Latest news with #Walti
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
3 members of the 'Tesla mafia' share what they learned from Elon Musk's company
Many former Tesla employees have gone on to found their own startups. BI spoke to three of the "Tesla mafia" about what they learned from working at Elon Musk's company. One said it offered a "trifecta" of building big things at scale to tight deadlines. Tesla makes EVs, batteries, robots, and startups. A steady stream of employees — the "Tesla mafia" — have left to found companies in everything from EVs and batteries to robotics and electric boats. Electric car startup Lucid was founded by former Tesla executives back in 2007, and the ex-Tesla founders of British EV startup Longbow previously told Business Insider they aimed to deliver a Roadster sports car before Elon Musk's company. Former senior employees who then raised large amounts for their own startups include former senior vice president of energy Drew Baglino, whose energy firm Heron Power reportedly raised a Series A round of over $30 million in April. Automotive tech startup Tekion, founded by Tesla's former chief information officer Jay Vijayan, is now valued at over $4 billion. "The success rate of former Tesla employees starting their own companies, building hard things, is exceptionally high," Chris Walti, Tesla's former Optimus lead, told BI. BI spoke to Walti and two other former Tesla employees about why so many of its former employees have gone on to startup success. Gene Berdichevsky, CEO of Sila Nanotechnologies and Tesla's seventh ever employee, said what sets working at the company apart is the sense of "radical self-reliance." "It's kind of the belief that when you're doing new things, there are no experts to ask, there are no suppliers who have done it before. If there are, you're probably not doing something particularly novel," said Berdichevsky, who left the company in 2008. Walti, who left the company in 2022 after seven years to start robotics firm Mytra, told BI that Tesla gave engineers unprecedented freedom and responsibility to tackle "really big problems." "You can solve problems without requiring 20 product managers and five VPs for approval. Here's the problem: go figure it out, go solve it, go talk to whoever you need to get it done," Walti said. While Tesla's lack of bureaucracy may be liberating, the company is also known for its intense work culture. Musk and other senior figures have previously slept on the factory floor during crises, and employees are expected to work long hours to meet the billionaires' tight deadlines. "Tesla is not an easy place to work, but it was never intended to be. It's not a Google-like culture, and it's not a 9-to-5 experience," said Berdichevsky. Walti said Tesla employees used to jokingly warn each other not to "fly too close to the sun," with Musk having little tolerance for failure. "Elon has a short fuse. It doesn't matter how many successful projects you've delivered," he said. "You screw up once and you might be out." Walti added that the intensity of working with Musk led some people to "burn out," and said that working in a system where employees had little say over product direction could be frustrating. "If you're not too close to the sun, it's a wonderful place to work because you get to work on really meaty problems. You get the innovation, the scale, the tech risk, and you're surrounded by a bunch of really innovative people," he said. "On the flip side, it doesn't give you a lot of agency over why you're building things. You'll be told 'make the Cybertruck float,' and at no point is there a debate on why; it was like, just go do it," Walti added. Tobias Kahnert, who founded powertrain startup EFT Mobility, said that starting a new company is often more attractive than taking a job at a rival for Tesla employees. "We used to call it internally 'the Mount Everest syndrome'," said Tobias Kahnert, who was a senior software engineer at Tesla from 2014 to 2017. Kahnert joined Tesla right out of college and worked there through the "production hell" of ramping the Model 3 mass-market EV. The idea of founding his own company felt like a natural next move, he said. "I couldn't see a more exciting company in the world at that point" than Tesla, he said. "The option was either I stay with that company until retirement, which is a long time away, or I start something myself," he said. Kahnert said the most valuable lesson he learned at Tesla was how to innovate quickly without losing track of the need to scale a product. "The stretch between these two worlds is something you learn quite quickly at Tesla. You need this spirit of challenging the norms, seeing what's possible, and figuring out ways to get it done without being bogged down too much in processes," said Kahnert. "But you also actually need to get on the level of working with the process and alongside regulations to even have a product that you can bring into the market," he added. Walti said Tesla offered a unique experience within engineering of building hard things at scale on a tight timeline, which he called a "trifecta" of speed, scale, and innovation. "Usually, you have to pick two of the three. At places like Boeing or Lockheed, you're building hard things with innovation, but the timelines are, like, 10 years," said Walti. "Tesla is a unique place because of the scale. Startups are fast and innovative, but not yet scaled. Innovating with speed at scale is an interesting nexus that really accelerates learning," he added. Tesla and Musk did not respond to a request for comment. Read the original article on Business Insider Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Business Insider
