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Comment by avmich | Hacker News Reader

> would it be possible to predict which company would flourish?

I'd say both have good chances. I'm actually surprised BO doesn't have better achievements by now.

> Both looked like jokes at the time to my aerospace colleagues.

I assume some aerospace professionals still consider them jokes, which weights on definition of professional. But SpaceX really does things differently - the pioneers of space era (like von Braun, Korolev) could, I'm sure, understand Musk, but aerospace professionals of 1990-2000 were trained in rather different world.

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> I assume some aerospace professionals still consider them jokes, which weights on definition of professional. But SpaceX really does things differently - the pioneers of space era (like von Braun, Korolev) could, I'm sure, understand Musk, but aerospace professionals of 1990-2000 were trained in rather different world.

My dad recently retired as an aerospace professional. There was an event which he said removed any doubt from the entire industry that SpaceX was real; I don't remember when exactly it was, but SpaceX had a launch, aborted the launch fairly late in the countdown, and then re-prepped and launched in time to make the launch window.

He said any other orbital rocket would require a minimum of several hours turnaround when aborting that late. Fixing this in a legacy rocket was just not going to happen, and SpaceX made it look easy.

One thing stands out is how hands-on Musk has been. He's got a physics degree and has the raw intelligence and passion to understand aerospace engineering. From his public statements, he shows an understanding of mechanical engineering WAY beyond most executives'. Bezos has been hands-off with BO and is not technical. Similar with Vern Raburn (Microsoftie pilot) trying to run Eclipse Aviation (nearly into the ground, as it was).

The problem is finding someone who understands the science enough, but is not embedded in the old school culture that has been so limiting.

> He's [Musk] got a physics degree and has the raw intelligence and passion to understand aerospace engineering.

musk was nearly laughed out of early meetings because he basically knew nothing about aerospace engineering and was viewed as just a guy with a lot of money, enthusiasm, and naivety.

i have never seen any indication that he understands as much as people freely give him credit for.

> Bezos ... is not technical.

bezos has a degree in electrical engineering and computer science from princeton. not sure what you consider technical.

> musk was nearly laughed out of early meetings

I'm almost sure he'd be laughed out of many meetings today, if his name would be different - i.e. nobody would think he's behind SpaceX vision. Not all meetings, but many. Imagining an aerospace professional - somebody in a position of Tony Bruno talking with a guy John Smith, when that John Smith describes similar vision and approaches to SpaceX, I can too easily imagine that aerospace professional dismissing him too easily.

That's not about Musk. That's about modern aerospace.

> i have never seen any indication that he understands as much as people freely give him credit for.

Hm. I didn't catch Musk on too blatant physical errors (I might be not a perfect examiner though :) ), but the thing is, "the rocket science is not a rocket science". Building rockets these days is many, many times easier that half a century ago. You don't need Einstein's level of sharpness to get pretty good results.

> bezos has a degree in electrical engineering and computer science from princeton. not sure what you consider technical.

Well, title of CEO in Amazon may have a large negative effect on technical abilities of a person. I've seen people with cum laude science Ph.D's from top world technical universities which are much happier with management and don't demonstrate technical abilities too much. So, "Bezos ...is not technical" may be unrelated to his degrees.

* Tory Bruno[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tory_Bruno

Yeah, EE/CS in aerospace is non-technical in this context. The key is physical understanding of mechanics, which programmers seem to lack. Understanding concepts of spatial vectors, summing up forces, adding/removing energy and the effects on temperature, you need to have a tangble feel of these concepts, as well as be able to calculate them rigorously, to design rockets. A physics student would have this, while someone whose primary coursework was on OS design, data structures, optimizing memory usage etc. would not. It's a very different world.

I don't think it's fair, but in aerospace companies, the programmers, even doing important avionics work, are considered closer to IT than they are to core vehicle design. If you got rid of all of them you could still design a vehicle, as we did before.

you didn't specify that you meant technical in aerospace. even then, many technical people have the skills to understand other fields just fine, especially to manage. and just to note, bezos also studied physics.

> i have never seen any indication that he understands as much as people freely give him credit for.

So your disregarding what every single engineer that work for him says. It seem like you are going out of your way to ignore evidence.

Elon is and was the Chief Engineer on the Falcon 1/Falcon 9 rocket. That is a fact.

Well, I'm not sure what part of the SpaceX timeline you are talking about but his "money, enthusiasm, and naivety" certainly has brought the company very, very far in the past 17+ years.

As the story goes, Musk, interested in space, approaches the Russians and asks to buy an ICBM. The Russians laughed him out of the room. A year later, SpaceX was founded. 17 years later, here we are!

https://www.inverse.com/article/34976-spacex-ceo-elon-musk-t... https://www.fastcompany.com/3006829/spacex-founder-elon-musk...

It's still not a profitable company with alot of debt to payoff and a valuation to justify. I don't know if we can consider 17 years without any profitable sustainability a success.

