# Liftoff  ## Metadata - Author: [[Eric Berger]] - Full Title: Liftoff - Category: #books ## Highlights - With the Starship project, SpaceX has returned to its earliest, scrappy days when it strove to build the Falcon 1 rocket against all odds. Then, as now, Musk pushed his employees relentlessly to move fast, to innovate, to test, and to fly. The DNA of the earliest days, of the Falcon 1 rocket, lives on in South Texas today at the Starship factory. ([Location 55](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B088FQK2K2&location=55)) - Tags: [[blue]] - The first step toward solving the multiplanetary problem, then, was bringing down the cost of the launch. If NASA and private companies spent less money getting satellites and people into space, they could do more things in space. And more commerce would open still more opportunities. This awakening galvanized Musk into action. ([Location 178](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B088FQK2K2&location=178)) - Tags: [[blue]] - As he looked around the table during the meeting at the Renaissance Hotel, therefore, Musk searched among the doubters to find the few believers. Musk wanted people who embraced a challenge rather than shrank from it, optimists rather than pessimists. ([Location 190](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B088FQK2K2&location=190)) - Tags: [[blue]] - Because they were spending his money, Musk gave employees an incentive to be frugal with it. Although Musk retained a majority of shares, early hires received large chunks of stock. When an employee saved the company $100,000 by building a part in-house instead of ordering one from a traditional supplier, everyone benefited. ([Location 228](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B088FQK2K2&location=228)) - Tags: [[blue]] - They spent their long and often intense days together in close confines. Musk kept a mostly laissez faire attitude toward his workplace. He offered just a few hard and fast rules: no strong smells, no flickering lights, and no loud noises in the cubicle farm they all shared. Often, they worked until well after midnight. Bjelde, slumped under his desk, recalls being kicked awake on more than one occasion to help finish writing a proposal. ([Location 245](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B088FQK2K2&location=245)) - Tags: [[blue]] - Their close and nearly continual proximity led to easy collaboration. The team was so small that everybody knew everybody, and each employee pitched in as needed with other departments. ([Location 248](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B088FQK2K2&location=248)) - Tags: [[blue]] - These kinds of trips, of which there were many, helped Musk bond with his senior leaders. He could be difficult to work for, certainly. But his early hires could immediately see the benefits of working for someone who wanted to get things done and often made decisions on the spot. When Musk decided that Spincraft could make good tanks for a fair price, that was it. No committees. No reports. Just, done. ([Location 288](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B088FQK2K2&location=288)) - Tags: [[blue]] - But most of all, he channeled a preternatural force to move things forward. Elon Musk just wants to get shit done. ([Location 296](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B088FQK2K2&location=296)) - Tags: [[blue]] - One of Musk’s most valuable skills was his ability to determine whether someone would fit this mold. His people had to be brilliant. They had to be hardworking. And there could be no nonsense. ([Location 299](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B088FQK2K2&location=299)) - Tags: [[blue]] - “There are a ton of phonies out there, and not many who are the real deal,” Musk said of his approach to interviewing engineers. “I can usually tell within fifteen minutes, and I can for sure tell within a few days of working with them.” Musk made hiring a priority. He personally met with every single person the company hired through the first three thousand employees. It required late nights and weekends, but he felt it important to get the right people for his company. ([Location 301](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B088FQK2K2&location=301)) - Tags: [[blue]] - Musk differed from his competitors in another, important way—failure was an option. At most other aerospace companies, no employee wanted to make a mistake, lest it reflect badly on an annual performance review. Musk, by contrast, urged his team to move fast, build things, and break things. At some government labs and large aerospace firms, an engineer may devote a career to creating stacks of paperwork without ever touching hardware. The engineers designing the Falcon 1 rocket spent much of their time on the factory floor, testing ideas, rather than debating them. Talk less, do more. ([Location 360](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B088FQK2K2&location=360)) - Tags: [[blue]] - There are basically two approaches to building complex systems like rockets: linear and iterative design. The linear method begins with an initial goal, and moves through developing requirements to meet that goal, followed by numerous qualification tests of subsystems before assembling them into the major pieces of the rocket, such as its structures, propulsion, and avionics. With linear design, years are spent engineering a project before development begins. This is because it is difficult, time-consuming, and expensive to modify a design and requirements after beginning to build hardware. The iterative approach begins with a goal and almost immediately leaps into concept designs, bench tests, and prototypes. The mantra with this approach is build and test early, find failures, and adapt. This is what SpaceX engineers and technicians did on the factory floor in El Segundo, and it allowed them to capture basic flaws with early prototypes, fix their designs, and build successively more “finished” iterations. ([Location 364](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B088FQK2K2&location=364)) - Tags: [[blue]] - Failure was an option at SpaceX, partly because the boss often asked the impossible of his team. In meetings, Musk might ask his engineers to do something that, on the face of it, seemed absurd. When they protested that it was impossible, Musk would respond with a question designed to open their minds to the problem, and potential solutions. He would ask, “What would it take?” ([Location 377](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B088FQK2K2&location=377)) - Tags: [[blue]] - The last thing Musk ever wanted to hear from an employee was “But that’s how it’s always been done.” ([Location 395](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B088FQK2K2&location=395)) - Tags: [[blue]] - During one early meeting at El Segundo, some former Boeing and Lockheed workers began bantering back and forth about their old companies, and the merits of how things had been done. Musk raised his voice to end the discussion. “You work at SpaceX now,” he sternly reminded them. “You bring that up one more time, and we’re going to have serious problems.” The message was clear. Wherever they had come from, whatever they had learned at those places, they were now part of the SpaceX team. Musk had hired them all, personally, to change the world. They had a job to do. A very hard one. ([Location 399](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B088FQK2K2&location=399)) - Tags: [[blue]]