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They seem to often be successful when the goal is to disrupt or compete with a very moribund but entrenched industry. A few recent examples: Travis Kalanick vs

by api 4y ago

They seem to often be successful when the goal is to disrupt or compete with a very moribund but entrenched industry. A few recent examples: Travis Kalanick vs the Taxi medallion cartel, Elon Musk vs a space industry that stopped innovating after Apollo (and to a lesser extent getting EVs over the adoption hump), Steve Jobs 2.0 (the return) vs ugly beige box PCs. In all cases you have industries very set in their ways dominated by strong but stolid and conservative personalities and a lot of innovation being held back. All the conquistador really has to do is gallop in and show what is possible. They have to execute well enough to do that. It doesn’t have to be excellence, but it often looks like excellence against a backdrop of mediocrity. Take SpaceX for example. Old school NASA in the 50s and 60s or Lockheed Skunk Works in the same era were far more innovative. SpaceX looks superhuman today against the backdrop of an industry that had totally gone out to pasture. Apple paired good industrial design with what is basically a polished consumer grade analog of a Linux desktop and looked revolutionary against ugly metal cans and chunky laptops running Windows. The iPhone was a bit higher on the innovation scale but also wasn’t wholly original, but damn did it cook when compared to flip phones. But when you get past that disruption phase the conquistadors often fall down. We don’t get to see how Jobs would fare today because the torch was passed to Tim Cook, a solid operator. Musk is floundering with Tesla now that the EV market is full of strong competitors and it remains to be seen if SpaceX will hold it together. Kalanick’s Uber is a money bonfire but people still love it because Taxis suck.

