My original reply was to a comment saying Musk is just a money bag. The second comment I replied to was saying that Elon "giving himself" the Chief Engineer title doesn't change anything, effectively carrying over the original claim.
"Chief/Lead Engineer" I guess this can mean a lot of different things. Reason I put "giving himself" to quotes, is because I've been in a situation in a few companies where titles weren't really much of a thing but if someone naturally ended up being in a leading role they would start to be called with such a title.
Given that Elon likes to be hands-on, obviously has a lot of agency, is motivated, and works long hours while shuttling around in his jet every few days (you can hear him saying summaries of his % time used by whichever company in many interviews), I really don't see it impossible that he's grown to the shoes being discussed. I haven't heard anyone saying he's the lead engineer at multiple companies at the same time, though he probably has had periods of putting a lot more time to a specific company, like with Tesla during the over-automation production hell.
I think this comes down to subjectivity and personal experience of what the title pertains. My experience as a Lead Engineer in software has come naturally as I have developed base of tech before others joined and cared for it, including reading most of other people's commits while working 1.5-2x the hours of others. This is in smaller companies. Probably in a bigger company, person with the title would use 70% of their time doing code review and attending meetings, working in a more tiered structure and being less hands-on.
Can I ask why you think the Everyday Astronaut's interview (series) _specifically_ makes Musk incompatible with the "Lead Engineer" title?
You're being repeatedly downvoted throughout this thread for both sycophancy and obnoxiously narrow reading of peoples comments.
The actual comment you originally replied to:
"Thousands of employees build it. In the case of SpaceX and Tesla, they frequently build it in spite of Musk, dedicating time and effort to preventing him from screwing things up when he breezes in."
From your own links:
"We’ll have, you know, a group of people sitting in a room, making a key decision. And everybody in that room will say, you know, basically, “We need to turn left,” and Elon will say “No, we’re gonna turn right.” You know, to put it in a metaphor. And that’s how he thinks. He’s like, “You guys are taking the easy way out; we need to take the hard way.”
And, uh, I’ve seen that hurt us before, I’ve seen that fail (Emphasis mine), but I’ve also seen— where nobody thought it would work— it was the right decision. It was the harder way to do it, but in the end, it was the right thing."
Stopped clocks are also occasionally right, but frequently wrong.
> You're being repeatedly downvoted throughout this thread for both sycophancy and obnoxiously narrow reading of peoples comments.
This argument is extremely funny in retrospect, with one of your posts being totally dead. I hope you adjusted at least some of your priors after this . . .
>You're being repeatedly downvoted throughout this thread
FYI, there's more upvotes than downvotes in total. The most noted visible one was at ~5 then magically dropped to -1. Even though it obviously has merit and hosts a lot of conversation below it, which makes the downvotes a bit suspect.
>narrow reading of peoples comments.
This seems like that KGB tactic of turning one's argument on its head. What is actually happening is I'm putting way more effort to answering to ill-informed comments because I just don't like watching obvious lies, even if comforting to some, on the web. This is more draining than giving I can say ...
>The actual comment you originally replied t....
-Nnope. You picked the subheading right after the main lie: "Musk doesn't build any of that, he's just a source of cash, like a bank crossed with a toddler."
>From your own links etc etc
It takes trying to read what you've read negatively. For a more illuminating view, there's actually a part that partially answers this in the provided video: https://youtu.be/t705r8ICkRw?t=810 (timestamped link). It's his own stake. You're claiming it's 100% confirmation bias that Elon is given any credit. Let me _try_ to present another take:
People remember conflict way better than success. So if it hurts them 20% of the time but succeeds 80% of the time, people WILL remember when it bit them in the ass. Because in that specific instance, everyone was against Elon, and it failed. But in the long the general practice has worked wonders. And obviously turns fail to success faster than a NASA-like forever project process. If I was working in such an inspiring field, I would give a kidney to have a leader that frequently took even half that kind of personal risk to favor progress instead of peace.
_These are qualities I don't just appreciate in Elon, but everyone in power who practices these._ Sadly people usually just pick the conformist path, to avoid hurt feelings, sometimes even if it's their own money (for god's sake!)
If you want to pick anecdotes, from when that video was filmed Raptor 2 has been greatly simplified while its performance has increased IIRC. Among with the cold/hot gas reuse for BFR, idea that was actually spawned through rubber ducking during the EA interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY73exaVpyw
By the way, you just completely dodged the question to your earlier criticism! Did you really have nothing?!
I'm actually still willing to engage in civil conversation. That is what I'm trying to turn this often self-hate fest in to.
If this is the KGB tactic again, I _actually_ recommend just getting a therapist. It's their job to listen to you and not argue much. Not sure how it's with your country/employer, but you might be able to get them to pay it for you.
No said Musk isn’t smart. No one said he isn’t capable nor a multi-disciplinarian.
But to pretend he’s the chief/lead engineer of either SpaceX or Tesla (let alone both, at the same time) is laughably naive.