4 ms·

Yeah he only micromanages (look at his old blog) every detail he has time for at an extremely successful aerospace engineering company, just an ideas guy.

by mhh__ 8mo ago

youarentrightjr 8mo ago
> Yeah he only micromanages (look at his old blog) every detail he has time for at an extremely successful aerospace engineering company, just an ideas guy. Have you ever spoken to someone who works at SpaceX? I have multiple friends in the industry, who have taken a trip through the company. The overwhelming consensus is that - in meetings, you nod along and tell Elon "great idea". Immediately after you get back to real engineering and design things such that they make sense. The folks working there are under no delusion that he has any business being involved in rocket science, it's fascinating that the general public doesn't see it that way.
- ta988 8mo ago
  Or you are actively trying to have the meetings when you are sure he cannot be present because he keeps derailing them.
- mhh__ 8mo ago
  Why are they doing any better than any other firm then? Why has Tesla been successful? Why is xAI pretty similar in terms of approach? My idea has less variables than yours. It also doesn't fly with his tendency to fire people.
  - lokar 8mo ago
    Shedding the very slow process of “legacy” defense/aerospace companies, taking more risks, moving faster, accepting some setbacks etc does not mean you need to go full Musk. There is a middle ground.
  - CamperBob2 8mo ago
    The same reason why Microsoft was able to kick everybody else out of the PC operating system and office software sectors: everybody else was even less competent.
    - mhh__ 8mo ago
      Bill Gates was also pretty good
      - fuzzfactor 8mo ago
        More capable at programming or kicking people out of contention?
    - robocat 8mo ago
      I always felt that Microsoft's winning move was to be consistently mediocre. They just waited until competitors screwed up. Now they're following in IBMs or Intel's footsteps - concentrating everything on the enterprise market and slowly dying.
  - youarentrightjr 8mo ago
    > Why are they doing any better than any other firm then? Any other firm, you mean like the bloated and bureaucratic NASA/JPL/defense contractor madhouse? That's not much competition. > Why has Tesla been successful? Why is xAI pretty similar in terms of approach? My idea has less variables than yours. It also doesn't fly with his tendency to fire people. Your "idea" (statement) is that his companies are successful due to his micromanagement. In reality, they're successful in spite of it. Like all impactful engineering institutions, there are incredibly talented people working at the "bottom" levels of these companies that hold the whole thing together. There's a good bit of irony here in your thought that he'd fire people that didn't agree with him or disobeyed him. From what I've heard, he lacks the technical rigor to even understand how what was implemented differs from his totally awesome and cool, off the cuff, reality adjacent ideas. The myth of the supergenius CEO has real potential to influence investors, beyond that, the hard engineering is up to the engineers. Period. SpaceX wouldn't have gotten past o-ring selection with Elon at the engineering helm.
    - robocat 8mo ago
      > NASA/JPL/defense contractor Perhaps learn to look around the world. Europe has nothing, China is working on copying. New Zealand has RocketLab but looks like they've sold out to the states and is only for small payloads yet.
      - youarentrightjr 8mo ago
        > Perhaps learn to look around the world. Europe has nothing, China is working on copying. New Zealand has RocketLab but looks like they've sold out to the states and is only for small payloads yet. And which of those is also an American institution, with American educated employees and American cultural values, operating in an American legal and business framework? Pretending NZ is a relevant comparison point is laughable. I bet SpaceX is also doing better than the 5th grade STEM class down the street! Russia would've been a much better comparison given the history of the world we live in, but still not apples to apples.
  - ambicapter 8mo ago
    Have you ever worked at a company? Was how profitable the company was directly related to how high-functioning it was? Not in my experience.
    - fuzzfactor 8mo ago
      This is so true. When you boil it down though, sometimes more than one company is built using almost the same exact mold, and the only major difference between them is the idea that the business plan is bult around. More profitable ideas are good to have. High-functioning or not.
  - oblio 8mo ago
    > Why has Tesla been successful? Survivor bias. He's had how many failed businesses? 10? Probably more.
- lokar 8mo ago
  I have heard similar things
- gordian-mind 8mo ago
  Any cool kid in uni has had the same views as you do for ten years. What do you and them know that the countless extremely successful engineers who actually worked with Elon do not? https://erik-engheim.medium.com/is-elon-musk-just-a-sales-guy-9d3eb7a1b49c https://erik-engheim.medium.com/is-elon-musk-just-a-sales-gu...
  - youarentrightjr 8mo ago
    > What do you and them know that the countless extremely successful engineers who actually worked with Elon do not? Did you read my comment? "I have multiple friends in the industry, who have taken a trip through the company." I am literally referring to extremely successful engineers who have worked directly with Elon. I'm going to need more than a puff piece on some random Elon stan's medium page to outweigh what I've heard from my friends.
    - gordian-mind 8mo ago
      [flagged]
      - youarentrightjr 8mo ago
        > This medium page simply quotes people. Feel free to quote your imaginary friends on your own medium page. Simply quotes people with obvious large financial interest in the success of the company, who are therefore motivated to continue the super genius narrative. I guess we all have our biases - I believe first hand accounts, you believe social media posts. To each his own.
        gordian-mind 8mo ago
        Yes, yes, everyone is a sycophant except you and your friends... For the record, you are lying about the quoted people having a financial interest in Elon. No it's not "to each his own". Using your free expression to smear without admitting counterevidence, while painting everything that does not go along with your views as a doctored narrative is not a legitimate intellectual position.

