Taking Tesla Private - <AUTHOR> https://www.tesla.com/blog/taking-tesla-private <comment><USER2> > _As a public company, we are subject to wild swings in our stock price that > can be a major distraction for everyone working at Tesla, all of whom are > shareholders. Being public also subjects us to the quarterly earnings cycle > that puts enormous pressure on Tesla to make decisions that may be right for > a given quarter, but not necessarily right for the long-term._

> _SpaceX is a perfect example: it is far more operationally efficient, and > that is largely due to the fact that it is privately held._

Something that I can very well understand.

<comment><USER3> Isn't SpaceX success due to the fact that most of its orders come from the US government while Tesla has to compete in the free market and isn't that successful there?

<comment><USER4> The free market of automobile manufacturing in which the USA has propped up both GM and Ford, and in the past Chrysler? The one in which the Japanese government is carefully intertwined with their automotive industry?

The government is _a_ customer of space x but they still compete against other companies for that business.

<comment><USER5> Tesla has also received a substantial amount of government support, including state and federal EV rebates for buyers of its cars (roughly $300 million), an extremely large handout from the state of Nevada ($1.3 billion), a large handout from New York ($1 billion), handouts from US Government ($500 million), carbon credits ($520 billion as of 2015). Collectively, Tesla's government support actually exceeds the government's bailout of Ford by several orders of magnitude...

GM and Ford were propped up by the government during the Great Recession to protect tens of thousands of jobs. Both companies have since repaid those loans...though GM discharged much of its loan through bankruptcy.

<comment><USER6> My understanding is that in 2009 Ford rejected the bailout the US automakers were offered (taking instead a loan which they are still repaying, through 2022).

GM was effectively nationalized (at a reported cost of $11b) and the creditors lost their shirts.

<comment><USER5> Ford received a different bailout.

Also, I mixed up GM and Chrysler on which of them repaid the loan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The main question I have is about financing. If Elon owns 20% of the company now, and he doesn't intend for that to change, and he is giving the option of public shareholders to sell at $420, then who is financing this? Usually a private takeover requires a partnership with a huge private equity firm. Wouldn't releasing this without having (or identifying) that partner be premature? And wouldn't the resulting stability be dependent on that partner's exit strategy?

<comment><USER8> > _CNBC reports that none of the Wall Street banks it contacted were aware of > any transaction or had committed to funding a leveraged buyout of Tesla._

<comment><USER7> So there's the real story. Who is this financer (or group) with ~40 billion in capital that is willing to bet long on Tesla? That's really interesting to me, if Musk is being truthful here.

<comment><USER9> Totally, totally random thought, but I figured I'd record it, even though it doesn't seem to make sense.

Bezos?

<comment><USER7> What, timed with an announcement of a merger between Blue Origin and SpaceX? :)

<comment><USER10> That wouldn't be the worst idea in the world considering the cost of spaceflight to begin with and the duplicate work they're undoubtedly doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As an investor since 2012 I think Tesla would be far more operationally efficient private. Also a bit of schadenfreude but I've personally enjoyed watching Wall Street shorts collectively lose hundreds of millions of dollars over this.

<comment><USER12> Might be in the _tens of billions_ before this is all said and done.

(~34 million short shares outstanding * $420/share = ~14 billion dollars to cover. Is my math wrong?)

<comment><USER13> Wouldn't that assume that every short seller would lose $420 per share? They probably purchased their shorts at like ~$350 per share, so they'd only stand to lose 420-350=$70 per share, correct?

<comment><USER7> I'm a newbie when it comes to calls and puts, couldn't they just fill their shorts now (no pun intended, I seriously don't know the terminology) if they're worried about it? Tesla closed at $370.

<comment><USER14> What happens when $14bn in short interest tries to buy simultaneously?

<comment><USER15> It sounds like everyone will be buying TSLA tomorrow. Even the little guy who wants to earn the difference between $379 and $420.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This would have a side-effect of making all the short-sellers lose, which would be quite satisfactory to Musk.

Until Tesla's economics become obvious to all in the market, this is probably the best decision; this allows them to be more focused on the long run.

<comment><USER17> Part of me wonders if it isn't a side-effect, but the goal: put the squeezin' on the shorts. But, man, if that tin-foil hat theory is true, Musk better have someone in the wings at least _pretending_ to want to finance this lest the SEC come a-knockin'. Normally, I'd just pass that off as "haha, wouldn't _that_ be funny!", but given some of Musk's tweets lately, there's still a little part of me that entertains the idea as plausible.

<comment><USER18> Yeah I'm really wondering whether this was legal - I would've been on his ass if I were the SEC for illegal price manipulation. Even if he doesn't go through with it, it's still bumped the stocks up by a lot. Could've been a move to scare off the shorts?

<comment><USER17> By the time you had made your post, Tesla had already issued a press release saying the same, and news had come out that Musk had been talking to the board about it for the past week. So, yeah, he was serious and not being manipulative, and AFAICT completely legal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Not directly related to the thread, but I'm surpised by the extreme anti-short seller sentiment? Why is it important that they suffer?

Short-selling is what makes almost zero expense mutual/index funds available to mom n' pop investors. Fidelity are about to offer ZERO TER funds on the basis that short-sellers pay heavily to borrow stock from them.

It seems analogous to expressing hatred for umbrella sellers because you don't like rain.

When I lived in Ireland before the GFC banking collapse, I remember bank executives whipping up public support for a government ban on short-selling bank stocks on the basis of "protecting decent companies from shady speculators and evil gamblers". In terms of cost to society, it was the bank executives who inflicted massive damage and bankrupted the country, not short- sellers of bank stock.

Since then, I've been quite skeptical when people blame speculators and short- sellers for the behavior of markets. There's usually some basis for shorting.

<comment><USER20> What real world value do short sellers add? Owning a stock used to mean that you invested in (a part) of a company. You risk your money to get some of the real world gains the company hopefully makes.

Now, the stock is the product, not the company. It's become a game in itself. It adds nothing to the real world outside of finance.

<comment><USER21> What real world value to long buyers add? Sure, if you invest and the company takes that investment and does really well with it, the world may benefit from an increase in productivity/wealth. But if you invest and the company does poorly and tanks, then the world loses by something because you could have taken that money somewhere productive. The kind of market that produces the most real world value is one where companies are valued accurately. If you think a stock is undervalued, you go long. If you think it's overvalued, you go short. Both actions affect the market value of a stock.

Seems like two sides of the same coin. I can't see where an argument against one doesn't work against the other.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This feels like a rushed announcement.

First you throw out a tweet, later in the day you halt trading, then you make an announcement that you're "considering" something major, but that you haven't decided yet.

Not only that, but Musk seems a tad bit paranoid. He's regularly talking about all those evil greedy short-term traders that attack the company -- which is a little silly since traders have given Tesla a larger market cap than GM and Ford.

<comment><USER4> I think he is more concerned about actual espionage, sabotage, manufactured bad press etc, than the stock price manipulation. That maybe indeed be paranoia or maybe he has seen it happening enough.

<comment><USER23> Huge shorts positions give strong insensitive to pay for sabotage or other real harm to the company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's a sign public equity markets aren't structured well that companies aren't encouraged to think long term. The most successful companies in today's markets don't even allow common shareholders to control the company, ie Google and Facebook with their special classes of controlling shares. We might need to reconsider changing laws around choosing board seats or requiring shareholders to have minimum holding times in order to align incentives better for the long term.

If public equity markets don't work, the alternative is more and more of wealth creation happening privately, in startups funded by VCs, private equity, or family owned businesses. The public won't get to participate.

<comment><USER25> >If public equity markets don't work, the alternative is more and more of wealth creation happening privately

I say that's a fair point, for the reasons you describe, that there's less oversight, and more mammoth capital sources that have an appetite for VC at nearly any stage.

The "aren't encouraged to think long term" is an odd bit. You are right but at the same time it seems to be at least imo that we (the market) _want_ these ownership structures. We want Page and Bezos and Zuckerberg and Musk, but we want to own it too. Snapchat and its S&P denial would be the battleground there.

