{ "name": "Tech Mails", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails", "mcp": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/mcp", "updated": "2026-10-03", "count": 280, "emails": [ { "id": "1994-10-13-gates-to-myhrvold-siegelman-evslin", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1994-10-13", "time": "1:05 PM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Nathan Myhrvold", "Russell Siegelman", "Tom Evslin" ], "cc": [], "subject": "RE: MCI as an access provider", "body": "I think Russ's arguments are the strongest ones here. We are trying to make Marvel be a better experience than Internet and use that to drive scale and IPs to take advantage of our uniqueness. It is a tough challenge but very important.\n\nIf someone has something aimed directly at ANCS (the novell thing) then I would be open minded to that since Marvel isnt aimed there but Internet access overlaps MOS too much.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "internet-access-1994", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Nathan Myhrvold, Russell Siegelman, Tom Evslin", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 130 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/130.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Gates replied to an argument from Russell Siegelman against giving MCI access to the Windows box as an Internet access provider, in a thread started by Tom Evslin. Anthony Bay forwarded Gates's comments to Ben Slivka on October 25, 1994.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 1, "bates": "BGX-000001", "slug": "1994-10-13-gates-to-myhrvold-siegelman-evslin", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1994-10-13-gates-to-myhrvold-siegelman-evslin" }, { "id": "1995-01-11-gates-to-myhrvold", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1995-01-11", "time": "5:36 PM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Nathan Myhrvold" ], "cc": [ "Dan Rosen" ], "subject": "RE: Barksdale joins Netscape", "body": "I am really surprised. Barksdale is a very good manager and very experienced. Netscape is getting to be more and more important us to watch!!", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "netscape-1995", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Nathan Myhrvold and Dan Rosen", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 1118 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/1118.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Gates replied to a forward of Dan Rosen's note that Jim Barksdale was leaving AT&T Wireless to become CEO of Netscape.", "tags": [ "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 2, "bates": "BGX-000002", "slug": "1995-01-11-gates-to-myhrvold", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1995-01-11-gates-to-myhrvold" }, { "id": "1995-04-10-gates-to-mundie", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1995-04-10", "time": "3:00 AM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Craig Mundie" ], "cc": [ "Nathan Myhrvold", "Rick Rashid", "Russell Siegelman" ], "subject": "Internet", "body": "Given that we are looking at the Internet destroying our position as the setter of standards and APIs do you see things we should be doing to use ACT assets to avoid this?\n\nI admit I find it hard to focus lots of resources on trials and things when the Inetnet is taking away our power every day and will have eroded it irretrievably by the time broadband is pervasive on the course we are on right now.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "internet-standards-1995", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Microsoft executives (Mundie, Myhrvold, Rashid, Siegelman)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 17 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/17.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Gates asked Craig Mundie how the company's ACT assets could be used against the Internet's effect on Microsoft's role in setting standards and APIs. Rick Rashid's reply, which proposed making Windows the standard interactive interface for the Internet, sits above it in the same exhibit.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 3, "bates": "BGX-000003", "slug": "1995-04-10-gates-to-mundie", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1995-04-10-gates-to-mundie" }, { "id": "1995-05-21-gates-to-silverberg-stork-ludwig-maritz", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1995-05-21", "time": "10:22 PM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Brad Silverberg", "Carl Stork", "John Ludwig", "Paul Maritz" ], "cc": [], "subject": "RE: Intel & NSP", "body": "We have to find a way to restructure the way Intel does its work.\n\nAndy is very open minded to this.\n\nI know its painful but I dont think its best to throw up our hands about how tough Intel is to work with. We should be very specific about:\n\na. Efforts of theirs we want them to drop altogether and why\nb. Efforts of ours where if they do it under the correct IP regime we are willing to have them involved.\n\nFor example why should they continue with 3DR when we are covering that with reality labs? Why shouldnt they be helpful in getting NT stronger in the multimedia area?\n\nBasicly they started up when we didnt pay much attention to these areas. Now we pay a lot of attention. To the degree they want to grow the industry they need to get aligned with us and tell us whatif anything is wrong with our plans and what they can help with.\n\nI am willing to put time into this because I think putting the effort in now will save us a significant amount of pain in the future. I am not saying we will avoid all pain but a lot. Intel has to accept that when we have a solution we like that is decent that that is the solution that wins. Unfortunately our wide open Vxd architecture is causing us immense problems and its just going to get worse in general.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "intel-nsp-1995", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Microsoft platform executives", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 276 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/276.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Gates replied to Paul Maritz's note about Intel's Native Signal Processing (NSP) software effort and the overlap with Windows.", "tags": [ "strategy", "engineering" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 4, "bates": "BGX-000004", "slug": "1995-05-21-gates-to-silverberg-stork-ludwig-maritz", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1995-05-21-gates-to-silverberg-stork-ludwig-maritz" }, { "id": "1995-05-31-gates-to-maritz", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1995-05-31", "time": "1:17 PM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Paul Maritz" ], "cc": [ "Brad Silverberg", "Nathan Myhrvold", "Dan Rosen", "Peter Neupert" ], "subject": "Netscape discussions", "body": "I think there is a very powerful deal of some kind we can do with Netscape.\n\nThe basic framework is the following:\n\n- Clients make no money\n- Netscape is very influential on what happens with Clients\n- We want a number of things to become standard in the client - financial protocols, OLE, authentication to our directory...\n- There are a small number of things we dont want in the client - Opendoc\n\n- Servers will make money\n- For the next 24 months we can help Netscape with servers without hurting ourselves in any large way. We don't have a large forecast for servers\n- We want them to focus somewhat on NT servers but it doesnt have to be exclusive\n\nTherefore the concept is that for 24 months they agree to do certain things in the client and we agree to help make their server business successful\n\nHow do we help them in the server business?\n- Share the source code of our server and our technical work\n- Help them market their server\n- (I need more ideas here)\n\nThis kind of deal could be a big win win.\n\nOf course over time we will compete on servers but we can help them a lot in the meantime. We could even pay them money as part of the deal buying some piece of them or something.\n\nI would really like to see something like this happen!!", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "netscape-1995", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Microsoft executives (Maritz, Silverberg, Myhrvold, Rosen, Neupert)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 22 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/22.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Gates wrote to Paul Maritz about a possible deal with Netscape on the day Dan Rosen reported early talks with Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale. The email appears at the bottom of an exchange with Rosen in the government's trial exhibit.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 5, "bates": "BGX-000005", "slug": "1995-05-31-gates-to-maritz", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1995-05-31-gates-to-maritz" }, { "id": "1995-06-24-gates-to-silverberg", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1995-06-24", "time": "10:19 AM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Brad Silverberg" ], "cc": [ "Paul Maritz" ], "subject": "FW: Netscape meeting: reality", "body": "Thanks for sending me this.\n\nI think Thomas is reading the situation pretty well. I think Dan is great but I agree he is being a little naive in this case.\n\nAlthough we want to work with them on SST and Docobj and we are willing to help them with their servers in order for them to align their browser more closely to our direction there is a problem. The problem is that their strength comes from their browsers popularity and we have decided to make our own browser popular hard core. With Java and its control architecture for forms they are WAY ahead of us but Paul and I are going to make sure the company gets the right priorities to fix that.\n\nIronically the more popular our browser gets with our architectures the more likely it is that they will want to embrace our standards - however they are likely to embrace some bad standards during the process.\n\nThis whole browser fight is going to be interesting. Their ambition to make money on browsers will hurt them - its just a case of getting greedy - they are the ones who made the rules that browsers are free.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "netscape-1995", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Brad Silverberg and Paul Maritz", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 550 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/550.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Gates replied to Brad Silverberg, who had forwarded a Microsoft employee's account of a Microsoft/Netscape meeting held a few days earlier.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 6, "bates": "BGX-000006", "slug": "1995-06-24-gates-to-silverberg", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1995-06-24-gates-to-silverberg" }, { "id": "1995-12-15-gates-to-maritz-silverberg", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1995-12-15", "time": "9:18 PM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Paul Maritz", "Brad Silverberg" ], "cc": [ "Brian Fleming", "Steve Ballmer", "Brad Chase", "David Cole", "John Ludwig", "Mike Conte" ], "subject": "Internet add-on", "body": "I disagreed strenuously with people who said we should announce Windows 96 at this event. I couldn't be more hard core about not trying to get existing users to all upgrade to something other than Windows95 during calendar 1996. Announcing a Windows 96 would be a disaster for our relationship with our customers. The amazing thing is that other than this suggestion there was NO input at all on how we should put together a message about the various Internet additions to Windows. I received not a single message from anyone. So I created the Internet add on. I don't know what choice there was but to give a name to the set of things and say they would be available as a \"product\".\n\nIn terms of the price of the Internet add-on I asked many times if there was a plan to make IE 3.0 available independent of the shell integration. I was told no by everyone I asked. Since I know IE 3.0 has to be free and I was being told it would be shipped only with the new shell integration then that means the shell integration has to be free. It is a complete change for me to hear you think IE 3.0 is separate from the shell. That was the plan we had that people told me to forget about. I am the one who thinks sharing Win32 applications over the Internet is important. I am still dealing with the myth that HTML somehow is far better for sharing than serialized Windows calls and that Windows calls are obsolete. I highlighted the importance of demonstrating Oprah at the Internet event and was told it didn't get done in time. However a piece of mail from John Ludwig said that we hadn't gotten the team focused on that as a high priority. Given how little backing Win32 sharing has inside Microsoft I feel it has to be available for free so Win32 has a chance of being a popular API that people understand can allow for sharing of visual displays.\n\nAgain I am not blaming any one for this problem. In the case of the Internet add-on I should have gotten more dialog going. The night of the event I somehow didn't see Brad or John at all. A massive number of people from a number of groups were there past midnight and we went through a lot of issues. Another case where putting this thing together quickly put us at a disadvantage.\n\nWhere do we go from here? This is a case where I did say the Internet add-on would be free and I did define what was included. There was very little press coverage of this that I have seen but if we change it then we will have to admit that it was a change. I am not sure what is the best plan.\n\nI think its a little strange to ship IE 3.0 for free and Oprah for free and then charge for the part where we integrate with the shell. We could go to this plan. It is complex in terms of not knowing what the message from Microsoft on the Internet is. It could work however and if people decide this is the right plan I will go along with it. It would get us additional revenue.\n\nOne aspect of all this that is very unclear is when NT would be able to match the elements of the Internet add-on. This needs to be carefully considered as part of our strategy!\n\nThis is another case where we need to decide and send a clear message. We can change what I said if we do it promptly and clearly. I apologize for my part in this being confusing.\n\nAs a separate issue I would like to understand why our views on Oprah/Win32 are so different.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "internet-addon-1995", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Microsoft executives", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 37 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/37.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Gates wrote after the December 1995 Internet strategy event about how Microsoft had packaged and priced its Internet additions to Windows 95, including Internet Explorer 3.0. He wrote in reply to a note from Brad Silverberg that is quoted below his message in the exhibit.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 7, "bates": "BGX-000007", "slug": "1995-12-15-gates-to-maritz-silverberg", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1995-12-15-gates-to-maritz-silverberg" }, { "id": "1996-01-08-gates-to-silverberg", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1996-01-08", "time": "7:30 PM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Brad Silverberg" ], "cc": [ "Paul Maritz", "John Ludwig", "Christine Turner" ], "subject": "Steve Case - AOL", "body": "I talked to him this afternoon. He said they are on a path to close with Netscape before the end of the month. I told him I wanted to convince him to pay a visit and really talk about our goals. I said I wasn't going to be able to put AOL in the Windows box except in the sense that with a few strings typed in the user would be able to connect to AOL.\n\nHe said he views us technically as behind Netscape but credible enough to do a very good job. I said integration with Windows will be great for his users. I said we would give him a lot of ability to tell us how the browser can fit his needs the agenda and the ability to get at source code and distribute a customized browser of his own. I said it will be free to him.\n\nHe said Netscape is giving him marketing. I said that there has to be an economic value to this. I said I wasn't closed minded to jointly announcing them as the lead technical partner (not at MSN's expense) for the browser. I said I would be glad to do joint ads about it. I said we could fund some of their marketing. I reminded him they did a good job on marketing. I said ads on Netscape have to have a value. He sort of suggested he was influencing AOL not to form their own online service or to team up in some bad way with any of this competitors. I don't think he really is getting much from them. Netscape can't give away their home page and even getting all the ads for a year isn't worth that much.\n\nI said the bottom line was that he should come out and talk to us. I said you and I would be the key people. I said he should feel welcome to explore other topics when he is out.\n\nHe said he would think about it. If he comes out it will be late this week or next week since they need to make a decision. He said he will get back to me in the next few days if he wants to come.\n\nI again said he SHOULD COME OUT and he SHOULD work with us. I did my best. I hope he calls.\n\nChristine - if he is going to come out we will have to arrange my schedule to make sure I get 90 minutes with him. Brad can be the primary host and talk to him for the first hour or so but I do need to give a chunk of time to this.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "aol-1996", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Brad Silverberg, Paul Maritz, John Ludwig, Christine Turner", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 335 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/335.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Gates reported on a call with AOL chief executive Steve Case, who said AOL was on a path to close a browser deal with Netscape before the end of the month.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 8, "bates": "BGX-000008", "slug": "1996-01-08-gates-to-silverberg", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1996-01-08-gates-to-silverberg" }, { "id": "1996-07-24-gates-to-levin-silverberg-ludwig-chase", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1996-07-24", "time": "7:41 PM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Lewis Levin", "Brad Silverberg", "John Ludwig", "Brad Chase" ], "cc": [ "Christine Turner" ], "subject": "Intuit call with Scott Cook", "body": "I talked with Scott Tuesday at 1:30pm\n\nI made it clear to him that beyond giving him the best browser technology for no cost that we were only will to do some very modest favors in addition to that. Scott said that its hard for them to change what they will ship this year so there will have to be something exciting about what we propose\n\nScott tried to convince me that even though some of his ideas would hurt our personal finance business they would help us sell more platform software to banks. I said it just wasn't going to fly for me to do something that hurts our personal finance efforts. I said I would send him Lewis's phone number if someone wanted to explore a win-win type deal with Lewis's group. I don't know if they will pursue this or not\n\nI mentioned to Scott that Active X will let him build a much better Web site. I explained that financial information benefits immensely from the interactive capabilities of Active X controls. I said that if his site did a good job using Active X and they ship our browser that we would give them some visibility on a reference page that is easy to get to and some visibility in our IE promotion which will be heavy. Scott asked for us to have Brad Chase or someone in his group call one of his marketing people - Christine will send Brad Chase the phone numbers of these people - there were 2 to choose from. This followup will be important\n\nI talked to him about how a componentized browser is a great thing and that we would make sure Money takes advantage of the componentized browser so he would be hurting himself by not having the same [I really believe Money should do this although I don't know when we will get around to it] Scott said he hears this point but isn't sure how much they can do this year.\n\nI was quite frank with him that if he had a favor we could do for him that would cost us something like $1M to do that in return for switching browsers in the next few months I would be open to doing that. However I said any favor whose impact is substantially higher than this is more than this is worth to us since we have so many channels we are pursuing to get our browser (the best browser) into users hands\n\nScott said that he will try and think of something that will help their long term business. I reiterated that picking an inferior browser can't be good for their long term business. I told Scott all the cool things we are doing for IE. We agreed to have one more call to see if either of our companies have good ideas or if the discussion with their marketing people gets them enthusiastic about switching\n\nOur next call will be in a week or so. Its very clear to Scott that unless he can switch in the releases he makes this year then there isn't much worth talking about", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "intuit-1996", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Lewis Levin, Brad Silverberg, John Ludwig, Brad Chase", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 94 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/94.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Gates reported on a call with Intuit founder Scott Cook about Intuit shipping Internet Explorer in its products. Brad Chase later forwarded the message with updates on follow-up talks with Intuit; the Gates message sits inside that forward in the exhibit.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 9, "bates": "BGX-000009", "slug": "1996-07-24-gates-to-levin-silverberg-ludwig-chase", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1996-07-24-gates-to-levin-silverberg-ludwig-chase" }, { "id": "1996-07-28-gates-to-nehru", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1996-07-28", "time": "6:08 PM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Amar Nehru" ], "cc": [ "Brad Chase", "Brad Silverberg", "Mike Brown", "Greg Maffei", "Richard Liotta" ], "subject": "RE: 8/19 Netscape Exec Meeting Agenda", "body": "The outline you give below covers everything. However given the time limit I want to be clear on what is really important:\n\nI don't want a lot of guesses about Netscape generated by people who may know less than I do. I want to learn a lot of facts - most of which I don't already know. You hit a lot of them in your full list but let me make clear which ones count:\n\n1) Personnel. Really getting their headcounts and headcount plans for different areas is very important.\n2) Future growth plan. Any data analyst's have about how they will grow their revenues. People are expecting Netscape to make a lot of money. How does that pencil out?\n3) Geographic. Any data about sales by region and special regional strategies.\n4) Development methodology. This gets into staffing but would have to be put together by someone in program management or engineering. Is cross-platform a lot of work for them? Is quality a challenge for them?\n5) Recent speeches/interviews/analyst discussions from them about how they will beat us. Why didn't they outbid us on Eshop/Frontpage? Why haven't they attacked us on these distribution deals more - if AT&T was important enough for them to announce why didn't they offer AT&T compelling reasons to work with them? Of particular interest is how they will respond to ActiveX - clone? Opendoc?\n6) Anything about the relationship between Netscape and Sun and Oracle would be quite valuable.\n7) We should make sure our goals for Internet presence are low enough that we can achieve them but also say that Netscape has lost control. As we achieve our goals people should start to question Netscapes leadership.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "netscape-1996", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Amar Nehru and Microsoft marketing and finance executives", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 341 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/341.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Gates replied to Amar Nehru's proposed outline for an August 19, 1996 executive presentation on Netscape, listing what information he wanted most.", "tags": [ "strategy", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 10, "bates": "BGX-000010", "slug": "1996-07-28-gates-to-nehru", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1996-07-28-gates-to-nehru" }, { "id": "1996-09-30-gates-to-myhrvold", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1996-09-30", "time": "9:36 PM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Nathan Myhrvold" ], "cc": [ "Aaron Contorer" ], "subject": "Java runtime becomes the operating system", "body": "I am worry a lot about how great Java/Javabeans and all the runtime work they are doing is and how much excitement this is generating. I am literally losing sleep over this issue since together with a move to more server based applications it seems like it could make it easy for people to do competitive operating systems.\n\nThe next paragraph is curious too.\n\nI am very interested to get your thoughts on this. Prior to the advanced work you are driving what kind of defenses do we have against this? I certainly havent’ come up with enough to relax about the situation and it is undermining my creativity.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "java-os-1996", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Nathan Myhrvold and Aaron Contorer", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Comes v. Microsoft exhibit PLEX 5803, transcribed by Techrights (Jun 26 2009)", "source_url": "http://techrights.org/o/2009/06/26/eee-versus-cross-platform/", "case": "Comes v. Microsoft (Iowa District Court, Polk County)", "context": "Gates wrote to Nathan Myhrvold about Java and the Java runtime as a possible platform for competing operating systems. Myhrvold replied on October 1, 1996 that the threat was real but not severe enough to lose sleep over.", "tags": [ "strategy", "engineering", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 11, "bates": "BGX-000011", "slug": "1996-09-30-gates-to-myhrvold", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1996-09-30-gates-to-myhrvold" }, { "id": "1996-12-01-gates-to-nehru", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1996-12-01", "time": "9:24 PM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Amar Nehru" ], "cc": [ "Brad Silverberg", "Brad Chase", "Steve Ballmer", "Paul Maritz" ], "subject": "RE: Netscape Revenues (Long mail)", "body": "What kind of data do we have about how much software companies pay Netscape?\n\nIn particular I am curious about their deals with Corel, Lotus and Intuit. All of these ship a lot of units of Netscape. In our discussions we must have some kind of sense of the revenue which Netscape gets from this.\n\nI was surprised at the ISP revenue being so high. The services revenue is NOT primarily from the home page as is stated in this report. Netscape does better selling things like the SEARCH button. Someone should be more concrete about what they get (non-barter) from the home page. I think its quite low.\n\nI don't think this analysis needed to be sent to so many people.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "netscape-1996", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Amar Nehru and Microsoft executives", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 345 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/345.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Gates replied to an internal analysis of Netscape's revenue sources. Steve Ballmer's follow-up to this message sits above it in the exhibit.", "tags": [ "strategy", "cost" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 12, "bates": "BGX-000012", "slug": "1996-12-01-gates-to-nehru", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1996-12-01-gates-to-nehru" }, { "id": "1997-01-28-gates-to-maritz-silverberg", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1997-01-28", "time": "10:34 AM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Paul Maritz", "Brad Silverberg" ], "cc": [ "Nathan Myhrvold", "Aaron Contorer", "Jim Allchin", "John Ludwig", "Richard Fade", "Jon DeVaan", "Steven Sinofsky" ], "subject": "HTML \"Openness\"", "body": "There has recently been an exchange on email with people in the Office group about Office and HTML.\n\nIn one piece of mail people were suggesting that Office had to work equally well with all browsers and that we shouldn't force Office users to use our browser. This is wrong and I wanted to correct this.\n\nAnother suggestion in this mail was that we can't make our own unilateral extensions to HTML. I was going to say this was wrong and correct this also.\n\nHowever I think I better make sure that we have a consensus at the level of people on this email before I make this statement.\n\nMy view is that in order to maintain a strong operating system position we have to enhance the Windows API and make Trident a fully integrated part of the story. It can't be Windows APIs versus Trident - they have to be complimentary although Trident will obsolete some Windows calls.\n\nI think we want to make Trident extremely hard to clone. I think we want to patent elements of Trident. I think we want to make extensions to Trident on an ongoing basis.\n\nI reconcile this with our statements about HTML by saying that we need to have \"tags\" that we view as Office/Windows/Microsoft specific.\n\nSome people may disagree that we ever get to do anything \"proprietary\" in the browser. If so we have to stop viewing HTML as central to our strategy and get on another strategy.\n\nTo avoid middleware taking over an operating system you have to make sure the integrated services are different from the middleware - otherwise the middleware approach has no disadvantages and it wins. I think the path we were going down of building on AWT was a sure disaster - it was creating a situation where pure 100% Java applications would look just as good as pure Windows applications which we have to avoid.\n\nPerhaps this is a topic that needs face to face discussion.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "html-openness-1997", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Microsoft platform and Office executives", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 351 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/351.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Gates wrote to senior Windows, Internet and Office executives about whether Office and the browser could rely on unilateral extensions to HTML. John Ludwig forwarded the message to Thomas Reardon the same day asking for thoughts.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product", "engineering" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 13, "bates": "BGX-000013", "slug": "1997-01-28-gates-to-maritz-silverberg", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1997-01-28-gates-to-maritz-silverberg" }, { "id": "1997-02-20-gates-to-allchin-maritz", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1997-02-20", "time": "5:03 PM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Jim Allchin", "Paul Maritz" ], "cc": [], "subject": "RE: AMD 3DX thoughts", "body": "I agree with all of your thoughts here.\n\nIf Intel has a real problem with us supporting this then they will have to stop supporting Java Multimedia the way they are. I would gladly give up supporting this if they would back off from their work on JAVA which is terrible for Intel. I have a call with Andy on this topic coming up on Monday.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "intel-java-1997", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Jim Allchin and Paul Maritz", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 290 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/290.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Jim Allchin had asked whether Microsoft should support new AMD 3DX instructions even though Intel might object. Gates replied above Allchin's forwarded message.", "tags": [ "strategy", "engineering" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 14, "bates": "BGX-000014", "slug": "1997-02-20-gates-to-allchin-maritz", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1997-02-20-gates-to-allchin-maritz" }, { "id": "1997-02-25-gates-to-maritz", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1997-02-25", "time": "9:35 PM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Paul Maritz" ], "cc": [ "Marshall Brumer", "Brad Silverberg", "Jim Allchin" ], "subject": "Intel and Java", "body": "I called Andy today to talk to him about our sensitivities about JAVA and asking what goal Intel has in working on JAVA. I told him we thought they were hurting themselves but doing any development other than just pure tuning things for Intel. I said it was the revival of 3DR and some cloning of patented interfaces.\n\nHe said he has 7 people working on JAVA and IBM has 1000. Even in the broadest definition he only has 70 people whose jobs at all relate to JAVA things.\n\nHe said Gelsinger made an offer when they went through what they were doing to have us tell them what they should be doing and that Ludwig had not sent anything in response.\n\nVery quickly we got into a discussion of the whole JAVA phenomena. He thinks the role of IBM is the most interesting element here.\n\nHe also thinks we mutually need to do a better job competing with SUN. He had just had his people show him that their server revenue is the key to their strength. Intel wants to help out with scalability day in any way they can.\n\nGrove finds the JAVA phenomena pretty amazing. He has his people meet for a day to discuss it and they came and explained it in 2 hours and he still found it murky.\n\nAndy's offer was that he would get his best people together (3 to 4 total) and we would do the same and we could sit and talk about what is going on. He is going to check with a lawyer first to make sure its ok to have this kind of talk. Andy agrees that JAVA could strengthen IBM, SUN and others a lot and weaken both of us. He said he sees enterprise customers who are getting this message from IBM and they find it satisfying since they feel like it helps them keep their mainframes.\n\nI told Andy I would take the action item to decide what to do next. I think a high level discussion with Intel might well be worth the effort since they have a huge impact on the market and see things we don't see and we will be able to influence their activity.\n\nWe can discuss this sometime in the next week.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "intel-java-1997", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Paul Maritz, Marshall Brumer, Brad Silverberg, Jim Allchin", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 935 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/935.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Gates summarized a call with Intel CEO Andy Grove about Intel's Java work, five days after writing that Microsoft would drop support for AMD's 3DX instructions if Intel backed off Java.", "tags": [ "strategy", "engineering" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 15, "bates": "BGX-000015", "slug": "1997-02-25-gates-to-maritz", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1997-02-25-gates-to-maritz" }, { "id": "1997-05-14-gates-to-ludwig", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1997-05-14", "time": "11:21 AM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "John Ludwig" ], "cc": [ "Aaron Contorer", "Ben Slivka" ], "subject": "RE: DirectX and Talisman Update", "body": "I would be very glad to talk about this. Christine - see if we can get a time to talk in the next 2-3 week setting aside an hour.\n\nI did stick a few \"barb\" comments into that email about cross platform which I should have avoided but it's a key topic that has me worried.\n\nThe email exchange this morning with Charles Fitzgerald was very helpful to my thinking on this. I think supporting JDK 1.1 is fine and I am hard core about NOT supporting JDK 1.2. I really needed to understand where we were going to draw the line because I am so afraid of the slippery slope.\n\nIf you think we should support JDK 1.2 its ok but you will really have to explain why and where it stops.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "java-jdk12-1997", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "John Ludwig, Aaron Contorer, Ben Slivka", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 253 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/253.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Gates replied to John Ludwig about whether Microsoft should support Sun's JDK 1.2. Ben Slivka forwarded it later that day to the Java tools team, with a reply of his own quoted in the same exhibit.", "tags": [ "strategy", "engineering" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 16, "bates": "BGX-000016", "slug": "1997-05-14-gates-to-ludwig", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1997-05-14-gates-to-ludwig" }, { "id": "1997-05-14-slivka-to-gates-ludwig", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1997-05-14", "time": "11:35 AM", "from": "Ben Slivka", "to": [ "Bill Gates", "John Ludwig", "Charles Fitzgerald" ], "cc": [ "Aaron Contorer", "Paul Maritz", "Brad Silverberg" ], "subject": "RE: DirectX and Talisman Update (Java JDK 1.2 support)", "body": "To quote charles on JDK 1.2 support: \"No fucking way!\"\n\nThe Java community is having a hard time digesting JDK 1.1, and while it has important new features (like Beans), it still has that crappy AWT stuff, shitty printing, the list goes on and on. JDK 1.2 has JFC, which we're going to be pissing on at every opportunity.\n\nThis summer we're going to totally divorce Sun. Apple's announcement yesterday that they will encourage Rhapsody developers to write in Java and call native Rhapsody services was a mere shadow of what we're going to be encouraging developers to do.\n\nWe'll come out swinging with AFC, with our new Multi-Class File format (for packaging both native code as well as byte codes, saves lots of space), with Java language extensions (peteku/andersh are driving), with very easy-to-use support for calling Win32 DLLs (we demo'd a Petzold app written in Java, complete with message pump, windprocs, etc. - you had to look very close to see that it was Java), with classes for DirectX and DHTML, with Enterprise AFC classes (that's all I can remember off the top of my head). We're really juicing up our JIT compiler -- peteku just checked in function inlining last night, and we've got a P5 instruction scheduler, too. Our latest VM beats all comers (Sun, Netscape, Symantec) in almost every single benchmark.\n-bens", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "java-jdk12-1997", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Bill Gates, John Ludwig, Charles Fitzgerald", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 253 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/253.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Ben Slivka's reply to Gates's question about supporting Sun's JDK 1.2, sent twenty minutes after Gates's message. Kept for context.", "tags": [ "strategy", "engineering" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 17, "bates": "BGX-000017", "slug": "1997-05-14-slivka-to-gates-ludwig", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1997-05-14-slivka-to-gates-ludwig" }, { "id": "1997-06-16-gates-to-maritz", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1997-06-16", "time": "3:38 AM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Paul Maritz" ], "cc": [ "Aaron Contorer", "Nathan Myhrvold", "John Ludwig", "Paul Gross", "Ben Slivka" ], "subject": "Java schism", "body": "A point that is important to me is to have PURE JAVA applications that do a lot HAVE to ship a full runtime instead of being able to count on the run time being shipped with the operating system. This will make them more complex in some ways that a Windows application that uses our native APIs. It will make the installation and version management harder.\n\nSince we do want to run JAVA applets in the browser we have to provide some JAVA support there. It may be that some of the JAVA runtime should ONLY be available through the browser - like AWT versus our equivalent. I think restricting some things to the browser is an important idea that should be explored.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "java-schism-1997", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Paul Maritz and Microsoft Java and platform executives", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 254 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/254.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Gates wrote to Paul Maritz about how Microsoft's Windows runtime and browser should treat Java. Charles Fitzgerald forwarded it to colleagues on July 1, 1997 with a comment of his own.", "tags": [ "strategy", "engineering" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 18, "bates": "BGX-000018", "slug": "1997-06-16-gates-to-maritz", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1997-06-16-gates-to-maritz" }, { "id": "1997-06-27-gates-to-waldman", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1997-06-27", "time": "9:37 AM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Ben Waldman" ], "cc": [ "Jon DeVaan", "Greg Maffei" ], "subject": "RE: Moving forward with Mac Office 97", "body": "I appreciate your mail. It shows the kind of passion about great products that has made Microsoft successful. I admit we have neglected the Mac business. Although the Mac is declining if we move ahead on this product we should ask for the subs with localized product to make a real effort\n\nI have 2 things I need to understand better\n\n1) Realistically when do we think we would ship this product?\n2) Can we avoid Apple knowing how far along we are for the next 30 days?", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "apple-mac-office-1997", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Ben Waldman, Jon DeVaan, Greg Maffei", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 263 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/263.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Gates replied to Ben Waldman's argument for finishing Mac Office 97 and separating that decision from Microsoft's ongoing negotiations with Apple.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 19, "bates": "BGX-000019", "slug": "1997-06-27-gates-to-waldman", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1997-06-27-gates-to-waldman" }, { "id": "1997-07-23-gates-to-myhrvold", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1997-07-23", "time": "2:53 PM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Nathan Myhrvold" ], "cc": [ "Paul Maritz" ], "subject": "Security as a lock in", "body": "I believe as we evolve our security capabilities there must be some way to set this up so that our operating systems have shared secrets with each other that make them work better with each other than with other operating systems - whether it's JAVAOS layered on top of us or clones or anything else.\n\nI think we need to make this an explicit goal of our security strategy.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "security-lock-in-1997", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Nathan Myhrvold and Paul Maritz", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Comes v. Microsoft, Plaintiff's Exhibit 6105, transcribed by Techrights (Jun 25 2009)", "source_url": "http://techrights.org/o/2009/06/25/security-as-a-lock-in-gates/", "case": "Comes v. Microsoft (Iowa District Court, Polk County)", "context": "Gates asked Nathan Myhrvold whether Microsoft operating systems could share secrets that make them work better with each other than with other operating systems. Myhrvold replied the same afternoon that it seemed very possible.", "tags": [ "strategy", "engineering", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 20, "bates": "BGX-000020", "slug": "1997-07-23-gates-to-myhrvold", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1997-07-23-gates-to-myhrvold" }, { "id": "1997-08-08-gates-to-maritz-stutz", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1997-08-08", "time": "10:54 AM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Paul Maritz", "David Stutz" ], "cc": [ "Greg Maffei", "Don Bradford", "John Ludwig", "Paul Gross" ], "subject": "FW: post-agreement", "body": "I want to get as much mileage as possible out of our browser and JAVA relationship here\n\nIn other words a real advantage against SUN and Netscape\n\nWho should Avie be working with? Do we have a clear plan on what we want Apple to do to undermine SUN?", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "apple-1997", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Paul Maritz, David Stutz and Microsoft executives", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 265 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/265.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Gates forwarded to Paul Maritz and David Stutz a note from Apple's Avie Tevanian sent after Microsoft and Apple announced their August 1997 agreement.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 21, "bates": "BGX-000021", "slug": "1997-08-08-gates-to-maritz-stutz", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1997-08-08-gates-to-maritz-stutz" }, { "id": "1997-10-30-gates-to-kempin", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1997-10-30", "time": "7:35 AM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Joachim Kempin" ], "cc": [ "Steve Ballmer", "Christine Turner", "Paul Maritz", "Jim Allchin" ], "subject": "RE: IBM", "body": "I apologize for being slow to answer this.\n\nWhen Gary Stimac came up for the National/Cyrix meeting on Tuesday we had 15 minutes with just the 2 of us talking at the end.\n\nHe said that Gerstner wants to move Palmasino \"up\" and hire someone to run the IBM PC company. Gary is being offered the job. He has decided to consult to IBM with Mike Swavely between now and the end of the year. He is intrigued by the job but wants to make sure that he would be empowered to succeed. He would view it as a 5 year assignment and maybe the last big job he would take. He is worried about the quality of the team and whether IBM's relationship with Microsoft would be a problem. I told him the JAVA religion coming out of the software group is a big problem. I said IBM refused to big anything related to Backoffice. I said they continue to use their PCs to distribute things against us. I said they are dabbing in NCs in a way we don't like. I was fairly encouraging to him though because I am sure it would help us work with IBM PC company A LOT for him to be there.\n\nOverall we will never have the same relationship with IBM that we have with Compaq, Dell and even HP because of their software ambitions. I could deal with this just fine if they weren't such rabid JAVA backers. We are told they have funded Netscape to do the browser without email and they are proposing to fund Netscape to give their browser away. They have also funded a lot of SUN stuff. To make the relationship with the PC guys work some of this rehetoric would have to be toned down. We can't do pulbic things with them when the whole IBM message seems to be \"JAVA will save the world. Do what SUN tells you and get rid of mainframes and everything else including Microsoft using JAVA\".\n\nI am willing to take some risk in improving the relationship and think you should approach them on steps for improvement. You should not position it as \"overnight we will treat you like Compaq\". We should position it as lets do some things that are good for both of us but which require some of the rhetoric to be lowered on both sides. On their side I mean JAVA and NC.\n\nSee answers below.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ibm-1997", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Joachim Kempin and Microsoft executives", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 257 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/257.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Gates replied to Joachim Kempin, who had asked for his opinion on how to respond to IBM, and described a conversation with Gary Stimac about IBM's PC business. The From line is partly obscured in the scan; the government's findings of fact attribute this message to Gates.", "tags": [ "strategy", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 22, "bates": "BGX-000022", "slug": "1997-10-30-gates-to-kempin", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1997-10-30-gates-to-kempin" }, { "id": "1998-01-22-gates-to-maritz-muglia", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1998-01-22", "time": "8:18 AM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Paul Maritz", "Bob Muglia" ], "cc": [ "Jim Allchin", "David Cole" ], "subject": "FW: Steve Jobs Call", "body": "I agree we should probably change the location of MacIE.\n\nThere is a big question of what we should do with JAVA on Mac - whether doing more work and working closely with Apple could help us in this \"battle\". I think it can and would hate for Apple to have to go back to the SUN camp. I think we can gain a lot of share with IE on Mac if we do some modest things. However others may not agree.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "apple-1998", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Paul Maritz, Bob Muglia, Jim Allchin, David Cole", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 897 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/897.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Gates replied to Don Bradford's report on a call with Apple's Steve Jobs about Internet Explorer and Java on the Mac.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 23, "bates": "BGX-000023", "slug": "1998-01-22-gates-to-maritz-muglia", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1998-01-22-gates-to-maritz-muglia" }, { "id": "1998-02-03-jobs-to-gates-quicktime", "person": "Steve Jobs", "date": "1998-02-03", "time": "7:56 AM", "from": "Steve Jobs", "to": [ "Bill Gates" ], "cc": [], "subject": "QuickTime", "body": "Bill,\nThe Microsoft / Apple relationship seems to be progressing well. Working on Office 98 with Ben Waldman and his team has been especially productive. We are investing a lot of our marketing dollars to push Office 98 and I think it will pay off for both of our companies.\nThere is one thing that threatens to be quite divisive, and that is the Microsoft NetShow team's recent behavior. They are really going out of their way to say that they intend to kill QuickTime, and are being quite threatening and rude about it. Apple will need to recirocate in kind if this behavior keeps up. For example, we have already decided that we will not allow NetShow to be bundled with IE 4.0 on Macintosh.\nI think we both want our relationship to broaden to encompass many areas, such as productivity apps, browsers, java, object models, etc. Invariably there will be a few areas where we don't agree and compete. My very strong opinion is that our overall relationship will be much healthier if we each behave with restraint towards each other in these few competitive areas. For example, you don't hear Apple trashing Windows, do you? If you did, you might feel the same way we now feel hearing the NetShow group trashing QuickTime.\nWe intend to fight and win with QuickTime, and I hope this honest and proper effort doesn't meet with down and dirty tactics and tough rhetoric from the NetShow group – it could really tarnish our entire, budding relationship.\nBest,\nSteve", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "apple-microsoft-1998", "company": "Apple", "audience": "Microsoft chairman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "U.S. v. Microsoft exhibit, as transcribed by Internal Tech Emails", "source_url": "https://www.techemails.com/p/steve-jobs-emails-bill-gates", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp. (D.D.C.)", "context": "Eight months after Microsoft's 1997 investment in Apple, Jobs wrote to Bill Gates about Microsoft's NetShow streaming team and Apple's QuickTime.", "tags": [ "strategy", "legal", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 1, "bates": "SJX-000001", "slug": "1998-02-03-jobs-to-gates-quicktime", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1998-02-03-jobs-to-gates-quicktime" }, { "id": "1998-02-14-gates-to-nielsen-chase-cole", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1998-02-14", "time": "10:42 AM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Tod Nielsen", "Brad Chase", "David Cole" ], "cc": [ "Bill Neukom", "David Heiner", "Steve Ballmer", "Mich Mathews", "Eric Rudder", "Yusuf Mehdi", "Nathan Myhrvold", "Paul Maritz", "Jim Allchin" ], "subject": "Browser in the OS", "body": "Some part of this debate relates to the issue of whether the browser is a logical extension of the operating system.\n\nWhen I explain to people what we are doing with help - moving away from a proprietary format with special tools to HTML and how that hleps users people start to understand. When I explain about bowsing information locally and remotely people understand. When I talk about letting ISVs call our html for LOCAL and remote display as well as link resolution etc... people start to understand. I also think we need to talk about our use of HTML for forms. Only by doing a document that EXPLAINS why we are putting the browser into the operating system will people start to have more sympathy for why this makes sense and understand that the government shouldn't be blocking this.\n\nRight now people think the ONLY reason we are putting the browser into the OS is to gain share which just is not true - we didn't get share from IE 1 in the OS or IE 2. IE 3 got us share before it was in the OS because it was a strong product.\n\nI think we need to do a piece on WHY we are putting the browser into the operating system and our future plans. I think we need to make that document widely known.\n\nI want to get Eric Schmidt in particular to comment on whether he thinks it makes sense or not. I wonder who really thinks browsers don't belong in the OS. Detrouzos of MIT told me how he had been saying this before Netscape was founded and even said so in some speeches.\n\nMore important I want to get a survey done where ISVs declare whether they think having the browser in the operating system the way we are planning to do it makes sense and is good. We might want to do some users as well.\n\nWe have never put crazy stuff into the OS and its time for people to know we are doing this for developers and customers.\n\nIt would HELP ME IMMENSLY to have a survey showing that 90% of developers believe that putting the browser into the OS makes sense. I am sure we will get like 60% before we explain our plans. Once we explain our plans properly I think we will get more like 90%.\n\nEven that insane SPA document didn't try to suggest that browsers don't belong in the OS.\n\nIdeally we would have a survey like this done before I appear at the Senate on March 3rd.\n\nI think David should have someone take a shot at writing up our plans for the browser in the OS and Brad/Tod should figure out how to get that distributed and do some kind of survey.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "browser-in-os-1998", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Microsoft marketing, legal and executive staff", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 377 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/377.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Gates wrote about explaining Microsoft's integration of the browser into Windows and asked for a survey of software developers ahead of his March 3, 1998 appearance before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Nathan Myhrvold replied the next day.", "tags": [ "strategy", "legal", "politics" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 24, "bates": "BGX-000024", "slug": "1998-02-14-gates-to-nielsen-chase-cole", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1998-02-14-gates-to-nielsen-chase-cole" }, { "id": "1998-04-28-gates-to-cole", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "1998-04-28", "time": "9:41 AM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "David Cole" ], "cc": [ "Ben Waldman", "Eric Rudder" ], "subject": "Quick Time at Apple", "body": "Maybe I am unrealistic in thinking something good could happen but I would love to see enough convergence of QT and our equivalent so that\n\na) Apple doesn't have to do Windows development in this area. We take some of their codecs and declare victory\nb) We get more \"energy\" behind our competition with realaudio\nc) Our efforts to do QT compatibility either get simpler or require very little\nd) We use this \"convergence\" to get more JAVA/IE affinity from apple\n\nI know you are looking at this I am just trying to encourage us to try a strong proposal", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "apple-1998", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "David Cole, Ben Waldman, Eric Rudder", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Microsoft, Government Trial Exhibit 270 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/270.pdf", "case": "United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (TPJ) (D.D.C.)", "context": "Gates wrote about Apple's QuickTime and Microsoft's equivalent technology. David Cole forwarded it the same day to Cristiano Pierry with his own reply.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 25, "bates": "BGX-000025", "slug": "1998-04-28-gates-to-cole", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/1998-04-28-gates-to-cole" }, { "id": "2000-05-12-ellison-to-roberts-firepond", "person": "Larry Ellison", "date": "2000-05-12", "time": "09:28:50 -0700", "from": "Larry Ellison", "to": [ "George Roberts" ], "cc": [ "John Nugent", "William Bagshaw", "Gary Fleming", "Amit Singh", "Ray Lane", "Ronald Wohl", "Mark Jarvis", "Safra Catz" ], "subject": "Re: [Fwd: [Fwd: Firepond Approvals - nonstandard support]", "body": "We need a press release on this one. larry", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "oracle-securities-litigation-exhibits", "company": "Oracle", "audience": "Oracle sales and applications executives", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "In re Oracle Corp. Securities Litigation, Doc. 1202-17 (exhibit to plaintiffs' declaration, filed Oct. 9, 2007; Bates NDCA-ORCL 034910; scanned page, text transcribed from the page image)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.27321/gov.uscourts.cand.27321.1202.17.pdf", "case": "In re Oracle Corp. Securities Litigation, No. C-01-0988-SI (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "George Roberts had forwarded an internal note about the software company Firepond buying Oracle Applications to replace JD Edwards software. Ellison replied to the sales and applications executives on the thread.", "tags": [ "communication", "product", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 1, "bates": "LEX-000001", "slug": "2000-05-12-ellison-to-roberts-firepond", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2000-05-12-ellison-to-roberts-firepond" }, { "id": "2000-07-10-ellison-to-team-oracle-state-of-the-company", "person": "Larry Ellison", "date": "2000-07-10", "time": "00:31:53 -0700", "from": "Larry Ellison", "to": [ "Team Oracle (Oracle employee distribution list)" ], "cc": [], "subject": "The State of the Company", "body": "Team Oracle,\n\nIt's been a hell of a week. But then it's been a hell of a year. At the start of fiscal year 2000, we announced that Oracle would become an e-business, and in doing so, save one billion dollars. In other words, we would use our own application software - the Oracle e-business suite - to put every aspect of our business on the Internet. The success of our move into the new-economy would be measured the old-economy way - would our move to the Internet improve margins enough to save a billion? The answer turned out to be no. We're going to save a lot more.\n\nA billion dollars in annual savings translates to a 10 point improvement in our margins. But by the fourth quarter our operating margins were up almost 14 points to over 41%. For the full year, net income without investment gains increased 59% to over $2 billion, or 69 cents per share. Net income including investment gains was over $6 billion. Cash increased from $2 billion to $8 billion. Sales topped $10 billion. The stock was up 400%. Oracle's market capitalization approached a quarter of a trillion dollars. It was a good year.\n\nI know that some of you are concerned with the management changes at Oracle. Changes at the top are highly visible to the public, and that's resulted in a good deal of comment in the media this past week. But Oracle has been going through massive organizational and management changes throughout the entire year. This has been largely invisible. This note is a review of some of those changes, and an explanation of why they were necessary.\n\nFive years ago we decided to move all of our products to the Internet. Over one year ago we started the process of transforming Oracle into an e-business. We had to put every aspect of our business on the Internet because the world was about to change. And if we didn't move fast we would miss by far the biggest opportunity in business history.\n\nOur internal computer systems used to be managed by separate IT departments in many different countries. That had to change. We needed to build a single, integrated global system to transform Oracle into an e-business. We transferred the world-wide responsibility for all of our data centers and our networks to Gary Roberts, who works for Gary Bloom. Responsibility for implementing our application software as a world-wide system at Oracle went to Mark Barrenechea and Ron Wohl. Mark and Ron are responsible for the development of our e-business suite of applications products. In addition, they now had to make their applications work at Oracle. And they're doing it. Our IT costs are down, and service levels are up. Gary, Gary, Mark and Ron are leading Oracle's transformation into an e-business. I cannot imagine a better team.\n\nIn the last year, we also had numerous changes in our applications product development organizations. We used to have separate development organizations dedicated to vertical industries such as CPG. Those so called \"best of breed\" industry suites included products from companies like IMI and I2. This flawed strategy, which included Oracle developing around and selling our competitors products, has been abandoned. The separate vertical development groups were all integrated into Mark Barrenechea's and Ron Wohl's teams. The emphasis here is on the word integrated. The features necessary for us to compete in specific vertical industries have now been developed as an integrated part of our e-business suite. These management and organizational changes were key to the fantastic success - 61% growth in Q4 - of our applications business this past year.\n\nThe technology development groups were not immune to change either. We moved our email system under Bill Maimone, who works for Chuck Rozwat. Bill's team along with Gary Roberts' IT group implemented a global Internet based email system at Oracle. By next month, we will have gone from 97 email servers to 2 - and 1 extra for backup. We are saving a fortune, and while service levels are not perfect, they are far superior to our old client-server email systems. Bill and Gary doing a wonderful job with email.\n\nGary Kelley, who also works for Chuck, took over our Application Server development. Gary along with Andy Mendelsohn and Sohaib Abbasi just released our brand new Internet Applications Server - iAS. Our new application server is a grand improvement over the old product. Thanks go to Gary, Andy and Sohaib and their teams for doing such a wonderful job with iAS. No big changes in the database team. None were needed with Chuck Rozwat and Mike Rocha making continuous improvements. The new releases of Oracle8i insure our technology and market leadership in database for years to come. Our products have never been more competitive.\n\nAbout two years ago, headquarters marketing moved to Mark Jarvis, who works for Gary Bloom. This year we reassigned all the marketing people around the world to Mark's team. That is, we globalized marketing just like we globalized IT. Everyone in marketing now works for Mark. We are consolidating all of the different web sites in all of the different countries so there is but one oracle.com - not 150. We are using the Internet to communicate a uniform message around the world. Customers in the United States, France, Brazil and Japan see the same Oracle and pay the same price for our products. Our developer programs and seminar series are the same all over the world. And they all exploit the Internet. Marketing costs are way down but leads and sales are up. Our developer program has nearly a million members. Mark and his team have found new and innovative ways to take advantage of the Internet. The changes in marketing have been huge and have impacted every country in which we do business. Already, these changes are paying huge dividends to Oracle.\n\nThe field organization - sales and consulting - has also seen lots of changes. Our European organization is now headed by Sergio Giacoletto who headed European consulting last year. Sergio's proven track record of providing high quality services to our clients make him the ideal choice to lead our European team. Also new last year is Ian Smith, the head of our largest subsidiary, Oracle UK. Ian Smith, who also has a service background, joins Jimmy Anidjar, Mario Bonzano, Bob Gordon, Wolfgang Jaeger and Hans Jarnik. This brilliant team will lead Europe to a great year. Derek Williams, who had a great year last year in Asia Pacific, will have another. Chikara Sano will continue his brilliant career at Oracle Japan. Our international management team is deep and proven. We can count on them for a record setting year.\n\nThe responsibility for selling and consulting in the Americas is split among Jay Nussbaum, George Roberts, Sandy Sanderson and Frank Varasano. All of them delivered record results last year and are poised to do even better this year. After years of success in our government business, Jay Nussbaum's responsibilities were expanded to run a number of different service industries for Oracle. Jay responded to his new responsibilities with new successes and record margins. George Roberts along with Hilarie Koplow have been very innovative in using the Internet to demo and sell our software products. George's results in his general business unit set a record for any US field sales organization. Sandy Sanderson and his team did a great job in Latin America, and provided much of the technical support helping Frank Varasano's team win numerous exchange deals last year. Sandy is also changing our consulting business by introducing programs like 'five day financials.' This lets our customer get access to our applications products for a fixed price over a short, fixed schedule. That is helping us sell to smaller businesses than we have ever sold to in the past. It is also a key enabler for our Oracle Business Online ASP, now run by Tim Chou. With Tim in charge, Business Online is beginning to take off.\n\nSupport had planned to hire thousands of new people last year, and margins were expected to go down. Then we had a better idea. The new support management team, Gary Bloom and Ian Thacker, figured out how to use the Internet to improve customer satisfaction while at the same time eliminating the need to hire lots of additional support people. They are also using the Internet to reorganize our thousands of support analysts by product expertise rather than by geography. These changes immediately made the support organization more efficient. Support services improved quickly. And margins got better - not worse.\n\nAt the beginning of last year, education submitted a budget for 13% profit margins. Then Gary Bloom and John Hall took over. John globalized education and ran classes on the Internet. Product development got more involved in creating class content. Things got better fast. John delivered over 40% margins last year. He is shooting for 50% margins this year.\n\nThe administration of the company has also changed radically. No longer do the individual countries do their own purchasing, accounting, pricing, etc. All of this has been globalized under Jeff Henley. The sales approval process that used to go through layers of bureaucracy made up of hundreds of people now comes directly from sales to Safra Catz's team of four people. The approval process which used to take weeks now averages a few hours, and is always less than a day.\n\nSafra Catz, Oracle's Chief of Staff, is helping me and every other senior manager look at every detail of our business, so we can standardize our business processes around the world, and make them more efficient. Safra's job is best described as helping all Oracle executives do their jobs better. She leads project teams to standardize our contracts and make them more customer friendly, globalize pricing, simplify and standardize compensation plans - the list is endless. She participates in our product planning and development meetings. She is helping make every aspect of our business better.\n\nThere has been tremendous change at Oracle this past year. People have changed the way they do their jobs, taken on new responsibilities, and new people have been added to the team. The changes are working. Oracle keeps getting stronger. And smarter. But we have lost people in the process. So, the question is, have all these management changes - in marketing, sales, support, consulting, development, IT, administration - created more problems then they solved? Have the changes put our business at risk?\n\nNo. Quite the opposite. Without these changes, we would have missed the biggest opportunity in the history of business. Right now our products are better than they every have been before. Our business processes are more efficient. And our new management team is one that has proven that we can work together closely - as a team. That team was responsible for bringing a stunning increase in success to Oracle this past year. That team will do it again this year. We have, right now, the best management team we have ever had at Oracle. That team is going to lead Oracle to its best year ever. It is going to be an amazing year. Stay tuned. Stay focused. That big bet we placed on the Internet five years ago - and all those management and organizational changes we made last year - are about to pay off big-time.\n\nLarry", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "oracle-securities-litigation-exhibits", "company": "Oracle", "audience": "All Oracle employees", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "In re Oracle Corp. Securities Litigation, Doc. 1548-12 (exhibit to plaintiffs' declaration, filed Nov. 17, 2008; Bates NDCA-ORCL 018777-018780; scanned pages, text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.27321/gov.uscourts.cand.27321.1548.12.pdf", "case": "In re Oracle Corp. Securities Litigation, No. C-01-0988-SI (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Sent days after Ray Lane's departure as Oracle's president and chief operating officer, this company-wide note reviewed the year's results and the management and organizational changes made during fiscal 2000.", "tags": [ "management", "communication", "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 2, "bates": "LEX-000002", "slug": "2000-07-10-ellison-to-team-oracle-state-of-the-company", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2000-07-10-ellison-to-team-oracle-state-of-the-company" }, { "id": "2000-10-12-ellison-to-rocha-fiorina-meeting", "person": "Larry Ellison", "date": "2000-10-12", "time": null, "from": "Larry Ellison", "to": [ "Michael Rocha" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: Carly Fiorina Meeting Update", "body": "Thanks for the update. I will let you know how it goes. larry.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "oracle-hp-2000", "company": "Oracle", "audience": "Oracle executive", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "In re Oracle Corp. Securities Litigation, Doc. 1540-1 (expert report quoting NDCA-ORCL 028735, filed Nov. 17, 2008)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.27321/gov.uscourts.cand.27321.1540.1.pdf", "case": "In re Oracle Corp. Securities Litigation, No. C-01-0988-SI (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Michael Rocha had updated Ellison on discussions with Hewlett-Packard about an Oracle purchase of HP hardware alongside a software deal. The email is quoted in a plaintiffs' expert report; the original exhibit page was not located.", "tags": [ "strategy", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 3, "bates": "LEX-000003", "slug": "2000-10-12-ellison-to-rocha-fiorina-meeting", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2000-10-12-ellison-to-rocha-fiorina-meeting" }, { "id": "2000-11-09-ellison-to-sayles-liberty-mutual", "person": "Larry Ellison", "date": "2000-11-09", "time": "11:02 AM", "from": "Larry Ellison", "to": [ "Helen Sayles" ], "cc": [ "Ron Wohl", "Safra Catz" ], "subject": "Re:", "body": "I have asked Ron Wohl to assign the head of our HR development organization to take charge of this project personally. I think that we should schedule a call every two days to review issues and monitor progress at Liberty Mutual. I will personally attend the second call to assess the level of resources that will be necessary to successfully meet the November go live date. This is now our top priority in HR. larry", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "oracle-securities-litigation-exhibits", "company": "Oracle", "audience": "Liberty Mutual executive (Oracle customer)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "In re Oracle Corp. Securities Litigation, Doc. 1548-12 (exhibit to plaintiffs' declaration, filed Nov. 17, 2008; Bates NDCA-ORCL 018745-018746; quoted in a forward, text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.27321/gov.uscourts.cand.27321.1548.12.pdf", "case": "In re Oracle Corp. Securities Litigation, No. C-01-0988-SI (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Helen Sayles, a senior executive at Liberty Mutual, had written to Ellison on November 7, 2000 about Liberty Mutual's implementation of the Oracle 11i Human Resource Management System. Ellison's reply is preserved in the quoted chain forwarded inside Oracle.", "tags": [ "product", "management", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 4, "bates": "LEX-000004", "slug": "2000-11-09-ellison-to-sayles-liberty-mutual", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2000-11-09-ellison-to-sayles-liberty-mutual" }, { "id": "2000-12-15-ellison-to-bourke-pepsi", "person": "Larry Ellison", "date": "2000-12-15", "time": "17:09", "from": "Larry Ellison", "to": [ "John Bourke", "Ron Wohl" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: Frustration", "body": "Well will look into this immediately. Have you modified the 11i software? What version are you using? Ron, please follow up. larry", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "oracle-securities-litigation-exhibits", "company": "Oracle", "audience": "Pepsi Cork plant finance director (Oracle customer); Oracle executive", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "In re Oracle Corp. Securities Litigation, Doc. 1548-11 (exhibit to plaintiffs' declaration, filed Nov. 17, 2008; Bates NDCA-ORCL 028798; quoted in a forward, text transcribed from the page image)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.27321/gov.uscourts.cand.27321.1548.11.pdf", "case": "In re Oracle Corp. Securities Litigation, No. C-01-0988-SI (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "John Bourke, director of finance at Pepsi's concentrate plant in Cork, Ireland, had written to Ellison about problems with an Oracle 11i implementation. Ron Wohl forwarded the exchange inside Oracle on December 16, 2000.", "tags": [ "product", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 5, "bates": "LEX-000005", "slug": "2000-12-15-ellison-to-bourke-pepsi", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2000-12-15-ellison-to-bourke-pepsi" }, { "id": "2000-12-18-ellison-to-whitehead-zapmedia", "person": "Larry Ellison", "date": "2000-12-18", "time": "08:48:49 -0800", "from": "Larry Ellison", "to": [ "J. Paul Whitehead" ], "cc": [ "Steve Whinery", "Eric Hartz", "Simon Van Roosendaal", "Kevin Phillips", "Mark Barrenechea" ], "subject": "Re: URGENT ZapMedia 11i CRM Concerns", "body": "Mark, could you look at this personally. larry", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "oracle-securities-litigation-exhibits", "company": "Oracle", "audience": "ZapMedia CFO (Oracle customer); Oracle executives", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "In re Oracle Corp. Securities Litigation, Doc. 1573-6, Ex. 147 (appendix to plaintiffs' reply, filed Dec. 12, 2008; Bates NDCA-ORCL 1034221; scanned page, text transcribed from the page image)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.27321/gov.uscourts.cand.27321.1573.6.pdf", "case": "In re Oracle Corp. Securities Litigation, No. C-01-0988-SI (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "ZapMedia's chief financial officer had written to Ellison asking for help with problems with Oracle's 11i CRM module. Ellison forwarded the request to Mark Barrenechea, who ran applications development.", "tags": [ "product", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 6, "bates": "LEX-000006", "slug": "2000-12-18-ellison-to-whitehead-zapmedia", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2000-12-18-ellison-to-whitehead-zapmedia" }, { "id": "2001-01-04-gates-to-senior-leadership-team", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "2001-01-04", "time": "6:22 PM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Senior Leadership Team" ], "cc": [ "Rick Rashid" ], "subject": "Software Agenda", "body": "This memo is one of the ones I have discussed doing.