British rescue diver sticks it to Elon Musk!

I was being somewhat sarcastic when I suggested that he look for MH 370. It is going to take a lot of technical ingenuity to make that work. That would be a great achievement and would really show the power of technology. The cave rescue was achieved by using tried and true techniques, not sophisticated gimmicks. As DG points out, this was attention gathering exercise and it has paid off for Elon Musk

 

Or, maybe Elon Musk really thought (probably incorrectly) he could help, and the facts are being twisted into FUD by Tesla Death Cultists, such as the people DG copies his Tesla hater comments from.

Elon claims that multiple people urged him on in his efforts to help. I don't know if that is true... and neither does anyone else posting here. There is a lotta rush to judgement going on, by people who weren't there.

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Nobody attacked Elon for his offer to help, only that he ultimately tried to cash in on the PR of the actual rescue by tweeting pictures from the scene even though he had zero involvement in the actual rescue, and then he battled with the real heroes, ending in calling one a Pedo. There is no excuse for Elon's behavior, he is weak, and insecure, which comes through in many of his interactions. I question his actual intelligence as he has trouble putting together a complete sentence.

 

Let us separate the various aspects of this saga. During product development, there are many stages, There is the request for help (determination of need), understanding the requirements, then there is a design and development of a solution on the drawing board, then there is a testing and validation of the drawing board solution, then building the actual solution. Finally is the executing the solution, which is the proof of the pudding, does the drawing board solution work in real operating conditions? This is a part of the product development life cycle and I am simplifying it a lot. Usually there is a lot of validation steps to ensure there requirements traceability, that the solution can be mapped to the requirements.

Let us look at what happened here. A need was recognized and a solution was developed rather quickly. My understanding (I could be wrong) was that no one involved in cave diving or with actual knowledge of the topology was involved in the design. Hence the developed solution was not feasible and would not meet the immediate need. This happens all the time that the first idea does not work and and often needs going back to the drawing board. Usually there are intermediate check points to ensure you do not wait till the end to discover that solution does not work, and this allows for course correction. It appears here that best practices were not followed (lack of time is not a good reason) and there was no solution validation with experts in the field. I think we can all reasonably agree that the solution developed was not appropriate to that need. Could a better solution have developed, given time? Possibly, but we are now discussing the solution that was developed and its appropriateness.

If Elon Musk acknowledged that they were not right in their design and said something like this, "People asked me for help and we tried out best. Unfortunately, our solution did not work, but we are glad other plans worked"", he would have come out smelling like roses. Instead here are the optics. He came up with a half baked solution that did not seem to be geared towards the requirements, flew over to Thailand and projected a stance that he had answers that others did not. When he was criticized, he went on a rampage against the critics, even bringing up irrelevant and untrue allegations, that had nothing to do with the solution.

I have no idea what his intent was, all I know was that whatever good image he wanted to create did not come to fruition. He allowed himself to be painted as a gold digger by his own actions, not due to a smear campaign. I am trying to be objective and factual.

 

I think you pretty much nailed the facts... Musk's effort was "better then nothing", but ultimately too late and not needed. The part that rubbed many wrong was his picture posting, trying to make it appear he was in some part involved in the actual rescue, when he actually had zero involvement in the rescue. I have posted on here many times that it seems Musk is losing his mind, and guys, you can love me or hate me, but the facts are becoming more clear all the time. Musk is in deep trouble personally, and from the look of things about to flame out.

 

Possibly they did not do it in a vacuum, but the devil is in the details. Did they have the right level of product SMEs (subject matter experts) to validate their design? Or did they completely depend upon second and third hand narration of requirements? How much data was actually gathered prior to design? Was there any quick prototyping? Were there reviews? Did one of them actually go into the cave and see for themselves if it would work? This is all about the product.

What seems to have been missed is also the logistics. For example, was there any thought on how you will get the product to where it was needed? Someone can design an excavator that weighs 600 tonnes but how does one get it to the mine where there are no access roads that can be used to transport such large loads? In that case you design it to be assembled on site from parts that could be airlifted or moved on smaller trucks. The problem as I understand, is that the device could not be transported to place where it was needed. Bottom line, the design they came up with was infeasible.

I have in my career, seen enough design flops, even when there has been a rigor in requirements gathering. If the requirements are not properly understood, there is no chance that it will work in a complex case with many variables. From all accounts, the requirement gathering was not adequate in this case. Even if they did their due diligence (which I personally doubt they did), Elon's response to the criticism was above the top. And that is my point. Mistakes happen, you do not need to compound them.

 

But what are those "optics" based on? Are they based on the actual facts, or merely on what someone wrote because they thought it would make a good "story"?

The reason fake news is so prevalent on the Internet is that it's more interesting and tends to get people upset, which gets their attention, and that's why it spreads so quickly; ordinary people sucked into becoming "useful idiots" for those whose intent is to produce FUD.

Certainly what Domenick posted suggests a good beginning, and provides evidence to back up Elon's claim that he was encouraged to undertake the effort.

Somewhere along the line, what happened degenerated into a war of egos between Elon and one of the rescue divers. Exactly how that developed, I don't know, nor especially care; and I rather doubt anyone posting to this forum knows all the details, either.

"History is not what happened. History is what is reported to have happened." -- Pushmi-Pullyu
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So Elon embarrassed himself again. Whoopee. How is that in any way relevant to Tesla's cars or its production? I don't see that it is.

What is important is that, according to reports, Tesla's board is pushing to create a COO (Chief Operations Officer) for Tesla, to take some of the burden off Elon's overworked shoulders. I very much hope that actually happens! I've been saying for years that Elon needs to step back from his attempts to micromanage every part of Tesla, and delegate much more authority to others. Even if Elon's micromanagement was a good management style in the past (and I think there is much evidence it hasn't been), it's going to be increasingly unworkable as Tesla continues to grow in size. One person can only personally oversee so much.

In a few weeks or a few months, everybody except the Tesla Death Cultists will have forgotten Elon's embarrassing twitter posts. Meanwhile, Tesla is now making more plug-in EVs than all the other auto makers outside China put together. If the latest bout of embarrassing twitter posts from Elon will prompt Tesla's board to give Elon the help he desperately needs in running Tesla's daily operations -- willingly or not on Elon's part -- then this will be a situation with a very positive outcome, despite its negative beginnings.

Tesla has succeeded. HOORAY! The short sellers and the Tesla Death Cult have lost. End of story.

 

Issue with tabloid and fake news is its sponsored media fully controlled by a sponsor employer rent seeker class and it exists to censor and tell likes for that group to assure non democratic outcomes. They hate Tesla because it refuses to pay them for that garbage- but petrol front short sellers do.

 

I do not claim to know all the facts and issues, and I find that there are several conflicting versions and the truth is usually somewhere in between. I will stand by my statement that Elon Musk squandered away any capital he had earned by getting into a twitter war with a critic. Other than that I do not believe I can add anything more to this thread.

 

I call B.S. Are you repeating some FUD based on a quote taken out of context?

Cite an actual quote from Elon Musk, or admit this is false.

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Classic case of bury the lead:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/29/elon-musk-doubles-down-on-pedo-claims-against-uk-cave-diver

. . .
Musk was responding to another critic on Twitter on Tuesday night when he appeared to reaffirm the accusation. “You don’t think it’s strange [Unsworth] hasn’t sued me? He was offered free legal services,” he wrote.

“Did you investigate at all? I’m guessing answer is no. Why?” he wrote in subsequent tweets that are still online.
. . . ​

The lead is nonsense when you read what obscure entrails were gleamed from Twitter.

Bob Wilson