Tesla has announced it’s phasing out its cars’ use of ultrasonic sensors (USS) to sense objects in the world around them. It’s part of the company’s shift towards its camera-only Tesla Vision driver-assist tech
I have a car full of sensors. Indeed, I bought it almost exactly 7 years ago for the very reason it was chock full of sensors – particularly the visual, ultrasound, and radar sensors and how they help with safety features such as lane guidance, parking and backing up, and front braking and adaptive cruise control, respectively.
But some ‘visionary’ EV car company founder thinks he knows better and has effectively mandated his vehicles only be camera-, visual-only.
Not only did this mandate trigger in me, as a biologist, to point out that if you are making a smart vehicle, look to nature for ideas on how to make use of all forms of sensing, rather than just one human-centric one.**
But what this mandate really triggered in me was this rant against the idea that ‘the visionary founder is always right.’.
No surprise, Musk is having a totally f-ed up end of year (really, read this article, if only for the ‘Howard Hughes moment’ comment).
Yes, vision counts for something
I do believe folks like Bezos, Jobs, Musk, Zuck, and others are amazing in their vision and have upended industries with their monomaniacal drive and direction.
But they, especially, recently, Musk, have all had disastrous moments when their vision was just downright wrong, or that they didn’t listen to the chief smarties they hired to run their biz. [Again, don’t listen to me. Just see the mess Musk is in from all his meddling.]
I’ve seen this in many other companies (even too close to me): a strong overreaching visionary or exec or board member who went a bit too far and ended up with some shit outcome. They put down or yell over or just suppress or disrupt any check that normally would have happened had they listened to someone under them who actually knew more (indeed, who was hired because the hired knew more).
Often the visionary blames their underlings for the failure, underlings who ended up with no recourse other than to just follow the idiocy their boss demanded, even if straight over the cliff. What’s more, the visionary will never own up to how their ‘infallible’ vision chewed up and spit up really good people who could have helped the visionary succeed.* [Hm, I’m getting total Nuremberg vibes right now, this is such a negative feeling for me, sorry]
Dignity is as dignity does
I used to think shit products or websites were the outcome of designers, with no dignity, pushing out shit stuff.
But watching the shit-show at Twitter and reflecting back on some personal incidents, I will now think that when I see shit products that they were made by really well-meaning and talented designers who were ground down by some overbearing ‘visionary’ boss who thought they knew better and micromanaged some shit design that got launched.
Fuuuuuck.
I should know
I’ve been pummeled into that passive, what-the-heck, I-can’t-fight-anymore subservience to release something that was shit.
Alas, this disaster has happened more than once to me, so I clearly have an inability to recognize when I’m walking into such a damaging situation. What’s worse, when things did go wrong, I first blamed myself for all of it. Tho, only in retrospect, after I’ve already been destroyed and discarded, did I see where the problem originated.
I think it’s my naïve optimism and enthusiasm that keeps me from realizing I am putting myself in the way of harm, without being prepared to push back. Such is the draw and force of the visionary. Moth to flame and all that.
Fortunately, I have had a few opposite outcomes where I was confident enough to push back with evidence, experience, and confidence, or was blessed with a visionary I was able to work with fruitfullywith much success.
It can and does happen. There’s a role for visionaries. And hope for me, yes?
Beware what you wish for
We all worship the visionary sculpting reality to their bidding. Or better, making a whole new reality. But be careful when you think they are infallible in sculpting a new reality or we end up being accomplices in them fucking it all up.
Yeah, this makes me bitter. And it should make you bitter.
We all need to get better at pushing back, differentiating when the visionary is right and when they are wrong. Shame on us for losing confidence at the wrong time.
Know what I mean?
Let me know what you think.
Image from Adventurelandia
*I know you are all thinking Steve Jobs and of his krazy-ass vision and drive. But I know, I _know_, he had some really strong chief smarties (Ives, Cook, Schiller, for example) who worked for him who knew how to channel that vision and keep it from driving Apple off the rails again. [Yes, Jobs already had driven Apple of the rails once. His humble return found how to temper his vision and drive with actually delivering a good product.]
**[added 08jan23] Ha, this past week Sony and Honda announced Afeela (yeah, I feel ya on how that name feels to ya). The car has 45 sensors (see image below), tho, being Sony, there are a ton of cameras.
