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> still does some cool stuff. Arguably he tweets about it. For the most part the 'doing' of the cool stuff is happening due to the Engineering and Manufacturin

> still does some cool stuff. Arguably he tweets about it. For the most part the 'doing' of the cool stuff is happening due to the Engineering and Manufacturing teams who are putting in sweat equity on that vision. Judging by the erratic and deteriorating public displays in the past few years I am not even sure he does anything on the strategic level anymore.

signatoremo 2y ago
Without Musk there would not be the breathtaking booster catching happening today, according to his biography: "Why don't we try to use the tower to catch it?" he [ELON] asked. He was referring to the tower that holds the rocket on the launchpad. Musk had already come up with the idea of using that tower to stack the rocket; it had a set of arms that could pick up the first-stage booster, place it on the launch mount, then pick up the second-stage spacecraft, and place it atop the booster. Now he was suggesting that these arms could also be used to catch the booster when it returned to Earth. It was a wild idea, and there was a lot of consternation in the room. "If the booster comes back down to the tower and crashes into it, you can't launch the next rocket for a long time," Bill Riley says. "But we agreed to study different ways to do it." A few weeks later, just after Christmas 2020, the team gathered to brainstorm. Most engineers argued against trying to use the tower to catch the booster. The stacking arms were already dangerously complex. After more than an hour of argument, a consensus was forming to stick with the old idea of putting landing legs on the booster. But Stephen Harlow, the vehicle engineering director, kept arguing for the more audacious approach. "We have this tower, so why not try to use it?" After another hour of debate, Musk stepped in. "Harlow, you're on board with this plan," he said. "So why don't you be in charge of it?" https://x.com/WalterIsaacson/status/1844870018351169942/photo/1 https://x.com/WalterIsaacson/status/1844870018351169942/phot...
credit_guy 2y ago
If that's the case, what is the issue with the Engineering and Manufacturing teams of Boeing, Blue Origin, Arianne, etc, etc? The role of a leader is to end deadlocks. All these companies have plenty of talented people, and they often have huge egos, personal agendas, various constraints, some lack resources, some squander them, etc. A leader understands where the problems are and decides. The "buck stops with him". He doesn't do the work himself, but being able to say "you are right, and you are not" is hugely consequential. By comparison, Jeff Bezos seems totally incompetent to lead a space company. Why? Not because he cannot be a good leader, he obviously can. But because he did not put enough personal energy to understand in details what the problems (technical and otherwise) at Blue Origin are, so he can eliminate the deadlocks that make that company unproductive.

signatoremo 2y ago

Without Musk there would not be the breathtaking booster catching happening today, according to his biography: "Why don't we try to use the tower to catch it?" he [ELON] asked. He was referring to the tower that holds the rocket on the launchpad. Musk had already come up with the idea of using that tower to stack the rocket; it had a set of arms that could pick up the first-stage booster, place it on the launch mount, then pick up the second-stage spacecraft, and place it atop the booster. Now he was suggesting that these arms could also be used to catch the booster when it returned to Earth. It was a wild idea, and there was a lot of consternation in the room. "If the booster comes back down to the tower and crashes into it, you can't launch the next rocket for a long time," Bill Riley says. "But we agreed to study different ways to do it." A few weeks later, just after Christmas 2020, the team gathered to brainstorm. Most engineers argued against trying to use the tower to catch the booster. The stacking arms were already dangerously complex. After more than an hour of argument, a consensus was forming to stick with the old idea of putting landing legs on the booster. But Stephen Harlow, the vehicle engineering director, kept arguing for the more audacious approach. "We have this tower, so why not try to use it?" After another hour of debate, Musk stepped in. "Harlow, you're on board with this plan," he said. "So why don't you be in charge of it?" https://x.com/WalterIsaacson/status/1844870018351169942/photo/1 https://x.com/WalterIsaacson/status/1844870018351169942/phot...

credit_guy 2y ago

If that's the case, what is the issue with the Engineering and Manufacturing teams of Boeing, Blue Origin, Arianne, etc, etc? The role of a leader is to end deadlocks. All these companies have plenty of talented people, and they often have huge egos, personal agendas, various constraints, some lack resources, some squander them, etc. A leader understands where the problems are and decides. The "buck stops with him". He doesn't do the work himself, but being able to say "you are right, and you are not" is hugely consequential. By comparison, Jeff Bezos seems totally incompetent to lead a space company. Why? Not because he cannot be a good leader, he obviously can. But because he did not put enough personal energy to understand in details what the problems (technical and otherwise) at Blue Origin are, so he can eliminate the deadlocks that make that company unproductive.