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Elon Musk Shakes Up SpaceX's Starlink Satellite Division By Firing a Bunch of Managers (reuters.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the if-it-ain't-working-fix-it dept.

schwit1 shares a report from Reuters: SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk flew to the Seattle area in June for meetings with engineers leading a satellite launch project crucial to his space company's growth. Within hours of landing, Musk had fired at least seven members of the program's senior management team at the Redmond, Washington, office, the culmination of disagreements over the pace at which the team was developing and testing its Starlink satellites. Known for pushing aggressive deadlines, Musk quickly brought in new managers from SpaceX headquarters in California to replace a number of the managers he fired. Their mandate: Launch SpaceX's first batch of U.S.-made satellites by the middle of next year, the sources said.

The management shakeup followed in-fighting over pressure from Musk to speed up satellite testing schedules, one of the sources said. SpaceX's spokeswoman Eva Behrend offered no comment on the matter. Culture was also a challenge for recent hires, a second source said. A number of the managers had been hired from nearby technology giant Microsoft, where workers were more accustomed to longer development schedules than Musk's famously short deadlines. "Rajeev wanted three more iterations of test satellites," one of the sources said. "Elon thinks we can do the job with cheaper and simpler satellites, sooner."

136 comments

  1. Mixed feelings by wierd_w · · Score: 4, Interesting

    On the one hand, I am quite glad to see such an actively involved CEO that is not afraid to smack down on senior staff. (as this mitigates feelings of complacency, and resists the formation of entrenched bureaucracies.)

    On the other, I am concerned about rushed deadlines and schedules, since you should not fuck around with things that can cause tremendous amounts of damage to other investments should they go awry. (Like a satellite, or a space vehicle of any kind.) To say nothing of the risks of the finished product not being suitable for purpose...

    So yeah. Mixed feelings.

    1. Re:Mixed feelings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The managers maybe forgot to rely on the scope-cost-time triangle and push the responsibility of possible failure to their managers, who could have been Musk in this case.

    2. Re: Mixed feelings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      No mixed feelings here. The numbers of just terrible people pumped out of the Microsoft factory is staggering.

      The good news is they tend to go back and then get paid more.

      Maybe the good ones never leave. I just know they seem to not survive outside of that ecosystem.

    3. Re:Mixed feelings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      On the other, I am concerned about rushed deadlines and schedules

      I finally got more than a single persons limited feedback on the software i'm developing. I had another day of updates in, and was going to roll another point rev for tomorrow to incorporate that feedback while the customer was just getting started using the software.

      I started on the changes only to hear, well none of that is getting used. Go to the other lab and help approve the previous version the customer hasn't given any feedback on. In short go backwards, ignore feedback so I can check my box. In theory they can eventually file bug reports (I tried to, so we will see what happens), but by the time action is taken they will be past the first phase of use.

      Blindly following a schedule can allow one to make more apparent progress, well up till something really bad happens. For myself, I hate promising I will fix these issue to a customer, only to get smack by, "No you will not. The process we have largely been ignoring for six months is now absolute."

      This is the kind of crap that happens when schedule not engineering is your primary driver. Of course for a satellite, you have to follow processes more rigidly or bad things happen, but for the work I had, me having to go back and do an additional patch was the worst case scenario of rapidly implementing minor customer changes, while the worst case scenario of forcing additional bureaucracy and delay is the customers hating the whole mess.

    4. Re:Mixed feelings by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It doesn't always work though. Look at Tesla, the self driving division had to fit a revolving door and they are still years away from delivering anything.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    5. Re:Mixed feelings by misnohmer · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Tesla recently removed the full-self-driving as an option for new cars. People who bought it 2 years ago still have absolutely nothing, zip, to show for it. But I bet Elon fired a lot of people for it not being ready when he said it would (end of 2017 was supposed be a coast-to-coast demo), hence the revolving door. From what I read and heard, nobody tells Elon something cannot be done or cannot be done within the time he said it can be done, unless they are looking to be fired. This is probably how horrible brain farts of Elon like "I don't need no stinking BSM radars like all the other cars, I can do it with PARKING SENSORS!" get put into the product (it works about as well as a PARKING sensor iwould be expected to work at NON-PARKING speeds, which is not well at all, but Tesla will not admit to it, they scraped their website of this feature being available int past and in recent hardware cars they just released camera based blind spot monitoring). I think a great example of how Elon delivers is AutoPilot 1 Summon, where Elon promised it would "find you anywhere on private property". What was delivered (final version as this is now discontinued hardware) is a feature where the car can drive up to 40ft in a straight line while someone is holding a dead-man-switch to make sure the car doesn't hit anything. That pretty much describes Elon's pattern for the last 5 years. He used to achieve great things, now he's just blowing a lot of hot air.

    6. Re:Mixed feelings by monkeyxpress · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I've seen managers like this before. The problem is, if YOU are the one who decides to cut tests and take shortcuts, and then you send up 50 satellites and they don't work because of those cuts, you career is over. But if the boss is the one who makes that decision and the decision turns out to be a bad one, the issue gets filled under 'well, we had to try' and everyone moves on.

      It's really just a product of having a boss with a ginormous ego - you're sorta screwed if you don't and screwed if you do. Eventually if you are the type who can be controlled by bullying and remain a faithful servant (i.e. much like Tim Cook - compliant and not a threat to the alpha), you will become protected by the boss as a useful asset and then life is much easier.

      Now Musk has made the risky decision, everyone will be able to move forward knowing their necks are not so exposed if the gamble doesn't work out.

    7. Re:Mixed feelings by monkeyxpress · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think Elon just has this magical view about computers. He seems to have a pretty decent at understanding the limitations of mechanical systems. He hasn't proposed anything rocket based that was not compliant with existing technology. And while the hyperloop has many, many details issues, it is not fundamentally unachievable. It's just that when he starts talking computers he seems to think the x86 in your desktop is a couple iterations away from being a monkey brain or something.

