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Shotwell explicitly said several times (starting from many years ago) that she won't use twitter. Also while Shotwell is a wonderful and competent president wi

Shotwell explicitly said several times (starting from many years ago) that she won't use twitter. Also while Shotwell is a wonderful and competent president with a great business acumen. She doesn't have a lot of engineering vision for what things should be. SpaceX is kind of dual-run by Shotwell and Elon Musk. He drives forward and pushes forward with crazy ideas and then when they're semi-marketable he hands off the project to Shotwell to clean things up and prune out some of the economics. For example Starlink was Elon driven up until early 2020 or so, after they'd already started selling to customers, after which it was handed off to Shotwell.

panick21_ 4y ago
Its not just hand off. They are both involved all the time. Musk doesnt just hand of projects. He continues to work on iterations and so on. And Shotwell is involved from the beginning of each project as well. People that keep pushing idea as if there were 2 SpaceX but in reality there is close cooperation from begin to end.
- mlindner 4y ago
  I was going off of what Shotwell herself said. https://interactive.satellitetoday.com/via/may-2021/a-conversation-with-gwynne-shotwell-2020-satellite-executive-of-the-year/ https://interactive.satellitetoday.com/via/may-2021/a-conver... Perhaps my interpretation is incorrect, but what I wrote above is what I read out of this (and other interviews). > Shotwell: The way Elon and I share the load, he focuses on development. He's still very highly engaged in the day-to-day operations, but his focus is on development. He was the lead on Starlink, and I started shifting my focus to Starlink around late spring, early summer of last year. [Interview done in early 2021.] Elon’s focus in that time was moving to Starship, that is his primary focus at SpaceX. It doesn't mean he's not thinking about the company on a day-to-day basis, but his emphasis is to get the Starship program to orbit. > The thing about Starship is, we know how to design rockets and fly rockets. What we have failed to do to date is to design and fly a rocket that is easily producible and fully reusable. It's still hard to produce a Falcon 9. It's a lot of work and it's very expensive. The focus for Starship is to make it highly producible, highly reliable, and 100 percent operationally reusable, both for the first and second stage. That's hard.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    And my point was: > He's still very highly engaged in the day-to-day operations, but his focus is on development.
mauvehaus 4y ago
I mean, the world needs both, but if you were proposing to stick me on a desert island with either a batshit-crazy visionary or a boring, immensely competent executor, I know which one I'd pick. And I have a hard time believing that she is completely lacking vision in much the same way that I believe Musk has execution skills as well. I want to be clear: I say all this as an outsider. I know SpaceX has a reputation for long hours and a high turnover rate, and I won't try to apportion responsibility for those to her and Musk (though I'm sure she gets her share), but I certainly give her at least 50% of the credit for SpaceX getting where they are today both financially and technically. I read a while ago words to the effect of "the mark of a captain with superior ship-handling skills is that they don't get into situations where they need their superior ship-handling skills". As near as I can tell from the outside, that's Gwynn Shotwell.
- mlindner 4y ago
  I don't like to try to split up credit. They're both absolutely needed but in different ways. (It's one of the things Tesla has lacked for some time.) One of the other things she's good at is smoothing over ruffled feathers of government bureaucrats. But I personally find that there are a lot fewer Elon Musks in the world than there are Gwynne Shotwells in the world. And as to the deserted island. I'd take the Elon Musk personally if I had to pick, but I'd prefer to take both. And as for ship captains. Ship captaining isn't supposed to be exciting and shouldn't be involving risk taking. That analogy doesn't hold into the world of pioneering the new and different. I agree though, if you're running a business based on things that people know how to do well already, all you need is the good ship captain.
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    Serious question: why would you want Musk on a deserted island with you? What skills do you think he'd bring to help you?
    - pcl 4y ago
      Well, people would be looking for him, that’s for sure.
Dylan16807 4y ago
> Shotwell explicitly said several times (starting from many years ago) that she won't use twitter. Still give her the account.

panick21_ 4y ago

Its not just hand off. They are both involved all the time. Musk doesnt just hand of projects. He continues to work on iterations and so on. And Shotwell is involved from the beginning of each project as well. People that keep pushing idea as if there were 2 SpaceX but in reality there is close cooperation from begin to end.

mlindner 4y ago
I was going off of what Shotwell herself said. https://interactive.satellitetoday.com/via/may-2021/a-conversation-with-gwynne-shotwell-2020-satellite-executive-of-the-year/ https://interactive.satellitetoday.com/via/may-2021/a-conver... Perhaps my interpretation is incorrect, but what I wrote above is what I read out of this (and other interviews). > Shotwell: The way Elon and I share the load, he focuses on development. He's still very highly engaged in the day-to-day operations, but his focus is on development. He was the lead on Starlink, and I started shifting my focus to Starlink around late spring, early summer of last year. [Interview done in early 2021.] Elon’s focus in that time was moving to Starship, that is his primary focus at SpaceX. It doesn't mean he's not thinking about the company on a day-to-day basis, but his emphasis is to get the Starship program to orbit. > The thing about Starship is, we know how to design rockets and fly rockets. What we have failed to do to date is to design and fly a rocket that is easily producible and fully reusable. It's still hard to produce a Falcon 9. It's a lot of work and it's very expensive. The focus for Starship is to make it highly producible, highly reliable, and 100 percent operationally reusable, both for the first and second stage. That's hard.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  And my point was: > He's still very highly engaged in the day-to-day operations, but his focus is on development.

mauvehaus 4y ago

I mean, the world needs both, but if you were proposing to stick me on a desert island with either a batshit-crazy visionary or a boring, immensely competent executor, I know which one I'd pick. And I have a hard time believing that she is completely lacking vision in much the same way that I believe Musk has execution skills as well. I want to be clear: I say all this as an outsider. I know SpaceX has a reputation for long hours and a high turnover rate, and I won't try to apportion responsibility for those to her and Musk (though I'm sure she gets her share), but I certainly give her at least 50% of the credit for SpaceX getting where they are today both financially and technically. I read a while ago words to the effect of "the mark of a captain with superior ship-handling skills is that they don't get into situations where they need their superior ship-handling skills". As near as I can tell from the outside, that's Gwynn Shotwell.

mlindner 4y ago
I don't like to try to split up credit. They're both absolutely needed but in different ways. (It's one of the things Tesla has lacked for some time.) One of the other things she's good at is smoothing over ruffled feathers of government bureaucrats. But I personally find that there are a lot fewer Elon Musks in the world than there are Gwynne Shotwells in the world. And as to the deserted island. I'd take the Elon Musk personally if I had to pick, but I'd prefer to take both. And as for ship captains. Ship captaining isn't supposed to be exciting and shouldn't be involving risk taking. That analogy doesn't hold into the world of pioneering the new and different. I agree though, if you're running a business based on things that people know how to do well already, all you need is the good ship captain.
- HWR_14 4y ago
  Serious question: why would you want Musk on a deserted island with you? What skills do you think he'd bring to help you?
  - pcl 4y ago
    Well, people would be looking for him, that’s for sure.

Dylan16807 4y ago

> Shotwell explicitly said several times (starting from many years ago) that she won't use twitter. Still give her the account.