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On 1-Aug-2017, Jinnah Hosein, who was the head of Software at SpaceX at the time, spoke to my company, Orbital Insight, in Mountain View, and I took some notes.

On 1-Aug-2017, Jinnah Hosein, who was the head of Software at SpaceX at the time, spoke to my company, Orbital Insight, in Mountain View, and I took some notes. I've never posted them anywhere, but below I'll post some unpolished bits. WARNING: this was a lot longer and 'scattered' than I recall, apologies in advance. DISCLAIMER: This was a casual talk and I casually took some notes, and it happened over three years ago as of this writing. In short, don't assume anything below is an accurate representation of what Jinnah said. As a long-time SpaceX fan, and as a much longer-time software engineer, I was super pumped during the whole talk, and was definitely not focused on accurate recording. https://www.realms.org/spacex-talk-notes.html https://www.realms.org/spacex-talk-notes.html PS: I know most of this veers way off topic, but for some reason I decided to take this opportunity to share this material. PPS: The comment was too long to post, so you'll need to click the above link. Sorry about that. If someone would like to distill the on-topic parts into another comment, that would be fine.

FrojoS 6y ago
> There is no defined systems integrator role at SpaceX. Everyone is responsible for carrying their system all the way through. They resisted the idea of handoffs. > They saw that at NASA. Because of the handoff, it caused them to push reliability ratings way higher than needed, which added complexity and customization. Very interesting! also > it took Elon six weeks to go from "OK let's land on a boat" to actually having a boat. The software VP guy didn't think it 'was a 2014 problem...definitely 2015'...people who had been there longer knew Elon would be able to get a boat quick. Definitely a 2014 problem. then this > So then they'd fly balloons off of the boat so they'd get low level wind data, said data would go to the vehicle and be used for control for the last few km. So many gold nuggets. Thank you!
- Diederich 6y ago
  > So many gold nuggets. Thank you! You're welcome! I'd forgotten most of this and so it was really fascinating reading over it again just now, especially in light of all that SpaceX has been doing over the past 3.5 years.
leoh 6y ago
What was this line about? >Facebook got jammed up because they had to re-write a lot of software under DO189B/C.
- Diederich 6y ago
  I have no damn clue. I did a quick Google of "DO189B/C" (and related..typos are definitely possible here) and nothing jumped out. I typed this up 3.5 years ago, and didn't give a crap about Facebook one way or another at that time, so whatever was said there didn't stick with me at all. Hopefully somebody else where can somewhat decode mystery string (that might have typos) based on context.
  - amacbride 6y ago
    Probably this: “DO-178B, Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-178B https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-178B
    - Diederich 6y ago
      Very nice find, thanks! How do you imagine that would tie into Facebook?
      - leoh 6y ago
        Maybe this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Aquila https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Aquila
aero-glide2 6y ago
That guy is now working at Boeing, wow. Such a cultural difference. Hope he completely transforms Boeing's software division.

FrojoS 6y ago

> There is no defined systems integrator role at SpaceX. Everyone is responsible for carrying their system all the way through. They resisted the idea of handoffs. > They saw that at NASA. Because of the handoff, it caused them to push reliability ratings way higher than needed, which added complexity and customization. Very interesting! also > it took Elon six weeks to go from "OK let's land on a boat" to actually having a boat. The software VP guy didn't think it 'was a 2014 problem...definitely 2015'...people who had been there longer knew Elon would be able to get a boat quick. Definitely a 2014 problem. then this > So then they'd fly balloons off of the boat so they'd get low level wind data, said data would go to the vehicle and be used for control for the last few km. So many gold nuggets. Thank you!

Diederich 6y ago
> So many gold nuggets. Thank you! You're welcome! I'd forgotten most of this and so it was really fascinating reading over it again just now, especially in light of all that SpaceX has been doing over the past 3.5 years.

leoh 6y ago

What was this line about? >Facebook got jammed up because they had to re-write a lot of software under DO189B/C.

Diederich 6y ago
I have no damn clue. I did a quick Google of "DO189B/C" (and related..typos are definitely possible here) and nothing jumped out. I typed this up 3.5 years ago, and didn't give a crap about Facebook one way or another at that time, so whatever was said there didn't stick with me at all. Hopefully somebody else where can somewhat decode mystery string (that might have typos) based on context.
- amacbride 6y ago
  Probably this: “DO-178B, Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-178B https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-178B
  - Diederich 6y ago
    Very nice find, thanks! How do you imagine that would tie into Facebook?
    - leoh 6y ago
      Maybe this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Aquila https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Aquila

aero-glide2 6y ago

That guy is now working at Boeing, wow. Such a cultural difference. Hope he completely transforms Boeing's software division.