    8. Re: Mixed feelings by c6gunner · · Score: 4, Informative

      Unfortunately there is a fairly tight deadline which isn't mandated by spacex but rather by the FCC. The license for the satellite constellation requires them to launch at least half of their satellites within 6 years of approval. SpaceX has applied for an exemption to this rule, but AFAIK it has not been granted. While it seems likely that the FCC will grant them some leeway as long as they make good progress, that still means that they can't afford any excessive delays.

    9. Re:Mixed feelings by mentil · · Score: 3, Funny

      Interesting fact*, the 80186 original design called for transistors made from crystallized lemur neurons.

      *Not a true fact.

      --
      Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
    10. Re:Mixed feelings by Gavagai80 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      When you're launching ~10,000 cheap satellites over the coming years you need a different mindset than the people who work on traditional satellite deployments. If there's a problem with the first hundred satellites it's really no big deal.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    11. Re: Mixed feelings by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      ...as this mitigates feelings of complacency, and resists the formation of entrenched bureaucracies.

      When you make it sound like that, Stalin's Great Purge comes to mind.

    12. Re: Mixed feelings by Type44Q · · Score: 2
      I figured out that Family Guy must have at least two writers, including one who can be reasonably funny.

      Are you the other writer?

    13. Re: Mixed feelings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nested and recursive irony isn't really that funny. Leave the bubble and you'll find Family Guy pretty tedious to watch.

    14. Re:Mixed feelings by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1

      Cheap satellites sounds like a looming space junk problem. We don't need it to become cheaper to launch satellites.

    15. Re:Mixed feelings by bobbied · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Now Musk has made the risky decision, everyone will be able to move forward knowing their necks are not so exposed if the gamble doesn't work out.

      Oh sure, until that gamble rolls craps, THEN you are done too.

      If the boss is willing to ignore his direct reports, fire a bunch of them because he doesn't like what they tell him about cost and schedule, you don't feel better, you polish up your resume and start looking for another job. Unless the upper management was just garbage and everyone knew it, everybody knows what this means, regardless of how possible something is or isn't, you deliver, on time, or you are given your walking papers.

      This is absolutely the crappiest way to motivate labor and foster team work. Mustk has unwittingly created a dog eat dog world with CYA "I told you so" documentation flying off the printers at all levels. Nobody will want to be left holding the bag and everybody will be setting up to blame the other guy in hopes of keeping his job. Team work be damned.

      You see the real "solution" (if there actually is one) is well motivated teamwork. Getting everybody pulling the same direction at the same time on the stuff that matters most. That kind of culture doesn't get built on firing folks. You build such a culture using carrots, not sticks.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    16. Re:Mixed feelings by internet-redstar · · Score: 1
      Well,... like all the rest of us you have NO EXPERIENCE WHATSOEVER in this field.

      It's easy to criticise, but hard to defend such a position in the light of all the monumental accomplishments Space-X realised...

      How can we judge from our lazy chairs if Elon did the right thing here?

      His track record is amazing. And sure, he does make (some) mistakes; but none of those could have been avoided by outsiders interpreting news articles...

    17. Re: Mixed feelings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      People who babble about space junk watch too much TV. These are low orbit, and will burn up in a pretty short timeframe.

    18. Re:Mixed feelings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think thats the point, nobody is accustomed to the low launch prices that are possible with Spacex. If they send their satellites as additional payload their cost is minimal ( for the launch) they are aiming to mass produce the satellites, so their cost should also be significantly lower than lower volume products.

      Because of the low cost, they could risk loosing some satellites. if they are iterating fast and sending them up continouosly loss of say 10% of the early units is an annoyance but not bad, if you are able to compress the deployment timeline by >1 year. Plus you are learning from these real world condition failures, thats also worth something.

    19. Re:Mixed feelings by Hodr · · Score: 5, Interesting

      From the sounds of this article they already had a fairly toxic work environment with management split about the appropriate way forward. Elon simply picked a side and fired the rest so they wouldn't remain a festering wound.

      I have lived through similar (though smaller in scale) shake-ups and by and large they have been beneficial in focusing the team and removing the stress of politics and having to please bosses with opposed goals.

    20. Re:Mixed feelings by jellomizer · · Score: 2

      From my experience, when these projects get delayed and take a long time, is because most of the work going on is protecting your own butt. This is prevalent in work cultures which when there is a problem, the direction goes to who did the mistake and punish them. So people learn to have documentation, gigs of emails (copies of it if email is purged) to show off if there is a problem, that they have record of disagreeing with it, to showing they were told to do it that way, or someone else didn't do it the way you had said.

      All this work doesn't make the product any better it just gives middle management the impression they are doing something about it. While the correct course of action is to 1. Fix the problem found. 2. Make sure that problem doesn't happen again. 3. Implement this plan to make sure that problem doesn't happen again.
      Most catastrophic mistakes made by a company are not done in a vacuum, sure there is that one guy who hit the Run button that started the mistake in action, but they are often built off of problems in the entire company. And often when big mistakes happen, everyone was doing their job as they were suppose to, it was just lack of big picture planning which causes the failure.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    21. Re: Mixed feelings by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I have worked with people with Microsoft, Google, AOL (when it was a thing).... And for the most part they are not any better then those guys who worked at small companies, or even in Government.
      Actually people from small companies, are actually much better, because they know how to do more with less.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    22. Re:Mixed feelings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sometimes there are two entirely valid ways of doing things (sometimes more) and you can be entirely professional even if you pick B. Being fired for not picking A potentially means losing a lot of expertise and knowledge when just saying "No, we're doing A, get used to it" might have been sufficient seems unreasonable.

