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When we're drooling over these accomplishments, we should direct more of our praise to the thousands of really, really good engineers who did the work, built on

When we're drooling over these accomplishments, we should direct more of our praise to the thousands of really, really good engineers who did the work, built on the accumulated experience of millions, over decades. People seem to be very eager to ascribe success to heroic individuals, and while leadership is certainly something remarkable, I think that there is a severe imbalance in who we're thanking for these achievements.

Clewza313 5y ago
It takes both engineering and leadership. There's no shortage of talent at NASA, but much of it has been and still is squandered over political machinations almost entirely unrelated to the task at hand. Case study: how the Space Shuttle was crippled by Air Force requirements that turned out to be completely unnecessary in the end.
rvz 5y ago
> I think that there is a severe imbalance in who we're thanking for these achievements. There you go. The hard work from brilliant engineers of any giant tech company to make all of this actually work and become a reality is always overlooked and the spotlight is focused on the individual who gives out unrealistic deadlines for the engineers to meet. If they meet the deadline, no one cares and it's business as usual. If they miss it; angry meetings, delays, reshuffles and layoffs happen.
regnerba 5y ago
Totally agree! I have been avoiding Twitter the last few years but was recently going through Elon’s tweets. Something I noticed is that he is often giving credit to the teams at SpaceX and Tesla. There are a number of times where he responds to a tweet and point out how it was the teams at X company, and sometimes calling out people by name for their work. It was also something during his presentation during the Model S Plaid release. He said numerous times how important the teams at Tesla were to its success.
- OneTimePetes 5y ago
  Sorry, but why does one go through someone elses tweets? Twitter is focused on current events - and they do not age well. So why read up on the past utterances of anyone? This seems.. strange.. sorry, if that offends.
  - regnerba 5y ago
    Absolutely no offence at all! I tend to avoid Reddit these days and wanted to catch up on some SpaceX stuff. Avoiding Reddit means my main source of SpaceX news, a mix of r/SpaceX and r/SpaceXLounge, was something I was avoiding. Going back through Elon’s tweets seemed a decent way to catch up in a general sense. He seems to really like tweeting about SpaceX. I learned through that attempt at going back through his tweets that, as you pointed out, Twitter is really not built for that. I guess I hadn’t really put much thought it in at the time, was just on my phone, curious about SpaceX, and thought it might be an OK way to get some updates. Hopefully that makes at least a bit of sense…
- tpmx 5y ago
  This is a pretty new development. The cynic in me thinks he's finally listened to some PR people on how to get people to like him. It sort of coincided with the SNL appearance, too.
  - mlindner 5y ago
    > This is a pretty new development. No it's not at all. It's something he's done since the very beginning. You can go back to the 2000s with the first few public interviews he's given since starting Tesla and SpaceX after accomplishments (first few years of both had no accomplishments to redirect praise) and he's constantly redirecting to the team. It's always driven me nuts how many people misquote him and consistently ignore all these redirections of praise.
fsloth 5y ago
Well, there is a mass grave of failed private space companies that predate SpaceX so Mr. Musk was entering some pretty hazardous territory, business wise. While the engineering work is of course non-trivial, in this case I would not downplay Mr. Musk's role in creating a company that put payload to orbit before becoming bankrupt.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  We'll see. I feel like the key differences this time are reusable boosters (order of magnitude supply cost reduction) + Starlink (order of magnitude demand absorber). It's as though some smart people said "Hmm, what if we realize the ability to launch payload into space more cheaply than anyone else? What's the most durable moat we could build with that advantage?"
jpgvm 5y ago
Or if you are going to pick an individual it should be Gwynne Shotwell at least.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Cipater 5y ago
  Surely it should be the person who founded the company, put his money into it and whose vision drives it?
hyperpallium2 5y ago
Compare Musk taking questions with one of the engineers. They answer it; he sells a vision. Vision is how you get the best out of people - colleagues, customers, suppliers, investors. Like Steve Jobs, he loves the best part of his engineers more than they do themselves - how can you not respond to that?
mensetmanusman 5y ago
Extending the circle of gratitude is certainly a good practice. Don’t forget all the husbands and wives supporting the families of these people either. When you follow the process, you realize this is an accomplishment of humanity.
ordu 5y ago
Popular history is being written in a way allowing it to be easily consumed. So no, it shouldn't contain a list of thousands of engineers. I'm not arguing that it is good or bad, just stating how it is. In a way it is a progress. Wars had thousands or even millions of causalities, but history says mostly about generals. No one interested enough in a fate of a private John Smith. Now education came to a point when privates of army of brilliant engineers is not interesting enough, because there are too many of them for a cognitive abilities of a regular consumer of a history. Maybe some day in a future, we'll come to a history ignoring individuals from an army of Elons, and focusing instead on some superhuman who led them.
- panick21 5y ago
  In fact there is quite a bit of research on 'John Smith' just as people are interested in the engineers at SpaceX (multiple books, podcasts, talks and so on). What is bothersome is that some people that do not like Musk have come out of the woodwork with the 'but he is not responsible' argument. Its is such a tiered line of argument by now. Everybody knows a company is not one person but equally everybody knows that Musk is most responsible for SpaceX by literally any definition. I hope at some point we can evolve past this endlessly repeating line of argument.
ryzvonusef 5y ago
eh, whataboutism as much as it pains me to say it, but those "really really good engineers" are just cogs in the machine, providing services for money; the management running the machine, ultimately decide which direction the machines runs. it's a cynical take, but cogs are replaceable, and would (often with not that major of an adjustment) easily fit other machines, ones that perhaps run in directions we don't like or care about. (like seriously, tech companies like SpaceX etc burn through engineers like crazy, they literally take this metaphor to heart, iirc most fresh engineers last barely the vesting period, much cheaper to replace them with the fresh batch from the next semester) Therefore the people running the machine are the ones that matter, since they are responsible for the good and the bad.

