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Comment by davidf18 | Hacker News Reader

Please cite your sources. I have BS EE with CS concentration from U Illinois/Urbana and was mentored as a computer chip design engineer for four years in a major computer firm.

For Musk, I see no engineering degrees nor work experience being mentored in engineering which is absolutely necessary.

Compare Musk with GM CEO Mary Barra who as a BS EE and work experience as an engineer and engineering manager, mentored into those positions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Barra

I am betting that if Mary Barra were running a startup auto company that it would have spare parts.

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Being competent and having a degree are often very orthogonal to each other. My friend works as engineers at Space X and describes Musk as very hands on and competent which can not obviously serve as proof. But neither can a statement like "if Mary Barra were running a startup auto company that it would have spare parts". Scaling supply chain and building up manufacturing facilities from ground up for a new car type vs managing an existing entrenched player are very different tasks. I guess we will soon see how things will work out with GM electric vehicle sales to compare the two.

> You do realise Musk is very competent engineer among other things? He is fairly far removed from "business type"

In certain fields, such as engineering of products as opposed to general software development, such as designing jet airliners, rockets, nuclear power plants, automobiles, buildings, etc. both a degree in engineering and real work experience in engineering a product that goes into production is really important.

There is much more to engineering than design for items that are in production.

The question I was addressing was ensuring customers have enough parts and I believe Mary Barra would have considered that as very important and that she would have ensured that the spare parts were available. It is not sexy or flashy, it doesn't get you media exposure, but it is good engineering.

I also have extensive experience with computer software so I know what I am talking about regarding the difference of engineering and most software development.

> Being competent and having a degree are often very orthogonal to each other.

Please explain how this is true with engineering degrees (EE, Mechanical, Civil, Aeronautical, Materials Science). Of course, if engineering, one needs to be mentored by engineers as well.

I'm not sure why you hold such a high regard for degrees. I also got my EE degree from UIUC, and while I think it is/was a great university most of what I learned was self-taught. I'm also a PhD dropout, worked at prestigious companies, yatta yatta ya. Then I started a robotics company, and I've looked at thousands of resumes and interviewed at least a hundred people. One thing I've learned is that degrees, grades, etc are completely worthless. They tell you absolutely nothing about whether or not someone can actually build something. The only thing I care about is what people have built, and I don't care if it was at a company or in their spare time. It's much more impressive if they did it by themselves though as opposed to being supported by all of the resources of a giant company, as being resourceful is a great trait for a talented engineer (and especially important at a startup).

Long story short - it only matters what people have built. It doesn't matter what their pedigree is.

> One thing I've learned is that degrees, grades, etc are completely worthless.

Going to a good engineering school, mentored in engineering is important. It is one thing to build a few electric vehicles and something totally different to build something that is that complicated and mass produced.

There are processes and procedures one learns in order to build something for mass production. I am not speaking of most software for which I have hired people without degrees and know others without degrees, but cars, airliners, jet engines, nuclear power plants, buildings, bridges, VLSI design for mass production, refineries, ....

In my initial area of work, VLSI design, Intel had a $500 million recall in the mid-'90s. I know the circumstances from first hand sources and how the error was found which should have and could have been found before mass production.

One doesn't need a large firm to do some of these engineering activities, but they do need the engineering education and the mentoring of engineering procedures which they can then bring to their startup firm.

I learned a lot from my EE courses at Illinois and from my mentoring faculty of which I can think of several. The materials science, the transmission lines and impedance mismatches, amplifiers, satellite communications, ...

You seem to have a lot of experience and a way of doing things which works for you, and that's fine. Your experience seems to have made you conservative, for better and for worse. Of course people with traditional experience will have learned a lot, and that's useful. Even the people that are looking to disrupt the status quo can benefit from this as it helps them to understand how things are already done so they don't reinvent the wheel. But it's not a prerequisite. The biggest disruptions often come from out of left field. The Wright brothers worked on bicycles before inventing the airplane, and they had a lot of better funded, better educated competition. Is that an outlier? Absolutely. But outliers are the people that make huge strides suddenly, and you can't discount them just because they don't have a traditional background. There are many examples of people making enormous contributions to fields outside of their own, engineering not excluded.

It only takes a single person to come out of nowhere and have a truly novel idea because his/her field of view wasn't constrained by previous experience. You really think there's nobody alive on the planet that fits that description for mechanical/electrical/aerospace/robotics engineering? There was a problem my engineers were struggling with at my company for months. The guy who finally figured it out was a chef, and he concocted his own mechatronic solution which he then machined himself. He has no engineering education, he just had a unique idea that all the engineers overlooked.

The notion that a piece of paper makes you elite is archaic.

> Your experience seems to have made you conservative, for better and for worse. Of course people with traditional experience will have learned a lot, and that's useful

An architect can disrupt with a new building design, see Frank Lloyd Wright for example, or the Citibank Tower in Manhattan, and so on. That doesn't mean one doesn't use engineering design methodology. In order to disrupt, one needs the design methodology.

Nuclear power electric plants and nuclear powered naval vessels were disruptions. But still one needed well trained engineers to design and run the systems. Even for disruption. Putting nuclear power in naval vessels was a huge disruption.

Admiral Hyman Rickover, father of the nuclear navy, had a MS EE Columbia University (one of my other schools, BTW). Read what he has to say about engineering education.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover#Early_naval_...

