11 ms·

A new book, Amazon Unbound, reveals Jeff Bezos’ envy of SpaceX

105 points by TangerineDream 5y ago

ObserverNeutral 5y ago
Amazon simply can't afford rockets blowing up publicly like Tesla can. This is all there is to it. Bezos stepping down and distancing himself from Amazon should provide new lift (no pun intended) and much more risk taking to Blue Origin. We should all remember that this is a marathon, not a sprint. It's not like the frentic months of the software wars where Apple put together the iPhone and its app ecosystem in 48 months and others never caught it. This is a terrible business (like everything Musk is involved in except Neuralink). Bezos should learn from Google and understand that there is no shame in killing a project....but I suspect the ego wars against Musk are too big now. Bezos should have known better. When Musk insults you, you just do what Bill Gates does: You smile, compliment him, stroke his ego a bit and then go back having de-facto veto power in institutions such as the WHO and UN, operating way above Musk head.
- nickik 5y ago
  Pretty much everything you said is wrong. Tesla and Amazon have nothing to do with it. BlueOrigin has the money to do what SpaceX does, in fact they are spending just as much or more. Go look at the launch pad BlueOrigin build in Florida and compare it to the one SpaceX build in Texas. > This is a terrible business (like everything Musk is involved in except Neuralink). Based on all objective measures they are not. > Bezos should have known better. When Musk insults you, you just do what Bill Gates does: You smile, compliment him, stroke his ego a bit and then go back having de-facto veto power in institutions such as the WHO and UN, operating way above Musk head. Gates was commenting on Musk and his companies before Musk ever said anything. And the believe that Gates has a veto at the WHO and the UN is nonsense.
  - ObserverNeutral 5y ago
    > BlueOrigin has the money to do what SpaceX does No amount of money can give BlueOrigin the freedom which SpaceX has to blow up rockets and telecast failure globally every week like it has happened for the last 5 years. The CEO of Amazon just can't be associated with such public failures. For Musk Tesla and SpaceX were parallel efforts, they were never such thing for Bezos, in 2015 when he got serious about Blue Origin , Amazon was already a bigger company than Tesla is now and will ever be. He simply didn't have that freedom. > Based on all objective measures they are not. Q: "How can you become a millionaire mr. Branson?" A: "Be a billionaire and start and aerospace comapany" These are not software margins we are talking about, to channel my inner Ricky Bobby: If you ain't software, you are last. > And the believe that Gates has a veto at the WHO and the UN is nonsense. Gates can pick up the phone and occupy a week long of Biden time if he wants, same goes for Xi Jin Ping, the WHO director and the climate workgroups at the UN. This is what happens when you do what others would never do: donate money to philantropic efforts way beyond the marginal PR utility returns of such donations. You get politicians lining up because they know they'd be able to take credit and do vitcory laps after a job well done which Gates would never claim ownership of, that is beyond the occasional Bloomberg conference which only policy nerds attend. Stark difference with Musk who doesn't do philantropy and frankly scans for causes to inject himself in the loudest possible manner such as the Thai soccer team trapped in the caves. Musk should thank that Gates is magnanimous enough not bring up the mess which Tesla is when he talks with Biden and John Kerry about climate policy. And Musk attacked him first, because he committed the sin of buying a Porsche so that he'd be able to lap Laguna Seca without the car overheating and exploding such as Teslas.
    - nickik 5y ago
      > The CEO of Amazon just can't be associated with such public failures. I see no reason for this. I think the opposite is true, having high profile test would actually improve the image of the public figure. Maybe if it was Amazon himself you would have a point, but a totally separate company? Sorry, not buying it. It seems to me you are just making up excuses to explain away Bezos failure. > These are not software margins we are talking about, to channel my inner Ricky Bobby: If you ain't software, you are last. So first of all Branson is a terrible source. Second of all, of course they don't get software margin. They are capital intensive business. But that is just terrible analysis, based on this logic no company before 1960 could ever be a good business because its not software? So I guess anybody not selling software should just go home and start drinking because apparently its not worth it. If the market is large and you compare favorably in terms of competition they are good business by literally any objective measure. That is other then haters who clearly have personal dislike for the CEO.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
pizzabearman 5y ago
I remember one of the weirder tweets by Bezos when falcon 9 landed for the first time. Basically saying "welcome to the club". Not exactly apples to apples. https://mobile.twitter.com/jeffbezos/status/679116636310360067?lang=en https://mobile.twitter.com/jeffbezos/status/6791166363103600...
cronix 5y ago
