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SpaceX alums are branching out and shaping the startup economy

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191–200 of 283 posts

Re: SpaceX alums are branching out and shaping the startup economy

#191
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Googler here. If you work at a big tech company you can improve the products used by millions if not billions of people. I find that very rewarding.

I guess that's one way to delude yourself. I'm just here (different big tech company) to get the biggest paycheck for the least amount of harm I could inflict on the world.

You can measure improvements. You don't have to guess. However, I understand that a lot of work can't easily be evaluated for user impact.

Re: SpaceX alums are branching out and shaping the startup economy

#194

Anecdotal, but: Startup I worked at hired a bunch of SpaceX and other musk company employees as middle management, during the hyper growth phase and every single one of them was simply awful. Some were just abusive managers, many were just not that effective. The worst one was a manager that would swoop down with heroics, take credit for other people's work, not support reports on ideas you had, played the blame game…

Anecdotal, but I’ve found many people who complain about abusive managers are doing a terrible job and are looking for any excuse to be a victim or explain why their crap work is not appreciated.

Misunderstood genius syndrome.

Re: SpaceX alums are branching out and shaping the startup economy

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the founder of a 1 person company. If the company ever grows to 2+ people, I hope to give my teammates the freedom I wish I had as an employee.

That naive utopian attitude will change as soon as you have 2+ people.

Yes! When you think, that these resources each cost you 80000€ a year, you want to use them really well and get some serious output.

Re: SpaceX alums are branching out and shaping the startup economy

#197
post #3

I wish it was more like this at existing companies. Why everyone isn't leaving Adobe, Meta, and Google to found their own AI / generative media startups astounds me. If you work in our incredibly lucrative field, you may be able to afford a few quarters of leaning into risk. Startups are like a brush fire. Old incumbents have so much legacy code and cruft that nimble upstarts killing them is healthy . The "SpaceX dia…

Starting your own thing or being an owner is not for everyone and doesn’t always live up to expectations. There is more stress, you are the person of last resort for fixing problems and need to be able to lead a team well if the company does well. There is nothing wrong with forgoing that, taking a salary and living your life when being an owner or going to a start up will bleed into your personal life.

Re: SpaceX alums are branching out and shaping the startup economy

#198
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some were just abusive managers > They were basically office politics machines, optimized to promote themselves at the expense of everyone else > Obviously this isn’t unique Most middle management is like that. You must be extremely lucky to work people who are not like these. During my 20 years I had maybe 3 people out of the 100 I have worked with who were decent and looked out for the people who they managed.

Still anecdotal but most of the managers I've worked with were very much decent people. Not all of them extremely efficient, but definitely decent.

Curious, but what kind of companies were these?

I have a similar experience but haven’t worked for any big tech or name brand companies. The vast majority were in the health tech space with a smattering doing things that would be considered ethically sound (ie. Solar energy marketplace).

I have had a couple nightmare supervisors who were obvious sociopaths, and have several who were incompetent, but for the most part only worked for folks with high EQ.

Re: SpaceX alums are branching out and shaping the startup economy

#199
- it's frankly impossible to pick investment winners - so a more sensible approach might be to provide smaller investments to more people. Governments basically do this by providing schooling and health care to children till age of 18 or so. I mean the RoI on teaching Elon to read was fairly high. I wonder if his primary school teacher could get a lien on future earnings?

- if MMT is right, then the problem is not limited capital but limited investment opportunities- but if we invest in everyone - what does that mean or look like?

Re: SpaceX alums are branching out and shaping the startup economy

#200

- it's frankly impossible to pick investment winners - so a more sensible approach might be to provide smaller investments to more people. Governments basically do this by providing schooling and health care to children till age of 18 or so. I mean the RoI on teaching Elon to read was fairly high. I wonder if his primary school teacher could get a lien on future earnings? - if MMT is right, then the problem is not li…

> I wonder if his primary school teacher could get a lien on future earnings?

It’s not the primary school teacher that made the investment. It’s whomever was bankrolling salaries and expenses for teachers, cafeteria workers, buildings to house the activity …

The “lien” on future income would likely be “taxes” (assuming public school here.)

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