So I think to paraphrase you latter idea "we might to formalize a public equity model that is more flexible around a founder/visionary, or we might need to be more explicit about who controls a company, and what can be done to change that control."

I suppose the balance to me is between making the burden of public markets lighter on companies with longer term vision, and exposing retail markets to a wild frontier that is imo only appropriate for more sophisticated parties.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Interesting. Bloomberg's Sebastian Boyd said:

 _Incidentally, Tesla has a free-float of 127.5 million shares. At $420 a share, that would cost you $53.6 billion. The company already has net debt of of $8.8 billion and an adjusted net leverage ratio of 13 times. Were it to be bought in a management-led LBO, a back-of-the envelope calculation would give it a leverage ratio of over 90 times, worse on a trailing 12-month basis. You can 't run a company on math like that._

So, either it's happening based on persuasion and belief (with Saudis as rumoured) or it's an attack against shorts and a bluff in which case SEC's rule 10b-5 might come into play and then... In any case, interesting.

<comment><USER27> An interesting perspective on why Elon might be pulling this move: [https://www.barrons.com/articles/tesla-stocks-surge-puts- con...](https://www.barrons.com/articles/tesla-stocks-surge-puts-convertible- bonds-in-the-money-1533667505)

<comment><USER28> "...which would effectively let the electric-auto maker pay off that obligation in stock instead of cash."

How does paying off the obligation with stock work?, whose shares would Tesla assign the bond holder?, if it assigns shares after market closes and when market opens if it's below $360, won't the bond holders sue?

<comment><USER29> The shares are created. As the debt are not repaid it's as if the bond holder bought shares in a round of recapitalization instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> _No external financing might be necessary_ , because virtually all Tesla shareholders today (i.e., people who are net-long the stock) are _true long- term believers_ in Musk's vision unconcerned with the company's short-term financial issues. (People who are concerned with financial issues are either avoiding the stock or shorting it.) These true-believer shareholders will want to hang on to their shares as the company goes private and shares start trading "by appointment" on less liquid, secondary private equity markets.

If I'm right and Musk pulls this off, short sellers are in for a world of pain. They will likely have to scramble to cover their short positions in the face of a limited supply of shares before delisting.

<comment><USER31> I need to double check it, but some of the largest institutional shareholders, like Vanguard Group, could only hold positions in public companies, so they will have to sell.

Retail investors can decide to go private, but tesla free float is very small, so they don't matter much in a grand scheme of things.

<comment><USER30> Yes, that's true for Vanguard. But others, like Fidelity, can and will allow shareholders to hold private shares in their brokerage acccounts, sometimes through special purpose vehicles created for the purpose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I would like to make a prediction: the Saudi Royal Family is the funding source. There are very few banks that could back this financially, and they have all said they are not behind it. The only source of this much money and secrecy is the House of Saud. They apparently also snapped up to 5% of public shares, and have expressed lots of interest in investing in the "new" economy.

<comment><USER33> Good way for them to hedge against a threat to their primary source of income.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Pretty enormous amount of money required. Say half of TSLA shareholders take the $420, that's approx ~$40bn required. Then there's another $10bnish of debt refinancing required, and probably many more billion for future product development and new assembly lines.

I don't think Softbank could finance this, it would be well over half their entire fund.

Saudi maybe - but still quite a chunk of change for them.

<comment><USER35> Or Apple, Google, maybe even Jeff from Amazon. Musk changes the rules of the game on a regular basis.

<comment><USER36> Just because those companies have massive market caps and cash reserves doesn't mean they can cut a check for 40B+ to buy a company that is burning cash. Hard to imagine any board signing off on that deal.

<comment><USER37> > Just because those companies have massive market caps and cash reserves > doesn't mean they can cut a check for 40B+ to buy a company that is burning > cash.

Cash reserves mean they _can_.

> Hard to imagine any board signing off on that deal.

Right, conservative (appropriately so!) corporate decision making means they likely _won 't_, not _can 't_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> How will Tesla get around the shareholder limit?

There is a limit to the number of shareholders a privately held company can have. It's apparently 2,000.

[http://blog.gust.com/limiting-the-number-of-shareholders- in-...](http://blog.gust.com/limiting-the-number-of-shareholders-in-private- companies/)

[https://www.investopedia.com/terms/5/500-shareholder- thresho...](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/5/500-shareholder- threshold.asp)

<comment><USER39> You would own shares in a private fund that would own Tesla shares.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> In the Tesla case I feel that the shareholder concerns are pretty valid and provide an interesting counter pressure to Musk's "This is fine" attitude. Not saying either is right, but the friction is likely valuable.

I'd not want to be an investor in a private Tesla. It would seem way to volatile.

<comment><USER41> I am a shareholder. I will not be selling after going private. This is really good for me because we can finally stick it to the shorts and the only people who we lose are "traders" \- I don't care about what they think. Long term investors only is a good motto :)

<comment><USER5> If Elon's tweet is motivated by a desire to stick it to the shorts, and he does not in fact have funding lined up to take Tesla public, he could (probably would) face a _massive_ stock manipulation lawsuit that would bankrupt him, in addition to any SEC settlements which would likely result in him being banned from holding an executive or board position in any publicly traded company.

<comment><USER42> How do you know he doesn't have funding lined up? Usually, if Musk says something like this it's true. (And don't start with he has a history of underestimating deadlines etc., this is totally different)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I think it's a great move. Prevents short term greedy shareholder strategies.

<comment><USER44> By paying a large premium to the all time high? If he's worried about the stock going down, paying more for it doesn't make a ton of sense. You should wait until the stock is down and then take it private.

<comment><USER45> By paying a 20% premium he's ensuring that the short sellers will need to buy shares at the premium price guaranteeing that they've lost at least 20% of what they've gambled.

<comment><USER44> Ah yes, overpay so you can stick it to the big mean short sellers. Might as well go for 50% premium with that logic!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> _Second, my intention is for all Tesla employees to remain shareholders of the company, just as is the case at SpaceX. If we were to go private, employees would still be able to periodically sell their shares and exercise their options. This would enable you to still share in the growing value of the company that you have all worked so hard to build over time._

How does this work as a private company?

<comment><USER47> Private companies are still allowed to give share to employees. Employees are then allowed to sell their stock periodically (every 6 months in this case).

<comment><USER46> Right, but with who?

<comment><USER47> Depends, the company could buy back, or during a founding round, some part of that founding can be reserved to buy employee shares. External investors are also allowed to buy from employees during this period.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I am a bit ignorant as to the mechanics of how this would work. Can anyone with the knowledge elaborate on what this means? Im thinking in terms of a few scenarios here: 1) I read this news and want to get on the Tesla train and throw all my liquidity into the current stock. 2) I already have x number of shares. What happens to them? 3) If I dissent, am I cut a check and told to hit the bricks? 4) is he going to need to raise capital to do this? 5) would the private company/person still be able to buy/sell "shares" on some off the stock market exchange?

<comment><USER49> 1\. You can buy TSLA stock as soon as trading them resumes. Lots of people already have.

2\. If this acquisition goes through, each one of your stocks will be worth $420. Congrats.

3\. You can't really dissent to shareholder majority agreeing to this deal.

4\. $70bn is a lot of mulla, so I would guess this will not be all Musk's personal funds.

5\. Theoretically, through some sort of a private equity venue. Just like any other private company.

<comment><USER50> Or an alternative to number 2, the acquisition does not go through and the stock plummets 20% from current price and you're now deeply in the red. I don't know enough about Tesla to predict which one is the mos likely but I have seen this happen in other companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Elon fashions himself a super hero: Batteries to Australia and Puerto Rico, A pledge to fix Flint's water quality and a submarine to rescue the boys in the cave.

Super heroes rock when they really do super things, but Elon flew off the handle with the last one when he called the master diver a pedophile all because his idea wasn't the one they used.

Having someone at the helm that is volatile like this is bad for a public company, but a private company would be able to shrug off embarrassing events such as these much easier.

Elon might be doing it to save his job.

