为什么没有马斯克，特斯拉会变得更好

在放弃攻读斯坦福大学物理学博士学位之后，埃隆·马斯克创立了一系列有趣的公司。在20世纪90年代，他是第一批注意到互联网可以用于发布有用信息（Zip2）、进行在线支付（PayPal）的人。到了世纪之交，他的眼界进一步拓展，看到了商用太空飞行和电动汽车的未来，并创立了SpaceX和特斯拉（Tesla）。这两家公司发展了很长时间，期间也经历了一些波折。

不可否认，马斯克的远见是决定性的，但是有时，建立两家十分复杂的公司所需的繁杂事务却令他饱受艰难。我们不用追溯太远，只需瞧瞧特斯拉在生产Model 3上的举步维艰。其部分原因在于该车对机器人的依赖程度过高，而这正是马斯克的要求。今年春天，这位首席执行官被迫承认：“人类的作用被低估了。”他鲁莽的沟通风格，尤其是在推特（Twitter）上的言论，也成为了让公司分心甚至变得更糟的因素。由于一些推文并未“确保真实性”，马斯克在上周不得不辞去董事长的职务。他依旧担任首席执行官，尽管最近他开玩笑称自己将放弃所有头衔，成为“与特斯拉毫无瓜葛之人”。

曾有传闻称，另一个有远见的执行者詹姆斯·默多克会接任董事长。不过特斯拉却选择了一个完全不同的方向。公司的人选是进入董事会四年的成员罗宾·德霍姆。德霍姆目前是澳大利亚电信运营商澳洲电信（Telstra）的首席财务官和战略主管。她是首位进入特斯拉董事会的女性，职业经历丰富，并且专注于哈佛商学院（Harvard Business School）所谓的“商业流程重造”（business process re-engineering）。在加入澳洲电信之前，她在Juniper Networks待了九年，帮助公司将业务重心从电信扩大到云。更早一些时候，她是太阳微系统公司（Sun Microsystems）的战略规划部主任，还在丰田汽车（Toyota Motor）的澳大利亚分部管理过各种财务职能。

一位擅长具体经营的行家，对金融有着敏锐的目光，甚至还在传统汽车制造业有一点经验？听起来几乎与埃隆·马斯克毫无共同点。不过如果两人可以像史蒂夫·乔布斯和蒂姆·库克（他被找来帮助这位健谈而有远见的老板，让产品线变得井井有条）那样成为紧密合作的工作伙伴，她似乎也像是对埃隆·马斯克的完美补充。没错，监管机构迫使马斯克退位了，但这可能也是马斯克的另一个英明之举，来看看公司究竟需要什么。（财富中文网）

译者：严匡正

Elon Musk has founded an interesting variety of companies since dropping out of the physics PhD program at Stanford. In the 1990s, he was among the first to see how the Internet could be used to distribute useful information (at Zip2) and pay for online sales (at PayPal). By the turn of the century, his vision was expanding and he founded SpaceX and Tesla, seeing a future with commercial spaceflights and electric cars. It’s been a long and not always smooth journey for those two companies.

Musk’s vision is undeniably critical, but sometimes the detailed work of building two vastly complicated companies has suffered. Look no further than Tesla’s struggles manufacturing its Model 3, in part owing to an over-reliance on robots–at Musk’s behest. “Humans are underrated.” the CEO was forced to admit this spring. His shoot-from-the-hip communications style, particularly on Twitter, has also been a source of distraction, or worse. And it’s thanks to some tweets that hadn’t, shall we say, secured the truth, that Musk had to step down as chairman of Tesla’s board lastweek. He remains CEO, despite joking recently that he’d give up all his titles and become “the Nothing of Tesla.”

Rumors were that it would be another visionary executive guy taking over the chairmanship: James Murdoch. But Tesla has gone in a very different direction. Instead, it named four-year board member Robyn Denholm, currently the CFO and head of strategy of Australian telecom carrier Telstra, as chair. Denholm was the first woman named to Tesla’s board and has had a long and varied career focused on what the folks at Harvard Business School like to call business process re-engineering. Before Telstra, she spent nine years at Juniper Networks, helping broaden the company’s focus from telecom to the cloud. Earlier, she headed strategic planning at Sun Microsystems and oversaw various financial functions at Toyota Motor’s Australian unit.

A nuts and bolts operations expert with a keen eye for finance, and even a little experience with traditional automotive manufacturing? Sounds nothing like Elon Musk. But it also sounds like a perfect complement to Elon Musk, if the pair can form a strong working bond à la Steve Jobs and Tim Cook (who was also brought in to help a voluble and visionary boss get his production lines in order). Yes, the regulators made him do it, but this may be yet another brilliant move by Musk to see what’s needed.