The Wright Brothers owned a mechanical shops for a decade specialising in printing press and bicycles before building gliders and prototype for years. They had

The Wright Brothers owned a mechanical shops for a decade specialising in printing press and bicycles before building gliders and prototype for years. They had a lot of experience in manufacturing. Earhart had been a pilot for eight years before attempting to cross the Atlantic. The only exemple of someone entering a highly regulated industry without being an insider I can think of is Musk and SpaceX and even then he was previously rich, started by building the connection which would allow him to get public funds through the Mars Society and his first move was hiring Tom Mueller, an industry insider. In my experience, people with a software background who don’t have an industrial background heavily underestimate the complexity involved.