<comment><USER52> I was thinking the same thing.

Usually his tweets send stock down, this one sent it up but may be in violation of SEC rules.

I imagine shareholders must be getting pissed whenever he goes off on a Trump like tirade on Twitter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> He tweeted that he had funding and in the email mentions no funding. This is a really weird announcement that feels like an empty pump of the stock. He could have chosen any number...

<comment><USER53> I don't think it was an intentional pump, I think he needs someone to change his Twitter password, not tell him the new one and post on his behalf, just like Trump also needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Not sure I agree with the dupe-flag. The other post was about the Saudi deal and then got changed. So the discussion there is fragmented.

<comment><USER55> You're right that it's not a precise dupe, but the topics are almost identical and we shouldn't have two of these on the front page at the same time. So we have to decide which one.

The other article is more substantive, since it's based on at least some facts, and the thread is correspondingly better. This one, by contrast, is really just an announcement of a possible future announcement. So it seems clear the first URL should win. If and when they actually take steps to go private, there will certainly be much discussion on HN.

<comment><USER54> That's fair. Thanks for explaining.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> There was a HN discussion a couple of days ago complaining about companies going public much later. Could the short term quarterly horizon of public investors, as pointed out here, be a big reason companies don't IPO sooner?

</comment><comment><USER57> TSLA up 7% on announcement, high of $370.79

If you're a short seller, beware the "squeeze." If you're not a short seller, this article can be an amusing read:

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen/short- sellers-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen/short-sellers-make- vw-the-worlds-priciest-firm-idUSTRE49R3I920081028)

<comment><USER49> If you're a heavy TSLA short-seller, you're already in deep trouble, unless this falls through very quickly. There will be margin calls. Welcome to the losing side of short-selling.

<comment><USER58> It only falls if Elon is bluffing. He's guaranteed $420 / share.

<comment><USER59> He's not guaranteeing anything. He hasn't mentioned financing to do this, and it's not a small amount of money to raise. Shareholder approval isn't a given either. It's probable that he'd get the votes if he showed the financing necessary for a $420 stock price, but it's not a guarantee.

<comment><USER31> If can demonstrate guaranteed financing for this deal from outside investors at $420/share, then he just tweeted material news about his company, and he had all the rights to do so.

If he can't prove guaranteed financing for this deal, that's securities fraud and SEC investigation is the next step of this drama. Imagine... well, SNAP CEO tweeting "Some rich folks are going to take us private at $50 per share lmao ayee, cover your shorts". This is a market manipulation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> If Tesla announces this (causing the stock to rise, since the suggested price is much higher than the current price), and then doesn't go through with it, is it considered stock manipulation? I don't mean to accuse them, I'm sure they covered their bases, but I'd like to understand how it works.

<comment><USER26> SEC has a rule for that: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEC_Rule_10b-5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEC_Rule_10b-5) and [https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rule10b5.asp#ixzz5NWNPZ...](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rule10b5.asp#ixzz5NWNPZXqa)

 _Examples of offenses that would violate rule 10b-5 would be: executives making false statements in order to drive up share prices_ ... interestingly, it's as serious as ... _or a company hiding huge losses or low revenues with creative accounting practices._

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> My take is he needs to do this in order to keep and attract the talent Tesla needs. Stock was way too volatile while rest of the tech industry has been going hockey stick.

</comment><comment><USER62> If Elon is guaranteeing a $420/share buyout - are there any downsides to buying as much stock as possible right now? Would the only risk be that this whole plan falls through or that Elon ultimately decides against that price?

<comment><USER63> As shares are not close to $420 right now, that indicates healthy skepticism that Elon is capable of getting this done. Do you have reason to believe that he is capable of raising $50-80 billion to complete the transaction? If yes, then you have a great arbitrage opportunity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Guess Elon isn't too confident about being able to deliver the earnings he promised on.

<comment><USER9> Can you expand on that, please?

<comment><USER64> Wall Street investors and analysts focus heavily on the bottom line. Elon believes that the work Tesla is doing requires more time, sustained attention, and focus than public investors have tolerance for. Furthermore, he thinks the volatility demotivates employees.

These are all completely true, and very reasonable, but do show (at least to me) that the near-term promises regarding profitability he made at the last earnings call are probably in jeopardy.

Thank you for asking for a clarification rather than just knee-jerk down voting, though. :)

<comment><USER65> I agree with your assessment. It seemed clear that Tesla was cutting back investment in new supercharger locations and maybe even service centers to reach profitability. I can't say that now felt like the best time for that kind of slowdown to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> I don't like the guy (and it's obvious from my comments), but this move is brilliant on so many levels.

The short sellers just got taken to the cleaners, _badly_.

By taking the company private, he's under less public and regulatory scrutiny.

It's probably easier for him to raise money privately, and there seems to be sufficient interest.

Tesla's employees, who are probably pretty much worn out, got a nice pay day.

And, of course... he's _the_ hero again.

 _Edit_

Pure speculation, but could it be that this announcement might actually backfire on the $420 price?

Tesla's is one of the most shorted stocks, ever. The short sellers stand to lose _immensely_ , so they'll try to close their short position as quickly as possible, thereby driving the price up higher -- possibly higher than the $420.

<comment><USER67> Why don't you like the guy? I am always surprised that people could have a net negative opinion on someone who is trying hard to push technology forward in multiple directions.

I agree this move is brilliant, and could be a huge competitive advantage when self-driving bad press liability kicks in.

<comment><USER7> I'm overall a fan of Tesla and SpaceX, but there are a number of valid criticisms you could make against Musk:

Occasionally childish relationship with his investors. Unfoundedly calling a diver a pedophile after he attacked Musk's rescue submarine as a dumb idea. He thinks he's an expert in any field he touches. Has an overall tendency on social media to promote Trump-style tribalism--you're either on team Elon or you're an idiot. There is no such thing as valid criticism of anything he does.

Some of these things also make him great. He assumes that everyone who looked at a problem before him was just too incompetent, corrupt, or complacent to solve it right, which can be a useful trait because it's often true. But when it's false it just makes him look like an asshole.

To be honest a lot of the hate just seems to come from how he responds to haters, so it's a bit of a vicious circle. If he just took a break from Twitter it'd probably benefit his image considerably.

<comment><USER68> I'm not qualified to make a diagnosis of any kind, but this at first glance suggests that he's a narcissist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> While there's some good reasons here, I can't help but think this is more an emotional reaction on Elon's part, to the shorting and general negativity around the company.

<comment><USER70> I think it's uncharitable to call it purely an emotional reaction. While that is certainly a component, I think this is actually one of the best mission- oriented strategic decisions Elon has made in a while.

The shorting and general negativity around the company are a morale drain on a scale that few companies have ever experienced before, let alone any companies that push their employees as hard as Tesla. I have friends who work very, VERY VERY hard at Tesla to help achieve their overall goal, and all of the hate really drags them down and makes them question why they work so hard, let alone the anxiety over the value of their shares. The cloud of negativity is a huge productivity sap and I suspect it is a contributor to the legendary rates of turnover at Tesla as well.

<comment><USER69> > I think it's uncharitable to call it purely an emotional reaction.

I agree. I didn't call it one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Would an Apple buyout be considered them going private if they are kept as a separate entity? It's the only one with enough money to buy them that I can think off.

<comment><USER35> Apple could do it with cash, but a lot of others could do it with some form of financing. A leveraged buyout.

<comment><USER71> Financing on this scale would require a massive and likely quite lengthy undertaking if this is not a stop gap bluff it looks like they already have a buyer and it looks like all the usual suspects as far as financing goes are not involved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> I couldn't be more supportive of this idea. I am so tired of seeing Tesla scramble to meet shareholder expectations which are almost always short- sighted.

</comment><comment><USER73> > as the most shorted stock in the history of the stock market

does this squeeze beats the VW one?

>First, I would like to structure this so that all shareholders have a choice. Either they can stay investors in a private Tesla or ...

given the potential number of shareholders wouldn't there still be pretty tough information disclosure requirements - isn't such required disclosure is among the major factors pushing companies into public market?