Maybe if Blue Origin actually did something other than try to impede their competition[1], who actually is doing something and actually has products to sell to the public (satellite internet) and private companies (cheaper space launch with reusable rockets), they'd be in the news more and people would be talking about it and the envy would go away. I hear the name "Blue Origin" maybe 1-2x a year, and it's usually in the context of something SpaceX'ey - not some new revolutionary new thing they did. I hear "SpaceX" at least several times a week. That's a problem. The average person on the street has likely never even heard of Blue Origin, or know what they do, while they most likely have some idea of what SpaceX is and does. There is a tangible excitement about SpaceX. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/05/amazons-kuiper-responds-to-elon-musks-spacex-on-fcc-request.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/05/amazons-kuiper-responds-to-e...
- ortusdux 5y ago
  "Additionally, Goldman highlighted that Amazon representatives have had “30 meetings to oppose SpaceX” but “no meetings to authorize its own system,” which he interpreted as an attempt to stifle competition."
- libertine 5y ago
  I think the fact that Space X, and Elon himself, being loud grabs a lot of attention in social media, and that ends up amplifying everything. I mean, they blew up some rockets while trying to make them land vertically, and was such a mind boggling achievement that people were - and still are - rooting for them. They have a pretty solid brand that was forged by their perseverance and boldness. Their story is not even of being the underdog in a competitive environment, because the endeavor itself was enough to make them stand out. Not to mention that there are 3 known brands in this industry, that don't overlap: NASA (the OG), Space X (the crazy guys that land rockets) and Blue Origin (which has no clear positioning). Even if Blue Origin won NASA contracts, it wouldn't matter the'd still be the last ones in people's minds. They could be doing backflips, for style points ofc, before landing a standing rocket that still wouldn't matter.
  - philwelch 5y ago
jkinudsjknds 5y ago
I wonder how much they offered shotwell to jump ship?
marktangotango 5y ago
I've been puzzled at Blue Origins lack of progress, particularly with orbital class vehicles. they've got an engine developed (BE-4) that's pretty good, and going to be used by ULA apparently. But otherwise, development on New Glenn seems to be stagnant. Are they making progress, only not publicly, like Spacex? Seems Spacex is executing at a tremendous level, easy to believe a competitor could have trouble keeping the pace.
- travisporter 5y ago
  Eric Berger has an article on this. He is definitely a big spacex fan but does fairly objective reporting imo. https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/03/so-what-really-happened-with-blue-origins-new-glenn-rocket/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/03/so-what-really-happe...
- Beached 5y ago
  they aren't really making progress behind closed doors. there was a video tour of their new glenn factory floor when they were showing off the hls mock up, it looked mostly the se.as it did years ago, before spacex even launched heavy or even announced starship. I think the main difference is that spacex had a do or die mentality I. the beginning. Elon had money, but not endless amounts like besos or like he has currently. they literally were going to close up shop due to money, and got a last minute one last attempt to make falcon 1 lunch work. blue origin has never had the need to test things, it's just a bunch of engineers gooing over cad files and no need to go to orbit because they will never go bust.
  - UnpossibleJim 5y ago
    I'm not sure that, that "succeed or die" mentality/necessity is really a bad thing, at least in the beginning. I can't speak to space programs, per se, but as far as software start ups, so many of them are great as slim companies who have to produce but fail to transition once they are bought out and become an overlarge, corporate goliath with deep pockets and room to fail. Without the sword of Damocles, as it were, the finish line can continue to be pushed back and the specs can be changed. It can stay academic.
notRobot 5y ago
I wish instead of focusing on taking humanity to a new planet more billionaires would focus on trying to sustain the planet that we already have.
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  Elon Musk is also doing that, with tesla - not just the cars but with the batteries and solarcity too.
- adrianN 5y ago
  The environmental problems we have can't be solved by a couple of billionaires. We need politicians to get their act together. Founding a new company that builds rockets on the other hand is something billionaires can do.
  - horstmeyer 5y ago
    Money buys politicians.
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    "The environmental problems we have can't be solved by a couple of billionaires." Plenty of relatively poor people have devoted their entire lives to working to help the environment, despite knowing their impact will be much smaller than what even a mere millionaire could accomplish. Billionaires don't need to fix all environmental problems to make a very significant difference. The perfect is the enemy of the good.
  - tolbish 5y ago
    It would be incredibly remiss to ignore the effects that billionaires have on policy.
- me_me_me 5y ago
  > focus on trying to sustain the planet And what if we cannot acheive it, because of political and economical system at play i.e. local maxima holding us back and prevents us from breaking away from current order of things?
lacker 5y ago
