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According to Isaacson's biography of Musk, Musk relentlessly challenges the existence of every part in Tesla and SpaceX machines. He's willing to go too far, ha

According to Isaacson's biography of Musk, Musk relentlessly challenges the existence of every part in Tesla and SpaceX machines. He's willing to go too far, having to sometimes put a part back in. Everything in the manufacturing process is also challenged to justify its existence. This is how he managed to reduce the costs by 90%.

nortlov 20d ago
Slight aside, he also has driven capability that was challenging to justify existence for, and was later removed re: Dragon 2 propulsive landing via SuperDracos, landing legs, and the ballast sled. I'm sure the Dragonfly programs matured their abort programs, but surely, that was a ton of time and effort wasted. You win some, you lose some.
- WalterBright 20d ago
  If you aren't failing now and then, you aren't really trying.
nickff 20d ago
>"According to Isaacson's biography of Musk, Musk relentlessly challenges the existence of every part in Tesla and SpaceX machines." This removal of surplus-age is common in the automotive industry, and one of the reasons that cars are such an amazing value. It seems like Musk's remarkable ability to achieve cost reductions (at least in the aerospace context) is attributable to his pursuit of vertical integration. Airframers (aeronautical vehicle designers & manufacturer) are bound by the costs dictated by their component suppliers, especially after a configuration has achieved regulatory approval. SpaceX has managed to avoid being 'held hostage' by pseudo-monopoly suppliers.
- s1artibartfast 20d ago
  yes and no. Like you said, automotive and aviation industries are bound by a lot regulatory and path dependent constraints. Elon's strength is his willingness to pull the plug and transition away from suboptimal solutions. This is bolstered by his willingness to double down. Imagine if Boeing said "screw all this recertification technical debt for the 737 MAX airframe, we will start fresh. Customers can take it or leave it"
  - WalterBright 20d ago
    The decision to re-engine the 737 rather than design a new airframe saved the airlines a vast amount of money.
  - InTheArena 20d ago
    This is exactly correct in the context of the decision as it played out, but stretches and re-engines are very common in commercial airlines. Changing that decision without reinforcing the safety culture probably would have ended in the same place.
    - saturn8601 20d ago
      Wasn't the whole point of the MAX that they had reached the limit of what their existing design had, but due to the demands of the airlines, as well as their current position in the market, they felt it was an easier idea to extend the lifespan of their already tired design by using software to overcome the physical limitations of the aircraft? I do understand that the airplane would have flown fine without the MCAS system, but then it would not have satisfied all their requirements. Taking a step back, I think it's more than that. It's just the company structure. It remains to be seen if SpaceX and Tesla survive long term. But if they do, a lot will be attributed to the company structure that Elon designed. When you have a company that does stuff like this: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1InUlHXv718 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1InUlHXv718 Compared to Airbus: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KS9Xt6hmbTU https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KS9Xt6hmbTU You just think to yourself, even if the airplane was completely safe, and they are incredibly safe, this is just not a great look. Both doors accomplish the task but little thought was put into the operator of the door. The little things matter and I notice them more and more everywhere I go with a lot of legacy American companies.
    - s1artibartfast 20d ago
      My point was more too highlight his approach to problems, not make the argument that this would have been successful or profitable for Boeing. In fact, I would say there's probably a very narrow set of circumstances where his back to the drawing board approach can be deployed successfuly. That said, the 787 Dreamliner remains statistically one of the safest widebody long-haul aircraft in commercial aviation history, which I think is a Counterpoint. It achieves this despite any more globally diverse supply chain, and moving production out of unionized Boeing manufacturing plants. Safety by Design and design for manufacturability can help eliminate the possibility of quality issues during production.
- saturn8601 20d ago
  >This removal of surplus-age is common in the automotive industry, and one of the reasons that cars are such an amazing value. You say that and then a company like Ford releases this as their EV to show the world that they are competitive with Tesla. [1]: https://youtu.be/C1dQtlrI7uU?t=70 https://youtu.be/C1dQtlrI7uU?t=70 How does something like this happen despite Ford knowing all the 'secrets' a company like Tesla or the Chinese know? I have a few guesses: 1. Its the structure of the company. In this video the presenter talks a lot about all the hoses and clamp connectors etc. The cooling department thinking they had to stay relevant made sure the car incorporated a design that had all this nonsense. 