The Tesla Alumni Association Vision

What if getting laid off from Tesla was exactly like graduating from the most elite university on earth, except 1,000 times better?

What if instead of feeling one iota of fear or doubt about your future, you felt the boundless hope and excitement of a university graduate as they contemplate their future career??

What if you knew in your heart that every door is now open to you, every employer wants you, everyone you meet at parties is impressed and maybe even secretly envious of you because you worked at Tesla? What if you felt sheepish about even mentioning it - like a Harvard grad - because you know you’ll immediately be stereotyped as a wealthy elite, someone who has it on easy street due to your Tesla pedigree?

What if no matter what people think of Tesla - even if they hate Tesla and think it’s an evil institution - they know you must be intelligent, hardworking, innovative, and on the forefront of human knowledge and industry, because otherwise you would never have made it to "graduation?"

What if there were a commencement ceremony featuring elite Tesla Alumni as speakers, giving inspiring speeches to the “graduates?” What if these speeches were broadcast to the world and got billions of views because everyone wants to hear the message these brilliant world leaders prepared just for you? What if those billions caught glimpses of you in the audience wearing your Tesla mortar board and your Class of ’24 t-shirt that only you and your fellow graduates had?

What if your family, friends, and Tesla itself celebrated your layoff with you? What if they were proud of you instead of sympathetic? What if they held parties in your honor to recognize your hard work and outstanding achievements?

What if all the statistics showed that Tesla graduates make more money on average, enjoy higher positions on average, sit on boards of companies more than average, start their own businesses more than average, succeed at those businesses more than average, realize greater investment returns than average, donate more money to charitable causes on average, become leaders in their communities more than average?

What if the instant you graduated, you automatically become a member of the Tesla Alumni Association? What if that organization were a collection of the most intelligent, creative, hardworking people on planet earth? What if the people doing the most to push humanity and civilization into a new world of safety, prosperity, intelligence, and beauty were there waiting to welcome you with open arms? What if the connections you made in this group, with colleagues you never met while you were at Tesla, with every Tesla alumnus who came before you, led to mind-blowing opportunities the rest of the world can only imagine?

What if employment gaps weren’t a thing for you? What if the idea of using the #opentowork frame was a sad joke to you, because as soon as you were laid off you happily ended your tenure at Tesla on your LinkedIn profile, and began your tenure at the Tesla Alumni Association??

What if during your tenure at the Tesla Alumni Association you immediately started your passion project - something you’d always wanted to do - and recruited a few of your favorite fellow Tesla Alumni to help you crush it with Tesla Intensity? What if you never had to give up the exhilaration of busting your ass with your friends to achieve incredible things that no one thought was possible? What if you kept smiling in the faces of the doubters and the haters while you proved them wrong over and over again?

What if future employers saw your passion project as unimpeachable evidence of your skills, your attitude, your work ethic, your ability to get shit done? What if they were drooling to hire you before you even applied? What if you never had to apply for a job again because you were too busy beating away unsolicited job offers with a stick? What if 50% of these projects became successful businesses because they were built from Tesla people and Tesla relationships, and you never needed to care about what employers thought about you ever again? What if you were the employer, and you could immediately provide jobs to your fellow Tesla Alumni?

What if the Tesla Alumni Association sponsored free administration and interpretation of the Strong Interest Inventory for every Tesla Alumni Association member as soon as they got in the door? What if Tesla Alumni data scientists collected this info into a database and mined the hell out of it for every correlation for teamwork and career success imaginable? What if Tesla Alumni machine learning gurus used that database, all of our LinkedIn profiles, and every bit of data about the economy and job market, to create an AI that suggested the perfect career path for you, and the perfect plan for executing on it, in under 10 seconds? What if that AI told you exactly with whom you should work in the Association to achieve the most ambitious outcomes imaginable for each and every one of us? What if you had never dreamed of starting your own company, but it told you you need to start the next trillion-dollar tech behemoth, for the good of humanity?

What if Tesla saw the value of this and supported the Association fully? What if Tesla saw how this would solve every public relations issue related to layoffs, and eliminate those costs completely? What if they saw how it would solve every HR issue related to angry, disgruntled employees, and eliminate those costs completely? What if job satisfaction and security at Tesla was the best of any company in history because every person who starts at Tesla - from the people who sweep the floors to the people who invent the future - knows this is the beginning of the career of their dreams, even if they get laid off tomorrow??

What if Tesla really is an elite educational institution for everything that truly matters, and you could enjoy all the commensurate benefits if you choose, but you just don’t know it?

What if everything I suggested we could do together and more were possible right now, but we just don’t know it?

What if every career limitation for all of us were only in our minds? What if we could all shed that mindset together with a simple choice, and unlock our full potential, like the energy released from tiny atoms in a nuclear explosion?

What if 90% of the people who read this think all of this is stupid, unrealistic, crazy, that it could never work?

After 6 years at Tesla, I’m used to those kinds of doubts, and so are you. We've lived in it every day for years. My answer for those people is a few more questions:?

Do you really think none of it makes sense? Not even 10%? Why? What if you’re wrong? What if only 10% of it did work and it changed the face of career development forever??

What if you were wrong to doubt my Tesla people… again?