Surprised? No. There's no large company in the world where attacking top management won't lead to major consequences.
Of course, SpaceX (and Google, along with a stack of other "tech" companies) wasn't supposed to be just another large company; they wanted to disrupt things, and wanted fanatical buy-in from their employees, customers, and fans. (Corporate fans? Really?)
It'll take a while, because religions don't die easily, but eventually it will become clear to anyone except the die-hard that it's just another company.
Say you work for General Motors. You can gripe about management all you want, but there's no expectation that you are going to be able to send out a company-wide memo saying the board should boot the CEO.
Now say you work for Tesla, or one of the other companies that is desperately trying to hang on to their "startup culture" as they get bigger. For that, it's vital that you buy into the mission, believe that you personally are changing the world.
The other half of that intellectual and emotional investment is the feeling that you have control and input. If the company makes a business deal that you don't agree with, you threaten to organize a walk-out; if the CEO is behaving like an idiot (and not like your own lovable idiot), you feel like you can get everyone together to tell the board to boot him. After all, you, personally, are changing the world.
But that's not how it works in a company that won't fit entirely into a single conference room. You as an employee may have dedicated your life to the company, and you may think the company should be responsive to you. But that's not how it works (see example 1 above), you just haven't realized it yet.
He's saying SpaceX is just another company. They demand full loyalty (fealty?) from their employees, effectively creating a religion. They shouldn't be surprised when their employees actually expect the company to be different. Now the whole world can see SpaceX is just like Every. Single. Other. Company.
So much for "changing the world." You're not changing the corporate world, that's for sure!
You missed the point. They're not changing the world and they have a cult. The old way also benefits from cults. They are the old way. No change. All they did was make things (in their microenvironment) worse by adding the cult aspect.
So If it's a shared belief / mission and it's not your perspective it's a cult? Are you saying people should just work for the money and not the company? That doesn't seem to make sense. If your goal, is more capital, you want the firm you're a part of to succeed to take part in that.
The reality of it is there are a lot of extremely well paid people across the US that wear the emotions on their sleeves and take everything as a slight these days. This is the course correction, you're going to see it more and more.
Just as extremists have been saying about social media if you don't like it, go build your own.
I think you may be surprised at how many regular everyday people would vote "no" if asked the question "are SpaceX employees members of a literal cult?" Either we're all in on the cult, or you're using hyperbole.
I think you may be surprised at how many regular everyday people believe in astrology. Yeah, people are morons and can't apply definitions or see blatant horseshit for what it is, moving on. Truth isn't a fucking democracy.
Yeah, populism is quite a constant throughout history. People love having a savior and a hero, as demagogue as they might be.
I find it interesting how this populism takes shape in the tech industry. It manifests as companies pretending to be all about mission, community, changing the world, billionaires pretending to be pro-freedom, capitalists pretending to be anti-establishment...
> There's no large company in the world where attacking top management won't lead to major consequences.
What's interesting to me is that capitalists and usually conservatives and libertarians who worship capitalism are all too vocal when it comes to socialist and communist economic policies supposedly leading to fascism, although they don't, but yet, they are fully behind corporations literally acting as fascist dictatorships. And by interesting, I mean it boggles my mind and frustrates me. It shows these peoples' true colors: greed at all costs.
My politics are probably more aligned with yours than theirs, but if you're open to being unboggled:
It's easy to draw a categorical divide between authorities who are (ostensibly) submitted to voluntarily or transactionally; and authorities whose power is asserted by sovereign monopoly of force.
Many social organizations from families, to churches, to corporations are essentially authoritarian, but (conceptually if not always practically) you're able to remove yourself from them straightforwardly.
Perhaps too harsh? If you have a more eloquent way or a different angle, I would love to hear it. (Seriously. Comments like these can come off catty or sarcastic in text only, but I'm genuinely asking. Haha.)
Of course, SpaceX (and Google, along with a stack of other "tech" companies) wasn't supposed to be just another large company; they wanted to disrupt things, and wanted fanatical buy-in from their employees, customers, and fans. (Corporate fans? Really?)
It'll take a while, because religions don't die easily, but eventually it will become clear to anyone except the die-hard that it's just another company.