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Apple was built on a lot of peoples' ideas, some original and many borrowed (like all companies); Steve Jobs' gift was for editing. SpaceX is an entirely unori

by adw 3y ago

Apple was built on a lot of peoples' ideas, some original and many borrowed (like all companies); Steve Jobs' gift was for editing. SpaceX is an entirely unoriginal company (really good execution, though). The genius of SpaceX is in the systems which enable that execution. It's not even really a particularly significant company. Founders are right person, right place, right time, and _place and time are more important than the person_. Why do so many come from America? Because _place_. The right place from about 1750 to maybe 1835 was northern England; the Bay Area has had a really good run. Brian Eno, as often, has a word for it: "scenius". https://austinkleon.com/2017/05/12/scenius/ https://austinkleon.com/2017/05/12/scenius/

DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
> SpaceX is an entirely unoriginal company (really good execution, though). The genius of SpaceX is in the systems which enable that execution. It's not even really a particularly significant company. There's a large SpaceX office down the road from where I live (Redmond, WA) and a fair few of my ex-MSFT friends now work there, and they call say the same thing to me: "SpaceX's successes are despite Elon's involvement, not because of it". I just still don't know if I want to work there or not. BlueOrigin gave me an offer for an avionics position years ago, but the commute down to Kent, WA was a deal-killer.
- simonh 3y ago
  Nobody else was pushing reusability in the way Musk was, or with the same approach of propulsive landing. Pretty much the whole rest of the industry was absolutely convinced it was impossible. Yes he found a few engineers willing to try to make it work, but without him going all-in on it from the top there is no way we would have propulsively landing first stage boosters today, and maybe not for many decades to come. That doesn't make Musk perfect, he may well have many negative personality traits that get in the way of progress on other fronts. On Starship as well though, plenty of engineers there confirm that it was Musk that came up with the idea to switch to Steel as the primary structural material. It may be true that if you take one 'great man' out of the picture we might still get the same innovations, but in some areas like space rockets it's not something anyone can knock up in their garage to matter how bright they are. There's also the argument that ok, any one great man might be replaceable, but often I think you'd find them replaced by another great man. Some big leaps forward take a lot of capabilities in one package to make them work, or occasionally in a great synergistic partnership such as Jobs and Wozniak, or Lennon and McCartney.
  - DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
    Out of curiosity, are you still at SpaceX and do you have personal experience of working directly with Elon?
    - simonh 3y ago
      There have been numerous interviews with and statements by current and former SpaceX engineers.
ksec 3y ago
>Apple was built on a lot of peoples' ideas, some original and many borrowed (like all companies); Steve Jobs' gift was for editing. And it turns out, editing, combining multiple things together where the sums are greater than its parts, is perhaps the single most important criteria for greatness.

by adw 3y ago

DaiPlusPlus 3y ago

> SpaceX is an entirely unoriginal company (really good execution, though). The genius of SpaceX is in the systems which enable that execution. It's not even really a particularly significant company. There's a large SpaceX office down the road from where I live (Redmond, WA) and a fair few of my ex-MSFT friends now work there, and they call say the same thing to me: "SpaceX's successes are despite Elon's involvement, not because of it". I just still don't know if I want to work there or not. BlueOrigin gave me an offer for an avionics position years ago, but the commute down to Kent, WA was a deal-killer.

simonh 3y ago
Nobody else was pushing reusability in the way Musk was, or with the same approach of propulsive landing. Pretty much the whole rest of the industry was absolutely convinced it was impossible. Yes he found a few engineers willing to try to make it work, but without him going all-in on it from the top there is no way we would have propulsively landing first stage boosters today, and maybe not for many decades to come. That doesn't make Musk perfect, he may well have many negative personality traits that get in the way of progress on other fronts. On Starship as well though, plenty of engineers there confirm that it was Musk that came up with the idea to switch to Steel as the primary structural material. It may be true that if you take one 'great man' out of the picture we might still get the same innovations, but in some areas like space rockets it's not something anyone can knock up in their garage to matter how bright they are. There's also the argument that ok, any one great man might be replaceable, but often I think you'd find them replaced by another great man. Some big leaps forward take a lot of capabilities in one package to make them work, or occasionally in a great synergistic partnership such as Jobs and Wozniak, or Lennon and McCartney.
- DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
  Out of curiosity, are you still at SpaceX and do you have personal experience of working directly with Elon?
  - simonh 3y ago
    There have been numerous interviews with and statements by current and former SpaceX engineers.

ksec 3y ago

>Apple was built on a lot of peoples' ideas, some original and many borrowed (like all companies); Steve Jobs' gift was for editing. And it turns out, editing, combining multiple things together where the sums are greater than its parts, is perhaps the single most important criteria for greatness.