\n\nIt is not the Roadmap memo.\n\nRather it is my view of the key issues.\n\nThis will be a live document. Some of the points are incomplete as you will see.\n\nWe will have some time to discuss where I should focus more attention during the SLT meeting tomorrow.\n\nSoftware Agenda\nFor companies like Oracle where they have a single technology and a focus on a single customer set its easier to understand what their priorities are Microsoft is building a much broader platform for a broader set of customers. Our strength comes from the singularity and popularity of the platform. even we can't afford multiple overlapping messages especially when developers are moving to Linux and Java. our platform pieces have to solve major problems for customers and be extremely popular.\n\nThis memo is an attempt to draw up the list of areas where progress can make a big difference so that we can focus on these and track our progress.\n\nIn addition to improving this memo a complimentary Roadmap memo needs to be created.\n\nSoftware Distribution\nWe need to be able to go to endusers and corporate customers with a service for keeping their software up to date. For customers I believe this should be included in our low cost subscription offering which you get 3 months of free membership in when you update Windows or get a new copy. The service needs to federate through the corporation so they can control what goes out to their end users. Allowing updating to be federated will help us know how to federate other elements of the system which contain Microsoft URLs or connect to our services (help, crash, dump, IM, custom home page, SIP communications, remote storage...). Federation means giving IT a way of reviewing and controlling what goes out as well as using the infrastructure for their own software distribution. We have many formats and approaches to software distribution today. the question of when \"setup\" gets done affects distribution. SMS should go away as a separate product as we provide this service as a part of Windows. Windows update needs to move to sending deltas instead of whole files. We need Drizzle features that MARS provides. In many cases we need to move away from DLL replacement to patching using the PPRC technology. Fusion needs to be embraced broadly. Windows Update has to be a lot less intrusive to the user and a lot richer in content. Corporations have to feel a real loss if they are not getting the fixes that only come by belonging to the update service. We need to articulate the vision for software distribution and get ISVs involved as well. OS updates and Driver updates need to share the same infrastructure. Windows needs to pick someone to architect this and make sure it is a central element of our platform. The business benefit of having great software distribution will be huge because it will give corporations a reason for staying up to date with us without viewing every new bit that comes from us as creating gigantic overhead, It will also allow us to up the quality of the products our users experience dramatically. This is the most important reform I list. The Windows group needs to drive the creation of this service for all Windows users and\nISVs.\n\nThere are parts of SMS which could get moved to a \"PC support\" overall package (like software inventory) but that would only make sense if we bought one of the PC support packages to sell as an application.\n\nQuality\nMicrosoft needs to know when users experience crashes or other errors that come from software bugs. Using this feedback loop we will be able to fix problems in our products quickly. Combined with the distribution service described above this will do more to improve our reputation than any new features we will provide.\n\nBoth Office (Dr. Watson\" and Windows (Bluescreen) have systems for taking system crash information and publishing it to a MicrosoR URL so that we can analyze the crash. Already these systems have uncovered a number of important crashes that our normal systems had never caught. Today we have no way of taking a system that is experiencing problems and being able to remotely patch in code to gather more information. Using the\nwork done in PPRC we can add that capability. Today the crash logging systems aren’t able to involve a third party ISV or PSS or a customers IT group in the process of gathering all the information and solving the problem - these dumps are coming straight to the product group today. The current systems are restricted to dealing only with crash situations - they should be broadened to support general error conditions including\nhaving the application call on these services when something is wrong. These crash handling systems need to be changed to work in the unattended server environment.\n\nWe need to have at least 100,000 clients and 10,000 servers where we totally support the machines to have a complete profile of problems. As part of our subscription offering being able to log what goes on on these systems, back them up and solve any problems that come up will guide our work. We need to understand the costs and complexities users experience with our systems.\n\nBeyond the \"error\" feedback loop described above we need an overall focus on quality issues including someone full time who looks at the business, partnership and technical issues that could significantly improve the situation. People like the specialized publications and Intel could play a role in helping us measure what needs to improve. For example a great feature of Whistler is the ability to connect up with someone else in order\nfor them to help support you including letting them take control of your machine. We need to fix the firewall problem that stands in the way of all PC real time scenarios for this feature to see its full use. We need to continue to evolve this capability so that\nsupport costs for PCs go down significantly. This feature needs to work for ISVs and IT. Another key element of quality is to make sure that buggy third party code creates less problems for our users. Central to this is code signing and forcing addon code to go through a testing process. Our update service should be able to notify users that a piece of code they have installed has had its certificate revoked. An ongoing jihad here is critical.\n\nProductivity\nThe man-years of work per feature created at Microsoft isn’t good enough. Good architecture that leads to powerful shared infrastructure can help with this but there are dramatic gains that need to be made beyond that. The total number of bugs we are creating and then having to track down slows everything down. Even a 10% improvement would make jobs more interesting, cut costs and allow us to get higher quality more powerful software to market quicker.. Potential advances can come from tools, processes, and source language. The recent move to SourceDepot was a big success\nand reinforced the importance of great tools. Likewise the Prefix work from PPRC has been extremely beneficial. Still our tools overall are poor. The tools we use internally should be a pure superset of those we offer to the market. Our source codes should be structured XML documents that allow specification and code to be more closely coupled. Part of the PPRC vision is that navigating information related to execution and testing\nwith the source code should be easy. Source codes should be easily accessible online. Part of Simonyi’s vision is that the source language itself should be extensible so that domain specific constructs are simple to create and understand. User interface’ s should be so easy to create that you create them and then document them. Ideas for improvements will come from PPRC, Simonyi’s work, Research in general, Linux development, other outsiders and parts of the product group including some initiatives in David Greenspoon’s area.\n\nI think VS8 should embrace the idea of source code as an XML document with an environment that combines the vision Intentional Programming and PPRC have suggested. This will be a huge advance for our customers as well as for internal productivity.\n\nWe need a specific agenda in this area - things we are implementing and things we are exploring. We need regular checkpoints for discussing best practices and new ideas.\n\nOpenness\nOur most potent Operating System competitor is Linux and the phenomena around Open Source and free software. The same phenomena fuels competitors to all of our products. The ease of picking up Linux to learn it or to modify some piece of it is very attractive. The academic community, start up companies, foreign governments and many other constituencies are putting their best work into Linux. Although we cannot make Windows free for commercial use we can do dramatically more to make it accessible including parts of the source code. We can make it flee in restricted areas. One important idea is to be able to source debug any running copy of Windows by connecting up to an Internet hosted symbol table with PPRC technology allowing you to patch the code. This means that you don’t have to get the entire source and learn how to build it to debug and add on to Windows at a source level. Although some parts of the source would have to be made opaque to the general public, some of the source could be there for all people and all of the source could be there for some people. We need other creative ideas to allow Windows to match the viral nature of Linux.\n\nStorage innovation (including caching & replication)\nThe Microsoft file system and related protocols have stood still for almost a decade. During this time HTTPFLJRLsiDAV and Email have become important competitors to the file system. Users are very frustrated that even the most basic property query capability is not available for files. Even inside Windows itself we create special stores for music, fusion, passwords and every new object that needs property based viewing. Office has created a storage system called Sharepoint based on HTTP. MSN created a free \"storage\" service called MSN communities. Office has had to abstract away from just using our file system APIs because Windows did not connect out to rich enough servers and so Office embraced some form of DAV. IIS is a kind of storage system with its own naming and security and code invocation capabilities. Our customers are finding it easier to install storage appliances than Microsoft servers. Storage systems are being abstracted away from the application servers. Both our servers and CAL revenue are at risk. The best solution is to pursue an architecture that is over a decade old and that is to make the storage system richer - rich enough so that email, music and things like printers, fonts, etc.., are able to be queried and stored without using special applications for each type. This means taking our next generation SQL technology - Yukon and making it the next generation file system.\n\nThe new strategy will only work if we get a class of applications that take advantage of the new capabilities of the store system. Capabilities like basic Document management should be intrinsic to our new file system. Serving up bits over HTTP and serving them up over SMB should not be different. The name spaces and ability to invoke code should come together. HTTP listening and HTTP efficiency are key capabilities - one listener and one talker. We need a vision of how storage semantics and systems will evolve. What is our response to huge SAN networks of disk supporting the commodity protocols? Will we make Windows systems easy enough to set up and price attractive for these markets? What kind of high end features are we missing?\n\nI have pushed the Windows NTFS group to think of Sharepoint as a storage system that they should ship and then work to provide something that is integrated and better than NTFS alone or Sharepoint alone. There is a question about Yukon subsets. Whistler+l should probably align all of the various system stores to a subset of Yukon like DireetDB. We also need a compatible subset for PDA devices. Btackcomb is the release that has the Yukon file system active once it is booted and is used to simplify the interaction with all information on the system\n\nThe future of storage systems has to be considered in light of the intelligent caching that will be present in the Network and in the client devices. There is no reason that Geo-caching should apply to HTTP information and not to the Windows file system. Our whole Message bus strategy should apply to caching file system information as well as generic messages so that the work we do on tagging, local recomputation, and push]pull are shared. We should be the leader in defining the new protocols for caching cache invalidation and reporting usage of cached information. Our client level caches give us the ability to influence Websites to do things our way.\n\nMaking replication of information is another critical goal for storage reform. One of the key scenarios where the PC shines is in offline use that is not going away. Today the user is forced to manually do the replication of all the information they might want offline. The interface is different for Mail, Directory, WebPages, Files, and Code. For files we have Briefcase and Intellimirror. Windows2000 brought the different replication commands into one place but that reinforced the problem. Our file system should treat caching of information - all information - as one of its native capabilities, We will need a short term plan for replication advances as well as the plan for Blackcomb. We have to make it easy to move between PCs either whether or not a user connects to our services or not.\n\nThe new storage system has to rtm as a service in the cloud at very large scale including hooks in Windows to make it easy for subscribers to store data. Even before we get advanced storage we need to provide a rich replication service between all our devices.\n\nCollaboration/Workflow on SQL\nStrongly related to storage reform is having email show up as an item in system storage. We have already taken the step of combining the Exchange and SQL groups with this goal in mind. Yukon is being influenced by the requirement of hosting the next version of our email server. There is a key question about what different servers we should have on top of Yukon for Knowledge workers. The Windows File Server needs to use Yukon and offer much richer features which subsume Sharepoint. We will continue to charge for email capability which we need to enhance with Gmail capabilities as discussed in the subscription memo, Unclear is whether Workflow or Portal Servers are separate and what access is paid for by having an up-to-date Office license. I believe we should take the Biztalk platform and use it for Office workflow but this requires a visual front end. The technology needs to relate to our Information Agent work.\n\nThe separation of Office from our servers has held us back in solving problems for knowledge workers. No matter what the organization structure is Office needs server support for rich Document Management, Workflow, Conferencing, C-mail and other knowledge worker scenarios. We should also combine the efforts to have a rich environment for Team source code development with the desire to have a Vignette like high end production tool built on these servers.\n\nWhatever servers we create we will want to operate them as a service for customers signing up to our Office.Net service.\n\nAuthentication and Directory\nWe need to move over to SQL as the store for directory and metadirectory as soon as we can. We need to have security ACLs they aren’t dependent on Ids which are tied to the hierarchy chosen for names. Companies should be able to move users around in the hierarchy whenever they want. By using SQL our tools will work with the directory information. We need to articulate the importance of a Metadirectory and take leadership in having connections to all the applications that use directory information. There will be a lot of key schema work that we n~d to do in partnership with other leading companies to make this work. We need A.D. to support public keys and allow for federation with Passport. One of the systems should be renamed to have the same name as the other. Our metadirectory should be usable independent of the OS it is running on for intranet scenarios. The Directory team needs to work with Yukon to get the data model and protocol issues resolved so that the semantics for authentimtion replication can be done without special set up. We need to make sharing of all kinds of information across corporate boundaries easy by federating with Passport. We need to make it easy to authenticate the sender of information the same way. Directory design should not be a fragile and gating item for the deployment of Windows,systems. We need to make sure our authentication system allows for signed code. We need to eliminate vulnerability that the way our admin account passwords are handled creates. Our customers should not have to go to third party solutions. Our certificate architecture should be aligned with our ACL/Directory/PKI work. Customers shouldn’t have to buy add on security products like Entrust. The Windows group needs to drive a roadmap for this big change in how we do Directory.\n\nWe should be able to charge extra [’or Metadirectory and the Federation services that allow the Extranet services to work through Passport.\n\nWe should have Office and H,R. Apps vendors work with our MetaDirectory people so that the common scenarios relating to finding out about employees provides a great front end experience. Today trying to find out who works in what part of the org or where they are located or what their backround is far too complex.\n\nManagement/Setup\nProvisioning and monitoring Windows systems needs to be far easier than Linux systems. Our management infrastructure has to use the eventinghogging/filtering APIs that we are defining with the SQL Message bus. The vision of the BIG group where you can describe a set of systems to perform a task and then monitor those systems through an XML document is key here. An abstract description of a servex should allow a service to fully provision the server. Customers respond favorably to the idea of having ASP resources available on demand for peak loading and disaster recovery. BIG and AppCenter and Management to me are really one set of’problems. By using all the SOAP/XML protocols and the Yukon infrastructure we will be able to have an extensible management environment. Windows has to work in a headless environment including reporting crash information over the network to enable the automatic provisioning scenario.\n\nOne of the reasons that appliances are so attractive for dedicated functions is that Windows is too hard to setup for specific profiles. Although for high visibility profiles we should have special packages it should be very easy to choose a profile like \"Load balancing\" or \"RAS\" and a few parameters and simply ask the server to be setup. We need to merchandise how this approach can be more flexible in terms of staying up to date and providing flexibility than a pure appliance approach, In the past we tried to do setup and monitoring using MMC. MMC wasn’t a model - it was simply a shared display service. The Setup and Management Console capabilities need to be put onto the XML runtime as that gets done so that we get rich viewing and navigation. I don’t know what interim runtime the Management people are trying to use - this should be discussed.\n\nSome level of management needs to ship with Windows and some level can be extra charge. We need a rich framework/schema around the Yukon infrastructure that third parties use to add management capabilities. Tivoli excelled as a framework with third party value added before they actually shipped rich functionality which is a model for what we need to do several parts of management. We should make sure firewall issues don’t make it hard for people to manage their systems across the Internet. We should consider offering Remote management services under the new framework.\n\nLeadership in management will be measurable from customer feedback, revenue, and comparison with other high end vendors. We have invested a lot in this area over the years but our solutions have suffered from having their own infrastructure. Windows cannot be a strong server product without having excellent management.\n\nPresentation reform\nOur \"presentation\" layer today consists of a number of disconnected technologies including DirectUser, GDI Plus, DirectX, Trident, PTO, VS Forms, Webforms, Ebook, Office SDM and Forms3. An innovative presentation layer is critical to showing off why local application execution provides a better experience and keeping the PC vibrant versus dumb devices. We want most applications to download to PCs and run there receiving XML data and XML SOAP calls over the Internet. A rich presentation environment that allows forms and UI to be specified and easily edited and allows XML data to bind to each is critical. The lowest level of our Presentation system should present a single driver interface and allow exploitation of new graphics chips. Turner Whirred in Research is pulling together thoughts on what requirements this creates.\n\nA good design for this system will allow us to layer in PDF compatibility including an annotation layer. A good design for this system will allow us to build an animation layer which is competitive - today Flash is playing this roll. Video and Audio will play a major role in upcoming interfaces and they cannot be relegated to just run in a player application. Also screen updating should be done more smoothly using offscreen memory\n\nI want us to be able to construct rich UI easily simply by editing an XML document. I want us to be able to bind to XML data easily using the new forms environment. We have compatibility issues to consider with all of the above systems. Trident will be a piece of the solution as the HTML displayer but it will likely not be at the center of the system.\n\nOne important consideration is to make sure that display remoting using our proprietary WTS protocol/Netmeeting (same or different?) continues to work for applications with extensions to support high quality audio and video. There are a lot of compatibility constraints but also a need to innovate in this level of the system. A key question is: Can we make applications look better if they use the new approach?\n\nIts unclear to me how much symmetry we can have with the server based forms model - Webforms. Ideally we want XML payloads to rich clients but developer’s don’t want to think through their forms logic twice and completely duplicate that code. Our strategy is to make standards based HTML look increasingly obsolete and not have to give away the underpinnings of our presentation environment to a standards group. There is an ongoing dialog between Ted Peters and all of the constituent groups to try and come up with a proposal on where we go with this. FIP is potentially a partner for printing related aspects of the new approach.\n\nApplications platform\nOur applications platform message is quite confused today. Pieces like CLR, WMI, MSMQ, XML runtime, Biztalk, MTS, i-IS, ASP+, Load Balancing, Message bus, SOAP, UDDI and Yukon are not consistent and reinforcing. Basic standards like eventing, logging, and filtering have to be established. The discomaeetion of these products make our message when trying to win back the developers who like JAVA and J2EE very difficult especially when we have the limitation of being only on Windows and those technologies are supported on many platforms by many companies. Although we have waited a long time for the shipment of VS with the URT that doesn’t give us anywhere near a complete consistent platform story.\n\nWe have talked about many of these problems but not pulled things together. MSMQ is a bit of an orphan. Our transaction strategy isn’t getting any traction while BEA has established an $800M per year business around that technology. We did a good job on MSMQ and MTS but they couldn’t thrive on their own. Our decision to make Yukon the center of gravity and to connect Yukon to the URT should give us the clear starting point. We may need to be able to package Yukon so that it doesn’t feel like a database if all you want is a Message bus. We may need to create some subset implementations of things like Queuing for size and speed reasons. However the API set should be consistent. We may need to be compatible with some of the J2EE apis.\n\nI think that between Paul, Yuval and Eric’s group with some help from Rick Rashid we should be able to go through another iteration on this (like we did with NGWS) and come up with some clear answers.\n\nThe strength of this platform and the innovation around it is the key element in preventing commodization by Linux, our installed base and Network Appliance vendors. We are in the best position to define the distributed application model that allows work to be moved out into the Network. We don’t have enough research our product group people pushing this agenda but we have the best opportunity. This is what it takes to seize leadership in caching, load balancing and protocols, I think between Management/Setup and a vision of how our platform is Distributed we give ourselves a chance to lead in all the Level 7 networking pieces. I almost included this as a separate item but executing on these two technical pieces will give us what we need except for packaging, marketing and sales force.\n\nThere is a major packaging question once we get architectural coherence. To what degree should we package or charge for the rich so ealled middleware pieces separately from the rest of the platform? Are there advanced forms of some of these pieces that cost extra? Most of the API set we want supported in the base server with understandable advanced services costing extra.\n\nWe are discussing with IBM a joint effort to agree on most of the Application server pieces so that companies have a choice of our two implementations. Although this would be an unexpected partnership I see a lot of advantages for both companies. I think they can help with parts of the architecture. The current view is that we do not share any code between the companies.\n\nWe also need to drive Microsoft to use the new platform to prove it out and show it off. Our Services need to use these architectures so that our tools make them easy to extend.\n\nPC Excellence\nThe PC has to have all the advantages of being a simple dedicated appliance without giving up the ability to run many applications and support a variety of peripherals and update the system software. Walt Mossberg and our satisfaction data say we haven’t done enough on this.\n\nOne critical issue is boot time. I spend minutes of my life everyday rebooting my system at work and at home It has gotten slower as I have moved to new releases of Windows. Just making a big advance in this area would cause a lot of people to upgrade Windows. The Windows team is focused on making Standby and Hibernate much faster including the BIOS piece that requires OEM work. We need to make sure we improve it even a lot beyond where Whistler will be partly with software advances and partly with hardware. We should have a flavor of Boot that assumes not big changes and uses the same logic and de-hibernating.\n\nWinHEC is the forum where we get to send the message to the hardware vendors about what we are focused on. We need a clear message on power management, removable media, microphones, video decoding, graphics, that makes the PC a moving target.\n\nData Center\nIts critical that we be able to handle the most demanding applications - even those that don’t partition naturally across many servers. We need to lead with partitioning technology but also make sure our hardware partners are providing single server systems that match everything SUN is doing - memory bus, I/O speed etc.. We will continue to find software bottlenecks in these scenarios. There are a number of sottware features we still need to match up to Mainframes and Solaris in the Datacenter scenarios. Many of those we can use partners to solve. Key hardware partners are IBM (particularly if they will put x86 support onto their latest chip technology), Intel, AMD, Compaq, HP, Unisys and a number of Japanese vendors. We have put a lot of energy into supporting Itanium and we need to evaluate at some checkpoints how well Itanium will provide what we need.\n\nReliability and Manageability are also critical to success here but those have already been mentioned. The Data center does bring special requirements to those issues.\n\nReal time communication\nPart of our vision is that communication in the future will be multi-modal. People will have a screen - either a PC or a PDA type screen - and anytime they are interacting with the screen they can use speech for commands or navigalion or dictation or talking or voice mail. Notifications/email/filtefing. Screen call. Collab. Ozzie-Groove. Multimedia. Capps vision. Screen Call extended - all calls coordinated as speech and data.\nMilestones.\n\nAsynch Communication\nEmail client. Storage. Gmail. CRM. Information agent. Stored Annotated meetinss. Scheduling, Multimedia. Future of Outlook. A piece of this was already in the subscription memo. Notifications versus IM versus Chat versus Mail.\n\nUI approach/Schema\nThis is the hardest one to write. I need to put a lot of time on this. I have a lot of thinking I need to share on this.\n\nOffice code base\nDevelopment platform. Extensibility. Future of Word. Future of Frontpage. Future of Access. Future of Works. Future of Publisher,\n\nTablet/Ink\nReading/Annotation\nMeeting/Learning\nXML runtime\n(forecasting, management,..) Future of Excel,\n\nSpeech platform and Natural Language\nOver the years we have invested quite a bit in natural language and speech recognition/synthesls. Recently some people have asked when it will really enhance our products and whether there is a customer/developer need that will be huge around this technology. While some parts of the speech stack we could have developed by partners the \"API\" that says how people allow speech to affect their application is something we need to lead in and own.\n\nAs described in our RealTime and PC vision, speech input will be a mainstream part of using a PC. Likewise typing natural language as part of a conversation (type in line) will be the most efficient interface for many things. This means that alI applications including websites will want to be able to describe how to \"react\" to natural language. For example when you connect to Amazon.Com with a PC or a PDA your commands should help you navigate. Part of Windows/.NET keeping a lead as an applications platform requires us to have the architecture and tools that make it easy for people to language enable all applications. We need to innovate in how these grammars or slot filling or tree diagrams deal with probabilistic input. This includes having the client side and server so,rare that can execute the applications. A degenerate case is where the device is a voice only device. Since Nuance and Speechworks dominate people creating voice only interaction it is natural for them to be strong in websites wanting multimodal interaction. Also IBM, Philips, Lucent and various research labs will like to give away speech technology so our asset needs to Focus on toois and API allowing other speech engines to be used.\n\nSpeech interaction will change the way applications are defined and finally bring the idea of social interface back to the fore. I think we can define some scenarios that we need to lead in and track our progress in being the primary platform for language enabled applications.\n\nSummary\nIt very exciting to see how many cool things great software can do. Things that everyone really cares about - Knowledge workers, IT, Developers :and Consumers. G", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "software-agenda-2001", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Microsoft Senior Leadership Team", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Comes v. Microsoft, Plaintiff's Exhibit 8256, transcribed by Techrights (Jun 23 2009)", "source_url": "http://techrights.org/o/2009/06/23/bill-gates-afraid-of-gnu-linux/", "case": "Comes v. Microsoft (Iowa District Court, Polk County)", "context": "Gates sent his draft \"Software Agenda\" memo to the Senior Leadership Team the day before an SLT meeting. Jim Allchin forwarded it to Windows managers on January 8, 2001. The body below is the cover note followed by the text of the attached memo, which the source transcription ends mid-sentence.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product", "engineering", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 26, "bates": "BGX-000026", "slug": "2001-01-04-gates-to-senior-leadership-team", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2001-01-04-gates-to-senior-leadership-team" }, { "id": "2001-01-15-gates-to-allchin-ballmer", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "2001-01-15", "time": "5:34 PM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Jim Allchin", "Steve Ballmer" ], "cc": [], "subject": "FW: The Fifth Database Revolution", "body": "We need to get someone very technical to pull together our platform story.\n\nJim could do it but its probably best for him to delegate it to a small group with a leader.\n\nThe leader could be Eric Rudder or Rick Rashid or someone I am not thinking of. Some good work was done during the NGWS days that needs to be carried through.\n\nEric tells me that currently there is some progress on this stuff but not a clear direction from management.\n\nIt is as a key advisor to this group that David’s input would become important. The key stuff is under Paul Flessner and Yuval Neeman but neither of them is right to drive it directly. It does touch on other pieces like WMI and Office extensibility.\n\nThis is one of the bigger items on my memo and its waiting there. I am not saying its easy work to do.\n\nLets pick how this is going to be driven.\n\nI need to discuss that with both of you for a number of items in the memo but this is perhaps the most urgent.\nHere is the latest on this from the memo:\n\nApplications platform\nOur applications platform message is quite confused today. Pieces like CLR, WMI, MSMQ, XML runtime, Biztalk, MTS,IIS, ASP+, Load Balancing, Message bus, ,SOAP, UDDI and Yukon are not consistent and reinforcing. Basic standards like eventing, logging, and filtering have to be established. The disconnection of these products make our message when trying to win back the developers who like JAVA and J2EE very difficult especially when we have the limitation of being only on Windows and those technologies are supporled on many platforms by many companies. Although we have waited a long time for the shipment of VS with the URT that doesn’t give us anywhere near a complete consistent platform story.\n\nThe most consistent platform in the industry is Oracle. They have used their database as the center of gravity to drive a very strong story. We need to integrate more capabilities like email and directory and workflow and file system where Oracle has done very little. In the basic intrastructure area though there are some lesssons to learn from them.\n\nWe have talked about many of these problems but not pulled things together. MSMQ is a bit of an orphan. Our transaction strategy isn’t getting any traction while BEA has established an $800M per year business around that technology. We did a good job on MSMQ and MTS but they couldn’t thrive on their own. Our decision to make Yukon the center of gravity and to connecl Yukon to the URT should give us the clear starting point. We may need to be able to package Yukon so that it doesn’t feel like a database if all you want is a Message bus. We may need to create some subset implementations of things like Queuing for size and speed reasons. However the API set should be consistent. We may need to be compatible with some of the J2EE apis.\n\nOur application platform for the server and the client need to be the same. The strength of our approach is that code should be able to run Offline. This highlights again the importance of a Distributed Application Architecture where code can determine what it needs to execute on a different server or down on the client. ASP+ has to be made reasonable as a client side API set which it is not today.\n\nWe have to take a hard look at our tools and consider how to be a better high end solution. We have to spend a lot of money to make sure the openness of C# is well understood and that it is accepted at a level that allows our innovations to have traction.\n\nI think that between Paul, Yuval and Eric’s group with leader from Rick Rashid we should be able to go through another iteration on this (like we did with NGWS) and come up with some clear answers.\n\nThe strength of this platform and the innovation around it is the key element in preventing commodization by Linux, our installed base and Network Appliance vendors. We are in the best position to define the distributed application model that allows work to be moved out into the Network. We don’t have enough research our product group people pushing this agenda but we have the best opportunity. This is what it takes to seize leadership in caching, load balancing and protocols. I think between Management/Setup and a vision of how our platform is Distributed we give ourselves a chance to lead in all the Level 7 networking pieces. I almost included this as a separate item but executing on these two technical pieces will give us what we need except for packaging, marketing and sales force.\n\nThere is a major packaging question once we get architectural coherence. To what degree should we package or charge for the rich so called middleware pieces separately from the rest of the platform? Are there advanced forms of some of these pieces that cost extra? Most of the API set we want supported in the base server with understandable advanced services costing extra.\n\nWe are discussing with IBM a joint effort to agree on most of the Application server pieces so that companies have a choice of our two implementations. Although this would be an unexpected partnership I see a lot of advanlages for both companies. I think they can help with parts of the architecture. The current view is that we do not share any code\nbetween the companies.\n\nWe also need to drive Microsoft to use the new platform to prove it out and show it off. Our Services need to use these architectures so that our tools make them easy to extend.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "platform-story-2001", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Jim Allchin and Steve Ballmer", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Comes v. Microsoft, Plaintiff's Exhibit 6917, transcribed by Techrights (Jun 24 2009)", "source_url": "http://techrights.org/o/2009/06/24/bill-gates-on-c-sharp/", "case": "Comes v. Microsoft (Iowa District Court, Polk County)", "context": "Gates forwarded David Vaskevitch's papers on the future of databases to Jim Allchin and Steve Ballmer, with a note on pulling together Microsoft's platform story and excerpts from his Software Agenda memo.", "tags": [ "strategy", "engineering", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 27, "bates": "BGX-000027", "slug": "2001-01-15-gates-to-allchin-ballmer", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2001-01-15-gates-to-allchin-ballmer" }, { "id": "2001-02-26-ellison-to-roberts-forecast-reduction", "person": "Larry Ellison", "date": "2001-02-26", "time": "06:26:55 -0800", "from": "Larry Ellison", "to": [ "George Roberts" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: Forecast Reduction of 20mm", "body": "George, do you think that these deals have slipped into Q4 or have they have simply disappeared? larry", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "oracle-securities-litigation-exhibits", "company": "Oracle", "audience": "Oracle North America sales head", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "In re Oracle Corp. Securities Litigation, Doc. 1595-13, Ex. 13 (exhibit to plaintiffs' declaration, filed Feb. 11, 2009; Bates NDCA-ORCL 147052; scanned page, text transcribed from the page image)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.27321/gov.uscourts.cand.27321.1595.13.pdf", "case": "In re Oracle Corp. Securities Litigation, No. C-01-0988-SI (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "George Roberts had told Ellison that he was cutting his third-quarter license forecast by $20 million after more than 70 transactions slipped out of the West area forecast. Ellison replied with this question, and the thread was later forwarded within Oracle.", "tags": [ "management", "deadlines" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 7, "bates": "LEX-000007", "slug": "2001-02-26-ellison-to-roberts-forecast-reduction", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2001-02-26-ellison-to-roberts-forecast-reduction" }, { "id": "2001-03-08-ellison-to-catz-wohl-indirect-procurement", "person": "Larry Ellison", "date": "2001-03-08", "time": "10:46:42 -0800", "from": "Larry Ellison", "to": [ "Safra Catz", "Ron Wohl" ], "cc": [], "subject": "[Fwd: Oracle 11i/Indirect Procurement]", "body": "one more time", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "oracle-securities-litigation-exhibits", "company": "Oracle", "audience": "Oracle executives", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "In re Oracle Corp. Securities Litigation, Doc. 1548-11, Ex. 13 (exhibit to plaintiffs' declaration, filed Nov. 17, 2008; Bates NDCA-ORCL 053228; scanned page, text transcribed from the page image)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.27321/gov.uscourts.cand.27321.1548.11.pdf", "case": "In re Oracle Corp. Securities Litigation, No. C-01-0988-SI (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Ellison forwarded a March 7, 2001 message from GE's Gary Reiner reporting significant problems with the 11i indirect procurement roll-out and asking for help to accelerate progress.", "tags": [ "product", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 8, "bates": "LEX-000008", "slug": "2001-03-08-ellison-to-catz-wohl-indirect-procurement", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2001-03-08-ellison-to-catz-wohl-indirect-procurement" }, { "id": "2001-03-23-ellison-to-roberts-escalated-customers", "person": "Larry Ellison", "date": "2001-03-23", "time": "20:42:47 -0800", "from": "Larry Ellison", "to": [ "George Roberts" ], "cc": [ "Mark Barrenechea", "Ron Wohl", "Safra Catz" ], "subject": "Re: [Fwd: [Fwd: Papa Johns Information]]", "body": "OK. I want all escalated customers to belong to development managers. Mark B. will own Papa John.\nMark, I need daily reports until the customer is happy.\n\nI need a list of the other escalated customers and I need it now. And I need support to resurrect the reports grading whether products are within the agreed quality parameters. Mike R. is responsible for delivering the reports.\n\nWe will meet on this on Wednesday to review every escalated customers and every product quality rating. Until further notice every Thursday applications meeting will begin with a review of all escalated customers and application product quality. The only allowed topics will be demo status and internal implementation requirements.\n\nlarry", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "oracle-securities-litigation-exhibits", "company": "Oracle", "audience": "Oracle sales and applications executives", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "In re Oracle Corp. Securities Litigation, Doc. 1552-36 (exhibit to plaintiffs' declaration, filed Nov. 18, 2008; Bates NDCA-ORCL 054077; scanned page, text checked against the page image)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.27321/gov.uscourts.cand.27321.1552.36.pdf", "case": "In re Oracle Corp. Securities Litigation, No. C-01-0988-SI (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "George Roberts had told Ellison that three to four clients, including Papa John's, were close to losing patience over Oracle 11i implementation problems. Ellison replied by assigning escalated customers to development managers.", "tags": [ "management", "product", "deadlines" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 9, "bates": "LEX-000009", "slug": "2001-03-23-ellison-to-roberts-escalated-customers", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2001-03-23-ellison-to-roberts-escalated-customers" }, { "id": "2002-01-15-gates-to-all-microsoft-employees", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "2002-01-15", "time": "5:22 PM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Microsoft and Subsidiaries: All FTE" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Trustworthy computing", "body": "Every few years I have sent out a memo talking about the highest priority for Microsoft. Two years ago, it was the kickoff of our .NET strategy. Before that, it was several memos about the importance of the Internet to our future and the ways we could make the Internet truly useful for people. Over the last year it has become clear that ensuring .NET is a platform for Trustworthy Computing is more important than any other part of our work. If we don't do this, people simply won't be willing -- or able -- to take advantage of all the other great work we do. Trustworthy Computing is the highest priority for all the work we are doing. We must lead the industry to a whole new level of Trustworthiness in computing.\n\nWhen we started work on Microsoft .NET more than two years ago, we set a new direction for the company -- and articulated a new way to think about our software. Rather than developing standalone applications and Web sites, today we're moving towards smart clients with rich user interfaces interacting with Web services. We're driving the XML Web services standards so that systems from all vendors can share information, while working to make Windows the best client and server for this new era.\n\nThere is a lot of excitement about what this architecture makes possible. It allows the dreams about e-business that have been hyped over the last few years to become a reality. It enables people to collaborate in new ways, including how they read, communicate, share annotations, analyze information and meet.\n\nHowever, even more important than any of these new capabilities is the fact that it is designed from the ground up to deliver Trustworthy Computing. What I mean by this is that customers will always be able to rely on these systems to be available and to secure their information. Trustworthy Computing is computing that is as available, reliable and secure as electricity, water services and telephony.\n\nToday, in the developed world, we do not worry about electricity and water services being available. With telephony, we rely both on its availability and its security for conducting highly confidential business transactions without worrying that information about who we call or what we say will be compromised. Computing falls well short of this, ranging from the individual user who isn't willing to add a new application because it might destabilize their system, to a corporation that moves slowly to embrace e-business because today's platforms don't make the grade.\n\nThe events of last year -- from September's terrorist attacks to a number of malicious and highly publicized computer viruses -- reminded every one of us how important it is to ensure the integrity and security of our critical infrastructure, whether it's the airlines or computer systems. Computing is already an important part of many people's lives. Within ten years, it will be an integral and indispensable part of almost everything we do. Microsoft and the computer industry will only succeed in that world if CIOs, consumers and everyone else sees that Microsoft has created a platform for Trustworthy Computing.\n\nEvery week there are reports of newly discovered security problems in all kinds of software, from individual applications and services to Windows, Linux, Unix and other platforms. We have done a great job of having teams work around the clock to deliver security fixes for any problems that arise. Our responsiveness has been unmatched -- but as an industry leader we can and must do better. Our new design approaches need to dramatically reduce the number of such issues that come up in the software that Microsoft, its partners and its customers create. We need to make it automatic for customers to get the benefits of these fixes. Eventually, our software should be so fundamentally secure that customers never even worry about it.\n\nNo Trustworthy Computing platform exists today. It is only in the context of the basic redesign we have done around .NET that we can achieve this. The key design decisions we made around .NET include the advances we need to deliver on this vision. Visual Studio .NET is the first multi-language tool that is optimized for the creation of secure code, so it is a key foundation element.\n\nI've spent the past few months working with Craig Mundie's group and others across the company to define what achieving Trustworthy Computing will entail, and to focus our efforts on building trust into every one of our products and services. Key aspects include:\n\nAvailability: Our products should always be available when our customers need them. System outages should become a thing of the past because of a software architecture that supports redundancy and automatic recovery. Self-management should allow for service resumption without user intervention in almost every case.\n\nSecurity: The data our software and services store on behalf of our customers should be protected from harm and used or modified only in appropriate ways. Security models should be easy for developers to understand and build into their applications.\n\nPrivacy: Users should be in control of how their data is used. Policies for information use should be clear to the user. Users should be in control of when and if they receive information to make best use of their time. It should be easy for users to specify appropriate use of their information including controlling the use of email they send.\n\nTrustworthiness is a much broader concept than security, and winning our customers' trust involves more than just fixing bugs and achieving \"five-nines\" availability. It's a fundamental challenge that spans the entire computing ecosystem, from individual chips all the way to global Internet services. It's about smart software, services and industry-wide cooperation.\n\nThere are many changes Microsoft needs to make as a company to ensure and keep our customers' trust at every level - from the way we develop software, to our support efforts, to our operational and business practices. As software has become ever more complex, interdependent and interconnected, our reputation as a company has in turn become more vulnerable. Flaws in a single Microsoft product, service or policy not only affect the quality of our platform and services overall, but also our customers' view of us as a company.\n\nIn recent months, we've stepped up programs and services that help us create better software and increase security for our customers. Last fall, we launched the Strategic Technology Protection Program, making software like IIS and Windows .NET Server secure by default, and educating our customers on how to get -- and stay -- secure. The error-reporting features built into Office XP and Windows XP are giving us a clear view of how to raise the level of reliability. The Office team is focused on training and processes that will anticipate and prevent security problems. In December, the Visual Studio .NET team conducted a comprehensive review of every aspect of their product for potential security issues. We will be conducting similarly intensive reviews in the Windows division and throughout the company in the coming months.\n\nAt the same time, we're in the process of training all our developers in the latest secure coding techniques. We've also published books like \"Writing Secure Code,\" by Michael Howard and David LeBlanc, which gives all developers the tools they need to build secure software from the ground up. In addition, we must have even more highly trained sales, service and support people, along with offerings such as security assessments and broad security solutions. I encourage everyone at Microsoft to look at what we've done so far and think about how they can contribute.\n\nBut we need to go much further.\n\nIn the past, we've made our software and services more compelling for users by adding new features and functionality, and by making our platform richly extensible. We've done a terrific job at that, but all those great features won't matter unless customers trust our software. So now, when we face a choice between adding features and resolving security issues, we need to choose security. Our products should emphasize security right out of the box, and we must constantly refine and improve that security as threats evolve. A good example of this is the changes we made in Outlook to avoid email borne viruses. If we discover a risk that a feature could compromise someone's privacy, that problem gets solved first. If there is any way we can better protect important data and minimize downtime, we should focus on this. These principles should apply at every stage of the development cycle of every kind of software we create, from operating systems and desktop applications to global Web services.\n\nGoing forward, we must develop technologies and policies that help businesses better manage ever larger networks of PCs, servers and other intelligent devices, knowing that their critical business systems are safe from harm. Systems will have to become self-managing and inherently resilient. We need to prepare now for the kind of software that will make this happen, and we must be the kind of company that people can rely on to deliver it.\n\nThis priority touches on all the software work we do. By delivering on Trustworthy Computing, customers will get dramatically more value out of our advances than they have in the past. The challenge here is one that Microsoft is uniquely suited to solve.\n\nBill", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "trustworthy-computing-2002", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "All Microsoft full-time employees", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "Bill Gates, \"Trustworthy computing\" email to all Microsoft employees, Jan 15 2002 (copy on HelpWithWindows.com)", "source_url": "https://helpwithwindows.com/billg-email.html", "case": null, "context": "Gates sent this company-wide email four months after the September 11 attacks and a year of widely reported Windows and Outlook security incidents. It launched Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing initiative.", "tags": [ "strategy", "safety", "communication", "engineering" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 28, "bates": "BGX-000028", "slug": "2002-01-15-gates-to-all-microsoft-employees", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2002-01-15-gates-to-all-microsoft-employees" }, { "id": "2002-03-22-ellison-to-henley-barrenechea-it-crm", "person": "Larry Ellison", "date": "2002-03-22", "time": "07:04:05 -0800", "from": "Larry Ellison", "to": [ "Jeff Henley", "Mark Barrenechea" ], "cc": [ "Jennifer Minton", "Safra Catz" ], "subject": "RE: IT CRM", "body": "Our top priority is to get Oracle users are \"delighted\" with -the quality and functionality our CRM products. Until that happens I doubt we will achieve success in the market. The biggest problem is missing features as opposed to show stopper bugs. (There are a few of those as well but they are much easier to fix.) Every applications meeting now centers around representatives from our user community who report back on application quality and set priorities for development. We cannot remain in denial if we talk with our users every day. We need to work very hard to achieve a high degree of customer satisfaction for our sales and marketing products as soon as possible. We will have major improvements by June, but we are unlikely to deliver all we need until September. Doing it by September will require unrelenting focus and a Herculean effort. It can be done but not unless we change our development and testing process and do a better job listening to our user community. Larry", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "oracle-securities-litigation-exhibits", "company": "Oracle", "audience": "Oracle executives", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "In re Oracle Corp. Securities Litigation, Doc. 1573-8, Ex. 172 (appendix to plaintiffs' reply, filed Dec. 12, 2008; Bates NDCA-ORCL 059745-059747; scanned pages, text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.27321/gov.uscourts.cand.27321.1573.8.pdf", "case": "In re Oracle Corp. Securities Litigation, No. C-01-0988-SI (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Mark Barrenechea had reported to Jeff Henley and Jennifer Minton on the focus areas of Oracle's internal CRM rollout and on weekly application-review meetings with Ellison. Henley replied that the dates looked too optimistic, and Ellison responded to the thread.", "tags": [ "product", "management", "deadlines", "culture" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 10, "bates": "LEX-000010", "slug": "2002-03-22-ellison-to-henley-barrenechea-it-crm", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2002-03-22-ellison-to-henley-barrenechea-it-crm" }, { "id": "2002-11-20-gates-to-senior-leadership-team", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "2002-11-20", "time": null, "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Senior Leadership Team" ], "cc": [ "Orlando Ayala", "Kevin Johnson", "Jean-Philippe Courtois", "Eric Rudder", "Sanjay Parthasarathy", "Paul Flessner" ], "subject": "Discussions with the press", "body": "I wrote up the comments below in summarizing a dinner Steve and I had with about 20 leading editors in Las Vegas Monday night.\n\nPlease look them over because I am very interested in whether the way I am positioning things is consistent with all of you. Also you will find some ways of discussing competition that I have had to refine over a period of dozens on interviews boring in on those issues.\n\nWhat is the state of innovation? I gave them a framework where chip, screen, Wifi, storage, camera imagers and optic fiber advances are full speed ahead in a continuous fashion and those things enable software and scenario advances in a bit of a discontinuous fashion because you need software platforms at critical mass and user penetrarion at critical mass before new scenarios have their full impact.\n\nWhat is MSFT’s view of mesh networks? I got this question a lot more from press than I expected. I made it clear we are doing amazing software work that is a necessary part of this. I need to talk with Craig/Pierre/Tren more about our public message on this. We have to be careful to just say \"we are doing the software to allow for this\" rather than saying \"we are going to make this happen to undermine cable and DSL pricing\"\n\nWhat is Microsoff’s role in the enterprise? I got to talk about scalability progress and the longer track to get full credibility for management and reliability and security but explained how serious we are about it and how the web services platform will surprise people by how it advances these issues.\n\nWhat is Microsoll’s biggest competitor? I think it is CRITICAL to point out to people that the biggest competitor is our installed base of software. If we don’t improve Office and users don’t want the new version then people get to use it forever without paying us anything. Competing with the real Office that doesn’t wear out is tougher than competing with an inferior clone. Our innovation has to reach the threshold where people not only want to license the new version but install it and learn it and deal with any issues it creates.\n\nWhat is Microsoft’s relationship with IBM? I point to our behaviour relative to Webserices standards as a huge example of new responsible leadership. Rather than implementing these protocols and then taking them to a standards group or keeping them proprietary we work with competitors including IBM and define them together and then both implement in parallel. This some of Microsoft’s and IBM’s finest work and it is laying the foundation for the dreams of the Internet like Ecommerce to become a reality. I also explain we have a good relationship with them on hardware where they did a nice 16-way server and we meet with them to discuss having the best Windows platforms. I say the competition between Exchange and Notes and Windows.net and Websphere are\nhealthy competition for the customer and because of our pure software focus we have generally done a better job listening and advances software products than IBM (at least off the mainframe).\n\nWill people ever move off of the Mainframe? I don’t say anything radical on this but l say many customers are moving a lot of cycles off today including the Danske Bank example I used in the keynote. However getting people to move the \"master account record\" out of CICS/IMS on the mainframe will take time. However if you think about this decade the use of mainframes will go down a lot.\n\nWhat is our view of Linux? I point out that Linux like Unix is not a single thing - it is many different systems that are not the same. The point that Linux is diverse is not one we are good at making. People who develop for RedHat Linux need to test for UnitedLinux. When people like SGI or HP enhance Linux you don’t get all those enhancements in one version -in fact just like Unix each company wants to have something that it does better and even though some pieces of source code are there it doesn’t mean that the pieces are integrated and tested together. 1 explain how the commercial model allows for testing and binary upwards compatibility.\n\nWhat about Linux price? I explain how Linux plus Websphere is more expensive than Windows equivalent and Linux plus Oracle is more expensive than Windows equivalent. I explain how the richness of the platform that we sell for $500 just keeps getting richers - directory, certificates, app server, etc etc. I explain that for most projects the licensed OS is only a few percent of what people spend and getting the right platform can save much more than a few percent on the development, management, richness of the app, hardware flexibility, communications cost etc.. I say that is places where customers are very price sensitive like Education we have had special prices that are 15% of normal and we will keep those prices low enough to get very broad usage in education.\n\nWhat about platform innovation - doesn’t Linux have more people doing cool stuff?. I gave the analogy of someone saying that the new 747 competitor is being designed by an OpenSource Airplane design group. The interdependencies and need for parallel coordinated innovation requires a commercial model with risk taking. A new 747 can’t be done by a non commercial model. I say that an opensource model could take an old design and have people do cloning and modest improvements on various aspects independently. I give tablet as an example of something that required changes in many aspects on the system -getting Office to do its work and handwriting recognition and new platform capabilities. I say that Linux is not where advances like great games, or tablet or management have come or will come despite the openness. I explain the things like community involvement we have learned from Linux. I go back to the argument above that we are forced in to do big advances or else or installed base will have \"share\" but there will be no revenue for us. I talk about Stallman’s view that there shouldn’t be jobs doing commercial software and how that would cut off a whole range of innovations that have come from the commercial world.\n\nWhat about Longhorn? I mostly focus on how the universal store will make it easy to manage and find information across many machines and device types - being both richer and simpler. I ask people about their problems managing files or finding them in our ugly names space. I also about all the search commands - mail, music, photos, fonts, printers that are so hard to remember. I admit we don’t have a baked plan for the work and that even inside Microsoft it is viewed as very ambitious partly because earlier efforts like Cairo proved premature.\n\nWhat is SPOT? I admit the announcement was a bit of a teaser and that we will stop teasing them at CES. We talked a lot about personalization and how important that is.\n\nWhat about Xbox Live? I admilted I hadn’t gotten to use it except in controlled demos yet but showed my excitement for it and encouraged them all to try it.\n\nWhat about Microsoft in india? Lots of discussion about my trip there and how Indian companies like Infosys and Wipro are growing and proving to be effective.\n\nThere were many other topics where I got to show some passion and depth about making software better and enabling new things.\n\nI agree with Mich that their model of how we think and what we care about gets very warped if they don’t see us in person. They think everything is a power play and we are using our smarts to outsmart competition more than using it to do cool things for users. The room could have been slightly better, I think through events like this we can get a lot more balance in our image. I think we can get them to include our excitement about new product things and some admiration that we are doing things no one else is doing. The old chestnut about us not innovating will die. There will still be the edge of \"Wow they are big and smart and no one is gaining on them except perhaps the Linux model\". Ironically as we get our act together in phones/PDAs and TV and MSN/Office subscription this will get even more pronounced.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "press-dinner-2002", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Microsoft Senior Leadership Team", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Comes v. Microsoft, Plaintiff's Exhibit 7191, transcribed by Techrights (Jun 23 2009)", "source_url": "http://techrights.org/o/2009/06/23/bill-gates-mocks-gpl/", "case": "Comes v. Microsoft (Iowa District Court, Polk County)", "context": "Gates summarized for the Senior Leadership Team a dinner he and Steve Ballmer had with about 20 technology editors in Las Vegas, and how he answered their questions. Jim Allchin and Bill Veghte forwarded it to their groups.", "tags": [ "strategy", "communication", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 29, "bates": "BGX-000029", "slug": "2002-11-20-gates-to-senior-leadership-team", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2002-11-20-gates-to-senior-leadership-team" }, { "id": "2003-01-15-gates-to-allchin", "person": "Bill Gates", "date": "2003-01-15", "time": "10:05 AM", "from": "Bill Gates", "to": [ "Jim Allchin" ], "cc": [ "Chris Jones", "Bharat Shah", "Joe Peterson", "Will Poole", "Brian Valentine", "Anoop Gupta" ], "subject": "Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame", "body": "I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues.\n\nLet me give you my experience from yesterday.\n\nI decided to download Moviemake and buy the Digital Plus pack r so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.\n\nThe first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up\n\nThis site is so slow it is unusable.\n\nIt wasn't in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45.\n\nThese 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:\\Documents and Settings\\billg\\My Documents\\My Pictures seem clear.\n\nThey are not filtered by the system I can in on and so many of the things are strange.\n\nI tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in moviemaker. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.\n\nSo I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?\n\nSo they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated\n\nThey told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).\n\nI tried that   The site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.\n\nI thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download.\n\nIn fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.\n\nThis struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?\n\nSo I went to Windows update. Windows Update decides I need to download a bunch of controls. Now just once but multiple times where I get to see weird dialog boxes.\n\nDoesn't Windows update know some key to talk to Windows?\n\nThen I did the scan. This took quite some time and I was told it was critical for me to download 17megs of stuff.\n\nThis is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg.\n\nSo I did the download. That part was fast. Then it wanted to do an install. This took 6 minutes and the machine was so slow I couldn't use it for anything else during this time.\n\nWhat the heck is going on during those 6 minutes? That is crazy. This is after the download was finished.\n\nThen it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night - why should I reboot at that time?\n\nSo I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state.\n\nSo I got back up and running and went to Windows Update again. I forgot why I was in Windows Update at all since all I wanted was to get Moviemaker.\n\nSo I went back to Microsoft.com and looked at the instructions. I have to click on a folder called WindowsXP. Why should I do that? Windows Update knows I am on Windows XP.\n\nWhat does it mean to have to click on that folder? So I get a bunch of confusing stuff but sure enough one of them is Moviemaker.\n\nSo I do the download. The download is fast but the Install takes many minutes. Amazing how slow this thing is.\n\nAt some point I get told I need to go get Windows Media Series 9 to download.\n\nSo I decide I will go do that. This time I get dialogs saying things like \"Open\" or \"Save\". No guidance in the instructions which to do. I have no clue which to do.\n\nThe download is fast and the install takes 7 minutes for this thing.\n\nSo now I think I am going to have Moviemaker. I go to my add/remove programs place to make sure it is there.\n\nIt is not there.\n\nWhat is there? The following garbage is there. Microsoft Autoupdate Exclusive test package, Microsoft Autoupdate Reboot test package, Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage1, Microsoft AUtoupdate testpackage2, Microsoft Autoupdate Test package3.\n\nSomeone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.\n\nBut that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.\n\nWhat an absolute mess.\n\nMoviemaker is just not there at all.\n\nSo I give up on Moviemaker and decide to download the Digital Plus Package.\n\nI get told I need to go enter a bunch of information about myself.\n\nI enter it all in and because it decides I have mistyped something I have to try again. Of course it has cleared out most of what I typed\n\nI try tryping the right stuff in 5 times and it just keeps clearing things out for me to type them in again.\n\nSo after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven't run Moviemaker and I haven't got the plus package\n\nThe lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low with Windows Network places or the messages I get when I try to use 802.11. (don't you just love that root certificate message?)\n\nWhen I really get to use the stuff I am sure I will have more feedback.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "windows-usability-2003", "company": "Microsoft", "audience": "Jim Allchin and Windows, NT and Research executives", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Comes v. Microsoft (Iowa) exhibit, as published by Internal Tech Emails (techemails.com), Jan 15 2023", "source_url": "https://www.techemails.com/p/bill-gates-tries-to-install-movie-maker", "case": "Comes v. Microsoft (Iowa District Court, Polk County)", "context": "Gates described a long attempt to download Windows Movie Maker and the Digital Plus pack from Microsoft.com and Windows Update. Several Microsoft managers forwarded it internally the same day.", "tags": [ "product", "engineering", "communication", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 30, "bates": "BGX-000030", "slug": "2003-01-15-gates-to-allchin", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2003-01-15-gates-to-allchin" }, { "id": "2003-06-02-ellison-to-catz-psft-jdec", "person": "Larry Ellison", "date": "2003-06-02", "time": "7:50:22 AM", "from": "Larry Ellison", "to": [ "Safra Catz" ], "cc": [], "subject": "RE: Psft/JDEC", "body": "Just what I was thinking. Where are you?", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "oracle-peoplesoft-2003", "company": "Oracle", "audience": "Oracle CFO / co-president", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Oracle Corp., Government Trial Exhibit P3327 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; Bates ORCL-EDOC-00030819; text transcribed from the page image)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f204400/204457.pdf", "case": "United States v. Oracle Corp., No. C 04-0807 VRW (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Safra Catz had written to Ellison on June 2, 2003 that it was the time to launch on PeopleSoft, after PeopleSoft's announced deal for J.D. Edwards. Oracle announced its tender offer for PeopleSoft on June 6, 2003.", "tags": [ "acquisition", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 11, "bates": "LEX-000011", "slug": "2003-06-02-ellison-to-catz-psft-jdec", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2003-06-02-ellison-to-catz-psft-jdec" }, { "id": "2003-06-19-ellison-to-henley-best-of-breed", "person": "Larry Ellison", "date": "2003-06-19", "time": "10:20 PM", "from": "Larry Ellison", "to": [ "Jeff Henley" ], "cc": [], "subject": "RE: [Fwd: Smith Barney Initiation: SEBL (3H) - Company Transitioning As CRM Is Integrated Into ERP]", "body": "Within the year every analyst will agree that best of breed is dead -- except at dog shows.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "oracle-peoplesoft-2003", "company": "Oracle", "audience": "Oracle chairman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Oracle Corp., Government Trial Exhibit P3263 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; text transcribed from the page image)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f204400/204459.pdf", "case": "United States v. Oracle Corp., No. C 04-0807 VRW (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Jeff Henley had forwarded a Smith Barney analyst note on Siebel Systems, which he summarized as \"On a delayed basis they're starting to get it.\" Ellison replied during Oracle's hostile bid for PeopleSoft.", "tags": [ "strategy", "acquisition" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 12, "bates": "LEX-000012", "slug": "2003-06-19-ellison-to-henley-best-of-breed", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2003-06-19-ellison-to-henley-best-of-breed" }, { "id": "2003-07-23-ellison-to-block-catz-phillips-henley-siebel", "person": "Larry Ellison", "date": "2003-07-23", "time": "7:58 PM", "from": "Larry Ellison", "to": [ "Keith Block", "Safra Catz", "Charles Phillips", "Jeff Henley" ], "cc": [], "subject": "RE: [Fwd: Siebel Layoffs yesterday.]", "body": "The last best of breed company is in the process if dieing.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "oracle-peoplesoft-2003", "company": "Oracle", "audience": "Oracle executives", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "United States v. Oracle Corp., Government Trial Exhibit P3264 (DOJ Antitrust Division scan; Bates MROI-5000-01042177; text transcribed from the page image)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f204400/204460.pdf", "case": "United States v. Oracle Corp., No. C 04-0807 VRW (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Keith Block had forwarded news of layoffs at Siebel Systems the day before. Ellison replied to the group while Oracle's bid for PeopleSoft was pending.", "tags": [ "strategy", "acquisition" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 13, "bates": "LEX-000013", "slug": "2003-07-23-ellison-to-block-catz-phillips-henley-siebel", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2003-07-23-ellison-to-block-catz-phillips-henley-siebel" }, { "id": "2004-06-09-bezos-to-steam-no-powerpoint", "person": "Jeff Bezos", "date": "2004-06-09", "time": "6:02 PM", "from": "Jeff Bezos", "to": [ "S-team" ], "cc": [], "subject": "No powerpoint presentations from now on at steam", "body": "A little more to help with the reason \"why.\"\n\nWell structured, narrative text is what we're after rather than just text. If someone builds a list of bullet points in word, that would be just as bad as powerpoint.\n\nThe reason writing a 4 page memo is harder than \"writing\" a 20 page powerpoint is because the narrative structure of a good memo forces better thought and better understanding of what's more important than what, and how things are related.\n\nPowerpoint-style presentations somehow give permission to gloss over ideas, flatten out any sense of relative importance, and ignore the innerconnectedness of ideas.