"Envy" makes it sound like it's bad or sinful. But it just makes total sense to me. Bezos is trying to start a rocket company and this other rocket company is more successful. Of course you want to try to hire away executives from SpaceX, of course you want to compete for the same contracts they are getting. It's a hard business and many companies have failed. What makes Blue Origin relatively unique is that Bezos has billions more dollars and can keep trying. I hope he does, I think we would be better off in a world where SpaceX has an innovative competitor who vigorously competes with them. The legacy companies like ULA, I don't know if they can reorient themselves to actually compete with SpaceX.
- polishdude20 5y ago
  Yeah I think he's got "envy" as much as one of us would have envy for SpaceX. I'd love to be on the inside of SpaceX working for them and launching things to space. I'm sure Jeff would love to be the guy in Elons shoes just cause that stuff is so cool
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  I don't agree, although that is a charitable interpretation. Bezos was also "envious" [1] of Tesla's tax breaks from jurisdictions courting new gigafactories, which is why he demanded a road show to court breaks for HQ2. This is obnoxiously wealthy people handling the situations like you'd expect (and yet, in a very unhealthy way). My two cents is that Musk (being on the spectrum) is driven in a different way than Bezos (and therefore, being obsessive to a greater degree [2] [3], making him more involved "on the ground", leading to SpaceX's success). Being "relentless" (Bezos) is what you do, being obsessed (Musk) is who you are. Bezos is going to chill on his mega yacht with the new lady friend while Musk is overseeing construction of Starship SNs in the Texas desert. [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/behind-amazon-hq2-fiasco-jeff-100012951.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/behind-amazon-hq2-fiasco-jeff... (Behind Amazon’s HQ2 Fiasco: Jeff Bezos Was Jealous of Elon Musk) [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/20/elon-musks-ex-wife-on-secret-to-getting-rich-be-obsessed.html https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/20/elon-musks-ex-wife-on-secret... (Elon Musk’s ex-wife on secret to getting rich: ‘Be obsessed’) [3] https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-be-as-great-as-Bill-Gates-Steve-Jobs-Elon-Musk-or-Sir-Richard-Branson?share=1 https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-be-as-great-as-Bill-Gates-St... (Answer at top of page by Justine Musk)
SuboptimalEng 5y ago
Master Musk: SpaceX Arbiter Bezos: "were it so easy"
kingsuper20 5y ago
You know, I think if I had Bezos' money, I'd stay away from the engineering practicalities of running a company selling launches. If you want to be part of some off-planet future, it would be fun to spend significant money on new propulsion technologies and assume that it's all money down the drain. Admittedly, running a large lab has it's own set of problems to keep them on the straight and narrow. No doubt, at the heart of it, a part of what drives any Bezos jealousy is simply that Musk has a lot more stage presence and star power.
- themodelplumber 5y ago
  But... engineering practicalities are literally where Bezos has like ten bicep muscles... Especially if you include logistics concerns. If it's boring but scales, he is going to be in the winner pool. If it takes imagination, he's shown that his imagination is less focused than Musk's, and much more of a blowoff valve for when life gets too samey. So the big risk is that the creativity is impressive but totally inappropriate. That said, I agree it'd be nice to chase after new propulsion tech.
  - kingsuper20 5y ago
    We could combine the two. Bezos could spend the money on a cannon/rail gun to get raw materials into orbit.
- philwelch 5y ago
  > No doubt, at the heart of it, a part of what drives any Bezos jealousy is simply that Musk has a lot more stage presence and star power. I’ve seen both of them present (though only Jeff in person) and if anything I think Elon is more awkward and less smooth as a presenter. Elon is definitely more cool, but it’s not really what I’d call “stage presence”.
  - kingsuper20 5y ago
    Stage presence is a funny thing. I don't think of it as how well you speak, but how much the camera loves you.
madengr 5y ago
Hired a “senior manager at Honeywell Aerospace”. Hell, I could have told him that was a poor choice. Garmin was started when Honeywell managers said there was no future in civilian GPS use.
tasssko 5y ago
I don’t envy Elon having to forge a new business like SpaceX on public markets and dealing with the the court of public opinion in a new field with new business models, high capex, high risk. Bezos doesn’t have that and he has the capital to avoid it a bit longer.
- darknavi 5y ago
  > on public markets Not sure if this is what you're saying but SpaceX is funded privately with investing rounds and isn't traded on a public stock market.
- rapsey 5y ago
  SpaceX is not public
  - tasssko 5y ago
    Thanks for the correction.
dr-detroit 5y ago
Musk has a whole twitterbot cult of personality built around him that rivals Trump. This is the PR machine that Bezos and every politician not named trump covet so dearly
jpeter 5y ago
Bezos should just dump all his money into nuclear fusion.
- DennisP 5y ago
  He did invest in General Fusion.
antoniuschan99 5y ago
Funny SpaceX is literally move fast and break things, whereas Blue Origin is doing the Big Bang version of Rocket Building

