[ar7hur]

I still think it's impossible to run two companies that both require so much attention, given their stage.

Yes Jobs had Apple and Pixar, and Musk has Tesla and SpaceX. But both Pixar and SpaceX don't really require day-to-day CEO attention, they follow long term plans (movies, rockets). That's really different from Square and Twitter, which are both, in their own ways, in a kind of trouble.

I'd love to be proven wrong though -- so good luck, Jack!

[etr71115]

Jobs didn't run Pixar. He was a principal investor and Chairman of the Board, negotiating a few milestones like the sale to Disney, but most of his focus was on NeXT and then Apple. Ed Catmull and John Lasseter ran Pixar's day-to-day ops.

Creativity, Inc. by Catmull covers all this. It paints a better portrait of Jobs than Isaacson's Jobs biography. Plus, you get to read about the history of computer graphics and Toy Story.

[skrish]

On a sidenote, I found Creativity Inc., to be a fantastic book about how to build a company. I find it very insightful.

I love this particular chapter where he discusses about how you feel like you don't "belong" in that role of a leader within your own company, imagining that the leader is supposed to have some perceived aggressive characteristics of your ideal leader.

But all along, you may have been the right person to make sense of everything happening in that group and it is very important to let go of those inhibitions and just focus on the job to be done. As long as we have a group that is passionate and motivated to do the job and focused on customers, you are doing alright.

It was beautifully narrated by him and I loved it. It is something you experience as a startup founder, bringing along smarter folks into the group and be humbled by everyday experiences.

[etr71115]

I could not agree more.

[Osmium]

> SpaceX [doesn't] really require day-to-day CEO attention

Really? What's special about SpaceX that it doesn't require a full-time CEO? I'd imagine, considering the scope of their task and the scale of their ambition, it'd require more hands-on time than most.

[mattzito]

I'm not the GP, but I think its' not a very full-time role because movement is slow and progressive. They have the next 18 months of what the company is going to do locked down and defined. I would also suspect they have strong 2nd level exec leadership to handle day to day. Elon only needs to get involved on big strategic decisions and crises, plus routine periodic budget and financial assessments.

I'm sure he's still working more than 40 hours a week across all of his companies, but I don't think he needs to be in the room for every major meeting.

[loganu]

From what I've read in the Musk biography and elsewhere, he is involved in really really low level decisions, to the point that he's been labelled a "nano-manager." Surely he's not involved in absolutely every decision, but by all accounts he is much, much closer to the details than you would expect a CEO to be. Especially when it comes to design/ engineering details.

[ma2rten]

I've read on Glassdoor that Musk interviews every interview candidate.

[kmfrk]

IPOs didn't require the roadshow they do nowadays either, which will keep Jack well occupied, when Square goes public.

[Jonovono]

Kanye West: Music and fashion :)

[PMan74]

and soon to be President of the USA!

[seiji]

Musk lives in LA and takes his private jet up to San Jose every week to work at Tesla (then back to LA to work at SpaceX).

If anything, Musk has two full time jobs (priorities: 1. SpaceX; 2. Tesla; 3. everything else) and actually does 80-100 hours per week of work. He's not out creating vanity designer clothing lines in his spare time.

You can't create world class products or companies while maintaing a silly "because i'm so special i'll only work 6 hours a day, 4 days a week, 1 week a month" mindset.

[toomuchtodo]

Is there any reason that Musk couldn't colocate SpaceX and Tesla in Freemont instead of SpaceX being located in Hawthorne? What's the benefit of SpaceX being in the LA area?

[derrekl]

Los Angeles has a very large aerospace industry and long history in it. Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and SpaceX all have a large presence in Los Angeles's South Bay. It's not as large as it was during the "cold war" but a lot of skilled employees still live in the area.

[hoorayimhelping]

JPL as well.

[seiji]

SpaceX is located on a campus previously created for building aircraft, so it seems they are where they need to be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX#Facilities

Also, that part of LA (hawthorne, el segundo), has a history of aviation and rocketry companies, so it has better facilities and a larger built-in talent pool too.