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": null, "company": "Amazon", "audience": "Amazon's senior leadership team (S-team)", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Madeline Stone, \"A 2004 email from Jeff Bezos explains why PowerPoint presentations aren't allowed at Amazon,\" Business Insider (Jul 28 2015); also filed as Exhibit 8 to the Stojilkovic Declaration, FTC v. Amazon, Dkt. 224", "source_url": "https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-email-against-powerpoint-presentations-2015-7", "case": "FTC v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. 2:23-cv-01495 (W.D. Wash.), Dkt. 224-8", "context": "Business Insider printed this email, which a former Amazon employee had shared on a company blog. It followed an earlier message to the S-team that banned slide presentations at S-team meetings in favor of written memos.", "tags": [ "management", "communication", "culture" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 1, "bates": "JBX-000001", "slug": "2004-06-09-bezos-to-steam-no-powerpoint", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2004-06-09-bezos-to-steam-no-powerpoint" }, { "id": "2005-02-13-brin-to-emg-irate-call-from-jobs", "person": "Steve Jobs", "date": "2005-02-13", "time": "1:06 AM", "from": "Sergey Brin", "to": [ "Executive Management Group", "Joan Braddi" ], "cc": [], "subject": "irate call from steve jobs", "body": "so i got a call from steve jobs today who was very agitated.\nit was about us recruiting from the safari team.\nhe was sure we were building a browser and were trying to get the safari team.\nhe made various veiled threats too though i am not inclined to hold them against him too much\nas he seemed beside himself (as eric would say).\nanyhow, i told him we were not building a browser and that to my knowledge we were not systematically going after the safari team in particular. and that we should talk about various opportunities.\ni also said i would follow up and check on our recruiting strategies wrt apple and safari. he seemed soothed.\nso i just wanted to check what our status was in various respects and what we want to do about partners/friendly companies and recruiting. on the browser, i know and told him that we have mozilla people working here ... largely on firefox. i did not mention we may release an enhanced version but i am not sure we are going to yet.\non recruiting i have heard recently of one candidate out of apple that had browser expertise so i guess he would be on safari. i mentioned this to steve and he told me he was cool with us hiring anyone who came to us but was angry about systematic solicitation. i don't know if there is some systematic safari recruiting effort htat we have.\nso please update me on what you know here and on what you think we should have as policy.\non another note, it seems silly to have both firefox and safari. perhaps there is some unificaiton strategy that we can get these two to pursue. combined, they certainly have enough marketshare to drive webmasters.\n--sergey", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "no-poach-google-2005", "company": "Google", "audience": "Google executive management group", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "In re High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation exhibit, as transcribed by Internal Tech Emails: Sergey Brin: \"Irate call from Steve Jobs\"", "source_url": "https://www.techemails.com/p/sergey-brin-irate-call-from-steve-jobs", "case": "In re High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, No. 5:11-cv-02509-LHK (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Google co-founder Sergey Brin reported to Google executives on a phone call from Steve Jobs about Google recruiting members of Apple's Safari team. Kept for context; Jobs did not write this message.", "tags": [ "hiring", "legal", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 2, "bates": "SJX-000002", "slug": "2005-02-13-brin-to-emg-irate-call-from-jobs", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2005-02-13-brin-to-emg-irate-call-from-jobs" }, { "id": "2005-02-17-brin-to-emg-another-irate-call", "person": "Steve Jobs", "date": "2005-02-17", "time": "12:20 PM", "from": "Sergey Brin", "to": [ "Executive Management Group", "Joan Braddi", "Bill Campbell" ], "cc": [ "Arnnon Geshuri" ], "subject": "Re: FW: [Fwd: RE: irate call from steve jobs]", "body": "So I got another irate call from jobs today.\nI don't think we should let that determine our hiring strategy but thought I would let you know.\nBasically, he said \"if you hire a single one of these people that means war\".\nI said I could not promise any outcome but I would discuss it with the executive team again.\nI asked if he expected us to withdraw offers and he said yes.\nIn reviewing the data below again, I do think this could be treated as not just an employee referral since he referred essentially a whole team. So a compromise would be to continue with the offer we have made (to [REDACTED]) but not to make offers to any of the others unless they get permission from Apple.\nIn any case, lets not make any new offers or contact new people at Apple until we have had a chance to discuss.\n--Sergey", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "no-poach-google-2005", "company": "Google", "audience": "Google executive management group", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "In re High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation exhibit, as transcribed by Internal Tech Emails: Sergey Brin: \"Irate call from Steve Jobs\"", "source_url": "https://www.techemails.com/p/sergey-brin-irate-call-from-steve-jobs", "case": "In re High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, No. 5:11-cv-02509-LHK (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Four days after the first call, Brin told Google executives that Jobs had phoned again about Google's offers to members of the Safari team. Kept for context; Jobs did not write this message.", "tags": [ "hiring", "legal", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 3, "bates": "SJX-000003", "slug": "2005-02-17-brin-to-emg-another-irate-call", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2005-02-17-brin-to-emg-another-irate-call" }, { "id": "2005-05-26-jobs-to-chizen-recruiters-free", "person": "Steve Jobs", "date": "2005-05-26", "time": "6:27 PM", "from": "Steve Jobs", "to": [ "Bruce Chizen" ], "cc": [ "Steve Jobs" ], "subject": "Re: Recruiting", "body": "OK, I'll tell our recruiters that they are free to approach any Adobe employee who is not a Sr. Director or VP. Am I understanding your position correctly?\nSteve", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "no-poach-adobe-2005", "company": "Apple", "audience": "Adobe CEO", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "In re High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation exhibit, as transcribed by Internal Tech Emails: Steve Jobs emails Adobe's CEO", "source_url": "https://www.techemails.com/p/steve-jobs-emails-adobes-ceo", "case": "In re High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, No. 5:11-cv-02509-LHK (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Jobs replied after Bruce Chizen wrote that he thought the two companies had agreed not to recruit senior-level employees. Chizen answered the next day proposing that neither company actively solicit any employee of the other.", "tags": [ "hiring", "legal", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 4, "bates": "SJX-000004", "slug": "2005-05-26-jobs-to-chizen-recruiters-free", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2005-05-26-jobs-to-chizen-recruiters-free" }, { "id": "2005-05-26-jobs-to-chizen-recruiting", "person": "Steve Jobs", "date": "2005-05-26", "time": "9:36 AM", "from": "Steve Jobs", "to": [ "Bruce Chizen" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Recruiting", "body": "Bruce,\nAdobe is recruiting from Apple. They have hired one person already and are calling lots more. I have a standing policy with our recruiters that we don't recruit from Adobe. It seems you have a different policy. One of us must change our policy. Please let me know who.\nSteve", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "no-poach-adobe-2005", "company": "Apple", "audience": "Adobe CEO", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "In re High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation exhibit, as transcribed by Internal Tech Emails: Steve Jobs emails Adobe's CEO", "source_url": "https://www.techemails.com/p/steve-jobs-emails-adobes-ceo", "case": "In re High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, No. 5:11-cv-02509-LHK (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Jobs wrote to Adobe's chief executive about Adobe recruiting Apple employees. The exchange was an exhibit in the employee no-poach antitrust litigation.", "tags": [ "hiring", "legal", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 5, "bates": "SJX-000005", "slug": "2005-05-26-jobs-to-chizen-recruiting", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2005-05-26-jobs-to-chizen-recruiting" }, { "id": "2006-04-09-jobs-to-eustace-hullot-handsets", "person": "Steve Jobs", "date": "2006-04-09", "time": null, "from": "Steve Jobs", "to": [ "Alan Eustace" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: Offer", "body": "Alan,\nWhat would Jean-Marie be working on? We would have a problem if it is related to cell phone handsets, etc.\nSteve", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "no-poach-hullot-2006", "company": "Apple", "audience": "Google SVP of Engineering", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "In re High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation exhibit, as transcribed by Internal Tech Emails (\"Steve Jobs and Google's hiring\", Aug 22 2026 post)", "source_url": "https://www.techemails.com/i/210428022", "case": "In re High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, No. 5:11-cv-02509-LHK (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Google's Alan Eustace had asked Jobs to approve an offer to former Apple engineer Jean-Marie Hullot to run a Google engineering center in Paris.", "tags": [ "hiring", "legal", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 6, "bates": "SJX-000006", "slug": "2006-04-09-jobs-to-eustace-hullot-handsets", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2006-04-09-jobs-to-eustace-hullot-handsets" }, { "id": "2006-04-10-jobs-to-eustace-fine-with-me", "person": "Steve Jobs", "date": "2006-04-10", "time": null, "from": "Steve Jobs", "to": [ "Alan Eustace" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: Offer", "body": "That would be fine with me.\nThanks,\nSteve", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "no-poach-hullot-2006", "company": "Apple", "audience": "Google SVP of Engineering", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "In re High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation exhibit, as transcribed by Internal Tech Emails (\"Steve Jobs and Google's hiring\", Aug 22 2026 post)", "source_url": "https://www.techemails.com/i/210428022", "case": "In re High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, No. 5:11-cv-02509-LHK (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Eustace had said Hullot would not work on cell phone handsets and offered to run the proposed project area by Jobs before starting.", "tags": [ "hiring", "legal" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 7, "bates": "SJX-000007", "slug": "2006-04-10-jobs-to-eustace-fine-with-me", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2006-04-10-jobs-to-eustace-fine-with-me" }, { "id": "2006-04-26-jobs-to-eustace-not-hire-these-guys", "person": "Steve Jobs", "date": "2006-04-26", "time": "7:59 AM", "from": "Steve Jobs", "to": [ "Alan Eustace" ], "cc": [ "Steve Jobs" ], "subject": "Re: Jean-Marie Hullot", "body": "Alan,\nWe'd strongly prefer that you not hire these guys.\nSteve", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "no-poach-hullot-2006", "company": "Apple", "audience": "Google SVP of Engineering", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "In re High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation exhibit, as transcribed by Internal Tech Emails (\"Steve Jobs and Google's hiring\", Aug 22 2026 post)", "source_url": "https://www.techemails.com/i/210428022", "case": "In re High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, No. 5:11-cv-02509-LHK (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Eustace had asked whether Jobs objected to Hullot hiring four people who used to work for him at Apple in Paris. Google decided on May 23, 2006 not to open the Paris center.", "tags": [ "hiring", "legal", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 8, "bates": "SJX-000008", "slug": "2006-04-26-jobs-to-eustace-not-hire-these-guys", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2006-04-26-jobs-to-eustace-not-hire-these-guys" }, { "id": "2006-07-18-musk-to-harrigan-press-coverage", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2006-07-18", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Mike Harrigan" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "The way that my role as been portrayed to date, where I am referred to merely as \"an early investor\" is outrageous. That would be like Martin [Eberhard] being called an \"early employee.\"\nApart from me leading the Series A & B and co-leading the Series C, my influence on the car itself runs from the headlights to the styling to the door sill to the trunk, and my strong interest in electric transport predates Tesla by a decade. Martin should certainly be the front and center guy, but the portrayal of my role to date has been incredibly insulting.\n\nI'm not blaming you or others at Tesla — the media is difficult to control. However, we need to make a serious effort to correct this perception.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "tesla-press-2006", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "Tesla press/communications lead", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Eberhard v. Musk court documents, as published by Business Insider (Nov 12, 2014), via Yahoo Finance", "source_url": "https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-sent-angry-emails-210500673.html", "case": "Eberhard v. Musk, Tesla Motors, No. CIV484400 (San Mateo County Super. Ct.)", "context": "Emails Musk sent to Tesla staff in July 2006 about how his role at Tesla was being described in press coverage of the Roadster launch. The excerpt begins mid-email; the opening was not published.", "tags": [ "communication", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 1, "bates": "EMX-000001", "slug": "2006-07-18-musk-to-harrigan-press-coverage", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2006-07-18-musk-to-harrigan-press-coverage" }, { "id": "2006-07-20-musk-to-harrigan-nyt-article", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2006-07-20", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Mike Harrigan" ], "cc": [ "Martin Eberhard" ], "subject": "", "body": "I was incredibly insulted and embarrassed by the NY Times article [...] where I am not merely unmentioned, but where Martin is actually referred to as the chairman. If anything like this happens again, please consider the PCGC [public relations firm] relationship with Tesla to end immediately upon publication of such a piece. Please ensure that the NYT publishes a correction as soon as possible.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "tesla-press-2006", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "Tesla press/communications lead, cc Tesla CEO", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Eberhard v. Musk court documents, as published by Business Insider (Nov 12, 2014), via Yahoo Finance", "source_url": "https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-sent-angry-emails-210500673.html", "case": "Eberhard v. Musk, Tesla Motors, No. CIV484400 (San Mateo County Super. Ct.)", "context": "Musk wrote after a New York Times report on the July 2006 Tesla Roadster debut party described Martin Eberhard as chairman. Only the segments quoted by Business Insider are reproduced, joined with [...].", "tags": [ "communication", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 2, "bates": "EMX-000002", "slug": "2006-07-20-musk-to-harrigan-nyt-article", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2006-07-20-musk-to-harrigan-nyt-article" }, { "id": "2007-03-07-jobs-to-schmidt-google-recruiting", "person": "Steve Jobs", "date": "2007-03-07", "time": "10:44 PM", "from": "Steve Jobs", "to": [ "Eric Schmidt" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Google Recruiting from Apple", "body": "Eric,\n\nI would be very pleased if your recruiting department would stop doing this.\n\nThanks,\nSteve", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "no-poach-google-2007", "company": "Apple", "audience": "Google CEO (then also an Apple board member)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "In re High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, Dkt. 428-3, Geshuri Dep. Ex. 192 (GOOG-HIGH TECH-00000107), via Mother Jones / DocumentCloud (Feb 2014)", "source_url": "https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1019489/google-email-chain.pdf", "case": "In re High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, No. 5:11-cv-02509-LHK (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Jobs sent this after a Google recruiter contacted an Apple engineer. Schmidt forwarded it internally, asking for the contact to be stopped, and Google's staffing director replied that the recruiter would be terminated.", "tags": [ "hiring", "legal", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 9, "bates": "SJX-000009", "slug": "2007-03-07-jobs-to-schmidt-google-recruiting", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2007-03-07-jobs-to-schmidt-google-recruiting" }, { "id": "2007-08-jobs-to-colligan-patent-portfolio", "person": "Steve Jobs", "date": "2007-08", "time": null, "from": "Steve Jobs", "to": [ "Ed Colligan" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "I’m sure you realize the asymmetry in financial resources of our respective companies […] My advice is to take a look at your patent portfolio before you make a final decision here.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "no-poach-palm-2007", "company": "Apple", "audience": "Palm CEO", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Mother Jones, \"I Don't Want to Create a Paper Trail\": Inside the Secret Apple-Google Pact (Feb 2014), quoting unsealed High-Tech exhibit", "source_url": "https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/02/google-apple-class-action-poaching-steve-jobs-wage-theft/", "case": "In re High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, No. 5:11-cv-02509-LHK (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Jobs proposed to Palm's chief executive that the two companies agree not to hire each other's employees. Ed Colligan declined, writing that such an agreement would likely be illegal, and Jobs replied in this email.", "tags": [ "hiring", "legal", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 10, "bates": "SJX-000010", "slug": "2007-08-jobs-to-colligan-patent-portfolio", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2007-08-jobs-to-colligan-patent-portfolio" }, { "id": "2007-08-09-musk-to-board-fw-meeting", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2007-08-09", "time": "8:56 AM PST", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Jim Marver", "Ira Ehrenpreis", "Antonio J. Gracias", "Kimbal Musk" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Fw: meeting", "body": "This is not good. Sounds like there are more issues that the board was not informed about. I will send out a note as soon as I talk with Marks and will ask him to email an assessment to the board as soon as he can.\n\nMartin seems to be focused on his public image and position within Tesla, rather than solving these critical problems. If you should speak with Martin, please urge him to spend all his energy on making sure that the Roadster works and arrives on time. He doesn’t seem to understand that the best way to maximize his reputation and position within the company is to help get this right.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "eberhard-dispute-2007", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "Tesla board of directors and CFO-level recipients", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "Musk blog post on Tesla.com responding to Eberhard lawsuit (June 22, 2009), excerpt as quoted by TechCrunch", "source_url": "https://techcrunch.com/2009/06/22/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-sets-the-record-straight-about-pending-lawsuit/", "case": null, "context": "One of several emails Musk included in a June 2009 Tesla blog post answering Martin Eberhard’s lawsuit; it concerns the Roadster program in 2007. TechCrunch reproduced selected excerpts of the post.", "tags": [ "management", "manufacturing", "legal" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 3, "bates": "EMX-000003", "slug": "2007-08-09-musk-to-board-fw-meeting", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2007-08-09-musk-to-board-fw-meeting" }, { "id": "2008-zuckerberg-extra-time-twitter", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2008", "time": null, "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [], "cc": [], "subject": "(not stated)", "body": "I was looking forward to the extra time that would have given us to get our product in order.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ftc-complaint-quotes", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Not stated in the filing", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Facebook, Substitute Amended Complaint, ECF No. 82 (public redacted version, Sept. 8, 2021), para. 64 (after Facebook's failed 2008 attempt to acquire Twitter)", "source_url": "https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/2021-09-08_redacted_substitute_amended_complaint_ecf_no._82.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Facebook, Inc. (now Meta Platforms, Inc.), No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Quoted in the FTC's complaint as Zuckerberg's reaction after Facebook's 2008 attempt to acquire Twitter did not succeed. The date and recipients are not given in the filing.", "tags": [ "acquisition", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 1, "bates": "MZX-000001", "slug": "2008-zuckerberg-extra-time-twitter", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2008-zuckerberg-extra-time-twitter" }, { "id": "2008-06-22-zuckerberg-to-cox-better-to-buy-than-compete", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2008-06-22", "time": null, "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "Chris Cox" ], "cc": [], "subject": "assembling the people who apparently didn't say the things in my memories", "body": "the answer to your question of why it is better to buy than compete is network effects. This decision doesn't reflect a lack of confidence in our product or anything like that. It's just that once someone has saturated a demographic somewhere, it's harder to compete with them. We see this even when the incumbent's product is way less efficient than our own.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ftc-trial-record", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Chris Cox and other Facebook executives", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, FTC's Reply to Meta's Response to the FTC's Counterstatement of Material Facts, ECF No. 379-2, p. 986 (quoting PX1901, FB_FTC_CID_05992062)", "source_url": "https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/FTCReplytoMetaResponse-CounterstatementofMaterialFacts.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "The FTC's filing quotes this passage from a June 22, 2008 email from Zuckerberg to Chris Cox and others. The FTC's amended complaint cites a June 2008 internal email for the line \"it is better to buy than compete.\" Meta's response says the passage comes from a message about a contemplated acquisition of a company in Germany.", "tags": [ "acquisition", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 2, "bates": "MZX-000002", "slug": "2008-06-22-zuckerberg-to-cox-better-to-buy-than-compete", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2008-06-22-zuckerberg-to-cox-better-to-buy-than-compete" }, { "id": "2008-08-02-musk-to-spacex-employees-falcon1-flight3", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2008-08-02", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "SpaceX employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "Plan Going Forward\nIt was obviously a big disappointment not to reach orbit on this flight [Falcon 1, Flight 3]. On the plus side, the flight of our first stage, with the new Merlin 1C engine that will be used in Falcon 9, was picture perfect. Unfortunately, a problem occurred with stage separation, causing the stages to be held together. This is under investigation and I will send out a note as soon as we understand exactly what happened.\nThe most important message I’d like to send right now is that SpaceX will not skip a beat in execution going forward. We have flight four of Falcon 1 almost ready for flight and flight five right behind that. I have also given the go ahead to begin fabrication of flight six. Falcon 9 development will also continue unabated, taking into account the lessons learned with Falcon 1. We have made great progress this past week with the successful nine engine firing.\nAs a precautionary measure to guard against the possibility of flight 3 not reaching orbit, SpaceX recently accepted a significant investment. Combined with our existing cash reserves, that ensures we will have more than sufficient funding on hand to continue launching Falcon 1 and develop Falcon 9 and Dragon. There should be absolutely zero question that SpaceX will prevail in reaching orbit and demonstrating reliable space transport. For my part, I will never give up and I mean never.\nThanks for your hard work and now on to flight four.\n--Elon--", "musk_authored": true, "thread": null, "company": "SpaceX", "audience": "All SpaceX employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Universe Today, 'Elon Musk: \"I Will Never Give Up\" After Falcon 1 Loss' (Aug 3 2008), full text of Musk's statement to employees, credited 'Source: SpaceX'", "source_url": "https://www.universetoday.com/articles/elon-musk-i-will-never-give-up-after-falcon-1-loss", "case": null, "context": "Sent to employees on the day of the third Falcon 1 flight, in which the first stage performed as planned but the stages did not separate and the vehicle did not reach orbit.", "tags": [ "strategy", "communication", "engineering" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 4, "bates": "EMX-000004", "slug": "2008-08-02-musk-to-spacex-employees-falcon1-flight3", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2008-08-02-musk-to-spacex-employees-falcon1-flight3" }, { "id": "2008-10-16-musk-to-tesla-customers-extraordinary-times", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2008-10-16", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Tesla customers and reservation holders" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "These are extraordinary times. The global financial system has gone through the worst crisis since the Great Depression, and the effects are only beginning to wind their way through every facet of the economy. It’s not an understatement to say that nearly every business will be impacted by what has unfolded in the past weeks, and this is true for Silicon Valley as well.\n\nAt Tesla, we have decided that the wise course of action is to focus on our two revenue producing business lines — the Roadster and powertrain sales to other car companies. In the Roadster, Tesla has a unique product with a large order book that continues to grow, despite softness in the automobile sector. Our powertrain business is profitable today and is also growing rapidly.\n\nOur goal as a company is to be cash-flow positive within six to nine months. To do so, we must continue to ramp up our production rate, improve Roadster contribution margin and reduce operating expenses. At the same time, we must maintain high production quality and excellent customer service.\n\nFor this critical phase of the company, the scope of my role at Tesla will expand from executive chairman and product architect to CEO. With SpaceX now having reached orbit and about to enter its third year of profitability, I can afford to increase time allocated to Tesla. Ze’ev Drori, who has made extraordinary progress with the company over the last year as CEO, will stay on the board of directors as vice-chairman and continue to help Tesla make the right decisions. It has been and will continue to be a pleasure and an honor working with Ze’ev.\n\nSpecial Forces Philosophy and Consolidation of Operations\n\nOne of the steps I will be taking is raising the performance bar at Tesla to a very high level, which will result in a modest reduction in near term headcount. To be clear, this doesn’t mean that the people that depart Tesla for this reason wouldn’t be considered good performers at most companies — almost all would. However, I believe Tesla must adhere more closely to a special forces philosophy at this stage of its life if we aspire to become one of the great car companies of the 21st century.\n\nThere will also be some headcount reduction due to consolidation of operations. In anticipation of moving vehicle engineering to our new HQ in San Jose, we are ramping down and will close our Rochester Hills office near Detroit. Good communication, tightly knit engineering and a common company culture are of paramount importance as Tesla grows.\n\nWhat Does This Mean for the Model S?\n\nTesla is absolutely committed to development of our next generation vehicle, to be unveiled early next year. However, we are going to reduce activity on detailed production engineering, tooling and commitments to suppliers until our Department of Energy loan guarantee becomes effective.\n\nThe DOE loan guarantee will cover most of the Model S program at a very low cost of capital compared with raising equity financing in what could quaintly be described as a “bear market.” The loan funding can only be drawn down after we receive environmental approval for our new 89-acre consolidated headquarters in the city of San Jose. If all goes reasonably well, we will receive that approval in Q2 next year.\n\nThe net result will be a delay in start of production of the Model S of roughly six months to mid-2011. On the plus side, we will spend the extra time refining the vehicle design and powertrain technology, so the car will end up being slightly better.\n\nFinancing\n\nThe Tesla investors and I are unequivocally dedicated to ensuring the success of Tesla. Please know that I personally stand behind delivering a product that you will love and continuing to develop new models in the future. We are not far from being cash flow positive, but, even if that threshold ends up being further than expected, I will do whatever is needed to ensure that Tesla has more than sufficient capital to get there.\n\nI’d like to thank you, as a loyal customer of Tesla that has stood by us through thick and thin. Beyond delivering a great Roadster, Tesla will find other ways to reward that loyalty, including among other things an exclusive preview of our upcoming Model S sedan.\n\nShould you have any questions about the actions Tesla is taking in these extraordinary times please contact me directly at [email address removed].\n\nElon Musk", "musk_authored": true, "thread": null, "company": "Tesla", "audience": "Tesla customers (mass email); this copy republished by a recipient on Medium", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "Mass email from Elon Musk to Tesla customers, republished by recipient Alastair Campbell on Medium (Wayback copy)", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2023/https://medium.com/@alastaircampbell/different-days-back-then-2523a822a593", "case": null, "context": "Sent during the 2008 financial crisis, announcing that Musk was becoming Tesla CEO, a focus on the Roadster and powertrain businesses, headcount reductions and a delay to the Model S.", "tags": [ "fundraising", "strategy", "communication", "firing" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 5, "bates": "EMX-000005", "slug": "2008-10-16-musk-to-tesla-customers-extraordinary-times", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2008-10-16-musk-to-tesla-customers-extraordinary-times" }, { "id": "2009-04-20-ellison-to-schwartz-btw", "person": "Larry Ellison", "date": "2009-04-20", "time": "08:34:18 PDT", "from": "Larry Ellison", "to": [ "Jonathan Schwartz" ], "cc": [ "Safra Catz" ], "subject": "RE: btw", "body": "Thanks Jonathan.\n\nI'd like to get together as soon as I get back from Italy.\n\nLarry", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "oracle-sun-2009", "company": "Oracle", "audience": "Sun Microsystems CEO", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Oracle America, Inc. v. Google Inc., Trial Exhibit 2362 (filed as Ex. 13 to Doc. 1935, May 21, 2016; Bates OAGOOGLE0003904946; scanned page, text transcribed from the page image)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.231846/gov.uscourts.cand.231846.1935.14.pdf", "case": "Oracle America, Inc. v. Google Inc., No. 3:10-cv-03561-WHA (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Oracle had announced its agreement to acquire Sun Microsystems on April 20, 2009. That afternoon Jonathan Schwartz forwarded Ellison a congratulatory note offering a tour of Sun's work, including its competition with Adobe Flash and Google Android.", "tags": [ "acquisition", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 14, "bates": "LEX-000014", "slug": "2009-04-20-ellison-to-schwartz-btw", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2009-04-20-ellison-to-schwartz-btw" }, { "id": "2009-11-07-zuckerberg-to-schroepfer-monday-small-group", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2009-11-07", "time": null, "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "Mike Schroepfer" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Monday's Small Group", "body": "map out all the connections between people and things and get them into our system", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ftc-trial-record", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Mike Schroepfer and others at Facebook", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, FTC's Reply to Meta's Response to the FTC's Counterstatement of Material Facts, ECF No. 379-2, p. 336 (quoting PX1502, FB_FTC_CID_06011928)", "source_url": "https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/FTCReplytoMetaResponse-CounterstatementofMaterialFacts.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "The FTC's filing quotes this phrase from a November 7, 2009 email from Zuckerberg to Mike Schroepfer and others describing Facebook's strategy.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 3, "bates": "MZX-000003", "slug": "2009-11-07-zuckerberg-to-schroepfer-monday-small-group", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2009-11-07-zuckerberg-to-schroepfer-monday-small-group" }, { "id": "2010-01-14-jobs-to-cue-book-prices-thoughts-621pm", "person": "Steve Jobs", "date": "2010-01-14", "time": "6:21 PM", "from": "Steve Jobs", "to": [ "Eddy Cue" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: Book Prices Thoughts", "body": "I can live with this, as long as they also agree to the other thing you told me you can get:\nThe retail price they will set for any book will be the LOWER of the applicable \"iTunes\" price below OR the lowest wholesale price they offer the book at to anyone else, with our wholesale price being 70% of such price. For example, normally our retail price for a $26 book will be $12.99 and we will pay 70% of that, or $9.10. However, if they offer the same book to Amazon for a wholesale price of, say, $12.50, then our retail price for the same book shall be set at $12.50 and we will pay 70% of that price for the book.\n\nif they are offering a $26 book to Amazon\nOn Jan 14, 2010, at 6:04 PM, Eddy Cue wrote:\n\nHere is the pricing I think will push them to very edge and still have a credible offering in the market. These are the highest individual iTunes prices as each publisher can choose a lower price if they want.\n\nList Price Wholesale iTunes 70% Diff\n$20.01-22.50 $10.00-11.25 $9.99 $7.00 $3.00-4.25\n$22.51-25.00 $11.25-12.50 $10.99 $7.70 $3.56-4.80\n$25.01-27.50 $12.50-13.75 $12.99 $9.10 $3.40-4.65\n$27.51-30.00 $13.76-15.00 $14.99 $10.50 $3.25-4.50\n$30.01-35.00 $15.01-17.50 $16.99 $11.90 $3.10-5.60\n$35.01-40.00 $17.51-20.00 $19.99 $14.00 $3.51-6.00\n\nThe other point I want to get is lowering the price while the book is on the NYT Bestseller List. This will be hard to get because they will be losing an additional $1.40, but we should try. When a book that list for $30 or less is in the NYT Bestseller List than the iTunes price will be no greater than $12.99. Between $30.01-35 in the NYT Bestseller List, the price will be no greater than $14.99.\n\n--- Eddy", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ebooks-agency-2010", "company": "Apple", "audience": "Apple's head of internet software and services", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "U.S. v. Apple Inc., Plaintiffs' Trial Exhibit PX-0195 (DOJ Antitrust Division)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/apple/exhibits/px-0195.pdf", "case": "United States v. Apple Inc., No. 1:12-cv-02826 (S.D.N.Y.)", "context": "A differently worded version of Jobs's reply to Cue, received about two minutes before the 6:23 PM version, is also in the trial record. Apple's lawyers said the email Jobs actually sent did not include the language about moving Amazon to the agency model.", "tags": [ "strategy", "legal", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 11, "bates": "SJX-000011", "slug": "2010-01-14-jobs-to-cue-book-prices-thoughts-621pm", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2010-01-14-jobs-to-cue-book-prices-thoughts-621pm" }, { "id": "2010-01-14-jobs-to-cue-book-prices-thoughts-623pm", "person": "Steve Jobs", "date": "2010-01-14", "time": "6:23 PM", "from": "Steve Jobs", "to": [ "Eddy Cue" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: Book Prices Thoughts", "body": "I can live with this, as long as they move Amazon to the agent model too for new releases for the first year. If they don't, I'm not sure we can be competitive...\nSteve\n\nif they are offering a $26 book to Amazon\nOn Jan 14, 2010, at 6:04 PM, Eddy Cue wrote:\n\nHere is the pricing I think will push them to very edge and still have a credible offering in the market. These are the highest individual iTunes prices as each publisher can choose a lower price if they want.\n\nList Price Wholesale iTunes 70% Diff\n$20.01-22.50 $10.00-11.25 $9.99 $7.00 $3.00-4.25\n$22.51-25.00 $11.25-12.50 $10.99 $7.70 $3.56-4.80\n$25.01-27.50 $12.50-13.75 $12.99 $9.10 $3.40-4.65\n$27.51-30.00 $13.76-15.00 $14.99 $10.50 $3.25-4.50\n$30.01-35.00 $15.01-17.50 $16.99 $11.90 $3.10-5.60\n$35.01-40.00 $17.51-20.00 $19.99 $14.00 $3.51-6.00\n\nThe other point I want to get is lowering the price while the book is on the NYT Bestseller List. This will be hard to get because they will be losing an additional $1.40, but we should try. When a book that list for $30 or less is in the NYT Bestseller List than the iTunes price will be no greater than $12.99. Between $30.01-35 in the NYT Bestseller List, the price will be no greater than $14.99.\n\n--- Eddy", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ebooks-agency-2010", "company": "Apple", "audience": "Apple's head of internet software and services", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "U.S. v. Apple Inc., Plaintiffs' Trial Exhibit PX-0055 (DOJ Antitrust Division)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/apple/exhibits/px-0055.pdf", "case": "United States v. Apple Inc., No. 1:12-cv-02826 (S.D.N.Y.)", "context": "Eddy Cue sent Jobs the proposed iBooks price tiers while Apple negotiated agency-model e-book deals with publishers. This version, received 6:23 PM, is the one the Justice Department presented at trial; Apple's lawyers said it was an unsent draft.", "tags": [ "strategy", "legal", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 12, "bates": "SJX-000012", "slug": "2010-01-14-jobs-to-cue-book-prices-thoughts-623pm", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2010-01-14-jobs-to-cue-book-prices-thoughts-623pm" }, { "id": "2010-01-23-jobs-to-murdoch-a-few-thoughts", "person": "Steve Jobs", "date": "2010-01-23", "time": null, "from": "Steve Jobs", "to": [ "James Murdoch" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: HarperCollins", "body": "James,\n\nA few thoughts to consider (I'd appreciate it if we can keep this between you and me):\n\n1. The current business model of companies like Amazon distributing ebooks below cost or without making a reasonable profit isn't sustainable for long. As ebooks become a larger business, distributors will need to make at least a small profit, and you will want this too so that they invest in the future of the business with infrastructure, marketing, etc.\n\n2. All the major publishers tell us that Amazon's $9.99 price for new releases is eroding the value perception of their products in customer's minds, and they do not want this practice to continue for new releases.\n\n3. Apple is proposing to give the cost benefits of a book without raw materials, distribution, remaindering, cost of capital, bad debt, etc., to the customer, not Apple. This is why a new release would be priced at $12.99, say, instead of $16.99 or even higher. Apple doesn't want to make more than the slim profit margin it makes distributing music, movies, etc.\n\n4. $9 per new release should represent a gross margin neutral business model for the publishers. We are not asking them to make any less money. As for the artists, giving them the same amount of royalty as they make today, leaving the publisher with the same profits, is as easy as sending them all a letter telling them that you are paying them a higher percentage for ebooks. They won't be sad.\n\n5. Analysts estimate that Amazon has sold slightly more than one million Kindles in 18+ months (Amazon has never said). We will sell more of our new devices than all of the Kindles ever sold during the first few weeks they are on sale. If you stick with just Amazon, B&N, Sony, etc., you will likely be sitting on the sidelines of the mainstream ebook revolution.\n\n6. Customers will demand an end-to-end solution, meaning an online bookstore that carries the books, handles the transactions with their credit cards, and delivers the books seamlessly to their device. So far, there are only two companies who have demonstrated online stores with significant transaction volume - Apple and Amazon. Apple's iTunes Store and App Store have over 120 million customers with credit cards on file and have downloaded over 12 billion products. This is the type of online assets that will be required to scale the ebook business into something that matters to the publishers.\n\nSo, yes, getting around $9 per new release is less than the $12.50 or so that Amazon is currently paying. But the current situation is not sustainable and not a strong foundation upon which to build an ebook business. And the amount we will pay should be gross margin neutral.\n\nApple is the only other company currently capable of making a serious impact, and we have 4 of the 6 big publishers signed up already. Once we open things up for the second tier of publishers, we will have plenty of books to offer. We'd love to have HC among them.\n\nThanks for listening.\n\nSteve", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ebooks-harpercollins-2010", "company": "Apple", "audience": "News Corp deputy COO (parent of HarperCollins)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "U.S. v. Apple Inc., Plaintiffs' Trial Exhibit PX-0032 (DOJ Antitrust Division)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/apple/exhibits/px-0032.pdf", "case": "United States v. Apple Inc., No. 1:12-cv-02826 (S.D.N.Y.)", "context": "Jobs replied to News Corp's James Murdoch, whose HarperCollins unit had not yet agreed to Apple's iBooks terms. The message sits below Jobs's January 24 reply in the exhibit and follows Murdoch's January 23, 1:56 PM email; the exhibit prints no header for Jobs's message itself.", "tags": [ "strategy", "legal", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 13, "bates": "SJX-000013", "slug": "2010-01-23-jobs-to-murdoch-a-few-thoughts", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2010-01-23-jobs-to-murdoch-a-few-thoughts" }, { "id": "2010-01-24-jobs-to-murdoch-harpercollins", "person": "Steve Jobs", "date": "2010-01-24", "time": "11:31 AM PST", "from": "Steve Jobs", "to": [ "James Murdoch" ], "cc": [ "Steve Jobs" ], "subject": "Re: HarperCollins", "body": "James,\n\nOur proposal does set the upper limit for ebook retail pricing based on the hardcover price of each book. The reason we are doing this is that, with our experience selling a lot of content online, we simply don't think the ebook market can be successful with pricing higher than $12.99 or $14.99. Heck, Amazon is selling these books at $9.99, and who knows, maybe they are right and we will fail even at $12.99. But we're willing to try at the prices we've proposed. We are not willing to try at higher prices because we are pretty sure we'll all fail.\n\nAs I see it, HC has the following choices:\n\n1. Throw in with Apple and see if we can all make a go of this to create a real mainstream ebooks market at $12.99 and $14.99.\n\n2. Keep going with Amazon at $9.99. You will make a bit more money in the short term, but in the medium term Amazon will tell you they will be paying you 70% of $9.99. They have shareholders too.\n\n3. Hold back your books from Amazon. Without a way for customers to buy your ebooks, they will steal them. This will be the start of piracy and once started there will be no stopping it. Trust me, I've seen this happen with my own eyes.\n\nMaybe I'm missing something, but I don't see any other alternatives. Do you?\n\nRegards,\nSteve", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ebooks-harpercollins-2010", "company": "Apple", "audience": "News Corp deputy COO (parent of HarperCollins)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "U.S. v. Apple Inc., Plaintiffs' Trial Exhibit PX-0032 (DOJ Antitrust Division)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/apple/exhibits/px-0032.pdf", "case": "United States v. Apple Inc., No. 1:12-cv-02826 (S.D.N.Y.)", "context": "Jobs wrote this to James Murdoch while HarperCollins weighed Apple's agency-model terms, then forwarded it to Eddy Cue that night with the note \"My last email to James Murdock.\" It was a government exhibit in the Justice Department's e-books price-fixing trial.", "tags": [ "strategy", "legal", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 14, "bates": "SJX-000014", "slug": "2010-01-24-jobs-to-murdoch-harpercollins", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2010-01-24-jobs-to-murdoch-harpercollins" }, { "id": "2010-01-30-jobs-to-cue-powder-keg", "person": "Steve Jobs", "date": "2010-01-30", "time": "1:22 PM", "from": "Steve Jobs", "to": [ "Eddy Cue" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: Book Industry Reactions to Amazon's Move", "body": "Wow, we have really lit the fuse on a powder keg.\n\nSent from my iPhone", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ebooks-macmillan-2010", "company": "Apple", "audience": "Apple's head of internet software and services", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "U.S. v. Apple Inc., Plaintiffs' Trial Exhibit PX-0871 (DOJ Antitrust Division)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/apple/exhibits/px-0871.pdf", "case": "United States v. Apple Inc., No. 1:12-cv-02826 (S.D.N.Y.)", "context": "Cue had forwarded a trade-blog roundup of reactions to Amazon removing the buy buttons on Macmillan's books, which happened after Macmillan told Amazon it would move to the agency model.", "tags": [ "strategy", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 15, "bates": "SJX-000015", "slug": "2010-01-30-jobs-to-cue-powder-keg", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2010-01-30-jobs-to-cue-powder-keg" }, { "id": "2010-01-31-jobs-to-et-macmillan", "person": "Steve Jobs", "date": "2010-01-31", "time": "10:47 AM", "from": "Steve Jobs", "to": [ "Apple executive team" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Macmillan", "body": "We have definitely helped stir things up in the publishing world.\n\nSteve\n\nSent from my iPhone", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ebooks-macmillan-2010", "company": "Apple", "audience": "Apple executive team", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "U.S. v. Apple Inc., Plaintiffs' Trial Exhibit PX-0046 (DOJ Antitrust Division)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/apple/exhibits/px-0046.pdf", "case": "United States v. Apple Inc., No. 1:12-cv-02826 (S.D.N.Y.)", "context": "Jobs forwarded Eddy Cue's note passing on a letter from Macmillan CEO John Sargent to authors about the new agency terms Macmillan had proposed to Amazon.", "tags": [ "strategy", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 16, "bates": "SJX-000016", "slug": "2010-01-31-jobs-to-et-macmillan", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2010-01-31-jobs-to-et-macmillan" }, { "id": "2010-02-09-jobs-to-customer-publishers-raising-prices", "person": "Steve Jobs", "date": "2010-02-09", "time": "11:32 PM", "from": "Steve Jobs", "to": [ "A customer" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re:", "body": "It's the publishers that are raising prices, not Apple.\n\nSent from my iPhone", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ebooks-customer-reply-2010", "company": "Apple", "audience": "A customer who emailed Jobs", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "U.S. v. Apple Inc., Plaintiffs' Trial Exhibit PX-0869 (DOJ Antitrust Division)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/apple/exhibits/px-0869.pdf", "case": "United States v. Apple Inc., No. 1:12-cv-02826 (S.D.N.Y.)", "context": "Jobs answered a customer who had written to him about e-book prices rising. The customer's name is in the exhibit; it is left out here because they are a private person.", "tags": [ "communication", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 17, "bates": "SJX-000017", "slug": "2010-02-09-jobs-to-customer-publishers-raising-prices", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2010-02-09-jobs-to-customer-publishers-raising-prices" }, { "id": "2010-02-10-jobs-to-customer-stop-publishers", "person": "Steve Jobs", "date": "2010-02-10", "time": "3:46 PM", "from": "Steve Jobs", "to": [ "A customer" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: RE:", "body": "How do we stop the publishers from setting their own prices and terms? They own the distribution rights to the books, not us. They were already rebelling against Amazon before we ever talked to them.\n\nSent from my iPhone", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ebooks-customer-reply-2010", "company": "Apple", "audience": "A customer who emailed Jobs", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "U.S. v. Apple Inc., Plaintiffs' Trial Exhibit PX-0869 (DOJ Antitrust Division)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/apple/exhibits/px-0869.pdf", "case": "United States v. Apple Inc., No. 1:12-cv-02826 (S.D.N.Y.)", "context": "The customer wrote back that the price changes came after Apple let publishers set their own prices; Jobs replied the same afternoon. The customer's name is in the exhibit; it is left out here because they are a private person.", "tags": [ "communication", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 18, "bates": "SJX-000018", "slug": "2010-02-10-jobs-to-customer-stop-publishers", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2010-02-10-jobs-to-customer-stop-publishers" }, { "id": "2010-02-10-jobs-to-cue-publisher-meeting", "person": "Steve Jobs", "date": "2010-02-10", "time": "8:17 PM", "from": "Steve Jobs", "to": [ "Eddy Cue" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: Book Publisher Meeting", "body": "I'd pass. All the publishers know who we are, and the big guys would rather have you finishing the iBookstore.\n\nSent from my iPhone", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ebooks-agency-2010", "company": "Apple", "audience": "Apple's head of internet software and services", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "U.S. v. Apple Inc., Plaintiffs' Trial Exhibit PX-0872 (DOJ Antitrust Division)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/apple/exhibits/px-0872.pdf", "case": "United States v. Apple Inc., No. 1:12-cv-02826 (S.D.N.Y.)", "context": "Cue had asked whether to speak at the Association of American Publishers annual meeting on March 3, at the request of the chief executives of the first three publishers Apple signed.", "tags": [ "management", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 19, "bates": "SJX-000019", "slug": "2010-02-10-jobs-to-cue-publisher-meeting", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2010-02-10-jobs-to-cue-publisher-meeting" }, { "id": "2010-03-29-jobs-to-cue-appleinsider", "person": "Steve Jobs", "date": "2010-03-29", "time": "4:17 PM", "from": "Steve Jobs", "to": [ "Eddy Cue" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: AppleInsider", "body": "Yep. What does Amazon do?\n\nSent from my iPad", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ebooks-agency-2010", "company": "Apple", "audience": "Apple's head of internet software and services", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "U.S. v. Apple Inc., Plaintiffs' Trial Exhibit PX-0870 (DOJ Antitrust Division)", "source_url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/apple/exhibits/px-0870.pdf", "case": "United States v. Apple Inc., No. 1:12-cv-02826 (S.D.N.Y.)", "context": "Jobs asked Cue whether Apple would let anyone self-publish and whether it charged the standard 30% commission on a book aggregator's titles. Cue answered that half of Amazon's book count came from self-publishing.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 20, "bates": "SJX-000020", "slug": "2010-03-29-jobs-to-cue-appleinsider", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2010-03-29-jobs-to-cue-appleinsider" }, { "id": "2010-06-08-bezos-to-wilke-herrington-soap-com", "person": "Jeff Bezos", "date": "2010-06-08", "time": "7:20 AM", "from": "Jeff Bezos", "to": [ "Jeff Wilke", "Diego Piacentini", "Doug Herrington", "Greg Hart", "Jeff Blackburn" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Soap.com", "body": "There's a techcrunch post yesterday about diapers.com's parent co launching soap.com. Tens of thousands of skus. What do we make of this?", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "amazon-soap-com-2010", "company": "Amazon", "audience": "Amazon senior retail executives", "source_type": "congressional_release", "source_title": "Amazon production to the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, AMAZON-HJC-00132026 (cited in the Majority Staff Report, Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets, Oct 2020)", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://judiciary.house.gov/UploadedFiles/00132026.pdf", "case": null, "context": "Quidsi, the parent company of Diapers.com, was preparing to launch Soap.com, a health and personal-care site. Bezos sent this note to his retail leadership the morning after TechCrunch reported the launch.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product", "acquisition" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 2, "bates": "JBX-000002", "slug": "2010-06-08-bezos-to-wilke-herrington-soap-com", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2010-06-08-bezos-to-wilke-herrington-soap-com" }, { "id": "2010-06-08-herrington-to-bezos-soap-com", "person": "Jeff Bezos", "date": "2010-06-08", "time": "9:44 AM", "from": "Doug Herrington", "to": [ "Jeff Bezos", "Jeff Wilke", "Diego Piacentini", "Greg Hart", "Jeff Blackburn" ], "cc": [], "subject": "RE: Soap.com", "body": "Soap.com is the long rumored expansion of the diapers.com into the hpc product space. From their announcements, they will\nbe launching a 25k SKU assortment of hpc product on July ist. The assortment can be accessed via a new front door called\n\"soap.com\", but from screen shots they released, it will be a \"tab\" on diapers.com that can be accessed through diapers.com\nas well. It looks like soap.com and diapers.com will share identity, cart, ordering thresholds, etc.. They have promised\nhpc pricing that is competitive with offline prices. They will maintain the same \"free 1-2 day shipping on orders over $49\"\nthat they currently have on diapers.com.\n\nGiven diapers.com's strength and competencies, soap.com is our most significant short term competitor in the hpc space.\nWhat are we doing?\n1. We have already initiated a more aggressive \"plan to win\" against diapers.com in the diaper/baby space, which includes\nmarket leading pricing on diapers (\"double your SNS discount to 30% off diapers and wipes\"), a free PRIME offering for new\nand a structured and marketed \"Amazon Mom\" program\". Per Greg's suggestion on Friday, we are scheduling some time to\nreview this with you. To the extent this plan undercuts the core diapers business for diapers.com, it will slow the [...]\n2. Ensure price and selection parity with the soap.com assortment at launch. This is table-stakes, but we are gearing up\nCMT and our vendor managers to ensure we have pricing and selection parity day 1 of their launch. [...]", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "amazon-soap-com-2010", "company": "Amazon", "audience": "Jeff Bezos and Amazon senior retail executives", "source_type": "congressional_release", "source_title": "Amazon production to the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, AMAZON-HJC-00132026", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://judiciary.house.gov/UploadedFiles/00132026.pdf", "case": null, "context": "Amazon's head of consumables answered Bezos's question about Soap.com and described Amazon's response, including its 'plan to win' against Diapers.com. Only the legible portions of the scanned document are reproduced.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 3, "bates": "JBX-000003", "slug": "2010-06-08-herrington-to-bezos-soap-com", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2010-06-08-herrington-to-bezos-soap-com" }, { "id": "2010-08-09-ellison-to-nyt-hp-board-hurd", "person": "Larry Ellison", "date": "2010-08-09", "time": null, "from": "Larry Ellison", "to": [ "The New York Times (Ashlee Vance)" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "The H.P. board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago [...] That decision nearly destroyed Apple and would have if Steve hadn't come back and saved them.\n\n[...]\n\nIn losing Mark Hurd, the H.P. board failed to act in the best interest of H.P.'s employees, shareholders, customers and partners [...] The H.P. board admits that it fully investigated the sexual harassment claims against Mark and found them to be utterly false.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "hp-hurd-2010", "company": "Hewlett-Packard", "audience": "Reporter at The New York Times", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Ashlee Vance, \"Oracle Chief Faults H.P. Board for Forcing Hurd Out,\" The New York Times, Aug. 9, 2010 (Wayback Machine copy)", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20120607195246id_/http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/technology/10hewlett.html?_r=1", "case": null, "context": "Mark Hurd resigned as Hewlett-Packard's chief executive on August 6, 2010 after an inquiry into his expense reports. Ellison, a friend of Hurd's, sent The New York Times an email criticizing HP's board; the paper printed parts of it.", "tags": [ "firing", "management", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 15, "bates": "LEX-000015", "slug": "2010-08-09-ellison-to-nyt-hp-board-hurd", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2010-08-09-ellison-to-nyt-hp-board-hurd" }, { "id": "2010-10-24-jobs-to-et-top-100", "person": "Steve Jobs", "date": "2010-10-24", "time": "6:12:41 PM PDT", "from": "Steve Jobs", "to": [ "Apple executive team" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Top 100 - A", "body": "Here's my current cut.\n\nSteve\n\n1. 2011 Strategy - SJ\n - who are we?\n - headcount, average age, ...\n - VP count, senior promotions in last year\n - percent new membership at this meeting\n - what do we do?\n - pie chart of units/product line and revenues/product line\n - same charts with tablets + phones merged together\n - Post PC era\n - Apple is the first company to get here\n - Post PC products now 66% of our revenues\n - iPad outsold Mac within 6 months\n - Post PC era = more mobile (smaller, thinner, lighter) + communications + apps + cloud services\n - 2011: Holy War with Google\n - all the ways we will compete with them\n - primary reason for this Top 100 meeting - you will hear about what we're doing in each presentation\n - 2011: Year of the Cloud\n - we invented Digital Hub concept\n - PC as hub for all your digital assets - contacts, calendars, bookmarks, photos, music, videos\n - digital hub (center of our universe) is moving from PC to cloud\n - PC now just another client alongside iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, ...\n - Apple is in danger of hanging on to old paradigm too long (innovator's dilemma)\n - Google and Microsoft are further along on the technology, but haven't quite figured it out yet\n - tie all of our products together, so we further lock customers into our ecosystem\n - 2015: new campus\n\n2. State of the Company - Peter & Tim\n - FY2010 recap\n - FY2011 plan\n - where is our business - geo analysis (NA, Euro, Japan, Asia, possibly break out china) (present on map)\n - key milestones, trends & future goals\n - comparisons with Google, Samsung, HTC, Motorola & RIM\n\n3. iPhone - Joz & Bob\n - 2011 Strategy:\n - \"plus\" iPhone 4 with better antenna, processor, camera & software to stay ahead of competitors until mid 2012\n - have LTE version in mid-2012\n - create low cost iPhone model based on iPod touch to replace 3GS\n - Business & competitive update\n - show Droid and RIM ads\n - Verizon iPhone\n - schedule, marketing, ...\n - iPhone 5 hardware\n - H4 performance\n - new antenna design, etc\n - new camera\n - schedule\n - iPhone nano plan\n - cost goal\n - show model (and/or renderings) - Jony", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "top-100-2010", "company": "Apple", "audience": "Apple executive team (ET)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Epic v. Apple, Plaintiff's Exhibit PX-0892 (APL-EG_00985738), page 1, image as published by iMore (Aug 2021); the same email was in evidence in Apple v. Samsung (N.D. Cal.)", "source_url": "https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/x6v5eaHHMkuPk7oobVzZ7J.gif", "case": "Epic Games, Inc. v. Apple Inc., No. 4:20-cv-05640-YGR (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Jobs sent his draft agenda for Apple's annual Top 100 leadership meeting to the executive team. The exhibit image shows only the first page of the email; the rest of the agenda appears in the Apple v. Samsung and Epic v. Apple records and press reports.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product", "culture" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": true, "num": 21, "bates": "SJX-000021", "slug": "2010-10-24-jobs-to-et-top-100", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2010-10-24-jobs-to-et-top-100" }, { "id": "2011-02-zuckerberg-to-colleagues-instagram-2m-users", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2011-02", "time": null, "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [], "cc": [], "subject": "(not stated)", "body": "In 4 months they're up to 2m users and 300k daily photo uploads. That's a lot. We need to track this closely.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ftc-complaint-quotes", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Colleagues at Facebook", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Facebook, Substitute Amended Complaint, ECF No. 82 (public redacted version, Sept. 8, 2021), para. 82 (February 2011)", "source_url": "https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/2021-09-08_redacted_substitute_amended_complaint_ecf_no._82.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Facebook, Inc. (now Meta Platforms, Inc.), No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Quoted in the FTC's complaint as a note to colleagues about Instagram's early growth. Recipients are not named in the filing.", "tags": [ "acquisition", "product", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 4, "bates": "MZX-000004", "slug": "2011-02-zuckerberg-to-colleagues-instagram-2m-users", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2011-02-zuckerberg-to-colleagues-instagram-2m-users" }, { "id": "2011-02-06-jobs-to-cue-ibooks-only-bookstore", "person": "Steve Jobs", "date": "2011-02-06", "time": null, "from": "Steve Jobs", "to": [ "Eddy Cue" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "I think this is all pretty simple—iBooks is going to be the only bookstore on iOS devices. We need to hold our heads high. One can read books bought elsewhere, just not buy/rent/subscribe from iOS without paying us, which we acknowledge is prohibitive for many things.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "app-store-iap-2011", "company": "Apple", "audience": "Apple senior executives", "source_type": "congressional_release", "source_title": "House Judiciary Committee, Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets: Majority Staff Report and Recommendations (2020), p. 350 and note 2219 (HJC-APPLE-014816-18)", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/competition_in_digital_markets.pdf", "case": null, "context": "In an email conversation with other senior Apple leaders about whether to require in-app purchase for e-book sales, Jobs concluded as quoted. The House Judiciary Committee cited the Apple production in its 2020 antitrust report.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product", "legal" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 22, "bates": "SJX-000022", "slug": "2011-02-06-jobs-to-cue-ibooks-only-bookstore", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2011-02-06-jobs-to-cue-ibooks-only-bookstore" }, { "id": "2011-09-08-zuckerberg-to-shaffer-photos-team-snap", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2011-09-08", "time": "11:00 PM", "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "Justin Shaffer" ], "cc": [ "Jocelyn Goldfein", "Mike Schroepfer", "Chris Cox" ], "subject": "Re: photos team & snap", "body": "So when is the app going to ship?\n\nIf you're asking whether it's important to ship soon, then the answer is definitely yes. In the time it has taken us to get out act together on this Instagram has become a large and viable competitor to us on mobile photos, which will increasingly be the future of photos.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "photos-snap-2011", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Facebook photos and mobile leadership", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, Plaintiff's Exhibit 1180 (PX1180), ECF No. 379-10, FB_FTC_CID_02945837 to -02945840 (RECAP mirror of the court's PDF; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921.379.10.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Facebook's photos team was building a standalone mobile photo app code-named Snap, and Justin Shaffer had written that it was delayed. Zuckerberg replied late on September 8, 2011.", "tags": [ "product", "strategy", "engineering", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 5, "bates": "MZX-000005", "slug": "2011-09-08-zuckerberg-to-shaffer-photos-team-snap", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2011-09-08-zuckerberg-to-shaffer-photos-team-snap" }, { "id": "2011-09-11-zuckerberg-to-shaffer-ship-photos-app", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2011-09-11", "time": "2:06 PM", "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "Justin Shaffer" ], "cc": [ "Jocelyn Goldfein", "Mike Schroepfer", "Chris Cox" ], "subject": "Re: photos team & snap", "body": "Just to follow up on this again, I think it's a really big deal that we ship this photos app quickly.\n\nOne theme in many of the products we're about to launch -- News Feed, Timeline, Open Graph -- is that people love nice big photos. A lot of the time people don't even understand how the new News Feed or Timeline work, but they love those products because of the bigger and richer photos. While this is nice in the short term, I view this as a big strategic risk for us if we don't completely own the photos space. If Instagram continues to kick ass on mobile or if Google buys them, then over the next few years they could easily add pieces of their service that copy what we're doing now, and if they have a growing number of people's photos then that's a real issue for us.\n\nThey're growing extremely quickly right now. It seems like they double every couple of months or so, and their base is already ~5-10m users. As soon as we launch a compelling product a lot of people will use ours more and future Instagram users will find no reason to use them. But at the current rate, literally every couple of months that we waste translates to a double in their growth and a harder position for us to work our way out of.\n\nI get that there are also team issues and we'll need to work through those, but if there are actually people available who could build this more quickly then I think we'd be crazy not to do that. I don't know if there are actually people available or what the costs of that would be though, so it's hard to give you a clear answer here. The message I got from your note though was that you care more about fixing the team than shipping the app. I think we need to do both, but I do think it's a crisis that we don't have a mobile photos app out and I'd prioritize pushing that out as much as possible. Getting the team to a good state is not a milestone by itself that I care about.\n\nSeparately, I just don't understand why this app is so hard to build. It basically seems like a camera view, some filters, controls for deleting/tagging/captioning your photos, integration into a composer that already exists, and a skin for a photos feed whose infrastructure should already exist. We've had designs that I've been fine with for months. The only piece that seems technically new for us is the filters, but it seems like we're doing okay on those now after a long parallel track. What is so hard about the camera view, feed filters and composer integration? Are we building other unnecessary features?\n\nI guess my basic point is this: I get that your team has issues, so fix them and ship the app. I don't see why this should be so hard, and I don't think we should accept any excuses for not getting this done in a short period of time.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "photos-snap-2011", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Facebook photos and mobile leadership", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, Plaintiff's Exhibit 1180 (PX1180), ECF No. 379-10, FB_FTC_CID_02945837 to -02945840 (RECAP mirror of the court's PDF; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921.379.10.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Follow-up to the Snap thread three days after his September 8 reply. Justin Shaffer answered on September 12, 2011: \"Understood. We'll get it done.\"", "tags": [ "product", "strategy", "engineering", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 6, "bates": "MZX-000006", "slug": "2011-09-11-zuckerberg-to-shaffer-ship-photos-app", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2011-09-11-zuckerberg-to-shaffer-ship-photos-app" }, { "id": "2012-musk-to-tesla-employees-ultra-hardcore", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2012", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Tesla employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Ultra hardcore", "body": "Please prepare yourself for a level of intensity that is greater than anything most of you have experienced before. Revolutionizing industries is not for the faint of heart.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": null, "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees, during the Model S production ramp", "source_type": "book", "source_title": "Walter Isaacson, \"Elon Musk\" (2023), passage quoted in Tanay Jaipuria, \"Decoding Elon Musk\" (Tanay's Newsletter, Jan 30 2024); date per Ben Tarnoff, NYRB, \"Ultra Hardcore\" (Jan 18 2024)", "source_url": "https://www.tanayj.com/p/decoding-elon-musk", "case": null, "context": "Isaacson describes this as an email to employees titled \"Ultra hardcore\" sent as the Model S production line ramped up, and the NYRB review places it before a speedup in 2012. Only the portion quoted from the book is reproduced; the full email is not given in the sources fetched.", "tags": [ "management", "culture", "manufacturing", "deadlines" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 6, "bates": "EMX-000006", "slug": "2012-musk-to-tesla-employees-ultra-hardcore", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2012-musk-to-tesla-employees-ultra-hardcore" }, { "id": "2012-02-11-zuckerberg-consider-buying-instagram", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2012-02-11", "time": "2:33 PM", "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [], "cc": [], "subject": "I wonder if we should consider buying Instagram,...", "body": "I wonder if we should consider buying Instagram, even if it costs ~$500m.\n\nRight now they seem to have two things that we don't: a really good camera and a photo-centric sharing network.\n\nFor the camera piece, their camera just takes photos that look much nicer than the native camera because of their filters, tilt-shift effects and even their new lux feature. I just took a photo this morning from the native camera and uploaded it to FB and it looked so low quality compared to the Instagram shots I see. Theoretically we could go build this technology, but I'm worried we're so far behind that we don't even understand how far behind we are and that this is going to be a huge amount of work. (For example, Schrep was telling me yesterday that some people on the photos team think the new Instagram camera isn't good, but it introduced this awesome new lux feature that essentially double their number of filters and seems to improve the quality of every photo I try to take with it.) Given this, I worry that it will take us too long to catch up, if we even will. And regardless, their brand is established as the awesome mainstream camera, so even if we catch up on features they're still the awesome iPhone camera app.\n\nFor the network piece, one concerning trend is that a huge number of people are using Instagram every day -- including everyone ranging from non-technical high school friends to even FB employees -- and they're only uploading some of their photos to FB. This creates a huge hole for us and one that I'm sure anything we're going to do on platform or with social dynamics will completely solve. Sometimes you don't want to bug all your FB friends with a lot of photos so you put them in the photo-posting place instead.\n\nWith Snap, our basic thesis is that what people need is a good way to post a bunch of photos on FB. We're doing some work on filters but not a ton, and the team is approaching this more as a nice feature and somewhat of a gimmick. Instagram, on the other hand, is approaching this problem from the perspective of how to help people take beautiful photos. I think it's quite possible that our initial thesis was wrong and that theirs is right -- that what people want is more to take the best photos than to put them on FB. If so, Snap might be a good first step but we'd be very behind in both functionality and brand on how one of the core use cases of Facebook will evolve in the mobile world, which is really scary and why we might want to consider paying a lot of money for this.\n\nWhat do you guys think?", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "instagram-acquisition-2012", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Facebook executives (internal group post)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, Plaintiff's Exhibit 1102 (PX1102), ECF No. 379-7, FB0020185 / FB_FTC_CID_01548247 (RECAP mirror of the court's PDF; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921.379.7.