Amazon simply can't afford rockets blowing up publicly like Tesla can. This is all there is to it. Bezos stepping down and distancing himself from Amazon should provide new lift (no pun intended) and much more risk taking to Blue Origin. We should all remember that this is a marathon, not a sprint. It's not like the frentic months of the software wars where Apple put together the iPhone and its app ecosystem in 48 months and others never caught it. This is a terrible business (like everything Musk is involved in except Neuralink). Bezos should learn from Google and understand that there is no shame in killing a project....but I suspect the ego wars against Musk are too big now. Bezos should have known better. When Musk insults you, you just do what Bill Gates does: You smile, compliment him, stroke his ego a bit and then go back having de-facto veto power in institutions such as the WHO and UN, operating way above Musk head.

nickik 5y ago
Pretty much everything you said is wrong. Tesla and Amazon have nothing to do with it. BlueOrigin has the money to do what SpaceX does, in fact they are spending just as much or more. Go look at the launch pad BlueOrigin build in Florida and compare it to the one SpaceX build in Texas. > This is a terrible business (like everything Musk is involved in except Neuralink). Based on all objective measures they are not. > Bezos should have known better. When Musk insults you, you just do what Bill Gates does: You smile, compliment him, stroke his ego a bit and then go back having de-facto veto power in institutions such as the WHO and UN, operating way above Musk head. Gates was commenting on Musk and his companies before Musk ever said anything. And the believe that Gates has a veto at the WHO and the UN is nonsense.
- ObserverNeutral 5y ago
  > BlueOrigin has the money to do what SpaceX does No amount of money can give BlueOrigin the freedom which SpaceX has to blow up rockets and telecast failure globally every week like it has happened for the last 5 years. The CEO of Amazon just can't be associated with such public failures. For Musk Tesla and SpaceX were parallel efforts, they were never such thing for Bezos, in 2015 when he got serious about Blue Origin , Amazon was already a bigger company than Tesla is now and will ever be. He simply didn't have that freedom. > Based on all objective measures they are not. Q: "How can you become a millionaire mr. Branson?" A: "Be a billionaire and start and aerospace comapany" These are not software margins we are talking about, to channel my inner Ricky Bobby: If you ain't software, you are last. > And the believe that Gates has a veto at the WHO and the UN is nonsense. Gates can pick up the phone and occupy a week long of Biden time if he wants, same goes for Xi Jin Ping, the WHO director and the climate workgroups at the UN. This is what happens when you do what others would never do: donate money to philantropic efforts way beyond the marginal PR utility returns of such donations. You get politicians lining up because they know they'd be able to take credit and do vitcory laps after a job well done which Gates would never claim ownership of, that is beyond the occasional Bloomberg conference which only policy nerds attend. Stark difference with Musk who doesn't do philantropy and frankly scans for causes to inject himself in the loudest possible manner such as the Thai soccer team trapped in the caves. Musk should thank that Gates is magnanimous enough not bring up the mess which Tesla is when he talks with Biden and John Kerry about climate policy. And Musk attacked him first, because he committed the sin of buying a Porsche so that he'd be able to lap Laguna Seca without the car overheating and exploding such as Teslas.
  - nickik 5y ago
    > The CEO of Amazon just can't be associated with such public failures. I see no reason for this. I think the opposite is true, having high profile test would actually improve the image of the public figure. Maybe if it was Amazon himself you would have a point, but a totally separate company? Sorry, not buying it. It seems to me you are just making up excuses to explain away Bezos failure. > These are not software margins we are talking about, to channel my inner Ricky Bobby: If you ain't software, you are last. So first of all Branson is a terrible source. Second of all, of course they don't get software margin. They are capital intensive business. But that is just terrible analysis, based on this logic no company before 1960 could ever be a good business because its not software? So I guess anybody not selling software should just go home and start drinking because apparently its not worth it. If the market is large and you compare favorably in terms of competition they are good business by literally any objective measure. That is other then haters who clearly have personal dislike for the CEO.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

