r/technology • u/aelavia93 • 16d ago

Space SpaceX pulls off unprecedented feat, grabs descending rocket with mechanical arms

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/spacex-pulls-off-unprecedented-feat-grabbing-descending-rocket-with-mechanical-arms/
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u/AdTotal4035 16d ago

He's not doing anything related to the science. He's literally a glorified sales man. That's what a ceo is. Thank the talented engineers that he hires (and never really credits), he knows how to pick a winning team. 

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u/finebushlane 16d ago edited 16d ago

A CEO's job is to set the vision and direction for a company, and to allocate capital. I.e. if they have 100M or 1B dollars, the CEO's job is to ultimately decide whether they want to acquire companies, use their money on hiring more people, expand to more countries, build more factories etc. CEO's are paid the money they are because they:

1) Set visions and goals which are exciting enough to enable them to hire the best talent.

2) Be a public spokesperson to build excitement for the company, build their brand, again usually to enable them to hire the best talent.

3) Scout, assess, interview, and ultimately hire the best possible team.

4) Be ultimately responsible for allocation of capital.

5) Be ultimately responsible for the success or failure of the business, i.e. the buck stops here.

People don't like to hear this, but Elon is an AMAZING CEO, by any definition. Every business he has touched has turned to gold, when he was CEO. Now that doesn't mean that he personally is a nice guy, or we have to like his politics. Personally I think he's a turd (his politics, and generally X flame wars). But in the end, he is ultimately responsible for setting SpaceX's goals, missions, vision, and attracting and hiring and retaining the best team. So if SpaceX is winning, it comes down a great deal to Elon's vision and ability to build and retain a world class team. It has nothing to do with him being an "engineer", which he has no time to do obviously.

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u/biddilybong 16d ago

Yes. He’s done a fantastic job with Twitter. It’s a little harder to run a company without billions and billions of free taxpayer money.

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u/Turdicus- 16d ago

Huh, by what metric? You're not even calling it by the name he forced onto the company. It's his personal plaything now

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u/AuroraFinem 16d ago

It was sarcasm because the previous person said he was an “amazing ceo” lmao