    23. Re: Mixed feelings by Hodr · · Score: 3, Informative

      As long as you consider ~150 years a pretty short timeframe. The very first US satellite launched (70+ years ago) was launched into LEO and hasn't de-orbited yet.

      Satellites launched into LEO are supposed to be setup to de-orbit within 25 years, but that is an assisted de-orbit. If the satellite is unresponsive space junk and if it is relatively small (as these are) it they could be up there a very long time.

      The one benefit is that these are planned to be on the lower side of LEO (think I heard something around 100 or 150 miles) so you could knock a few years off of that 150 as the normal LEO satellites sit around 400 miles, but these are also smaller satellites so they would have less drag and any "junk" would probably be the result of collisions and would be smaller still.

    24. Re:Mixed feelings by EnsilZah · · Score: 1

      They're going to be in a pretty low orbit, lower than the ISS, they'd passively deorbit with a couple of years even if their propulsion system failed to do so actively.

    25. Re:Mixed feelings by bobbied · · Score: 2

      From the sounds of this article they already had a fairly toxic work environment with management split about the appropriate way forward. Elon simply picked a side and fired the rest so they wouldn't remain a festering wound.

      If that's what Musk was trying to accomplish, he's every bit the idiot his detractors claim. You don't fire your underlings for not agreeing with your views, you fire them for not following your instructions or some kind of inexcusable behavior. What Musk did was to beat his underlings with a stick, which may produce immediate and visible compliance at first, but is counter productive in the long term, where they will react in fear. You want employees to take pride in their hard work because they care about the project's success, not because they fear failure and beating.

      Fear stifles creativity, suppresses team work, and creates a culture of CYA, where everybody is rigidly following the process to avoid a beating. You want employees who are working hard, interested in the success of the project and willing to go that extra mile, work that extra hour or help out others with their tasks, not because it keeps them out of trouble, but because it's what the program needs to be successful. You don't get that behavior using sticks.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    26. Re: Mixed feelings by sfcat · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I have worked with people with Microsoft, Google, AOL (when it was a thing).... And for the most part they are not any better then those guys who worked at small companies, or even in Government. Actually people from small companies, are actually much better, because they know how to do more with less.

      Damn, I already posted so I can't mod you up. I couldn't agree more and only HR drones who wouldn't know a well run tech company from a tire fire wouldn't know this. For everyone else, you have no excuse for not knowing this. Working at Google these days should be a black mark, not a sign of quality. 10 years ago it would be different but that was a different Google.

      --
      "Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
    27. Re: Mixed feelings by Enigma2175 · · Score: 3, Informative

      The very first US satellite launched (70+ years ago) was launched into LEO and hasn't de-orbited yet.

      Really? From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...:
      Explorer 1 was the first satellite of the United States ... Explorer 1 was launched on January 31, 1958 ... It remained in orbit until 1970

      And that's with a 358x2550 km orbit. The majority of the Starlink satellites are slated to be in a 350x350 km orbit, they will decay much faster than Explorer 1 because of the lower apogee.

      --

      Enigma

    28. Re: Mixed feelings by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      Uh no. ISS is around 200-300 miles, while starlink will be mostly around 750 miles. Another small layer of SATs ( backbone ) is over 1000 miles high.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    29. Re: Mixed feelings by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      Exactly right. They should have at least 10-20 SATs up there now testing individual SATs AND the network. From there they can send up newly modified units.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    30. Re:Mixed feelings by vadim_t · · Score: 2

      So what this tells me is that this piece of news might as well not exist. The only reasonable reaction is "Oh, okay".

      Because whether this is a good or a bad decision on Musk's part depends on whether those managers were doing a good job or not, and not having insight into those managers' work and reasoning we can't tell if they were doing a good job or not, and therefore whether Musk's decision to fire them was a good one or not.

    31. Re:Mixed feelings by kaizendojo · · Score: 1

      Agreed. Makes me concerned about how he's handling manned spaceflight and worried that he'll push that too fast as well.

    32. Re: Mixed feelings by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      Odd. New founding fathers come closer to mind with this admin.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    33. Re: Mixed feelings by Mr.+Droopy+Drawers · · Score: 1

      Explorer I was the first successful US satellite launched on Jan. 31, 1958. It burned up in the atmosphere on March 30, 1970.

      --

      To Copy from One is Plagiarism; To Copy from Many is Research.

    34. Re:Mixed feelings by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 1

      To say nothing of the risks of the finished product not being suitable for purpose.

      Like perhaps an "autopilot" feature that doesn't seem to always work as it should in avoiding obvious obstacles.

      I remain in the "mixed feelings" category. Musk has led his companies to do some pretty amazing things, but he's clearly not the most stable of personalities, and not a person I'd likely enjoy working under.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    35. Re:Mixed feelings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      There is also another option. The managers that got fired were simply bad at doing their job. E.g. I have seen managers that don't do their work and the lie to cover it up and get caught. I have seen managers like this not get fired, but instead moved to elsewhere to continue there as a manager.

    36. Re:Mixed feelings by ledow · · Score: 4, Informative

      There's a reason you can't pick up a cheap Cessna, and why you have to go through certifications, and why pilots are decrying the use of drones outside of their (heavily restricted) legal limits.

      Nobody cares about what happens to your satellite. It's what it crashes into that's important. A rogue / malfunctioning satellite could easily take out anything - and orbits are getting more and more packed every day and just launching 10,000 things up there carelessly will end in disasters that won't just have you go "Oh well, launch another 10,000" but be brought before people with billion-dollar space programs demanding you never be allowed to launch anything ever again.

      You've only got to hit something quite unimportant in the same orbit, and you could bankrupt the company overnight. Hit something that you didn't even really "know" was there and you could be looking at militaries (your own, or foreign) breathing down your neck.

