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SpaceX alums are branching out and shaping the startup economy

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

#141
post #106

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…

VCs and other startups love to shower these people with money like they’re the second coming only to find out that their success was purely circumstantial and mostly a confluence of a ton of factors that had nothing to do with them like luck and timing.

The VC model is invest in a bunch of companies, with the idea that one goes to the moon and the rest fail. One success pays for a lot of failures.

So if you personally see a lot of failures, that doesn’t mean the VC model is failing. Although most VC funds lose money (there’s a power law for their returns too!)

Paul Graham wrote a scathing summary of VCs, and one reason for YC is to be more honest and fair (YC still aims for capitalist gains, they just play the game differently). http://paulgraham.com/venturecapital.html He also wrote that it is near impossible to pick investment winners (which is what VCs are “supposed” to do).

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

#142

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…

> 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, etc. Also anecdotal, but this is identical to my experience with a handful of ex-employees of some Elon companies. They were basically office politics machines, optimized to promote themse…

[deleted]

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

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should pay your employees their market rate. Your risk of going out of business is higher is what warrants the bigger equity. You spend all this time and salary to build a team that works like a well-oiled machine. It would be a shame to lose them to someone who simply pays the market rate. Your team is likely going to be working more than overtime helping you build your dream. You should match what FAANG's payin…

Yeah, I definitely agree. I'd rather pay a premium to get the best employee and take a discount myself, rather than pay someone below market while paying myself some absurd salary. Frankly I don't care what I pay myself as long as I can afford an apartment and groceries, and so far this has worked out well, as I love the employees we have. If I were exfiltrating a bunch of money for my own salary we would have been o…

As a spectator to your conversation, I have to say I like and agree with your general philosophy. While I can't quite put a finger on what I like, I think the gist is operating under assumption of how the world, finances, and incentives SHOULD work, as opposed to how they currently work. And also maybe some dose of minimalism(?). Either way, I wish you all the best in building your startup!

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

#144

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…

At my previous company they hired a guy from amazon (aws) to be our new manager.

He sucked.

Overnight he implemented all the bullshit meetings they had over there. At said meetings he wouldn't listen what people said, and he'd forget what tasks he'd tell people to focus, so the next meeting he'd scold people for wasting company time doing stuff that was not the task they had been assigned.

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

#145
post #59
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…

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.

Another googler here.

I don't enjoy the work at Google as much due to bureaucracy, pace of work and politics. I previously worked at a startup and there is a stark difference in the work culture and environment. I'm working with the exact same team as that at the startup (we got acquired by Google). The same people i enjoyed working with, I absolutely hate it now.

Nothing ever gets done, even when it is possible to do so. Folks around here call it perf-farming.

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

#146
post #44
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do Elon's companies: https://www.engadget.com/tesla-sues-engineer-dojo-trade-secr... https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-lawsuit-supercomputer-... https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/20/tesla-sues-former-employee... --- I think the key is that these startups aren't competing with SpaceX, but are rather SpaceX-adjacent. There is also a uniqueness to the industry that SpaceX operates in, in that everyone is basically t…

>> My company immediately sues anyone who leave to join a competitor > So do Elon's companies Sorry to be pedantic, but there is a big difference between "sues anyone", and Tesla suing what must be a small percentage of leavers. And your links describe lawsuits not for "leaving and joining a competitor", but for sabotage and trying to walk out with trade secrets, schematics and code.

> And your links describe lawsuits not for "leaving and joining a competitor", but for sabotage and trying to walk out with trade secrets, schematics and code.

To be pedantic, those are just claims Tesla made, and the articles even mention other IP-related suits by Elon's companies that were dropped because they were nonsense.

Even the first link about a $1 million lawsuit over "stolen trade secrets" was actually the farce regarding Martin Tripp. Musk retaliated against Tripp for whistleblowing on safety at Tesla, and then tried to have him murdered by the cops by calling 911 and accusing Tripp of being a mass shooter.

See also: When Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower[1]:

> It started with a Twitter meltdown and ended with a fake mass shooter. A former security manager says the company also spied and spread misinformation.

I'm not going to take Tesla at their word when they have an extensive history of using bogus lawsuits to intimidate people.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon...

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

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX is private and Elon isn’t exactly known for paying a ton so no?

Actually yes. SpaceX doesn’t pay a ton in salary, but their equity options have been incredibly valuable, so overall compensation has been good. If they’ve been around for a while and have had time for their shares to vest, they’re probably millionaires. SpaceX is worth a ton of money, and even tho SpaceX is private, they do regular private sales so employees can sell their shares. The early employees in particular h…

early SpaceX also had a very low salary cap.

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

#148
post #106

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…

VCs and other startups love to shower these people with money like they’re the second coming only to find out that their success was purely circumstantial and mostly a confluence of a ton of factors that had nothing to do with them like luck and timing.

Strange generallization. In any environment there are always those that don't belong.

There must be some double digit percentage of them who are genuinelly sculpted in specific way in that harsh working environment. Or you are saying that stressor doesn't make you better in any way (if you survive it).

Probability looks higher that you will find such people at ex-Space X group then other more relaxed and/or bureaucratically leaden companies, IMO.

They shower them with money because, as always, they don't know who is genuine and who is not, only results will tell but looks like a solid bet anyway, more then showering with money random engineer of ex anything.

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

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It remains to be seen if this is true when interest rates aren’t at nearly 0%.

It's hard to blame interest rates for all the wealth in tech when you look at all the new products and innovations that have happened over the last 10 years.

Can you list some? I see the last ten years as a great failure in tech following the decade of real innovation and paradigm change that came before it.

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

#150

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…

> 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, etc. Also anecdotal, but this is identical to my experience with a handful of ex-employees of some Elon companies. They were basically office politics machines, optimized to promote themse…

> 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.

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