4 ms·

I worked at SpaceX. It was the most efficient company I've ever worked for

38 points by amichail 3y ago

chimpanzee 3y ago
His prior experience consists of two government focused jobs and self-employment. Of course SpaceX is the most efficient company he’s ever worked for.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  Would it technically also be the least efficient company he has worked for?
  - paulddraper 3y ago
    He worked for two other companies. But they (perhaps) were a low bar.
    - rsynnott 3y ago
      Well, one was the FAA, which isn't a company in the conventional sense. Freddie Mac is marginal (it's strictly speaking a company, but basically a state enterprise). This is a bit like someone who had previously only watched television writing a review of the first book they read; they just don't really have the experience to usefully discuss it.
galoisscobi 3y ago
I love the idea of it being culturally okay to walk out on any meeting that isn’t adding value in the middle of the meeting. If that was culturally acceptable in my role, I would go to a fourth of the meetings I currently attend.
- hammock 3y ago
  Master the art of sending "getting pulled into another call - have to drop" chats
- dsalfdslfdsa 3y ago
  I would hate the idea that my primary purpose is to get pulled into random meetings: > Instead of having a manager and a list of tasks, I was asked to sit in on meetings and add value to projects aligned with my interests or expertise. Disorganised meeting structure with people coming and going at random? How could you possibly get anything done, as a contributor?
- dm270 3y ago
  I feel like this is what working from home has enabled in some places. Much easier to gracefully leave an online meeting.
oxqbldpxo 3y ago
marketing
- hammock 3y ago
  This is a conversation with a /former/ employee
  - Aurornis 3y ago
    The author is doing marketing their own online reputation. This feels like a LinkedIn post where someone toots their own horn by talking about how much they learned at awesome previous employers. It’s a LinkedIn Post that escaped to Business Insider.
SebFender 3y ago
"There was no one there to tell you what to do. In the military, there was a change of command." With all due respect - in close to 30 years being a contractor and now executive, I've essentially never had anyone telling me what to do. When you're decent at your job - this is how people roll.
Revys 3y ago
I also worked at SpaceX - they are not efficient. They refuse to buy software or use cloud solutions, their existing software systems have immense bloat, and their infrastructure is held together by 1 overworked IT guy, and if he left half the factories at the company would shut down overnight.
- talldatethrow 3y ago
  That sounds pretty damn efficient, although risky.
  - Revys 3y ago
    The real-world outcomes from what I described is that it takes teams of dozens of software developers being hired to either reinvent the wheel or spend all of their time managing tech debt rather than solving actual problems.
- hammock 3y ago
  Serious question, what is costlier, for a critical high-risk long-gestation operation like space travel - paying 1 IT guy to stick around, or having to go through an entire transformation/ migration/ contract a custom build when your third party cloud intrastructure inevitably goes under, or deprecates, or fails to meet your needs, etc? Granted, there is probably a better third way
  - booi 3y ago
    depends on the bus factor...
  - makeitdouble 3y ago
    The former is costlier. It's litteraly a gamble that your one IT guy won't: - just leave - get sick (including burn out) - move to another country - get hit by a bus It just doesn't make sense in the long term. PS: bot even counting that the negociating power of that single guy is incredible.
Jtsummers 3y ago
> I thought I would get fired every day during the first six months. There was no one there to tell you what to do. In the military, there was a change [sic] of command. At SpaceX, you ask yourself, "How do we do this thing? How do we do it safely? How do we do it so that it's a good value for our customers?" Then you figure it out. [emphasis added] This guy was never a full-on member of the active duty military or he'd have a different take on this. The cadet life is very different from active duty. As a cadet, much of your life is already detailed for you, even down to when to get up, when to eat, when to exercise, when to relax (this changes over the years as a cadet, but it's still very regulated). If he'd been able to serve in the active duty, having graduated from West Point he would have been an officer. Officers do not just look around and wait to be told what to do or ask their CO to hold their hand and walk them through their day. They have to figure it out, too. Hell, even as a cadet you don't get coddled and still have to figure things out.
- psunavy03 3y ago
  And the more senior you get, the less and less of any kind of guidance/handholding there is. Because in wartime, you're going to get your commander's intent, some guidance on your objectives, and then be expected to manage the ensuing chaos as the other guy tries his level best to make you fail and/or die.
rokobask 3y ago
SpaceX is a defense contractor and Mars is the cover story. Just read up on Elon's cofounder and their work on SDI. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin https://wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starshield https://wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starshield
- ryandvm 3y ago
  Musk has no intention of colonizing Mars - or if he does, he's dumber than I thought. The Musk secret recipe has always been about suckling on federal contracts and subsidies to get rich. Just imagine the payday on the exorbitant international contracts necessary to send 3 people to Mars...
adfigonaiotnio 3y ago
This person has worked for exactly three companies. Why would I care about the most efficient company he's ever worked for? This person was anxious and directionless for his first six months on the job. Rather than seeing this as wasteful and cruel on the part of the company, he thinks it is praiseworthy. This person has seen entire rooms walk out of meetings with the customer. Rather than seeing this as insulting and capricious, he thinks it is refreshingly candid. This person thinks SpaceX is "probably the most accepting work culture [he's] ever participated in." Yet SpaceX is plagued by accusations of sexual harassment, bullying, and racial discrimination. It is currently being sued by the DoJ for discriminatory hiring practices. This person claims to be in awe of how well SpaceX is run, yet he left after barely more than two years "because [he] felt [he] was no longer learning." Hardly the actions of an eager pupil. This person observed that most people at SpaceX don't even last two years, yet doesn't seem to recognize that as a problem. It's no mystery how this bizarre puff piece got written: >From there, I started my new project, Inheritance Art, in early 2022. We're working on various projects — from crypto to large language model services and even creating our own AI models. I'm enjoying the challenge, but I still look back fondly on my time at SpaceX. Dude's hawking NFTs. His pitch is "I learned from the very best and will run my project just like Daddy Elon taught me."
- Hock88sdx 3y ago
  [dead]
- satisfice 3y ago
  Well summarized.
- assmanreturns 2y ago
  [flagged]
Zigurd 3y ago
Spacex, particularly in the development of Starship, is an example of the inappropriate use of an informal iterative project management and design approach. In other words it's a case of Agile, which is often the best kind of project management for software, infecting places where it shouldn't ought to go. In the end when you count up 33 rocket engines per iteration, it's going to end up being a lot more expensive than what more conventional projects like Blue Origin will cost.
elango 3y ago
i am unable understand how do they figure out what to work on ?
- assmanreturns 2y ago
  How does your manager figure you what you are supposed to work on? What information or ability do they have that you don't? Why can't you do what they do. Ultimately there is only one thing that is missing...responsibility. You aren't responsible. Your manager is. But there isn't any reason you can't be.