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Exhibit is the Outlook copy of an email notification of Zuckerberg's post to an internal Facebook group, sent two months before Facebook agreed to acquire Instagram. The recipients' names are redacted in the public exhibit.", "tags": [ "acquisition", "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 7, "bates": "MZX-000007", "slug": "2012-02-11-zuckerberg-consider-buying-instagram", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2012-02-11-zuckerberg-consider-buying-instagram" }, { "id": "2012-02-27-zuckerberg-to-ebersman-buy-mobile-app-companies", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2012-02-27", "time": "11:41 PM", "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "David Ebersman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "One business questions I've been thinking about recently is how much we should be willing to pay to acquire mobile app companies like Instagram and Path that are building networks that are competitive with our own. These companies have the properties where they have millions of users (up to about 20m at the moment for Instagram), fast growth, a small team (10-25 employees) and no revenue. The businesses are nascent but the networks are established, the brands are already meaningful and if they grow to a large scale they could be very disruptive to us. These entrepreneurs don't want to sell (largely inspired our success), but at a high enough price -- like $500m or $1b -- they'd have to consider it. Given that we think our own valuation is fairly aggressive right now and that we're vulnerable in mobile, I'm curious if we should consider going after one or two of them. What do you think about this?", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "instagram-ebersman-2012", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "David Ebersman, Facebook CFO", "source_type": "congressional_release", "source_title": "Facebook production to the House Judiciary Committee, FB-HJC-ACAL-00063220 to -00063223 (Feb. 27-28, 2012), as released with the July 29, 2020 hearing and cited in the Majority Staff Report", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/0006322000063223.pdf", "case": null, "context": "Zuckerberg asked CFO David Ebersman how much Facebook should pay for mobile app companies such as Instagram and Path. Ebersman replied the next morning.", "tags": [ "acquisition", "strategy", "fundraising" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 8, "bates": "MZX-000008", "slug": "2012-02-27-zuckerberg-to-ebersman-buy-mobile-app-companies", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2012-02-27-zuckerberg-to-ebersman-buy-mobile-app-companies" }, { "id": "2012-02-28-zuckerberg-to-ebersman-not-to-prevent-competing", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2012-02-28", "time": "10:43 AM", "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "David Ebersman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "Above, I didn't mean to imply that we'd be buying them to prevent them from competing with us in any way. Buying them would give us the people and time to incorporate their innovations into our core products, which is how we'd do the integration rather than actually combining the products. I'm mostly excited about what the companies could do together if we worked to build what they've invented into more people's experiences.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "instagram-ebersman-2012", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "David Ebersman, Facebook CFO", "source_type": "congressional_release", "source_title": "Facebook production to the House Judiciary Committee, FB-HJC-ACAL-00063220 to -00063223 (Feb. 27-28, 2012), as released with the July 29, 2020 hearing and cited in the Majority Staff Report", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/0006322000063223.pdf", "case": null, "context": "Follow-up message to Ebersman, 48 minutes after the \"combination of (1) and (3)\" reply.", "tags": [ "acquisition", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 9, "bates": "MZX-000009", "slug": "2012-02-28-zuckerberg-to-ebersman-not-to-prevent-competing", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2012-02-28-zuckerberg-to-ebersman-not-to-prevent-competing" }, { "id": "2012-02-28-ebersman-to-zuckerberg-neutralize-a-potential-competitor", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2012-02-28", "time": "9:37 AM", "from": "David Ebersman", "to": [ "Mark Zuckerberg" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "I tend to have a high bar for M&A considerations. All the research I have seen is that most deals fail to create the value expected by the acquirer. My instinct is that many deals are done because the CEO is frustrated that the business is not where they want it to be, they would rather do something than nothing, and M&A seems like the biggest lever they have. This is a bad reason to do a deal. So for these two ideas specifically, I would ask you to find a compelling elucidation of what you are trying to accomplish. 1) neutralize a potential competitor? Bad reason in my book since someone else will spring up immediately in their place. There will always be consumers who are instinctively negative about the industry leaders and want to work with the upstarts. We will always have upstarts nipping at our heels. We have to win against competitors by having better products. 2) acquire talent? Seems expensive for this. 3) integrate their products with ours in order to improve our service? This can be a very compelling reason, if you have a clear vision for how the implementation would be great for users and that we cannot do the product improvements ourselves in a reasonable timeframe. 4) other? Happy to discuss further.", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "instagram-ebersman-2012", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Mark Zuckerberg", "source_type": "congressional_release", "source_title": "Facebook production to the House Judiciary Committee, FB-HJC-ACAL-00063220 to -00063223 (Feb. 27-28, 2012), as released with the July 29, 2020 hearing and cited in the Majority Staff Report", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/0006322000063223.pdf", "case": null, "context": "Ebersman's reply to Zuckerberg's February 27 question, kept for context. This is the message that asks \"neutralize a potential competitor?\"", "tags": [ "acquisition", "strategy", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 10, "bates": "MZX-000010", "slug": "2012-02-28-ebersman-to-zuckerberg-neutralize-a-potential-competitor", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2012-02-28-ebersman-to-zuckerberg-neutralize-a-potential-competitor" }, { "id": "2012-02-28-zuckerberg-to-ebersman-combination-of-1-and-3", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2012-02-28", "time": "9:55 AM", "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "David Ebersman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "It's a combination of (1) and (3). The basic plan would be to buy these companies and leave their products running while over time incorporating the social dynamics they've invented into our core products. One thing that may make (1) more reasonable here is that there are network effects around social products and a finite number of different social mechanics to invent. Once someone wins at a specific mechanic, it's difficult for others to supplant them without doing something different. It's possible someone beats Instagram by building something that is better to the point that they get network migration, but this is harder as long as Instagram keeps running as a product. (3) is also a factor but in reality we already know these companies' social dynamics and will integrate them over the next 12-24 months anyway. The integration plan involves building their mechanics into our products rather than directly integrating their products if that makes sense. By a combination of (1) and (3), one way of looking at this is that what we're really buying is time. Even if some new competitors springs up, buying Instagram, Path, Foursquare, etc now will give us a year or more to integrate their dynamics before anyone can get close to their scale again. Within that time, if we incorporate the social mechanics they were using, those new products won't get much traction since we'll already have their mechanics deployed at scale.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "instagram-ebersman-2012", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "David Ebersman, Facebook CFO", "source_type": "congressional_release", "source_title": "Facebook production to the House Judiciary Committee, FB-HJC-ACAL-00063220 to -00063223 (Feb. 27-28, 2012), as released with the July 29, 2020 hearing and cited in the Majority Staff Report", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/0006322000063223.pdf", "case": null, "context": "Zuckerberg's answer to Ebersman's list of possible reasons for buying Instagram and Path.", "tags": [ "acquisition", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 11, "bates": "MZX-000011", "slug": "2012-02-28-zuckerberg-to-ebersman-combination-of-1-and-3", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2012-02-28-zuckerberg-to-ebersman-combination-of-1-and-3" }, { "id": "2012-03-09-zuckerberg-to-schroepfer-instagram-500m", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2012-03-09", "time": null, "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "Mike Schroepfer" ], "cc": [], "subject": "(not stated)", "body": "Kevin [Systrom] from Instagram called me yesterday to talk about selling his [company] to us. He said he thinks he'll either raise money or sell at $500m.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ftc-complaint-quotes", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Mike Schroepfer, Facebook VP of Engineering", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Facebook, Substitute Amended Complaint, ECF No. 82 (public redacted version, Sept. 8, 2021), para. 92 (March 9, 2012)", "source_url": "https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/2021-09-08_redacted_substitute_amended_complaint_ecf_no._82.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Facebook, Inc. (now Meta Platforms, Inc.), No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "The FTC's complaint says Zuckerberg emailed Facebook's VP of Engineering Mike Schroepfer with this report. Schroepfer replied that \"not losing strategic position in photos is worth a lot of money.\"", "tags": [ "acquisition", "fundraising" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 12, "bates": "MZX-000012", "slug": "2012-03-09-zuckerberg-to-schroepfer-instagram-500m", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2012-03-09-zuckerberg-to-schroepfer-instagram-500m" }, { "id": "2012-03-22-zuckerberg-twitter-interest-based", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2012-03-22", "time": null, "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "Twitter is kind of different from Facebook since it's primarily interest-based and all one medium.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ftc-trial-record", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Not stated (name redacted)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, FTC's Reply to Meta's Response to the FTC's Counterstatement of Material Facts, ECF No. 379-2, p. 619 (quoting PX3450, FB_FTC_CID_01544096)", "source_url": "https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/FTCReplytoMetaResponse-CounterstatementofMaterialFacts.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Quoted in the FTC's filing as part of a March 22, 2012 email chain from Zuckerberg; the recipient's name is redacted.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 13, "bates": "MZX-000013", "slug": "2012-03-22-zuckerberg-twitter-interest-based", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2012-03-22-zuckerberg-twitter-interest-based" }, { "id": "2012-03-24-zuckerberg-to-osofsky-lessin-link-accounts", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2012-03-24", "time": "3:41 PM", "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "Justin Osofsky", "Sam Lessin" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "I thought of an idea for getting Instagram, Foursquare to fully link accounts with OG and I'm curious if it's possible and what you guys think of it.\n\nThe basic idea is that these services have their own APIs and we know which of our users have connected to those services and which users have posted things back to FB from them. We could prompt (either aggressively the former set or conservatively the latter set) these users on their timeline or using notifications and ask if they want to sync their activity to their timeline. If so, we'd get them to auth those apps and give us a direct token to those services' APIs and we could pull in their content and treat it appropriately in our system. (I'm hoping one of you can verify that this is indeed possible and practical.)\n\nIt is obviously not sustainable for us to do this for every service -- although we probably could do it for the largest and most important ones -- but the primary purpose here is more to encourage them to implement this correctly than to simply enable the functionality.\n\nThese companies are currently uncertain about whether they want to do this fully linking with us. However, of we implement this ourselves, then they will be forced to make a decision out of non-ideal options:\n\n1) They can block our use of their API while expecting that we will continue to allow them to use ours. If they block us, then I think it is pretty reasonable for us to block them. Obviously not the ideal state for us -- but it's a more reasonable way for us to apply leverage than simply threatening to turn them off now, which would seem too capricious and random.\n\n2) Do nothing and let us own this experience. They might do this but I suspect they would prefer to own this experience than have us do it.\n\n3) Implement this functionality themselves and control the experience.\n\n(2) and (3) both seem like acceptable outcomes for us. In fact, even if they do (3) we might still want to keep our implementation of (2) running to maintain leverage.\n\nOne thing we've discussed in the past is the idea of having a store linked from your timeline of apps you can add there. From that perspective, building and maintaining our own implementation of pulling data from others' APIs seems like a reasonable thing to do sustainably.\n\nThis should work for any service that has an API -- which includes most good, modern startups -- so we could do this for Dropbox, Pinterest, Path, etc as well if we wanted.\n\nThoughts?", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "platform-leverage-2012", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Facebook platform and product leaders (some recipients redacted)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, Plaintiff's Exhibit 1580 (PX1580), ECF No. 379-16, FB0015693 to FB0015697 / FB_FTC_CID_01543773 (RECAP mirror of the court's PDF; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921.379.16.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Quoted at the bottom of the March 26, 2012 email chain (the next record). The exhibit gives the date as Sat, 24 Mar 2012 15:41:11 -0700; some recipients' names are redacted.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product", "engineering", "legal" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 14, "bates": "MZX-000014", "slug": "2012-03-24-zuckerberg-to-osofsky-lessin-link-accounts", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2012-03-24-zuckerberg-to-osofsky-lessin-link-accounts" }, { "id": "2012-03-26-zuckerberg-to-vernal-timeline-store", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2012-03-26", "time": "6:01 PM", "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "Mike Vernal" ], "cc": [ "Bret Taylor", "Justin Osofsky", "Sam Lessin" ], "subject": "Re:", "body": "I've been thinking about this some more and I'm starting to think we should just build something like this out for all top tier partners and launch them. Initially I thought about it as a way to gain leverage to get folks to do the right thing, but now I actually just think it might be a better and easier way to get more people to sync their data and for us to be in control of our product experience for the most important social apps out there.\n\nRight now we're struggling to convince these companies to do the right integrations with us, but we have the power to just do them ourselves. I basically think we should build out a timeline store as part of our strategy and have these integrations be in there. We can how you the right apps to connect with based on which ones we already know you've authed or even shared data from recently.\n\nOne other advantage of this is we can perform operations on the data to make it better and more useful on FB. For example, we could have a Twitter importer (which I've discussed with [redacted] and think they'd allow) which rewrites @names to links to user profiles. We could also download images from Pinterest and just display them inline if we wanted. I'm not 100% sure we'd end up doing that, but it's something we've discussed. If we don't need to provide a ton of distribution back to these apps to convince them to prioritize these features since we're building them ourselves, we actually have a lot more flexibility to do them well.\n\nArguably, if you look at the incentives in the market, Twitter and perhaps Instagram (if they keep going) will never prioritize having the perfect FB integration since they're trying to build parallel networks. If we want them to do this well, doing it ourselves makes sense and it might be the only way. Given the amount of time we spend discussing them and their strategic importance to us, it seems very reasonable for us to take this approach to have the integration we want with them.\n\nFor other companies beyond the top 5-10, we could just do an oauth implementation for the timeline store as well as supporting everything in Open Graph like we're moving towards doing today.\n\nI don't really understand why you want to build this as an employee-only tool. What does that get us rather than building it as consumer product and planning to launch it?", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "platform-leverage-2012", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Facebook platform and product leaders (some recipients redacted)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, Plaintiff's Exhibit 1580 (PX1580), ECF No. 379-16, FB0015693 to FB0015697 / FB_FTC_CID_01543773 (RECAP mirror of the court's PDF; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921.379.16.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Reply to Mike Vernal's proposal to build internal \"bridge\" apps for services such as Dropbox and Instagram. The exhibit's header names Vernal as recipient and Bret Taylor, Justin Osofsky and Sam Lessin among those copied; other names are redacted.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product", "engineering" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 15, "bates": "MZX-000015", "slug": "2012-03-26-zuckerberg-to-vernal-timeline-store", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2012-03-26-zuckerberg-to-vernal-timeline-store" }, { "id": "2012-04-09-zuckerberg-reply-always-just-buy-any-competitive-startups", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2012-04-09", "time": "10:09 AM", "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [], "cc": [], "subject": "RE: CONFIDENTIAL ANNOUNCEMENT", "body": "Thanks. One reason people underestimate the importance of watching Google is that we can likely always just buy any competitive startups, but it'll be a while before we can buy Google.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "instagram-announcement-2012", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Facebook colleague", "source_type": "congressional_release", "source_title": "Facebook production to the House Judiciary Committee, FB-HJC-ACAL-00067600 to -00067601 (Apr. 9, 2012), as released with the July 29, 2020 hearing", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/0006760000067601.pdf", "case": null, "context": "Reply to a colleague who answered the Instagram announcement with \"Well played.\" The recipient's name is redacted in the public version.", "tags": [ "acquisition", "strategy", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 16, "bates": "MZX-000016", "slug": "2012-04-09-zuckerberg-reply-always-just-buy-any-competitive-startups", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2012-04-09-zuckerberg-reply-always-just-buy-any-competitive-startups" }, { "id": "2012-04-09-zuckerberg-to-employee-instagram-not-killing-independent-product", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2012-04-09", "time": "10:51 AM", "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "Yeah, I remember your internal post about how Instagram was our threat and not Google+. You were basically right. One thing about startups though is you can often acquire them. I think this is a good outcome for everyone.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "instagram-announcement-2012", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Facebook employee (name redacted)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, Plaintiff's Exhibit 2502 (PX2502), ECF No. 379-22, FB0015999 to FB0016001 / FB_FTC_CID_01544079 to -01544081 (RECAP mirror of the court's PDF; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921.379.22.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Reply, on the day Facebook announced the Instagram deal, to an employee who had written \"Wow, awesome news. I like that you're not killing the independent product. I love instagram.\" The exhibit prints the message with a Pacific time stamp and no subject, and the FTC's exhibit index describes the document as an email.", "tags": [ "acquisition", "strategy", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 17, "bates": "MZX-000017", "slug": "2012-04-09-zuckerberg-to-employee-instagram-not-killing-independent-product", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2012-04-09-zuckerberg-to-employee-instagram-not-killing-independent-product" }, { "id": "2012-04-09-zuckerberg-to-facebook-employees-instagram-announcement", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2012-04-09", "time": "9:58 AM", "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [], "cc": [], "subject": "CONFIDENTIAL ANNOUNCEMENT", "body": "Confidential - DO NOT SHARE\n\nHey everyone,\n\nI'm excited to share the news that last night we reached an agreement to acquire Instagram.\n\nBelow is a post about the deal that I'm about to put on my timeline. Instagram has built a successful network and mainstream brand by focusing on building the best mobile photos experience. After spending a lot of time with the Instagram team over the last few months working on Open Graph, and over the last couple of weeks discussing this, it's clear we share the same values and vision for the future of mobile photos.\n\nWe are committed to keeping the Instagram brand and growing their app independently. We will also continue on our FB Camera work. Over time we can build these two products to move closer together as it makes sense.\n\nAs always, feel free to ask me any questions you have about this at this week's open Q&A.\n\nMark\n\nTimeline post below:\n\nI'm excited to share the news that we've agreed to acquire Instagram and that their talented team will be joining Facebook.\n\nFor years, we've focused on building the best experience for sharing photos with your friends and family. Now, we'll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests.\n\nWe believe these are different experiences that complement each other. But in order to do this well, we need to be mindful about keeping and building on Instagram's strengths and features rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook.\n\nThat's why we're committed to building and growing Instagram independently. Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand to even more people.\n\nWe think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience. We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook.\n\nThese and many other features are important parts of the Instagram experience and we understand that. We will try to learn from Instagram's experience to build similar features into our other products. At the same time, we will try to help Instagram continue to grow by using Facebook's strong engineering team and infrastructure.\n\nThis is an important milestone for Facebook because it's the first time we've ever acquired a product and company with so many users. We don't plan on doing many more of these, if any at all. But providing the best photo sharing experience is one reason why so many people love Facebook and we knew it would be worth bringing these two companies together.\n\nWe're looking forward to working with the Instagram team and to all of the great new experiences we're going to be able to build together.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "instagram-announcement-2012", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Facebook employees", "source_type": "congressional_release", "source_title": "Facebook production to the House Judiciary Committee, FB-HJC-ACAL-00067600 to -00067601 (Apr. 9, 2012), as released with the July 29, 2020 hearing", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/0006760000067601.pdf", "case": null, "context": "Zuckerberg told Facebook staff about the Instagram agreement the morning after it was reached, with the post he planned to put on his timeline. The exhibit shows the message quoted beneath a reply, so the recipients are redacted.", "tags": [ "acquisition", "communication", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 18, "bates": "MZX-000018", "slug": "2012-04-09-zuckerberg-to-facebook-employees-instagram-announcement", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2012-04-09-zuckerberg-to-facebook-employees-instagram-announcement" }, { "id": "2012-07-21-zuckerberg-consumers-dont-come-to-facebook-to-look-at-ads", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2012-07-21", "time": null, "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "Consumers don't come to Facebook to look at ads; they come to stay connected with their friends and family.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ftc-trial-slides", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Not stated in the slide", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, Plaintiff's opening statement slides (Apr. 14, 2025), slide 49 (quotes PX15118, Email from Mr. Zuckerberg (July 21, 2012))", "source_url": "https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/1910134ftcopeningstatementslides.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Quote shown on an FTC slide at the April 2025 trial, labeled \"Email from Mr. Zuckerberg (July 21, 2012)\" (PX15118). The slide shows only this sentence.", "tags": [ "product", "strategy", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": true, "num": 19, "bates": "MZX-000019", "slug": "2012-07-21-zuckerberg-consumers-dont-come-to-facebook-to-look-at-ads", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2012-07-21-zuckerberg-consumers-dont-come-to-facebook-to-look-at-ads" }, { "id": "2012-09-25-zuckerberg-to-apple-urgent-issue", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2012-09-25", "time": null, "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [], "cc": [], "subject": "Urgent Issue", "body": "[w]hen we discussed the Facebook / iOS integration, one of the biggest issues we discussed was around how developers would try to use our graph to grow competitive products. [...] Within days of launching iOS6, this has already become an issue. Even though we were mostly concerned about Google before, competitive Asian social networks like Naver Line, KakaoTalk and others -- which weren't even on the map when we were initially discussing this but are now at scale -- are using the phone numbers we're putting into your contacts to bootstrap their own competitive graphs. This is a huge issue for us and it is urgent that we resolve this quickly. Every hour that goes by these social networks are getting more and more contact info from us.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "apple-ios-contacts-2012", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "An Apple executive (name redacted)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, FTC's Reply to Meta's Response to the FTC's Counterstatement of Material Facts, ECF No. 379-2, p. 1544 (quoting PX11286, FB_FTC_CID_06030042, at -049)", "source_url": "https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/FTCReplytoMetaResponse-CounterstatementofMaterialFacts.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Quoted in the FTC's filing from Zuckerberg's September 25, 2012 email to an Apple executive about the Facebook and iOS integration. The recipient's name is redacted.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product", "legal" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 20, "bates": "MZX-000020", "slug": "2012-09-25-zuckerberg-to-apple-urgent-issue", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2012-09-25-zuckerberg-to-apple-urgent-issue" }, { "id": "2012-09-27-zuckerberg-to-apple-urgent-issue-contacts", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2012-09-27", "time": null, "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [], "cc": [], "subject": "Urgent Issue", "body": "by pulling all this info into contacts, we're helping our competitors compete against ourselves.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "apple-ios-contacts-2012", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "An Apple executive (name redacted)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, FTC's Reply to Meta's Response to the FTC's Counterstatement of Material Facts, ECF No. 379-2, p. 1544 (quoting PX11286, FB_FTC_CID_06030042, at -048)", "source_url": "https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/FTCReplytoMetaResponse-CounterstatementofMaterialFacts.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Quoted in the FTC's filing from Zuckerberg's September 27, 2012 follow-up email on the same \"Urgent Issue\" thread with an Apple executive.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 21, "bates": "MZX-000021", "slug": "2012-09-27-zuckerberg-to-apple-urgent-issue-contacts", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2012-09-27-zuckerberg-to-apple-urgent-issue-contacts" }, { "id": "2012-09-30-zuckerberg-to-apple-urgent-issue-line-kakao", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2012-09-30", "time": null, "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [], "cc": [], "subject": "Urgent Issue", "body": "When we said we didn't want a competitor like Google to use Facebook data to build a competitive graph, I interpreted this as including competitors like Line and Kakao, which both now have more active users than Google+. I also interpreted this as meaning that if they used our data -- including through the contacts API -- and this became an issue, that you would help us deal with this . . . This isn't a matter of us not liking some apps; it's a matter of these competitors using this data to do the exact thing we said they shouldn't be able to. [...] [T]he competitive issue we have is that for people who are your distant Facebook friends but you never cared enough to enter into your contacts in the first place and are probably never going to call, the primary thing that this integration enables is that now competitive services like Line and Kakao can easily invite 50% more people and grow faster. This doesn't really make iOS or any of Apple's products better. It just uses data from Facebook to help competitive services build out their graphs. And this isn't apps getting the same data they would have gotten before . . . they now get 50% more additional contacts to invite.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "apple-ios-contacts-2012", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "An Apple executive (name redacted)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, FTC's Reply to Meta's Response to the FTC's Counterstatement of Material Facts, ECF No. 379-2, p. 1545 (quoting PX11286, FB_FTC_CID_06030042, at -046)", "source_url": "https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/FTCReplytoMetaResponse-CounterstatementofMaterialFacts.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Two passages quoted in the FTC's filing from Zuckerberg's September 30, 2012 email to an Apple executive on the same \"Urgent Issue\" thread.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product", "legal" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 22, "bates": "MZX-000022", "slug": "2012-09-30-zuckerberg-to-apple-urgent-issue-line-kakao", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2012-09-30-zuckerberg-to-apple-urgent-issue-line-kakao" }, { "id": "2012-10-07-zuckerberg-platform-business-model-this-weekend", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2012-10-07", "time": "9:05 PM", "from": "Mike Vernal", "to": [ "Mike Vernal", "Mark Zuckerberg", "Chris Daniels", "Dan Rose", "Douglas Purdy" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Message summary [id.364074027012189]", "body": "I've been thinking about platform business model a lot this weekend.\n\nOne thing I've been thinking about a lot this is that we really should start a payments product for real-world goods and offer it at a much lower rate outside of canvas. Mobile apps need something like this for real-world purchases as well since iOS only does virtual goods. If we layer in a service like this with our login, then that's a pretty awesome combo and a good reason for people to use FB platform.\n\nI also think that if we make it so devs can generate revenue for us in different ways, then it makes it more acceptable for us to charge them quite a bit more for using platform. The basic idea is that any other revenue you generate for us earns you a credit towards whatever fees you owe us for using platform. For most developers, this would probably cover the cost completely. So instead of actually ever paying us directly, they'd just use our payments or ads products.\n\nA basic model could be:\n\n- Login with Facebook is always free\n- Pushing content to Facebook is always free\n- Reading anything, including friends, costs a lot of money. Perhaps on the order of ~$0.10 / user each year.\n\nFor the money that you owe, you can cover it in any of the following ways:\n\n- Buy ads from us in neko or another system\n- Run our ads in your app or website (canvas apps already do this)\n- Use our payments\n- Sell your items in our Karma store\n\nOr if the revenue we get from those doesn't add up to more than the fees you owe us, then you just pay us the fee directly.\n\nThe rate of $0.10 / user each year might even be too low. For example, at that rate Spotify would have to spend just $3m per year with us in ads to be even and Pinterest would be around there too. We might be able to get this number to be meaningfully higher, especially if we don't charge until a dev has a meaningful number of users, like 50k or 100k.\n\nI've been reading a lot of books on finance and banking recently, and even though the idea of an information bank is not identical to financial bank, the comparison suggests some interesting things.\n\nFor example, banks charge you interest for as long as you have their money out. Rather than letting devs pay a one time fee to fetch data, we could effectively do this by mandating that devs must keep data fresh and update their data each month for anything they call.\n\nAnother idea is charging different developers different rates for things. The whole banking industry is based on charging people different rates. It may be that instead of having a flat fee for everyone, we should instead try set a norm were there's some range but the expectation is each developer gets some rate specific to them once they're at scale.\n\nAnyhow, those are just a few thoughts. We should haven't finalized our plan here yet so we should keep discussing this.\n\nIn the meantime, I'd love to spin up an effort to build a real-world payments product for devs outside of canvas.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "platform-model-2012", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Facebook platform leadership", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "UK House of Commons DCMS Committee, Note by the Chair and selected documents ordered from Six4Three (published Dec. 2018), Exhibit 170 (FB-01156203 to FB-01156204)", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2018id_/https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/culture-media-and-sport/Note-by-Chair-and-selected-documents-ordered-from-Six4Three.pdf", "case": "Six4Three v. Facebook (San Mateo County Superior Court)", "context": "Message-summary email sent by Mike Vernal that reproduces Zuckerberg's messages about the Platform business model; the Committee's note describes it as a Zuckerberg email of October 7, 2012. Only Zuckerberg's messages are copied here; replies from Douglas Purdy and Christopher Daniels follow in the exhibit.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product", "fundraising" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 23, "bates": "MZX-000023", "slug": "2012-10-07-zuckerberg-platform-business-model-this-weekend", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2012-10-07-zuckerberg-platform-business-model-this-weekend" }, { "id": "2012-10-27-zuckerberg-to-lessin-platform-revenue", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2012-10-27", "time": null, "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "Sam Lessin" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: notes on platform", "body": "There's a big question on where we get the revenue from. Do we make it easy for devs to use our payments/ad network but not require them? Do we require them? Do we just charge a rev share directly and let devs who use them get a credit against what they owe us? It's not at all clear to me here that we have a model that will actually make us the revenue we want at scale. [...] I'm getting more on board with locking down some parts of platform, including friends data and potentially email addresses for mobile apps. [...] Without limiting distribution or access to friends who use this app, I don't think we have any way to get developers to pay us at all besides offering payments and ad networks.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "platform-model-2012", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Sam Lessin, Facebook", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "UK House of Commons DCMS Committee, Note by the Chair and selected documents ordered from Six4Three (Dec. 2018), summary of Exhibit 38 (quoted excerpts only)", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2018id_/https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/culture-media-and-sport/Note-by-Chair-and-selected-documents-ordered-from-Six4Three.pdf", "case": "Six4Three v. Facebook (San Mateo County Superior Court)", "context": "The Committee's note quotes three passages from Zuckerberg's October 27, 2012 email replying to Sam Lessin's platform proposal. The full email is in the Six4Three exhibits, where it appears interleaved with Lessin's comments.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product", "fundraising" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 24, "bates": "MZX-000024", "slug": "2012-10-27-zuckerberg-to-lessin-platform-revenue", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2012-10-27-zuckerberg-to-lessin-platform-revenue" }, { "id": "2012-11-19-zuckerberg-to-platform-leaders-platform-model-thoughts", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2012-11-19", "time": "2:54 AM", "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "Sam Lessin", "Mike Vernal", "Douglas Purdy", "Javier Olivan", "Alex Schultz", "Ed Baker", "Chris Cox", "Mike Schroepfer", "Dan Rose", "Chris Daniels", "Sheryl Sandberg", "David Ebersman", "Vladimir Fedorov", "Cory Ondrejka", "Greg Badros" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Platform Model Thoughts", "body": "After thinking about platform business model for a long time, I wanted to send out a note explaining where I'm leaning on this. This isn't final and we'll have a chance to discuss this in person before we decide this for sure, but since this is complex, I wanted to write out my thoughts. This is long, but hopefully helpful.\n\nThe quick summary is that I think we should go with full reciprocity and access to app friends for no charge. Full reciprocity means that apps are required to give any user who connects to FB a prominent option to share all of their social content within that service (ie all content that is visible to more than a few people, but excluding 1:1 or small group messages) back to Facebook. In addition to this, in the future, I also think we should develop a premium service for things like instant personalization and coefficient, but that can be separate from this next release of platform. A lot more details and context below.\n\nFirst, to answer the question of what we should do, the very first question I developed an opinion on was what we should be optimizing for. There's a clear tension between platform ubiquity and charging, so it's important to first fully explore what we're trying to get out of platform.\n\nThe answer I came to is that we're trying to enable people to share everything they want, and to do it on Facebook. Sometimes the best way to enable people to share something is to have a developer build a special purpose app or network for that type of content and to make that app social by having Facebook plug into it. However, that may be good for the world but it's not good for us unless people also share back to Facebook and that content increases the value of our network. So ultimately, I think the purpose of platform -- even the read side -- is to increase sharing back into Facebook.\n\nIf we do this well, we should be able to unlock much more sharing in the world and on Facebook through a constellation of apps than we could ever build experiences for ourselves. We should be able to solve the audience problem partially by giving people different audiences in different apps and linking them all together on Facebook. The current state of the world supports that more social apps enables sharing, so the biggest challenge for us is to link them all together.\n\nThis makes it somewhat clearer that we want platform to be ubiquitous and to strongly encourage sharing back to Facebook, but it's not yet definitively clear that having full reciprocity and no charge is optimal.\n\nFor one thing, it's conceivable that we'd get more net sharing overall and more net sharing into Facebook if we didn't have a reciprocity mandate. This would be true if many developers dropped out over the reciprocity mandate. The reason I don't think they will is that almost no developers will even be giving us the majority of their data since many of their users won't log in with Facebook and many of those who do won't choose to share it back to Facebook. Assuming for a heavily FB-dependent app each of those is 50% participation, then only 25% of the data is shared to Facebook. As long as apps always have a sustainable advantage over Facebook, most will participate. For more sensitive companies like Amazon and Yelp that value their reviews a lot more, way fewer than 50% of their users will connect to Facebook, so this will represent a tiny portion of their reviews and social data. My guess is that they should still rationally want to connect with Facebook at these levels, but if they don't then that probably means they're competitive with us and we're better off not letting them integrate with us anyway. This all makes me think full reciprocity is the way to go.\n\nFor charging, the question is whether we could charge and still achieve ubiquity. Theoretically, if we could do that, it would be better to get ubiquity and get paid. My sense is there may be some price we could charge that wouldn't interfere with ubiquity, but this price wouldn't be enough to make us real money. Conversely, we could probably make real money if we were willing to sacrifice ubiquity, but that doesn't seem like the right trade here. After looking at all the numbers for a while, I'm coming around to the perspective that the write side of platform is a much bigger opportunity for us and we should focus the vast majority of our monetization effort on that and not this.\n\nThe last question is whether we should include app friends (ie the user's friends who are also using this app). Ultimately, it seems like this data is what developers want most and if we pulled this out of the package then most of the value proposition falls apart. This is especially true if we require full reciprocity without offering our most valuable data.\n\nSo that's essentially how I got to thinking we should do full reciprocity with app friends and no charge.\n\nThere's some more nuance to this opinion though:\n\nFirst, in any model, I'm assuming we enforce our policies against competitors much more strongly. The good news about full reciprocity is that for bigger social companies we might otherwise be worried about, if they're enabling their users to push all of their social content back into Facebook then we're probably fine with them. However, for folks like WeChat, we need to enforce a lot sooner.\n\nSecond, if we're limiting friends to app friends, we need to make sure we build the appropriate distribution tools that developers want to invite the rest of the user's friends. We keep saying that theoretically this is part of the write side platform and it's a premium feature, and those things may be true, but I think we need to build them and make sure they're ready when we roll this out or else we're just taking away functionality without replacing it with something better. It seems like we need some way to fast app switch to the FB app to show a dialog on our side that lets you select which of your friends you want to invite to an app. We need to make sure this experience actually is possible to build and make as good as we want, especially on iOS where we're more constrained. We also need to figure out how we're going to charge for it. I want to make sure this is explicitly tied to pulling non-app friends out of friends.get.\n\nThird, there's the data that suggests that if we share app friends only, then most apps will only get fewer than 10 friends from each person. If this is the case, then we may want to consider including coefficient ranking for those app friends for free -- or at least the top 5-10 app friends. This doesn't seem like much leakage and could encourage more people to use our tools by differentiation our product further from anything else that's out there.\n\nFourth, for products like Ansible and Newsstand, it will be very important to enable people to import their feeds of content from other apps into Facebook. That is, we'd be pulling those people's friends' data from those apps -- eg your friends' pins on Pinterest to make a Pinterest section for you in Newsstand or include the pin images on your Ansible lock/home. Since this is going to be an important upcoming push, we need to consider whether it's still the right thing to remove our own stream.get API if we're requiring full reciprocity. I still want to remove it, but if the spirit is full reciprocity, it may just be difficult to refuse access to the app that are pushing streams into us. The good news is that those services aren't the ones we're typically worried about, so we'd still get to prevent almost all troublesome apps from having it. The bad news is this would prevent us from really deprecating this. I haven't thought through this fully and need to think about it some more.\n\nFifth, not charging still means people will overuse and abuse our APIs and waste money for us, so I still think we should implement some kind of program where you have to pay if you use too many of our resources. That said, the goal of this won't be to charge for actual usage so we can build a less precise system of for monitoring than the full accounting systems we would have had to have built for the other system we discussed. What I'm assuming we'll do here is have a few basic thresholds of API usage and once you pass a threshold you either need to pay us some fixed amount to get to the next threshold or you get rate limited at the lower threshold. One basic implementation of this could be to have a few different fees for developers, with basic starting at $100 and then having levels at $10k, $1m, $10m, etc. This should be relatively simple, achieve the goal of controlling costs and make us some money if we want.\n\nFinally, I want to discuss the premium read services for a bit.\n\nOne of the big ideas I took away from our discussions was Ed Baker's framing that every business wants growth, engagement and monetization. I like this framing because it explains what the read side of platform is -- it increases engagement, or more specifically, it takes a user and turns them into a more engaged user through adding real identity and social connections to them. This is real value and it's different from anything else we do. We have ads and some organic distribution for driving growth, the read side of platform for driving engagement and the ad network and payments for driving monetization. We'll offer the full stack of services.\n\nHow our premium read services add value is pretty clear -- through simply eliminating friction. Our free services let you get basic info, app friends and let you pay to get access to a dialog to invite more friends. Developers can always get these critical flows to perform better if they have more of the data and more control though. Through instant personalization, they can encourage a person to sign in more effectively and will therefore convert more unregistered users to ones with real identity and friends. Through coefficient and full friends list, they can upsell a person to invite their friends much more effectively throughout their app as well. I'd estimate that these two things alone would increase conversion by ~20-30% for developers. That means they should be willing to pay us roughly 20-30% of the value of each user who signs up. That's a big deal because engagement is very valuable.\n\nI have a specific proposal for how to get started with this and it's that we should work with mobile games. The feedback we're getting from almost every other type of developer is they don't know how to value our services or really much of their engagement at all. But game developers generally track this and have a better sense. They would certainly be willing to try it out in new games and they'd be able to figure out how well it worked. Once it works for most game developers, then we can start letting other developers in as well.\n\nWorking with game developers has a few other nice properties. It means doing something nice for our game developers first and making them feel valued. It's fairly natural to offer IP on mobile since we already offer it to them on canvas. This could also be an important part of helping us transition our canvas business onto mobile if it effectively lets us take a 20-30% cut of the value of FB-connected users.\n\nOn pricing, there are a couple of ways I could see this working. First, we could charge based on the value our ads auction computes for each user. I'm still fairly confident that's the most efficient way to charge if we can't just take a straight rev share. That said, the second choice, since this is just games, is to actually figure out how to just take a straight revenue share. This might be possible in conjunction with some sort of publisher model for games that I know the team is already thinking about.\n\nThis all said, while I'd love to build this premium engagement model as quickly as possible, there's definitely more low hanging fruit on the growth/distribution side that almost all developers will be able to use if we build out correctly. So we should probably prioritize that before premium engagement.\n\nWe also need to first prioritize all the tools required to make these policies work, including making it so developers can actually share everything social in their apps back to Facebook if we're requiring them to offer that option, the premium invite channel that will replace access to non-app friends, etc.\n\nOverall, I feel good about this direction. The purpose of platform is to tie the universe of all the social apps together so we can enable a lot more sharing and still remain the central social hub. I think this finds the right balance between ubiquity, reciprocity and profit.\n\nAgain, this isn't final but I wanted to let you all know where I'm leaning. I'm looking forward to discussing when I'm back after Thanksgiving.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "platform-model-2012", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Facebook platform, product and finance leaders", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "UK House of Commons DCMS Committee, Note by the Chair and selected documents ordered from Six4Three (published Dec. 2018), Exhibit 48 (FB-01155756 to FB-01155759)", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2018id_/https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/culture-media-and-sport/Note-by-Chair-and-selected-documents-ordered-from-Six4Three.pdf", "case": "Six4Three v. Facebook (San Mateo County Superior Court)", "context": "Zuckerberg set out how he was leaning on the business model for Facebook's developer platform ahead of the Platform 3.0 changes. Sheryl Sandberg replied that afternoon: \"I like full reciprocity and this is the heart of why.\"", "tags": [ "strategy", "product", "fundraising", "politics" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 25, "bates": "MZX-000025", "slug": "2012-11-19-zuckerberg-to-platform-leaders-platform-model-thoughts", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2012-11-19-zuckerberg-to-platform-leaders-platform-model-thoughts" }, { "id": "2013-01-10-zuckerberg-to-olivan-block-wechat-kakao-line-ads", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2013-01-10", "time": "1:28 AM", "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "Javier Olivan" ], "cc": [ "David Fischer", "Dan Rose", "Mike Vernal", "Mike Schroepfer", "Sheryl Sandberg", "Elliot Schrage", "Cory Ondrejka", "Gokul Rajaram", "Sam Lessin", "Justin Osofsky" ], "subject": "Re: Competitive Mobile App Install Ads", "body": "I think we should block WeChat, Kakao and Line ads. Those companies are trying to build social networks and replace us. The revenue is immaterial to us compared to any risk.\n\nAnd I agree we should use ads to promote our own products, but I'd still block companies that compete with our core from gaining any advantage from us.\n\nI'd also keep blocking Google but otherwise wouldn't extend the block to anyone else.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "wechat-ads-2013", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Facebook ads, product and growth executives (some recipients redacted)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, Plaintiff's Exhibit 12108 (PX12108), ECF No. 379-35, FB-01370702 / FB_FTC_CID_01409579 (RECAP mirror of the court's PDF; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921.379.35.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Facebook executives were debating whether to accept mobile app-install ads from competing messaging apps. Justin Osofsky wrote later that morning that Facebook would block WeChat, Kakao and Line from spending on ads.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product", "cost" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 26, "bates": "MZX-000026", "slug": "2013-01-10-zuckerberg-to-olivan-block-wechat-kakao-line-ads", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2013-01-10-zuckerberg-to-olivan-block-wechat-kakao-line-ads" }, { "id": "2013-01-24-zuckerberg-vine-yup-go-for-it", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2013-01-24", "time": "12:21 PM", "from": "Dan Rose", "to": [ "Mike Vernal", "Justin Osofsky", "Mark Zuckerberg", "Kevin Systrom", "Douglas Purdy", "Dan Rose" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Message summary [id.406139916141381]", "body": "Justin Osofsky:\n>Twitter launched Vine today which lets you shoot multiple short video segments to make one single, 6-second video. As part of their NUX, you can find friends via FB. Unless anyone raises objections, we will shut down their friends API access today.\n>\n>We've prepared reactive PR, and I will let Jana know our decision.\n\nMark Zuckerberg:\n>Yup, go for it.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "vine-2013", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Facebook platform and product leaders", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "UK House of Commons DCMS Committee, Note by the Chair and selected documents ordered from Six4Three (published Dec. 2018), Message summary dated January 24, 2013 (FB-00934373)", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2018id_/https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/culture-media-and-sport/Note-by-Chair-and-selected-documents-ordered-from-Six4Three.pdf", "case": "Six4Three v. Facebook (San Mateo County Superior Court)", "context": "Message-summary email sent by Dan Rose that reproduces a short exchange: Justin Osofsky proposed cutting off Vine's access to Facebook's friends API on the day Twitter launched Vine, and Zuckerberg replied.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product", "legal" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 27, "bates": "MZX-000027", "slug": "2013-01-24-zuckerberg-vine-yup-go-for-it", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2013-01-24-zuckerberg-vine-yup-go-for-it" }, { "id": "2013-02-11-zuckerberg-to-board-board-update", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2013-02-11", "time": "11:50 PM", "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "Jim Breyer", "Peter Thiel", "Sheryl Sandberg" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Board Update", "body": "Nothing too dramatic has changed since the last board meeting.\n\nHere are some updates:\n\n1. Mission\n\nWe rolled out the three year goal to provide free data access to everyone in the world at an all hands in January. It went very well and everyone seems very excited about it as a mission-oriented goal for our company.\n\nAdditional analysis suggests that doing this may be even cheaper than we'd previously expected, and could cost as little as ~$1 billion / year for data for another ~2 billion people. If we can get some partners to help out, we might be able to provide this will very little expense to ourselves, but we'll see. I'm still planning to grow revenue aggressively so we can maintain good levels of profitability in case we do need to cover a larger bill here.\n\n2. Budget Follow Up\n\nWe just completed our engineering allocation budget for H1, and ~60% of the 270 engineers we expect to add are going to monetization or infrastructure projects. My commitment is that until we bring headcount growth into parity with revenue growth, we will over index and allocate ~50% of headcount to core business functions like monetization or infrastructure. This half's allocation is a bit more skewed towards those things, but I think that's okay because we have a lot to do.\n\nRevenue seems generally on track. Nothing major to report here since we last reviewed.\n\n3. Ads Team Transition\n\nWe are transitioning the ads team to report to Schrep starting next week. Andrew Bosworth (Boz) will be the product group lead managing all of core ads eng, PM and design, and he will report to schrep along with the other groups Schrep manages, including messaging, photos and pages. Having Boz lead ads will be a polarizing decision, but I'm excited about this because Boz is a 6-year Facebook product development veteran and I want to keep on injecting more product culture into the ads team.\n\nAds currently reports to [redacted] as I mentioned in my update for the last board meeting. He is going to continue running search for at least the next six months since the person who I would like to run search longer term -- [redacted] -- is going on paternity leave for the next 3.5 months. However, I expect [redacted] to retire and leave the company later in the year after that.\n\n4. Mobile Messaging\n\nAt the last board meeting, Erskine asked if I thought things were going too well and what our biggest risks are. My answer to this is that mobile messaging is the next biggest consumer risk and opportunity. Mobile messaging means people sending private messages -- like text messages -- rather than posting things more broadly.\n\nThe basic math here is that people share more things with smaller groups than they share with all of their friends at once. On mobile, your SMS, email or other primary messaging app is generally the most important and most used app on your phone.\n\nTherefore, the biggest competitive vector for us is for some company to build out a messaging app for communicating with small groups of people, and then transforming that into a broader social network. Companies like Line and Kakao in Korea and Tencent in China are running this exact strategy and it's working reasonably well. They haven't expanded outside of Asia yet, but this is a big risk for us.\n\nIn addition to being a risk, this is also a big opportunity for us. If we execute well here, there's an opportunity for us to significantly increase the volume of sharing and communication on Facebook. For the past 18 months, our mobile message sends has more than doubled every six months, and we expect that trend to hold true for at least the next six to 12 months as well.\n\nIn order to execute on this, I've given the imperative that by the end of H1, I want our mobile apps to be as much about messaging as they are about News Feed.\n\nBecause this is so important strategically, I've asked the folks running this initiative -- Peter Deng (PM) and Raymond Endres (eng) under Schrep -- to come present at the board meeting.\n\n5. Acquisitions\n\nI mentioned in my last update that I want us to use M&A to build a competitive moat around us on mobile and ads. I think we could spend $1-2 billion over the next couple of years on such acquisitions.\n\nThere are two acquisitions that we've been negotiating that are near completion that I'd like to spend some time reviewing at this board meeting.\n\nThe first is a company called OSMeta that would help our mobile strategy by enabling us to build a better app store. Their technology can take an iOS app and compile it so that it runs on any platform, including Android, Windows, Blackberry, Mac OS, Linux, etc. This lets us build an app store for other platforms that has apps that no other app store on that platform has. It will also enable us to ship many of our own apps faster on other platforms. This is an expensive acquisition -- [redacted] for the company and [redacted] in grants for the founder and employees -- and it is also risky from a number of angles. However, I'm excited about it because I think the right strategy for us is to build a network of people and apps across all devices rather than trying to focus on any single OS.\n\nThe second company is Atlas, which is currently owned by Microsoft and would help us in our ads strategy. Atlas lets advertisers measure who sees and interacts with their ads in a way that doesn't let the advertiser take our valuable and proprietary targeting information and use it on other ad systems like Google's, which would destroy our biggest strategic advantage and suppress prices on Facebook. This deal is $100m, but the bigger real cost is that the technology has rotted a bit under Microsoft's ownership, so we'll have to divert some of our ads engineering resources to fixing it. Still, we think it's a much quicker path to do this than to start building this on our own.\n\nThere's one smaller company that's worth mentioning here but doesn't require board discussion. We're buying a medium-sized design studio that has done some contract work for us on ads in order to get a lot more design strength on our ads team. We've traditionally had a hard time recruiting designers for this, so this move should accelerate ads product development.\n\n6. Team\n\nThe senior team is generally in a good place right now and I don't expect much unwanted attrition this year. (One exception is Eric Antonow, who is very good and unfortunately told us he's leaving later this year to start an education company.)\n\nThat said, in our company culture surveys, many people across our senior team and company in general said they were only planning on being here for another 1-2 years, which means I'm expecting real attrition in 2014.\n\nThis intuitively makes sense to me. By this point, a lot of senior people have been here for a long time, have made more than enough money and may just be bored by the slowing growth rate and want to do something different.\n\nGoing into this period, I'd like to spend some time at the board meeting getting advice on how to best manage through this. What are some things you've seen work well to retain folks over longer periods like this? What non-obvious things should I be paying attention to that I might miss? This seems like a topic where I can learn a lot from your different experiences, and it's a good one to cover now that there isn't any pressing crisis to cover instead.\n\n7. Board\n\nAfter meeting with a lot of women board candidates last year, one person who has continually impressed me and who I'd like to invite to join our board is [redacted], [redacted] (He says she is the best person he has ever worked with.)\n\nI was initially skeptical about adding her since we don't need to fill any functional role on the board, but after spending more time with her I've found her insightful on a number of topics, ranging from research and development to organizational thinking to academia and to politics. I think she would be a good fit on our board and I believe her presence would help us make better decisions overall.\n\nThe downside here is that she will be the ninth person on the board, and that means the board will be larger than I'd like it to be over the long term. I am assuming this will be resolved as one or two folks who have been on our board for a while roll off in the next couple of years.\n\n8. Upcoming Releases\n\nSince we last met, we released our rewritten Android native app and Graph Search at their expected dates. Both releases have gone as expected so far. Graph Search roll out has been slow, so I don't have much to report there yet.\n\nA project that Chris has been leading to redesign our desktop site and parts of mobile News Feed has been delayed, and instead of being released at the end of January we now expect it in early March.\n\nAnsible / Home is still generally on track for release in April. I still expect this to be the biggest single release we do all of this year.\n\n---\n\nThat's all for now. I'm looking forward to seeing you guys tomorrow.\n\nMark", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "board-update-2013", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Facebook board of directors (some recipients redacted)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, Plaintiff's Exhibit 10271 (PX10271), ECF No. 379-32, FB_FTC_CID_08957287 to -08957290 (RECAP mirror of the court's PDF; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921.379.32.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Zuckerberg's written update to the Facebook board the night before a board meeting. The exhibit is Peter Thiel's one-line reply with Zuckerberg's original message quoted below it; some names and figures are redacted in the public version.", "tags": [ "management", "strategy", "acquisition", "hiring" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 28, "bates": "MZX-000028", "slug": "2013-02-11-zuckerberg-to-board-board-update", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2013-02-11-zuckerberg-to-board-board-update" }, { "id": "2013-03-04-zuckerberg-to-cox-litestand-script", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2013-03-04", "time": null, "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "Chris Cox" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Litestand script", "body": "One of the most important services we build is News Feed. It brings all of the things your friends are doing and sharing and puts them right in front of you.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ftc-trial-record", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Chris Cox, Facebook", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, FTC's Reply to Meta's Response to the FTC's Counterstatement of Material Facts, ECF No. 379-2, p. 364 (quoting PX1620, FB_FTC_CID_06000355, at -356)", "source_url": "https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/FTCReplytoMetaResponse-CounterstatementofMaterialFacts.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Quoted in the FTC's filing from a March 4, 2013 email from Zuckerberg to Chris Cox about a script for the Litestand and News Feed presentation.", "tags": [ "product", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 29, "bates": "MZX-000029", "slug": "2013-03-04-zuckerberg-to-cox-litestand-script", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2013-03-04-zuckerberg-to-cox-litestand-script" }, { "id": "2013-03-22-zuckerberg-to-messenger-leads-winning-at-messaging", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2013-03-22", "time": "9:07 AM", "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [], "cc": [], "subject": "Winning at messaging", "body": "Being the best messaging service is the biggest opportunity and mitigation to the biggest threat we face today. The space keeps heating up, including Google about to get into this in a big way, Line with more than 1,000 engineers just focused on their app and rumors of WhatsApp expanding into more services as well.\n\nWe have a team of ~60 engineers, which is a lot, but given the importance of success here, I often find myself wondering what else we could do to increase the chances of our success.\n\nIt seems like a good time for me to put this question to you guys, no that a lot of the big features we've worked on for a while are nearing release (eg Chat Heads, broadcast, composer integration, stickers, like button, aura, etc) and we'll be able to start shipping more Android code post-Ansible release.\n\nIf we had more engineers working on messages, what else would we be able to do?\n\nIf we could get other teams at Facebook to build anything we wanted for messaging, what would we have them do?\n\nWhat are the process bottlenecks that we have today that we could improve to speed things up?\n\nI'd love to hear all of the ideas you guys have here, including relatively extreme things that might sound crazy at first.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "messaging-2013", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Leads of the Facebook Messenger team", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, Plaintiff's Exhibit 1708 (PX1708), ECF No. 379-17, FB_FTC_CID_06203142 to -06203146 (RECAP mirror of the court's PDF; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921.379.17.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Zuckerberg's opening message on the thread that produced the March 24 follow-up above. It appears quoted near the end of the exhibit, after the replies from Peter Deng, Raymond Endres and Cory Ondrejka.", "tags": [ "management", "product", "engineering", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 30, "bates": "MZX-000030", "slug": "2013-03-22-zuckerberg-to-messenger-leads-winning-at-messaging", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2013-03-22-zuckerberg-to-messenger-leads-winning-at-messaging" }, { "id": "2013-03-24-zuckerberg-to-deng-winning-at-messaging", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2013-03-24", "time": "11:48 PM", "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "Peter Deng" ], "cc": [ "Raymond Endres", "Cory Ondrejka", "Mike Schroepfer" ], "subject": "Re: Winning at messaging", "body": "Thanks for all sending such detailed analyses here. I've had a chance to read through all of them.\n\nFor tomorrow's meeting, it would be great to distill this down to some concrete asks for exactly what resources you think we should consider allocating towards messaging instead of wherever else they'd go.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "messaging-2013", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Facebook messaging product and engineering leads", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, Plaintiff's Exhibit 1708 (PX1708), ECF No. 379-17, FB_FTC_CID_06203142 (RECAP mirror of the court's PDF; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921.379.17.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Reply on a thread in which Peter Deng and Raymond Endres set out what extra resources Facebook's messaging effort could use.", "tags": [ "management", "product", "engineering" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 31, "bates": "MZX-000031", "slug": "2013-03-24-zuckerberg-to-deng-winning-at-messaging", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2013-03-24-zuckerberg-to-deng-winning-at-messaging" }, { "id": "2013-04-06-zuckerberg-to-koum-rumor", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2013-04-06", "time": "9:48 AM", "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "Jan Koum" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Rumor", "body": "I assume this isn't true, but can you confirm?\n\nhttp://m.digitaltrends.com/social-media/google-acquiring-whatsapp/\n\nIf you are thinking of having WhatsApp join another company, we'd of course love to talk at this price range and are almost certainly a much better fit than Google!\n\nSeparately, we should hang out again sometime soon. I never got back to you about last weekend since I was busy getting ready for the Home announcement. But let me know if you're around in the next couple of weekends.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "whatsapp-2013", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, Plaintiff's Exhibit 1036 (PX1036), ECF No. 379-6, FB00001330 / FB_FTC_CID_00003687 (RECAP mirror of the court's PDF; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921.379.6.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Sent after a press report that Google was in talks to acquire WhatsApp. Facebook announced its agreement to acquire WhatsApp in February 2014.", "tags": [ "acquisition", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 32, "bates": "MZX-000032", "slug": "2013-04-06-zuckerberg-to-koum-rumor", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2013-04-06-zuckerberg-to-koum-rumor" }, { "id": "2013-08-06-zuckerberg-to-olivan-game-on", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2013-08-06", "time": "11:43 PM", "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "Javier Olivan" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: game on!", "body": "The most interesting thing to me in the article is that they're focused on photos features next.\n\nOne big challenge WhatsApp has is that they need to offer something beyond just simple texting in order to get folks in places like the US to use them over regular SMS.\n\nIf they succeed at building differentiated photos features, then they could start winning in the US and other markets where they've historically struggled.\n\nThis doesn't affect our goals in the near term, but this is getting more complex every day", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "whatsapp-2013", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Javier Olivan, Facebook growth lead", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, Plaintiff's Exhibit 1486 (PX1486), ECF No. 379-15, FB_FTC_CID_06086195 (RECAP mirror of the court's PDF; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921.379.15.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Reply to Javier Olivan about a press article on WhatsApp reaching 300 million active users and adding voice features. Olivan's reply and Zuckerberg's follow-up of August 8, 2013 are the next record.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 33, "bates": "MZX-000033", "slug": "2013-08-06-zuckerberg-to-olivan-game-on", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2013-08-06-zuckerberg-to-olivan-game-on" }, { "id": "2013-08-08-zuckerberg-to-olivan-game-on", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2013-08-08", "time": "10:05 AM", "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "Javier Olivan" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: game on!", "body": "We can definitely try to staff the team more to deliver more sooner, but we need to make sure we're doing the right things.\n\nMy point about WhatsApp's direction is that if they build substantive features beyond just making SMS free, that could be enough for them to tip markets like the US where SMS is still the primarily platform.\n\nBuilding features like phone number registration probably won't help that in the near term because it's a feature everyone else already has.\n\nThe bigger question to me is about whether there are some key photos features that we can get to before they do. For example, maybe there's a top level tab in the app that has all the incoming photos you've received in an album/grid view to really highlight and organize the photo sharing piece. That could be really differentiating and help achieve lock in. At a minimum, having all of your photos in a thread stored in an album with a nice album/grid view instead of only being visible in the chronological message thread would be helpful, although that doesn't seem like a defining feature.\n\nThese are all things you can't do with SMS though. They're reasons to use this app instead of SMS or WhatsApp or anything else. I'd think more about doing something like this than I would about just adding more follow on features, unless I'm missing something.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "whatsapp-2013", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Javier Olivan, Facebook growth lead", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, Plaintiff's Exhibit 1486 (PX1486), ECF No. 379-15, FB_FTC_CID_06086195 (RECAP mirror of the court's PDF; text transcribed from the page images)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921/gov.uscourts.dcd.224921.379.15.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Reply to Olivan's August 8, 2013 note that he was \"really worried\" about WhatsApp and wanted more engineering capacity for Messenger.