pizzabearman 5y ago

I remember one of the weirder tweets by Bezos when falcon 9 landed for the first time. Basically saying "welcome to the club". Not exactly apples to apples. https://mobile.twitter.com/jeffbezos/status/679116636310360067?lang=en https://mobile.twitter.com/jeffbezos/status/6791166363103600...

cronix 5y ago

Maybe if Blue Origin actually did something other than try to impede their competition[1], who actually is doing something and actually has products to sell to the public (satellite internet) and private companies (cheaper space launch with reusable rockets), they'd be in the news more and people would be talking about it and the envy would go away. I hear the name "Blue Origin" maybe 1-2x a year, and it's usually in the context of something SpaceX'ey - not some new revolutionary new thing they did. I hear "SpaceX" at least several times a week. That's a problem. The average person on the street has likely never even heard of Blue Origin, or know what they do, while they most likely have some idea of what SpaceX is and does. There is a tangible excitement about SpaceX. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/05/amazons-kuiper-responds-to-elon-musks-spacex-on-fcc-request.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/05/amazons-kuiper-responds-to-e...

ortusdux 5y ago
"Additionally, Goldman highlighted that Amazon representatives have had “30 meetings to oppose SpaceX” but “no meetings to authorize its own system,” which he interpreted as an attempt to stifle competition."
libertine 5y ago
I think the fact that Space X, and Elon himself, being loud grabs a lot of attention in social media, and that ends up amplifying everything. I mean, they blew up some rockets while trying to make them land vertically, and was such a mind boggling achievement that people were - and still are - rooting for them. They have a pretty solid brand that was forged by their perseverance and boldness. Their story is not even of being the underdog in a competitive environment, because the endeavor itself was enough to make them stand out. Not to mention that there are 3 known brands in this industry, that don't overlap: NASA (the OG), Space X (the crazy guys that land rockets) and Blue Origin (which has no clear positioning). Even if Blue Origin won NASA contracts, it wouldn't matter the'd still be the last ones in people's minds. They could be doing backflips, for style points ofc, before landing a standing rocket that still wouldn't matter.
- philwelch 5y ago

jkinudsjknds 5y ago

I wonder how much they offered shotwell to jump ship?

