the "car guys" hate Teslas. ESPECIALLY since they smoke ICEs off the line. Go read jalopnik, Tesla is pursuing their two precious bastions of masculinity: the roar of an engine, and whether or not you actually drive a car yourself

randomsearch4• 7 years ago

That question became much bigger than expected. It was an honest question from a point of ignorance, so maybe that’s why.

I got some interesting insight. One trend I noticed in the replies is that answers are tending away from the goal of car driving being part of daily life and trying to make that electric. Those who did touch on this, were of the opinion that Tesla was not doing anything new or essential in that area.

Instead, most criticism was targeted towards the negatives of Tesla without regards to the positive. Tesla driving the advent of electric-powered personal transportation was barely touched upon.

Overall, I’m of the opinion that the technical advances Tesla has made, the influence on the market and public thinking, outweighs the negatives.

One explanation I came up with myself for the hatred is the overriding positive optimism of Musk. I do think that his marketing is partially bluster and partially the way he sees the world. The latter perhaps is what people hate. And nerds are somehow predisposed, understandably, to be sceptical. There’s a direct conflict there.

If you’ve spent years working for Facebook or others, then it would be hard to accept that a much better way of spending your time is possible. Easier to think all tech companies are bad, than the idea that you’ve made the wrong choice. Especially when earning well.

I have no axe to grind for Musk. He’s said enough things to lose my respect. I think being on Twitter is unhealthy for him and he’s crossed many lines. I also think Tesla is net positive, and I still think the hatred of this community is irrational. I think everyone feeling that way about Tesla should take time out and imagine trying to explain how a world without Tesla would have been better.

narnianal2• 7 years ago

You can't really blame people for looking out for themselves in the short run, but still I think it's a little weak to leave one of the biggest tech endeavours to do something else. Honestly, if I would work in a key role in Tesla I would rather take a demotion to non-C-level before I accept to leave that company.

And if you don't think just short term, it's also the biggest financial opportunity, even if Tesla loses. All the knowledge, connections etc that you can build in that time will pay off in the end. There is not a single company in that size where losing for the company necessarily also means a loss for its ambitious talent.

Think about how America and the Arabs hired the biggest Nazi talent after second world war. Even losing and being clearly labelled as the devil is not enough to stop talent from being successful. Always keep fighting!

jonplackett2• 7 years ago

"His role cannot be understated"

Is this a typo or another think you crazy Americans do backwards, like "I can hardly wait"

swarnie_2• 7 years ago

They did some terrible things to our language after appropriating it but i'll give this one a pass.

"Its impossible to understate the importance of his role"

pas• 7 years ago

It seems to mean that any statement that is relatively correct will have to detail the amazing performance of the person in question, exactly because it was so essential.

It was so good that no one can even try to badmouth it. (So it's a hyperbole of course.)

neogodless2• 7 years ago

If his role is important, this should read, "his role cannot be overstated."

Just like people they don't care at all should be saying "I couldn't care less."

It annoys me, too!

breakintheweb• 7 years ago

I would argue that overstated would be wrong because you could surely overstate his role. "He was the only reason Tesla existed, would be overstating his role.

I think "his role shouldn't be understated" would be the correct phrase given the context.

bitL• 7 years ago

I am wondering how much Andrej Karpathy changed; from a happy Stanford lecturer to somebody whose immature tech killed/maimed a few people already due to managerial pressure from Elon...

dang• 7 years ago

Personal attacks are not ok on HN, regardless of whom you're attacking. Please don't do this again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Tesla co-founder and CTO JB Straubel stepping down

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