</comment><comment><USER74> On the one hand, the challenges of being a public company cited here are the same ones facing all public companies, and they do quite well. On the other hand, there's a ton of negative attention on the street that's probably a huge distraction.

I do think Tesla will be better served as a private company as long as Musk is CEO. He isn't public CEO material.

</comment><comment><USER75> Cached: [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xcMrTh...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xcMrThoRYRgJ:https://www.tesla.com/blog/taking- tesla-private+&cd=36&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

As the page is erroring out.

</comment><comment><USER76> I can see the cannabis industry investors and other stoner dudes purchasing for that specific amount.

</comment><comment><USER77> Instead of taking it private, what's stopping Tesla as a company from buying back shares from public market when the price is low? It not only stabilize the price it is also have long term benefit if the company is confident for the future.

<comment><USER78> Tesla doesn't have money to buy shares back. It's not clear what does he mean by "taking Tesla private" and who would be providing the money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> Nothing on financing and an FT reporter said bankers close to Tesla knew nothing about it.

</comment><comment><USER80> who is gonna finance that 420USD buy-back ?

</comment><comment><USER81> The difficulty to predict TSLA, especially early on, was one of the main reasons I sold it. It's now about double its value, but that's a recent phenomenon and it was pretty volatile before that.

<comment><USER53> I made the mistake of trying to trade the highs and lows on other stocks, got burnt out by the unpredictability. After that I just put my money on stocks I trust will grow over the long term(2+ years) and I don't even check their prices daily or even weekly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> LOL at $420/share I think he wants investors to chill out.

Anyway, since I own some shares will miss their stock, since I truly believe in them, but I guess this is better for the company.

</comment><comment><USER83> Why has the been banned from the homepage and marked as dupe?

<comment><USER84> I'm wondering about that as well. I don't see any other post about it and this is the official post from Tesla.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Is this common? Would shareholders accept this?

<comment><USER86> With that premium? I'd say it's a no brainer

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> I'm surprised given their burn rates that they don't want continued access to public capital markets.

</comment><comment><USER88> He is bluffing trying to squeeze the shorts, no one rational can value it 82B unless it was waymo level tech.

<comment><USER89> This is no bluff:

> Investor support is confirmed. Only reason why this is not certain is that > it's contingent on a shareholder vote.

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1026914941004001280](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1026914941004001280)

<comment><USER88> Yes he is, Where do you get 66 billion $. Investor support dosen't mean he has the financing. Don't quote a tweet, get some real sources.

"And yet it also left many questions unanswered, namely how Musk -- who owns almost 20 percent of the company -- would be able to come up with the $66 billion necessary to complete the transaction. At $420 a share, Tesla would have an enterprise value of about $82 billion including debt. To take it private, the billionaire would have to pull off the largest leveraged buyout in history, surpassing Texas electric utility TXU's in 2007."

<comment><USER89> That's an announcement from the CEO of Tesla. The details are still forthcoming but there is no greater source.

$66B is inaccurate, Tesla would only need to buy from the shareholders that wish to sell at $420.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'd like to think that back in the day Elon, and Clarence Saunders would have been great friends.

</comment><comment><USER90> Not sure when it was published exactly but the stock price impact was visible already 2 hours ago.

</comment><comment><USER91> First anounced a couple of hours by Elon on twitter: [https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/10268726522903797...](https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1026872652290379776) Which lead to comments if it being a scam.. It is impressive to see the power of twitter news!

</comment><comment><USER92> Seems like a good decision for Tesla. They have been pushing way to hard to satisfy the public opinion. The product and the company will continue to do well without being a public company.

</comment><comment><USER93> True story: I was standing on my back porch, finishing my morning coffee. It was one of those January Silicon Valley mornings where it can't quite decide whether its raining or not. Between the clouds, a rainbow appeared. From my vantage in the hills in South Fremont, the end of that rainbow sat squarely on the Tesla factory.

Being the sophisticated investor that I am, I know a 'buy' signal when I see one.

Here's to Elon and any Tesla employee who ever broke a sweat to deliver the pot of gold at the end of that rainbow.

<comment><USER94> Is this supposed to be a joke?

<comment><USER95> are you so short on tesla that you can't appreciate some nice quick'n'dirty storytelling? :) whether the story is true is of no consequence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> I know Twitter is powerful, but its wild to imagine you're Elon Musk or Kylie Jenner or Donald Trump, you know that when you push send, the 280 characters you typed will cause millions of people to either smile or frown, lead to significant financial gains or losses, and set the course of news for the morning, day or week. That level of influence is crazy to think about.

</comment><comment><USER85> Why this post was flagged?

</comment><comment><USER97> would make a hell of a utility coin

</comment><comment><USER98> Can someone please ELI5 this for me? Why is a private Tesla better? As long as Elon and employees own more than 51% of the stock (do they?), can't they not just ignore the stock price swings?

<comment><USER53> You still have to publicly reveal all the quarterly numbers, estimates for next few quarters, do all the GAAP accounting etc. which puts a lot of toll on a company that's going through wild swings in capital spending and production.

If they don't keep their promises, the stock will crash, so everyone goes on a production death march close to the end of the quarter under extreme stress, instead of just growing organically at a steady pace. Good estimates are hard, just like in IT. That's why many companies delay going public, for example Uber.

<comment><USER98> Yeah, but why not just ignore a stock price crash if you don't need to sell and believe in the long term plan?

<comment><USER99> Every employee holds stock. I don't think every employee is in the position of never needing to sell. A price crash is bad for morale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> As a thumb rule I do not like to work for private companies especially when around 40% of my renumeration comes from RSUs.

</comment><comment><USER101> Ballsy. And nukes short sellers from the orbit as well even if it doesn't go through. It's the only way to be sure.

</comment><comment><USER102> (If this happens) What does this mean for owners (non-employees) of TSLA stock? Will you be able to maintain your holdings in the company after it is delisted from an exchange?

<comment><USER103> His post says you can have private shares or accept the buyout at $420

<comment><USER104> I'm going to guess that that will require accredited investor status ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor)).</comment></comment></comment>


Would You Take an 8% Pay Cut to Work from Home? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-07/would-you-take-an-8-pay-cut-to-work-from-home?cmpid=BBD100716_BIZ <comment><USER2> Misleading headline. Working from home doesn't necessarily imply the setting of one's own hours.</comment>


Interview with GitLab CEO Sid Sijbrandij - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/gitlab-ceo-sid-sijbrandij-interview-2019-3 <comment><USER2> Very interesting. I've really enjoyed reading this story, congrats GitLab folks!

Can anyone recommend any other similar story to read?</comment>


Memcmp requires pointers to fully valid buffers - <AUTHOR> http://trust-in-soft.com/memcmp-requires-pointers-to-fully-valid-buffers/ <comment><USER2> To the rescue: valgrind complains about this problem, even if many tend to ignore or suppress it, mostly for performance reasons.</comment>


How to Get to Mars by 2020 - <AUTHOR> http://www.popsci.com/trump-mars-2020?src=SOC&dom=tw <comment><USER2> We're learning a lot by sending robots to Mars. What we need to be doing is getting NASA hooked up with Boston Dynamics to get even better robots to Mars. While we're doing that we need to be working on dramatic improvements to the ISS to make it a waypoint to a lunar base. Then we need a shuttle(s) going between the ISS and the lunar base. Once we have that in place I think we can talk about going to Mars.</comment>


Ask HN: What are your favorite examples of edutainment (like Cosmos)? - <AUTHOR> Could be a book, YouTube channel, TV show, movie, video game, blog, etc. <comment><USER2> Would you accept Hacker News as edutainment? It's entertaining but rarely useful. Still I enjoy it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha it's definitely not apparently useful. But what I've found is that some of the information I'm vacuuming up occasionally becomes relevant. HN is more about triggered than active recollection.</comment></comment>


A solution for the "send email to relatives when I die" problem - <AUTHOR> http://www.essien.org/blog/2008/11/24/a-solution-for-the-send-email-to-relatives-when-i-die-problem/

<comment><USER3> > This method works because your mum is never going to go into conspiracy with > your business partner to gain access to your information.