      Space is a controlled environment. Media stunts like launching cars on joke orbits aren't really compatible with that. We haven't got to the point that we can de-regulate ordinary airspace, so literally the only thing keeping you "safe" up in space from amateur idiots and commercially-produced tat is sheer volume of space. As that narrows, things get more and more stupid and dangerous.

      You can't make cars without abiding by manufacturer regulations. You certainly can't build saleable aircraft without a shed-ton more regulation. Just lobbing things up into space isn't a behaviour that will be tolerated for very long once the first mess-up is made.

      P.S. It took SpaceX years and dozens and dozens of test landings where they destroyed drone-boats, rockets, broke off their landing legs, abandoned landings to just plunge into the sea etc. before they got a landing that you can coo over. This stuff isn't "easy" and certainly isn't reliable.

      Applying the same principle to something that might share an orbit with an component from your rivals that's so expensive that it might cost your company every profit it's ever made (yeah, right) in order to put something equivalent back up there in reparation? That's not "a different mindset". That's "commercial suicide".

    37. Re:Mixed feelings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      why? because a couple of people will die in the process? This is what i never understood:

      We as a society are completely ok with letting pharma corps poison people in the name of health-care all for profits (opioids), we are also ok with people choosing to be morbidly obese such that it kills tens of thousands of people a year, we are also ok with people who have mental health issues purchase firearms, and we are also ok with people killing each-other in traffic accidents because they are too narcissistic to follow the rules of the road. What we are not ok with is a few people losing their lives in the quest to move our species from a one world mindset to a space fairing race.

      Anything cutting edge or exploratory IS inherently dangerous and will definitely cause a loss of life, that is partially why people do it, because the risk is worth the reward. Could you imagine if we had that mindset during the 1800's? Who cares if he is moving manned space flight quickly, anyone who is able to make the trip is also entirely capable of making their own risk assessment on the trip and decide their own fate. If i could, i would do it, being a pioneer is always a risky endeavour

    38. Re:Mixed feelings by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      On the other, I am concerned about rushed deadlines

      FCC is more to be blamed for that than Musk.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    39. Re: Mixed feelings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "so you could knock a few years off of that 150"

      A few years? At last update I think they were going to have two constellations, a large one one at 210 Miles and a smaller one at 750 Miles. I think Dove satellites are launched into a slightly higher orbit (250 Mi) and only last a few years (2-4) before burning up. So the main constellation would burn up in rather short order without active orbital maintenance (thrusters or regular replacement). The higher constellation would would stay up for hundreds of years but presumably that constellation would have to be designed to be a bit more robust anyways as its brushed by the inner Van Ellen Belt.

    40. Re: Mixed feelings by BusDrivinBilly · · Score: 2

      I have worked with people with Microsoft, Google, AOL (when it was a thing).... And for the most part they are not any better then those guys who worked at small companies, or even in Government. Actually people from small companies, are actually much better, because they know how to do more with less.

      That has been my experience as well. People from both large companies and government tend, more often than not, to have personalities congruent with bureaucracy - there is a level of comfort and security that comes with the size and resources of the organization, but it kills drive and efficiency... In small companies, if something needs to get done and there is nobody else with experience in the task... congratulations, you just signed up for a new, probably stressful, learning experience. But shit gets done... Of course, small companies are usually little dictatorships, and if the dictator (e.g., owner) is an actual dick, then you have to deal with that.

      --
      I'm going to live forever. . . or die trying
    41. Re: Mixed feelings by Guspaz · · Score: 1

      SpaceX has said that they will be de-orbiting satellites within one year of their ending operating, rather than the 25-year recommendation. This obviously doesn't help if the satellite suffers from a failure that prevents it from de-orbiting, though the same is true with the 25-year figure.

      Considering they plan to put up more than ten thousand satellites (with IIRC 4,000+ in the initial constellation), and that they plan to frequently replace them with updated versions over time, it's probably as much about freeing up space for themselves as it is anything else.

    42. Re: Mixed feelings by Guspaz · · Score: 2

      They have two up there for testing right now. Apart from the more technical tests they've obviously done, they've specifically called out YouTube playback at 4K and Counter-Strike: Go as two use cases they specifically tested. That might sound a bit silly, but they demonstrate high throughput and low latency in applications that the general public can understand. Reportedly, the cause of the dispute is that the manager(s) wanted three more generations of test satellite before the initial launch, while Musk wanted just one more generation before the initial launch. Considering they wanted to start launching the final satellites in 2019 in order to hit the FCC deadline of having half of them (~2,200) launched by 2024, his desire to get stuff up there, even if it's not perfect, is understandable. Even if there turn out to be issues with the first generation of satellites, SpaceX is planning a very short lifespan (replacing them every 5-7 years with de-orbit within a year after that), and would have the opportunity to make improvements in subsequent satellites of the initial constellation.

    43. Re:Mixed feelings by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 1

      Oh sure, until that gamble rolls craps, THEN you are done too.

      So what you're saying is that a startup company's efforts might fail? Oh no! /s

      I would rather work for a company that is taking risks and maybe failing than work for a bureaucratic snail paced organization who eternally releases also-ran knock off products. If you want to collect a safe steady paycheck maintaining a product which is market proven and has a support contract for the next 40 years to fill out your career, that's a fine career path to choose but that's different from trying to launch a brand new category of product before the competition and define the market.

    44. Re:Mixed feelings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you think a vaccuum chamber hundreds of miles long is achievable for less cost than, say, putting down a pair of steel rails?

      as well as the way the hyperloop has been pitched as a low-capacity system. he has basically thought of the way to speed up his personal commute with no concern for scale, cost or how it would help other people. by being new and exciting it has sucked the oxygen out of the room for mass transit projects that actually work.

    45. Re:Mixed feelings by bobbied · · Score: 1

      Oh sure, until that gamble rolls craps, THEN you are done too.