duhast 4y ago
Can you give me some examples of SpaceX innovations that disrupted the industry? Here are some of my issues with SpaceX marketing: 1) Cost to NASA/DoD seems to be similar to ULA. 2) SpaceX continues to fly expandable boosters for missions above LEO and for heavier payloads. Reusable boosters have lower lift and range and require extensive refurbishment between missions. Upper stage is not reusable. 3) SpaceX hasn't flown a single mission into deep space or Mars despite this being the stated goal of the company. In the same time, others have flown multiple rockets to Mars and to other planets. We have multiple rovers roaming the surface of Mars and satellites orbiting other planes all while SpaceX has contributed nothing to these efforts. I personally see SpaceX contributions to the industry are mostly incremental: 1) Booster reusability to LEO and for light payloads. 3) Human rated capsule for space station resupply missions. 3) High quality video content from launches. 4) Increased interest in space exploration at the expense of unrealistic expectations in relation to cost and timelines.
- varjag 4y ago
  It takes a lot of mental gymnastics to call booster reusability "incremental".
  - duhast 4y ago
    Care to elaborate?
  - hef19898 4y ago
    Depends on how much demand for those low orbit launches there is. A non-zero portion of those launches is Starlink, so basically in-house demand. Yes, I'd call that incremental. Which doesn't mean it is not impressive, because it is. The main point so, IMHO, is that prices for comparable launches are not so much cheaper using SpaceX. Kind of like those Ryan Air 19.99 tickets. Sure, there are some, but on average the price difference is much smaller than people think.
    - TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
      Calling SpaceX SpaceRyanair seems unexpectedly accurate. O'Leary and Musk have a lot in common. NASA's shuttle would have solved reusability in the 70s/80s, but a combination of DoD interference and severe funding cuts effectively crippled the project. This was politically fatal because it killed NASA's reputation as an effective manager of innovation. Which is why every project from the 90s onwards has been supported by slightly overwrought rapturous PR - to try to restore that reputation, because funding relies on it. SpaceX has copied this. So yes - SpaceX is incremental. A non-incremental company would be developing blue sky alternatives to chemical engines and/or looking for new propulsion physics. I can't see that happening without a government-run academic R&D program.
    - varjag 4y ago
      SpaceX naturally sets whatever price is just enough to grab the launches from the competition. This has nothing to do with technical achievement.
- bbojan 4y ago
nonrandomstring 4y ago
> All the conquistador really has to do is gallop in and show what is possible. Yes, gallop. To do so loudly and conspicuously. Moribund industries are staffed by quiet competence that took decades to build. There are no quiet conquistadors. Even if their ideas are actually mediocre, riding in on a white horse and creating a spectacle is essential to the show. The age of marketing uber-alles, social media 'reach' and personality cults has green-lighted armchair conquistadors who previously would have bided their time to reach maturity. It's no surprise that once they've shot their one-hit load, there's no sustainability or stamina behind it.
MichaelCollins 4y ago
> Elon Musk vs the space industry The other billionaire funded disruptive space startup has proven themselves less competent than "old space". Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin two years before SpaceX, and they've still accomplished a fat lot of nothing. Their most significant accomplishment to date is stalling ULA's Vulcan rocket for years, because they couldn't deliver engines on time. They still haven't been to orbit. > All the conquistador really has to do is gallop in and show what is possible. They were massively outnumbered, lost all their artillery and most of their horses. Nothing about what they did was easy, they only survived because they were better at politics than the Aztecs, and made many regional alliances. And because they got extremely lucky. It defies logic and all rational expectation that so many were able to escape Tenochtitlan with their lives. If not for their native allies, they surely never would have been heard from again. > But when you get past that disruption phase the conquistadors often fall down. Broken analogy. Despite their rocky start, the conquistadors would come to utterly dominated the native cultures (including their former allies.) > Steve Jobs 2.0 (the return) vs ugly beige box PCs. And we're all worse off for it. We, the aggregate computer consumers, have chosen a shiny prison instead of shabby freedom. Despite increased public awareness for environmental concerns, our computers have become increasingly less repairable. Apple's most significant innovation has been turning computers into fashion items that get replaced while still useful to avoid looking uncool. > it remains to be seen if SpaceX will hold it together. No more than the rest of the space industry, who are all still very far behind SpaceX. The whole thing may collapse if nerds ever figure out that Mars colonies aren't happening, but by all rights that realization should have come years ago.
- edmundsauto 4y ago
  > they only survived because they were better at politics than the Aztecs, and made many regional alliances. And because they got extremely lucky. According to 1491, this myth is inaccurate. I believe Mann's argument is more along the likes of "if Genghis Khan came through Europe during the black plague, none of us would be speaking Romance languages". I am also sure bringing a disease that wipes out 30-90+% of your enemy should not be considered luck. I do believe the metaphor is apt, because it's a story of leaders who come in loud, destroy things, but are lauded as civilizers or advancers of humanity. We have no counterfactual for post-1491 in the Americas, but there are reasonable arguments that indigenous people were more advanced in a number of fields.
unsupp0rted 4y ago
The iPhone was higher on the innovation scale in the sense it took competitors 5-10 years to catch up, and half never did.

by api 4y ago

duhast 4y ago

Can you give me some examples of SpaceX innovations that disrupted the industry? Here are some of my issues with SpaceX marketing: 1) Cost to NASA/DoD seems to be similar to ULA. 2) SpaceX continues to fly expandable boosters for missions above LEO and for heavier payloads. Reusable boosters have lower lift and range and require extensive refurbishment between missions. Upper stage is not reusable. 3) SpaceX hasn't flown a single mission into deep space or Mars despite this being the stated goal of the company. In the same time, others have flown multiple rockets to Mars and to other planets. We have multiple rovers roaming the surface of Mars and satellites orbiting other planes all while SpaceX has contributed nothing to these efforts. I personally see SpaceX contributions to the industry are mostly incremental: 1) Booster reusability to LEO and for light payloads. 3) Human rated capsule for space station resupply missions. 3) High quality video content from launches. 4) Increased interest in space exploration at the expense of unrealistic expectations in relation to cost and timelines.

