[SilverBirch]

This is a common fallacy. Modern businesses are enormous and succeed or fail for all sorts of reasons. Trying to figure out who is actually responsible for the success of a company is difficult. Just because a company is successful, doesn't mean every employee of the company is great. It's essential to understand what the dynamics of an industry is in order to understand why a company is successful. In the case of SpaceX there's no doubt there are some people there who are great engineers. But that's probably not why they beat Boeing.

[b33j0r]

A real-life reusable rocket that lands back on the pad was an exciting project to be a part of, no matter if you were doing it in a virtual sweatshop.

I could see being part of that ultimate goal as being a motivation to work for the aliens from the Simpsons (don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos!)

But given the progressive nature of the projects and “for all of humanity” vision that was presented, I have always been disappointed to hear these things about the operation. I’m glad I didn’t sign up, and it was tempting.

Look at outcomes. The whole thing was _actually_ about cornering access to LEO, the whole time. And it largely worked.

[hikawaii]

They've only "cornered" access to LEO because they vastly outperform the competition in almost every conceivable category. That should get you a short term monopoly.

[b33j0r]

Yep. Yep. and Yeah… I didn’t quite succeed at making that sound like I was still a fan. I’d still work on these things given an opportunity. For sure.

I guess around the time some of these crunchtimes have been reported, I was in some other crunchtime too!

My bias: “hey remember when we sat around and played foosball for lunch? We actually got a lot done anyway”