2. Maybe they didn't put their 'A' engineers on this car. Its plausible: the F-150 is their massive money maker. However this car was supposedly developed under some skunkworks program and yet here we are. 3. Maybe there was sabatoge from elsewhere (suppliers, middle management etc.) You watch a movie like Ford vs Ferrari and while im sure a lot is dramatized, I can't help but think man they were talking about the dysfunction of Ford way back then?! Then we have Youtube documentaries like this one about the Ford Taurus SHO talking about how they screwed up so much that they had one chance left to get serious...like what? Shouldn't they be serious every day? Thats what the Chinese are doing. [2]: https://youtu.be/5VTRhCC3gZI?t=56 https://youtu.be/5VTRhCC3gZI?t=56 The presenter further added how they had to ship entire engine blocks to Japan so that they could 'fix' them and unlock 80 more horsepower that Ford just left on the table. If factual, this should be a total embarrassment: You had to send your handiwork to a entity with a better reputation so that they could 'fix' your mess? [3]: https://youtu.be/5VTRhCC3gZI?t=212 https://youtu.be/5VTRhCC3gZI?t=212 At some point, you have to acknowledge that the naysayers were wrong: Thinking (especially among the short community) was that Tesla had some cool ideas but their implementation was horrific, they couldn't just make up for 100+ years of institutional knowledge that the legacy companies had. The Tesla cars showed some of this thinking: quite poor build quality, poor after sale support, poor parts network. These things improved over the years but still isn't perfect. But at the same time you have to acknowledge that the legacies suffer from their own problems that dont put them as far ahead as newcomers as you'd think. Sometimes a lot of that institutional knowledge becomes a liability when a paradigm shift occurs.
  - inemesitaffia 20d ago
    You can always get help from subject matter experts.
- panick21_ 18d ago
  Vertical integration is one thing SpaceX does but its not unique and magical as many other space companies have tried the same without achieving results similar. I will not attempt to break all the reasons for SpaceX success in this post, but its certainty more complex then just vertical integration. And vertical integration isn't absolute, in some cases they reversed their vertical integration again. Team building by Musk, consistent having engineers work on hard project after hard project, willing to invest in a next generation even if the existing system works in the current market context (canalizing yourself), believing in increasing scale overtime (only when planning to build 100s of engine iteration makes sense) are just some of the relevant parts of SpaceX success as an organization. People claiming Musk has nothing to with this or is just some irrelevant figurehead money guy are idiots. At the same time, the brilliance of the team he build ultimately is far more important then his own suggestion about ideas with engines. In case of the engine its actually Tom Mueller who basically off hand suggested to him that to reach his goals, he would have to design something nobody had ever done on a large engine, and was only used for smaller engines (phase shut off). Musk jumped on that and imitatively said that this is what they should do. Mueller said he wasn't sure if it could be done, but since they knew of no other way to achieve the goals, the team went off and eventually achieved it. Mueller himself said he thought going after this was a mistake and a less aggressive simplification should have been done, but said he proved himself wrong and it was a massively important innovation. This shows some important aspects of Musk. Not that he is some genius that magically design an amazing engine. Rather that he listened to his engineers and gave them the finances and confidence that they could achieve outlandish targets, and continued to support them even if they couldn't hit the target instantly. We see this again with Raptor, they had a target in mind and followed every line of design to achieve something close to as good as a 2 fuel engine is going to get. One can argue that this is just blind optimism and then throwing money at the engineers, and that is certainty partly a fair critic of this approach. It did not work with self driving in the same way at Tesla. But the difference is that with evolution of Merlin and Raptor he listen to engineers who proposed challenging ideas that were still iterative and he supported them. I have followed Space for a long time. Musk isn't some magical unique genius, but he certainty isn't do nothing idiot some of his haters want us to believe. SpaceX success deserve series study and SpaceX without Musk is basically really understandable as an institution.
WalterBright 20d ago
I've been inspired by that to refactor my code so that function parameters are minimized (many pass TMI).
xondono 20d ago
> According to Isaacson's biography Isaacson’s “biographies” are glorified puff pieces. Musk is as unrecognizable in his as Jobs was in his. Both Tesla and SpaceX had teams keeping Musk busy on bs just so that the engineering teams could do their work. The second he took control, we got the cybertruck and the starship, the worse products both companies ever built (or attempted, in the case of the starship). > Musk relentlessly challenges the existence of every part This sounds insightful until you find yourself debating with the CEO for the eleventh time about how his high-school understanding of the physics involved breaks down in a particular case. Musk is very lucky to be moving such quantities of money that his companies are big enough to protect themselves from him, if you ever wonder how Musk would fare on a tight budget, look no further than the Oceangate.
- inemesitaffia 20d ago
  >Both Tesla and SpaceX had teams keeping Musk busy on bs just so that the engineering teams could do their work. This is Tumblr origin nonsense, especially given that he's allegedly been involved with Engineering work he's not cleared for.
- sebmellen 20d ago
  Do you remember when he bought Twitter and fired everyone, and the mass media and employee outcry was that a) the service would stop working and b) he would bankrupt the company, yet a few years later it’s massively more successful than Twitter ever was as a public business? Regardless your thoughts on Elon, his drug habits, and his political brashness, I don’t think you can say he’s in any way close to the Oceangate guy. There is something legitimately special about him and his collective.
  - WalterBright 20d ago
    Apparently 90% of the Twitter staff were simply baggage.
  - senordevnyc 20d ago
    Uh, no, I do not remember how Twitter is massively more successful than it was as a public business. Can you enlighten me?

