> but Musk had to purge the senior leadership of both Tesla and SpaceX (and multiple times at that, I believe?) in order to achieve the innovation velocity he aimed for.
From the ex-Tesla people I worked with, I think the public narrative of Musk “purging” staff isn’t entirely true. He desperately needs top talent.
It’s more the case that his companies focus on hungry employees who want to get some success and a big company name on their resume. He can pay them mediocre compensation and work them to death with the promise of a big career win.
Once they’ve had a few years in the upper ranks of a Musk company, they can use their resume to walk into any number of easier jobs that pay better, so they leave. They are then replaced with a new generation of career climbers who can be worked to death in exchange for the resume building experience.