      So what you're saying is that a startup company's efforts might fail? Oh no! /s

      Not at all. What I'm saying is if you choose to totally ignore the opinions of people who disagree with you and fire a bunch of people closer to the actual work getting done than you are, you send a chilling message to the rest you didn't fire.

      IF Musk fired these folks for BUDGETARY reasons, then let him say that. However, the same thing is going to happen to your work force. Layoffs are a very blunt tool, they destroy moral and culture, and should be used with care and as little as possible. You may layoff the bottom feeders, but you will lose many of your brightest and best because they have options, many of which will look more stable.

      Either way, public firings/layoffs are bad. There are better ways to jettison the dead wood and motivate the team.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    46. Re: Mixed feelings by jgtg32a · · Score: 1

      Oh man that orbit make me laugh, it looks just like the orbits I got starting KSP.

    47. Re:Mixed feelings by Harinezumi · · Score: 1

      While both A and B may be perfectly valid ways of going forward, it's important to pick a single valid way and stick with it. Constant friction and politicking between factions advocating for A and B is liable to doom a project that could have succeeded following either path.

    48. Re: Mixed feelings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are ways to do hyperloopish-type systems that can be cost effective to maintain, but the real cost, the Excavating, is a massive capital infrastructure project that really needs government funding, expecting a startup to be able to do it is fallacious.

    49. Re:Mixed feelings by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1

      So they'll only be flailing around in decaying orbits for a few years under the management of any third rate operation that can afford to pitch them into the sky.

      What could possibly go wrong?

    50. Re: Mixed feelings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope, most of them will be in an orbit of around 210 miles.

      SpaceX has two constellation applications pending FCC approval — one for a 4,425 satellite constellation operating in Ka- and Ku-band from around 1,200 kilometers, and another for 7,518 V-band satellites flying between 335 and 345 kilometers. The company says the latency of its constellation will range from 25 to 35 milliseconds, appreciably faster than that of geosynchronous satellites which usually have at least a half a second of round-trip signal delay from being 36,000 kilometers up.

    51. Re: Mixed feelings by Hodr · · Score: 1

      So I misspoke. I said first US satellite, but meant first US satellite in LEO. The explorer 1 was a MEO satellite. Explorer 7 was the first US satellite launched into LEO (in 1959) and it is still in orbit today.

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

  2. I'm here to kick ass & chew gum, & I'm out by ClarkMills · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well from my 10,000' view I would say that did look like Starlink had stalled. It certainly didn't seem to be progressing as quickly as I would have hoped. And now that SpaceX has lost some funding from the US military and Tesla wasn't bought out in the "funding secured" fiasco Elon needs to organise his future revenue streams.

    He's not getting any younger and he's still working in a car factory... (and doing a bloody good job but that's just a means to an ends).

  3. Firing managers is always a good idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But sometimes the CEO needs to go too!

    1. Re:Firing managers is always a good idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      go do some work? not unlike "human resources', but if everyone actuallly did work, noone would be around to pay for any of em and thats a fact!~ ....... thats why whenever theres no wars the banks get scared, how dare you question our perpetual tribute you heathen!!!! lol .... democraps 1/2 way to the mooon

    2. Re: Firing managers is always a good idea! by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      True. But in this case, the CEO is actively taking care of issue by going after the right ppl.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    3. Re: Firing managers is always a good idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LOL. How do we know he went after the right people?

      You blindly believe any piece of positive news that musk releases.

  4. Re:I'm here to kick ass & chew gum, & I'm by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

    He's not getting any younger and he's still working in a car factory...

    He started out as a bank manager. Poor guy is headed in the wrong direction, career-wise!

    I kid, I kid...

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  5. Re:I'm here to kick ass & chew gum, & I'm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Don't forget he's already digging underground. You can't get much lower than that, what a boring job!

    Hey Elon, have you ever considered digging geothermal boreholes?

  6. Ive worked with microsoft by Harlequin80 · · Score: 4, Informative

    And it takes them AGES to get anything approved and everything goes through 100 hands.

    It doesn't come as a surprise that short deadlines and pressure is a massive culture shock.

    1. Re:Ive worked with microsoft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The MS culture is about removing development efforts from developers to give managers a tighter control over where projects go. In turn developers only have to do a few very minor things and there are both more developers and more managers than actually required (a lot more in the latter case,) it makes it so their managers can lead in a top-down manner and actually get what they describe (most of the wiggle room developers have has been encoded into the managerial system through layers of managers deep enough that each level can actually understand their full piece of it,) but that model only really comes in handy when you're acquiring startups frequently which you aim to gut and integrate key components of into your existing systems - for actual development purposes it's such a garbage model they can mostly only get h1b's anymore (which has further amplified the effect of the management structure, in that they have to count on not having competent developers as opposed to being able to lean on them.)

    2. Re:Ive worked with microsoft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder how the culture at different business units within M$ differs. I'd guess quite a lot. For example, the Minecraft devs seem really hip, quick to react, and listen to the community. Windows dev, on the other hand, seems like what you're talking about.

    3. Re:Ive worked with microsoft by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      It's called "sharing the blame".

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  7. Forward thinking move by Chrisq · · Score: 5, Funny

    Elon Musk Shakes Up SpaceX's Starlink Satellite Division By Firing a Bunch of Managers

    Into space?

    1. Re:Forward thinking move by mentil · · Score: 1

      Not sure if future Boring Company 'human cannon' gimmick product, or prototype mass driver...

      --
      Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
    2. Re:Forward thinking move by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 2

      Elon Musk Shakes Up SpaceX's Starlink Satellite Division By Firing a Bunch of Managers

      Into space?

      Better than burying them alive with the Boring company ...

    3. Re:Forward thinking move by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think thats where he is going wrong, you need to fire the rockets.

    4. Re:Forward thinking move by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

      One way to get rid of the bodies: Put them in the trunk of your car and launch it out to the orbit of Mars.