38 points by amichail 3y ago

His prior experience consists of two government focused jobs and self-employment. Of course SpaceX is the most efficient company he’s ever worked for.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
Would it technically also be the least efficient company he has worked for?
- paulddraper 3y ago
  He worked for two other companies. But they (perhaps) were a low bar.
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    Well, one was the FAA, which isn't a company in the conventional sense. Freddie Mac is marginal (it's strictly speaking a company, but basically a state enterprise). This is a bit like someone who had previously only watched television writing a review of the first book they read; they just don't really have the experience to usefully discuss it.

galoisscobi 3y ago

I love the idea of it being culturally okay to walk out on any meeting that isn’t adding value in the middle of the meeting. If that was culturally acceptable in my role, I would go to a fourth of the meetings I currently attend.

hammock 3y ago
Master the art of sending "getting pulled into another call - have to drop" chats
dsalfdslfdsa 3y ago
I would hate the idea that my primary purpose is to get pulled into random meetings: > Instead of having a manager and a list of tasks, I was asked to sit in on meetings and add value to projects aligned with my interests or expertise. Disorganised meeting structure with people coming and going at random? How could you possibly get anything done, as a contributor?
dm270 3y ago
I feel like this is what working from home has enabled in some places. Much easier to gracefully leave an online meeting.

oxqbldpxo 3y ago

marketing

hammock 3y ago
This is a conversation with a /former/ employee
- Aurornis 3y ago
  The author is doing marketing their own online reputation. This feels like a LinkedIn post where someone toots their own horn by talking about how much they learned at awesome previous employers. It’s a LinkedIn Post that escaped to Business Insider.

SebFender 3y ago

"There was no one there to tell you what to do. In the military, there was a change of command." With all due respect - in close to 30 years being a contractor and now executive, I've essentially never had anyone telling me what to do. When you're decent at your job - this is how people roll.