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product", "engineering" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 34, "bates": "MZX-000034", "slug": "2013-08-08-zuckerberg-to-olivan-game-on", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2013-08-08-zuckerberg-to-olivan-game-on" }, { "id": "2013-10-31-zuckerberg-offered-6b-for-snap-leak", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2013-10-31", "time": null, "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "I'm disappointed and frustrated by this. [...] [W]e should probably prepare for it to leak that we offered $6b for [Snap] and all the negative that will come from that.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ftc-trial-slides", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Not stated in the slide", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, Plaintiff's opening statement slides (Apr. 14, 2025), slide 74 (quotes PX2976, Email from Mr. Zuckerberg (Oct. 31, 2013))", "source_url": "https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/1910134ftcopeningstatementslides.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Quotes shown on an FTC slide at the April 2025 trial, labeled \"Email from Mr. Zuckerberg (Oct. 31, 2013)\" (PX2976), about Facebook's offer for Snap. The slide shows only these two excerpts; the rest of the email is redacted.", "tags": [ "acquisition", "strategy", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": true, "num": 35, "bates": "MZX-000035", "slug": "2013-10-31-zuckerberg-offered-6b-for-snap-leak", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2013-10-31-zuckerberg-offered-6b-for-snap-leak" }, { "id": "2014-06-22-zuckerberg-to-systrom-snapchat-stories", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2014-06-22", "time": null, "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "Kevin Systrom" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Snapchat Stories and ephemeral stories", "body": "to make sure you're all tracking the success of Snapchat Stories [...] means that Snapchat is now more of a competitor for Instagram and [Facebook] News Feed than it ever was for messaging [...] Snapchat Stories serves the exact same use cases of sharing and consuming feeds of content that News Feed and Instagram deliver.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ftc-trial-record", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Kevin Systrom and other Facebook executives", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, FTC's Reply to Meta's Response to the FTC's Counterstatement of Material Facts, ECF No. 379-2, p. 417 (quoting PX1009, FB_FTC_CID_02231566)", "source_url": "https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/FTCReplytoMetaResponse-CounterstatementofMaterialFacts.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Quoted in the FTC's filing from Zuckerberg's June 22, 2014 email to Kevin Systrom and other Meta executives about Snapchat Stories.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 36, "bates": "MZX-000036", "slug": "2014-06-22-zuckerberg-to-systrom-snapchat-stories", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2014-06-22-zuckerberg-to-systrom-snapchat-stories" }, { "id": "2015-02-02-zuckerberg-to-cox-draft-all-hands-q1-2015", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2015-02-02", "time": null, "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "Chris Cox" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Draft All Hands Q1 2015", "body": "First, our mission is to help people share and connect. Giving people the power and tools to do this is important for the world and central to our mission. Understanding what's happening with your friends and family is by far the most important content in our service. We can't build the service we want if we don't help people share the personal moments they care about.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ftc-trial-record", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Chris Cox and other Facebook executives", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, FTC's Reply to Meta's Response to the FTC's Counterstatement of Material Facts, ECF No. 379-2, p. 254 (quoting PX1903, FB_FTC_CID_06006285, at -286)", "source_url": "https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/FTCReplytoMetaResponse-CounterstatementofMaterialFacts.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Quoted in the FTC's filing from Zuckerberg's February 2, 2015 email to Chris Cox and others, a draft of remarks for the company's Q1 2015 all-hands meeting.", "tags": [ "communication", "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 37, "bates": "MZX-000037", "slug": "2015-02-02-zuckerberg-to-cox-draft-all-hands-q1-2015", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2015-02-02-zuckerberg-to-cox-draft-all-hands-q1-2015" }, { "id": "2015-05-25-musk-to-altman", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2015-05-25", "time": "11:09 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "question", "body": "Probably worth a conversation", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-founding-2015", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Altman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk replies to Altman's May 25, 2015 proposal for a nonprofit AI lab backed by Y Combinator.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 7, "bates": "EMX-000007", "slug": "2015-05-25-musk-to-altman", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2015-05-25-musk-to-altman" }, { "id": "2015-05-25-altman-to-musk", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2015-05-25", "time": "9:10 PM", "from": "Sam Altman", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [], "subject": "question", "body": "Been thinking a lot about whether it's possible to stop humanity from developing AI.\n\nI think the answer is almost definitely not.\n\nIf it's going to happen anyway, it seems like it would be good for someone other than Google to do it first.\n\nAny thoughts on whether it would be good for YC to start a Manhattan Project for AI? My sense is we could get many of the top ~50 to work on it, and we could structure it so that the tech belongs to the world via some sort of nonprofit but the people working on it get startup-like compensation if it works. Obviously we'd comply with/aggressively support all regulation.\n\nSam", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-founding-2015", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Sam Altman asks Musk whether Y Combinator should start an AI lab structured as a nonprofit, and Musk replies.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 8, "bates": "EMX-000008", "slug": "2015-05-25-altman-to-musk", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2015-05-25-altman-to-musk" }, { "id": "2015-06-24-altman-to-musk", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2015-06-24", "time": "10:24 AM", "from": "Sam Altman", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [], "subject": "question", "body": "The mission would be to create the first general AI and use it for individual empowerment—ie, the distributed version of the future that seems the safest. More generally, safety should be a first-class requirement.\n\nI think we’d ideally start with a group of 7-10 people, and plan to expand from there. We have a nice extra building in Mountain View they can have.\n\nI think for a governance structure, we should start with 5 people and I’d propose you, Bill Gates, Pierre Omidyar, Dustin Moskovitz, and me. The technology would be owned by the foundation and used “for the good of the world”, and in cases where it’s not obvious how that should be applied the 5 of us would decide. The researchers would have significant financial upside but it would be uncorrelated to what they build, which should eliminate some of the conflict (we’ll pay them a competitive salary and give them YC equity for the upside). We’d have an ongoing conversation about what work should be open-sourced and what shouldn’t. At some point we’d get someone to run the team, but he/she probably shouldn’t be on the governance board.\n\nWill you be involved somehow in addition to just governance? I think that would be really helpful for getting work pointed in the right direction getting the best people to be part of it. Ideally you’d come by and talk to them about progress once a month or whatever. We generically call people involved in some limited way in YC “part-time partners” (we do that with Peter Thiel for example, though at this point he’s very involved) but we could call it whatever you want. Even if you can’t really spend time on it but can be publicly supportive, that would still probably be really helpful for recruiting.\n\nI think the right plan with the regulation letter is to wait for this to get going and then I can just release it with a message like “now that we are doing this, I’ve been thinking a lot about what sort of constraints the world needs for safefy.” I’m happy to leave you off as a signatory. I also suspect that after it’s out more people will be willing to get behind it.\n\nSam", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-founding-2015", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Altman outlines a mission, governance structure and Musk's possible role for the proposed AI lab.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy", "safety" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 9, "bates": "EMX-000009", "slug": "2015-06-24-altman-to-musk", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2015-06-24-altman-to-musk" }, { "id": "2015-06-24-musk-to-altman", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2015-06-24", "time": "11:05 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "question", "body": "Agree on all", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-founding-2015", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Altman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk replies to Altman's June 24, 2015 outline of the proposed lab's mission and governance.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 10, "bates": "EMX-000010", "slug": "2015-06-24-musk-to-altman", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2015-06-24-musk-to-altman" }, { "id": "2015-08-16-bezos-to-amazon-employees-nyt-article", "person": "Jeff Bezos", "date": "2015-08-16", "time": null, "from": "Jeff Bezos", "to": [ "Amazon employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Response to New York Times article on Amazon workplace", "body": "Dear Amazonians,\n\nIf you haven’t already, I encourage you to give this (very long) New York Times article a careful read:\n\nhttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html\n\nI also encourage you to read this very different take by a current Amazonian:\n\nhttps://www.linkedin.com/pulse/amazonians-response-inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-nick-ciubotariu\n\nHere’s why I’m writing you. The NYT article prominently features anecdotes describing shockingly callous management practices, including people being treated without empathy while enduring family tragedies and serious health problems. The article doesn’t describe the Amazon I know or the caring Amazonians I work with every day. But if you know of any stories like those reported, I want you to escalate to HR. You can also email me directly at [redacted]. Even if it’s rare or isolated, our tolerance for any such lack of empathy needs to be zero.\n\nThe article goes further than reporting isolated anecdotes. It claims that our intentional approach is to create a soulless, dystopian workplace where no fun is had and no laughter heard. Again, I don’t recognize this Amazon and I very much hope you don’t, either. More broadly, I don’t think any company adopting the approach portrayed could survive, much less thrive, in today’s highly competitive tech hiring market. The people we hire here are the best of the best. You are recruited every day by other world-class companies, and you can work anywhere you want.\n\nI strongly believe that anyone working in a company that really is like the one described in the NYT would be crazy to stay. I know I would leave such a company.\n\nBut hopefully, you don’t recognize the company described. Hopefully, you’re having fun working with a bunch of brilliant teammates, helping invent the future, and laughing along the way.\n\nThank you,\nJeff", "musk_authored": true, "thread": null, "company": "Amazon", "audience": "All Amazon employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "\"Full memo: Jeff Bezos responds to brutal NYT story, says it doesn't represent the Amazon he leads,\" GeekWire (Aug 16 2015)", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2015id_/https://www.geekwire.com/2015/full-memo-jeff-bezos-responds-to-cutting-nyt-expose-says-tolerance-for-lack-of-empathy-needs-to-be-zero/", "case": null, "context": "The New York Times had published an article about Amazon's white-collar workplace culture. Bezos emailed all employees the same weekend, and GeekWire published the full text.", "tags": [ "culture", "management", "communication", "hiring" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 4, "bates": "JBX-000004", "slug": "2015-08-16-bezos-to-amazon-employees-nyt-article", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2015-08-16-bezos-to-amazon-employees-nyt-article" }, { "id": "2015-10-18-altman-to-musk-100mm-commitment", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2015-10-18", "time": "11:36 AM", "from": "Sam Altman", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [], "subject": "followup", "body": "Good seeing you a couple of weeks ago.\n\nAs discussed I think starting with a $100MM commitment (and leaving the time unspecified) is the way to go.\n\nEveryone we discussed but Gates is committed to donating. Hope to have him locked down next week. I am going to sit down with Zuck, but I still think it's probably too problematic given Facebook AI Research.\n\nTwo big new recruits that we expect to sign offer letters this week: John Schulman and Wojciech Zaremba.\n\nSpecific asks for you:\n\n1) Can you donate $30MM over the next 5 years?\n2) Can we call you an \"advisor\" but leave unspecified what you'll do in detail and figure it out as we go?\n3) Will you be on the Safety Board with me? I'd like it to eventually be 5 of us, adding the next 3 over the year or so. This will be the \"second key\" for releasing anything that could be dangerous.\n\nSam", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-governance-2015", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 351-8, Exhibit 5 to Hawes Declaration ISO Plaintiff's Opposition to OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; 2024MUSK-0005439-40), quoted in the Oct 19 2015 thread", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.351.8.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Altman asks Musk for a $100 million commitment, a $30 million donation over five years, an advisor title and a seat on a safety board; Musk replies the next day.", "tags": [ "ai", "fundraising", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 11, "bates": "EMX-000011", "slug": "2015-10-18-altman-to-musk-100mm-commitment", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2015-10-18-altman-to-musk-100mm-commitment" }, { "id": "2015-10-19-musk-to-altman-governance", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2015-10-19", "time": "3:27 AM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: followup", "body": "Let's discuss governance. This is critical. I don't want to fund something that goes in what turns out to be the wrong direction.\n\nBtw, great move on the continuity fund!", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-governance-2015", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Altman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 351-8, Exhibit 5 to Hawes Declaration ISO Plaintiff's Opposition to OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; 2024MUSK-0005439-40)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.351.8.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk replies to Altman's request for a $100 million commitment by asking to discuss governance before funding.", "tags": [ "ai", "fundraising", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 12, "bates": "EMX-000012", "slug": "2015-10-19-musk-to-altman-governance", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2015-10-19-musk-to-altman-governance" }, { "id": "2015-11-14-musk-to-altman-acton-quotes", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2015-11-14", "time": "5:19 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Great Acton quotes", "body": "“Liberty consists in the division of power. Absolutism, in concentration of power.”\n\nAnd\n\n\"There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men\"", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-founding-2015", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Altman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 379-61, Exhibit 6 to Hawes Declaration ISO Plaintiff's Opposition to OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; 2024MUSK-0010043)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.379.61.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk sends Altman two quotations attributed to Lord Acton, about a week before the OpenAI structure discussion; Altman replies that the second is one of his favorites.", "tags": [ "ai", "politics", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 13, "bates": "EMX-000013", "slug": "2015-11-14-musk-to-altman-acton-quotes", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2015-11-14-musk-to-altman-acton-quotes" }, { "id": "2015-11-20-altman-to-musk", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2015-11-20", "time": "10:48AM", "from": "Sam Altman", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: AI docs", "body": "Elon–\n\nPlan is to have you, me, and Ilya on the Board of Directors for YC AI, which will be a Delaware non-profit. We will also state that we plan to elect two other outsiders by majority vote of the Board.\n\nWe will write into the bylaws that any technology that potentially compromises the safety of humanity has to get consent of the Board to be released, and we will reference this in the researchers’ employment contracts.\n\nAt a high level, does that work for you?\n\nI’m cc’ing our GC [redacted] here–is there someone in your office he can work with on the details?\n\nSam", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-structure-2015", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024 (email also reproduced in OpenAI blog, Dec 13 2024)", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": null, "context": "Altman proposes Musk, Altman and Ilya Sutskever as the board of \"YC AI\", a Delaware nonprofit, with bylaws requiring board consent to release technology that could compromise humanity's safety.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy", "safety" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 14, "bates": "EMX-000014", "slug": "2015-11-20-altman-to-musk", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2015-11-20-altman-to-musk" }, { "id": "2015-11-20-musk-to-altman", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2015-11-20", "time": "12:29PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: AI docs", "body": "I think this should be independent from (but supported by) YC, not what sounds like a subsidiary.\n\nAlso, the structure doesn’t seem optimal. In particular, the YC stock along with a salary from the nonprofit muddies the alignment of incentives. Probably better to have a standard C corp with a parallel nonprofit.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-structure-2015", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Altman", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024 (email also reproduced in OpenAI blog, Dec 13 2024)", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": null, "context": "Musk responds to Altman's proposed structure for the lab and suggests it be independent of Y Combinator, with a C corporation and a parallel nonprofit.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 15, "bates": "EMX-000015", "slug": "2015-11-20-musk-to-altman", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2015-11-20-musk-to-altman" }, { "id": "2015-11-22-brockman-to-musk", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2015-11-22", "time": "6:11 PM", "from": "Greg Brockman", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [ "Sam Altman" ], "subject": "follow up from call", "body": "Hey Elon,\n\nNice chatting earlier.\n\nAs I mentioned on the phone, here's the latest early draft of the blog post: https://quip.com/6YnqA26RJgKr. (Sam, Ilya, and I are thinking about new names; would love any input from you.)\n\nObviously, there's a lot of other detail to change too, but I'm curious what you think of that kind of messaging. I don't want to pull any punches, and would feel comfortable broadcasting a stronger message if it feels right. I think it's mostly important that our messaging appeals to the research community (or at least the subset we want to hire). I hope for us to enter the field as a neutral group, looking to collaborate widely and shift the dialog towards being about humanity winning rather than any particular group or company. (I think that's the best way to bootstrap ourselves into being a leading research institution.)\n\nI've attached the offer letter template we've been using, with a salary of $175k. Here's the email template I've been sending people:\n\nAttached is your official YCR offer letter! Please sign and date the your convenience. There will be two more documents coming:\n\n- A separate letter offering you 0.25% of each YC batch you are present for (as compensation for being an Advisor to YC).\n\n- The At-Will Employment, Confidential Information, Invention Assignment and Arbitration Agreement\n\n(As this is the first batch of official offers we've done, please forgive any bumpiness along the way, and please let me know if anything looks weird!)\n\nWe plan to offer the following benefits:\n\n- Health, dental, and vision insurance\n\n- Unlimited vacation days with a recommendation of four weeks per year\n\n- Paid parental leave\n\n- Paid conference attendance when you are presenting YC AI work or asked to attend by YC AI\n\nWe're also happy to provide visa support. When you're ready to talk about visa-related questions, I'm happy to put you in touch with Kirsty from YC.\n\nPlease let me know if you have any questions — I'm available to chat any time! Looking forward to working together :).\n\n- gdb", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-launch-2015", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Greg Brockman sends Musk a draft announcement blog post, the offer letter template and the recruiting email template being used for the new lab.", "tags": [ "ai", "hiring", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 16, "bates": "EMX-000016", "slug": "2015-11-22-brockman-to-musk", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2015-11-22-brockman-to-musk" }, { "id": "2015-11-22-musk-to-altman-thought-summary", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2015-11-22", "time": "6:54 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Thought Summary", "body": "Had a great call with Greg. I'm super impressed with everyone so far. This is a great team.\n\nDoing this as an independent, pure play 501c3, but with a crystal clear focus on the positive advent of strong AI distributed widely to humanity does seem to make the most sense to me. Please correct me if we aren't on the same page. The company would still aim to bring in revenue in excess of costs at some point, but positive net revenue would just flow to cash reserves.\n\nOn the comp front, I think having the default approach be a cash salary and a cash bonus that vests over four years and stacks with refresher vesting bonuses every year is the way to go. People could, at their option, if you are amenable, convert that cash amount to YC stock. I'm also fine if they want to convert some or all to SpaceX stock. I can pretty much do what I want on the SpaceX side, as it is private (thank goodness).\n\nAlso, we will have insane amounts of real world sensor data -- several orders of magnitude greater than any other company -- at Tesla that the team could use when helpful.\n\nWas thinking a bit about names. It is always super hard to come up with one that doesn't suck and isn't already taken by someone that won't give it up. Least bad name I have thought of so far is Freemind. Conveys the sense that we are trying to create digital intelligence that will be freely available to all -- the opposite of Deepmind's one-ring-to-rule-them-all approach. Having \"mind\" in there isn't great, but the synonyms suck and their name has been subsumed in the public sphere by Google/Alphabet. You come up with anything?\n\nOn the time allocation front, I've decided to dedicate whatever amount of my time that is materially useful, even though it will come at some cost to SpaceX and Tesla. If I really believe that this is potentially the biggest near-term existential threat, then action should follow belief. That said, this probably amounts to half a day per week (higher in the beginning), with more time allocated when we hit a key decision point or crisis.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-name-structure-2015", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Altman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 379-61, Exhibit 6 to Hawes Declaration ISO Plaintiff's Opposition to OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; 2024MUSK-0010041-43)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.379.61.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk lays out his views on OpenAI's legal structure, compensation, the name 'Freemind' and the time he will commit.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy", "hiring", "fundraising" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 17, "bates": "EMX-000017", "slug": "2015-11-22-musk-to-altman-thought-summary", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2015-11-22-musk-to-altman-thought-summary" }, { "id": "2015-11-22-altman-to-musk-thought-summary", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2015-11-22", "time": "7:08 PM", "from": "Sam Altman", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: Thought Summary", "body": "Yes--I think an independent 501c3 is correct. Are you ok if, initially, it shares a building with YC and YC helps with legal stuff etc? I think that will save us a few months while we hire dedicated people.\n\nI like the idea of defaulting to a cash bonus that stacks each year--I'd independently come to that same conclusion after talking to Greg yesterday. Offering them the option to convert it to SpaceX or YC stock sounds great to me.\n\nMaking Tesla data available would be incredible. I think most YC companies will offer to do the same.\n\nFreemind seems pretty good to me but I'd to keep thinking--it may be a little too close to Deepmind. I really like the word free here thought--freethink? freemerge?\n\nBest idea I've had so far is Axon, which I think we could get .com for from TPG-Axon. Intelligence.com looks getable, but perhaps too generic.\n\nI'll keep thinking.\n\nHalf a day per week sounds awesome. I assume that if gets to the point where AGI looks like it's about to happen, you and I will both find a way to spend a lot of time on it. And if it seems further off, then I expect you'll be very busy getting to Mars.\n\nHave you given any thought to how you want to describe you involvement? I'm fine with anything from \"advisor\" to \"co-CEO\" but think it's probably good to have a clear answer.", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-name-structure-2015", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 379-61, Exhibit 6 to Hawes Declaration ISO Plaintiff's Opposition to OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; 2024MUSK-0010041-42)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.379.61.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Altman replies to Musk's 'Thought Summary' email on structure, compensation, names and Musk's title.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy", "hiring" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 18, "bates": "EMX-000018", "slug": "2015-11-22-altman-to-musk-thought-summary", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2015-11-22-altman-to-musk-thought-summary" }, { "id": "2015-11-22-musk-to-altman-axon-co-chair", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2015-11-22", "time": "7:32 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: Thought Summary", "body": "Great, sounds like we are independently following the same thought tracks.\n\nNo problem with YC support in the beginning. That's normal for a lot of companies, so I don't think it materially affects the neutrality position.\n\nThe \"mind' part of Freemind is partly an intentional philosophical counter to Deepmind and also, as mentioned, I couldn't find a synonym for \"mind\" that wasn't terrible.\n\nI like Axon as an option, although it does slightly sound like Google Brain or, more generally, that we think digital intelligence consists of brain emulation. Pretty much all names suck in the beginning though. Given several choices, I tend to favor names that convey the mission of the company and hopefully have a positive impact on recruitment.\n\nYeah, my role should be clear and I have to bite the bullet on admitting real involvement. This will come as a shocker to many, but so be it. Can't be lukewarm about this.\n\nIn terms of title, what about me as chair and you as CEO or us both as co-chairs? My main concern about being called a co-CEO, even if that is de facto true, is that it might cause problems at SpaceX and Tesla, where they know I'm already overbooked.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-name-structure-2015", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Altman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 379-61, Exhibit 6 to Hawes Declaration ISO Plaintiff's Opposition to OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; 2024MUSK-0010041)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.379.61.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk responds to Altman on YC support, the 'Freemind' and 'Axon' names, his own role and the chair/CEO titles.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 19, "bates": "EMX-000019", "slug": "2015-11-22-musk-to-altman-axon-co-chair", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2015-11-22-musk-to-altman-axon-co-chair" }, { "id": "2015-11-22-musk-to-brockman", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2015-11-22", "time": "7:48PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Greg Brockman" ], "cc": [ "Sam Altman" ], "subject": "follow up from call", "body": "Blog sounds good, assuming adjustments for neutrality vs being YC-centric.\n\nI'd favor positioning the blog to appeal a bit more to the general public -- there is a lot of value to having the public root for us to succeed -- and then having a longer, more detailed and inside-baseball version for recruiting, with a link to it at the end of the general public version.\n\nWe need to go with a much bigger number than $100M to avoid sounding hopeless relative to what Google or Facebook are spending. I think we should say that we are starting with a $1B funding commitment. This is real. I will cover whatever anyone else doesn't provide.\n\nTemplate seems fine, apart from shifting to a vesting cash bonus as default, which can optionally be turned into YC or potentially SpaceX (need to understand how much this will be) stock.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-launch-2015", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Greg Brockman, Sam Altman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk responds to Brockman's draft announcement, proposing a $1 billion funding commitment and a vesting cash bonus in the offer template.", "tags": [ "ai", "fundraising", "hiring", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 20, "bates": "EMX-000020", "slug": "2015-11-22-musk-to-brockman", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2015-11-22-musk-to-brockman" }, { "id": "2015-11-23-musk-to-altman-turing-name", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2015-11-23", "time": "3:50 AM (UTC)", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: Thought Summary", "body": "Great.\n\nSomething Turing-related that doesn't sound too ominous might be good. Want to avoid the Turing Test association though, as that sounds too much like we are replacing humans.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-name-structure-2015", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Altman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 379-61, Exhibit 6 to Hawes Declaration ISO Plaintiff's Opposition to OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; 2024MUSK-0010041)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.379.61.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk answers Altman's naming ideas, asking for a Turing-related name that avoids the Turing Test association.", "tags": [ "ai", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 21, "bates": "EMX-000021", "slug": "2015-11-23-musk-to-altman-turing-name", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2015-11-23-musk-to-altman-turing-name" }, { "id": "2015-12-08-musk-to-altman", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2015-12-08", "time": "9:29 AM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Draft opening paragraphs", "body": "It is super important to get the opening summary section right. This will be what everyone reads and what the press mostly quotes. The whole point of this release is to attract top talent. Not sure Greg totally gets that.\n\n---- OpenAI is a non-profit artificial intelligence research company with the goal of advancing digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unencumbered by an obligation to generate financial returns.\n\nThe underlying philosophy of our company is to disseminate AI technology as broadly as possible as an extension of all individual human wills, ensuring, in the spirit of liberty, that the power of digital intelligence is not overly concentrated and evolves toward the future desired by the sum of humanity.\n\nThe outcome of this venture is uncertain and the pay is low compared to what others will offer, but we believe the goal and the structure are right. We hope this is what matters most to the best in the field.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-launch-2015", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Altman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk sends Altman proposed opening paragraphs for the public announcement of OpenAI. Altman replied with a revised draft the same morning.", "tags": [ "ai", "communication", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 22, "bates": "EMX-000022", "slug": "2015-12-08-musk-to-altman", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2015-12-08-musk-to-altman" }, { "id": "2015-12-11-musk-to-altman", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2015-12-11", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "just got word...", "body": "Has Ilya come back with a solid yes?\n\nIf anyone seems at all uncertain, I’m happy to call them personally too. Have told Emma this is my absolute top priority 24/7.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-recruiting-2015", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Altman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk asks whether Ilya Sutskever has committed to joining OpenAI.", "tags": [ "ai", "hiring" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 23, "bates": "EMX-000023", "slug": "2015-12-11-musk-to-altman", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2015-12-11-musk-to-altman" }, { "id": "2015-12-11-altman-to-musk", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2015-12-11", "time": "11:30AM", "from": "Sam Altman", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [], "subject": "just got word...", "body": "that deepmind is going to give everyone in openAI massive counteroffers tomorrow to try to kill it.\n\ndo you have any objection to me proactively increasing everyone's comp by 100-200k per year? i think they're all motivated by the mission here but it would be a good signal to everyone we are going to take care of them over time.\n\nsounds like deepmind is planning to go to war over this, they've been literally cornering people at NIPS.", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-recruiting-2015", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Altman tells Musk that DeepMind is expected to make counteroffers to OpenAI researchers the next day and asks about raising compensation.", "tags": [ "ai", "hiring" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 24, "bates": "EMX-000024", "slug": "2015-12-11-altman-to-musk", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2015-12-11-altman-to-musk" }, { "id": "2015-12-11-altman-to-musk-2", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2015-12-11", "time": "12:15 PM", "from": "Sam Altman", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [], "subject": "just got word...", "body": "yes committed committed. just gave his word.", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-recruiting-2015", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Altman answers Musk's question about Sutskever's commitment.", "tags": [ "ai", "hiring" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 25, "bates": "EMX-000025", "slug": "2015-12-11-altman-to-musk-2", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2015-12-11-altman-to-musk-2" }, { "id": "2015-12-11-musk-to-altman-2", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2015-12-11", "time": "12:32 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "just got word...", "body": "awesome", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-recruiting-2015", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Altman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk replies to Altman's confirmation that Sutskever had committed.", "tags": [ "ai", "hiring" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 26, "bates": "EMX-000026", "slug": "2015-12-11-musk-to-altman-2", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2015-12-11-musk-to-altman-2" }, { "id": "2015-12-11-musk-to-sutskever", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2015-12-11", "time": "4:41 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Ilya Sutskever", "Pamela Vagata", "Vicki Cheung", "Diederik Kingma", "Andrej Karpathy", "John D. Schulman", "Trevor Blackwell", "Greg Brockman" ], "cc": [ "Sam Altman" ], "subject": "The OpenAI Company", "body": "Congratulations on a great beginning!\n\nWe are outmanned and outgunned by a ridiculous margin by organizations you know well, but we have right on our side and that counts for a lot. I like the odds.\n\nOur most important consideration is recruitment of the best people. The output of any company is the vector sum of the people within it. If we are able to attract the most talented people over time and our direction is correctly aligned, then OpenAI will prevail.\n\nTo this end, please give a lot of thought to who should join. If I can be helpful with recruitment or anything else, I am at your disposal. I would recommend paying close attention to people who haven't completed their grad or even undergrad, but are obviously brilliant. Better to have them join before they achieve a breakthrough.\n\nLooking forward to working together,\n\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-launch-2015", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "OpenAI founding research team", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk writes to the founding OpenAI team on the day OpenAI was publicly announced.", "tags": [ "ai", "hiring", "culture" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 27, "bates": "EMX-000027", "slug": "2015-12-11-musk-to-sutskever", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2015-12-11-musk-to-sutskever" }, { "id": "2016-01-02-redacted-to-musk", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-01-02", "time": "10:12 AM CST", "from": "[redacted]", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Fwd: congrats on the falcon 9", "body": "Hi Elon Happy new year to you, [redacted]! \n\nCongratulations on landing the Falcon 9, what an amazing achievement. Time to build out the fleet now! \n\nI've seen you (and Sam and other OpenAI people) doing a lot of interviews recently extolling the virtues of open sourcing AI, but I presume you realise that this is not some sort of panacea that will somehow magically solve the safety problem? There are many good arguments as to why the approach you are taking is actually very dangerous and in fact may increase the risk to the world. Some of the more obvious points are well articulated in this blog post, that I'm sure you've seen, but there are also other important considerations: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/12/17/should-ai-be-open/ \n\nI'd be interested to hear your counter-arguments to these points. \n\nBest,\n[redacted]\n\n[Elon forwards the above email to Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever and Greg Brockman on Jan 2, 2016 8:18AM]", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-open-source-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "An unnamed correspondent writes to Musk questioning the safety of open-sourcing AI. Musk forwarded it to Altman, Sutskever and Brockman on Jan 2, 2016 at 8:18 AM.", "tags": [ "ai", "safety" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 28, "bates": "EMX-000028", "slug": "2016-01-02-redacted-to-musk", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-01-02-redacted-to-musk" }, { "id": "2016-01-02-sutskever-to-musk", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-01-02", "time": "9:06 AM", "from": "Ilya Sutskever", "to": [ "Elon Musk", "Sam Altman", "Greg Brockman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Fwd: congrats on the falcon 9", "body": "The article is concerned with a hard takeoff scenario: if a hard takeoff occurs, and a safe AI is harder to build than an unsafe one, then by opensorucing everything, we make it easy for someone unscrupulous with access to overwhelming amount of hardware to build an unsafe AI, which will experience a hard takeoff. As we get closer to building AI, it will make sense to start being less open. The Open in openAI means that everyone should benefit from the fruits of AI after its built, but it's totally OK to not share the science (even though sharing everything is definitely the right strategy in the short and possibly medium term for recruitment purposes).", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-open-source-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Sutskever replies to the email Musk forwarded about open-sourcing AI.", "tags": [ "ai", "safety" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 29, "bates": "EMX-000029", "slug": "2016-01-02-sutskever-to-musk", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-01-02-sutskever-to-musk" }, { "id": "2016-01-02-musk-to-sutskever", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-01-02", "time": "9:11 AM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Ilya Sutskever" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Fwd: congrats on the falcon 9", "body": "Yup", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-open-source-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Ilya Sutskever", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk replies to Sutskever's explanation of OpenAI's approach to openness.", "tags": [ "ai", "safety" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 30, "bates": "EMX-000030", "slug": "2016-01-02-musk-to-sutskever", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-01-02-musk-to-sutskever" }, { "id": "2016-02-18-sutskever-to-teller-musk-meetings", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-02-18", "time": "11:28 AM", "from": "Ilya Sutskever", "to": [ "Sam Teller", "Elon Musk", "Greg Brockman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Regular infrequent meetings with Elon", "body": "Hi Sam,\n\nGreg and I think that it will be useful for OpenAI's long term success if the two of us had a 30 minute meeting with Elon every two weeks. Elon has built incredible organizations before, and the more of his lessons and experience could be applied to OpenAI, the more effective we will be.\n\nPlease let me know if it is possible.\n\nIlya", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-deepmind-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Teller, Elon Musk, Greg Brockman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 351-33, Exhibit 30 to Hawes Declaration ISO Plaintiff's Opposition to OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; 2024MUSK-0006119)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.351.33.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Sutskever asks for a recurring 30-minute meeting with Musk; Musk answers that afternoon.", "tags": [ "ai", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 31, "bates": "EMX-000031", "slug": "2016-02-18-sutskever-to-teller-musk-meetings", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-02-18-sutskever-to-teller-musk-meetings" }, { "id": "2016-02-18-musk-to-sutskever-puppy-bowl", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-02-18", "time": "2:46 PM (19:46 UTC)", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Ilya Sutskever", "Sam Teller", "Greg Brockman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "RE: Regular infrequent meetings with Elon", "body": "I think I should probably do this every week. My dinner with Demis was extremely alarming. I feel like they are playing the Super Bowl and we are playing the Puppy Bowl. Unless we want to have our ass handed to us, we need to step up our game dramatically.\n\nLet's have a conf call later today with the key people of OpenAI later today, if possible, otherwise tomorrow.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-deepmind-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Ilya Sutskever, Sam Teller, Greg Brockman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 351-33, Exhibit 30 to Hawes Declaration ISO Plaintiff's Opposition to OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; 2024MUSK-0006119)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.351.33.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk responds to Sutskever's meeting request after a dinner with DeepMind's Demis Hassabis, asking for a call with OpenAI's key people.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 32, "bates": "EMX-000032", "slug": "2016-02-18-musk-to-sutskever-puppy-bowl", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-02-18-musk-to-sutskever-puppy-bowl" }, { "id": "2016-02-19-musk-to-sutskever", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-02-19", "time": "12:05 AM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Ilya Sutskever", "Greg Brockman", "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: Followup thoughts", "body": "Frankly, what surprises me is that the AI community is taking this long to figure out concepts. It doesn't sound super hard. High-level linking of a large number of deep nets sounds like the right approach or at least a key part of the right approach. [redacted]\n\nThe probability of DeepMind creating a deep mind increases every year. Maybe it doesn't get past 50% in 2 to 3 years, but it likely moves past 10%. That doesn't sound crazy to me, given their resources.\n\nIn any event, I have found that it is far better to overestimate than underestimate competitors.\n\nThis doesn't mean we should rush out and hire weak talent. I agree that nothing good would be achieved by that. What we need to do is redouble our efforts to seek out the best people in the world, do whatever it takes to bring them on board and imbue the company with a high sense of urgency.\n\nIt will be important for OpenAI to achieve something significant in the next 6 to 9 months to show that we are for real. Doesn't need to be a whopper breakthrough, but it should be enough for key talent around the world to sit up and take notice.\n\n[redacted]", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-followup-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, Sam Altman", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024 (email also reproduced in OpenAI blog, Dec 13 2024)", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": null, "context": "Musk writes to OpenAI's leaders about competition with DeepMind, recruiting and the need for results within 6 to 9 months. Parts of the original email are redacted in the exhibit.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy", "hiring", "deadlines" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 33, "bates": "EMX-000033", "slug": "2016-02-19-musk-to-sutskever", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-02-19-musk-to-sutskever" }, { "id": "2016-02-21-brockman-to-musk", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-02-21", "time": "11:34 AM", "from": "Greg Brockman", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [ "Sam Altman" ], "subject": "compensation framework", "body": "Hi all,\n\nWe're currently doing our first round of full-time offers post-founding. It's obviously super important to get these right, as the implications are very long-term. I don't yet feel comfortable making decisions here on my own, and would love any guidance.\n\nHere's what we're currently doing:\n\nFounding team: $275k salary + 25bps of YC stock\n\n- Also have option of switching permanently to $125k annual bonus or equivalent in YC or SpaceX stock. I don't know if anyone's taken us up on this.\n\nNew offers: $175k annual salary + $125k annual bonus || equivalent in YC or SpaceX stock. Bonus is subject to performance review, where you may get 0% or significantly greater than 100%.\n\nSpecial cases: gdb + Ilya + Trevor\n\nThe plan is to keep a mostly flat salary, and use the bonus multiple as a way to reward strong performers.\n\nSome notes:\n\n- We use a 20% annualized discount for the 8 years until the stock becomes liquid, the $125k bonus equates to 12bps in YC. So the terminal value is more like $750k. This number sounds a lot more impressive, though obviously it's hard to value exactly.\n\n- The founding team was initially offered $175k each. The day after the lab launched, we proactively increased everyone's salary by $100k, telling them that we are financially committed to them as the lab becomes successful, and asking for a personal promise to ignore all counteroffers and trust we'll take care of them.\n\n- We're currently interviewing Ian Goodfellow from Brain, who is one of the top 2 scientists in the field we don't have (the other being Alex Graves, who is a DeepMind loyalist). He's the best person on Brain, so Google will fight for him. We're grandfathering him into the founding team offer.\n\nSome salary datapoints:\n\n- John was offered $250k all-in annualized at DeepMind, thought he could negotiate to $300k easily.\n\n- Wojciech was verbally offered ~$1.25M/year at FAIR (no concrete letter though)\n\n- Andrew Tulloch is getting $800k/year at FB. (A lot is stock which is vesting.)\n\n- Ian Goodfellow is currently getting $165k cash + $600k stock/year at Google.\n\n- Apple is a bit desperate and offering people $550k cash (plus stock, presumably). I don't think anyone good is saying yes.\n\nTwo concrete candidates that are on my mind:\n\n- Andrew is very close to saying yes. However, he's concerned about taking such a large paycut.\n\n- Ian has stated he's not primarily concerned with money, but the Bay Area is expensive / wants to make sure he can buy a house. I don't know what will happen if/when Google starts throwing around the numbers they threw at Ilya.\n\nMy immediate questions:\n\n1. I expect Andrew will try to negotiate up. Should we stick to his offer, and tell him to only join if he's excited enough to take that kind of paycut (and that others have left more behind)?\n\n2. Ian will be interviewing + (I'm sure) getting an offer on Wednesday. Should we consider his offer final, or be willing to slide depending on what Google offers?\n\n3. Depending on the answers to 1 + 2, I'm wondering if this flat strategy makes sense. If we keep it, I feel we'll have to really sell people on the bonus multiplier. Maybe one option would be using a signing bonus as a lever to get people to sign?\n\n4. Very secondary, but our intern comp is also below market: $9k/mo. (FB offers $9k + free housing, Google offers like $11k/mo all-in.) Comp is much less important to interns than to FT people, since the experience is primary. But I think we may have lost a candidate who was on the edge to this. Given the dollar/hour is so much lower than for FT, should we consider increasing the amount?\n\nI'm happy to chat about this at any time.\n\n- gdb", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-compensation-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk, Sam Altman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Brockman describes OpenAI's current offer structure and competing offers for researchers, and asks Musk for guidance on compensation.", "tags": [ "ai", "hiring", "cost" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 34, "bates": "EMX-000034", "slug": "2016-02-21-brockman-to-musk", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-02-21-brockman-to-musk" }, { "id": "2016-02-22-musk-to-brockman", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-02-22", "time": "12:09 AM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Greg Brockman" ], "cc": [ "Sam Altman" ], "subject": "compensation framework", "body": "We need to do what it takes to get the top talent. Let's go higher. If, at some point, we need to revisit what existing people are getting paid, that's fine.\n\nEither we get the best people in the world or we will get whipped by Deepmind.\n\nWhatever it takes to bring on ace talent is fine by me.\n\nDeepmind is causing me extreme mental stress. If they win, it will be really bad news with their one mind to rule the world philosophy. They are obviously making major progress and well they should, given the talent level over there.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-compensation-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Greg Brockman, Sam Altman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk responds to Brockman's compensation questions.", "tags": [ "ai", "hiring", "cost" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 35, "bates": "EMX-000035", "slug": "2016-02-22-musk-to-brockman", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-02-22-musk-to-brockman" }, { "id": "2016-02-25-altman-to-musk-20mm-a-year", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-02-25", "time": "6:13 PM", "from": "Sam Altman", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [], "subject": "cash", "body": "I think we're going to need more than I was originally budgeting given a) the salaries in the field and b) the speed at which you want to grow.\n\nCan you do $20MM a year for the each of the next 3 years? I can do $10MM/year, and we'll have brought $5MM a year from other donors.\n\nSam", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-funding-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 391-13, Exhibit 55 to Wiener Declaration ISO OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (public redacted version filed Jan 16 2026; BMO_00000103-104)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.391.13.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Altman asks Musk to raise his annual funding to $20 million for each of the next three years.", "tags": [ "ai", "fundraising", "cost" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 36, "bates": "EMX-000036", "slug": "2016-02-25-altman-to-musk-20mm-a-year", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-02-25-altman-to-musk-20mm-a-year" }, { "id": "2016-02-25-musk-to-altman-agreed", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-02-25", "time": "6:30 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: cash", "body": "Agreed\n\nYes", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-funding-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Altman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 391-13, Exhibit 55 to Wiener Declaration ISO OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (public redacted version filed Jan 16 2026; BMO_00000104)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.391.13.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk agrees to Altman's request for $20 million a year.", "tags": [ "ai", "fundraising" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 37, "bates": "EMX-000037", "slug": "2016-02-25-musk-to-altman-agreed", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-02-25-musk-to-altman-agreed" }, { "id": "2016-02-25-musk-to-altman-gong-5m-per-quarter", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-02-25", "time": "6:36 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Altman", "Ronald Gong" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: cash", "body": "Ron, we need to wire $5M per quarter to OpenAI, starting April 1. This is a non-profit.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-funding-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Altman, Ronald Gong (Musk's wealth manager at BMO/myCFO)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 391-13, Exhibit 55 to Wiener Declaration ISO OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (public redacted version filed Jan 16 2026; BMO_00000103)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.391.13.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk instructs his wealth manager to wire $5 million per quarter to OpenAI beginning April 1, 2016.", "tags": [ "ai", "fundraising", "cost" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 38, "bates": "EMX-000038", "slug": "2016-02-25-musk-to-altman-gong-5m-per-quarter", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-02-25-musk-to-altman-gong-5m-per-quarter" }, { "id": "2016-03-16-ellison-to-all-oracle-employees-accelerated-buying", "person": "Larry Ellison", "date": "2016-03-16", "time": null, "from": "Larry Ellison", "to": [ "All Oracle Employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "To: All Oracle Employees\n\nAs many of you know, the move to the Cloud is a generational shift in technology that is the biggest and most important opportunity in our company's history. Oracle embarked on this initiative over ten years ago when we began rewriting all of our software as integrated cloud services that are easy to own and use and also provide the agility, reliability, scalability and security that customers expect. We now have the leading and most complete set of cloud services in the industry, and more than 10,000 of our customers around the world are already using them to help run their businesses.\n\nIn order for us to reach our goal of being the best company to do business with in the Cloud and further propel our competitive differentiation, we have been deploying our own cloud services internally and revamping how we sell to and care for our customers. We are excited to share with you today the launch of the Oracle Accelerated Buying Experience, a major component of our Cloud transformation.\n\nThe Oracle Accelerated Buying Experience enables customers to effortlessly purchase our cloud services with the click of a button. Through the use of our SaaS applications, including Sales, Service and Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ) Clouds, we can now complete orders significantly faster than anyone else in the Cloud. The result is less time processing transactions and more time focusing on meeting the needs of our customers. In addition to deploying our own cloud services, other changes that are making the Oracle Accelerated Buying Experience possible include\n\nEmpowering the field with more contracting flexibility;\nReducing and eliminating required approvals;\nSimplifying and shortening the order documents;\nProviding the ability for customers to self-procure; and\nDelivering extensive help throughout the process.\n\nMore detailed information on how to take advantage of this transformational initiative can be located on the Accelerated Buying Experience portal. In addition, we are planning to make the Oracle Accelerated Buying Experience available for License and other non-Cloud transactions in the near future. These important changes will help us continue to be the most successful enterprise technology vendor in the world.\n\nLarry Ellison\nChairman and CTO\n\nSafra Catz\nCEO\n\nMark Hurd\nCEO", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "oracle-staff-memos", "company": "Oracle", "audience": "All Oracle employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Julie Bort, \"Here's the email Larry Ellison just sent to employees about a big change at Oracle,\" Business Insider, Mar. 16, 2016 (Wayback Machine copy)", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2016id_/http://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-rolls-out-new-sales-program-internal-email-2016-3", "case": null, "context": "Oracle launched its Accelerated Buying Experience for cloud purchases on March 16, 2016. The company-wide email announcing it was signed by Ellison, Safra Catz and Mark Hurd.", "tags": [ "product", "strategy", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 16, "bates": "LEX-000016", "slug": "2016-03-16-ellison-to-all-oracle-employees-accelerated-buying", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2016-03-16-ellison-to-all-oracle-employees-accelerated-buying" }, { "id": "2016-03-21-brockman-to-musk", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-03-21", "time": "12:53 AM", "from": "Greg Brockman", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [ "Sam Teller" ], "subject": "wired article", "body": "Hi Elon,\n\nI was interviewed for a Wired article on OpenAI, and the fact checker sent me some questions. Wanted to sync with you on two in particular to make sure they sound reasonable / aligned with what what you'd say:\n\nWould it be accurate to say that OpenAI is giving away ALL of its research?\n\nAt any given time, we will take the action that is likely to most strongly benefit the world. In the short term, we believe the best approach is giving away our research. But longer-term, this might not be the best approach: for example, it might be better not to immediately share a potentially dangerous technology. In all cases, we will be giving away all the benefits of all of our research, and want those to accrue to the world rather than any one institution.\n\nDoes OpenAI believe that getting the most sophisticated AI possible in as many hands as possible is humanity's best chance at preventing a too-smart AI in private hands that could find a way to unleash itself on the world for malicious ends?\n\nWe believe that using AI to extend individual human wills is the most promising path to ensuring AI remains beneficial. This is appealing because if there are many agents with about the same capabilities they could keep any one bad actor in check. But I wouldn't claim we have all the answers: instead, we're building an organization that can both seek those answers, and take the best possible action regardless of what the answer turns out to be.\n\nThanks!\n\n- gdb", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-wired-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk, Sam Teller", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Brockman asks Musk to confirm two answers he drafted for a Wired fact-checker about OpenAI.", "tags": [ "ai", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 39, "bates": "EMX-000039", "slug": "2016-03-21-brockman-to-musk", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-03-21-brockman-to-musk" }, { "id": "2016-03-21-musk-to-brockman", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-03-21", "time": "6:53:47 AM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Greg Brockman" ], "cc": [ "Sam Teller" ], "subject": "wired article", "body": "Sounds good", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-wired-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Greg Brockman, Sam Teller", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk replies to Brockman's draft answers for the Wired article.", "tags": [ "ai", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 40, "bates": "EMX-000040", "slug": "2016-03-21-musk-to-brockman", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-03-21-musk-to-brockman" }, { "id": "2016-04-13-musk-to-huang-dgx-1", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-04-13", "time": "12:01 AM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Jensen Huang" ], "cc": [], "subject": "DGX-1", "body": "can OpenAI buy one of the early units? The team was asking me about this earlier today.\n\nOpenAI is unaffiliated with Tesla. It is a non-profit funded by me and a few others with the goal of developing safe AGI (and hopefully not paving the road to hell with good intentions).", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-nvidia-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Jensen Huang (Nvidia)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 379-74, Exhibit 34 to Hawes Declaration ISO Plaintiff's Opposition to OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; 2024MUSK-0004103), quoted in the Apr 20 2016 reply", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.379.74.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk asks Nvidia's CEO whether OpenAI can buy one of the first DGX-1 supercomputers.", "tags": [ "ai", "engineering", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 41, "bates": "EMX-000041", "slug": "2016-04-13-musk-to-huang-dgx-1", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-04-13-musk-to-huang-dgx-1" }, { "id": "2016-04-19-huang-to-musk-dgx-1", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-04-19", "time": "10:11 AM", "from": "Jensen Huang", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: DGX-1", "body": "I've not forgotten.\n\nThis is the first supercomputer that's selling itself off the web! Demand coming from all over.\n\nFirst shipment starts end next month. And already taking orders for delivery in September.\n\nI will make sure OpenAI gets one of the first ones.", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-nvidia-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 379-74, Exhibit 34 to Hawes Declaration ISO Plaintiff's Opposition to OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; 2024MUSK-0004103)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.379.74.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Nvidia's CEO says OpenAI will get one of the first DGX-1 units.", "tags": [ "ai", "engineering" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 42, "bates": "EMX-000042", "slug": "2016-04-19-huang-to-musk-dgx-1", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-04-19-huang-to-musk-dgx-1" }, { "id": "2016-04-20-musk-to-huang-much-appreciated", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-04-20", "time": "8:20 AM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Jensen Huang" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: DGX-1", "body": "Much appreciated", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-nvidia-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Jensen Huang (Nvidia)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 379-74, Exhibit 34 to Hawes Declaration ISO Plaintiff's Opposition to OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; 2024MUSK-0004103)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.379.74.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk thanks Nvidia's CEO for the commitment of an early DGX-1 for OpenAI.", "tags": [ "ai", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 43, "bates": "EMX-000043", "slug": "2016-04-20-musk-to-huang-much-appreciated", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-04-20-musk-to-huang-much-appreciated" }, { "id": "2016-04-27-musk-to-teller", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-04-27", "time": "12:24 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Teller" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: Maureen Dowd", "body": "History unequivocally illustrates that a powerful technology is a double-edged sword. It would be foolish to assume that AI, arguably the most powerful of all technologies, only has a single edge.\n\nThe recent example of Microsoft's AI chatbot shows how quickly it can turn incredibly negative. The wise course of action is to approach the advent of AI with caution and ensure that its power is widely distributed and not controlled by any one company or person.\n\nThat is why we created OpenAI.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "musk-ai-press-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Teller", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk gives Teller language to use in response to the New York Times question about Zuckerberg's comments on AI.", "tags": [ "ai", "communication", "safety" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 44, "bates": "EMX-000044", "slug": "2016-04-27-musk-to-teller", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-04-27-musk-to-teller" }, { "id": "2016-04-27-thompson-to-teller", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-04-27", "time": "7:25 AM", "from": "Alex Thompson", "to": [ "Sam Teller" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: Maureen Dowd", "body": "Hi Sam,\n\nI hope you are having a great day and I apologize for interrupting it with another question. Maureen wanted to see if Mr. Musk had any reaction to some of Mr. Zuckerberg's public comments since their interview. In particular, his labelling of Mr. Musk as \"hysterical\" for his A.I. fears and lectured those who \"fearmonger\" about the dangers of A.I.. I have included more details below of Mr. Zuckerberg's comments.\n\nAsked in Germany recently about Musk’s forebodings, Zuckerberg called them “hysterical’’ and praised A.I. breakthroughs, including one system he claims can make cancer diagnoses for skin lesions on a mobile phone with the accuracy of “the best dermatologist.’’\n\n“Unless we really mess something up,’’ he said, the machines will always be subservient, not “superhuman.”\n\n“I think we can build A.I. so it works for us and helps us...Some people fearmonger about how A.I. is a huge danger, but that seems farfetched to me and much less likely than disasters due to widespread disease, violence, etc.’’ Or as he put his philosophy at an April Facebook developers conference: “Choose hope over fear.’’\n\n--\nAlex Thompson\nThe New York Times", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "musk-ai-press-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Teller, then forwarded to Elon Musk", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "A New York Times reporter writing for Maureen Dowd asks Musk's office for a reaction to Mark Zuckerberg's comments calling Musk's AI concerns \"hysterical\". Teller forwarded it to Musk.", "tags": [ "ai", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 45, "bates": "EMX-000045", "slug": "2016-04-27-thompson-to-teller", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-04-27-thompson-to-teller" }, { "id": "2016-06-13-musk-to-birchall-pioneer-building", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-06-13", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Jared Birchall" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Pioneer building lease", "body": "This building will be used for more than OpenAI. My control of OpenAI is limited. There is more than one donor and there will ultimately be many donors.\n\nI'm personally on the hook for the building, so it needs to be a building over which I have full control.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-pioneer-building-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Jared Birchall (Musk family office)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 391-8, Exhibit 38 to Wiener Declaration ISO OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (public redacted version filed Jan 16 2026; BMO_00000800-801; forwarded by Birchall to Musk's wealth managers)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.391.8.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk replies to his family-office head about who should sign the lease for the Pioneer Building in San Francisco, which housed OpenAI.", "tags": [ "ai", "management", "cost" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 46, "bates": "EMX-000046", "slug": "2016-06-13-musk-to-birchall-pioneer-building", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-06-13-musk-to-birchall-pioneer-building" }, { "id": "2016-06-28-zuckerberg-to-systrom-kodachrome", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2016-06-28", "time": null, "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "Kevin Systrom" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Kodachrome", "body": "[couldn't] promise we'll have additional budget to continue additional out-of-band recruiting in 2017.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ftc-trial-record", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Kevin Systrom, Instagram", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, FTC's Reply to Meta's Response to the FTC's Counterstatement of Material Facts, ECF No. 379-2, p. 1997 (quoting PX3463, FB_FTC_CID_06209888, at -888)", "source_url": "https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/FTCReplytoMetaResponse-CounterstatementofMaterialFacts.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Quoted in the FTC's filing from Zuckerberg's June 28, 2016 email to Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom about recruiting budget.", "tags": [ "hiring", "cost", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 38, "bates": "MZX-000038", "slug": "2016-06-28-zuckerberg-to-systrom-kodachrome", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2016-06-28-zuckerberg-to-systrom-kodachrome" }, { "id": "2016-07-09-musk-to-birchall-openai-payments", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-07-09", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Jared Birchall" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: Weekly Update", "body": "Did we pay the last OpenAI installment at beginning of quarter? If so, we should continue on that track. I committed to $5M per quarter. It's fine to take the actions necessary for that support. Just need to know in advance if anything is going to generate press.\n\nPlease ask for (ideally electronic) copies of everything at OpenAI, including all offer letters plus anything else and lmk if there is anything concerning. Who is responsible for administrative work there? I have had very little bandwidth to think about the company and am a little worried that it is being managed as an extension of YCombinator. The YC stock as comp for many who joined obviously incents them in that direction. Does everyone have YC stock? That would be weird.\n\nWhen exactly does the building become available and the rent start? I would like to use part of the building for Neuralink at some point, so no YC stuff.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-funding-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Jared Birchall (Musk family office)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 391-42, Exhibit 18 to Hawes Declaration ISO Plaintiff's Opposition to OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (public redacted version filed Jan 16 2026; 2024MUSK-0009615), quoted in Birchall's Jul 10 2016 reply", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.391.42.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Replying to his family-office head's weekly update, Musk confirms the $5 million quarterly commitment and asks for OpenAI's documents.", "tags": [ "ai", "management", "cost" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 47, "bates": "EMX-000047", "slug": "2016-07-09-musk-to-birchall-openai-payments", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-07-09-musk-to-birchall-openai-payments" }, { "id": "2016-07-10-musk-to-birchall-credibility", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-07-10", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Jared Birchall" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: Weekly Update", "body": "So I haven't sent anything to OpenAI?\n\nThat's a really big deal. My credibility is at stake here.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-funding-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Jared Birchall (Musk family office)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 391-42, Exhibit 18 to Hawes Declaration ISO Plaintiff's Opposition to OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (public redacted version filed Jan 16 2026; 2024MUSK-0009615), quoted in Birchall's Jul 10 2016 reply", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.391.42.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk reacts on learning that no payment had yet gone to OpenAI because the organization had no entity able to receive it.", "tags": [ "ai", "management", "cost" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 48, "bates": "EMX-000048", "slug": "2016-07-10-musk-to-birchall-credibility", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-07-10-musk-to-birchall-credibility" }, { "id": "2016-08-29-altman-to-musk-microsoft-donation", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-08-29", "time": "10:00 AM", "from": "Sam Altman", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [], "subject": "microsoft/openAI", "body": "I have negotiated a $50 million compute donation from them over the next 3 years!