nortlov 20d ago

Slight aside, he also has driven capability that was challenging to justify existence for, and was later removed re: Dragon 2 propulsive landing via SuperDracos, landing legs, and the ballast sled. I'm sure the Dragonfly programs matured their abort programs, but surely, that was a ton of time and effort wasted. You win some, you lose some.

WalterBright 20d ago
If you aren't failing now and then, you aren't really trying.

nickff 20d ago

>"According to Isaacson's biography of Musk, Musk relentlessly challenges the existence of every part in Tesla and SpaceX machines." This removal of surplus-age is common in the automotive industry, and one of the reasons that cars are such an amazing value. It seems like Musk's remarkable ability to achieve cost reductions (at least in the aerospace context) is attributable to his pursuit of vertical integration. Airframers (aeronautical vehicle designers & manufacturer) are bound by the costs dictated by their component suppliers, especially after a configuration has achieved regulatory approval. SpaceX has managed to avoid being 'held hostage' by pseudo-monopoly suppliers.

s1artibartfast 20d ago
yes and no. Like you said, automotive and aviation industries are bound by a lot regulatory and path dependent constraints. Elon's strength is his willingness to pull the plug and transition away from suboptimal solutions. This is bolstered by his willingness to double down. Imagine if Boeing said "screw all this recertification technical debt for the 737 MAX airframe, we will start fresh. Customers can take it or leave it"
- WalterBright 20d ago
  The decision to re-engine the 737 rather than design a new airframe saved the airlines a vast amount of money.
- InTheArena 20d ago
  This is exactly correct in the context of the decision as it played out, but stretches and re-engines are very common in commercial airlines. Changing that decision without reinforcing the safety culture probably would have ended in the same place.
  - saturn8601 20d ago
    Wasn't the whole point of the MAX that they had reached the limit of what their existing design had, but due to the demands of the airlines, as well as their current position in the market, they felt it was an easier idea to extend the lifespan of their already tired design by using software to overcome the physical limitations of the aircraft? I do understand that the airplane would have flown fine without the MCAS system, but then it would not have satisfied all their requirements. Taking a step back, I think it's more than that. It's just the company structure. It remains to be seen if SpaceX and Tesla survive long term. But if they do, a lot will be attributed to the company structure that Elon designed. When you have a company that does stuff like this: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1InUlHXv718 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1InUlHXv718 Compared to Airbus: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KS9Xt6hmbTU https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KS9Xt6hmbTU You just think to yourself, even if the airplane was completely safe, and they are incredibly safe, this is just not a great look. Both doors accomplish the task but little thought was put into the operator of the door. The little things matter and I notice them more and more everywhere I go with a lot of legacy American companies.
  - s1artibartfast 20d ago
    My point was more too highlight his approach to problems, not make the argument that this would have been successful or profitable for Boeing. In fact, I would say there's probably a very narrow set of circumstances where his back to the drawing board approach can be deployed successfuly. That said, the 787 Dreamliner remains statistically one of the safest widebody long-haul aircraft in commercial aviation history, which I think is a Counterpoint. It achieves this despite any more globally diverse supply chain, and moving production out of unionized Boeing manufacturing plants. Safety by Design and design for manufacturability can help eliminate the possibility of quality issues during production.
saturn8601 20d ago
