Rocket Man
Every aerospace executive and board member should read
Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk. Starting from scratch Musk has built
America’s leading rocket and space communications company by ignoring the
hidebound bureaucratic rules of the major aerospace companies delivering
rockets at one tenth the cost of his bloated competitors. Musk’s rules are:
1.
Doubt every requirement.
2.
Question every
cost?
3.
Act with a sense
of urgency.
4.
Learn by failing.
5.
Improvise.
The other secret that Musk applied to Tesla as well as
SpaceX is that he integrated design, engineering, and manufacturing so that
each of those entities can learn from the others. Thus, engineers and designers
are able to make improvements in manufacturing as issues arise. Steve Jobs at
Apple integrated design and engineering, but outsourced manufacturing to China.
Rising from an unhappy childhood in South Africa, Musk
became a Silicon Valley entrepreneur to become part of the famed “PayPal Mafia.”
He used his PayPal success to fund Tesla and SpaceX and the rest is history.
Musk’s genius has the ability to inspire loyalty, at
least for a time, of a host brilliant people who built his empire. However,
empathy is not his middle name, and, in many ways, he seems to be a very cruel
person. He is one of those people who professes to love humanity, but really doesn’t
like people as individuals.
Isaacson discusses Musk’s chaotic personal life. Three
marriages, 11 children two of whom by sperm donation. Isaacson doesn’t explain
why so many of Musk’s children were conceived by in vitro fertilization.
Then, of course there is Twitter, now called X after
his favorite letter. His adventure at Twitter seems to be one giant ego trip
where he promised to free that social media site from it “wokeness.” To say the
staff of Twitter was woke, would be an understatement. He wanted to encourage
free expression, yet under his rule Twitter has become a cesspool of hate.
I had my own run in with twitter. Despite all of
Musk’s talk of a new openness I was banned for using the term “circular firing
squad” to characterize Hunter Biden bringing his father into his legal thicket.
Something is really wrong with X and from press accounts is seems to be getting
worse by the day.
Despite being hagiographic at times, Isaacson brings
to life one of our leading entrepreneurs who is bringing us into new electric
and space ages.
For the full Amazon URL see: Rocket Man (amazon.com)
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