When you have a billionaire founder in your board of directors, one who is completely obsessive in whatever he does (Paypal/Space X)... how can you be surprised that you get kicked out when you don't do things his way?
And I don't blame Musk either. If you invest $70 million in a company you should get to say who the CEO is.
Eberhard nearly destroyed Tesla. Musk did what anyone who invested 70 million dollars would have done.
A perfect example of Eberhard's arrogance is the whole 2 speed transmission debacle. Eberhard absolutely insisted on having a 2 speed transmission to achieve the performance numbers that he advertised way too early, Magma warned them very early on that was a bad decision but he didn't listen. It almost cost them launching the production model at all (luckily Musk had the idea to launch with a temporary transmission which was upgraded later).
Notice the Model S uses a 1 speed transmission.
In my opinion, the only reason Eberhard was so insistent on the 2 speed transmission was because he DIDN'T have 70 million of his own money invested. Musk saved the company as far as I'm concerned.
Also, isn't it unreal how this company was paying the founder 200K a year with no revenues and a balance sheet that would make most start up founders sick to their stomachs?
Also, isn't it unreal how this company was paying the founder 200K a year with no revenue
This is par for the course for venture funded startups.
There's a whole class of people in Silicon Valley who make a career out of being the overpaid execs at startups after the first round or two of funding. They typically get paid more than they would ever make if they tried to get a position that matched their skill level at an established company like Apple or Yahoo!. After they do one, they have "Startup CTO" on their resume and then keep bouncing around from startup to startup. What they are doing is financially very low risk (they are making $150K-$200K a year), yet they usually take pride in their entrepreneurial spirit. I would wager that 9 times out of 10 they are hopeless and drive the companies they latch onto into the ground. Their existence is one of the lamer aspects of SV culture that rarely gets mentioned.
Note that the guy in the article was actually the founder, not one of the people I just described. It may or may not be unreasonable, but I certainly don't think it is uncommon for him to take the same salary as the other executives brought in from outside.
They typically get paid more than they would ever make if they tried to get a position that matched their skill level at an established company like Apple or Yahoo!.
Do you have any evidence for that? A lot of the people I know of who are startup CEOs used to be high-level managers/executives at big companies. I don't know of any evidence to support the idea that high-level executives at startups are any more "overpaid" or incompetent than executives at big companies.
I would wager that 9 times out of 10 they are hopeless and drive the companies they latch onto into the ground.
They certainly require a different skill set than the technical leadership in a company. A CEO needs to be able to give a convincing pitch to VCs, recruit other top talent, close big deals with customers (often other big companies), and decide on the company's direction. Those are all hard skills for a typical engineer to evaluate.
"Their existence is one of the lamer aspects of SV culture that rarely gets mentioned."
On the contrary, I think that that's one of laymen's first assumptions about C-level positions at startups. I think that most people hear "tech startup" and still think "~2000 era dotcom, doing nothing but living on a cushion of imaginary or scammed cash." When I tell non tech people I work at a tech related startup, I am almost always given a look or a remark which requires me to say "oh ho ho, its not what you think! It's not like that!" almost a decade later.
(The other time I get that sort of look/remark is when I mention that it's also a video game company, but no ho ho, we don't make games where you endlessly decapitate hookers.)
Only if you believe Elon's side of the story (I don't).
If you believe Martin Eberhard, here is his take:
Martin: "The 2-speed transmission was the first major edict to come from Elon, and though I thought it was an unnecessary risk for the first model year's cars, I was certainly willing to be a team player and support Elon's edict. I knew there were risk and cost associated with the decision, but by themselves, I felt we would be able to manage them."
Editor: Here's an another example of how different people see the same events through their own personal filters. Musk acknowledges that he pushed for the 2-speed transmission from Job 1 in order to meet the original performance targets. From a December 2007 interview in Inc. magazine: "The most controversial of Musk's edicts involved the transmission. Martin Eberhard, Tesla's co-founder and then-CEO, argued that it would be quicker and easier to build the car with a single-speed transmission. Musk ordered a two-speed model so that the Roadster would be able reach a top speed of well over 100 miles per hour."
Of course, it's never quite that clear cut. My belief is that Elon's ego and pocketbook far exceeds his engineering and management ability.
This was from a very interesting piece done by Autoblog Green:
And I don't blame Musk either. If you invest $70 million in a company you should get to say who the CEO is.