>This removal of surplus-age is common in the automotive industry, and one of the reasons that cars are such an amazing value. You say that and then a company like Ford releases this as their EV to show the world that they are competitive with Tesla. [1]: https://youtu.be/C1dQtlrI7uU?t=70 https://youtu.be/C1dQtlrI7uU?t=70 How does something like this happen despite Ford knowing all the 'secrets' a company like Tesla or the Chinese know? I have a few guesses: 1. Its the structure of the company. In this video the presenter talks a lot about all the hoses and clamp connectors etc. The cooling department thinking they had to stay relevant made sure the car incorporated a design that had all this nonsense. 2. Maybe they didn't put their 'A' engineers on this car. Its plausible: the F-150 is their massive money maker. However this car was supposedly developed under some skunkworks program and yet here we are. 3. Maybe there was sabatoge from elsewhere (suppliers, middle management etc.) You watch a movie like Ford vs Ferrari and while im sure a lot is dramatized, I can't help but think man they were talking about the dysfunction of Ford way back then?! Then we have Youtube documentaries like this one about the Ford Taurus SHO talking about how they screwed up so much that they had one chance left to get serious...like what? Shouldn't they be serious every day? Thats what the Chinese are doing. [2]: https://youtu.be/5VTRhCC3gZI?t=56 https://youtu.be/5VTRhCC3gZI?t=56 The presenter further added how they had to ship entire engine blocks to Japan so that they could 'fix' them and unlock 80 more horsepower that Ford just left on the table. If factual, this should be a total embarrassment: You had to send your handiwork to a entity with a better reputation so that they could 'fix' your mess? [3]: https://youtu.be/5VTRhCC3gZI?t=212 https://youtu.be/5VTRhCC3gZI?t=212 At some point, you have to acknowledge that the naysayers were wrong: Thinking (especially among the short community) was that Tesla had some cool ideas but their implementation was horrific, they couldn't just make up for 100+ years of institutional knowledge that the legacy companies had. The Tesla cars showed some of this thinking: quite poor build quality, poor after sale support, poor parts network. These things improved over the years but still isn't perfect. But at the same time you have to acknowledge that the legacies suffer from their own problems that dont put them as far ahead as newcomers as you'd think. Sometimes a lot of that institutional knowledge becomes a liability when a paradigm shift occurs.
- inemesitaffia 20d ago
  You can always get help from subject matter experts.
panick21_ 18d ago
Vertical integration is one thing SpaceX does but its not unique and magical as many other space companies have tried the same without achieving results similar. I will not attempt to break all the reasons for SpaceX success in this post, but its certainty more complex then just vertical integration. And vertical integration isn't absolute, in some cases they reversed their vertical integration again. Team building by Musk, consistent having engineers work on hard project after hard project, willing to invest in a next generation even if the existing system works in the current market context (canalizing yourself), believing in increasing scale overtime (only when planning to build 100s of engine iteration makes sense) are just some of the relevant parts of SpaceX success as an organization. People claiming Musk has nothing to with this or is just some irrelevant figurehead money guy are idiots. At the same time, the brilliance of the team he build ultimately is far more important then his own suggestion about ideas with engines. In case of the engine its actually Tom Mueller who basically off hand suggested to him that to reach his goals, he would have to design something nobody had ever done on a large engine, and was only used for smaller engines (phase shut off). Musk jumped on that and imitatively said that this is what they should do. Mueller said he wasn't sure if it could be done, but since they knew of no other way to achieve the goals, the team went off and eventually achieved it. Mueller himself said he thought going after this was a mistake and a less aggressive simplification should have been done, but said he proved himself wrong and it was a massively important innovation. This shows some important aspects of Musk. Not that he is some genius that magically design an amazing engine. Rather that he listened to his engineers and gave them the finances and confidence that they could achieve outlandish targets, and continued to support them even if they couldn't hit the target instantly. We see this again with Raptor, they had a target in mind and followed every line of design to achieve something close to as good as a 2 fuel engine is going to get. One can argue that this is just blind optimism and then throwing money at the engineers, and that is certainty partly a fair critic of this approach. It did not work with self driving in the same way at Tesla. But the difference is that with evolution of Merlin and Raptor he listen to engineers who proposed challenging ideas that were still iterative and he supported them. I have followed Space for a long time. Musk isn't some magical unique genius, but he certainty isn't do nothing idiot some of his haters want us to believe. SpaceX success deserve series study and SpaceX without Musk is basically really understandable as an institution.