marktangotango 5y ago

I've been puzzled at Blue Origins lack of progress, particularly with orbital class vehicles. they've got an engine developed (BE-4) that's pretty good, and going to be used by ULA apparently. But otherwise, development on New Glenn seems to be stagnant. Are they making progress, only not publicly, like Spacex? Seems Spacex is executing at a tremendous level, easy to believe a competitor could have trouble keeping the pace.

travisporter 5y ago
Eric Berger has an article on this. He is definitely a big spacex fan but does fairly objective reporting imo. https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/03/so-what-really-happened-with-blue-origins-new-glenn-rocket/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/03/so-what-really-happe...
Beached 5y ago
they aren't really making progress behind closed doors. there was a video tour of their new glenn factory floor when they were showing off the hls mock up, it looked mostly the se.as it did years ago, before spacex even launched heavy or even announced starship. I think the main difference is that spacex had a do or die mentality I. the beginning. Elon had money, but not endless amounts like besos or like he has currently. they literally were going to close up shop due to money, and got a last minute one last attempt to make falcon 1 lunch work. blue origin has never had the need to test things, it's just a bunch of engineers gooing over cad files and no need to go to orbit because they will never go bust.
- UnpossibleJim 5y ago
  I'm not sure that, that "succeed or die" mentality/necessity is really a bad thing, at least in the beginning. I can't speak to space programs, per se, but as far as software start ups, so many of them are great as slim companies who have to produce but fail to transition once they are bought out and become an overlarge, corporate goliath with deep pockets and room to fail. Without the sword of Damocles, as it were, the finish line can continue to be pushed back and the specs can be changed. It can stay academic.

notRobot 5y ago

I wish instead of focusing on taking humanity to a new planet more billionaires would focus on trying to sustain the planet that we already have.

beaconstudios 5y ago
Elon Musk is also doing that, with tesla - not just the cars but with the batteries and solarcity too.
adrianN 5y ago
The environmental problems we have can't be solved by a couple of billionaires. We need politicians to get their act together. Founding a new company that builds rockets on the other hand is something billionaires can do.
- horstmeyer 5y ago
  Money buys politicians.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "The environmental problems we have can't be solved by a couple of billionaires." Plenty of relatively poor people have devoted their entire lives to working to help the environment, despite knowing their impact will be much smaller than what even a mere millionaire could accomplish. Billionaires don't need to fix all environmental problems to make a very significant difference. The perfect is the enemy of the good.
- tolbish 5y ago
  It would be incredibly remiss to ignore the effects that billionaires have on policy.
me_me_me 5y ago
> focus on trying to sustain the planet And what if we cannot acheive it, because of political and economical system at play i.e. local maxima holding us back and prevents us from breaking away from current order of things?

lacker 5y ago

"Envy" makes it sound like it's bad or sinful. But it just makes total sense to me. Bezos is trying to start a rocket company and this other rocket company is more successful. Of course you want to try to hire away executives from SpaceX, of course you want to compete for the same contracts they are getting. It's a hard business and many companies have failed. What makes Blue Origin relatively unique is that Bezos has billions more dollars and can keep trying. I hope he does, I think we would be better off in a world where SpaceX has an innovative competitor who vigorously competes with them. The legacy companies like ULA, I don't know if they can reorient themselves to actually compete with SpaceX.