\n\nDo you have any reason not to like them, or care about us switching over from Amazon?", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-microsoft-2016-08", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 379-38, Exhibit 4 to Cohen Declaration ISO Microsoft's Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; 2024MUSK-0008763), quoted in the Aug 30 2016 reply", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.379.38.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Altman reports a $50 million Microsoft compute donation over three years and asks whether Musk objects to moving from Amazon.", "tags": [ "ai", "cost" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 49, "bates": "EMX-000049", "slug": "2016-08-29-altman-to-musk-microsoft-donation", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-08-29-altman-to-musk-microsoft-donation" }, { "id": "2016-08-29-musk-to-altman-microsoft-marketing", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-08-29", "time": "10:15 AM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: microsoft/openAI", "body": "I'm ok with this only if they don't use it in marketing. I would also like to see the exact terms and conditions.\nGifts are only as good as the T&C.\n\nWhat happened to Amazon?\n\nI think Jeff is a bit of a tool and Satya is not, so I slightly prefer Microsoft, but I hate their marketing dept.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-microsoft-2016-08", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Altman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 379-38, Exhibit 4 to Cohen Declaration ISO Microsoft's Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; 2024MUSK-0008763), quoted in the Aug 30 2016 reply", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.379.38.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk answers Altman's news of a Microsoft compute donation, asking what happened to Amazon and about marketing terms.", "tags": [ "ai", "cost", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 50, "bates": "EMX-000050", "slug": "2016-08-29-musk-to-altman-microsoft-marketing", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-08-29-musk-to-altman-microsoft-marketing" }, { "id": "2016-08-29-altman-to-musk-amazon-tc", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-08-29", "time": "10:18 AM", "from": "Sam Altman", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: microsoft/openAI", "body": "Amazon started really dicking us around on the T+C, especially on marketing commits.\n\nAnd their offering wasn't that good technically anyway.\n\nWill send you detailed terms by end of this week or so, still going back on forth on that part. So far looking clean though.", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-microsoft-2016-08", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 379-38, Exhibit 4 to Cohen Declaration ISO Microsoft's Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; 2024MUSK-0008763)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.379.38.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Altman explains why OpenAI moved away from Amazon.", "tags": [ "ai", "cost" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 51, "bates": "EMX-000051", "slug": "2016-08-29-altman-to-musk-amazon-tc", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-08-29-altman-to-musk-amazon-tc" }, { "id": "2016-08-30-musk-to-altman-call-satya", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-08-30", "time": "6:25 AM (UTC)", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: microsoft/openAI", "body": "Sounds good\n\nI will call Satya if we get to decent terms. A simple text blog expressing appreciation of Microsoft's donation on our website will help them a lot. They can always point people to that.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-microsoft-2016-08", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Altman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 379-38, Exhibit 4 to Cohen Declaration ISO Microsoft's Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; 2024MUSK-0008763)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.379.38.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk agrees to call Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella if the terms are decent.", "tags": [ "ai", "cost", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 52, "bates": "EMX-000052", "slug": "2016-08-30-musk-to-altman-call-satya", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-08-30-musk-to-altman-call-satya" }, { "id": "2016-09-ellison-to-oracle-staff-derek-williams", "person": "Larry Ellison", "date": "2016-09", "time": null, "from": "Larry Ellison", "to": [ "Oracle employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "[...] I first met Derek 28 years ago, in 1998 [...] hired to work in Oracle UK. Two years later, Derek was promoted and started running Oracle's Asia Pacific Region, which he helped build from the ground up to its current configuration of 75 offices in 29 countries.\n\n[...] It's impossible for me to comprehend how I could speak with Derek on a Monday call and then be told I'll never speak with him again. His sudden and unexpected death caught all of us unprepared. I have lost a dear friend of nearly three decades. Life is a fragile thing.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "oracle-staff-memos", "company": "Oracle", "audience": "Oracle employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Julie Bort, \"Oracle's Larry Ellison emailed a touching tribute when an employee, his friend, died,\" Business Insider, Oct. 8, 2016 (edited version of the email)", "source_url": "https://www.businessinsider.com/oracles-larry-ellison-emailed-a-touching-tribute-2016-10", "case": null, "context": "Derek Williams, an Oracle executive vice president who ran its Asia Pacific region, died on July 23, 2016. About a month before the article, Ellison sent a company-wide email in his memory; Business Insider printed an edited version.", "tags": [ "communication", "culture" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 17, "bates": "LEX-000017", "slug": "2016-09-ellison-to-oracle-staff-derek-williams", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2016-09-ellison-to-oracle-staff-derek-williams" }, { "id": "2016-09-16-musk-to-altman-2", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-09-16", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [ "Sam Teller" ], "subject": "MSFT hosting deal", "body": "We should just do this low key. No certainty either way. No contract.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-microsoft-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Altman, Sam Teller", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk follows up on the Microsoft compute arrangement.", "tags": [ "ai", "cost", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 53, "bates": "EMX-000053", "slug": "2016-09-16-musk-to-altman-2", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-09-16-musk-to-altman-2" }, { "id": "2016-09-16-altman-to-musk", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-09-16", "time": "2:37 PM", "from": "Sam Altman", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [ "Sam Teller" ], "subject": "MSFT hosting deal", "body": "Here are the MSFT terms. $60MM of compute for $10MM, and input from us on what they deploy in the cloud. LMK if you have any feedback.\n\nSam\n\nMicrosoft/OpenAI Terms\n\nMicrosoft and OpenAI: Accelerate the development of deep learning on Azure and CNTK\n\nThis non-binding term sheet (“Term Sheet”) between Microsoft Corporation (“Microsoft”) and OpenAI (“OpenAI”) sets forth the terms for a potential business relationship between the parties. This Term Sheet is intended to form a basis of discussion and does not state all matters upon which agreement must be reached before executing a legally binding commercial agreement (“Commercial Agreement”). The existence and terms of this Term Sheet, and all discussions related thereto or to a Commercial Agreement, are Confidential Information as defined and governed by the Non-Disclosure Agreement between the parties dated 17 March, 2016 (“NDA”). Except for the binding nature of the foregoing confidentiality obligations, this Term Sheet is non-binding.\n\nDeal Purpose\nOpenAI is focused on deep learning in such a way as to benefit humanity. Microsoft and OpenAI desire to partner to enable the acceleration of deep learning on Microsoft Azure. Towards this goal, Microsoft will provide OpenAI with Azure compute capabilities at a favorable price that would enable OpenAI to continue their mission effectively.\n\nDeal Business Goal\nMicrosoft\n· Accelerate deep learning environment on Azure\n· Attract a net new audience of next generation developers\n· Joint PR and evangelism of deep learning on Azure\nOpenAI\n· Deeply discounted GPU compute offering over the deal term (3 years) for use in their nonprofit research: $60m of Compute for $10m\n· Joint PR and evangelism of OpenAI on Azure\n\nParties (Legal entities) Microsoft OpenAI\n\nProposed Deal Execution Date September 19, 2016\n\nProposed Deal Commencement Date Same as deal execution date\n\nLegal Authoring Microsoft holds the pen.\n\nDeal Term 3 years\n\nEngineering Terms\n- Compute: Microsoft will provide OpenAI GPU core hours of compute at the agreed upon price for OpenAI’s workloads to run in Azure.\n- Geographic Location: Geographic location decisions will be at Microsoft discretion depending on capacity and availability. Microsoft will also be responsible for sharing the deployment strategy and timelines with OpenAI.\n- SLA: For all Virtual Machines that have two or more instances deployed in the same availability set, Microsoft guarantee OpenAI will have virtual machine connectivity to at least one instance at least 99.95% of the time. Microsoft will be held accountable to the SLA’s provided on https://azure.microsoft.com/enus/support/legal/sla/virtual-machines/v1_2/\n\n- Evaluation, Evangelization, and Usage of CNTK v2, Azure Batch and HD-Insight: OpenAI will evaluate CNTK v2, Azure Batch, and HDInsight for their research, provide feedback on how Microsoft can improve these products. OpenAI will work with Microsoft to evangelize these products to their research and developer ecosystems, and evangelize Microsoft Azure as their preferred public cloud provider. At their sole discretion, and as it makes sense for their research, OpenAI will adopt these products\n\n- Ramp: Microsoft and OpenAI will work together for creating a ramp plan that balances capacity per clusters. The initial timeline for ramp is a minimum of 30 days that will be augmented by Microsoft’s capacity expansion plans in the coming months.\n\n- Capacity: OpenAI will be given an allocation of capacity in the preview cluster (located in US South Central) for short term requirements and Microsoft will provide quota access to the subsequent K80 GPU clusters that go live in the 4th quarter of 2016 with the intention of more capacity in Q1 2017 (calendar year).\n\nFinancial Terms\n· Financial Terms: Microsoft will offer $60m worth of List Compute (including GPU) at a deep discount which results in a price of $10m to be paid by OpenAI over the course of the deal. In the event OpenAI consumes less than $10m worth of Azure compute, OpenAI will be responsible for paying the balance between the used amount and $10m at the end of the deal term to Microsoft.\n\nMarketing & PR Terms\nMicrosoft and OpenAI commit to jointly evangelizing deep learning capabilities on Azure as agreed upon by both parties.\n- Ignite: Announce the partnership at Microsoft’s Ignite event with executives (Sam Altman from OpenAI and Satya Nadella from Microsoft) from both parties inaugurating the collaboration\n- PR: Microsoft and OpenAI will work together to issue a joint press release about the partnership including any materials such as blog posts and videos.", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-microsoft-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk, Sam Teller", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Altman sends Musk the terms of a proposed Microsoft Azure compute agreement for OpenAI.", "tags": [ "ai", "cost" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 54, "bates": "EMX-000054", "slug": "2016-09-16-altman-to-musk", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-09-16-altman-to-musk" }, { "id": "2016-09-16-musk-to-altman", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-09-16", "time": "3:10 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [ "Sam Teller" ], "subject": "MSFT hosting deal", "body": "This actually made me feel nauseous. It sucks and is exactly what I would expect from them.\n\nEvaluation, Evangelization, and Usage of CNTK v2, Azure Batch and HD-Insight: OpenAI will evaluate CNTK v2, Azure Batch, and HD-Insight for their research, provide feedback on how Microsoft can improve these products. OpenAI will work with Microsoft to evangelize these products to their research and developer ecosystems, and evangelize Microsoft Azure as their preferred public cloud provider. At their sole discretion, and as it makes sense for their research, OpenAI will adopt these products\n\nLet’s just say that we are willing to have Microsoft donate spare computing time to OpenAI and have that be known, but we want do any contract or agree to “evangelize”. They can turn us off at any time and we can leave at any time.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-microsoft-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Altman, Sam Teller", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk responds to the proposed Microsoft term sheet.", "tags": [ "ai", "cost", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 55, "bates": "EMX-000055", "slug": "2016-09-16-musk-to-altman", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-09-16-musk-to-altman" }, { "id": "2016-09-16-altman-to-musk-2", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-09-16", "time": "3:33 PM", "from": "Sam Altman", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [ "Sam Teller" ], "subject": "MSFT hosting deal", "body": "I had the same reaction after reading that section and they've already agreed to drop.\n\nWe had originally just wanted space cycles donated but the team wanted more certainty that capacity will be available. But I'll work with MSFT to make sure there are no strings attached", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-microsoft-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk, Sam Teller", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Altman replies that Microsoft had agreed to drop the contested section.", "tags": [ "ai", "cost" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 56, "bates": "EMX-000056", "slug": "2016-09-16-altman-to-musk-2", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-09-16-altman-to-musk-2" }, { "id": "2016-09-20-teller-to-musk", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-09-20", "time": "8:05 PM", "from": "Sam Teller", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [], "subject": "MSFT hosting deal", "body": "Microsoft is now willing to do the agreement for a full $50m with “good faith effort at OpenAI's sole discretion” and full mutual termination rights at any time. No evangelizing. No strings attached. No looking like lame Microsoft marketing pawns. Ok to move ahead?", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-microsoft-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Teller relays Microsoft's revised offer for the OpenAI compute agreement and asks whether to proceed.", "tags": [ "ai", "cost" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 57, "bates": "EMX-000057", "slug": "2016-09-20-teller-to-musk", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-09-20-teller-to-musk" }, { "id": "2016-09-21-musk-to-teller", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-09-21", "time": "12:09 AM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Teller" ], "cc": [], "subject": "MSFT hosting deal", "body": "Fine by me if they don't use this in active messaging. Would be worth way more than $50M not to seem like Microsoft's marketing bitch.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-microsoft-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Teller", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk answers Teller's question about Microsoft's revised offer.", "tags": [ "ai", "cost", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 58, "bates": "EMX-000058", "slug": "2016-09-21-musk-to-teller", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-09-21-musk-to-teller" }, { "id": "2016-09-24-musk-to-sutskever-technical-issues", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-09-24", "time": "11:16 AM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Ilya Sutskever" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: BTW", "body": "Cool, I certainly enjoy them too. Also, really want to learn more at a detailed level about the technical issues that we are wrestling with. Really interesting.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-meetings-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Ilya Sutskever", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 379-72, Exhibit 31 to Hawes Declaration ISO Plaintiff's Opposition to OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; OPENAI_MUSK00000214), quoted in Sutskever's reply", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.379.72.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk replies to Sutskever, who had said their meetings were very helpful for running OpenAI and setting medium-term goals.", "tags": [ "ai", "engineering", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 59, "bates": "EMX-000059", "slug": "2016-09-24-musk-to-sutskever-technical-issues", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-09-24-musk-to-sutskever-technical-issues" }, { "id": "2016-09-24-musk-to-sutskever-solarcity-rocket", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2016-09-24", "time": "11:55 AM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Ilya Sutskever" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: BTW", "body": "Once the SolarCity merger is done and the rocket is flying again, I will should be able to do so.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-meetings-2016", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Ilya Sutskever", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 379-72, Exhibit 31 to Hawes Declaration ISO Plaintiff's Opposition to OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; OPENAI_MUSK00000214)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.379.72.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk says he could lengthen his visits to OpenAI once the SolarCity merger closes and SpaceX's rocket is flying again.", "tags": [ "ai", "management", "deadlines" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 60, "bates": "EMX-000060", "slug": "2016-09-24-musk-to-sutskever-solarcity-rocket", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2016-09-24-musk-to-sutskever-solarcity-rocket" }, { "id": "2017-musk-to-neuralink-cofounder-hire-from-openai", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "hire independently or directly from OpenAI", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-tesla-2017", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "A Neuralink cofounder (unnamed in the report)", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman trial exhibit shown to the jury, as quoted by MIT Technology Review, \"Musk v. Altman week 1\" (May 1 2026); exhibit number and exact date not stated; only the quoted portion is available", "source_url": "https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/05/01/1136800/musk-v-altman-week-1-musk-says-he-was-duped-warns-ai-could-kill-us-all-and-admits-that-xai-distills-openais-models/", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Per trial testimony reported by MIT Technology Review, Musk wrote to a Neuralink cofounder in 2017 that they could hire independently or directly from OpenAI.", "tags": [ "ai", "hiring" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 61, "bates": "EMX-000061", "slug": "2017-musk-to-neuralink-cofounder-hire-from-openai", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-musk-to-neuralink-cofounder-hire-from-openai" }, { "id": "2017-musk-to-tesla-vp-karpathy-openai-guys", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "The OpenAI guys are gonna want to kill me. But it had to be done", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-tesla-2017", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "A Tesla vice president (unnamed in the report)", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman trial exhibit shown to the jury, as quoted by MIT Technology Review, \"Musk v. Altman week 1\" (May 1 2026); exhibit number and exact date not stated; only the quoted portion is available", "source_url": "https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/05/01/1136800/musk-v-altman-week-1-musk-says-he-was-duped-warns-ai-could-kill-us-all-and-admits-that-xai-distills-openais-models/", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Sent after Musk hired OpenAI founding member Andrej Karpathy to work at Tesla, per trial testimony reported by MIT Technology Review.", "tags": [ "ai", "hiring" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 62, "bates": "EMX-000062", "slug": "2017-musk-to-tesla-vp-karpathy-openai-guys", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-musk-to-tesla-vp-karpathy-openai-guys" }, { "id": "2017-02-24-musk-to-all-tesla-working-conditions", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-02", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "All Tesla employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "For Tesla to become and remain one of the great companies of the 21st century, we must have an environment that is as safe, fair and fun as possible. It is incredibly important to me that you look forward to coming to work every day. For that, we must be a fair and just company – the only kind worth creating.\n\nThis is vital to succeed in our mission to accelerate the advent of a clean, sustainable energy future. The forces arrayed against us are many and incredibly powerful. This is David vs Goliath if David were six inches tall! Only by being smarter, faster and working well as a tightly integrated team do we have any chance of success. We should never forget the history of car startups originating in the United States: dozens have gone bankrupt and only two, Tesla and Ford, have not. Despite the odds being strongly against us, my faith in you is why I am confident that we will succeed.\n\nThat is why I was so distraught when I read the recent blog post promoting the UAW, which does not share our mission and whose true allegiance is to the giant car companies, where the money they take from employees in dues is vastly more than they could ever make from Tesla.\n\nThe tactics they have resorted to are disingenuous or outright false. I will address their underhanded attacks below. While this discussion focuses on Fremont, these same principles apply to every Tesla facility worldwide.\n\nSafety First\n\nThe workplace issue that comes before any other is safety. If you do not have your health, then nothing else matters. Simply due to size and bad luck, there will always be some injuries in a company with over 30,000 employees, but our goal is simple: to have as close to zero injuries as possible and be the safest factory in the auto industry by far. The Tesla executive team and I are absolutely committed to this goal.\n\nThat is why I was particularly troubled by the safety claim in last week’s blog post, which said: “A few months ago, six out of eight people in my work team were out on medical leave at the same time due to various work-related injuries. I hear the ergonomics are even more severe in other areas of the factory.”\n\nObviously, this cannot be true: if three quarters of his team suddenly went on medical leave, we would not be able to operate that part of the factory. Furthermore, if things were really even worse in other departments, that would mean something like 80% or more of the factory would be out on injury, production would drop to virtually nothing and the parking lot would be almost empty. As you know firsthand, we have the *opposite* problem – there is never enough room to park! In fact, we are working at top speed to build more parking. Also, hopefully our darn BART train station will open before all hell freezes over!\n\nAfter looking into this claim, not only was it untrue for this individual’s team, it was untrue for any of the hundreds of teams in the factory.\n\nThat said, reducing excess overtime and improving safety are extremely important. This is why we hired thousands of additional team members to create a third shift, which has reduced the burden on everyone. Moreover, since the beginning of Tesla production at Fremont five years ago, there have been dedicated health and safety experts covering the factory and we hold regular safety meetings with operations leaders. Since the majority of the injuries in the factory are ergonomic in nature, we have an ergonomics department focused exclusively on this issue.\n\nThe net result is that since January 1st, our total recordable incident rate (TRIR) is under 3.3, which is less than half the industry average of 6.7.\n\nOf course, the goal is to have as close to zero injuries as humanly possible, so we need to keep improving. If you have a safety concern or an idea on how to make things better, please let your manager, safety representative or HR partner know. You can also send an anonymous note through the Integrity Hotline (this applies broadly to any problems you notice at our company) or you can email [email address removed]\n\nCompensation\n\nAt Tesla, we believe it is important for everyone to be an owner of the company. This is your company. That is why, unlike other car companies, everyone is awarded shares and you get to buy stock at a discount compared to the public through the employee stock purchase program. Last year, stock equity grants were increased significantly and it will happen again later this year once Model 3 achieves high volume.\n\nThe chart below contrasts the total comp received by a Tesla production team member who started on January 1, 2013 against the total comp received over the same period at GM, Ford, and Fiat Chrysler. A four year period is used because that’s the vesting length of a new hire equity grant. I believe the equity gain over the next four years will be similar. As shown below, a Tesla team member earned between $70,000 and $100,000 more in total compensation than the employees at other US auto companies!\n\nWork Hours\n\nAnother issue raised in the UAW blog was hours worked. First, I want to recognize how hard you worked to make our company successful. Those hours mattered to you, to your family and to our company, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate them.\n\nHowever, the pace needs to be sustainable. This is why the third shift was established and why we created alternate work schedules based on feedback from various teams in the factory.\n\nThese changes have had a big impact. The average amount of hours worked by production team members this year is about 43 hours per week. The percentage of overtime hours has declined by almost 50% since the super tough time we had last year achieving rate on the Model X, which is probably the hardest car to build in history. What an amazing accomplishment! It is also a lesson learned, which is why Model 3 is designed to be dramatically easier to manufacture.\n\nFun\n\nAs we get closer to being a profitable company, we will be able to afford more and more fun things. For example, as I mentioned at the last company talk, we are going to hold a really amazing party once Model 3 reaches volume production later this year. There will also be little things that come along like free frozen yogurt stands scattered around the factory and my personal favorite: a Tesla electric pod car roller coaster (with an optional loop the loop route, of course!) that will allow fast and fun travel throughout our Fremont campus, dipping in and out of the factory and connecting all the parking lots. It’s going to get crazy good 🙂\n\nThanks again for all your effort and I look forward to working alongside you to create an amazing future!\n\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": null, "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "TechCrunch, \"Elon Musk addresses working condition claims in Tesla staff-wide email\" (Feb 24, 2017)", "source_url": "https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/24/elon-musk-addresses-working-condition-claims-in-tesla-staff-wide-email/", "case": null, "context": "Staff-wide response to a Medium post by a Fremont employee about safety, pay and hours. Date is the TechCrunch publication date; the email’s send date and subject line were not given. The email refers to a chart that is not reproduced in the source text. The exact send date is not public; the month shown is when it was published.", "tags": [ "safety", "culture", "communication", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 63, "bates": "EMX-000063", "slug": "2017-02-24-musk-to-all-tesla-working-conditions", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-02-24-musk-to-all-tesla-working-conditions" }, { "id": "2017-02-15-bezos-to-amazon-employees-harris-poll", "person": "Jeff Bezos", "date": "2017-02-15", "time": null, "from": "Jeff Bezos", "to": [ "Amazon employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Congratulations, Amazonians", "body": "I’m excited to report that for the second straight year, customers ranked Amazon #1 in the annual Harris Poll on corporate reputation. Harris surveys more than 23,000 people across six corporate reputation dimensions: Social Responsibility, Emotional Appeal, Products and Services, Vision and Leadership, Financial Performance, and Workplace Environment. We hit a new high-water mark for the 18-year-old survey with a record score of 86.27 and ranked in the top 10 for the ninth consecutive year. Also, on Monday , Fast Company ranked Amazon #1 on its World’s Most Innovative Companies of 2017 list . These accolades are a direct result of this team’s obsession over customers, pioneering spirit, commitment to operational excellence and willingness to lean into bold bets.\n\nKudos and congrats to the whole team!\nJeff", "musk_authored": true, "thread": null, "company": "Amazon", "audience": "All Amazon employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "\"Amazon tops Harris Poll for corporate reputation, again, and Jeff Bezos emails 'kudos and congrats',\" GeekWire (Feb 15 2017)", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2017id_/https://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-tops-harris-poll-corporate-reputation-jeff-bezos-emails-kudos-congrats/", "case": null, "context": "Amazon ranked first in the annual Harris Poll corporate reputation survey for the second straight year. Bezos sent this internal email to staff, which GeekWire obtained.", "tags": [ "culture", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 5, "bates": "JBX-000005", "slug": "2017-02-15-bezos-to-amazon-employees-harris-poll", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2017-02-15-bezos-to-amazon-employees-harris-poll" }, { "id": "2017-05-31-musk-to-all-tesla-injury-reporting", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-05-31", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "All Tesla employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "No words can express how much I care about your safety and wellbeing. It breaks my heart when someone is injured building cars and trying their best to make Tesla successful.\n\nGoing forward, I’ve asked that every injury be reported directly to me, without exception. I’m meeting with the safety team every week and would like to meet every injured person as soon as they are well, so that I can understand from them exactly what we need to do to make it better. I will then go down to the production line and perform the same task that they perform.\n\nThis is what all managers at Tesla should do as a matter of course. At Tesla, we lead from the front line, not from some safe and comfortable ivory tower. Managers must always put their team’s safety above their own.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": null, "company": "Tesla", "audience": "Tesla employees (Fremont factory focus)", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Electrek, \"Elon Musk wants all Tesla factory injuries reported directly to him\" (June 2, 2017)", "source_url": "https://electrek.co/2017/06/02/elon-musk-tesla-injury-factory/", "case": null, "context": "Email on factory safety sent May 31, 2017 per Teslarati; Electrek published an excerpt shortly after a report on Fremont injury rates.", "tags": [ "safety", "management", "culture" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 64, "bates": "EMX-000064", "slug": "2017-05-31-musk-to-all-tesla-injury-reporting", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-05-31-musk-to-all-tesla-injury-reporting" }, { "id": "2017-06-12-sutskever-to-brockman", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-06-12", "time": "10:39 PM", "from": "Ilya Sutskever", "to": [ "Greg Brockman", "[redacted]", "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Bi-weekly updates", "body": "This is the first of our bi-weekly updates. The goal is to keep you up to date, and to help us make greater use from your visits.\n\nCompute:\n\n- Compute is used in two ways: it is used to run a big experiment quickly, and it is used to run many experiments in parallel.\n\n- 95% of progress comes from the ability to run big experiments quickly. The utility of running many experiments is much less useful.\n\n- In the old days, a large cluster could help you run more experiments, but it could not help with running a single large experiment quickly.\n\n- For this reason, an academic lab could compete with Google, because Google's only advantage was the ability to run many experiments. This is not a great advantage.\n\n- Recently, it has become possible to combine 100s of GPUs and 100s of CPUs to run an experiment that's 100x bigger than what is possible on a single machine while requiring comparable time. This has become possible due to the work of many different groups. As a result, the minimum necessary cluster for being competitive is now 10–100x larger than it was before.\n\n- Currently, every Dota experiment uses 1000+ cores, and it is only for the small 1v1 variant, and on extremely small neural network policies. We will need more compute to just win the 1v1 variant. To win the full 5v5 game, we will need to run fewer experiments, where each experiment is at least 1 order of magnitude larger (possibly more!).\n\n- TLDR: What matters is the size and speed of our experiments. In the old days, a big cluster could not let anyone run a larger experiment quickly. Today, a big cluster lets us run a large experiment 100x faster.\n\n- In order to be capable of accomplishing our projects even in theory, we need to increase the number of our GPUs by a factor of 10x in the next 1–2 months (we have enough CPUs). We will discuss the specifics in our in-person meeting.\n\nDota 2:\n\n- We will solve the 1v1 version of the game in 1 month. Fans of the game care about 1v1 a fair bit.\n\n- We are now at a point where a single experiment consumes 1000s of cores, and where adding more distributed compute increases performance.\n\n- Here is a cool video of our bot doing something rather clever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-vxbREX5ck&feature=youtu.be&t=99.\n\nRapid learning of new games:\n\n- Infra work is underway\n\n- We implemented several baselines\n\n- Fundamentally, we're not where we want to be, and are taking action to correct this.\n\nRobotics:\n\n- Current status: The HER algorithm (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz_HuzgMzxo) can learn to solve many low-dimensional robotics tasks that were previously unsolvable very rapidly. It is non-obvious, simple, and effective.\n\n- In 6 months, we will accomplish at least one of: single-handed Rubik's cube, pen spinning (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDavyRnEPrI), Chinese balls spinning (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9N1duIl4Fc) using the HER algorithm and using a sim2real method [such as https://blog.openai.com/spam-detection-in-the-physical-world/].\n\n- The above will be deployed on the robotic hand: [Link to Google Drive] [this video is human controlled, not algorithmic controlled. Need to be logged in to the OpenAI account to see the video].\n\nSelf play as a key path to AGI:\n\n- Self play in multiagent environments is magical: if you place agents into an environment, then no matter how smart (or not smart) they are, the environment will provide them with the exact level of challenge, which can be faced only by outsmarting the competition. So for example, if you have a group of children, they will find each other's company to be challenging; likewise for a collection of super intelligences of comparable intelligence. So the \"solution\" to self-play is to become more and more intelligent, without bound.\n\n- Self-play lets us get \"something out of nothing.\" The rules of a competitive game can be simple, but the best strategy for playing this game can be immensely complex. [motivating example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2T77mQmJYI].\n\n- Training agents in simulation to develop very good dexterity via competitive fighting, such as wrestling. Here is a video of ant-shaped robots that we trained to struggle: [redacted]\n\n- Current work on self-play: getting agents to learn to develop a language [gifs in https://blog.openai.com/learning-to-cooperate-compete-and-communicate/].Agents are doing \"stuff,\" but it's still work in progress.\n\nWe have a few more cool smaller projects. Updates to be presented as they produce significant results.", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-biweekly-2017", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk, Greg Brockman", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024 (email also reproduced in OpenAI blog, Dec 13 2024)", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": null, "context": "Sutskever sends the first of OpenAI's bi-weekly research updates to Musk, covering compute, Dota 2, robotics and self-play.", "tags": [ "ai", "engineering" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 65, "bates": "EMX-000065", "slug": "2017-06-12-sutskever-to-brockman", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-06-12-sutskever-to-brockman" }, { "id": "2017-06-12-musk-to-sutskever", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-06-12", "time": "10:52 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Ilya Sutskever" ], "cc": [ "Greg Brockman", "[redacted]" ], "subject": "Bi-weekly updates", "body": "Thanks, this is a great update.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-biweekly-2017", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024 (email also reproduced in OpenAI blog, Dec 13 2024)", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": null, "context": "Musk replies to the first bi-weekly update.", "tags": [ "ai", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 66, "bates": "EMX-000066", "slug": "2017-06-12-musk-to-sutskever", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-06-12-musk-to-sutskever" }, { "id": "2017-06-13-musk-to-sutskever", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-06-13", "time": "10:24 AM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Ilya Sutskever" ], "cc": [ "Greg Brockman", "[redacted]" ], "subject": "Bi-weekly updates", "body": "Ok. Let's figure out the least expensive way to ensure compute power is not a constraint...", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-biweekly-2017", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024 (email also reproduced in OpenAI blog, Dec 13 2024)", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": null, "context": "Musk responds to Sutskever's request for more compute.", "tags": [ "ai", "cost", "engineering" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 67, "bates": "EMX-000067", "slug": "2017-06-13-musk-to-sutskever", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-06-13-musk-to-sutskever" }, { "id": "2017-06-28-musk-to-sutskever-brockman-the-10000", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-06-28", "time": "2:11 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Ilya Sutskever", "Greg Brockman" ], "cc": [ "Sam Altman" ], "subject": "The 10,000", "body": "Just spoke to Satya and talked about OpenAI needing one the order of 10,000 servers with the latest Nvidia GPUs to beat the best human players at competitive eSports games.\n\nThis would obviously be a major opportunity for Microsoft to promote Azure relative to other cloud systems.\n\nHe said he'd talk internally and get back to me soon. Please send me the ideal spec for the individual servers and how they are connected. What ideally do we want Microsoft to do? Sounds like there is a good chance they will do it.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-microsoft-2017", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, Sam Altman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 379-39, Exhibit 5 to Cohen Declaration ISO Microsoft's Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; 2024MUSK-0000169); also Dkt. 351-36 and 353-15", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.379.39.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "After a call with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Musk asks OpenAI's leaders for the server specifications needed to train an esports-playing AI.", "tags": [ "ai", "engineering", "cost" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 68, "bates": "EMX-000068", "slug": "2017-06-28-musk-to-sutskever-brockman-the-10000", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-06-28-musk-to-sutskever-brockman-the-10000" }, { "id": "2017-07-21-brockman-to-musk", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-07-21", "time": "1:18 PM", "from": "Greg Brockman", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [ "Ilya Sutskever" ], "subject": "Beijing Wants A.I. to Be Made in China by 2030 - NYTimes.com", "body": "100% agreed. We think the path must be:\n\n- AI research non-profit (through end of 2017)\n\n- AI research + hardware for-profit (starting 2018)\n\n- Government project (when: ??)\n\n[redacted]\n\n-gdb", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-structure-2017", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk, Ilya Sutskever", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024 (email also reproduced in OpenAI blog, Dec 13 2024)", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": null, "context": "Brockman replies to Musk's email about China's AI plans with a proposed path for OpenAI's structure.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 69, "bates": "EMX-000069", "slug": "2017-07-21-brockman-to-musk", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-07-21-brockman-to-musk" }, { "id": "2017-07-21-musk-to-brockman-2", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-07-21", "time": "1:18 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Greg Brockman" ], "cc": [ "Ilya Sutskever", "[redacted]" ], "subject": "Beijing Wants A.I. to Be Made in China by 2030 - NYTimes.com", "body": "Let's talk Sat or Sun. I have a tentative game plan that I'd like to run by you.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-structure-2017", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024 (email also reproduced in OpenAI blog, Dec 13 2024)", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": null, "context": "Musk responds to Brockman's proposed path for OpenAI.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 70, "bates": "EMX-000070", "slug": "2017-07-21-musk-to-brockman-2", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-07-21-musk-to-brockman-2" }, { "id": "2017-07-21-musk-to-openai-founder-series-model-3", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-07-21", "time": "1:25 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: Beijing Wants A.I. to Be Made in China by 2030 - NYTimes.com", "body": "By the way, in appreciation for what you've done to get OpenAI to where it is today, I would like to give you each a Founder Series Model 3. These are the earliest cars produced and are not available to the public.\n\nIf there are a few others at OpenAI who you think also really deserve one (maybe Wojciech?), I am happy to do the same for them.\n\nHope you like it!\n\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-beijing-2017", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "OpenAI founding team (recipients not shown in the quoted header)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 328-55, Exhibit 51 to Wiener Declaration ISO OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; OPENAI_MUSK00020777), quoted in Musk's 8:53 PM reply", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.328.55.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk offers OpenAI's founders Founder Series Tesla Model 3 cars, in the same thread where Brockman lays out a plan for a for-profit stage in 2018.", "tags": [ "ai", "hiring", "culture" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 71, "bates": "EMX-000071", "slug": "2017-07-21-musk-to-openai-founder-series-model-3", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-07-21-musk-to-openai-founder-series-model-3" }, { "id": "2017-07-21-musk-to-brockman", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-07-21", "time": "3:34 AM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Greg Brockman", "Ilya Sutskever" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Beijing Wants A.I. to Be Made in China by 2030 - NYTimes.com", "body": "They will do whatever it takes to obtain what we develop. Maybe another reason to change course. [Link to news article]", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-structure-2017", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024 (email also reproduced in OpenAI blog, Dec 13 2024)", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": null, "context": "Musk forwards a New York Times article about China's AI plans to Brockman and Sutskever.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy", "politics" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 72, "bates": "EMX-000072", "slug": "2017-07-21-musk-to-brockman", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-07-21-musk-to-brockman" }, { "id": "2017-07-21-musk-to-sutskever-consider-it-done", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-07-21", "time": "8:53 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Ilya Sutskever" ], "cc": [ "Greg Brockman", "John Schulman", "Wojciech Zaremba", "Jared Birchall" ], "subject": "Re: Beijing Wants A.I. to Be Made in China by 2030 - NYTimes.com", "body": "Consider it done!\n\nJared, please facilitate. Let's try to slot these four cars into next month's production.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-beijing-2017", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, John Schulman, Wojciech Zaremba, Jared Birchall", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 328-55, Exhibit 51 to Wiener Declaration ISO OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; OPENAI_MUSK00020777)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.328.55.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk confirms the Model 3 gifts after Sutskever thanks him and suggests adding Wojciech Zaremba and John Schulman.", "tags": [ "ai", "hiring", "manufacturing" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 73, "bates": "EMX-000073", "slug": "2017-07-21-musk-to-sutskever-consider-it-done", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-07-21-musk-to-sutskever-consider-it-done" }, { "id": "2017-07-30-musk-to-maron-my-comp-stuff", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-07-30", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Todd Maron" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: My comp stuff", "body": "on hold for a few weeks[.] [...] [j]ust want[ed] to make sure Tesla interests come first. [...] [t]he added comp is just so that I can put as much as possible towards minimizing existential risk by putting the money towards Mars if I am successful in leading Tesla to be one of the world’s most valuable companies. This is kinda crazy, but it is true.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "tornetta-2018-grant", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "Tesla General Counsel", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Tornetta v. Musk post-trial opinion (Del. Ch. Jan. 30, 2024), quoting JX-564 (footnote 283 dates it 7/30/17; the text of the opinion also says June 30)", "source_url": "https://courts.delaware.gov/Opinions/Download.aspx?id=359340", "case": "Tornetta v. Musk, C.A. No. 2018-0408-KSJM (Del. Ch. Jan. 30, 2024)", "context": "Musk asked Tesla’s General Counsel to put work on his compensation plan on hold, then agreed to let it continue. Only the fragments quoted in the court’s opinion are reproduced, joined with [...].", "tags": [ "legal", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 74, "bates": "EMX-000074", "slug": "2017-07-30-musk-to-maron-my-comp-stuff", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-07-30-musk-to-maron-my-comp-stuff" }, { "id": "2017-08-musk-to-all-tesla-communication-within-tesla", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-08", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "All Tesla employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Communication Within Tesla", "body": "There are two schools of thought about how information should flow within companies. By far the most common way is chain of command, which means that you always flow communication through your manager. The problem with this approach is that, while it serves to enhance the power of the manager, it fails to serve the company.\n\nInstead of a problem getting solved quickly, where a person in one dept talks to a person in another dept and makes the right thing happen, people are forced to talk to their manager who talks to their manager who talks to the manager in the other dept who talks to someone on his team. Then the info has to flow back the other way again. This is incredibly dumb. Any manager who allows this to happen, let alone encourages it, will soon find themselves working at another company. No kidding.\n\nAnyone at Tesla can and should email/talk to anyone else according to what they think is the fastest way to solve a problem for the benefit of the whole company. You can talk to your manager's manager without his permission, you can talk directly to a VP in another dept, you can talk to me, you can talk to anyone without anyone else's permission. Moreover, you should consider yourself obligated to do so until the right thing happens. The point here is not random chitchat, but rather ensuring that we execute ultra-fast and well. We obviously cannot compete with the big car companies in size, so we must do so with intelligence and agility.\n\nOne final point is that managers should work hard to ensure that they are not creating silos within the company that create an us vs. them mentality or impede communication in any way. This is unfortunately a natural tendency and needs to be actively fought. How can it possibly help Tesla for depts to erect barriers between themselves or see their success as relative within the company instead of collective? We are all in the same boat. Always view yourself as working for the good of the company and never your dept.\n\nThanks,\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": null, "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Inc.com, Justin Bariso, \"This Email From Elon Musk to Tesla Employees Describes What Great Communication Looks Like\" (Aug 30, 2017; Tesla verified it was sent to all employees)", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2017/https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/this-email-from-elon-musk-to-tesla-employees-descr.html", "case": null, "context": "Inc. described it as a previously unpublished email sent \"a few years ago\"; Tesla confirmed it went to all employees. The send date is not given, so the date field is the Inc. publication month. Later emails (April 2018) restate parts of it. The exact send date is not public; the month shown is when it was published.", "tags": [ "communication", "management", "culture" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 75, "bates": "EMX-000075", "slug": "2017-08-musk-to-all-tesla-communication-within-tesla", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-08-musk-to-all-tesla-communication-within-tesla" }, { "id": "2017-08-11-musk-to-brockman", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-08-11", "time": "9:17 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Greg Brockman", "Ilya Sutskever", "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [ "[redacted]", "Shivon Zilis" ], "subject": "Tomorrow afternoon", "body": "[redacted] Are you guys able to meet or do a conf call tomorrow afternoon?\n\nTime to make the next step for OpenAI. This is the triggering event.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-structure-2017", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, Sam Altman", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024 (email also reproduced in OpenAI blog, Dec 13 2024)", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": null, "context": "Musk asks OpenAI's leaders to meet the next day about the organization's next step.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 76, "bates": "EMX-000076", "slug": "2017-08-11-musk-to-brockman", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-08-11-musk-to-brockman" }, { "id": "2017-08-28-zilis-to-musk", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-08-28", "time": "12:01 AM", "from": "Shivon Zilis", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [ "Sam Teller" ], "subject": "OpenAI notes", "body": "Elon,\n\nAs I'd mentioned, Greg had asked to talk through a few things this weekend. Ilya ended up joining, and they pretty much just shared all of what they are still trying to think through. This is the distillation of that random walk of a conversation... came down to 7 unanswered questions with their commentary below. Please note that I'm not advocating for any of this, just structuring and sharing the information I heard.\n\n1. Short-term control structure? \n\n-Is the requirement for absolute control? They wonder if there is a scenario where there could be some sort of creative overrule provision if literally everyone else disagreed on direction (not just the three of them, but perhaps a broader board)?\n\n2. Duration of control and transition? \n\n-*The* non-negotiable seems to be an ironclad agreement to not have any one person have absolute control of AGI if it's created. Satisfying this means a situation where, regardless of what happens to the three of them, it's guaranteed that power over the company is distributed after the 2-3 year initial period.\n\n3. Time spent?\n\n-How much time does Elon want to spend on this, and how much time can he actually afford to spend on this? In what timeframe? Is this an hour a week, ten hours a week, something in between?\n\n4. What to do with time spent?\n\n-They don't really know how he prefers to spend time at his other companies and how he'd want to spend his time on this. Greg and Ilya are confident they could build out SW / ML side of things pretty well. They are not confident on the hardware front. They seemed hopeful Elon could spend some time on that since that's where they are weak, but did want his help in all domains he was interested in.\n\n5. Ratio of time spent to amount of control?\n\n-They are cool with less time / less control, more time / more control, but not less time / more control. Their fear is that there won't be enough time to discuss relevant contextual information to make correct decisions if too little time is spent.\n\n6. Equity split?\n\n-Greg still instinctually anchored on equal split. I personally disagree with him on that instinct and he asked for and was receptive to hearing other things he could use to recalibrate his mental model.\n\n-Greg noted that Ilya in some ways has contributed millions by leaving his earning potential on the table at Google.\n\n-One concern they had was the proposed employee pool was too small.\n\n7. Capitalization strategy?\n\n-Their instinct is to raise much more than $100M out of the gate. They are of the opinion that the datacenter they need alone would cost that so they feel more comfortable raising more.\n\nTakeaways:\n\nUnsure if any of this is amenable but just from listening to all of the data points they threw out, the following would satisfy their current sticky points:\n\n-Spending 5-10 hours a week with near full control, or spend less time and have less control.\n\n-Having a creative short-term override just for extreme scenarios that was not just Greg / Sam / Ilya.\n\n-An ironclad 2-3yr minority control agreement, regardless of the fates of Greg / Sam / Ilya.\n\n-$200M-$1B initial raise.\n\n-Greg and Ilya's stakes end up higher than 1/10 of Elon's but not significantly (this remains the most ambiguous).\n\n-Increasing employee pool.", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-structure-2017", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk, Sam Teller", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Shivon Zilis summarizes seven open questions that Brockman and Sutskever raised about control, time commitment, equity and funding for a restructured OpenAI.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 77, "bates": "EMX-000077", "slug": "2017-08-28-zilis-to-musk", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-08-28-zilis-to-musk" }, { "id": "2017-08-28-musk-to-zilis", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-08-28", "time": "12:08 AM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Shivon Zilis" ], "cc": [ "Sam Teller" ], "subject": "OpenAI notes", "body": "This is very annoying. Please encourage them to go start a company. I've had enough.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-structure-2017", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Shivon Zilis, Sam Teller", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk replies to Zilis's summary of Brockman and Sutskever's questions.", "tags": [ "ai", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 78, "bates": "EMX-000078", "slug": "2017-08-28-musk-to-zilis", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-08-28-musk-to-zilis" }, { "id": "2017-08-29-musk-to-birchall-q3-grant", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-08-29", "time": "7:18 AM (UTC)", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Jared Birchall" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: Q3 2017 Grant", "body": "Yes", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-funding-2017", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Jared Birchall (Musk family office)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 379-29, Exhibit 71 to Wiener Declaration ISO OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; 2024MUSK-0009625)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.379.29.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Birchall asks whether to keep holding the quarterly $5 million payment to OpenAI after OpenAI asked about the Q3 2017 grant; Musk answers 'Yes'.", "tags": [ "ai", "fundraising", "cost" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 79, "bates": "EMX-000079", "slug": "2017-08-29-musk-to-birchall-q3-grant", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-08-29-musk-to-birchall-q3-grant" }, { "id": "2017-09-13-musk-to-sutskever", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-09-13", "time": "12:40 AM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Ilya Sutskever" ], "cc": [ "Greg Brockman" ], "subject": "Re: Current State", "body": "Sounds good. The three common stock seats (you, Greg and Sam) should be elected by common shareholders. They will de facto be yours, but not in the unlikely event that you lose the faith of a huge percentage of common stockholders over time or step away from the company by choice.\n\nI think that the Preferred A investment round (supermajority me) should have the right to appoint four (not three) seats. I would not expect to appoint them immediately, but, like I said I would unequivocally have initial control of the company, but this will change quickly.\n\nThe rough target would be to get to a 12 person board (probably more like 16 if this board really ends up deciding the fate of the world) where each board member has a deep understanding of technology, at least a basic understanding of AI and strong & sensible morals.\n\nApart from the Series A four and the Common three, there would likely be a board member with each new lead investor/ally. However, the specific individual new board members can only be added if all but one existing board member agrees. Same for removing board members.\n\nThere will also be independent board members we want to add who aren't associated with an investor. Same rules apply: requires all but one of existing directors to add or remove.\n\nI'm super tired and don't want to overcomplicate things, but this seems approx right. At the sixteen person board level, we would have 7/16 votes and I'd have a 25% influence, which is my min comfort level. That sounds about right to me. If everyone else we asked to join our board is truly against us, we should probably lose.\n\nAs mentioned, my experience with boards (assuming they consist of good, smart people) is that they are rational and reasonable. There is basically never a real hardcore battle where an individual board vote is pivotal, so this is almost certainly (sure hope so) going to be a moot point.\n\nAs a closing note, I've been really impressed with the quality of discussion with you guys on the equity and board stuff. I have a really good feeling about this.\n\nLmk if above seems reasonable.\n\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-structure-2017", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024 (email also reproduced in OpenAI blog, Dec 13 2024)", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": null, "context": "Musk describes a proposed board structure and his level of control for a for-profit OpenAI.", "tags": [ "ai", "management", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 80, "bates": "EMX-000080", "slug": "2017-09-13-musk-to-sutskever", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-09-13-musk-to-sutskever" }, { "id": "2017-09-20-sutskever-to-musk", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-09-20", "time": "2:08 PM", "from": "Ilya Sutskever", "to": [ "Elon Musk", "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [ "Greg Brockman", "Sam Teller", "Shivon Zilis" ], "subject": "Honest Thoughts", "body": "Elon, Sam,\n\nThis process has been the highest stakes conversation that Greg and I have ever participated in, and if the project succeeds, it'll turn out to have been the highest stakes conversation the world has seen. It's also been a deeply personal conversation for all of us.\n\nYesterday while we were considering making our final commitment given the non-solicit agreement, we realized we'd made a mistake. We have several important concerns that we haven't raised with either of you. We didn't raise them because we were afraid to: we were afraid of harming the relationship, having you think less of us, or losing you as partners.\n\nThere is some chance that our concerns will prove to be unresolvable. We really hope it's not the case, but we know we will fail for sure if we don't all discuss them now. And we have hope that we can work through them and all continue working together.\n\nElon:\n\nWe really want to work with you. We believe that if we join forces, our chance of success in the mission is the greatest. Our upside is the highest. There is no doubt about that. Our desire to work with you is so great that we are happy to give up on the equity, personal control, make ourselves easily firable — whatever it takes to work with you.\n\nBut we realized that we were careless in our thinking about the implications of control for the world. Because it seemed so hubristic, we have not been seriously considering the implications of success.\n\nThe current structure provides you with a path where you end up with unilateral absolute control over the AGI. You stated that you don't want to control the final AGI, but during this negotiation, you've shown to us that absolute control is extremely important to you.\n\nAs an example, you said that you needed to be CEO of the new company so that everyone will know that you are the one who is in charge, even though you also stated that you hate being CEO and would much rather not be CEO.\n\nThus, we are concerned that as the company makes genuine progress towards AGI, you will choose to retain your absolute control of the company despite current intent to the contrary. We disagree with your statement that our ability to leave is our greatest power, because once the company is actually on track to AGI, the company will be much more important than any individual.\n\nThe goal of OpenAI is to make the future good and to avoid an AGI dictatorship. You are concerned that Demis could create an AGI dictatorship. So do we. So it is a bad idea to create a structure where you could become a dictator if you chose to, especially given that we can create some other structure that avoids this possibility.\n\nWe have a few smaller concerns, but we think it's useful to mention it here:\n\nIn the event we decide to buy Cerebras, my strong sense is that it'll be done through Tesla. But why do it this way if we could also do it from within OpenAI? Specifically, the concern is that Tesla has a duty to shareholders to maximize shareholder return, which is not aligned with OpenAI's mission. So the overall result may not end up being optimal for OpenAI.\n\nWe believe that OpenAI the non-profit was successful because both you and Sam were in it. Sam acted as a genuine counterbalance to you, which has been extremely fruitful. Greg and I, at least so far, are much worse at being a counterbalance to you. We feel this is evidenced even by this negotiation, where we were ready to sweep the long-term AGI control questions under the rug while Sam stood his ground.\n\nSam:\n\nWhen Greg and I are stuck, you've always had an answer that turned out to be deep and correct. You've been thinking about the ways forward on this problem extremely deeply and thoroughly. Greg and I understand technical execution, but we don't know how structure decisions will play out over the next month, year, or five years.\n\nBut we haven't been able to fully trust your judgements throughout this process, because we don't understand your cost function.\n\nWe don't understand why the CEO title is so important to you. Your stated reasons have changed, and it's hard to really understand what's driving it.\n\nIs AGI truly your primary motivation? How does it connect to your political goals? How has your thought process changed over time?\n\nGreg and Ilya:\n\nWe had a fair share of our own failings during this negotiation, and we'll list some of them here (Elon and Sam, I'm sure you'll have plenty to add...):\n\nDuring this negotiation, we realized that we have allowed the idea of financial return 2-3 years down the line to drive our decisions. This is why we didn't push on the control — we thought that our equity is good enough, so why worry? But this attitude is wrong, just like the attitude of AI experts who don't think that AI safety is an issue because they don't really believe that they'll build AGI.\n\nWe did not speak our full truth during the negotiation. We have our excuses, but it was damaging to the process, and we may lose both Sam and Elon as a result.\n\nThere's enough baggage here that we think it's very important for us to meet and talk it out. Our collaboration will not succeed if we don't. Can all four of us meet today? If all of us say the truth, and resolve the issues, the company that we'll create will be much more likely to withstand the very strong forces it'll experience.\n\n- Greg & Ilya", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-honest-thoughts-2017", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk, Sam Altman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Sutskever and Brockman write to Musk and Altman about concerns over control of a for-profit OpenAI.", "tags": [ "ai", "management", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 81, "bates": "EMX-000081", "slug": "2017-09-20-sutskever-to-musk", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-09-20-sutskever-to-musk" }, { "id": "2017-09-20-musk-to-sutskever", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-09-20", "time": "2:17PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Ilya Sutskever" ], "cc": [ "Sam Altman", "Greg Brockman", "Sam Teller", "Shivon Zilis" ], "subject": "Honest Thoughts", "body": "Guys, I've had enough. This is the final straw. Either go do something on your own or continue with OpenAI as a nonprofit. I will no longer fund OpenAI until you have made a firm commitment to stay or I'm just being a fool who is essentially providing free funding for you to create a startup. Discussions are over", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-honest-thoughts-2017", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Ilya Sutskever, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024 (email also reproduced in OpenAI blog, Dec 13 2024)", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": null, "context": "Musk responds to the \"Honest Thoughts\" email from Sutskever and Brockman.", "tags": [ "ai", "management", "fundraising" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 82, "bates": "EMX-000082", "slug": "2017-09-20-musk-to-sutskever", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-09-20-musk-to-sutskever" }, { "id": "2017-09-20-musk-to-sutskever-2", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-09-20", "time": "3:08PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Ilya Sutskever", "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [ "Greg Brockman", "Sam Teller", "Shivon Zilis" ], "subject": "Honest Thoughts", "body": "To be clear, this is not an ultimatum to accept what was discussed before. That is no longer on the table.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-honest-thoughts-2017", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Ilya Sutskever, Sam Altman", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024 (email also reproduced in OpenAI blog, Dec 13 2024)", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": null, "context": "Musk follows up on his earlier reply in the \"Honest Thoughts\" thread.", "tags": [ "ai", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 83, "bates": "EMX-000083", "slug": "2017-09-20-musk-to-sutskever-2", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-09-20-musk-to-sutskever-2" }, { "id": "2017-09-22-musk-to-zilis", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-09-22", "time": "10:01 AM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Shivon Zilis" ], "cc": [ "Sam Teller" ], "subject": "Non-profit", "body": "Ok", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-nonprofit-2017", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Shivon Zilis, Sam Teller", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk replies to Zilis's update on the nonprofit structure.", "tags": [ "ai", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 84, "bates": "EMX-000084", "slug": "2017-09-22-musk-to-zilis", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-09-22-musk-to-zilis" }, { "id": "2017-09-22-zilis-to-musk", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-09-22", "time": "9:50 AM", "from": "Shivon Zilis", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [ "Sam Teller" ], "subject": "Non-profit", "body": "Hi Elon,\n\nQuick FYI that Greg and Ilya said they would like to continue with the non-profit structure. They know they would need to provide a guarantee that they won't go off doing something else to make it work.\n\nHaven't spoken to Altman yet but he asked to talk this afternoon so will report anything I hear back.\n\nIf anything I can do to help let me know.", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-nonprofit-2017", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk, Sam Teller", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Zilis tells Musk that Brockman and Sutskever want to continue with the nonprofit structure.", "tags": [ "ai", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 85, "bates": "EMX-000085", "slug": "2017-09-22-zilis-to-musk", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-09-22-zilis-to-musk" }, { "id": "2017-11-09-musk-to-maron-10-percent-increment", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-11-09", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Todd Maron" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "I think the amount should be reduced to a 10% increment in my Tesla ownership if I can get us to a $550B valuation, but that should be a fully diluted 10%, factoring in that it dilutes me too. So if it hypothetical [sic] was awarded to me now and I own (probably) ~20% fully diluted, then I would have ~30%. Of course there will be future dilution due to employee grants and equity raises, so probably this is more like 25% or so in 10 years when it has some chance of being fully awarded.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "tornetta-2018-grant", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "Tesla General Counsel", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Tornetta v. Musk post-trial opinion (Del. Ch. Jan. 30, 2024), quoting JX-664 (block quote)", "source_url": "https://courts.delaware.gov/Opinions/Download.aspx?id=359340", "case": "Tornetta v. Musk, C.A. No. 2018-0408-KSJM (Del. Ch. Jan. 30, 2024)", "context": "Block-quoted passage from Musk’s Nov. 9, 2017 message describing the size of the revised compensation proposal. The opinion places it later on the same morning as the first Nov. 9 message.", "tags": [ "legal", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 86, "bates": "EMX-000086", "slug": "2017-11-09-musk-to-maron-10-percent-increment", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-11-09-musk-to-maron-10-percent-increment" }, { "id": "2017-11-09-musk-to-maron-reduced-plan", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-11-09", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Todd Maron" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "move forward with [his compensation plan] now, but in a reduced manner from before.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "tornetta-2018-grant", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "Tesla General Counsel", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Tornetta v. Musk post-trial opinion (Del. Ch. Jan. 30, 2024), quoting JX-664", "source_url": "https://courts.delaware.gov/Opinions/Download.aspx?id=359340", "case": "Tornetta v. Musk, C.A. No. 2018-0408-KSJM (Del. Ch. Jan. 30, 2024)", "context": "Email sent in the early hours of Nov. 9, 2017 about proceeding with a smaller version of his compensation plan; only the quoted fragment is available.", "tags": [ "legal", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 87, "bates": "EMX-000087", "slug": "2017-11-09-musk-to-maron-reduced-plan", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-11-09-musk-to-maron-reduced-plan" }, { "id": "2017-11-09-musk-to-maron-ultra-bullish", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-11-09", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Todd Maron" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "Given that this will all go to causes that at least aspirationally maximize the probability of a good future for humanity, plus all Tesla shareholders will be super happy, I think this will be received well. It should come across as an ultra bullish view of the future, given that this comp package is worth nothing if ‘all’ I do is almost double Tesla’s market cap.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "tornetta-2018-grant", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "Tesla General Counsel", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Tornetta v. Musk post-trial opinion (Del. Ch. Jan. 30, 2024), quoting JX-664 (block quote)", "source_url": "https://courts.delaware.gov/Opinions/Download.aspx?id=359340", "case": "Tornetta v. Musk, C.A. No. 2018-0408-KSJM (Del. Ch. Jan. 30, 2024)", "context": "Block-quoted follow-up message sent \"moments later\" per the court, about how the revised compensation plan would be received.", "tags": [ "legal", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 88, "bates": "EMX-000088", "slug": "2017-11-09-musk-to-maron-ultra-bullish", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-11-09-musk-to-maron-ultra-bullish" }, { "id": "2017-12-01-musk-to-maron-more-than-intended", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2017-12-01", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Todd Maron" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "That is more than intended. Let’s go with 10% of the current FDS number, so 20.915M.