    5. Re:Forward thinking move by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One way to get rid of the bodies: Put them in the trunk of your car and launch it out to the orbit of Mars.

      Bah, pile 'em up in a hole underneath your main thrusters and save the launch weight by incinerating them in the first few seconds of liftoff.

      No need to spend the fuel on lifting something you can reduce to vapour and ash at ignition.

  8. The Problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > A number of the managers had been hired from nearby technology giant Microsoft

    That was the problem
    Right There

    next thing you know, We'll find out there are some SCO scumm hanging around as well.

    1. Re:The Problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was thinking Boeing. There's no better way to stall your competitors' progress than to get a couple of your surplus vice presidents hired by them.

  9. Fire them all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Lazy Seattle people only want to work 100 hour weeks.

    Elon owns you now.

  10. Re:All while smoking a huge doobie by cheekyboy · · Score: 1

    Your a dick shit, all cool people LOVE good scotch, not burbon , and screw you, he who can smoke has a better brain, but Elon rarely smokes so the jokes on you.

    Now go back to your boring Ibm job in a suit.

    --
    Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
  11. bring us the anti-gravity golf cart by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the new models must be sportageous? wait along.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGh5Ry-VU_A .. fake me out with a spoon?

  12. jetsons debacle starts to bring it all home by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    sure they were 'future' but their 'space cars' were still emitting puffs of something.. & their homes, although in lower outer space, were still attached to the ground,, which we could guess was not such a great destination as before? the maid was a robot, but the dog was not?

  13. Speed is everything by nospam007 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If one woman needs 9 months to create a baby, just put 9 women on the job and it will be done in 1 month.

    1. Re:Speed is everything by mentil · · Score: 2

      That's how it works with Warlock summoning rituals, yes. Wait, that IS where babies come from, right?!
      Mommy, why'd you lie to me?!

      --
      Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
    2. Re:Speed is everything by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What if a woman tells you it should take 10 years but you have fcc approval for only six?
      Because that is more like what is happening here.

  14. Rei ? by nukenerd · · Score: 0, Troll

    I wonder if Rei was one of them. I'll look out for any change of tone.

    1. Re:Rei ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Clearly not a troll. Rei usually posts over a dozen times on any article involving Musk defending and praising the man, yet is not here today.

    2. Re:Rei ? by nukenerd · · Score: 1

      Perhaps it was Rei who modded me down, which is why he cannot post. Or maybe he is quiet because he really is one of those guys who were fired - he certainly seems to have a senior position under Musk (or is he Musk himself?). Pity, I enjoy his posts, and I must admit I was hoping for "Funny" mods ... oh well.

  15. heres a tip by cheekyboy · · Score: 1

    Ignore management.

    Fix the features you want, on your own lunch time, keep the changes 'locally stored' not checked in.

    Have your own 'version' then when they ask for those features, magically merge them in 1 hr, look like a hero.

    Sometimes, pretend that 1hr fix takes 3hrs, and do 2hrs of your own feature that a customer wants.

    --
    Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
  16. steve jobs left.... by cheekyboy · · Score: 1

    He just made sure he cant come back.

    But then again, Steve didnt invent anything and ripped everyone off.

    --
    Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
    1. Re:steve jobs left.... by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1

      Steve Jobs was fired. He was 'the founder' and often in many growing businesses, 'the founder' becomes an encumbrance.

      I've worked at companies like that, I am sure a lot of us have. Dude pops in on meetings and totally disrupts the ability to have productive discussions.

    2. Re:steve jobs left.... by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      The specifics of apple tell a different story.

      Between the Jobs periods, Apple was incredibly incompetently run (by a goddamn soda salesman).

      Look at the attempts to build a real OS (Copeland/OS8) during that period. If it hadn't been so sad, it would have been funny.

      Apple dropped apple, took over Next and ran with that. Thank dog.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    3. Re:steve jobs left.... by sfcat · · Score: 1

      Steve Jobs was fired. He was 'the founder' and often in many growing businesses, 'the founder' becomes an encumbrance.

      I've worked at companies like that, I am sure a lot of us have. Dude pops in on meetings and totally disrupts the ability to have productive discussions.

      Yes, because workers are total productive after they are laid off due to poor sales. This is probably a bad example, perhaps try again with someone who didn't save Apple and make it a trillion dollar company.

      --
      "Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
    4. Re:steve jobs left.... by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1

      You attribute a lot more of Apple's success to Jobs presence than many of us. It's simple empiricism. "Jobs present." "Jobs gone."

      There are many complex factors beyond that. The myth of Jobs does indeed live on. It's same flavor of hype as the myth of 'Apple Culture' that produced so much software engineering bullshit, notably in that time span when Jobs was not part of the company. The Smalltalk era when all the 'coolest' people had Quadras on their desk. I remember some of those people saying Ethernet was a relic, and Linux would be going nowhere.

  17. that explains the shit features by cheekyboy · · Score: 2

    Cant do anything right, but yet, some retard wants to buy Nokia, and fucks it up inc Win Mob, and gets paid millions.

    --
    Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
  18. In June by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk flew to the Seattle area in June

    So why write about it now? Shorters gotta short?

  19. Re: All while smoking a huge doobie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's casual Friday. Today I am wearing a sports jacket.

  20. Reminds of a job I had, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The sales guys took a project (and the awesome commissions) with a sick deadline - without engineering's input.
    When we were told about it and complained, "It's not out deadline, it's the customers! And if we didn't take it, someone else would have! And if you don't think you can deliver, then maybe this isn't the job for you and you don't belong here."

    Those that didn't put the stupid hours in got "didn't meet expectations" on their next review.

    After a year of 12+ hour days 7 days a week, we missed the deadline. The company got (rightfully) sued, the stock crashed and many of us jumped ship because we couldn't take the bullshit.

