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