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "tornetta-2018-grant", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "Tesla General Counsel", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Tornetta v. Musk post-trial opinion (Del. Ch. Jan. 30, 2024), quoting JX-682", "source_url": "https://courts.delaware.gov/Opinions/Download.aspx?id=359340", "case": "Tornetta v. Musk, C.A. No. 2018-0408-KSJM (Del. Ch. Jan. 30, 2024)", "context": "Musk’s response on Dec. 1, 2017 to a draft share count for his compensation plan, as quoted by the court.", "tags": [ "legal", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 89, "bates": "EMX-000089", "slug": "2017-12-01-musk-to-maron-more-than-intended", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2017-12-01-musk-to-maron-more-than-intended" }, { "id": "2017-12-15-bezos-to-limp-ring-4", "person": "Jeff Bezos", "date": "2017-12-15", "time": "1:36 PM", "from": "Jeff Bezos", "to": [ "Dave Limp" ], "cc": [ "Peter Krawiec", "Nick Komorous", "Jeff Helbling", "Douglas Booms" ], "subject": "RE: Ring update", "body": "To be clear, my view here is that we're buying market position – not technology. And that market position and momentum is very valuable.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "amazon-ring-2017", "company": "Amazon", "audience": "Dave Limp, SVP Devices & Services, and Amazon corporate development", "source_type": "congressional_release", "source_title": "Amazon production to the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, AMAZON-HJC-00173560 (also published by Internal Tech Emails, Nov 21 2022)", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://judiciary.house.gov/UploadedFiles/00173560.pdf", "case": null, "context": "Last message in the chain. Amazon announced the Ring acquisition in February 2018. Bezos was asked about this email at the July 2020 House Judiciary hearing.", "tags": [ "acquisition", "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 6, "bates": "JBX-000006", "slug": "2017-12-15-bezos-to-limp-ring-4", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2017-12-15-bezos-to-limp-ring-4" }, { "id": "2017-12-15-bezos-to-limp-ring-2", "person": "Jeff Bezos", "date": "2017-12-15", "time": "10:18 AM", "from": "Jeff Bezos", "to": [ "Dave Limp" ], "cc": [ "Peter Krawiec", "Nick Komorous", "Jeff Helbling", "Douglas Booms" ], "subject": "RE: Ring update", "body": "Maybe we should do the whole [redacted] of the first series E (the one that closes tomorrow) so we don't make the acquisition too expensive for ourselves.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "amazon-ring-2017", "company": "Amazon", "audience": "Dave Limp, SVP Devices & Services, and Amazon corporate development", "source_type": "congressional_release", "source_title": "Amazon production to the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, AMAZON-HJC-00173560 (also published by Internal Tech Emails, Nov 21 2022)", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://judiciary.house.gov/UploadedFiles/00173560.pdf", "case": null, "context": "Bezos suggested Amazon invest in the Series E round closing the next day, so the preference terms attached to it would not raise the cost of a later acquisition.", "tags": [ "acquisition", "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 7, "bates": "JBX-000007", "slug": "2017-12-15-bezos-to-limp-ring-2", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2017-12-15-bezos-to-limp-ring-2" }, { "id": "2017-12-15-bezos-to-limp-ring-3", "person": "Jeff Bezos", "date": "2017-12-15", "time": "10:35 AM", "from": "Jeff Bezos", "to": [ "Dave Limp" ], "cc": [ "Peter Krawiec", "Nick Komorous", "Jeff Helbling", "Douglas Booms" ], "subject": "RE: Ring update", "body": "We could immediately offer improved terms on tomorrow's hundred million. For example, only a [redacted] times preference instead of the [redacted].", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "amazon-ring-2017", "company": "Amazon", "audience": "Dave Limp, SVP Devices & Services, and Amazon corporate development", "source_type": "congressional_release", "source_title": "Amazon production to the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, AMAZON-HJC-00173560 (also published by Internal Tech Emails, Nov 21 2022)", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://judiciary.house.gov/UploadedFiles/00173560.pdf", "case": null, "context": "Bezos proposed offering Ring better terms on the round than the investor preference Ring was planning.", "tags": [ "acquisition", "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 8, "bates": "JBX-000008", "slug": "2017-12-15-bezos-to-limp-ring-3", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2017-12-15-bezos-to-limp-ring-3" }, { "id": "2017-12-15-limp-to-bezos-ring-update", "person": "Jeff Bezos", "date": "2017-12-15", "time": "7:28 AM", "from": "Dave Limp", "to": [ "Jeff Bezos" ], "cc": [ "Peter Krawiec", "Nick Komorous", "Jeff Helbling", "Douglas Booms" ], "subject": "Ring update", "body": "Jeff,\n\nI want to provide you with an update on Ring. Corp Dev and our legal team have been in regular contact with Ring over the past few weeks and just learned that Ring has resolved its lawsuit with ADT. The two companies have reached a binding settlement that gives Ring the perpetual rights to use the Zonoff Z1 Platform, which means that Ring can use the Zonoff team to continue working on the Protect alarm system. [redacted]\n\nWe also have an update on Ring's financial performance. For the months of September and October, the company [redacted] Ring ended October with [redacted] paying subscribers, [redacted] households, [redacted] total users and [redacted] active devices. Ring has yet to close its books for November, but estimates that revenue will come in [redacted] above plan ([redacted]) but that EBITDA will be below budget. The company's topline outperformance and bottom line underperformance is largely attributable to increased marketing and QVC promotions, which is a lower margin channel.\n\nSince we last discussed with you, Ring has been moving forward with its Series E round and now plans to raise a total of [redacted] in new capital at a pre-money valuation of [redacted]. The company is going to close the first [redacted] of the round tomorrow, with the remaining [redacted] closing sometime in the next few weeks. All of the Series E shares would be entitled to a [redacted] return if there is an acquisition within 18 months, thereby making an acquisition more expensive for non-Series E investors during that timeframe.\n\nIn light of these recent developments we are considering a few options including: 1) Move swiftly to put in an acquisition offer before the second Series E closing, 2) Participate in the Series E round as a way to stay close, 3) Do nothing and keep a close eye on them over the next year.\n\nI am going to try to pull my team together early next week to form a more definitive recommendation as some of the folks don't have conviction yet. Let me know if you would like to be in the room for any of that debate?\n\nDave-", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "amazon-ring-2017", "company": "Amazon", "audience": "Dave Limp, SVP Devices & Services, and Amazon corporate development", "source_type": "congressional_release", "source_title": "Amazon production to the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, AMAZON-HJC-00173560 (also published by Internal Tech Emails, Nov 21 2022)", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://judiciary.house.gov/UploadedFiles/00173560.pdf", "case": null, "context": "Limp updated Bezos on Ring, the home-security camera maker Amazon was considering acquiring, and laid out three options: bid before Ring's second Series E closing, invest in the round, or wait.", "tags": [ "acquisition", "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 9, "bates": "JBX-000009", "slug": "2017-12-15-limp-to-bezos-ring-update", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2017-12-15-limp-to-bezos-ring-update" }, { "id": "2017-12-15-bezos-to-limp-ring-1", "person": "Jeff Bezos", "date": "2017-12-15", "time": "9:52 AM", "from": "Jeff Bezos", "to": [ "Dave Limp" ], "cc": [ "Peter Krawiec", "Nick Komorous", "Jeff Helbling", "Douglas Booms" ], "subject": "RE: Ring update", "body": "I'd buy it right now.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "amazon-ring-2017", "company": "Amazon", "audience": "Dave Limp, SVP Devices & Services, and Amazon corporate development", "source_type": "congressional_release", "source_title": "Amazon production to the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, AMAZON-HJC-00173560 (also published by Internal Tech Emails, Nov 21 2022)", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://judiciary.house.gov/UploadedFiles/00173560.pdf", "case": null, "context": "Bezos's first reply to Limp's Ring update, 2 hours and 24 minutes after it was sent.", "tags": [ "acquisition", "strategy", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 10, "bates": "JBX-000010", "slug": "2017-12-15-bezos-to-limp-ring-1", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2017-12-15-bezos-to-limp-ring-1" }, { "id": "2018-01-11-zuckerberg-meaningful-interactions-briefing", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2018-01-11", "time": null, "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [], "cc": [], "subject": "Meaningful Interactions Briefing for NYT + Post", "body": "[w]e built Facebook to help people stay connected and bring us closer together with the people that matter to us. That's why we've always put friends and family at the core of the experience.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ftc-trial-record", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Not stated (name redacted)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, FTC's Reply to Meta's Response to the FTC's Counterstatement of Material Facts, ECF No. 379-2, p. 255 (quoting PX3429, FTC-META-004023041, at -042)", "source_url": "https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/FTCReplytoMetaResponse-CounterstatementofMaterialFacts.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Quoted in the FTC's filing from a January 11, 2018 email from Zuckerberg about a briefing for reporters on the News Feed changes; the recipient's name is redacted.", "tags": [ "communication", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 39, "bates": "MZX-000039", "slug": "2018-01-11-zuckerberg-meaningful-interactions-briefing", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2018-01-11-zuckerberg-meaningful-interactions-briefing" }, { "id": "2018-01-21-altman-to-musk", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-01-21", "time": "5:08 PM", "from": "Sam Altman", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [ "Greg Brockman", "Ilya Sutskever", "Sam Teller", "Shivon Zilis" ], "subject": "ICO", "body": "Elon—\n\nHeads up, spoke to some of the safety team and there were a lot of concerns about the ICO and possible unintended effects in the future.\n\nPlanning to talk to the whole team tomorrow and invite input. Going to emphasize the need to keep this confidential, but I think it's really important we get buy-in and give people the chance to weigh in early.\n\nSam", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-ico-2018", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Altman tells Musk that OpenAI's safety team had concerns about an ICO and that he planned to discuss it with the whole team.", "tags": [ "ai", "fundraising", "safety" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 90, "bates": "EMX-000090", "slug": "2018-01-21-altman-to-musk", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-01-21-altman-to-musk" }, { "id": "2018-01-21-musk-to-altman", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-01-21", "time": "5:56 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [ "Greg Brockman", "Ilya Sutskever", "Sam Teller", "Shivon Zilis" ], "subject": "ICO", "body": "Absolutely", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-ico-2018", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk replies to Altman's note about the safety team's concerns over an ICO.", "tags": [ "ai", "fundraising" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 91, "bates": "EMX-000091", "slug": "2018-01-21-musk-to-altman", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-01-21-musk-to-altman" }, { "id": "2018-01-30-zuckerberg-to-li-position-2-ad-load", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2018-01-30", "time": null, "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "S. Li" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Position 2", "body": "badly mismanaging [...] absolutely no reason why IG ad load should be lower than FB at a time when . . . we're having engagement issues in FB. [...] [i]f we were managing our company correctly, then at a minimum we'd immediately balance IG and FB ad load -- this week or this month, not this year.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ftc-trial-record", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Facebook and Instagram product and ads leaders", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, FTC's Reply to Meta's Response to the FTC's Counterstatement of Material Facts, ECF No. 379-2, p. 1743 (quoting PX15112, FB_FTC_CID_05394180, at -187)", "source_url": "https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/FTCReplytoMetaResponse-CounterstatementofMaterialFacts.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Quoted in the FTC's filing from Zuckerberg's January 30, 2018 email on the \"Position 2\" thread about Instagram and Facebook ad load. The filing dates the email January 30 in its citation and February in its text.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product", "cost" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 40, "bates": "MZX-000040", "slug": "2018-01-30-zuckerberg-to-li-position-2-ad-load", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2018-01-30-zuckerberg-to-li-position-2-ad-load" }, { "id": "2018-01-31-karpathy-to-musk", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-01-31", "time": "1:20 PM", "from": "Andrej Karpathy", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [ "Shivon Zilis" ], "subject": "Top AI institutions today", "body": "The ICLR conference (which is the top deep learning - specific conference (NIPS is larger, but more diffuse)) released their decisions for accepted/rejected papers, and someone made some nice plots that show where the current deep learning / AI research happens at. It's an imperfect measure because not every company might prioritize paper publications, but it's indicative.\n\nHere's a plot that shows the total number of papers (broken down by oral/poster/workshop/rejected) from any institution:\n\nLong story short, Google is dominating with 83 paper submissions. The academic institutions (Berkeley / Stanford / CMU / MIT) are next, in 20-30 ranges each.\n\nJust thought it was an interesting snapshot of where all the action is today. The full data is here: http://webia.lip6.fr/~pajot/dataviz.html\n\n-Andrej", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-failure-2018", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk, Shivon Zilis", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Andrej Karpathy sends Musk a snapshot of paper submissions to the ICLR conference by institution.", "tags": [ "ai", "engineering" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 92, "bates": "EMX-000092", "slug": "2018-01-31-karpathy-to-musk", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-01-31-karpathy-to-musk" }, { "id": "2018-01-31-karpathy-to-musk-2", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-01-31", "time": "11:54 PM", "from": "Andrej Karpathy", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Top AI institutions today", "body": "Working at the cutting edge of AI is unfortunately expensive. For example, DeepMind's operating expenses in 2016 were at around $250M USD (does not include compute). With their growing team today it might be ~0.5B/yr. But then Alphabet in 2016 reported ~20B net income so it's still fairly cheap even if DeepMind had no revenue of its own. In addition to DeepMind, Google also has Google Brain, Research, and Cloud. And TensorFlow, TPUs, and they own about a third of all research (in fact, they hold their own AI conferences).\n\nI also strongly suspect that compute horsepower will be necessary (and possibly even sufficient) to reach AGI. If historical trends are any indication, progress in AI is primarily driven by systems - compute, data, infrastructure. The core algorithms we use today have remained largely unchanged from the ~90s. Not only that, but any algorithmic advances published in a paper somewhere can be almost immediately re-implemented and incorporated. Conversely, algorithmic advances alone are inert without the scale to also make them scary.\n\nIt seems to me that OpenAI today is burning cash and that the funding model cannot reach the scale to seriously compete with Google (an 800B company). If you can't seriously compete but continue to do research in open, you might in fact be making things worse and helping them out \"for free\", because any advances are fairly easy for them to copy and immediately incorporate, at scale.\n\nA for-profit pivot might create a more sustainable revenue stream over time and would, with the current team, likely bring in a lot of investment. However, building out a product from scratch would steal focus from AI research, it would take a long time and it's unclear if a company could \"catch up\" to Google scale, and the investors might exert too much pressure in the wrong directions.\n\nThe most promising option I can think of, as I mentioned earlier, would be for OpenAI to attach to Tesla as its cash cow. I believe attachments to other large suspects (e.g. Apple? Amazon?) would fail due to an incompatible company DNA. Using a rocket analogy, Tesla already built the \"first stage\" of the rocket with the whole supply chain of Model 3 and its onboard computer and a persistent internet connection. The \"second stage\" would be a full self driving solution based on large-scale neural network training, which OpenAI expertise could significantly help accelerate. With a functioning full self-driving solution in ~2-3 years we could sell a lot of cars/trucks. If we do this really well, the transportation industry is large enough that we could increase Tesla's market cap to high O(~100K), and use that revenue to fund the AI work at the appropriate scale.\n\nI cannot see anything else that has the potential to reach sustainable Google-scale capital within a decade.\n\n-Andrej", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-failure-2018", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Karpathy replies with his views on OpenAI's funding needs relative to Google and the option of attaching OpenAI to Tesla.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy", "fundraising" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 93, "bates": "EMX-000093", "slug": "2018-01-31-karpathy-to-musk-2", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-01-31-karpathy-to-musk-2" }, { "id": "2018-01-31-musk-to-brockman", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-01-31", "time": "2:02 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Greg Brockman", "Ilya Sutskever", "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [ "Sam Teller", "Shivon Zilis" ], "subject": "Top AI institutions today", "body": "OpenAI is on a path of certain failure relative to Google. There obviously needs to be immediate and dramatic action or everyone except for Google will be consigned to irrelevance.\n\nI have considered the ICO approach and will not support it. In my opinion, that would simply result in a massive loss of credibility for OpenAI and everyone associated with the ICO. If something seems too good to be true, it is. This was, in my opinion, an unwise diversion.\n\nThe only paths I can think of are a major expansion of OpenAI and a major expansion of Tesla AI. Perhaps both simultaneously. The former would require a major increase in funds donated and highly credible people joining our board. The current board situation is very weak.\n\nI will set up a time for us to talk tomorrow. To be clear, I have a lot of respect for your abilities and accomplishments, but I am not happy with how things have been managed. That is why I have had trouble engaging with OpenAI in recent months. Either we fix things and my engagement increases a lot or we don’t and I will drop to near zero and publicly reduce my association. I will not be in a situation where the perception of my influence and time doesn’t match the reality.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-failure-2018", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, Sam Altman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk forwards Karpathy's ICLR data to OpenAI's leaders along with his view of OpenAI relative to Google, the ICO idea and his future engagement.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy", "fundraising", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 94, "bates": "EMX-000094", "slug": "2018-01-31-musk-to-brockman", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-01-31-musk-to-brockman" }, { "id": "2018-01-31-musk-to-karpathy", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-01-31", "time": "2:07 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Andrej Karpathy" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Top AI institutions today", "body": "fyi\n\nWhat do you think makes sense? Happy to talk by phone if that’s better.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-failure-2018", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Andrej Karpathy", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk forwards his message to OpenAI's leaders to Karpathy and asks for his view.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 95, "bates": "EMX-000095", "slug": "2018-01-31-musk-to-karpathy", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-01-31-musk-to-karpathy" }, { "id": "2018-02-01-musk-to-sutskever", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-02-01", "time": "3:52 AM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Ilya Sutskever", "Greg Brockman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Top AI institutions today", "body": "[Forwarded previous message from Andrej]\n\nAndrej is exactly right. We may wish it otherwise, but, in my and Andrej’s opinion, Tesla is the only path that could even hope to hold a candle to Google. Even then, the probability of being a counterweight to Google is small. It just isn’t zero.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-failure-2018", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk forwards Karpathy's reply to Sutskever and Brockman with his comment on Tesla as a path.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy", "acquisition" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 96, "bates": "EMX-000096", "slug": "2018-02-01-musk-to-sutskever", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-02-01-musk-to-sutskever" }, { "id": "2018-02-07-zuckerberg-to-li-ig-fb-ads-vs-engagement", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2018-02-07", "time": null, "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "S. Li" ], "cc": [], "subject": "IG / FB ads vs engagement stats", "body": "[a]re there other measures of effective ad load / tax we look at besides ads / stories and engagement displacement?", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ftc-trial-record", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "S. Li and other Facebook executives", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, FTC's Reply to Meta's Response to the FTC's Counterstatement of Material Facts, ECF No. 379-2, p. 1081 (quoting PX1968, FB_FTC_CID_06204829, at -829)", "source_url": "https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/FTCReplytoMetaResponse-CounterstatementofMaterialFacts.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Quoted in the FTC's filing from Zuckerberg's February 7, 2018 email about measuring the effect of ad load on engagement.", "tags": [ "product", "cost", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 41, "bates": "MZX-000041", "slug": "2018-02-07-zuckerberg-to-li-ig-fb-ads-vs-engagement", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2018-02-07-zuckerberg-to-li-ig-fb-ads-vs-engagement" }, { "id": "2018-04-02-altman-to-musk", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-04-02", "time": "1:54 PM", "from": "Sam Altman", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [ "Shivon Zilis" ], "subject": "The OpenAI Charter", "body": "We are planning to release this next week--any thoughts?\n\nThe OpenAI Charter\n\nOpenAI's mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) — by which we mean highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically-valuable creative work — benefits all of humanity. We will attempt to directly build safe and beneficial AGI, but will also consider our mission fulfilled if our work aids others to achieve this outcome. To that end, we commit to the following principles:\n\nBroadly Distributed Benefits\n\nWe commit to use any influence we obtain over AGI’s deployment to ensure it is used for the benefit of all, and to avoid enabling uses of AI or AGI that harm humanity or unduly concentrate power.\n\nOur primary fiduciary duty is to humanity. We anticipate needing to marshal substantial resources to fulfill our mission, but will always assiduously act to minimize conflicts of interest among our employees and stakeholders that could compromise broad benefit.\n\nLong-Term Safety\n\nWe are committed to doing the research required to make AGI safe, and to driving the broad adoption of such research across the AI community.\n\nWe are concerned about late-stage AGI development becoming a competitive race without time for adequate safety precautions. Therefore, if a value-aligned, safety-conscious project comes close to building AGI before we do, we commit to stop competing with and start assisting this project. We will work out specifics in case by case agreements, but a typical triggering condition might be \"a better-than-even chance of success in the next 2 years\".\n\nTechnical Leadership\n\nTo be effective at addressing AGI's impact on society, OpenAI must be on the cutting edge of AI capabilities — policy and safety advocacy alone would be insufficient.\n\nWe believe that AI will have broad societal impact before AGI, and we’ll strive to lead in those areas that are directly aligned with our mission and expertise.\n\nCooperative Orientation\n\nWe will actively cooperate with other research and policy institutions; we seek to create a global community working together to address AGI’s global challenges.\n\nWe are committed to providing public goods that help society navigate the path to AGI. Today this includes publishing most of our AI research, but we expect that safety and security concerns will reduce our traditional publishing in the future, while increasing the importance of sharing safety, policy, and standards research.", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-charter-2018", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk, Shivon Zilis", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Altman sends Musk the draft OpenAI Charter ahead of its planned release.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy", "safety" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 97, "bates": "EMX-000097", "slug": "2018-04-02-altman-to-musk", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-04-02-altman-to-musk" }, { "id": "2018-04-02-musk-to-altman", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-04-02", "time": "2:45PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "The OpenAI Charter", "body": "Sounds fine", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-charter-2018", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Altman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk replies to Altman's draft OpenAI Charter.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 98, "bates": "EMX-000098", "slug": "2018-04-02-musk-to-altman", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-04-02-musk-to-altman" }, { "id": "2018-04-17-musk-to-all-tesla-progress-precision-profit", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-04-17", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Everybody" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Progress, Precision and Profit", "body": "Progress\n\nFirst, congratulations are in order! We have now completed our third full week of producing over 2000 Model 3 vehicles. The first week was 2020, the second was 2070 and we just completed 2250 last week, along with 2000 Model S/X vehicles.\n\nThis is more than double Tesla’s weekly production rate last year and an amazing feat in the face of many challenges! It is extremely rare for an automotive company to grow the production rate by over 100% from one year to the next. Moreover, there has simultaneously been a significant improvement in quality and build accuracy, which is reflected in positive owner feedback.\n\nStarting today at Giga and tomorrow at Fremont, we will be stopping for three to five days to do a comprehensive set of upgrades. This should set us up for Model 3 production of 3000 to 4000 per week next month.\n\nAnother set of upgrades starting in late May should be enough to unlock production capacity of 6000 Model 3 vehicles per week by the end of June. Please note that all areas of Tesla and our suppliers will be required to demonstrate a Model 3 capacity of ~6000/week by building 850 sets of car parts in 24 hours no later than June 30th.\n\nAny Tesla department or supplier that is unable to do this will need to have a very good explanation why not, along with a plan for fixing the problem and present that to me directly. If anyone needs help achieving this, please let me know as soon as possible. We are going to find a way or make a way to get there.\n\nThe reason that the burst-build target rate is 6000 and not 5000 per week in June is that we cannot have a number with no margin for error across thousands of internally and externally produced parts and processes, amplified by a complex global logistics chain. Actual production will move as fast as the least lucky and least well-executed part of the entire Tesla production/supply chain system.\n\nBy having a Model 3 subsystem burst-build requirement of 6k by the end of June, we will lay the groundwork for achieving a steady 6k/week across the whole Model 3 system a few months later.\n\nAs part of the drive towards 6k, all Model 3 production at Fremont will move to 24/7operations. This means that we will be adding another shift to general assembly, body and paint. Please refer anyone you know who you think meets the Tesla bar for talent, drive and trust. Between Fremont and Giga, Tesla will be adding about 400 people per week for several weeks.\n\nPrecision\n\nMost of the design tolerances of the Model 3 are already better than any other car in the world. Soon, they will all be better. This is not enough. We will keep going until the Model 3 build precision is a factor of ten better than any other car in the world. I am not kidding.\n\nOur car needs to be designed and built with such accuracy and precision that, if an owner measures dimensions, panel gaps and flushness, and their measurements don’t match the Model 3 specs, it just means that their measuring tape is wrong.\n\nSome parts suppliers will be unwilling or unable to achieve this level of precision. I understand that this will be considered an unreasonable request by some. That’s ok, there are lots of other car companies with much lower standards. They just can’t work with Tesla.\n\nProfit\n\nA fair criticism leveled at Tesla by outside critics is that you’re not a real company unless you generate a profit, meaning simply that revenue exceeds costs. It didn’t make sense to do that until reaching economies of scale, but now we are there.\n\nGoing forward, we will be far more rigorous about expenditures. I have asked the Tesla finance team to comb through every expense worldwide, no matter how small, and cut everything that doesn’t have a strong value justification.\n\nAll capital or other expenditures above a million dollars, or where a set of related expenses may accumulate to a million dollars over the next 12 months, should be considered on hold until explicitly approved by me. If you are the manager responsible, please make sure you have a detailed, first principles understanding of the supplier quote, including every line item of parts & labor, before we meet.\n\nI have been disappointed to discover how many contractor companies are interwoven throughout Tesla. Often, it is like a Russian nesting doll of contractor, subcontractor, sub-subcontractor, etc. before you finally find someone doing actual work. This means a lot of middle-managers adding cost but not doing anything obviously useful. Also, many contracts are essentially open time & materials, not fixed price and duration, which creates an incentive to turn molehills into mountains, as they never want to end the money train.\n\nThere is a very wide range of contractor performance, from excellent to worse than a drunken sloth. All contracting companies should consider the coming week to be a final opportunity to demonstrate excellence. Any that fail to meet the Tesla standard of excellence will have their contracts ended on Monday.\n\nBtw, here are a few productivity recommendations:\n\n– Excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time. Please get of all large meetings, unless you’re certain they are providing value to the whole audience, in which case keep them very short.\n\n– Also get rid of frequent meetings, unless you are dealing with an extremely urgent matter. Meeting frequency should drop rapidly once the urgent matter is resolved.\n\n– Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value. It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.\n\n– Don’t use acronyms or nonsense words for objects, software or processes at Tesla. In general, anything that requires an explanation inhibits communication. We don’t want people to have to memorize a glossary just to function at Tesla.\n\n– Communication should travel via the shortest path necessary to get the job done, not through the “chain of command”. Any manager who attempts to enforce chain of command communication will soon find themselves working elsewhere.\n\n– A major source of issues is poor communication between depts. The way to solve this is allow free flow of information between all levels. If, in order to get something done between depts, an individual contributor has to talk to their manager, who talks to a director, who talks to a VP, who talks to another VP, who talks to a director, who talks to a manager, who talks to someone doing the actual work, then super dumb things will happen. It must be ok for people to talk directly and just make the right thing happen.\n\n– In general, always pick common sense as your guide. If following a “company rule” is obviously ridiculous in a particular situation, such that it would make for a great Dilbert cartoon, then the rule should change.\n\nIf there is something you think should be done to make Tesla execute better or allow you to look forward to coming to work more (same thing in the long term), please send a note to [redacted]\n\nThanks for being such a kickass team and accomplishing miracles every day. It matters. We are burning the midnight oil to burn the midnight oil.\n\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "model3-ramp-2018", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Electrek, \"Tesla Model 3 production aims for 6,000 units per week in June after upgrade in May\" (Apr 17, 2018)", "source_url": "https://electrek.co/2018/04/17/tesla-model-3-production-goal-6000-units-per-week/", "case": null, "context": "Leaked email sent during a Model 3 production line shutdown at Fremont and Gigafactory 1, setting a 6,000 per week subsystem target and a spending review. Includes the productivity recommendations (meetings, acronyms, chain of command) widely quoted afterwards. Electrek and Jalopnik both obtained it.", "tags": [ "manufacturing", "cost", "management", "communication", "deadlines" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 99, "bates": "EMX-000099", "slug": "2018-04-17-musk-to-all-tesla-progress-precision-profit", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-04-17-musk-to-all-tesla-progress-precision-profit" }, { "id": "2018-04-23-zilis-to-musk-ai-updates", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-04-23", "time": "1:49 AM", "from": "Shivon Zilis", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [ "Sam Teller" ], "subject": "AI updates", "body": "Updated info per a conversation with Altman. You’re tentatively set to speak with him on Tuesday.\nFinancing:\n-He confirmed again that they are definitely not doing an ICO but rather equity that has a fixed maximum return.\n-Would be a rather unique subsidiary structure for the raise which he wants to walk you through.\n-Wants to move within 4-6 week on first round (probably largely Reid money, potentially some corporates).\nTech:\n-Says Dota 5v5 looking better than anticipated.\n-The sharp rise in Dota bot performance is apparently causing people internally to worry that the timeline to AGI is sooner than they’d thought before.\n-Thinks they are on track to beat Montezuma’s Revenge shortly.\nTime allocation:\n-I’ve reallocated most of the hours I used to spend with OpenAI to Neuralink and Tesla. This naturally happened with you stepping off the board and related factors — but if you’d prefer I pull more hours back to OpenAI oversight please let me know.\n-Sam and Greg asked if I’d be on their informal advisory board (just Gabe Newell so far), which seems fine and better than the formal board given potential conflicts? If that doesn’t feel right let me know what you’d prefer.\nOn Mar 25, 2018, at 11:03 AM, Shivon Zilis [redacted] wrote:\nOpenAI\nFundraising:\n-No longer doing the ICO / “instrument to purchase compute in advance” type structure. Altman is thinking through an instrument where the 4-5 large corporates who are interested can invest with a return capped at 50x if OpenAI does get to some semblance of money-making AGI. They apparently seem willing just for access reasons. He wants to discuss with you in more detail.\nFormal Board Resignation:\n-You're still technically on the board so need to send a quick one liner to Sam Altman saying something like “With this email I hereby resign as a director of OpenAI, effective Feb 20th 2018”.\nFuture Board:\n-Altman said he is cool with me joining then having to step off if I become conflicted, but is concerned that others would consider it a burned bridge if I had to step off. I think best bet is not to join for now and be an ambiguous advisor but let me know if you feel differently. They have Adam D’Angelo as the potential fifth to take your place, which seems great?\nTeslaAI\nAndrej has three candidates in pipeline, may have 1-2 come in to meet you on Tuesday. He will send you a briefing note about them. Also, he’s working on starter language for a potential release that will be ready to discuss Tuesday. It will follow the “full-stack AI lab” angle we talked about but, if that doesn’t feel right, please course correct... is tricky messaging.\nCerebras\nChip should be available in August for them to test, and they plan to let others have remote access in September. The Cerebras guy also mentioned that a lot of their recent customer interest has been from companies upset about the Nvidia change in terms of service (the one that forces companies away from consumer grade GPUs to enterprise Pascals / Voltas). Scott Gray and Ilya continue to spend a bunch of time with them", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-for-profit-2018", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk, Sam Teller", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 32-19, Exhibit 18 to Verified First Amended Complaint (filed Nov 14 2024); same email at Dkt. 391-15 (Exhibit 60 to Wiener Declaration, 2024MUSK-0005604-05)", "source_url": "https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.32.19.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Zilis briefs Musk on her talk with Altman about the capped-return fundraising structure, the Dota bot, her board status and Tesla AI recruiting, and repeats her March 25 notes.", "tags": [ "ai", "fundraising", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 100, "bates": "EMX-000100", "slug": "2018-04-23-zilis-to-musk-ai-updates", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-04-23-zilis-to-musk-ai-updates" }, { "id": "2018-04-23-musk-to-zilis-ok-by-me", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-04-23", "time": "2:06 AM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Shivon Zilis" ], "cc": [ "Sam Teller" ], "subject": "Re: AI updates", "body": "Ok by me", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-for-profit-2018", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Shivon Zilis, Sam Teller", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 391-15, Exhibit 60 to Wiener Declaration ISO OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (public redacted version filed Jan 16 2026; 2024MUSK-0005604); also Dkt. 379-45 and 379-87", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.391.15.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk replies to Zilis's briefing on her conversation with Altman about OpenAI's fundraising structure and her proposed role as an informal advisor.", "tags": [ "ai", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 101, "bates": "EMX-000101", "slug": "2018-04-23-musk-to-zilis-ok-by-me", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-04-23-musk-to-zilis-ok-by-me" }, { "id": "2018-04-28-musk-to-altman-board-resignation", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-04-28", "time": "5:54 AM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [ "Shivon Zilis" ], "subject": "Re: OpenAI Board", "body": "I hereby resign as a director of OpenAI, Inc., effective February 21, 2018.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-for-profit-2018", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Altman, Shivon Zilis", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 328-58, Exhibit 54 to Wiener Declaration ISO OpenAI Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (unsealed exhibit; OPENAI_MUSK00000865)", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.328.58.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk sends the one-line formal resignation from OpenAI's board that OpenAI needed in order to seat Adam D'Angelo.", "tags": [ "ai", "management", "legal" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 102, "bates": "EMX-000102", "slug": "2018-04-28-musk-to-altman-board-resignation", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-04-28-musk-to-altman-board-resignation" }, { "id": "2018-05-03-zuckerberg-cannibalization-and-network-collapse", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2018-05-03", "time": null, "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "Confidential -- do *not* share beyond this group. [...] 1. Cannibalization and Network Collapse [...] [T]here's a real chance we may be causing network collapse of the more engaging and more profitable product to replace it with one that is less engaging and less profitable.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ftc-trial-slides", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Not stated in the slide", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, Plaintiff's opening statement slides (Apr. 14, 2025), slide 51 (quotes PX3602, Email from Mr. Zuckerberg (May 3, 2018))", "source_url": "https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/1910134ftcopeningstatementslides.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Quotes shown on an FTC slide at the April 2025 trial, labeled \"Email from Mr. Zuckerberg (May 3, 2018)\" (PX3602). The slide shows only these excerpts.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product", "cost" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": true, "num": 42, "bates": "MZX-000042", "slug": "2018-05-03-zuckerberg-cannibalization-and-network-collapse", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2018-05-03-zuckerberg-cannibalization-and-network-collapse" }, { "id": "2018-06-12-musk-to-all-tesla-reorg-update", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-06-12", "time": "10:27 AM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Everybody" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Reorg Update", "body": "As described previously, we are conducting a comprehensive organizational restructuring across our whole company. Tesla has grown and evolved rapidly over the past several years, which has resulted in some duplication of roles and some job functions that, while they made sense in the past, are difficult to justify today.\n\nAs part of this effort, and the need to reduce costs and become profitable, we have made the difficult decision to let go of approximately 9% of our colleagues across the company. These cuts were almost entirely made from our salaried population and no production associates were included, so this will not affect our ability to reach Model 3 production targets in the coming months.\n\nGiven that Tesla has never made an annual profit in the almost 15 years since we have existed, profit is obviously not what motivates us. What drives us is our mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable, clean energy, but we will never achieve that mission unless we eventually demonstrate that we can be sustainably profitable. That is a valid and fair criticism of Tesla’s history to date.\n\nThis week, we are informing those whose roles are impacted by this action. We made these decisions by evaluating the criticality of each position, whether certain jobs could be done more efficiently and productively, and by assessing the specific skills and abilities of each individual in the company. As you know, we are also continuing to flatten our management structure to help us communicate better, eliminate bureaucracy and move faster.\n\nIn addition to this company-wide restructuring, we have decided not to renew our residential sales agreement with Home Depot in order to focus our efforts on selling solar power in Tesla stores and online. The majority of Tesla employees working at Home Depot will be offered the opportunity to move over to Tesla retail locations.\n\nI would like to thank everyone who is departing Tesla for their hard work over the years. I’m deeply grateful for your many contributions to our mission. It is very difficult to say goodbye. In order to minimize the impact, Tesla is providing significant salary and stock vesting (proportionate to length of service) to those we are letting go.\n\nTo be clear, Tesla will still continue to hire outstanding talent in critical roles as we move forward and there is still a significant need for additional production personnel. I also want to emphasize that we are making this hard decision now so that we never have to do this again.\n\nTo those who are departing, thank you for everything you have done for Tesla and we wish you well in your future opportunities. To those remaining, I would like to thank you in advance for the difficult job that remains ahead. We are a small company in one of the toughest and most competitive industries on Earth, where just staying alive, let alone growing, is a form of victory (Tesla and Ford remain the only American car companies who haven’t gone bankrupt). Yet, despite our tiny size, Tesla has already played a major role in moving the auto industry towards sustainable electric transport and moving the energy industry towards sustainable power generation and storage. We must continue to drive that forward for the good of the world.\n\nThanks,\n\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "restructuring-2018", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Electrek, \"Tesla is laying off about 9% of its workforce as it restructures the company\" (June 12, 2018)", "source_url": "https://electrek.co/2018/06/12/tesla-layoffs-workforce-restructure/", "case": null, "context": "Companywide email announcing a restructuring that cut about 9 percent of staff, mostly salaried roles, and the end of the Home Depot residential sales agreement.", "tags": [ "firing", "cost", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 103, "bates": "EMX-000103", "slug": "2018-06-12-musk-to-all-tesla-reorg-update", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-06-12-musk-to-all-tesla-reorg-update" }, { "id": "2018-06-15-musk-to-all-tesla-only-8-days-left", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-06-15", "time": "8:27 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Everybody" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Only 8 days left to reach 700 cars/day or 5k/week", "body": "It's getting very exciting! All parts of the Model 3 production system are now above 500 and some are almost at 700 cars already. Congratulations to all on making so much progress!\nThat said, radical improvements are still needed in paint shop output, GA3, bringing up the new GA4, End of Line and Module Zone 4 at Giga. We also need to achieve sustained, 700+ per week on the body line.\nWherever you are in the company, if you feel you can help out in any of those areas, please check in with Jat Dhillon on GA3, Jerome Guillen on GA4 and Omead on EoL and JB Straubel or Christ Lister on Module Zone 4.\nI will be at our Fremont factory almost 24/7 for the next several days checking in with those groups to make sure they have as many resources as they can handle.\nThanks,\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "model3-ramp-2018", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "CNBC, \"Elon Musk e-mails Tesla employees urging 'radical improvements' to hit quarterly targets\" (June 16, 2018)", "source_url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/16/elon-musk-e-mail-to-tesla-employees-says-radical-improvements-needed.html", "case": null, "context": "Friday-night email during the push to reach 5,000 Model 3 per week by end of June 2018. CNBC received it from a current employee.", "tags": [ "manufacturing", "deadlines" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 104, "bates": "EMX-000104", "slug": "2018-06-15-musk-to-all-tesla-only-8-days-left", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-06-15-musk-to-all-tesla-only-8-days-left" }, { "id": "2018-07-01-musk-to-all-tesla-we-did-it", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-07-01", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "All Tesla employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "We did it!! What an incredible job by an amazing team. Couldn’t be more proud to work with you. It is an honor.\n\nThe level of dedication and creativity was mind-blowing. We either found a way or, by will and inventiveness, created entirely new solutions that were thought impossible.\n\nIntense in tents. Transporting entire production lines across the world in massive cargo planes. Whatever. It worked.\n\nNot only did we factory gate over 5000 Model 3’s, but we also achieved the S & X production target for a combined 7000 vehicle week!\n\nWhat’s more, with the widespread productivity gains throughout Tesla and the new production lines spooling up, we are on track to reach 6K/week for Model 3 next month.\n\nI think we just became a real car company….\n\nThank you for your hard work and dedication,\n\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "model3-ramp-2018", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Fortune (Bloomberg), \"Read the Email Elon Musk Sent to Tesla Employees When They Hit the Model 3 Production Goal\" (July 2, 2018; \"reformatted version\")", "source_url": "https://fortune.com/2018/07/02/elon-musk-email-tesla-employees-model-3-goal", "case": null, "context": "Sunday email after Tesla reached 5,000 Model 3 produced in a week. Bloomberg described the text as a reformatted version.", "tags": [ "manufacturing", "culture", "deadlines" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 105, "bates": "EMX-000105", "slug": "2018-07-01-musk-to-all-tesla-we-did-it", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-07-01-musk-to-all-tesla-we-did-it" }, { "id": "2018-07-18-zuckerberg-to-whetstone-draft-earnings-script", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2018-07-18", "time": null, "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "R. Whetstone" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Draft Earnings Script", "body": "[o]ur analysis suggests without these integrations, Instagram's community would only be ~300-400 million people today instead of 1 billion.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ftc-trial-record", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "R. Whetstone and other Facebook executives", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, FTC's Reply to Meta's Response to the FTC's Counterstatement of Material Facts, ECF No. 379-2, p. 1904 (quoting PX3447, FB_FTC_CID_12727855, at -856)", "source_url": "https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/FTCReplytoMetaResponse-CounterstatementofMaterialFacts.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Quoted in the FTC's filing from language Zuckerberg added to a draft of Meta's 2018 earnings script in a July 18, 2018 email to executives.", "tags": [ "communication", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 43, "bates": "MZX-000043", "slug": "2018-07-18-zuckerberg-to-whetstone-draft-earnings-script", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2018-07-18-zuckerberg-to-whetstone-draft-earnings-script" }, { "id": "2018-07-19-zuckerberg-to-schultz-draft-earnings-script", "person": "Mark Zuckerberg", "date": "2018-07-19", "time": null, "from": "Mark Zuckerberg", "to": [ "Alex Schultz" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Draft Earnings Script", "body": "~25% [...] intuitively [...] be in the range of every other social app (Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc [sic]) and that's 200-400 million actives.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "ftc-trial-record", "company": "Facebook", "audience": "Alex Schultz, Facebook", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "FTC v. Meta, FTC's Reply to Meta's Response to the FTC's Counterstatement of Material Facts, ECF No. 379-2, p. 1905 (quoting PX15179, FB_FTC_CID_08956094, at -095)", "source_url": "https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/FTCReplytoMetaResponse-CounterstatementofMaterialFacts.pdf", "case": "FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C.)", "context": "Quoted in the FTC's filing from Zuckerberg's July 19, 2018 reply to Alex Schultz, who had said he did not know of analysis behind the draft earnings-script line about Instagram's growth. The filing quotes only fragments.", "tags": [ "strategy", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 44, "bates": "MZX-000044", "slug": "2018-07-19-zuckerberg-to-schultz-draft-earnings-script", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2018-07-19-zuckerberg-to-schultz-draft-earnings-script" }, { "id": "2018-08-02-musk-to-board-offer-to-take-tesla-private", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-08-02", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Tesla Board of Directors", "Tesla Chief Financial Officer", "Tesla General Counsel" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Offer to Take Tesla Private at $420", "body": "[s]ubjects Tesla to constant defamatory attacks by the short-selling community, resulting in great harm to our valuable brand. [...] matter be put to a shareholder vote at the earliest opportunity [...] offer expires in 30 days.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "take-private-2018", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "Tesla board, CFO and general counsel", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "SEC v. Musk complaint (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 27, 2018), para. 23, quoting the email", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2019/https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2018/comp-pr2018-219.pdf", "case": "SEC v. Musk, No. 1:18-cv-8865 (S.D.N.Y.)", "context": "Email sent after market close on Aug. 2, 2018, five days before the \"funding secured\" tweet. Only fragments quoted in the SEC complaint are reproduced, joined with [...].", "tags": [ "fundraising", "legal", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 106, "bates": "EMX-000106", "slug": "2018-08-02-musk-to-board-offer-to-take-tesla-private", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-08-02-musk-to-board-offer-to-take-tesla-private" }, { "id": "2018-08-07-musk-to-all-tesla-taking-tesla-private", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-08-07", "time": "3:16 PM EDT", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "All Tesla employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Taking Tesla Private", "body": "Earlier today, I announced that I’m considering taking Tesla private at a price of $420/share. I wanted to let you know my rationale for this, and why I think this is the best path forward.\n\nFirst, a final decision has not yet been made, but the reason for doing this is all about creating the environment for Tesla to operate best. As a public company, we are subject to wild swings in our stock price that can be a major distraction for everyone working at Tesla, all of whom are shareholders. Being public also subjects us to the quarterly earnings cycle that puts enormous pressure on Tesla to make decisions that may be right for a given quarter, but not necessarily right for the long-term. Finally, as the most shorted stock in the history of the stock market, being public means that there are large numbers of people who have the incentive to attack the company.\n\nI fundamentally believe that we are at our best when everyone is focused on executing, when we can remain focused on our long-term mission, and when there are not perverse incentives for people to try to harm what we’re all trying to achieve.\n\nThis is especially true for a company like Tesla that has a long-term, forward-looking mission. SpaceX is a perfect example: it is far more operationally efficient, and that is largely due to the fact that it is privately held. This is not to say that it will make sense for Tesla to be private over the long-term. In the future, once Tesla enters a phase of slower, more predictable growth, it will likely make sense to return to the public markets.\n\nHere’s what I envision being private would mean for all shareholders, including all of our employees.\n\nFirst, I would like to structure this so that all shareholders have a choice. Either they can stay investors in a private Tesla or they can be bought out at $420 per share, which is a 20% premium over the stock price following our Q2 earnings call (which had already increased by 16%). My hope is for all shareholders to remain, but if they prefer to be bought out, then this would enable that to happen at a nice premium.\n\nSecond, my intention is for all Tesla employees to remain shareholders of the company, just as is the case at SpaceX. If we were to go private, employees would still be able to periodically sell their shares and exercise their options. This would enable you to still share in the growing value of the company that you have all worked so hard to build over time.\n\nThird, the intention is not to merge SpaceX and Tesla. They would continue to have separate ownership and governance structures. However, the structure envisioned for Tesla is similar in many ways to the SpaceX structure: external shareholders and employee shareholders have an opportunity to sell or buy approximately every six months.\n\nFinally, this has nothing to do with accumulating control for myself. I own about 20% of the company now, and I don’t envision that being substantially different after any deal is completed.\n\nBasically, I’m trying to accomplish an outcome where Tesla can operate at its best, free from as much distraction and short-term thinking as possible, and where there is as little change for all of our investors, including all of our employees, as possible.\n\nThis proposal to go private would ultimately be finalized through a vote of our shareholders. If the process ends the way I expect it will, a private Tesla would ultimately be an enormous opportunity for all of us. Either way, the future is very bright and we’ll keep fighting to achieve our mission.\n\nThanks,\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "take-private-2018", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees (also posted on Tesla blog)", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "Tesla blog, \"Taking Tesla Private\" (Aug 7, 2018), Wayback Machine copy", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180808/https://www.tesla.com/blog/taking-tesla-private", "case": null, "context": "Email sent to employees and posted on the Tesla blog the day Musk tweeted he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 per share. The SEC complaint lists the send time as about 3:16 PM EDT.", "tags": [ "fundraising", "strategy", "communication", "legal" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 107, "bates": "EMX-000107", "slug": "2018-08-07-musk-to-all-tesla-taking-tesla-private", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-08-07-musk-to-all-tesla-taking-tesla-private" }, { "id": "2018-08-24-musk-to-all-tesla-staying-public", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-08-24", "time": "8:34 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Everybody" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Staying Public", "body": "After giving this a lot of thought, I have come to the conclusion that the best path for the foreseeable future is for Tesla to remain a public company.\nThere are certainly a number of very compelling reasons to go private, so this is far from an obvious decision, but, on balance, being public appears to best serve the interests of the people of Tesla and those who have invested in our future.\nThanks for being awesome,\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "take-private-2018", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "CNBC, \"Here's how Elon Musk told employees he was abandoning the take-private idea for Tesla\" (Aug 24, 2018)", "source_url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/24/elon-musk-sent-this-e-mail-to-employees-abandoning-take-private-plan.html", "case": null, "context": "Friday-night email telling employees Tesla would remain public, sent the same night as Tesla’s public announcement.", "tags": [ "strategy", "fundraising", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 108, "bates": "EMX-000108", "slug": "2018-08-24-musk-to-all-tesla-staying-public", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-08-24-musk-to-all-tesla-staying-public" }, { "id": "2018-09-30-musk-to-all-tesla-very-close-to-profitability", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-09-30", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "All employees of Tesla, Inc." ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "We are very close to achieving profitability and proving the naysayers wrong, but, to be certain, we must execute really well tomorrow (Sunday).\n\nIf we go all out tomorrow, we will achieve an epic victory beyond all expectations.\n\nGo Tesla!!!\n\nThanks for all your hard work,\n\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": null, "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "sec_filing", "source_title": "Tesla Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1 (accession 0001564590-18-023716), Wayback Machine copy", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2019/https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000156459018023716/tsla-ex991_6.htm", "case": null, "context": "End-of-quarter email filed by Tesla with the SEC as an exhibit to a Form 8-K, days after the SEC settlement over the 2018 take-private tweet.", "tags": [ "deadlines", "strategy", "legal" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 109, "bates": "EMX-000109", "slug": "2018-09-30-musk-to-all-tesla-very-close-to-profitability", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-09-30-musk-to-all-tesla-very-close-to-profitability" }, { "id": "2018-11-02-musk-to-newell-very-limited", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-11-02", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Gabe Newell" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "very limited [...] I still provide some financial support and get verbal and email updates every few weeks from Sam Altman, but don’t spend time there. I lost confidence that OpenAI could muster the resources to serve as an effective counterweight to Google/Deepmind and decided to attempt that through Tesla instead.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-for-profit-2018", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Gabe Newell (Valve)", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman, Dkt. 379-62, Declaration of C. Paul Wazzan (Exhibit 10 to Hawes Declaration), para. 92, quoting Musk Dep. Ex. 16, \"November 2, 2018 email from Elon Musk to Gabe Newell\" (2024MUSK-0009544); only the quoted portion is available", "source_url": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.379.62.pdf", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "In a Nov 2, 2018 reply to Valve co-founder Gabe Newell, Musk describes his involvement with OpenAI at that point. Quoted in a declaration by plaintiffs' damages expert C. Paul Wazzan.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 110, "bates": "EMX-000110", "slug": "2018-11-02-musk-to-newell-very-limited", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-11-02-musk-to-newell-very-limited" }, { "id": "2018-12-17-altman-to-musk", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-12-17", "time": "3:42 PM", "from": "Sam Altman", "to": [ "Elon Musk" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: OpenAI update", "body": "Hey Elon–\n\nIn Q1 of next year, we plan to do a final Dota tournament with any pro team that wants to play for a large cash prize, on an unrestricted game. After that, we'll call model-free RL complete, and a subset of the team will work on re-solving 1v1 Dota with model-based RL.\n\nWe also plan to release a number of robot hand demos in Q1–Rubiks cube, pen tricks, and Chinese ball rotation. The learning speed for new tasks should be very fast. Later in the year, we will try mounting two hands on two arms and see what happens...\n\nWe are also making fast progress on language. My hope is that next year we can generate short stories and a good dialogue bot.\n\n[redacted] The hope is that we can use this unsupervised learning to build models that can do hard things, eg never make an image classification mistake a human wouldn't, which to me would imply some level of conceptual understanding.\n\nWe are also making good progress in the multi-agent environment, with multiple agents now collaborating to build simple structure, play laser tag, etc.\n\nFinally, I am working on a deal to move our computing from Google to Microsoft (in addition to our own data centers).\n\nAlso happy to talk about fundraising (we should have enough for the next ~2 years even with aggressive growth) and evolving hardware thoughts if helpful, would prefer not to put either of those in email but maybe next time you're at Pioneer?\n\nSam", "musk_authored": false, "thread": "openai-update-2018", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Elon Musk", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024 (email also reproduced in OpenAI blog, Dec 13 2024)", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": null, "context": "Altman gives Musk an update on OpenAI's research plans, compute and fundraising.", "tags": [ "ai", "engineering", "fundraising" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 111, "bates": "EMX-000111", "slug": "2018-12-17-altman-to-musk", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-12-17-altman-to-musk" }, { "id": "2018-12-17-musk-to-altman", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-12-17", "time": "3:47 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Re: OpenAI update", "body": "Sounds good\n\nCould probably meet Wed eve in SF", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-update-2018", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Altman", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024 (email also reproduced in OpenAI blog, Dec 13 2024)", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": null, "context": "Musk replies to Altman's December 2018 OpenAI update.", "tags": [ "ai", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 112, "bates": "EMX-000112", "slug": "2018-12-17-musk-to-altman", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-12-17-musk-to-altman" }, { "id": "2018-12-26-musk-to-sutskever", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2018-12-26", "time": "12:07 PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Ilya Sutskever", "Greg Brockman" ], "cc": [ "Sam Altman", "Shivon Zilis" ], "subject": "I feel I should reiterate", "body": "My probability assessment of OpenAI being relevant to DeepMind/Google without a dramatic change in execution and resources is 0%. Not 1%. I wish it were otherwise.\n\nEven raising several hundred million won't be enough. This needs billions per year immediately or forget it.\n\nUnfortunately, humanity's future is in the hands of [redacted]. [Link to article]\n\n[redacted]\n\nOpenAI reminds me of Bezos and Blue Origin. They are hopelessly behind SpaceX and getting worse, but the ego of Bezos has him insanely thinking that they are not!\n\nI really hope I'm wrong.\n\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-reiterate-2018", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024 (email also reproduced in OpenAI blog, Dec 13 2024)", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": null, "context": "Musk writes to Sutskever and Brockman with his assessment of OpenAI's position relative to DeepMind and Google and the funding it would need.", "tags": [ "ai", "strategy", "fundraising" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 113, "bates": "EMX-000113", "slug": "2018-12-26-musk-to-sutskever", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2018-12-26-musk-to-sutskever" }, { "id": "2019-01-18-musk-to-all-tesla-7-percent-reduction", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2019-01-18", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "All Tesla employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "As we all experienced first-hand, last year was the most challenging in Tesla's history. However, thanks to your efforts, 2018 was also the most successful year in Tesla's history: we delivered almost as many cars as we did in all of 2017 in the last quarter alone and nearly as many cars last year as we did in all the prior years of Tesla's existence combined! Model 3 also became the best-selling premium vehicle of 2018 in the US. This is truly remarkable and something that few thought possible just a short time ago.\nLooking ahead at our mission of accelerating the advent of sustainable transport and energy, which is important for all life on Earth, we face an extremely difficult challenge: making our cars, batteries and solar products cost-competitive with fossil fuels. While we have made great progress, our products are still too expensive for most people. Tesla has only been producing cars for about a decade and we're up against massive, entrenched competitors. The net effect is that Tesla must work much harder than other manufacturers to survive while building affordable, sustainable products.\nIn Q3 last year, we were able to make a 4% profit. While small by most standards, I would still consider this our first meaningful profit in the 15 years since we created Tesla. However, that was in part the result of preferentially selling higher priced Model 3 variants in North America. In Q4, preliminary, unaudited results indicate that we again made a GAAP profit, but less than Q3. This quarter, as with Q3, shipment of higher priced Model 3 variants (this time to Europe and Asia) will hopefully allow us, with great difficulty, effort and some luck, to target a tiny profit.\nHowever, starting around May, we will need to deliver at least the mid-range Model 3 variant in all markets, as we need to reach more customers who can afford our vehicles. Moreover, we need to continue making progress towards lower priced variants of Model 3. Right now, our most affordable offering is the mid-range (264 mile) Model 3 with premium sound and interior at $44k. The need for a lower priced variants of Model 3 becomes even greater on July 1, when the US tax credit again drops in half, making our car $1,875 more expensive, and again at the end of the year when it goes away entirely.\nSorry for all these numbers, but I want to make sure that you know all the facts and figures and understand that the road ahead is very difficult. This is not new for us – we have always faced significant challenges – but it is the reality we face. There are many companies that can offer a better work-life balance, because they are larger and more mature or in industries that are not so voraciously competitive. Attempting to build affordable clean energy products at scale necessarily requires extreme effort and relentless creativity, but succeeding in our mission is essential to ensure that the future is good, so we must do everything we can to advance the cause.\nAs a result of the above, we unfortunately have no choice but to reduce full-time employee headcount by approximately 7% (we grew by 30% last year, which is more than we can support) and retain only the most critical temps and contractors. Tesla will need to make these cuts while increasing the Model 3 production rate and making many manufacturing engineering improvements in the coming months. Higher volume and manufacturing design improvements are crucial for Tesla to achieve the economies of scale required to manufacture the standard range (220 mile), standard interior Model 3 at $35k and still be a viable company. There isn't any other way.\nTo those departing, thank you for everything you have done to advance our mission. I am deeply grateful for your contributions to Tesla. We would not be where we are today without you.\nFor those remaining, although there are many challenges ahead, I believe we have the most exciting product roadmap of any consumer product company in the world. Full self-driving, Model Y, Semi, Truck and Roadster on the vehicle side and Powerwall/pack and Solar Roof on the energy side are only the start.\nI am honored to work alongside you.\nThanks for everything,\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "cost-2019", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees (also published by Tesla as a company update)", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "Tesla company update, as reproduced in full by CNBC, \"Read the email Elon Musk sent to Tesla employees explaining the need for job cuts\" (Jan 18, 2019)", "source_url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/18/elon-musk-tesla-email-to-employees-about-job-cuts.html", "case": null, "context": "Email announcing a reduction of about 7 percent of full-time headcount. CNBC introduced the text as the company’s update, which stated it was the email sent to all employees that morning.", "tags": [ "firing", "cost", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 114, "bates": "EMX-000114", "slug": "2019-01-18-musk-to-all-tesla-7-percent-reduction", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2019-01-18-musk-to-all-tesla-7-percent-reduction" }, { "id": "2019-03-11-musk-to-altman", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2019-03-11", "time": "3:04PM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Sam Altman" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Bloomberg: AI Research Group Co-Founded by Elon Musk Starts For-Profit Arm", "body": "Please be explicit that I have no financial interest in the for-profit arm of OpenAI\n\nAI Research Group Co-Founded by Elon Musk Starts For-Profit Arm\n\nBloomberg\n\nOpenAI, the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence research group co-founded by Elon Musk and several other prominent Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, is starting a for-profit arm that will allow it to raise more money. Read the full story\n\nShared from Apple News", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "openai-for-profit-2019", "company": "OpenAI", "audience": "Sam Altman", "source_type": "court_exhibit", "source_title": "Musk v. Altman court exhibits, as transcribed in \"OpenAI Email Archives (from Musk v. Altman)\" by habryka, LessWrong, Nov 2024", "source_url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman", "case": "Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722 (N.D. Cal.)", "context": "Musk asks Altman to state publicly that he has no financial interest in OpenAI's new for-profit arm, in reply to a Bloomberg report.", "tags": [ "ai", "communication", "legal" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 115, "bates": "EMX-000115", "slug": "2019-03-11-musk-to-altman", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2019-03-11-musk-to-altman" }, { "id": "2019-03-21-musk-to-all-tesla-vehicle-delivery-help", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2019-03-21", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Everybody" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Vehicle Delivery Help Needed!", "body": "For the last ten days of this quarter, please consider your primary priority to be helping with vehicle deliveries. This applies to everyone. As challenges go, this is a good one to have, as we've built the cars and people have bought the cars, so we just need to get the cars to their new owners!\nWhat has made this particularly difficult is that Europe and China are simultaneously experiencing the same massive increase in delivery volume that North America experienced last year. In some locations, the delivery rate is over 600% higher than its previous peak! This was further exacerbated by supplier shortages of EU spec components and a sticker printing error on our part in China that were only resolved in the past few weeks.