Amazon roughly fits this profile, with their habit of investing money in expanding markets instead of keeping profits.

SpaceX is the only company which returns first stage after flight, in workable condition. In today's launch industry it's like a license to print money. It's really hard not to consider them profitable, even if they are private and don't show financial results.

Amazon has only been unprofitable one year since 2001, and cash flow positive every single year. They are the exact opposite of Tesla because they didn't require returning to the capital markets every two quarters.

> In today's launch industry it's like a license to print money. It's really hard not to consider them profitable, even if they are private and don't show financial results.

Every report on their financial results says they are unprofitable, and they continue to want to raise more and more money.

It blows my mind that people in the modern world can still think this way.

The big difference I see is vision and timelines.

Elon Musk wants to live on Mars and he's been very public about it. Everything he's done has been to further technology to make that possible within his lifetime. He's working hard and betting everything to make it happen.

Jeff Bezos is working to build a "road to space", but he doesn't see the technology for space or planetary colonization being viable for a few generations.

People are still slipping on Elon and how brilliant he is.

He is legit the chief designer of the Falcon 9 rocket and of Starship not just the chief executive. That is not just some honorary title. He made every important choice on every important technical decision.

He knows every detail of these rockets, he knows them inside and out. Nobody knows more about any of these rockets then Elon.

People sometimes want to portray him about a guy that highers smart people and that it, but it is far from true.

would you mind pointing out some resources that back up your claims? they read like fiction.

One example: an interview with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_Reisman

https://youtu.be/GNG6ZzDh9C8?t=383

I'm a fan of Musk's work, but there's plenty to criticize about the man.

However, there's little doubt that he's an extremely smart person.

I mean its a fact that is has the title. They don't have two chief engineers. Every single interview with him or anybody else that works at the company takes it for granted that he makes all the engineering decisions. If you listen to press conference you will see that he answers any and all questions, sometimes in insane amount of detail.

This should really not be surprising to anybody who follows SpaceX in any detail.

I would argue the burden of prove is on people who deny what he does. What evidence do you have that he is not the chief engineer. Is there a 'hidden' chief engineer working on the project? Who makes the important engineering decisions if its not Elon?

that's not how burden of proof works. you're the one making claims and assertions, not me.

titles are not sufficient proof, and marketing is a thing.

I'm not making assertions, I'm point out a plain fact that is undenyable. Elon Musk is right now the Chief Engineer of SpaceX.

If you are saying 'that title is a total sham' and 'the title does not accuratly represent Musk role' then you need to provide evidence.

And yes, that is how burdon of proove works.

As I said before, ever single high level engineer that worked with him has repeated over and over again what a genius he is. I don't know what more evidence you could want.

Of course you can just continue to repeat and cast dought because you don't like him. But please show me a single piece of evidence that Elon Musk is not a capable rocket sientists and engineer.

you mistake how arguments work. i recommend just googling "burden of proof" and understanding how it works.

you claim that musk is the chief designer beyond just title. specifically, you said:

> He made every important choice on every important technical decision.

and

> He knows every detail of these rockets, he knows them inside and out. Nobody knows more about any of these rockets then Elon.

those are claims. simply stating he has the title of chief designer is not sufficient evidence. neither is citing anecdotal evidence from people who work for him (and you didn't even give quotes, you just stated the supposed conclusions). i asked if you had evidence and didn't make a claim otherwise in my response to you. the burden of proof fully lies on you to backup what you said. i didn't say it.

if people are still "slipping on elon and how brilliant he is", maybe you and his fanboys should provide more evidence than "omg, he's such a genius".

I'm sorry, but that is not the standard anybody else would apply when talking about other people. If somebody has a job at some company, we assume that is the job they are actually doing.

Its the Chief Engineers jobs to make choices about high level direction and to be the ultimate decision maker. In my book anybody who has that role for the most successful rocket company in human history is a genius.

If you want to claim he is not, claiming it all some sort of evil genius marketing scheme to hype up Elon, you need to provide an actual argument, no matter how many times you want to deny it.

> simply stating he has the title of chief designer is not sufficient evidence.

Its a private company, the evidence you ask for simply doesn't exists in the public domain. Essentially you have put yourself into a position where you have a opinion, and no evidence that exists in the public domain will convince you.

> neither is citing anecdotal evidence from people who work for him (and you didn't even give quotes, you just stated the supposed conclusions)

The best evidence we have is what people who have worked with him and multiple people in this thread have mentioned this to you. Yet you seem unwilling to do even a minimal amount of work yourself and neither me nor anybody else has time to go threw hours of video materials to provide quotes for you.

The fact is, you have a clearly uninformed opinion that disagrees with all the public knowledge we have and you have no evidence what so ever. This is clearly a stupid position to be in, but be my guest, I will no longer argue this.

Bezos has an Electrical Engineering degree, which I would argue is more important to running an engineering company than a Physics degree, though bachelors degrees are pretty much irrelevant regardless. And there's no one who works for Bezos who would ever claim him to be hands-off.

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