02-06-2025
- Automotive
- Business Insider
3 members of the 'Tesla mafia' share what they learned from Elon Musk's company
Tesla makes EVs, batteries, robots, and startups. A steady stream of employees — the "Tesla mafia" — have left to found companies in everything from EVs and batteries to robotics and electric boats. Electric car startup Lucid was founded by former Tesla executives back in 2007, and the ex-Tesla founders of British EV startup Longbow previously told Business Insider they aimed to deliver a Roadster sports car before Elon Musk's company. Former senior employees who then raised large amounts for their own startups include former senior vice president of energy Drew Baglino, whose energy firm Heron Power reportedly raised a Series A round of over $30 million in April. Automotive tech startup Tekion, founded by Tesla's former chief information officer Jay Vijayan, is now valued at over $4 billion. "The success rate of former Tesla employees starting their own companies, building hard things, is exceptionally high," Chris Walti, Tesla's former Optimus lead, told BI. BI spoke to Walti and two other former Tesla employees about why so many of its former employees have gone on to startup success. 'It's not a Google-like culture, and it's not a 9-to-5 experience' Gene Berdichevsky, CEO of Sila Nanotechnologies and Tesla's seventh ever employee, said what sets working at the company apart is the sense of "radical self-reliance." "It's kind of the belief that when you're doing new things, there are no experts to ask, there are no suppliers who have done it before. If there are, you're probably not doing something particularly novel," said Berdichevsky, who left the company in 2008. Walti, who left the company in 2022 after seven years to start robotics firm Mytra, told BI that Tesla gave engineers unprecedented freedom and responsibility to tackle "really big problems." "You can solve problems without requiring 20 product managers and five VPs for approval. Here's the problem: go figure it out, go solve it, go talk to whoever you need to get it done," Walti said. While Tesla's lack of bureaucracy may be liberating, the company is also known for its intense work culture. Musk and other senior figures have previously slept on the factory floor during crises, and employees are expected to work long hours to meet the billionaires' tight deadlines. "Tesla is not an easy place to work, but it was never intended to be. It's not a Google-like culture, and it's not a 9-to-5 experience," said Berdichevsky. Walti said Tesla employees used to jokingly warn each other not to "fly too close to the sun," with Musk having little tolerance for failure. "Elon has a short fuse. It doesn't matter how many successful projects you've delivered," he said. "You screw up once and you might be out." Walti added that the intensity of working with Musk led some people to "burn out," and said that working in a system where employees had little say over product direction could be frustrating. "If you're not too close to the sun, it's a wonderful place to work because you get to work on really meaty problems. You get the innovation, the scale, the tech risk, and you're surrounded by a bunch of really innovative people," he said. "On the flip side, it doesn't give you a lot of agency over why you're building things. You'll be told ' make the Cybertruck float,' and at no point is there a debate on why; it was like, just go do it," Walti added. Leaving Tesla Tobias Kahnert, who founded powertrain startup EFT Mobility, said that starting a new company is often more attractive than taking a job at a rival for Tesla employees. "We used to call it internally 'the Mount Everest syndrome'," said Tobias Kahnert, who was a senior software engineer at Tesla from 2014 to 2017. Kahnert joined Tesla right out of college and worked there through the "production hell" of ramping the Model 3 mass-market EV. The idea of founding his own company felt like a natural next move, he said. "I couldn't see a more exciting company in the world at that point" than Tesla, he said. "The option was either I stay with that company until retirement, which is a long time away, or I start something myself," he said. Kahnert said the most valuable lesson he learned at Tesla was how to innovate quickly without losing track of the need to scale a product. "The stretch between these two worlds is something you learn quite quickly at Tesla. You need this spirit of challenging the norms, seeing what's possible, and figuring out ways to get it done without being bogged down too much in processes," said Kahnert. "But you also actually need to get on the level of working with the process and alongside regulations to even have a product that you can bring into the market," he added. Walti said Tesla offered a unique experience within engineering of building hard things at scale on a tight timeline, which he called a "trifecta" of speed, scale, and innovation. "Usually, you have to pick two of the three. At places like Boeing or Lockheed, you're building hard things with innovation, but the timelines are, like, 10 years," said Walti. "Tesla is a unique place because of the scale. Startups are fast and innovative, but not yet scaled. Innovating with speed at scale is an interesting nexus that really accelerates learning," he added.
