[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.)