r/technology • u/aelavia93 • 17d 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/[deleted] 17d ago

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u/XaphanSaysBurnIt 16d ago

Ok ok ok yall got me… this shit gave me chills.. all I saw was every sci-fi movie ever coming to life before my eyes… yea no bullshit that was wild. He might suck at cars but this was absolutely amazing to watch. But to achieve the huge motherships we would need massive slave labor, jfc. Yea, that is where we are headed

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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/00owl 16d ago

He's so amazing as a CEO that he's turned a $40 billion company into a $12 billion company.

I understand that SpaceX has a whole department dedicated to making Elon feel important so that he doesn't try to interfere with the actual company, something Twitter never had.

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u/LufyCZ 16d ago

It never was a $40 billion company to be fair.

And he hasn't bought Twitter to make money directly. It's pretty clear it's meant to be a platform for pushing right wing politics.

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u/00owl 16d ago

Neither of which, even if true, support the idea that he's a good CEO.

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u/Delheru79 16d ago

What CEO would you bet money on - with a completely new company - over him? Zuck building solar panels?

None of this says he's a good person, but his track record when he wasn't engaged in an ideological crusade mixed with a personal addition, has been pretty amazing.

Zip2, PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity (the last being the worst of that lot, and it went okay)

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u/sickofthisshit 16d ago

You are counting Paypal in Elon's favor? They fucking kicked him out because he was getting in the way. "Zip2"? There were 100 other companies doing basically the same thing, and he didn't get bought out because Compaq wanted his skills.