Clewza313 5y ago

It takes both engineering and leadership. There's no shortage of talent at NASA, but much of it has been and still is squandered over political machinations almost entirely unrelated to the task at hand. Case study: how the Space Shuttle was crippled by Air Force requirements that turned out to be completely unnecessary in the end.

rvz 5y ago

> I think that there is a severe imbalance in who we're thanking for these achievements. There you go. The hard work from brilliant engineers of any giant tech company to make all of this actually work and become a reality is always overlooked and the spotlight is focused on the individual who gives out unrealistic deadlines for the engineers to meet. If they meet the deadline, no one cares and it's business as usual. If they miss it; angry meetings, delays, reshuffles and layoffs happen.

regnerba 5y ago

Totally agree! I have been avoiding Twitter the last few years but was recently going through Elon’s tweets. Something I noticed is that he is often giving credit to the teams at SpaceX and Tesla. There are a number of times where he responds to a tweet and point out how it was the teams at X company, and sometimes calling out people by name for their work. It was also something during his presentation during the Model S Plaid release. He said numerous times how important the teams at Tesla were to its success.

OneTimePetes 5y ago
Sorry, but why does one go through someone elses tweets? Twitter is focused on current events - and they do not age well. So why read up on the past utterances of anyone? This seems.. strange.. sorry, if that offends.
- regnerba 5y ago
  Absolutely no offence at all! I tend to avoid Reddit these days and wanted to catch up on some SpaceX stuff. Avoiding Reddit means my main source of SpaceX news, a mix of r/SpaceX and r/SpaceXLounge, was something I was avoiding. Going back through Elon’s tweets seemed a decent way to catch up in a general sense. He seems to really like tweeting about SpaceX. I learned through that attempt at going back through his tweets that, as you pointed out, Twitter is really not built for that. I guess I hadn’t really put much thought it in at the time, was just on my phone, curious about SpaceX, and thought it might be an OK way to get some updates. Hopefully that makes at least a bit of sense…
tpmx 5y ago
This is a pretty new development. The cynic in me thinks he's finally listened to some PR people on how to get people to like him. It sort of coincided with the SNL appearance, too.
- mlindner 5y ago
  > This is a pretty new development. No it's not at all. It's something he's done since the very beginning. You can go back to the 2000s with the first few public interviews he's given since starting Tesla and SpaceX after accomplishments (first few years of both had no accomplishments to redirect praise) and he's constantly redirecting to the team. It's always driven me nuts how many people misquote him and consistently ignore all these redirections of praise.

fsloth 5y ago

Well, there is a mass grave of failed private space companies that predate SpaceX so Mr. Musk was entering some pretty hazardous territory, business wise. While the engineering work is of course non-trivial, in this case I would not downplay Mr. Musk's role in creating a company that put payload to orbit before becoming bankrupt.

ethbr0 5y ago
We'll see. I feel like the key differences this time are reusable boosters (order of magnitude supply cost reduction) + Starlink (order of magnitude demand absorber). It's as though some smart people said "Hmm, what if we realize the ability to launch payload into space more cheaply than anyone else? What's the most durable moat we could build with that advantage?"

jpgvm 5y ago

Or if you are going to pick an individual it should be Gwynne Shotwell at least.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Cipater 5y ago
Surely it should be the person who founded the company, put his money into it and whose vision drives it?

hyperpallium2 5y ago

Compare Musk taking questions with one of the engineers. They answer it; he sells a vision. Vision is how you get the best out of people - colleagues, customers, suppliers, investors. Like Steve Jobs, he loves the best part of his engineers more than they do themselves - how can you not respond to that?

mensetmanusman 5y ago

Extending the circle of gratitude is certainly a good practice. Don’t forget all the husbands and wives supporting the families of these people either. When you follow the process, you realize this is an accomplishment of humanity.

ordu 5y ago

Popular history is being written in a way allowing it to be easily consumed. So no, it shouldn't contain a list of thousands of engineers. I'm not arguing that it is good or bad, just stating how it is. In a way it is a progress. Wars had thousands or even millions of causalities, but history says mostly about generals. No one interested enough in a fate of a private John Smith. Now education came to a point when privates of army of brilliant engineers is not interesting enough, because there are too many of them for a cognitive abilities of a regular consumer of a history. Maybe some day in a future, we'll come to a history ignoring individuals from an army of Elons, and focusing instead on some superhuman who led them.

panick21 5y ago
In fact there is quite a bit of research on 'John Smith' just as people are interested in the engineers at SpaceX (multiple books, podcasts, talks and so on). What is bothersome is that some people that do not like Musk have come out of the woodwork with the 'but he is not responsible' argument. Its is such a tiered line of argument by now. Everybody knows a company is not one person but equally everybody knows that Musk is most responsible for SpaceX by literally any definition. I hope at some point we can evolve past this endlessly repeating line of argument.

ryzvonusef 5y ago

eh, whataboutism as much as it pains me to say it, but those "really really good engineers" are just cogs in the machine, providing services for money; the management running the machine, ultimately decide which direction the machines runs. it's a cynical take, but cogs are replaceable, and would (often with not that major of an adjustment) easily fit other machines, ones that perhaps run in directions we don't like or care about. (like seriously, tech companies like SpaceX etc burn through engineers like crazy, they literally take this metaphor to heart, iirc most fresh engineers last barely the vesting period, much cheaper to replace them with the fresh batch from the next semester) Therefore the people running the machine are the ones that matter, since they are responsible for the good and the bad.