Revys 3y ago

I also worked at SpaceX - they are not efficient. They refuse to buy software or use cloud solutions, their existing software systems have immense bloat, and their infrastructure is held together by 1 overworked IT guy, and if he left half the factories at the company would shut down overnight.

talldatethrow 3y ago
That sounds pretty damn efficient, although risky.
- Revys 3y ago
  The real-world outcomes from what I described is that it takes teams of dozens of software developers being hired to either reinvent the wheel or spend all of their time managing tech debt rather than solving actual problems.
hammock 3y ago
Serious question, what is costlier, for a critical high-risk long-gestation operation like space travel - paying 1 IT guy to stick around, or having to go through an entire transformation/ migration/ contract a custom build when your third party cloud intrastructure inevitably goes under, or deprecates, or fails to meet your needs, etc? Granted, there is probably a better third way
- booi 3y ago
  depends on the bus factor...
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  The former is costlier. It's litteraly a gamble that your one IT guy won't: - just leave - get sick (including burn out) - move to another country - get hit by a bus It just doesn't make sense in the long term. PS: bot even counting that the negociating power of that single guy is incredible.

Jtsummers 3y ago

> I thought I would get fired every day during the first six months. There was no one there to tell you what to do. In the military, there was a change [sic] of command. At SpaceX, you ask yourself, "How do we do this thing? How do we do it safely? How do we do it so that it's a good value for our customers?" Then you figure it out. [emphasis added] This guy was never a full-on member of the active duty military or he'd have a different take on this. The cadet life is very different from active duty. As a cadet, much of your life is already detailed for you, even down to when to get up, when to eat, when to exercise, when to relax (this changes over the years as a cadet, but it's still very regulated). If he'd been able to serve in the active duty, having graduated from West Point he would have been an officer. Officers do not just look around and wait to be told what to do or ask their CO to hold their hand and walk them through their day. They have to figure it out, too. Hell, even as a cadet you don't get coddled and still have to figure things out.

psunavy03 3y ago
And the more senior you get, the less and less of any kind of guidance/handholding there is. Because in wartime, you're going to get your commander's intent, some guidance on your objectives, and then be expected to manage the ensuing chaos as the other guy tries his level best to make you fail and/or die.

rokobask 3y ago

SpaceX is a defense contractor and Mars is the cover story. Just read up on Elon's cofounder and their work on SDI. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin https://wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starshield https://wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starshield

ryandvm 3y ago
Musk has no intention of colonizing Mars - or if he does, he's dumber than I thought. The Musk secret recipe has always been about suckling on federal contracts and subsidies to get rich. Just imagine the payday on the exorbitant international contracts necessary to send 3 people to Mars...

adfigonaiotnio 3y ago

This person has worked for exactly three companies. Why would I care about the most efficient company he's ever worked for? This person was anxious and directionless for his first six months on the job. Rather than seeing this as wasteful and cruel on the part of the company, he thinks it is praiseworthy. This person has seen entire rooms walk out of meetings with the customer. Rather than seeing this as insulting and capricious, he thinks it is refreshingly candid. This person thinks SpaceX is "probably the most accepting work culture [he's] ever participated in." Yet SpaceX is plagued by accusations of sexual harassment, bullying, and racial discrimination. It is currently being sued by the DoJ for discriminatory hiring practices. This person claims to be in awe of how well SpaceX is run, yet he left after barely more than two years "because [he] felt [he] was no longer learning." Hardly the actions of an eager pupil. This person observed that most people at SpaceX don't even last two years, yet doesn't seem to recognize that as a problem. It's no mystery how this bizarre puff piece got written: >From there, I started my new project, Inheritance Art, in early 2022. We're working on various projects — from crypto to large language model services and even creating our own AI models. I'm enjoying the challenge, but I still look back fondly on my time at SpaceX. Dude's hawking NFTs. His pitch is "I learned from the very best and will run my project just like Daddy Elon taught me."

Hock88sdx 3y ago
[dead]
satisfice 3y ago
Well summarized.
assmanreturns 2y ago
[flagged]

Zigurd 3y ago

Spacex, particularly in the development of Starship, is an example of the inappropriate use of an informal iterative project management and design approach. In other words it's a case of Agile, which is often the best kind of project management for software, infecting places where it shouldn't ought to go. In the end when you count up 33 rocket engines per iteration, it's going to end up being a lot more expensive than what more conventional projects like Blue Origin will cost.

elango 3y ago

i am unable understand how do they figure out what to work on ?

assmanreturns 2y ago
How does your manager figure you what you are supposed to work on? What information or ability do they have that you don't? Why can't you do what they do. Ultimately there is only one thing that is missing...responsibility. You aren't responsible. Your manager is. But there isn't any reason you can't be.