Powerful, the Elon you don’t see
- Thread starter Jennifer
- Start date
ArthurEld
Solar Wizard
He's a powerful dude that is for sure. It appears that private companies will take over space travel.
Just love his passion, he really does consider his companies his children, not many CEO's like that any more, most just come in, rape and pilage then leave...
Elon has a different objective, he isn't in it to get rich, that's just a perk.
He wants to change the world and get us off fossil fuels (Tesla) and make it harder for a single catastrophe to wipe out the human race (Mars and SpaceX). With Starlink, he has a way to fund his dream of a Mars colony. He's applied for a license for 5 million terminals in the USA alone, at $100/month. You can fund a lot of reusable rockets with a half a billion dollars a month income.
If you haven't read it yet, "Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX" by Eric Berger is a good read. It's the first book written by Eric Berger, and you can tell, but the topic is fascinating.
Speaking as someone who worked on the original IBM PC production line in 1981, I can tell you the urgency and feeling that you are accomplishing great things that will change the world is addicting. You do get burned out after so many years, but you really feel good about what you accomplished. Elon Musk is a "once in a generation" agent of change. Thank god he made money on PayPal (not even a lot by modern internet millionaire standards), and invested it (pretty much all of it) in two projects he believed in and was passionate about. Couple that with the fact he is really, really smart and technically competent, his ability to "read" a good engineer and hire them, and then his ability to motivate them and step out of the way! Seriously, I watched live men walk on the moon on television, and NASA (with pushing from Congress) has blown that. Now I'm too old, I would have taken a SERIOUS pay cut to work for SpaceX 10 years ago. (Yes, I've worked for NASA and the Strategic Defense Command when Reagan was in office, I like anything that is intended to stop a nuclear warhead aimed at me).
Anyway, we need more people like him. He even lets people fail, accepting it as a learning experience! Starship developed by ULA would mean maybe in 2100 we might see a test flight, look at SLS.
Beautifully written John, I'm legacy IT as well (http://www.jenniferbond.com), did my time at Microsoft (several times), HP, DEC Alpha (as part of my time at Compaq who acquired DEC), Compaq, (doing Proliant), Boeing (several times) etc) so I feel that same energy you mention..... back when I was on the IE team as part of Win 95 OSR2 at Microsoft in 96, I was in the middle of the browser wars, it was a blast... money's not everything is it.
PS: As I'm full time off grid, using my Verizon hot spot for my internet and work full time from home, I was once of the first to gladly send him my $99.00 to get on the beta for Starlink, I can't wait for the beam width to get to Northern Arizona...
Jen
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