WalterBright 20d ago

I've been inspired by that to refactor my code so that function parameters are minimized (many pass TMI).

xondono 20d ago

> According to Isaacson's biography Isaacson’s “biographies” are glorified puff pieces. Musk is as unrecognizable in his as Jobs was in his. Both Tesla and SpaceX had teams keeping Musk busy on bs just so that the engineering teams could do their work. The second he took control, we got the cybertruck and the starship, the worse products both companies ever built (or attempted, in the case of the starship). > Musk relentlessly challenges the existence of every part This sounds insightful until you find yourself debating with the CEO for the eleventh time about how his high-school understanding of the physics involved breaks down in a particular case. Musk is very lucky to be moving such quantities of money that his companies are big enough to protect themselves from him, if you ever wonder how Musk would fare on a tight budget, look no further than the Oceangate.

inemesitaffia 20d ago
>Both Tesla and SpaceX had teams keeping Musk busy on bs just so that the engineering teams could do their work. This is Tumblr origin nonsense, especially given that he's allegedly been involved with Engineering work he's not cleared for.
sebmellen 20d ago
Do you remember when he bought Twitter and fired everyone, and the mass media and employee outcry was that a) the service would stop working and b) he would bankrupt the company, yet a few years later it’s massively more successful than Twitter ever was as a public business? Regardless your thoughts on Elon, his drug habits, and his political brashness, I don’t think you can say he’s in any way close to the Oceangate guy. There is something legitimately special about him and his collective.
- WalterBright 20d ago
  Apparently 90% of the Twitter staff were simply baggage.
- senordevnyc 20d ago
  Uh, no, I do not remember how Twitter is massively more successful than it was as a public business. Can you enlighten me?