    My point? Musk takes on shit and makes deadlines that he knows he probably won't make but does it anyway. So, it is NOT the FCC's fault. You do NOT take work that you are not sure you can deliver.

    1. Re:Reminds of a job I had, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Like it or hate it, the attitude we're ascribing to Musk is all too common in government contracting. People don't worry so much about what they delivery in the initially promised timeframe with the assumption that they will almost certainly be granted an extension when things get tight. Often, these extensions are paid (although, that wouldn't be likely here).

    2. Re: Reminds of a job I had, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Doing a contract for somebody else is different than having regulations you must meet. Go peddle your crap elsewhere.

    3. Re:Reminds of a job I had, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      The sales guys took a project (and the awesome commissions) with a sick deadline - without engineering's input.

      Jesus, this reminds you of only one job?

      I've lost track of how many times I've seen that, and by the time the project is falling apart, the sales guy has gotten his commission check and moved on to lying to other customers.

      Hell, one time one of the products I maintained got sold to a customer for ... well, who knows, actually.

      We got a support call, and it went something like:

      Customer: So, we're trying to re-enfrobulate the flux capacitor, but it isn't working.

      Us: Flux capacitor? It's an add-on to manage the life-cycle of web pages, it doesn't do flux capacitors.

      Customer: We were promised something which will re-enfrobulate the flux capacitor.

      Us: Ummm, nope, it can't do that.

      Customer: OK, we need to file a bug report because it can't re-enfrobulate the flux capacitor.

      Us: Ummm .. it's never going to re-enfrobulate the flux capacitor, it wasn't built for anything related to flux capacitors, and we know nothing about those. Are you sure you have the right product?

      Eventually the angry customer was passed on up the food chain to yell at whoever they pleased.

      Eventually management comes around and says "why aren't you helping them with the re-enfrobulation of the flux capacitor? We now have an angry customer!!"

      Eventually one of the dev managers had to quite forcefully explain that the customer has been outright lied to, the product cannot and never will assist in the re-enfrobulation of a flux capacitor, and that we should not be getting harassed.

      Did anyone ever go to the sales guy and say "what the hell are you doing"? Nope, he kept going on, and 3 months later ... after he was informed via several mechanisms that the product did not, and would not do what he was claiming it did and that he needed to stop doing it ... we got another call from another customer bitching that they could not re-enfrobulate their flux capacitors.

      Sales people are dangerous on two fronts, they'll outright lie to suit their purposes, and they're completely oblivious to what is true and false, and will say things they believe to be true but which are horribly false.

      Never trust a sales person for anything technology related, and never allow them to ever see a demo of a proof of concept, because they'll have it sold within a week even if you say "this is years away from being anything real". They will literally say and do anything to get that commission, and don't care what they leave in their wake.

    4. Re: Reminds of a job I had, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can vouch for that, attempting to snare 2 huge government contracts by my smallish company our execs always rationalized that we would get extensions or we could peddle the contract to some other outfit.

    5. Re: Reminds of a job I had, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've learned to keep mouth shut around sales and marketing, first the dont understand second they have no interest in what a nerd/geek/tech person thinks is cool. Keep your excitment amongst your peers and friends

  21. Do you want it to work or probably work? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Thats where those extra moneys and hours go. Needs must when the devil drives.

    1. Re:Do you want it to work or probably work? by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Probably work" is enough. He hired Microsoft managers, he must have prepared for "we'll fix it after delivery" processes.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:Do you want it to work or probably work? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If these were Microsoft managers from the Windows Vista or Windows 8 era, the project will go years over schedule and STILL be buggy on launch.

  22. Re:All while smoking a huge doobie by elrous0 · · Score: 1

    He also fired his entire house staff after specifically telling them NO MORE WIRE HANGERS!!!

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  23. Re:All while smoking a huge doobie by Aighearach · · Score: 3, Informative

    Your a dick shit

    "You're"

  24. Re: All while smoking a huge doobie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    *dipshit

  25. Heads on spikes for the rest of SpaceX by mykepredko · · Score: 1

    This was my biggest surprise in the article. While I know many people who have worked for Microsoft and can't disparage their technical skills, I do know that their management structure and culture is not something that you could not tolerate in a fast paced/startup organization.

    I wonder if one of the purposes of these firings was a warning to other organizations within SpaceX and help set the expectation that Mr. Musk wants things fast and right the first time.

    --
    Mimetics Inc. Twitter
    1. Re:Heads on spikes for the rest of SpaceX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seriously. You don't want anything from Microsoft in your organisation, neither their management structure, culture or (lack of) ethics of any variety. If you're hiring people who are dyed in the wool Microsofties, you *will* get what you deserve.

  26. Re: All while smoking a huge doobie by Type44Q · · Score: 1

    dick shit

    Is it supposed to do that?? I strongly recommend seeing a urologist...

  27. Re:All while smoking a huge doobie by sfcat · · Score: 1

    all cool people LOVE good scotch, not burbon

    You are doubly wrong about this. 1) scotch is for rich assholes who think spending a lot on something means its better and 2) bourbon (learn to spell cheekyboy) is the hot hipster spirit now, not scotch. This isn't the 80's

    --
    "Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
  28. Re: All while smoking a huge doobie by Type44Q · · Score: 1
    You're talking out your ass; a good single malt scotch will always rule in that arena.

    (This is coming from someone who seldom drinks and detests both whisky and whiskey: if I want to wipe-out the beneficial bacteria in my guts, I reach for the 100% "puro de agave")

  29. Iridium did it by spinitch · · Score: 1

    Iridium launched and had an operational global network in a fairly timely manner. Quite an engineering accomplishment but The revenue generation failed miserably since coverage only line of sight with a big handset and low bandwidth. Most users were better off with GSM land site services.