In computing, Seymour Cray was a huge disruptor who managed to build a computer far more powerful than IBM (CDC 6600) with "29 people including the janitor" according to then IBM President Thomas Watson, Jr. Cray had a MS EE. He was the Genius supercomputer designer. A huge disruptor, but only able to disrupt by applying engineering education and principles.

A third example, is Joe Sutter, chief engineer of the 747. He has a BS Aeronautical Engineering and died a few days ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover#Early_naval_...

Was the 747 disruptive. Absolutely. Still, the designers of the aircraft were educated and trained as engineers.

Solid engineering and training is not obstructive to disruption, but absolutely necessary having the background in order to be successful at the disruption.

Hyman Rickover, Seymour Cray, Joe Sutter. All engineers. All huge disruptors that could not have achieved the disruption without their engineering backgrounds.

Sometimes there are no shortcuts.

You're missing the point. Your argument is it's impossible for someone to make great strides without a traditional education, and I already provided you with two specific counter-examples. Unless I'm lying about the personal anecdote and the Wright brothers didn't invent the airplane, then your argument doesn't hold water. If you want to argue that most people benefit from having traditional backgrounds, then what you're saying makes sense. But I've already disproved your original statement and you've done nothing to address my evidence.

If you ever become a manager, please don't disregard what people say just because they don't have the same background as you. I've worked with people like that in the past, and they are terrible managers/coworkers. They are needlessly pedantic and often feel the need to do things the way they learned in school (or read about some complicated technique in a paper they have to try), when there is obviously a simpler and better solution. The sad thing is, they think they're better than everyone else and that nobody appreciates their "superior" point of view - if you feel that way, you should reconsider how you approach problem solving.

I haven't met you so I can't comment on you specifically, just speaking as to my general experience. Whatever the case, I wish you luck in your career.

To me you seemed to imply that engineers are staid and conservative and not capable of disruptive innovation which as I pointed out with the examples given, it is precisely because of the trained engineering background that innovations come to fruition. It is precisely because of their engineering training that the nuclear navy, Cray's supercomputers, and the 747 were able to exist. All massive engineering projects that were hugely disruptive and innovative.

The Wright brothers innovation happened when not many people were trained as engineers or could afford to go to college. It is also in general one thing to create an idea and something else to "productize" it or for a concept to stand up to the forces of nature, etc.

There were lots of construction innovations without civil engineering, but it is inconceivable today to do any form but the smallest projects without it.

There is an enormous amount to engineering products, buildings etc. that non-engineers generally aren't familiar with. That also includes most who go to college in engineering but then go into another field, eg. working for consulting firms such as McKinsey. It may even include engineers that might work on prototypes but never really worry about something that must stand up "in the field."

You do realise Space X is already 14 years old? So he has 14 years experience building things other than software?

I realize that he has hired people who are degreed engineers with work experience. My point is that he never had an engineering degree and never was mentored as an engineer.

It is my belief that any technical manager such as CEO of technical firms benefit enormously by going to school at a good engineering school and being mentored by engineers. People who have that kind of experience see the world differently than others. I know because I interact with them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk

At the age of 19, Musk was accepted into Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, for undergraduate study. In 1992, after spending two years at Queen's University, Musk transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where, at the age of 24, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from its College of Arts and Sciences, and a Bachelor of Science degree in economics from its Wharton School of Business. Musk extended his studies for one year to finish the second bachelor's degree.[41] While at the University of Pennsylvania, Musk and fellow Penn student Adeo Ressi rented a 10-bedroom fraternity house, using it as an unofficial nightclub.[37]

In 1995, at age 24, Musk moved to California to begin a PhD in applied physics and materials science at Stanford University, but left the program after two days to pursue his entrepreneurial aspirations in the areas of the Internet, renewable energy and outer space.[35][42] In 2002, he became a U.S. citizen.[43][44]

Physics is not an engineering degree. I know Physics and EE. I see no time where he was mentored in an engineering company.

And yes, I read the Wikipedia entry before I commented on Musk's background.

I'm curious as to the reasons why you believe only those possessing degrees in engineering can be competent engineers? I understand there are specific things in the course requirements that would be very different between an engineering degree and a physics degree, but I would assume that so long as someone has the requisite understanding of the more foundational elements pertaining to the relevant fields, and the drive and discipline to do so, they could conceivably pick up the additional knowledge without the necessity of a formal degree. Am I wrong in my assumption? Is there some reason this doesn't hold true in engineering? Just to be clear, I'm not asking this to be combative, but as someone who has no experience attending college, in an engineering field or otherwise, I'm genuinely interested to hear your thoughts.

I’m also curious as to how you define being mentored as an engineer? Is it a requirement to serve under more senior engineers for some specific amount of time? And does this require that the mentee be lower than the mentor on the corporate hierarchy? I won’t purport to speak for Musk but I’m fairly sure he’s been mentored extensively by people like Tom Mueller and Gwynne Shotwell, in addition to others, over the years.

You also mentioned in a higher post that you prefer leadership that has “gotten their hands dirty” as opposed to “business types” and this may be the only area I can really offer direct insight into. Whatever your opinion of Musk may be, I think it would be a mistake to describe him as someone who doesn’t get his hands dirty. I’m a technician at SpaceX which makes me fairly low within the corporate structure and even I have had a chance to interact with Musk, as well as a number of other senior execs, on relatively minor issues pertaining to my work. He, along with many other senior engineers within the company, are often very hands on even within the production environment here.

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