Unless your mom is Lucille Bluth.

I think a better way would be to have one person click 'Mark is dead' and it immediately sends an email to Mark saying 'Joe says you're dead.' If Mark doesnt' access the account within x days, then it sends further confirmation emails to Mom and business partner who also have to confirm that Mark is dead. If so, then it set 'Mark = dead' and opens the vaults as Mark configured.

<comment><USER4> What if your business partner dies? I thought everyone needs to confirm you are dead? What if they are dead?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I had this idea too. I was going to build it until I looked for a good domain. In the process I ran into: <http://www.ifidie.org/> \-- which had already implemented it well enough.

Note the idea is applicable to far more than "relatives when I die".. e.g. root password for the server when you're sick in the hospital. Also, remember that many people don't want their estate documents to be viewed pre-death (e.g. don't want people to know how much they're getting), and letting people know where you put them / how to contact the lawyer in a reliable way is a hassle in and of itself.

</comment><comment><USER6> Have a lawyer and a will.

<comment><USER7> That or just have a service setup to monitor a Twitter feed for updates. So in the case of Robert Scoble, more than 2 hours and he's probably dead!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> True, email polling to determine live-or-dead status is pretty dumb :)

A company exists that offers after-death services using a multiple-redundancy scheme like the one described:

<https://www.mywonderfullife.com>

They call the trustworthy people "angels" :)

<comment><USER9> Ideally, they would also alert you that you've been "marked as dead" and give you a week or so to claim that you're still around.

<comment><USER8> They do exactly this. There are several layers of checks because getting it wrong is kind of a deal-breaker.

A lot of things happen after confirming someone is really truly dead, and many of those things can't be easily undone :)

(Full disclosure: I work for the company that developed the site)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The biggest problem with this is what happens if one of those people dies - <USER2> simply gets a new email and doesn't tell you - before you die?

Your data is forever locked because of one person. It's even worse than you not telling the service that you changed your email. At least you should have known that the service existed.

Burdening your friends and relatives doesn't strike me as the best way t handle this issue.

<comment><AUTHOR> The solution - if one person does not reply by clicking a button 'he is not dead', this persons opinion ceases to matter.

<comment><USER10> wha? That pretty much defeats the purpose of having that person on the list in the first place.

What if nobody responds?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1 person has responded - the person who clicked the button. If nobody else agrees, then I would say the data stays locked. Otherwise the one person could simply wait for a moment where everyone traveled and had no email access.

<comment><USER10> Which basically means to say that the entire security of the site is based on the ability of my designates to have my best interests at heart... and also not to have installed a spam filter, moved, changed email or otherwise become unreachable to a service that pretty much becomes forgettable after 6 months or so.

I'd much rather trust myself to manage things, to be honest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I knew a few people who had a "if you read this, I am dead" cronjob setup on their machine: if they wouldn't log in by a certain time, an email would be sent saying that they're dead. Of courses there were cases where people would simply forget about these cronjobs and send email needlessly worrying the people they cared about (and possibly getting themselves 5150'd).

<comment><USER12> What about "If you are reading this, there may be a serious problem. I usually log into my system everyday and since that hasn't happened, please call or try to find me to make sure I'm OK"

That way it's only slightly alarming to your loved ones.

<comment><USER11> that's different, but do you really need to worry the people you care about like this? bad news travels fast and if you do need to call for help there are ways slightly more person than a cronjob (though this sort of a cronjob message won't get you 5150'd, which generally makes whatever problems one has worse).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I find it more interesting to note that not only has this sparked a conversation on HN... it has sparked a conversation about the security/efficiency/problems of the proposed solution.

I guess a lot of us are analytically minded here.

My question is: did you (and if yes, what?) do something to release your digital assets to your family?

</comment><comment><USER14> I'd be pretty freaked out if I was 60-something and I got an email like that from one of my children, I think.

</comment><comment><USER15> Very interesting idea. I think it would make sense to send these notifications to the party's estate lawyer, rather than loved ones, just to reduce the "morbid" factor.

</comment><comment><USER16> Sounds like if one email ends up in a spam folder, the whole thing fails to work.

</comment><comment><USER17> I wasn't aware that this was an actual problem.</comment>


What Are Active-Shooter Drills Doing to Kids? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/02/effects-of-active-shooter/554150/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> Slightly off-topic, but I have a friend who does training for active shooter response (he goes around to schools and large businesses and teaches people what seems to work best for saving lives in these situations). When I see things like "they huddle under their desks in the dark" I cringe. His training is very different, and focused on evacuating the students and disrupting the shooter. First, barricade the doors, then seek immediate escape and RUN. If that's not possible, everyone picks up whatever they can throw and gets ready to pelt the shooter with it if the door is breached. While this is happening, people escape around the edges and others attempt to subdue the shooter (taking advantage of the fact that it's very hard to shoot accurately when you're being pelted with hard, heavy objects).

He has researched a number of these events, and he has some chilling stories. In one case, the shooter walked up and down the rows of desks where people were cowering in the dark and executed each person. I think he said there were only a couple of survivors, and even those were critically injured. In the same shooter incident (sorry I can't recall where he said this one happened), another classroom used the disrupt and escape method, and almost all of them survived.

Bringing it back to topic, I wonder how the psychological effect would change if the students and teachers were trained with active responses that have been shown to greatly improve their odds of survival, instead of being told to wait passively in the dark and hope they get skipped. Would the fear be reduced? I honestly don't know how it would be for kids, but in my own case I feel better when I'm prepared to act instead of having to wait around for something to happen to me.

<comment><USER3> >I honestly don't know how it would be for kids, but in my own case I feel better when I'm prepared to act instead of having to wait around for something to happen to me.

You mean similar to how any sort of hostage / terrorist event on planes tend to get stopped by passengers now after 9/11 because folks would rather go down fighting?

Also, thanks for sharing the anecdote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The drills don't make sense to me. If it's a drill to protect the students against one of their own, that student has also been in the drills and knows that quiet rooms still likely have people in them.

If I remember correctly, the last school shooting had the kid shooting through a door's window into a classroom and killing people who were hiding in the corner. Obviously he knew they were in there already. The drilling he was in would've showed him that.

So what is the point of it? You are giving away any and all secrets to the potential assailant. It's nothing like a fire drill or a "mother nature" type of drill. They should really just stop doing it.

<comment><USER5> I don't think it is about actually hiding or being secret. It's just about stalling. Getting through a locked door takes time that responding officers can use to get to the school. Most school shootings stop as soon as the first responding officer engages with the shooter.

<comment><USER6> Locked door will not stall a person with a gun willing to shoot through said door. And as they know about the drill they will not be fooled into thinking nobody is there. Plus they can just shoot the lock off. And building a real barricade takes a long time, strength plus skill.

It will prevent any solid response from you though, other than jumping out the window (if possible).

This is why people are trained to evacuate not stay putt during danger. Or stall it actively if they can. Same principle as in fires, earthquakes, floods, bombings or other terror.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you raise children in fear, they're easy to manipulate into fear as adults.

I wonder if there's any connection between the Booomers' upbringing in the duck-and-cover era and their later full-throated support of security theater in the name of "anti-terrorism".

<comment><USER8> > _If you raise children in fear, they 're easy to manipulate into fear as > adults._

An implicit claim in the quoted text is that one of the reasons people want to implement such drills is to produce adults that will be easier to manipulate. I think a claim like that requires some attempt at justification.

(And before anyone jumps to conclusions, the point I'm making is completely independent of whether I think the drills are a good or bad thing).

<comment><USER6> The justification is hard - you would have to run serious longitudinal studies. By that point the damage (or not) is done. In fact this could be considered an unsanctioned social experiment, doubly unethical because it is ran on children and bypasses parental oversight.

Just consider what happens in quite heavily militarized countries such as South Korea. They get large numbers of people who are obedient and respect authority - this on top of the general Asian proclivity to do so.