    1. Re:Iridium did it by Guspaz · · Score: 1

      The counter-point is that after Iridium's debt was erased, they became a profitable company and have launched their new "NEXT" constellation to replace the old one (65 launched to date, the final 10 launching next month). The new constellation cost them ~$2.9 billion USD (2.1 for the satellites, 0.8 for the launches), which is something like half or two thirds of the cost of their original constellation adjusted for inflation. The new constellation can also probably serve a much broader market due to higher capacity allowing more scale.

  30. Re: I'm here to kick ass & chew gum, & I'm by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    How do you figure that SX lost military funding? He applied for some that was designed to get competition going in launchers that run from about 15 -50 tonnes to leo. Bfr was way too big for that and would not help create new competition.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  31. Re: I'm here to kick ass & chew gum, & I'm by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    I'm amazed so few have hit that. We need Geothermal HVAC and electricity. Dandelion Geothermal is great for HVAC, but we still do not have any company chasing down electricity from it.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  32. Re:Monumental accomplishments by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    How exactly did they steal billions of dollars? Last I checked, they took a contract to launch stuff and then built a rocket to launch the stuff. Isn't that how capitalism is supposed to work?

    "Unlimited budget" my ass...

  33. How many now are inspired to... by 3seas · · Score: 1

    Invest in SpaceX?
    https://www.fool.com/investing...

  34. where did the fired managers come from? by p51d007 · · Score: 0

    Yeah, it said some came from MS but, wonder how many came that were ex-NASA or other ex-government? Government employees typically never care about two things. 1. Deadlines 2. Budgets They work "for the government" and their unlimited resources (taxpayers) and never worry about performance as they usually have to kill someone to be fired (except for politicians.)

  35. Re:All while smoking a huge doobie by k6mfw · · Score: 1

    ... telling them NO MORE WIRE HANGERS!!!

    This has gots to be the most off-the-wall comparison of two different kinds of people ever.

    --
    mfwright@batnet.com
  36. Re: All while smoking a huge doobie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're talking out your ass; a good single malt scotch will always rule in that arena.

    Meh, I'll take a cheap bourbon any day over an allegedly 'good' scotch.

    Scotch tastes like burning and I've never been able to get interested in that peaty flavour. It tastes terrible to me.

    Of course, real men drink grappa, the original jet fuel. ;-) [And I know old Italian men who pull an 'ick' face when I say I enjoy grappa]

  37. Oh, right.... by whitroth · · Score: 1

    Firing managers who weren't pushing an "agressive enough development schedule".

    Also known as a death march, and upper management with the perception of reality Trumpolini has - "come on, all you need to do is move your mouse and do a few clickes, and your program's done, right?"

    Clearly, Musk is of the opinion that if you work for him, his wants are your entire life, you have no life (nor do you deserve one) outside of work.

    Worked a death march for Ameritech in the mid-nineties. My late wife was only semi-joking, halfway trough those two years, when she talked about suing Ameritech for alienation of affection. Unfuck you, Dick Notebart.

  38. Re:All while smoking a huge doobie by AlwinBarni · · Score: 1

    and swigging down a bottle of scotch. ...

    Him smoking dope has been investigated and debunked - he was offered on the radio, tested and said he doesn't like it, all people remember now is his photo with a dope - he is however a relaxed man (well mostly).

    ... HE!DA!MAN! Vote Trump/Putin in 2020!

    Don't you mean Putin/Trump?
    ;-)
    3...2...1...

  39. Re:All while smoking a huge doobie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not photo, video, and audio, and he was partaking as a champion bogart.

  40. Re: I'm here to kick ass & chew gum, & I'm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The air-force contract isn't really about ensuring competition, if it were Blue Origin would have gotten a much larger slice of the pie (they got 22%). It's really about keeping the defense contractors in the game for a little longer despite their failing business plans and aging rocket designs. Omega MAY have a future as a overly expensive rapid response launch vehicle (its mostly SRB) but I have a very hard time believing that Vulcan will see much demand. Blue Origin is about the only one that has any chance of competing with SpaceX in a real world cost/reliability basis and that is a pretty slim hope if they don't start making some serious headway.

  41. Re: All while smoking a huge doobie by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    There is nothing stupider (except our regular Trump troll) than arguing over matters of taste.

    IMHO Bushmills' single malt.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  42. But if 1,000 babies were expected from Space-X, by King_TJ · · Score: 0

    and they just waited around with 1,000 women on the payroll in order to achieve it. that wouldn't work so well if some of the women weren't even pregnant after all, and others were prone to miscarriages for medical reasons.

    That's more like the situation here .... They can't get a project going in time to get thousands of small satellites in low space orbit if a big number of their engineers tasked with the project are still of the mentality of going much slower and reducing risk of a failed satellite to as near 0 as possible (based on the more traditional satellite launch where one big, costly one is counted on to do a job in the same orbit as other big, costly ones owned by other people).

  43. Good riddance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    People in WA state are complete loony-toons.

  44. Re: All while smoking a huge doobie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    *bourbon

  45. Re: All while smoking a huge doobie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    *daughterwife

  46. Yay, boo! by Trogre · · Score: 1

    Yay, he's kicking out a layer of useless managers who were holding up actual work getting done.

    Boo, he's gone and installed new ones.

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  47. Oh Great. by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 1

    Now that Elon isn't spending so much time screwing things up at Tesla it looks like he's spending more time over at SpaceX. Crap! Things were going so well over there too. Elon is good for getting projects started and setting the goals for his companies but he should be kept well away from the daily running of them (and away from Twitter).

    1. Re:Oh Great. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Elon spent so much time screwing things up at Tesla that they exceeded their expectations for this quarter. Any evidence that firing those managers isn't good for SpaceX?

      You're probably right that he should be kept away from Twitter, but the same goes for everyone really.

  48. Re: I'm here to kick ass & chew gum, & I'm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There should be at least some usable heat in the depths of Mars too. Some low maintenance power solutions for those sand-stormy months would be nice.