Yeah he only micromanages (look at his old blog) every detail he has time for at an extremely successful aerospace engineering company, just an ideas guy.

by mhh__ 8mo ago

Yeah he only micromanages (look at his old blog) every detail he has time for at an extremely successful aerospace engineering company, just an ideas guy.

youarentrightjr 8mo ago

> Yeah he only micromanages (look at his old blog) every detail he has time for at an extremely successful aerospace engineering company, just an ideas guy. Have you ever spoken to someone who works at SpaceX? I have multiple friends in the industry, who have taken a trip through the company. The overwhelming consensus is that - in meetings, you nod along and tell Elon "great idea". Immediately after you get back to real engineering and design things such that they make sense. The folks working there are under no delusion that he has any business being involved in rocket science, it's fascinating that the general public doesn't see it that way.

ta988 8mo ago
Or you are actively trying to have the meetings when you are sure he cannot be present because he keeps derailing them.
mhh__ 8mo ago
Why are they doing any better than any other firm then? Why has Tesla been successful? Why is xAI pretty similar in terms of approach? My idea has less variables than yours. It also doesn't fly with his tendency to fire people.
- lokar 8mo ago
  Shedding the very slow process of “legacy” defense/aerospace companies, taking more risks, moving faster, accepting some setbacks etc does not mean you need to go full Musk. There is a middle ground.
- CamperBob2 8mo ago
  The same reason why Microsoft was able to kick everybody else out of the PC operating system and office software sectors: everybody else was even less competent.
  - mhh__ 8mo ago
    Bill Gates was also pretty good
    - fuzzfactor 8mo ago
      More capable at programming or kicking people out of contention?
  - robocat 8mo ago
    I always felt that Microsoft's winning move was to be consistently mediocre. They just waited until competitors screwed up. Now they're following in IBMs or Intel's footsteps - concentrating everything on the enterprise market and slowly dying.
- youarentrightjr 8mo ago
  > Why are they doing any better than any other firm then? Any other firm, you mean like the bloated and bureaucratic NASA/JPL/defense contractor madhouse? That's not much competition. > Why has Tesla been successful? Why is xAI pretty similar in terms of approach? My idea has less variables than yours. It also doesn't fly with his tendency to fire people. Your "idea" (statement) is that his companies are successful due to his micromanagement. In reality, they're successful in spite of it. Like all impactful engineering institutions, there are incredibly talented people working at the "bottom" levels of these companies that hold the whole thing together. There's a good bit of irony here in your thought that he'd fire people that didn't agree with him or disobeyed him. From what I've heard, he lacks the technical rigor to even understand how what was implemented differs from his totally awesome and cool, off the cuff, reality adjacent ideas. The myth of the supergenius CEO has real potential to influence investors, beyond that, the hard engineering is up to the engineers. Period. SpaceX wouldn't have gotten past o-ring selection with Elon at the engineering helm.
  - robocat 8mo ago
    > NASA/JPL/defense contractor Perhaps learn to look around the world. Europe has nothing, China is working on copying. New Zealand has RocketLab but looks like they've sold out to the states and is only for small payloads yet.
    - youarentrightjr 8mo ago
      > Perhaps learn to look around the world. Europe has nothing, China is working on copying. New Zealand has RocketLab but looks like they've sold out to the states and is only for small payloads yet. And which of those is also an American institution, with American educated employees and American cultural values, operating in an American legal and business framework? Pretending NZ is a relevant comparison point is laughable. I bet SpaceX is also doing better than the 5th grade STEM class down the street! Russia would've been a much better comparison given the history of the world we live in, but still not apples to apples.
- ambicapter 8mo ago
  Have you ever worked at a company? Was how profitable the company was directly related to how high-functioning it was? Not in my experience.
  - fuzzfactor 8mo ago
    This is so true. When you boil it down though, sometimes more than one company is built using almost the same exact mold, and the only major difference between them is the idea that the business plan is bult around. More profitable ideas are good to have. High-functioning or not.
- oblio 8mo ago
  > Why has Tesla been successful? Survivor bias. He's had how many failed businesses? 10? Probably more.
lokar 8mo ago
I have heard similar things
gordian-mind 8mo ago
Any cool kid in uni has had the same views as you do for ten years. What do you and them know that the countless extremely successful engineers who actually worked with Elon do not? https://erik-engheim.medium.com/is-elon-musk-just-a-sales-guy-9d3eb7a1b49c https://erik-engheim.medium.com/is-elon-musk-just-a-sales-gu...
- youarentrightjr 8mo ago
  > What do you and them know that the countless extremely successful engineers who actually worked with Elon do not? Did you read my comment? "I have multiple friends in the industry, who have taken a trip through the company." I am literally referring to extremely successful engineers who have worked directly with Elon. I'm going to need more than a puff piece on some random Elon stan's medium page to outweigh what I've heard from my friends.
  - gordian-mind 8mo ago
    [flagged]
    - youarentrightjr 8mo ago
      > This medium page simply quotes people. Feel free to quote your imaginary friends on your own medium page. Simply quotes people with obvious large financial interest in the success of the company, who are therefore motivated to continue the super genius narrative. I guess we all have our biases - I believe first hand accounts, you believe social media posts. To each his own.
      - gordian-mind 8mo ago
        Yes, yes, everyone is a sycophant except you and your friends... For the record, you are lying about the quoted people having a financial interest in Elon. No it's not "to each his own". Using your free expression to smear without admitting counterevidence, while painting everything that does not go along with your views as a doctored narrative is not a legitimate intellectual position.