Or perhaps see what happens in Israel and Palestine with all the missile drills.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow. Talk about solving the wrong problem.

</comment><comment><USER10> America is strange.

</comment><comment><USER11> I remember drills that had us huddling under our desks because Russia was going to nuke us. Those desks are magical.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think this is good. Kids go into these drills with eyes wide open, and are forced to confront the reality of their own mortality, and how easily their life could just come to a gruesome end even in a safe setting. The sooner one realizes this in life, the sooner one starts to live with _intent_ , and discerns the difference between things that truly matter in life and that which is fleeting and vain.

<comment><USER6> Some will instead break faced with this reality or... even worse. Since this is not personalized, it is extremely irresponsible to run such drills.

If they really want to do this, they could choose a hand picked group to actually train in civil response instead of this dumb. Enough trained people should be able to stop an active shooter as opposed to scared bunch of kids.</comment></comment>


Startup Quote: Charles F. Kettering, Inventor - <AUTHOR> http://startupquote.com/post/1403081792

<comment><AUTHOR> A problem well stated is a problem half solved.

\- Charles F. Kettering</comment>


Britain just got its first concrete sign that Brexit will destroy the economy - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/britain-just-got-its-first-concrete-sign-that-brexit-will-destroy-the-economy-a7152306.html <comment><USER2> "destroy the economy", "terrifying chart" turns out to be a bit of a blip.

Could just as easily be random variation, due to campaign lies on both sides or nicer weather, as marking anything notable.

</comment><comment><USER3> A "concrete sign" in the form a a virtual graph showing some obscure figure (PMI or purchasing managers index) produced by some obscure group (Markit) has dropped.

<comment><USER4>
        > ... some obscure group (Markit) ...

Looking up Wikipedia[0]:

        Markit Ltd. is a global, financial information
        and services company with over 4,000 employees,
        founded in 2003 as independent source of credit
        derivative pricing.

        Revenue US$ $1.5 billion

Scarcely a fly-by-night "unknown" group.

Further, the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) seems to agree with them. This was reported in the press:

        The abrupt and large fall in both orders
        and output reported by IHS Markit and the
        CIPS clearly makes a recession in the
        second half of 2016 a real risk. Similar
        results for August and September would
        suggest a 0.4% contraction in the economy
        in the third quarter.  It only takes two
        successive quarters of contraction to
        constitute a technical recession. [1]

Further, these "flash PMI readings" have been used for decades and are generally regarded as good indicators, albeit possible that they _are_ just blips and may need revision.

However, it's really not looking good. I personally know of lucrative contracts that have been cancelled, terminated, or delayed.

By all means feel free to regard all this as scare-mongering, but don't hold that attitude by default way past the point where the trend becomes obvious.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markit)

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/22/post- brexit...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/22/post-brexit- economy-may-actually-be-worse-than-markits-survey-suggests)</comment></comment>


How I cured my anxiety - <AUTHOR> https://levels.io/anxiety/ <comment><USER2> like this post, not new ideas, but generally ppl don't talk alot about it, so its nice to read someone's views on this and their experiences with trying to battle it. Thanks!</comment>


Ask HN: Besides technical interviews, how would you want to be evaluated? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I enjoyed reading Thomas Ptacek's hiring post: [https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/03/06/the-hiring- post/](https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/03/06/the-hiring-post/)

I've never had an interview like that personally, but I have had interviews that were a bit more practical. Like instead of solving an algorithmic problem, it was: how would you lay out the database for a clone of popular website X, how would you handle stuff like pagination. Those are a bit less nervewracking than the typical "implement binary search in a chamber slowly filling with sand" interviews.

<comment><USER3> For a jr dev, those questions might be a bit more nerve-racking :) Although... an interview in a chamber filling slowly with sand might trump the former.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ideally a company would have an open source code base and very clear issues with tags. With this, any sufficiently good pull request would automatically get you the job (a pull request to an appropriately difficult issue).

<comment><USER5> This is a really interesting idea. Even if the initial code was "staged". It would demonstrate that the applicant could grok existing code, respond to an issue ticket and implement a solution.

Great idea!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sometimes, I'm just told there is a problem, here's a bit of code. Can I fix it? About 30 minutes later, I have a solution or I cry uncle.

If I don't have a solution, I have no work from the company.

</comment><comment><USER7> I would love to be judged by my references earlier in the interview process, however this is not meritocratic.

In fact it's the opposite since it favors nepotism and disadvantages people from historically disadvantaged backgrounds. This is the same reason CA introduced the recent law prohibiting employers from asking about salary history.

But what is a "reference"? Often, it's a free-form phone call from the hiring manager to a person you've previously worked with. I think there's a lot of room to improve LinkedIn's "recommendations" feature--they clearly de- prioritized it, as well as endorsements.

In a nutshell, I want my social proof to precede me in my job search.

Why do fizz buzz when you can get several of your friends to confirm "this person can do fizz buzz, and also these things that you are expressly hiring for."

<comment><USER8> I dislike references because:

1\. People can lie in support of their friends, or be bad judges of ability. A project manager might vouch that this guy is godlike when the reality is that they've just been working late whenever the boss is around and hacks everything together clumsily.

2\. Some people don't want their best employees to leave, so they won't want to give a strong recommendation to someone, especially if that person is currently employed.

3\. Whatever circumstances that causes one to leave a job might not put them on the best terms.

I feel that recommendations are sometimes like asking someone's ex about their character.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I had an idea a while back around inverting the interview/recruitment process, but a lack of resource/willpower/ability means I won't ever follow through with it. Regardless, I like the idea of it.

If a third-party recruiter is involved, they will get in contact with a developer that they deem to be sellable. Once they've got his/her details, they'll pass them on to an employer, who will then interview them for the role.

The flaws with this approach are:

1\. The recruiter doesn't know if you're any good or not. They probably don't care, but a good developer can be sold for a high commission.

2\. The interviewee has to interview when it is convenient for the employer

3\. The employer has to run a ton of interviews to find a viable candidate, and (probably) come up with a proper interview process to replace their crappy one.

If, instead of having a skills-based interview with the employer, you had one with the recruiter, who would only take you on as a client if you matches a certain level of skill/talent, in theory everyone's problems are solved.

Recruiter: Adds real value to the developer, can sell a provable talent to a company quickly, and ideally with no worry about commission being lost by an employer rejecting an obvious dud.

Developer: Gets to "interview" whenever is convenient for them. Can be evaluated in multiple ways (take home test, face-to-face interview, etc), and can be given real technical feedback as the interview is not for employment, but to sign up for a service.

Employer: Can hold a shorter interview process, and get someone in quickly.

In terms of actual technical interviews, there are so many different ways of doing them that all I ever really want from an employer is some heads-up on what I'll be asked. Interviews are convenient at the best of times, so if I'm going to try and make time when I should be working I want to at least be prepared for the experience.

<comment><USER10> >If, instead of having a skills-based interview with the employer, you had one with the recruiter, who would only take you on as a client if you matches a certain level of skill/talent, in theory everyone's problems are solved.

There are a few recruiters that try to approximate this; see a list here: [https://github.com/vchernoy/dreamjob](https://github.com/vchernoy/dreamjob)

<comment><USER9> It's not an original idea, but I think there's a gap in the market for this to be done at a more local level, and for the other 90% of jobs that aren't at big tech agencies.

A lot of these platforms are trying to solve the process for huge companies that offer whiteboard algorithm-based interviews, whereas a local agency down the road just wants a Rails developer with ecommerce experience, or a .NET developer with Umbraco experience. It's these companies that are more likely to want to use a recruiter, and it's tech bosses at these companies that are often wary of not only other peoples interview processes, but their own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ask me about what I've accomplished in the past, and have a technical conversation with me about the subject matter that's directly relevant to the role right now.

</comment><comment><USER12> I want the interview be a form similar to hackathon. Given a software request (or a topic), design and implement it within 8 hours.

For example, implementing a chat app.