\nNorth America is also stressed, as the final month of this quarter is almost all North America builds. Moreover, for the first two weeks of March, most cars were sent from our factory in California to the East Coast to ensure arrival before the end of quarter.\nThe net result is a massive wave of deliveries needed throughout Europe, China and North America. This is the biggest wave in Tesla's history, but it is primarily a function of our first delivery of mass manufactured cars on two continents simultaneously, and will not be repeated in subsequent quarters.\nTo help, please contact Sanjay Shah in North America, Robin Ren in China and Ashley Harris in Europe.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "deliveries-2019", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "CNBC, \"Read Elon Musk's email urging Tesla employees to help with deliveries\" (Mar 21, 2019)", "source_url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/21/elon-musk-email-to-tesla-employees-help-with-deliveries.html", "case": null, "context": "End-of-quarter email asking all staff to prioritize vehicle deliveries across North America, Europe and China.", "tags": [ "deadlines", "manufacturing" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 116, "bates": "EMX-000116", "slug": "2019-03-21-musk-to-all-tesla-vehicle-delivery-help", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2019-03-21-musk-to-all-tesla-vehicle-delivery-help" }, { "id": "2019-05-musk-to-spacex-employees-starlink-public", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2019-05", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "SpaceX employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "it will probably make sense to take Starlink public in about three years or so.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": null, "company": "SpaceX", "audience": "SpaceX employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "CNBC, 'Elon Musk says an IPO of SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet business is still 3 or 4 years away' (Jun 7 2022); one quoted sentence from an email 'obtained by CNBC'", "source_url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/07/spacex-starlink-ipo-elon-musk-says-offering-is-3-or-4-years-away.html", "case": null, "context": "CNBC reported an email Musk sent to SpaceX employees in May 2019 that mentioned a possible Starlink public offering; only one sentence is quoted, so the text is partial.", "tags": [ "fundraising", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 117, "bates": "EMX-000117", "slug": "2019-05-musk-to-spacex-employees-starlink-public", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2019-05-musk-to-spacex-employees-starlink-public" }, { "id": "2019-05-16-musk-to-all-tesla-every-expenditure", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2019-05-16", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Everybody" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "As mentioned at the company talk, it is extremely important that we examine every expenditure at Tesla no matter how small, and be sure that it is critical.\nWhen making hundreds of thousands of cars, battery packs and solar systems, even a ten cent savings could be worth over $50,000 a year. There are over 10,000 unique parts and processes at Tesla, so making small improvements across the board has a giant cumulative impact.\nAt the same time, we must also continue to make our products subtly better in thousands of small ways.\nIt is important to bear in mind that we lost $700 million in the first quarter this year, which is over $200 million per month. Investors nonetheless were supportive of our efforts and agreed to give us $2.4 billion (our net proceeds) to show that we can be financially sustainable.\nThat is a lot of money, but actually only gives us approximately ten months at the first-quarter burn rate to achieve breakeven. It's vital that we respect the faith investors have shown in Tesla, but it will require great effort to do so.\nThat is why, going forward, all expenses of any kind anywhere in the world, including parts, salary, travel expenses, rent, literally every payment that leaves our bank account must be reviewed, confirmed as critical and the top of every page of outgoing payments signed by our CFO.\nI will personally review and sign every 10th page.\nPlease examine closely every expense where responsibility is, or probably should be, assigned to your group. If in doubt, assume it is on your plate, so that we don't have anything slip through the cracks.\nThis will take at least a few weeks to get right. Please don't worry if it isn't correct at first.\nThis is hardcore, but it is the only way for Tesla to become financially sustainable and succeed in our goal of helping make the world environmentally sustainable.\nThanks again for your excellent work,\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "cost-2019", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "CNBC, \"Read the email Elon Musk sent to Tesla employees calling for 'hardcore' control of expenses\" (May 17, 2019)", "source_url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/17/elon-musk-calls-for-cost-control-in-memo-to-employees.html", "case": null, "context": "Companywide email after a $2.4 billion raise, requiring every payment leaving Tesla’s bank account to be reviewed and the CFO to sign each page of outgoing payments.", "tags": [ "cost", "management", "fundraising" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 118, "bates": "EMX-000118", "slug": "2019-05-16-musk-to-all-tesla-every-expenditure", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2019-05-16-musk-to-all-tesla-every-expenditure" }, { "id": "2019-05-22-musk-to-all-tesla-record-quarter", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2019-05-22", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "All Tesla employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "As of yesterday, we had over 50,000 net new orders for this quarter. Based on current trends, we have a good chance of exceeding the record 90,700 deliveries of Q4 last year and making this the highest deliveries/sales quarter in Tesla history!\n\nIn order to achieve this, we need sustained output of 1,000 Model 3’s per day. Almost all parts of the Model 3 production system have exceeded 1,000 units on multiple days (congratulations!!) and we’ve averaged about 900/day this week, so we’re only about 10% away from 7,000/week.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "deliveries-2019", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Electrek, \"Tesla is within reach of new record quarter for deliveries, says Elon Musk\" (May 23, 2019)", "source_url": "https://electrek.co/2019/05/23/tesla-new-delivery-record-elon-musk/", "case": null, "context": "Email sent the night before Electrek’s May 23, 2019 article; Electrek quoted two passages from two sources.", "tags": [ "deadlines", "manufacturing" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 119, "bates": "EMX-000119", "slug": "2019-05-22-musk-to-all-tesla-record-quarter", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2019-05-22-musk-to-all-tesla-record-quarter" }, { "id": "2019-05-29-musk-to-all-tesla-catch-up-on-deliveries", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2019-05-29", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Everybody" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "While our demand is strong, we have a lot of vehicle deliveries to catch up to in order to have a successful quarter.\nStarting tomorrow, I will be holding skip-level calls with the America, Asia and Europe delivery teams every 2 days to understand what's needed to accelerate our rate of deliveries.\nWe also need to address the total cost of getting a car from our factory to the customer. Last quarter, there were many expedite fees and routing inefficiencies that led to higher than expected delivery costs. This makes it much harder for Tesla to break even.\nPer my earlier email, if we execute well, Q2 will be an all-time record for Tesla vehicle deliveries and an awesome victory!\nSuper excited to make this happen with you!", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "deliveries-2019", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "CNBC, \"Read Tesla CEO Elon Musk's latest email urging employees to improve vehicle deliveries\" (May 29, 2019)", "source_url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/29/read-tesla-ceo-elon-musk-email-on-vehicle-deliveries-meetings.html", "case": null, "context": "Email on delivery logistics and delivery costs during the second quarter of 2019.", "tags": [ "deadlines", "cost" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 120, "bates": "EMX-000120", "slug": "2019-05-29-musk-to-all-tesla-catch-up-on-deliveries", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2019-05-29-musk-to-all-tesla-catch-up-on-deliveries" }, { "id": "2019-09-26-musk-to-all-tesla-100k-quarter", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2019-09-26", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "All Tesla employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "We have a shot at achieving our first 100,000 vehicle delivery quarter, which is an incredibly exciting milestone for our company! [...] The challenge is making sure that we have the right car variants in the right locations and rallying as much as our company resources as possible to help with the end of the quarter deliveries.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "deliveries-2019", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Electrek, \"Tesla 'has a shot' at record 100,000 cars this quarter - Elon Musk in email leak\" (Sept 26, 2019)", "source_url": "https://electrek.co/2019/09/26/tesladelivering-record-cars-quarter-elon-musk-leak-email/", "case": null, "context": "Email obtained by Electrek on the day of publication; Electrek also paraphrased that net orders were tracking to about 110,000; that is not in the body.", "tags": [ "deadlines" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 121, "bates": "EMX-000121", "slug": "2019-09-26-musk-to-all-tesla-100k-quarter", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2019-09-26-musk-to-all-tesla-100k-quarter" }, { "id": "2019-10-18-ellison-to-oracle-staff-mark-hurd", "person": "Larry Ellison", "date": "2019-10-18", "time": null, "from": "Larry Ellison", "to": [ "Oracle employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "It is with a profound sense of sadness and loss that I tell everyone here at Oracle that Mark Hurd passed away early this morning. Mark was my close and irreplaceable friend, and trusted colleague. Oracle has lost a brilliant and beloved leader who personally touched the lives of so many of us during his decade at Oracle. All of us will miss Mark's keen mind and rare ability to analyze, simplify and solve problems quickly. Some of us will miss his friendship and mentorship. I will miss his kindness and sense of humor. Mark leaves his beloved wife Paula, two wonderful daughters who were the joy of his life, and his much larger extended family here at Oracle who came to love him. I know that many of us are inconsolable right now, but we are left with memories and a sense of gratitude...that we had the opportunity to get to know Mark, the opportunity to work with him...and become his friend.\n\nLarry Ellison", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "oracle-staff-memos", "company": "Oracle", "audience": "Oracle employees", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "\"January 1, 1957 - October 18, 2019,\" markhurd.com announcement (Wayback Machine copy); Business Insider, Oct. 18, 2019, reports the statement was the same as the email Ellison sent employees that morning", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2019id_/https://markhurd.com/annoucement/", "case": null, "context": "Oracle announced the death of co-CEO Mark Hurd on October 18, 2019. Business Insider reported that Ellison's public statement was the same as the email he sent Oracle employees that morning.", "tags": [ "communication", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 18, "bates": "LEX-000018", "slug": "2019-10-18-ellison-to-oracle-staff-mark-hurd", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2019-10-18-ellison-to-oracle-staff-mark-hurd" }, { "id": "2020-03-13-musk-to-spacex-employees-covid19", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2020-03-13", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "SpaceX employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "suggests that this is *not* within the top 100 health risks in the United States.\n[...]\nAs a basis for comparison, the risk of death from C19 is *vastly* less than the risk of death from driving your car home,\n[...]\nThere are about 36 thousand automotive deaths per deaths [sic], as compared to 36 so far this year for C19.\n[...]\nIsn’t C19 growing so fast that it will soon become a top 100 health risk for people who are otherwise healthy and young to middle-aged?\n[...]\nThe trends do not support this conclusion. Among other things, the media is using the ‘presumed’ positive number of C19 cases, not the *confirmed* number.\n[...]\nThe 36 deaths were almost all in high risk groups, particularly older people who already had prior lung damage, diabetes or heart disease,\n[...]\nThis was exacerbated in some cases by being stuck on a cruise ship with limited access to medical facilities.\n[...]\nAs said above, if you’re feeling ill, especially with something contagious, it’s always better to stay home and take care of yourself,", "musk_authored": true, "thread": null, "company": "SpaceX", "audience": "Company-wide, SpaceX", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "BuzzFeed News, 'Elon Musk Told Workers They're More Likely To Die In A Car Crash Than From Coronavirus' (Mar 13 2020); quoted fragments only", "source_url": "https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-spacex-employees-car-crash-coronavirus", "case": null, "context": "Companywide email sent in the early hours of March 13 2020 about COVID-19, according to BuzzFeed News, which published fragments. The quoted text is partial and the quotes are separated by [...].", "tags": [ "safety", "communication", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 122, "bates": "EMX-000122", "slug": "2020-03-13-musk-to-spacex-employees-covid19", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2020-03-13-musk-to-spacex-employees-covid19" }, { "id": "2020-03-16-musk-to-all-tesla-coronavirus", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2020-03-16", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Everybody" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "First, I’d like to be super clear that if you feel the slightest bit ill or even uncomfortable, please don’t feel obligated to come to work. I will personally be at work, but that is just me. Totally OK if you want to stay home for any reason.\n\nA lot of rumors are flying around, but, to the best of our knowledge, no one at Tesla (over 56,000 people) has tested positive for COVID-19. I will inform you immediately if anything changes.\n\nMy frank opinion remains that the harm from the coronavirus panic far exceeds that of the virus itself. If there is a massive redirection of medical resources out of proportion to the danger, it will result in less available care to those with critical medical needs, which does not serve the greater good.\n\nWhat the COVID-19 coverage does show is that the danger of colds and flu in general can be high for the elderly, especially if there is prior lung damage. Much is made of public gatherings, but please be cautious of family gatherings, too. What is relatively harmless to a child can be dangerous to grandparents.\n\nMy best guess, for what it is worth, based on the latest Center for Disease Control data, is that confirmed COVID-19 (this specific form of the common cold) cases will not exceed 0.1% of the US population. Moreover, I do not think, when we look back on 2020, that the causes of death or serious injury will have changed much from 2017, for example: (CDC statistic).", "musk_authored": true, "thread": null, "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Electrek, \"Elon Musk says 'coronavirus panic is worse than virus itself' in email to Tesla employees\" (Mar 17, 2020); CNBC reported the email was sent late Monday Mar 16", "source_url": "https://electrek.co/2020/03/17/elon-musk-tesla-coronavirus-panic-email/", "case": null, "context": "Email sent the day Bay Area counties issued shelter-in-place orders while Fremont stayed open. CNBC also quoted a closing line not reproduced by Electrek. Body is the passages Electrek quoted, in order.", "tags": [ "safety", "communication", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 123, "bates": "EMX-000123", "slug": "2020-03-16-musk-to-all-tesla-coronavirus", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2020-03-16-musk-to-all-tesla-coronavirus" }, { "id": "2020-03-21-bezos-to-amazon-employees-covid-19", "person": "Jeff Bezos", "date": "2020-03-21", "time": null, "from": "Jeff Bezos", "to": [ "Amazon employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "COVID-19 update", "body": "Dear Amazonians,\n\nThis isn’t business as usual, and it’s a time of great stress and uncertainty. It’s also a moment in time when the work we’re doing is its most critical.\n\nWe’ve changed our logistics, transportation, supply chain, purchasing, and third party seller processes to prioritize stocking and delivering essential items like household staples, sanitizers, baby formula, and medical supplies. We’re providing a vital service to people everywhere, especially to those, like the elderly, who are most vulnerable. People are depending on us.\n\nI’m not alone in being grateful for the work you are doing. I’ve received hundreds of emails from customers and seen posts on social media thanking you all. Your efforts are being noticed at the highest levels of government, and President Trump earlier this week thanked this team profusely.\n\nAcross the world, people are feeling the economic effects of this crisis, and I’m sad to tell you I predict things are going to get worse before they get better. We’re hiring for 100,000 new roles and raising wages for our hourly workers who are fulfilling orders and delivering to customers during this period of stress and turmoil. At the same time, other businesses like restaurants and bars are being forced to shut their doors. We hope people who’ve been laid off will come work with us until they’re able to go back to the jobs they had.\n\nMuch of the essential work we do cannot be done from home. We’ve implemented a series of preventative health measures for employees and contractors at our sites around the world — everything from increasing the frequency and intensity of cleaning to adjusting our practices in fulfillment centers to ensure the recommended social distancing guidelines. We are meeting every day, working to identify additional ways to improve on these measures.\n\nWe’ve placed purchase orders for millions of face masks we want to give to our employees and contractors who cannot work from home, but very few of those orders have been filled. Masks remain in short supply globally and are at this point being directed by governments to the highest-need facilities like hospitals and clinics. It’s easy to understand why the incredible medical providers serving our communities need to be first in line. When our turn for masks comes, our first priority will be getting them in the hands of our employees and partners working to get essential products to people.\n\nMy own time and thinking is now wholly focused on COVID-19 and on how Amazon can best play its role. I want you to know Amazon will continue to do its part, and we won’t stop looking for new opportunities to help.\n\nThere is no instruction manual for how to feel at a time like this, and I know this causes stress for everyone. My list of worries right now — like yours I’m sure — is long: from my own children, parents, family, friends, to the safety of you, my colleagues, to those who are already very sick, and to the real harm that will be caused by the economic fallout across our communities.\n\nPlease take care of yourselves and your loved ones. I know that we’re going to get through this, together.\n\nJeff", "musk_authored": true, "thread": null, "company": "Amazon", "audience": "All Amazon employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "\"Internal memo: Jeff Bezos tells Amazon employees he's 'wholly focused' on the COVID-19 crisis,\" GeekWire (Mar 21 2020)", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://www.geekwire.com/2020/internal-memo-jeff-bezos-tells-amazon-employees-hes-wholly-focused-covid-19-crisis/", "case": null, "context": "Bezos wrote to staff as Amazon prioritized household staples and medical supplies and announced plans to hire 100,000 workers during the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US. GeekWire published the full text.", "tags": [ "management", "communication", "safety", "hiring" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 11, "bates": "JBX-000011", "slug": "2020-03-21-bezos-to-amazon-employees-covid-19", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2020-03-21-bezos-to-amazon-employees-covid-19" }, { "id": "2020-06-06-musk-to-spacex-employees-starship-priority", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2020-06-06", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "SpaceX employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "Please consider the top SpaceX priority (apart from anything that could reduce Dragon return risk) to be Starship\n[...]\nWe need to accelerate Starship progress\n[...]\nconsider spending significant time\n[...]\nFor those considering moving, we will always offer a dedicated SpaceX aircraft to shuttle people", "musk_authored": true, "thread": null, "company": "SpaceX", "audience": "Company-wide, SpaceX", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "CNBC, 'Elon Musk tells SpaceX employees that its Starship rocket is the top priority now' (Jun 7 2020); only quoted fragments of the email are published", "source_url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/07/elon-musk-email-to-spacex-employees-starship-is-the-top-priority.html", "case": null, "context": "Companywide email sent on a Saturday about a week after SpaceX's first crewed NASA launch, asking employees to prioritize Starship development in Boca Chica, Texas. CNBC published only fragments; the text is partial.", "tags": [ "strategy", "product", "engineering", "deadlines" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 124, "bates": "EMX-000124", "slug": "2020-06-06-musk-to-spacex-employees-starship-priority", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2020-06-06-musk-to-spacex-employees-starship-priority" }, { "id": "2020-06-29-musk-to-all-tesla-down-to-the-last-few-days", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2020-06-29", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Everybody" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Down to the last few days", "body": "Breaking even is looking super tight. Really makes a difference for every car you build and deliver. Please go all out to ensure victory!\nThanks,\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "deliveries-2019", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "CNBC, \"Elon Musk emails Tesla employees: 'Breaking even is looking super tight'\" (June 29, 2020)", "source_url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/29/elon-musk-emails-tesla-workers-breaking-even-is-looking-super-tight.html", "case": null, "context": "End-of-quarter email transcribed by CNBC.", "tags": [ "deadlines", "cost" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 125, "bates": "EMX-000125", "slug": "2020-06-29-musk-to-all-tesla-down-to-the-last-few-days", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2020-06-29-musk-to-all-tesla-down-to-the-last-few-days" }, { "id": "2020-09-20-musk-to-all-tesla-record-deliveries-possible", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2020-09-20", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "All Tesla employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "We have a shot at record quarter for deliveries, but we’ll have to rally hard to achieve it. This is the most number of vehicles per day that we’ would ever had to deliver.\n\nPlease consider vehicle deliveries to be the absolute top priority. It’s also extremely important that we keep factory output as high as possible over the remaining 10 days. This is vital for the California market.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": null, "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Electrek, \"Tesla (TSLA): Elon Musk says 'record deliveries possible' in leaked employee email\" (Sept 20, 2020)", "source_url": "https://electrek.co/2020/09/20/tesla-tsla-elon-musk-record-deliveries-possible-leaked-employee-email/", "case": null, "context": "Two passages from an end-of-quarter email as quoted by Electrek, in order; the source text contains typos that are preserved.", "tags": [ "deadlines" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 126, "bates": "EMX-000126", "slug": "2020-09-20-musk-to-all-tesla-record-deliveries-possible", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2020-09-20-musk-to-all-tesla-record-deliveries-possible" }, { "id": "2020-12-14-ellison-to-oracle-team-hawaii", "person": "Larry Ellison", "date": "2020-12-14", "time": null, "from": "Larry Ellison", "to": [ "Oracle Team" ], "cc": [], "subject": "A message from Larry", "body": "Oracle Team,\n\nFollowing Friday's announcement of Oracle's more flexible approach to where and how we work and the relocation of our corporate headquarters in Austin, I've received a number of inquiries about whether or not I will be moving to Texas.\n\nThe answer is no. I've moved to the State of Hawaii and I'll be using the power of Zoom to work from the island of Lanai.\n\nMahalo,\nLarry", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "oracle-staff-memos", "company": "Oracle", "audience": "All Oracle employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Teddy Schleifer (Recode), screenshot of the email posted to X on Dec. 14, 2020; quoted in part in Vox/Recode and Business Insider the same day (text transcribed from the screenshot)", "source_url": "https://x.com/teddyschleifer/status/1338581537105784832", "case": null, "context": "Oracle announced on December 11, 2020 that it was moving its corporate headquarters to Austin, Texas. Ellison emailed staff on December 14 about where he would work.", "tags": [ "remote-work", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": true, "num": 19, "bates": "LEX-000019", "slug": "2020-12-14-ellison-to-oracle-team-hawaii", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2020-12-14-ellison-to-oracle-team-hawaii" }, { "id": "2021-02-02-bezos-to-amazon-employees-ceo-transition", "person": "Jeff Bezos", "date": "2021-02-02", "time": null, "from": "Jeff Bezos", "to": [ "Amazon employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Transition to Executive Chair", "body": "Fellow Amazonians:\n\nI’m excited to announce that this Q3 I’ll transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board and Andy Jassy will become CEO. In the Exec Chair role, I intend to focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives. Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have. He will be an outstanding leader, and he has my full confidence.\n\nThis journey began some 27 years ago. Amazon was only an idea, and it had no name. The question I was asked most frequently at that time was, “What’s the internet?” Blessedly, I haven’t had to explain that in a long while.\n\nToday, we employ 1.3 million talented, dedicated people, serve hundreds of millions of customers and businesses, and are widely recognized as one of the most successful companies in the world.\n\nHow did that happen? Invention. Invention is the root of our success. We’ve done crazy things together, and then made them normal. We pioneered customer reviews, 1-Click, personalized recommendations, Prime’s insanely-fast shipping, Just Walk Out shopping, the Climate Pledge, Kindle, Alexa, marketplace, infrastructure cloud computing, Career Choice, and much more. If you get it right, a few years after a surprising invention, the new thing has become normal. People yawn. And that yawn is the greatest compliment an inventor can receive.\n\nI don’t know of another company with an invention track record as good as Amazon’s, and I believe we are at our most inventive right now. I hope you are as proud of our inventiveness as I am. I think you should be.\n\nAs Amazon became large, we decided to use our scale and scope to lead on important social issues. Two high-impact examples: our $15 minimum wage and the Climate Pledge. In both cases, we staked out leadership positions and then asked others to come along with us. In both cases, it’s working. Other large companies are coming our way. I hope you’re proud of that as well.\n\nI find my work meaningful and fun. I get to work with the smartest, most talented, most ingenious teammates. When times have been good, you’ve been humble. When times have been tough, you’ve been strong and supportive, and we’ve made each other laugh. It is a joy to work on this team.\n\nAs much as I still tap dance into the office, I’m excited about this transition. Millions of customers depend on us for our services, and more than a million employees depend on us for their livelihoods. Being the CEO of Amazon is a deep responsibility, and it’s consuming. When you have a responsibility like that, it’s hard to put attention on anything else. As Exec Chair I will stay engaged in important Amazon initiatives but also have the time and energy I need to focus on the Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, The Washington Post, and my other passions. I’ve never had more energy, and this isn’t about retiring. I’m super passionate about the impact I think these organizations can have.\n\nAmazon couldn’t be better positioned for the future. We are firing on all cylinders, just as the world needs us to. We have things in the pipeline that will continue to astonish. We serve individuals and enterprises, and we’ve pioneered two complete industries and a whole new class of devices. We are leaders in areas as varied as machine learning and logistics, and if an Amazonian’s idea requires yet another new institutional skill, we’re flexible enough and patient enough to learn it.\n\nKeep inventing, and don’t despair when at first the idea looks crazy. Remember to wander. Let curiosity be your compass. It remains Day 1.\n\nJeff", "musk_authored": true, "thread": null, "company": "Amazon", "audience": "All Amazon employees", "source_type": "company_published", "source_title": "\"Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to step down this year; will be replaced by AWS chief Andy Jassy,\" GeekWire (Feb 2 2021), which prints Amazon's announcement email in full", "source_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2021id_/https://www.geekwire.com/2021/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-step-year-replaced-aws-chief-andy-jassy/", "case": null, "context": "Amazon announced that Bezos would become Executive Chair in the third quarter of 2021 and that Andy Jassy would become CEO. Bezos emailed employees the same afternoon.", "tags": [ "management", "communication", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 12, "bates": "JBX-000012", "slug": "2021-02-02-bezos-to-amazon-employees-ceo-transition", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/techmails/e/2021-02-02-bezos-to-amazon-employees-ceo-transition" }, { "id": "2021-07-musk-to-spacex-employees-starship-surge", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2021-07", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "SpaceX employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Starship Surge", "body": "Anyone who is not working on other obviously critical path projects at SpaceX should shift immediately to work on the first Starship orbit\n[...]\nPlease fly, drive, or get here by any means possible.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": null, "company": "SpaceX", "audience": "All SpaceX employees", "source_type": "book", "source_title": "Walter Isaacson, 'Elon Musk' (2023), Chapter 59 'Starship Surge', excerpt published by Space.com; quoted fragments only", "source_url": "https://www.space.com/elon-musk-walter-isaacson-book-excerpt-starship-surge", "case": null, "context": "Per Isaacson, sent shortly after 1 a.m. on a Friday night in July 2021 after Musk ordered a surge to stack the Starship booster and ship at Boca Chica, Texas. Exact date not given; text partial.", "tags": [ "manufacturing", "deadlines", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 127, "bates": "EMX-000127", "slug": "2021-07-musk-to-spacex-employees-starship-surge", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2021-07-musk-to-spacex-employees-starship-surge" }, { "id": "2021-10-03-musk-to-all-tesla-music-in-the-factory", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2021-10-03", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Everybody" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Music in the Factory", "body": "Just wanted to say that I very much support music in the factory, as well as any little touches that make work more enjoyable.\nAn associate just sent me a note asking if we could have one ear bud for music so the other ear can listen for safety-related issues. That sounds fine to me.\nAlso, ambient music from speakers is also totally cool so long as there is reasonable agreement among your colleagues as to the music choices.\nIf there are other things that you think would improve your day, please let me know. I care very much that you look forward to coming to work every day!", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "tesla-oct-2021", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "CNBC, \"Elon Musk emails at Tesla in October 2021: Music, direct orders\" (Nov 19, 2021)", "source_url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/19/elon-musk-emails-at-tesla-in-october-2021-music-direct-orders.html", "case": null, "context": "Sunday email permitting music in the factory with one earbud out for safety. CNBC redacted the time.", "tags": [ "culture", "safety" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 128, "bates": "EMX-000128", "slug": "2021-10-03-musk-to-all-tesla-music-in-the-factory", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2021-10-03-musk-to-all-tesla-music-in-the-factory" }, { "id": "2021-10-04-musk-to-all-tesla-please-note", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2021-10-04", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Everybody" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Please Note", "body": "If an email is sent from me with explicit directions, there are only three actions allowed by managers.\n1. Email me back to explain why what I said was incorrect. Sometimes, I'm just plain wrong!\n2. Request further clarification if what I said was ambiguous.\n3. Execute the directions.\nIf none of the above are done, that manager will be asked to resign immediately.\nThank you,\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "tesla-oct-2021", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "CNBC, \"Elon Musk emails at Tesla in October 2021: Music, direct orders\" (Nov 19, 2021)", "source_url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/19/elon-musk-emails-at-tesla-in-october-2021-music-direct-orders.html", "case": null, "context": "Monday email on the actions managers may take when Musk sends explicit directions. First published by CNBC on Nov 19, 2021, which obtained the pair of October emails.", "tags": [ "management", "communication", "culture" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 129, "bates": "EMX-000129", "slug": "2021-10-04-musk-to-all-tesla-please-note", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2021-10-04-musk-to-all-tesla-please-note" }, { "id": "2021-11-26-musk-to-spacex-employees-raptor-crisis", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2021-11-26", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "SpaceX employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "Unfortunately, the Raptor production crisis is much worse than it had seemed a few weeks ago. As we have dug into the issues following the exiting of prior senior management, they have unfortunately turned out to be far more severe than was reported. There is no way to sugarcoat this.\nI was going to take this weekend off, as my first weekend off in a long time, but instead, I will be on the Raptor line all night and through the weekend.\nUnless you have critical family matters or cannot physically return to Hawthorne, we will need all hands on deck to recover from what is, quite frankly, a disaster. \nThe consequences for SpaceX if we can not get enough reliable Raptors made is that we then can’t fly Starship, which means we then can’t fly Starlink Satellite V2 (Falcon has neither the volume nor the mass to orbit needed for satellite V2). Satellite V1, by itself, is financially weak, while V2 is strong.\nIn addition, we are spooling up terminal production to several million units per year, which will consume massive capital, assuming that satellite V2 will be on orbit to handle the bandwidth demand. These terminals will be useless otherwise.\nWhat it comes down to, is that we face a genuine risk of bankruptcy if we can’t achieve a Starship flight rate of at least once every two weeks next year.\nThanks,\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": null, "company": "SpaceX", "audience": "Company-wide, SpaceX", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Space Explored, 'Elon Musk says SpaceX could face genuine risk of bankruptcy from Starship engine production' (Nov 29 2021), 'Full email from Elon to SpaceX employees'; date per CNBC ('the day after Thanksgiving')", "source_url": "https://spaceexplored.com/2021/11/29/spacex-raptor-crisis/", "case": null, "context": "Companywide email sent the day after Thanksgiving 2021, after the departure of the vice president of propulsion, about Raptor engine production for Starship. CNBC, which also obtained a copy, confirmed it.", "tags": [ "manufacturing", "deadlines", "engineering", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 130, "bates": "EMX-000130", "slug": "2021-11-26-musk-to-spacex-employees-raptor-crisis", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2021-11-26-musk-to-spacex-employees-raptor-crisis" }, { "id": "2022-04-13-musk-to-bret-taylor-offer-letter", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2022-04-13", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Bret Taylor" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Letter proposing to acquire Twitter at $54.20 per share (Schedule 13D/A, Exhibit B)", "body": "I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.\n\nHowever, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.\n\nAs a result, I am offering to buy 100% of Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash, a 54% premium over the day before I began investing in Twitter and a 38% premium over the day before my investment was publicly announced. My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder.\n\nTwitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "twitter-acquisition-2022", "company": "Twitter", "audience": "Twitter board chair (letter delivered to the company, filed publicly the next morning)", "source_type": "sec_filing", "source_title": "Twitter, Inc. Schedule 13D/A (Elon Musk), filed Apr 14 2022, Exhibit B", "source_url": "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000110465922045641/tm2212748d1_sc13da.htm", "case": null, "context": "Musk had disclosed a roughly 9% Twitter stake days earlier. This letter, delivered to the Twitter board chair, proposed buying all of Twitter for cash and was filed publicly with the SEC. The SEC filing labels it a letter; the sources do not say whether it was sent by email.", "tags": [ "acquisition", "strategy", "fundraising" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 131, "bates": "EMX-000131", "slug": "2022-04-13-musk-to-bret-taylor-offer-letter", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2022-04-13-musk-to-bret-taylor-offer-letter" }, { "id": "2022-04-24-musk-to-bret-taylor-best-and-final", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2022-04-24", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Bret Taylor" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Letter reiterating $54.20 offer with attached seller-friendly merger agreement (Schedule 13D/A, Exhibit G)", "body": "Thank you for the conversation yesterday.\n\nWe remain committed to our transaction with Twitter at $54.20 and appreciate your contact on the matter. As we discussed, $54.20 has been and will remain my best and final offer, period. This is binary – my offer will either be accepted or I will exit my position. At the time my $54.20 offer was made, it represented a 54% premium to Twitter’s share price prior to the day before my investment in Twitter began, and a 38% premium to the day before my investment in Twitter was announced. Since that time, the attractiveness of my proposal has only increased given the market’s continued correction. Had your stock traded inline with comparable social media companies, my offer would represent approximately 90% and 70% premiums to those times.\n\nWhile I strongly believe that you should recommend my offer to shareholders based upon its superior value to the value of Twitter without my offer and my equity position, I recognize that you may elect not to do so. As such, I have attached a merger agreement that is “seller friendly” and that does not require you to recommend in favor of my offer. This will provide all shareholders a voice, and allow for a democratic decision consistent with Twitter’s ethos. With your cooperation, we can negotiate changes that you require to be able to announce a transaction before the market opens tomorrow that the shareholders can then vote on. I would respect the outcome of that vote if the shareholders prefer the management plan to my $54.20, and exit my position entirely if that is the outcome of the vote.\n\nIn order to provide further value and choice to shareholders (within the legal boundaries of a private, unlisted company), we are willing to explore options that allow existing shareholders (including convertible securities and other related instruments) to invest all or a portion of their proceeds into the proposed transaction. Any such rollover transaction would be structured as a separate negotiated transaction consistent with laws and regulations and not be a public offer, and would not affect the proposed $54.20 cash offer transaction.\n\nMy strong preference continues to be a negotiated transaction with you at $54.20 per share.\n\nI look forward to the board’s response to my proposal.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "twitter-acquisition-2022", "company": "Twitter", "audience": "Twitter board chair", "source_type": "sec_filing", "source_title": "Twitter, Inc. Schedule 13D/A (Elon Musk), filed Apr 25 2022, Exhibit 99.G", "source_url": "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000110465922049844/tm2213189d8_ex99-g.htm", "case": null, "context": "Written a day after a conversation with the Twitter board chair and the day before Twitter agreed to the acquisition. Filed publicly with the SEC as Exhibit G. The filing labels it a letter; the sources do not say whether it was sent by email.", "tags": [ "acquisition", "strategy", "legal" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 132, "bates": "EMX-000132", "slug": "2022-04-24-musk-to-bret-taylor-best-and-final", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2022-04-24-musk-to-bret-taylor-best-and-final" }, { "id": "2022-05-31-musk-to-all-tesla-to-be-super-clear", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2022-05-31", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Everybody" ], "cc": [], "subject": "To be super clear", "body": "Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week. Moreover, the office must be where your actual colleagues are located, not some remote pseudo office. If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned.\nThe more senior you are, the more visible must be your presence. That is why I lived in the factory so much – so that those on the line could see me working alongside them. If I had not done that, Tesla would long ago have gone bankrupt.\nThere are of course companies that don’t require this, but when was the last time they shipped a great new product? It’s been a while.\nTesla has and will create and actually manufacture the most exciting and meaningful products of any company on Earth. This will not happen by phoning it in.\nThanks,\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "remote-work-2022", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Electrek, \"Elon Musk asks all Tesla employees to come back to the office or quit\" (June 1, 2022)", "source_url": "https://electrek.co/2022/06/01/elon-musk-tesla-employees-come-back-office-or-quit/", "case": null, "context": "Follow-up to the remote work email, sent the same day per CNBC and Electrek.", "tags": [ "remote-work", "management", "culture" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 133, "bates": "EMX-000133", "slug": "2022-05-31-musk-to-all-tesla-to-be-super-clear", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2022-05-31-musk-to-all-tesla-to-be-super-clear" }, { "id": "2022-05-31-musk-to-tesla-remote-work-no-longer-acceptable", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2022-05-31", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Tesla employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Remote work is no longer acceptable", "body": "Anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean *minimum*) of 40 hours per week or depart Tesla. This is less than we ask of factory workers.\nIf there are particularly exceptional contributors for whom this is impossible, I will review and approve those exceptions directly.\nMoreover, the “office” must be a main Tesla office, not a remote branch office unrelated to the job duties, for example being responsible for Fremont factory human relations, but having your office be in another state.\nThanks,\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "remote-work-2022", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "Tesla employees (published by Electrek as the first of two emails)", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Electrek, \"Elon Musk asks all Tesla employees to come back to the office or quit\" (June 1, 2022)", "source_url": "https://electrek.co/2022/06/01/elon-musk-tesla-employees-come-back-office-or-quit/", "case": null, "context": "First of two emails on May 31, 2022 ending remote work. Electrek printed the subject with a typo (\"acceptble\"); other outlets give \"Remote work is no longer acceptable\", used here.", "tags": [ "remote-work", "management", "culture" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 134, "bates": "EMX-000134", "slug": "2022-05-31-musk-to-tesla-remote-work-no-longer-acceptable", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2022-05-31-musk-to-tesla-remote-work-no-longer-acceptable" }, { "id": "2022-06-musk-to-spacex-executives-return-to-office", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2022-06", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "SpaceX executives" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "The more senior you are, the more visible must be your presence\n[...]\nThat is why I spent so much time in the factory — so that those on the line could see me working alongside them. If I had not done that, SpaceX would long ago have gone bankrupt.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "rto-2022", "company": "SpaceX", "audience": "SpaceX executives (memo reported by The New York Times, Jun 1 2022)", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Space.com, 'Elon Musk tells SpaceX, Tesla workers they must be in office at least 40 hours a week: report' (quoting The New York Times); quoted fragments only", "source_url": "https://www.space.com/elon-musk-spacex-tesla-no-remote-work", "case": null, "context": "Memo to SpaceX executives reported on June 1 2022 setting an in-office minimum of 40 hours per week. A parallel memo went to Tesla. Only two sentences are quoted by the source; exact send date not shown.", "tags": [ "remote-work", "management", "culture" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 135, "bates": "EMX-000135", "slug": "2022-06-musk-to-spacex-executives-return-to-office", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2022-06-musk-to-spacex-executives-return-to-office" }, { "id": "2022-06-03-musk-to-all-tesla-headcount-reduction", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2022-06-03", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Everybody" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Headcount Reduction", "body": "Tesla will be reducing salaried headcount by 10% as we have become overstaffed in many areas. Note this does not apply to anyone actually building cars, battery packs or installing solar. Hourly headcount will increase.\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "headcount-2022", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "CNBC, \"Here's the email Elon Musk sent all Tesla employees about 10% head count reduction\" (June 3, 2022)", "source_url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/03/heres-the-email-elon-musk-sent-all-tesla-employees-10percent-job-cuts.html", "case": null, "context": "Short follow-up to all staff after the executive email reported by Reuters; transcribed by CNBC.", "tags": [ "firing", "cost", "hiring" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 136, "bates": "EMX-000136", "slug": "2022-06-03-musk-to-all-tesla-headcount-reduction", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2022-06-03-musk-to-all-tesla-headcount-reduction" }, { "id": "2022-11-09-musk-to-twitter-team-first-company-email", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2022-11-09", "time": "11:39 PM PT", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Team" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "Sorry that this is my first email to the whole company but there is no way to sugarcoat the message.\n\nFrankly, the economic picture ahead is dire especially for a company like ours that is so dependent on advertising in a challenging economic climate. Moreover, 70% of our advertising is brand, rather than specific performance, which makes us doubly vulnerable!\n\nThat is why the priority over the past ten days has been to develop and launch Twitter Blue Verified subscriptions (huge props to the team!).\n\nWithout significant subscription revenue, there is a good chance Twitter will not survive the upcoming economic downturn. We need roughly half of our revenue to be subscription.\n\nOf course, we will still then be significantly reliant on advertising, so I am spending time with our sales & partnerships teams to ensure that Twitter continues to be appealing to advertisers.\n\nThis is the Spaces discussion that Robin, Yoel and I hosted today: [Link to Elon Q&A: Advertising & the Future removed]\n\nThe road ahead is arduous and will require intense work to succeed. We are also changing Twitter policy such that remote work is no longer allowed unless you have a specific exception. Managers will send the exception lists to me for review and approval.\n\nStarting tomorrow (Thursday), everyone is required to be in the office for a minimum of 40 hours per week. Obviously, if you are physically unable to travel to an office or have a critical personal obligation, then your absence is understandable.\n\nI look forward to working with you to take Twitter to a whole new level. The potential is truly incredible!\n\nThanks,\n\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "twitter-nov-2022", "company": "Twitter", "audience": "All Twitter employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "CNBC, \"Read Elon Musk's first email to all Twitter employees\" (Nov 10 2022), transcribed by CNBC", "source_url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/10/read-elon-musks-first-email-to-all-twitter-employees.html", "case": null, "context": "First company-wide email to Twitter staff after the acquisition closed on Oct 27-28 2022. It ended remote work and required 40 hours per week in the office. Send time is from Platformer reporting; CNBC removed the timestamp.", "tags": [ "management", "remote-work", "communication", "cost", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 137, "bates": "EMX-000137", "slug": "2022-11-09-musk-to-twitter-team-first-company-email", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2022-11-09-musk-to-twitter-team-first-company-email" }, { "id": "2022-11-09-musk-to-twitter-team-top-priority", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2022-11-09", "time": "11:56 PM PT", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Team" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Top Priority", "body": "Over the next few days, the absolute top priority is finding and suspending any verified bots/trolls/spam.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "twitter-nov-2022", "company": "Twitter", "audience": "All Twitter employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Fortune, \"Musk's toughest troll fight on Twitter is with a Tesla parody account\" (Nov 11 2022); subject line and timing per Platformer, \"Inside the Twitter meltdown\"", "source_url": "https://fortune.com/2022/11/11/elon-musk-troll-fight-twitter-tesla-parody-account-teslareal/", "case": null, "context": "A separate one-sentence email sent about 17 minutes after the first company-wide email, per Platformer. Only the quoted sentence is available. Subject line and send time come from Platformer (https://www.platformer.news/inside-the-twitter-meltdown/).", "tags": [ "management", "product", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 138, "bates": "EMX-000138", "slug": "2022-11-09-musk-to-twitter-team-top-priority", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2022-11-09-musk-to-twitter-team-top-priority" }, { "id": "2022-11-11-musk-to-twitter-team-being-there", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2022-11-11", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Team at Twitter" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Being There (great movie)", "body": "I was at Twitter HQ again until late into the night yesterday and would like to extend a note of appreciation to those who were there with me, as well as those working remotely, some of whom had been up even longer.\n\nTo reaffirm, working remotely is fine if you cannot reasonably make it to the office and you are performing at an exceptional level. That said, I am a big believer in the esprit de corps and effectiveness of being physically in the same location.\n\nI will be in the office again today. Stop by the 10th floor if you'd like to talk about taking Twitter to the next level. The priority is near-term actions.\n\nThanks,\n\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "twitter-nov-2022", "company": "Twitter", "audience": "All Twitter employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "CNBC, \"Elon Musk's latest email to Twitter employees addresses working late\" (Nov 11 2022), transcribed by CNBC", "source_url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/11/elon-musks-latest-email-to-twitter-employees-addresses-working-late.html", "case": null, "context": "Sent two days after the first company-wide email and a week after Twitter cut roughly half its workforce. It restated the remote-work exception and invited staff to the 10th floor of the San Francisco office.", "tags": [ "management", "remote-work", "culture", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 139, "bates": "EMX-000139", "slug": "2022-11-11-musk-to-twitter-team-being-there", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2022-11-11-musk-to-twitter-team-being-there" }, { "id": "2022-11-16-musk-to-twitter-team-fork-in-the-road", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2022-11-16", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Team" ], "cc": [], "subject": "A Fork in the Road", "body": "Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.\n\nTwitter will also be much more engineering-driven. Design and product management will still be very important and report to me, but those writing great code will constitute the majority of our team and have the greatest sway.\n\nAt its heart, Twitter is a software and servers company, so l think this makes sense.\n\nIf you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below:\n\n[Link removed]\n\nAnyone who has not done so by 5pm ET tomorrow (Thursday) will receive three months of severance.\n\nWhatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful.\n\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "twitter-nov-2022", "company": "Twitter", "audience": "All Twitter employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "CNBC, \"Elon Musk demands Twitter staff commit to 'long hours' or leave: Read the email\" (Nov 16 2022), transcribed by CNBC", "source_url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/16/elon-musk-demands-twitter-staff-commit-to-long-hours-or-leave.html", "case": null, "context": "Sent as a company-wide email after the November 2022 layoffs. Employees who did not click \"yes\" by 5pm ET the next day would receive three months of severance. CNBC reports it was sent around midnight San Francisco time.", "tags": [ "management", "hiring", "firing", "culture", "engineering" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 140, "bates": "EMX-000140", "slug": "2022-11-16-musk-to-twitter-team-fork-in-the-road", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2022-11-16-musk-to-twitter-team-fork-in-the-road" }, { "id": "2022-11-18-musk-to-twitter-team-all-software-engineers-1", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2022-11-18", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Team" ], "cc": [], "subject": "All Software Engineers", "body": "Anyone who actually writes software, please report to the 10th floor at 2 p.m. today.\n\nBefore doing so, please email me a bullet point summary of what your code commits have achieved in the past 6 months, along with up to 10 screenshots of the most salient lines of code.\n\nThanks,\n\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "twitter-nov-2022-engineers", "company": "Twitter", "audience": "Twitter software engineers", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "CNBC, \"Read Elon Musk's Friday emails to Twitter engineers asking them to come to the office\" (Nov 18 2022), transcribed by CNBC", "source_url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/18/twitter-planned-to-close-offices-friday-but-musk-asks-engineers-in.html", "case": null, "context": "One of three emails Musk sent employees early on Friday Nov 18 2022, the day after the \"extremely hardcore\" ultimatum deadline, while Twitter offices had been announced as closed until Monday. CNBC transcribed all three; send times were removed. This was the first, calling engineers to the 10th floor of the San Francisco headquarters.", "tags": [ "engineering", "management", "remote-work", "hiring" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 141, "bates": "EMX-000141", "slug": "2022-11-18-musk-to-twitter-team-all-software-engineers-1", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2022-11-18-musk-to-twitter-team-all-software-engineers-1" }, { "id": "2022-11-18-musk-to-twitter-team-all-software-engineers-2", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2022-11-18", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Team" ], "cc": [], "subject": "All Software Engineers", "body": "If you're working remotely, please email the request below nonetheless and I will try to speak to you via video. Only those who cannot physically get to Twitter HQ or have a family emergency are excused.\n\nThese will be short, technical interviews that allow me to better understand the Twitter tech stack.\n\nThanks,\n\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "twitter-nov-2022-engineers", "company": "Twitter", "audience": "Twitter software engineers", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "CNBC, \"Read Elon Musk's Friday emails to Twitter engineers asking them to come to the office\" (Nov 18 2022), transcribed by CNBC", "source_url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/18/twitter-planned-to-close-offices-friday-but-musk-asks-engineers-in.html", "case": null, "context": "One of three emails Musk sent employees early on Friday Nov 18 2022, the day after the \"extremely hardcore\" ultimatum deadline, while Twitter offices had been announced as closed until Monday. CNBC transcribed all three; send times were removed. This was the second, covering remote engineers.", "tags": [ "engineering", "management", "remote-work", "hiring" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 142, "bates": "EMX-000142", "slug": "2022-11-18-musk-to-twitter-team-all-software-engineers-2", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2022-11-18-musk-to-twitter-team-all-software-engineers-2" }, { "id": "2022-11-18-musk-to-twitter-team-all-software-engineers-3", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2022-11-18", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Team at Twitter" ], "cc": [], "subject": "All Software Engineers", "body": "If possible, I would appreciate it if you could fly to SF to be present in person. I will be at Twitter HQ until midnight and then back again tomorrow morning.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "twitter-nov-2022-engineers", "company": "Twitter", "audience": "Twitter software engineers", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "CNBC, \"Read Elon Musk's Friday emails to Twitter engineers asking them to come to the office\" (Nov 18 2022), transcribed by CNBC", "source_url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/18/twitter-planned-to-close-offices-friday-but-musk-asks-engineers-in.html", "case": null, "context": "One of three emails Musk sent employees early on Friday Nov 18 2022, the day after the \"extremely hardcore\" ultimatum deadline, while Twitter offices had been announced as closed until Monday. CNBC transcribed all three; send times were removed. This was the third, asking engineers to fly to San Francisco.", "tags": [ "engineering", "management", "remote-work", "hiring" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 143, "bates": "EMX-000143", "slug": "2022-11-18-musk-to-twitter-team-all-software-engineers-3", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2022-11-18-musk-to-twitter-team-all-software-engineers-3" }, { "id": "2022-12-28-musk-to-all-tesla-final-few-days", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2022-12-28", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Everybody" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Final Few Days", "body": "Just a quick note to thank you for your hard work and congratulate you on exceptional execution in 2022!\nSince we have a lot of cars arriving at the last minute, it is important to rally hard and do everything we can to get our cars to customers who have ordered them before midnight on Dec. 31. Also, every incremental car we produce that can be delivered in time also matters.\nPlease go all out for the next few days and volunteer to help deliver if at all possible. It will make a real difference!\nThanks,\nElon\nBtw, don't be too bothered by stock market craziness. As we demonstrate continued excellent performance, the market will recognize that. Long-term, I believe very much that Tesla will be the most valuable company on Earth!", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "deliveries-2019", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "CNBC, \"Elon Musk tells Tesla employees don't be 'bothered by stock market craziness'\" (Dec 28, 2022)", "source_url": "https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/12/28/elon-musk-tells-tesla-employees-to-ignore-stock-market-craziness.html", "case": null, "context": "Year-end delivery push email sent as Tesla shares fell. CNBC removed the time stamp.", "tags": [ "deadlines", "culture" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 144, "bates": "EMX-000144", "slug": "2022-12-28-musk-to-all-tesla-final-few-days", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2022-12-28-musk-to-all-tesla-final-few-days" }, { "id": "2023-03-22-musk-to-twitter-staff-office-not-optional", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2023-03-22", "time": "2:30 AM", "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Twitter employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "office is not optional", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "twitter-2023", "company": "Twitter", "audience": "All Twitter employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Fox 9, \"Elon Musk tells employees to get back in office with 2:30 am memo\" (Mar 2023), citing Platformer's Zoe Schiffer", "source_url": "https://www.fox9.com/news/elon-musk-tells-employees-to-get-back-in-office-with-230-am-memo", "case": null, "context": "Early-morning return-to-office email sent after Musk noted the San Francisco headquarters was half empty the previous day. Only a three-word quotation is available.", "tags": [ "remote-work", "management", "culture" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 145, "bates": "EMX-000145", "slug": "2023-03-22-musk-to-twitter-staff-office-not-optional", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2023-03-22-musk-to-twitter-staff-office-not-optional" }, { "id": "2023-03-24-musk-to-twitter-staff-equity-grants", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2023-03-24", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Twitter employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "I see a clear, but difficult, path to a >$250B valuation", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "twitter-2023", "company": "Twitter", "audience": "All Twitter employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Rolling Stone, \"Elon Musk Says Twitter Worth $20 Billion, or Less Than Half What He Bought it For\" (Mar 26 2023); email first reported by The Wall Street Journal and Platformer", "source_url": "https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/elon-musk-twitter-20-billion-value-1234703945/", "case": null, "context": "Late-night email to staff describing new equity grants, which implied a valuation of about $20 billion. Only a short exact quotation is available; Fortune dates the email to the night before its Mar 25 2023 article.", "tags": [ "management", "fundraising", "strategy", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 146, "bates": "EMX-000146", "slug": "2023-03-24-musk-to-twitter-staff-equity-grants", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2023-03-24-musk-to-twitter-staff-equity-grants" }, { "id": "2023-05-15-musk-to-all-tesla-hiring", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2023-05-15", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Everybody" ], "cc": [], "subject": "Hiring", "body": "I would like to gain a better understanding of our hiring. VPs should send me a list of their department hiring requests once a week.\nThink carefully before sending me a request. No one can join Tesla, even as a contractor, until you receive my email approval.\nThanks,\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "hiring", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "CNBC, \"Tesla CEO Elon Musk says he must approve all new hires in internal email\" (May 15, 2023)", "source_url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/15/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-says-in-email-he-must-approve-all-hires.html", "case": null, "context": "Companywide email requiring Musk’s approval for all hires, including contractors.", "tags": [ "hiring", "management", "cost" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 147, "bates": "EMX-000147", "slug": "2023-05-15-musk-to-all-tesla-hiring", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2023-05-15-musk-to-all-tesla-hiring" }, { "id": "2023-08-23-musk-to-tesla-cybertruck-precision", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2023-08", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Tesla employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "Due to the nature of Cybertruck, which is made of bright metal with mostly straight edges, any dimensional variation shows up like a sore thumb.\n\nAll parts for this vehicle, whether internal or from suppliers, need to be designed and built to sub 10 micron accuracy.\n\nThat means all part dimensions need to be to the third decimal place in millimeters and tolerances need be specified in single digit microns. If LEGO and soda cans, which are very low cost, can do this, so can we.\n\nPrecision predicates perfectionism.\n\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": null, "company": "Tesla", "audience": "Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Electrek, \"Elon Musk says 'if LEGO can do it, so can we' about Cybertruck quality in leaked Tesla email\" (Aug 23, 2023)", "source_url": "https://electrek.co/2023/08/23/elon-musk-lego-cybertruck-quality-leaked-tesla-email/", "case": null, "context": "Leaked email on Cybertruck part tolerances, first reported by the Cybertruck Owners Club per Electrek. Date is the Electrek publication date; subject line not given. The exact send date is not public; the month shown is when it was published.", "tags": [ "manufacturing", "engineering", "product" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 148, "bates": "EMX-000148", "slug": "2023-08-23-musk-to-tesla-cybertruck-precision", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2023-08-23-musk-to-tesla-cybertruck-precision" }, { "id": "2024-04-15-musk-to-all-tesla-layoffs", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2024-04-15", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "All Tesla employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "Over the years, we have grown rapidly with multiple factories scaling around the globe. With this rapid growth there has been duplication of roles and job functions in certain areas. As we prepare the company for our next phase of growth, it is extremely important to look at every aspect of the company for cost reductions and increasing productivity.\n\nAs part of this effort, we have done a thorough review of the organization and made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by more than 10% globally. There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done. This will enable us to be lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth phase cycle.\n\nI would like to thank everyone who is departing Tesla for their hard work over the years. I’m deeply grateful for your many contributions to our mission and we wish you well in your future opportunities. It is very difficult to say goodbye.\n\nFor those remaining, I would like to thank you in advance for the difficult job that remains ahead. We are developing some of the most revolutionary technologies in auto, energy and artificial intelligence. As we prepare the company for the next phase of growth, your resolve will make a huge difference in getting us there.\n\nThanks,\nElon", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "layoffs-2024", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "All Tesla employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Electrek, \"Tesla lays off 'more than 10%' of its global workforce\" (Apr 15, 2024); text also matches CNBC's transcription", "source_url": "https://electrek.co/2024/04/15/tesla-lays-off-more-than-10-of-its-global-workforce/", "case": null, "context": "Companywide email announcing a reduction of more than 10 percent of headcount worldwide. Electrek posted the full text; CNBC also transcribed it.", "tags": [ "firing", "cost", "management" ], "verified": true, "partial": false, "scan": false, "num": 149, "bates": "EMX-000149", "slug": "2024-04-15-musk-to-all-tesla-layoffs", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2024-04-15-musk-to-all-tesla-layoffs" }, { "id": "2024-04-17-musk-to-all-tesla-severance-correction", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2024-04-17", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "Tesla employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "As we reorganize Tesla it has come to my attention that some severance packages are incorrectly low [...] My apologies for this mistake. It is being corrected immediately.", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "layoffs-2024", "company": "Tesla", "audience": "Tesla staff", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "CNBC, \"Elon Musk email says Tesla sent 'incorrectly low' severance packages to laid-off employees\" (Apr 18, 2024)", "source_url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/17/tesla-says-in-email-it-sent-some-incorrectly-low-severance-packages.html", "case": null, "context": "CNBC called it a brief email sent Wednesday April 17, 2024 and quoted two sentences; no sign-off or subject was shown.", "tags": [ "firing", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 150, "bates": "EMX-000150", "slug": "2024-04-17-musk-to-all-tesla-severance-correction", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2024-04-17-musk-to-all-tesla-severance-correction" }, { "id": "2024-08-musk-to-x-staff-one-page-summary", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2024-08", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "X staff" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "one page summary of your contributions to the company over the last month and over the last twelve months [...] stock & option awards proportionate to the likely future contributions of people at X", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "x-2024", "company": "X", "audience": "All X employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "CNN, \"Elon Musk is back to asking xAI employees to prove 'what you've accomplished'\" (Sep 17 2025), quoting the Aug 2024 email first reported by The Verge", "source_url": "https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/17/tech/elon-musk-xai-email", "case": null, "context": "Email to X staff in August 2024 asking for a one-page summary of contributions, tied to stock and option awards. Exact day is not given in the source. The two quoted fragments are joined by \"[...]\"; they are not contiguous text.", "tags": [ "management", "hiring", "communication" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 151, "bates": "EMX-000151", "slug": "2024-08-musk-to-x-staff-one-page-summary", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2024-08-musk-to-x-staff-one-page-summary" }, { "id": "2025-01-musk-to-x-staff-barely-breaking-even", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2025-01", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "X staff" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "And we're barely breaking even [...] Over the last few months, we've witnessed the power of X in shaping national conversations and outcomes [...] We are also seeing other platforms begin to adopt our commitment to free speech and unbiased truth", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "x-2025", "company": "X", "audience": "All X employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "Yahoo Finance, \"Elon Musk Says X Growth Is 'Stagnant,' Revenue Is 'Unimpressive' in Leaked Email to Staff\" (Jan 24 2025), reporting the email obtained by The Wall Street Journal", "source_url": "https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-says-x-growth-221307490.html", "case": null, "context": "January 2025 email to X staff, reported by the Wall Street Journal on Jan 24 2025, assessing growth and finances. Exact send date is not given. Only the quoted fragments are available; \"[...]\" marks a gap. Reporting also describes the email as calling growth stagnant and revenue unimpressive, but those single words are not reproduced here as email text.", "tags": [ "management", "communication", "strategy" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 152, "bates": "EMX-000152", "slug": "2025-01-musk-to-x-staff-barely-breaking-even", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2025-01-musk-to-x-staff-barely-breaking-even" }, { "id": "2025-09-16-musk-to-xai-staff-one-page-summary", "person": "Elon Musk", "date": "2025-09-16", "time": null, "from": "Elon Musk", "to": [ "xAI employees" ], "cc": [], "subject": "", "body": "send a one page summary of what you've accomplished in the past four weeks and what you intend to accomplish in the next four weeks. [...] This is due by noon on Thursday", "musk_authored": true, "thread": "xai-2025", "company": "xAI", "audience": "All xAI employees", "source_type": "press_leak", "source_title": "CNN, \"Elon Musk is back to asking xAI employees to prove 'what you've accomplished'\" (Sep 17 2025), copy of the email shared with CNN by a source", "source_url": "https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/17/tech/elon-musk-xai-email", "case": null, "context": "Email sent on a Tuesday afternoon (Sep 16 2025) asking all xAI employees for a one-page summary of past and planned work. Only the quoted fragments are available; \"[...]\" marks a gap.", "tags": [ "management", "ai", "communication", "deadlines" ], "verified": true, "partial": true, "scan": false, "num": 153, "bates": "EMX-000153", "slug": "2025-09-16-musk-to-xai-staff-one-page-summary", "url": "https://www.rpdoyle.com/elonmails/e/2025-09-16-musk-to-xai-staff-one-page-summary" } ] }