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Former Tesla Robotics Boss Casually Torches Elon Musk's Vision for Saving the Company
With car sales cratering worldwide, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is desperately looking for alternative areas of growth. Apart from preparing to launch a fleet of autonomous "Cybercab" robotaxis, the billionaire has promised that an army of Optimus humanoid robots could soon be roaming factory floors, heralding a revolution in manufacturing. At least, that's his grandiose vision. Earlier this week, Musk told CNBC that the carmaker will have "thousands of Optimus robots working in Tesla factories by the end of this year, beginning this fall," a characteristically ambitious timeline that's likely far removed from reality. But even the company's own former executives have some serious doubts about a fleet of bipedal robots as Tesla's saving grace. As the EV maker's first Optimus lead, Chris Walti, who left the firm in 2022, told Business Insider, humanoid robots simply don't make any sense in such a setting. "It's not a useful form factor," he said. "Most of the work that has to be done in industry is highly repetitive tasks where velocity is key." The human form "evolved to escape wolves and bears," Walti added. "We weren't designed to do repetitive tasks over and over again. So why would you take a hyper suboptimal system that really isn't designed to do repetitive tasks and have it do repetitive tasks?" The little we've seen of Tesla's progress on its Optimus robot has left something to be desired. During Musk's showy "We, Robot" event in October, the company had the mechanoids converse with and pour drinks for eventgoers. As analysts later confirmed, the robots were being remotely controlled by human workers. A separate clip shared by Musk early last year, which purported to show an Optimus robot folding a shirt, was also revealed to be the result of similar trickery, with a nearby technician operating it from mere feet away. Trump's baffling trade war could also put a major damper on Tesla's ambitions to build humanoid robots, with Musk complaining that steep tariffs against China could seriously rattle supply chains. Instead of investigating whether spindly-legged humanoid robots can take over jobs at a car factory, Walti founded a company called Mytra that aims to use flat, rectangular robots to move pallets in warehouses — bodies far removed from those of humans, but specialized to a specific task. Humanoid robots are an engineering problem that's "multiple orders of magnitude" more difficult to solve than self-driving cars, Walti told BI. And considering Tesla still has a long way to go to fulfill Musk's decade-long promise of realizing a car that can fully drive itself, a fully autonomous Optimus robot would, by that logic, be a very long way off. Humanoid robots are "kind of a ninth-inning robotics problem, and we're in the third inning," Walti told BI. More on Optimus: Musk Says Trump Preventing Him From Building Legion of Robots
Business Insider
25-05-2025
- Automotive
- Business Insider
Elon Musk dreams of thousands of robots working in factories. Tesla's first Optimus lead has doubts.
Elon Musk dreams of Tesla's Optimus robots working in huge numbers in factories — but not everyone is convinced. Chris Walti, the former team lead for Tesla's robot, told Business Insider that humanoid robots like Optimus were the wrong option for factory work. Walti told BI that, although humanoid robots were a fascinating technology with enormous potential, human-shaped ones would be less effective in warehouses, logistics, and manufacturing. "It's not a useful form factor. Most of the work that has to be done in industry is highly repetitive tasks where velocity is key," said Walti, who built the development team for Optimus. Shortly after Walti spoke to BI, Musk told CNBC on Tuesday that Tesla expects to have thousands of Optimus units working in its factories by the end of the year, and said he was confident the company would be producing a million robots a year by 2030. Musk has said Optimus, a 5-foot-8 humanoid robot that the company has said could be used for factory roles and as a mechanoid personal assistant, will be "the biggest product ever of any kind." Tesla has recently released videos showing Optimus dancing, cleaning, and taking out the trash. But at the demo at the company's robotaxi reveal in October, the Optimus robots that served drinks and interacted with attendees were later revealed to have relied on remote human operators. Tesla said last June that two Optimus robots were already working at one of its factories, though it did not specify their roles. Musk has previously said that Optimus could take over menial and dangerous tasks from human workers. Tesla isn't the only automaker exploring using humanoid robots in factories. BMW struck a deal last year with robotics company Figure to test robots at its South Carolina plant, and Chinese EV companies BYD, Xpeng, and Nio have also experimented with the technology. Walti worked at Tesla for seven years before leaving in 2022 to found Mytra, which uses slab-shaped robots that can move in any direction to transport payloads across warehouses through giant, cage-like structures of "cells." Walti said these were "much simpler form factors" than humanoids. He described humanoid robots as an engineering problem "multiple orders of magnitude" more difficult to solve than self-driving cars, because general-purpose robots like Optimus are designed to have a wider range of movements than a car on the road. He said robotics was not yet advanced enough to deploy humanoid robots properly, adding they were "kind of a ninth-inning robotics problem, and we're in the third inning." Walt said the human form "evolved to escape wolves and bears. We weren't designed to do repetitive tasks over and over again. So why would you take a hyper suboptimal system that really isn't designed to do repetitive tasks and have it do repetitive tasks?" At Tesla, Walti was tasked with troubleshooting production bottlenecks as the automaker ramped up production of the mass-market Model 3 EV in 2017. Musk dubbed that infamously gruelling period "production hell," and the CEO said he slept on the production floor of Tesla's Fremont factory as the Model 3 ramp ran into problems. Tesla's ambitious plans to rely heavily on autonomous robots to build the Model 3 didn't work as planned, and Musk later said in a post on Twitter, now X, that this level of automation was "a mistake." "There was a very ambitious plan to automate a lot more than we probably should have, and it was clear the system was struggling," said Walti, who said he worked for nine months with his team to design a simpler robotics system for the factory. After building the automaker's mobile robotics team, Walti became the senior manager in 2021 of the team building the "Tesla bot," which would later become Optimus. Walti saw the robot as "a side project" for Tesla at the time. He said he was surprised when Musk began talking up Optimus as the company's future, but added that it wasn't surprising, as the billionaire "wants to push the boundary of innovation and tech."