polishdude20 5y ago
Yeah I think he's got "envy" as much as one of us would have envy for SpaceX. I'd love to be on the inside of SpaceX working for them and launching things to space. I'm sure Jeff would love to be the guy in Elons shoes just cause that stuff is so cool
toomuchtodo 5y ago
I don't agree, although that is a charitable interpretation. Bezos was also "envious" [1] of Tesla's tax breaks from jurisdictions courting new gigafactories, which is why he demanded a road show to court breaks for HQ2. This is obnoxiously wealthy people handling the situations like you'd expect (and yet, in a very unhealthy way). My two cents is that Musk (being on the spectrum) is driven in a different way than Bezos (and therefore, being obsessive to a greater degree [2] [3], making him more involved "on the ground", leading to SpaceX's success). Being "relentless" (Bezos) is what you do, being obsessed (Musk) is who you are. Bezos is going to chill on his mega yacht with the new lady friend while Musk is overseeing construction of Starship SNs in the Texas desert. [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/behind-amazon-hq2-fiasco-jeff-100012951.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/behind-amazon-hq2-fiasco-jeff... (Behind Amazon’s HQ2 Fiasco: Jeff Bezos Was Jealous of Elon Musk) [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/20/elon-musks-ex-wife-on-secret-to-getting-rich-be-obsessed.html https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/20/elon-musks-ex-wife-on-secret... (Elon Musk’s ex-wife on secret to getting rich: ‘Be obsessed’) [3] https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-be-as-great-as-Bill-Gates-Steve-Jobs-Elon-Musk-or-Sir-Richard-Branson?share=1 https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-be-as-great-as-Bill-Gates-St... (Answer at top of page by Justine Musk)

SuboptimalEng 5y ago

Master Musk: SpaceX Arbiter Bezos: "were it so easy"

kingsuper20 5y ago

You know, I think if I had Bezos' money, I'd stay away from the engineering practicalities of running a company selling launches. If you want to be part of some off-planet future, it would be fun to spend significant money on new propulsion technologies and assume that it's all money down the drain. Admittedly, running a large lab has it's own set of problems to keep them on the straight and narrow. No doubt, at the heart of it, a part of what drives any Bezos jealousy is simply that Musk has a lot more stage presence and star power.

themodelplumber 5y ago
But... engineering practicalities are literally where Bezos has like ten bicep muscles... Especially if you include logistics concerns. If it's boring but scales, he is going to be in the winner pool. If it takes imagination, he's shown that his imagination is less focused than Musk's, and much more of a blowoff valve for when life gets too samey. So the big risk is that the creativity is impressive but totally inappropriate. That said, I agree it'd be nice to chase after new propulsion tech.
- kingsuper20 5y ago
  We could combine the two. Bezos could spend the money on a cannon/rail gun to get raw materials into orbit.
philwelch 5y ago
> No doubt, at the heart of it, a part of what drives any Bezos jealousy is simply that Musk has a lot more stage presence and star power. I’ve seen both of them present (though only Jeff in person) and if anything I think Elon is more awkward and less smooth as a presenter. Elon is definitely more cool, but it’s not really what I’d call “stage presence”.
- kingsuper20 5y ago
  Stage presence is a funny thing. I don't think of it as how well you speak, but how much the camera loves you.

madengr 5y ago

Hired a “senior manager at Honeywell Aerospace”. Hell, I could have told him that was a poor choice. Garmin was started when Honeywell managers said there was no future in civilian GPS use.

tasssko 5y ago

I don’t envy Elon having to forge a new business like SpaceX on public markets and dealing with the the court of public opinion in a new field with new business models, high capex, high risk. Bezos doesn’t have that and he has the capital to avoid it a bit longer.

darknavi 5y ago
> on public markets Not sure if this is what you're saying but SpaceX is funded privately with investing rounds and isn't traded on a public stock market.
rapsey 5y ago
SpaceX is not public
- tasssko 5y ago
  Thanks for the correction.

dr-detroit 5y ago

Musk has a whole twitterbot cult of personality built around him that rivals Trump. This is the PR machine that Bezos and every politician not named trump covet so dearly

jpeter 5y ago

Bezos should just dump all his money into nuclear fusion.

DennisP 5y ago
He did invest in General Fusion.

antoniuschan99 5y ago

Funny SpaceX is literally move fast and break things, whereas Blue Origin is doing the Big Bang version of Rocket Building