> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
Bill Gates was also pretty good
Or you are actively trying to have the meetings when you are sure he cannot be present because he keeps derailing them.
I have heard similar things