varjag 4y ago
It takes a lot of mental gymnastics to call booster reusability "incremental".
- duhast 4y ago
  Care to elaborate?
- hef19898 4y ago
  Depends on how much demand for those low orbit launches there is. A non-zero portion of those launches is Starlink, so basically in-house demand. Yes, I'd call that incremental. Which doesn't mean it is not impressive, because it is. The main point so, IMHO, is that prices for comparable launches are not so much cheaper using SpaceX. Kind of like those Ryan Air 19.99 tickets. Sure, there are some, but on average the price difference is much smaller than people think.
  - TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
    Calling SpaceX SpaceRyanair seems unexpectedly accurate. O'Leary and Musk have a lot in common. NASA's shuttle would have solved reusability in the 70s/80s, but a combination of DoD interference and severe funding cuts effectively crippled the project. This was politically fatal because it killed NASA's reputation as an effective manager of innovation. Which is why every project from the 90s onwards has been supported by slightly overwrought rapturous PR - to try to restore that reputation, because funding relies on it. SpaceX has copied this. So yes - SpaceX is incremental. A non-incremental company would be developing blue sky alternatives to chemical engines and/or looking for new propulsion physics. I can't see that happening without a government-run academic R&D program.
  - varjag 4y ago
    SpaceX naturally sets whatever price is just enough to grab the launches from the competition. This has nothing to do with technical achievement.
bbojan 4y ago

nonrandomstring 4y ago

> All the conquistador really has to do is gallop in and show what is possible. Yes, gallop. To do so loudly and conspicuously. Moribund industries are staffed by quiet competence that took decades to build. There are no quiet conquistadors. Even if their ideas are actually mediocre, riding in on a white horse and creating a spectacle is essential to the show. The age of marketing uber-alles, social media 'reach' and personality cults has green-lighted armchair conquistadors who previously would have bided their time to reach maturity. It's no surprise that once they've shot their one-hit load, there's no sustainability or stamina behind it.

MichaelCollins 4y ago

> Elon Musk vs the space industry The other billionaire funded disruptive space startup has proven themselves less competent than "old space". Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin two years before SpaceX, and they've still accomplished a fat lot of nothing. Their most significant accomplishment to date is stalling ULA's Vulcan rocket for years, because they couldn't deliver engines on time. They still haven't been to orbit. > All the conquistador really has to do is gallop in and show what is possible. They were massively outnumbered, lost all their artillery and most of their horses. Nothing about what they did was easy, they only survived because they were better at politics than the Aztecs, and made many regional alliances. And because they got extremely lucky. It defies logic and all rational expectation that so many were able to escape Tenochtitlan with their lives. If not for their native allies, they surely never would have been heard from again. > But when you get past that disruption phase the conquistadors often fall down. Broken analogy. Despite their rocky start, the conquistadors would come to utterly dominated the native cultures (including their former allies.) > Steve Jobs 2.0 (the return) vs ugly beige box PCs. And we're all worse off for it. We, the aggregate computer consumers, have chosen a shiny prison instead of shabby freedom. Despite increased public awareness for environmental concerns, our computers have become increasingly less repairable. Apple's most significant innovation has been turning computers into fashion items that get replaced while still useful to avoid looking uncool. > it remains to be seen if SpaceX will hold it together. No more than the rest of the space industry, who are all still very far behind SpaceX. The whole thing may collapse if nerds ever figure out that Mars colonies aren't happening, but by all rights that realization should have come years ago.

edmundsauto 4y ago
> they only survived because they were better at politics than the Aztecs, and made many regional alliances. And because they got extremely lucky. According to 1491, this myth is inaccurate. I believe Mann's argument is more along the likes of "if Genghis Khan came through Europe during the black plague, none of us would be speaking Romance languages". I am also sure bringing a disease that wipes out 30-90+% of your enemy should not be considered luck. I do believe the metaphor is apt, because it's a story of leaders who come in loud, destroy things, but are lauded as civilizers or advancers of humanity. We have no counterfactual for post-1491 in the Americas, but there are reasonable arguments that indigenous people were more advanced in a number of fields.

unsupp0rted 4y ago

The iPhone was higher on the innovation scale in the sense it took competitors 5-10 years to catch up, and half never did.