They do co-locate some operations (tesla designer lives in the SpaceX office, not the tesla office), but it makes sense for Tesla, as a consumer brand, to be located in the most densely concentrated location of multimillionaires and billionaires in the world.

[tcdent]

Los Angeles in general is pretty supportive of aviation. Not just adjacent to LAX, where you'll find SpaceX and Raytheon, but throughout the North from Pasadena into the West valley.

The trend has been decreasing for a long time, but amazingly there are still a lot of activity in aerospace. Most of the big names have left and their campuses turned into shopping malls, but there are still a lot of small specialty shops working on prototype parts.

[aswanson]

He has stated that most of the experienced aerospace engineers live there and it would be a hard sell to get many of them to relocate.

[misiti3780]

"because i'm so special i'll only work 6 hours a day, 4 days a week, 1 week a month"

generally curious, where did you read about Dorsey having this mindset?

[loganu]

There have been lots of articles mentioning Dorsey taking sewing classes, sketching classes, going sailing, etc while running Twitter. (And in moments that outsiders consider crises, and employees were working longer hours to hit deadlines). The 6/4/1 is an exaggeration, but still...

[umeshunni]

here: http://valleywag.gawker.com/jack-dorsey-screwed-his-friends-...

Dorsey often tried to act as if he were in control, posturing that his actions were all part of a bigger plan, but employees saw him frequently pacing in frustration around South Park. He also habitually left around 6 p.m. for drawing classes, hot yoga sessions and a course at a local fashion school. (He wanted to learn to make an A-line skirt and, eventually, jeans.)

[presty]

again with this? jobs was never ceo of pixar...

[hellofunk]

Hm, Pixar wiki says this:

Steve Jobs (February 24, 1955 - October 5, 2011) was one of the three founding fathers of Pixar Animation Studios. A business magnate and inventor, he was the former CEO of Apple Inc. and Pixar Animation Studios.

[ksherlock]

From a 1997 Pixar SEC filing:

"Mr. Jobs is a co-founder of Pixar and has served as its Chairman since March 1991, as its Chief Executive Officer since February 1986 and in the Office of the President since February 1995. He has been a director of Pixar since February 1986 and served as Chairman from February 1986 to November 1988."

[icebraining]

I don't think that Wiki is official; that said, the NYTimes, CNN, Forbes and others all claim he was CEO of Pixar.

[davidbarker]

Here's a video of the interview with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter from Charlie Rose. He introduces Jobs as "Pixar's chairman and CEO".

https://youtu.be/w0Vvl_ByCXM?t=1m44s

[talmand]

I'll give him the CEO, but I disagree with the founder status. He was an investor, not a founder.

[sgustard]

Quoting http://www.pixar.com/about/Our-Story

>Steve Jobs purchases the Computer Graphics Division from George Lucas and establishes an independent company to be christened "Pixar."

[talmand]

Yep, he "purchased" it. What became know as Pixar was indeed the people at the Computer Graphics Division at LucasFilm. They are the ones I call founder.

[samstave]

My understanding was that he purchased Pixar from Lucas for $10mm when Lucas didn't think that there was going to be a very lucrative animation business.

This was told to me by employees of ILM when I was building the letterman digital arts center.

[talmand]

Yes, those people founded what became Pixar. Jobs bought it from Lucas.

I'm going by the books I've read about Pixar written by employees or authors that interviewed employees.

[georgeecollins]

I think it is because Pixar wasn't originally an animation studio. In particular they didn't intend to produce movies themselves. When they became one, he was a founder.

[talmand]

No, they were a part of a company that was almost a studio in of itself. The people that started that division with Lucas, that was eventually purchased by Jobs, wanted to make movies from the beginning. It was their stated goal at the time and they repeat the claim today. It was Jobs that had other ideas for the company, people, and technology before Toy Story came to be.