在放棄攻讀斯坦福大學(xué)物理學(xué)博士學(xué)位之后，埃隆·馬斯克創(chuàng)立了一系列有趣的公司。在20世紀(jì)90年代，他是第一批注意到互聯(lián)網(wǎng)可以用于發(fā)布有用信息（Zip2）、進(jìn)行在線支付（PayPal）的人。到了世紀(jì)之交，他的眼界進(jìn)一步拓展，看到了商用太空飛行和電動(dòng)汽車的未來(lái)，并創(chuàng)立了SpaceX和特斯拉（Tesla）。這兩家公司發(fā)展了很長(zhǎng)時(shí)間，期間也經(jīng)歷了一些波折。

不可否認(rèn)，馬斯克的遠(yuǎn)見(jiàn)是決定性的，但是有時(shí)，建立兩家十分復(fù)雜的公司所需的繁雜事務(wù)卻令他飽受艱難。我們不用追溯太遠(yuǎn)，只需瞧瞧特斯拉在生產(chǎn)Model 3上的舉步維艱。其部分原因在于該車對(duì)機(jī)器人的依賴程度過(guò)高，而這正是馬斯克的要求。今年春天，這位首席執(zhí)行官被迫承認(rèn)：“人類的作用被低估了?！彼斆У臏贤L(fēng)格，尤其是在推特（Twitter）上的言論，也成為了讓公司分心甚至變得更糟的因素。由于一些推文并未“確保真實(shí)性”，馬斯克在上周不得不辭去董事長(zhǎng)的職務(wù)。他依舊擔(dān)任首席執(zhí)行官，盡管最近他開(kāi)玩笑稱自己將放棄所有頭銜，成為“與特斯拉毫無(wú)瓜葛之人”。

曾有傳聞稱，另一個(gè)有遠(yuǎn)見(jiàn)的執(zhí)行者詹姆斯·默多克會(huì)接任董事長(zhǎng)。不過(guò)特斯拉卻選擇了一個(gè)完全不同的方向。公司的人選是進(jìn)入董事會(huì)四年的成員羅賓·德霍姆。德霍姆目前是澳大利亞電信運(yùn)營(yíng)商澳洲電信（Telstra）的首席財(cái)務(wù)官和戰(zhàn)略主管。她是首位進(jìn)入特斯拉董事會(huì)的女性，職業(yè)經(jīng)歷豐富，并且專注于哈佛商學(xué)院（Harvard Business School）所謂的“商業(yè)流程重造”（business process re-engineering）。在加入澳洲電信之前，她在Juniper Networks待了九年，幫助公司將業(yè)務(wù)重心從電信擴(kuò)大到云。更早一些時(shí)候，她是太陽(yáng)微系統(tǒng)公司（Sun Microsystems）的戰(zhàn)略規(guī)劃部主任，還在豐田汽車（Toyota Motor）的澳大利亞分部管理過(guò)各種財(cái)務(wù)職能。

一位擅長(zhǎng)具體經(jīng)營(yíng)的行家，對(duì)金融有著敏銳的目光，甚至還在傳統(tǒng)汽車制造業(yè)有一點(diǎn)經(jīng)驗(yàn)？聽(tīng)起來(lái)幾乎與埃隆·馬斯克毫無(wú)共同點(diǎn)。不過(guò)如果兩人可以像史蒂夫·喬布斯和蒂姆·庫(kù)克（他被找來(lái)幫助這位健談而有遠(yuǎn)見(jiàn)的老板，讓產(chǎn)品線變得井井有條）那樣成為緊密合作的工作伙伴，她似乎也像是對(duì)埃隆·馬斯克的完美補(bǔ)充。沒(méi)錯(cuò)，監(jiān)管機(jī)構(gòu)迫使馬斯克退位了，但這可能也是馬斯克的另一個(gè)英明之舉，來(lái)看看公司究竟需要什么。（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

譯者：嚴(yán)匡正

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

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

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

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