<comment><USER13> Anything longer than 2 hours is too long unless you get paid. You're automatically disadvantaging people who aren't in a position to dedicate a large amount of time to free work. Plus if say they're only offering 5% interviewees a role, for 95% of interviewees it's a complete waste of time. 2 hours is a lot more acceptable as a waste of time vs 8+ hours.

As a general rule, if I'm asked to spend time on one of those coding assignments, I assume I have the job unless I really F it up. Only the top 2-3 contenders should be asked to spend more than half a day on one of these assignments, and they typically take half a day or more.

The best coding assignment I had from an interviewer is one where I got paid. It was part of their process, and wasn't a complete waste of time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm still a fan of technical questions that don't involve low level implementation of code.

Things like "How would you create minesweeper on the iPhone" or "How would you make an app that's Airbnb for dogsitters?"

Just try to see how people would approach the question.

</comment><comment><USER14> Conceptual problem questions that test my knowledge of data structure and algorithm _application_ rather than detailed implementation. Do I know how computers work? Can I apply Big-O conceptually in this problem space? Can I discuss how this problem changes when n goes from 1Kb to 1Tb?

</comment><comment><USER15> Programming. Blank file or modify something existing, I don't really mind. Ideally something reasonably open-ended, though. Evaluation which emphasises results more than "ways of working" stuff.

</comment><comment><USER16> Paid (regardless of outcome), relevant to the job project .

</comment><comment><USER17> Write code really really drunk. People reveal the worst in themselves when they code drunk.

</comment><comment><USER18> On a whiteboard solving classic algorithm puzzle problems that have nothing to do with the work I do... oh wait, wrong thread.

<comment><USER19> Ha! I've had to do a few of those recently. Unfortunately, they were the ones where you write code as the hiring manager watches.

Not a fan of those...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Based on previous work experience, like-ability, references, and a take home exercise.

</comment><comment><USER20> If you want to make sure I am not lying just polygraph me!!! don't make me memorize useless algorithms that I will never use! looool

</comment><comment><USER21> By a written test, of course.

</comment><comment><USER22> the good old hard cash will do just fine...</comment>


It is perfectly OK to only code at work, you can have a life too - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/bjsoeh/it_is_perfectly_ok_to_only_code_at_work_you_can/ <comment><USER3> _> It is perfectly OK to only code at work, you can have a life too_

That short life-affirming quote structured like a pithy aphorism is _hiding the true debate_ that motivates it.

The real discussion before that quote is this:

Some employers _prefer_ programmers that like programming outside of work. For the other programmers that would rather constrain coding work to 40 hours a week, they feel that employer preference is _unfair_.

So yes, of course it's fine to want to do non-coding activities outside of work... _but that 's not what the real frustration is about_.

Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do to prevent some employers for preferring coders who code outside of work. It's been that way for decades. On the other hand, some employers don't care about personal coding projects so that culture may be a better fit.

<comment><USER4> Gonna bet that for whatever reasons they do it, people who code on their own time are on average better coders and will on average have an easier time gettinv employment. Isn't this true for any skill (except maybe neurosurgery)?

<comment><USER5> >Isn't this true for any skill

I'm not sure why it would hold that, if you do something for 40 hours a week, you'll necessarily improve if you do it for an even greater amount of time. And, besides, effectiveness as a developer is not _just_ about coding anyway. A lot more goes into creating products and services than lines of code.

<comment> jpd- The underlying assumption is that when you code outside of work, you're working on things that are different from what you do at work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I really wanted to code my own side projects in my spare time. I always have so much ideas that I become anxious when will I have time for them all.

But during my spare time, which I would like to designate to my own projects, life kicks in. Something breaks, an old friend is back in town, I don't feel well, there is a recipe I want to try or my girlfriend and I want to have a day outdoors because we didn't have enough quality time together during the week. Then Sunday evening comes and I become sad because I'm far behind my own plans.

But the most important thing I was missing is thet I actually enjoy stuff beyond coding. I was so concentrated on it that I stopped being thankful for all of the detours that make my life complete and meaningful. Tonight I'm going to change the mixer tap at my folks home, and I'm glad I'll make them happy and life a bit more comfortable. My buddy is back, so latter were going out for drinks, we're gonna have a ball. And I actually love those things, it's refreshing. Yes I would like to brush up on some fresher skills or try out the latest AWS Blazefeather. And I will eventually. But I realized that other stuff in life makes me also a calm and enjoyable person, and personality and temper is also a part of an engineers value.

<comment><USER7> If I were an employer I'd like to see a healthy life outside of work on a prospective hire. Mental health is a great factor in work productivity too

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Contains predictable reddit comments of never working a millisecond of unpaid time.

That's certainly a choice; there's nothing wrong with it.

OTOH, if you enjoy coding (as I do), there's also nothing wrong with coding at home or doing the occasional extra work from home (and conversely, dicking off in the office now and then when there's an opportunity).

Many find that being flexible like this yields a better outcome for all parties.

<comment><USER9> Yes, I think the key point is to know yourself, do what you truly like at leisure time, and never put yourself on pressure outside of work (for example, thinking not coding at home will make you a worse programmer, or that you're missing something). Sometimes I've not touched a line of code at home for months because I was focusing on other hobbies, like reading, that I had abandoned. No regrets. Lately I've gone back to think about possible personal projects I could do. Being flexible with yourself is important.

<comment><USER10> This is key! It echoes my comment elsewhere in the thread quite well. Being flexible is important. You'll just end up depressing yourself if you'll force yourself to write code in your free time even when you don't want to. (Been there, done that).

<comment><USER11> If I've got the work scratch on my own time I turn to learning. It can benefit me long term, and perhaps score me some cred at work in the short term.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It fluctuates for me, which I think is normal. I enjoy programming a lot - <USER2> was a hobby before a profession. I enjoy learning programming languages and puzzling things out.

But sometimes I don't want to code at home - I have other hobbies, a wife, friends, .. that I'd rather do something with. But I do find that after a certain time I'll miss programming for fun.

It used to bother me when I lost motivation to work on side-projects or to learn new things. But after losing and regaining the motivation often enough, I now figure it's just a cyclical thing. I might be on a day out with my wife and suddenly think of something I want to learn and continue spending several weeks learning or building it. Only to find myself without a project again for several weeks and enjoying going to the movies, gaming, citytrips...

The only thing which I do believe is that if you have absolutely no interest in learning new things - in your own time or in paid time - it's going to be hard to keep up with the evolving industry. But I could be wrong, we still have the cobol cowboys... :)

</comment><comment><USER12> The field of software engineering changes rapidly and is complex to master. To remain good at the job, one must continue to explore and learn. The only way that is going to happen is if you are genuinely interested in the field. The best indicator of that is that you have pet projects outside of work.

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't get this. It is like being an accomplished painter, but never painting anything for yourself. Or a carpenter, and not making your own table or chairs.

As a coder, you have the ability to create almost anything. How can that knowledge not tempt you to create something yourself?

<comment><USER14> Programming is not by itself an art, so it doesn't fulfill people's self- expression needs (although it may contain bits of art like e.g. video games).

You cannot create "almost anything" with coding, it's not like I can bake fries by typing some code.

I do not write this in jest, I just find that people tend to overestimate coding.

<comment><USER15> I think coding is different things to different people. So sometimes it's hard to sync up and have a useful conversation.

I believe you can create anything with coding. You can automate home routines. You can figure how the best dose of vitamins and supplements. You can optimize finances. It's pretty limitless. Not to mention staring at a screen, giving it commands and seeing the result for hours just being fun. In both a meditative way and a discovering secrets way.

But for many people, it's a job and not interesting in and of itself.

Someone mentioned painting and there are painters who make art and do it for expression. And there are painters who paint houses. They are both fine professions and really just a choice or an orientation. I don't do either, but I think the artist painter will do lots of side projects outside her studio while the house painter is less likely to paint too many houses pro bono.

This doesn't mean programmers who code outside of work are superior humans. I think any company who has this as a binary hiring decision is missing out that there are great programmers who don't do it out of passion. I once worked with a programmer who didn't own a computer (in 2005) and he was good. And there are hobby programmers who suck at work even though they have lots of personal projects.

<comment><USER16> > I believe you can create anything with coding. You can automate home > routines. You can figure how the best dose of vitamins and supplements. You > can optimize finances. It's pretty limitless. Not to mention staring at a > screen, giving it commands and seeing the result for hours just being fun. > In both a meditative way and a discovering secrets way.

> But for many people, it's a job and not interesting in and of itself.

I am one of those people who want to only code at work. I also enjoy programming a lot.

My problem with "coding for fun" for me is that anything interesting that I want to build gets tedious after the initial, easy and fun parts are implemented. I end up trying to fix edge cases and debug hard to fix bugs.

At that point it feels like a chore to do.

> This doesn't mean programmers who code outside of work are superior humans. > I think any company who has this as a binary hiring decision is missing out > that there are great programmers who don't do it out of passion. I once > worked with a programmer who didn't own a computer (in 2005) and he was > good. And there are hobby programmers who suck at work even though they have > lots of personal projects.

Exactly. People who want to do something else don't go around demeaning people who code in their free time. But the opposite does happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I don't do any coding over the weekend, my coding tasks on Monday are far more fun. Which is difficult because I love messing around with my own little programs and games.

<comment><USER17> That was my issue. I do love what I do, but I was doing it so much at work that I didn't have energy for my passion projects. When I was trying to do both, I loved neither. So I had to rebalance things to reach a happier median.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> There are people who used to write code at home for their own personal projects and really enjoyed it, but have become too busy, tired, disillusioned or whatever else to keep it going these days. There are also people who never could think of anything they wanted to build, but nonetheless liked coding for school better than doing a lot of other things, and got good at it.

If I was interviewing a person who told me they have never created anything that wasn't for school or a paycheck, it would definitely bother me-- but I would still do my best to look objectively at the quality of their work. After all, there are many skilled electricians and plumbers who don't use their skills in their own homes unless they have an annoying problem they can fix easily.

</comment><comment><USER19> If you're not sufficiently excited about programming that you want to spend your free time doing it, that's fine. But don't expect technical employers to be all that excited by you.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, if you have a family, you are probably not sufficiently dedicated to your job anyway. And if you only have a girlfriend, if she truly loves you, she will certainly understand that you don't want to waste your precious free time with her. It's all about priorities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I guess coding outside of work does allow you to explore things that you might not get a chance to in the day job, which in turn might help with interview situations.

</comment><comment><USER22> tech is moving so fast, if you're not learning in your spare time, you'll quickly fall behind. That doesn't mean that you won't be able to find a job though

<comment><USER23> This is a commonly held belief but I don't think it's true. There is a lot of surface-level technical turnover in software. A lot of "new framework-of-the- month" churn. A lot of project management/methodology fads: Agile and Pair Programming and Test-driven development. The tooling changes slightly every so often. But the fundamental principles and techniques of good software engineering have not changed in decades.

Take a good productive software developer 30 years ago, and time travel him/her here today and they will be productive with very little ramp-up. A bad software developer from 30 years ago will be bad today too.

Learning for its own sake is great, but don't actively try to create and get on an unnecessary treadmill.</comment></comment>


Who is in the wrong in this convo? - <AUTHOR> https://pastebin.com/raw/512jKfRY <comment><USER2> I'm so confused

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm earning your trust as I go, with each of my replies. I'm sorry but you are the only commenter, so I'm going to nag you about this for a bit. do you trust me a little more?

now I think that you are one of the convo parties. it's not even funny anymore, you haven't replied to any of my commments. have not even asked a single question. if it's you, I'm gonna tell you that the public will judge whether I've broken your trust, which public you may ask? I've asked that question in an LJ of a person who I trust. This is how TRUST is passed along

*I only correct grammar and clarify message when I don't want to get you overnotified and you have to trust me on this</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Companies still offering summer internships? - <AUTHOR>

It's a bit late in the season, but I was wondering if there are any companies still looking for interns for the summer. Personally, I'm in southern California, but I can travel. Anyway, I figure I'm not the only one looking, so this can be an international question.<p>Also, what are some good places to look for summer work in programming? I've used internmatch.com, but I'm sure there are good opportunities that aren't there. <comment><USER2> Hi there, if you're into start-ups and would like to spend your summer in London, I'd suggest you have a look at:

[http://www.joinef.com/students/](http://www.joinef.com/students/)

They have a bunch of alumni startups who are looking for interns and still accepting applicants.

Drop me a message on twitter @cosoare and I'll gladly make a list for you.</comment>


Ask HN: Review my startup - threddie.com - <AUTHOR>

http://threddie.com
"Threddie lets you brainstorm with people using a post-and-comment system everyone's familiar with. Just start a brainstorm, add a briefing and some topics, then invite people to discuss.
It's better than email, yet much more intuitive and lightweight than the mind mapping and diagram drawing alternatives."
This is aimed at small companies. I've already got a little bit of traction and, based on the feedback I got from that, am working on the next set of features (file attachments, custom subdomains, having multiple users under the same account).
This will be SaaS, with a range of plans priced according to team size and storage space.
What do you guys think? <comment><USER2> Just one quick UI suggestion:

Rather than have the user typing onto the end of the URL, make the field something like "name your Brainstorm" and just have the user enter their moniker. Display the resulting URL using js below the field.

I was confused for a few seconds, because I thought /b/ was your example brainstorm name (FYI, /b/ is an infamous community of like-minded folks on 4chan) and kept trying to backspace over it to write my own.

Beyond that: I like your site and it seems well-implemented. I don't know if it's something I would use much, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tips. I'm definitely going to do something about both the /b/ issue and the brainstorm url thing (it'll be auto-generated).

(By the time /b/'s significance dawned on me I felt like a massive idiot)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> <http://threddie.com></comment>


BetterWorldBooks Recent Growth - Is Altruism a competative edge against Amazon? - <AUTHOR> http://siteanalytics.compete.com/betterworldbooks.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> If anyone is interested in this topic, I expect comments pointing out that Betterworldbooks.com are not on Amazon's radar. This may be growth, but it is still a small piece of the large pie. That is true.

However, I still think it is an example demonstrating something. In many cases (myself included), customers will probably prefer Amazon. After all, they solve the online book buying problem pretty well. You can match them for price, but can't really beat them unless you sell second hand. You probably can't match their delivery times, reliability or efficiencies.

But a strong social good incentive is a possible point of difference.</comment>


Use of Technology to address sexual health concerns - <AUTHOR> We are using technology to address the concerns of sexual health in India. Please check www.cupidcare.in <comment><USER2> Good site. Privacy needs to be main focus. What is the level of privacy used?

</comment><comment><USER3> cheers</comment>


Is Russian Meddling as Dangerous as We Think? - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/14/is-russian-meddling-as-dangerous-as-we-think <comment><USER2> It was such a big risk that we made election security weaker and mass printed ballots to mail out to everyone for this election even if they didnt ask for them. Genius.

Also masks are expected to be obtained by everyone but voter ID is too hard because democrats think minorities are stupid or something. Or as Biden would say "poor kids are just as good as white kids"</comment>


Ask HN: Can you give me a link to this article - <AUTHOR>

I remember an article being shared in HN, about a female writer who had written about her time in new york when she was young. I know this is vague but does anyone remember who the author was or can you link me to the article.
TIA <comment><USER2> [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site:news.ycombinat...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site:news.ycombinator.com+%22new+york%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=)

Try to google with "new york" .. hope this help.</comment>


Untold Benefits of a Software Blog - <AUTHOR> https://blog.benroux.me/untold-benefits-of-a-software-blog/ <comment><USER2> There's also the often unmeasured benefits of the surreptitious Googling that many people do before meeting you. Bosses and clients alike will "look you up" after receiving your resume or a cold email, and that blog can make a positive first impression on someone who may never actually mention that they cyber- stalked you.</comment>


Why We Can't Have Nice Things–Elon Musk and the Subways - <AUTHOR> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/11/cant-nice-things-elon-musk-edition.html <comment><USER2> Fantasic post. Loved the Straussian ending.</comment>