Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO of SpaceX

so so dragon spacex com track ground stitches we got to see iss out the  window which was pretty neat the largest window ever flown in spain we have liftoff gwen welcome to stanford thank you very much  i'm really excited to be here actually i love   this school um i've been looking forward  to this interview for a very long time as   i know have many of my classmates a bit of a  space nerd i as a kid would read all the space   books over the 60s apollo 14 was my favorite  movie i think still is my favorite movie   clean crayons the mythical flight director was a  childhood hero so it's really great to have you to   me space has always been about the next frontier  and testing the limits of what is possible   and today nobody embodies that better than spacex  and your story so with that let's get started   one of the defining characteristics of spacex  uh is is risk-taking but the same can be said   about you joining the company 20 years ago  this year after stable career in aerospace   what led you to join spacex and take that risk at  that time well first of all i want to start out by   saying thank goodness i took that risk because  i almost didn't in fact and when elon asked me   to be president in 2008 i almost didn't say yes  what a mistake that would have been um yeah so   i was in the aerospace industry i started  i started my engineering career when was it   in 86 went to chrysler motors went back to  school because i was unsatisfied with the   level of technology that i was working on there  um went back to university thought i'd get my phd   wacky so that i can't be in school again i'm gonna  go back to work and so i went to aerospace and i   think i started in 88. interestingly i started  on halloween in 1988 at the aerospace corporation   and my boss um wasn't there when i started but  came back a week later he was on vacation and   he said something about flying in on my broom in  1988 which you can't say now but he could say it   then so the world is changing even if we feel like  it's too slow um yeah so okay so started my career   in 88 um in the aerospace industry and thought  had been there for roughly 15 years roughly   and i thought look it's it wasn't a an industry  that was vibrant it wasn't innovative we weren't   moving quickly we hadn't gotten back to the moon  and i thought you know this is my last job in the   aerospace industry working for elon if we can't  do it at spacex then i'd rather sell real estate   or be a barista or you know something else i did  i wouldn't i didn't want to work in the industry   and so um i knew this would be my last job in the  aerospace industry and it will turn out to be the   case so that's super cool all right about risk  yeah you guys are about risk and i'm blabbing   around sorry okay um so it seemed risky actually i  had a very stable job i owned three percent share   of the company that i was working for which  is large for um for for for a for an employee   and uh it was a pretty safe job so this was not  a safe job and i didn't know elon well at all in   fact at that time um but i i really kind of jumped  off the cliff i was dithering around he said   he wanted me to join the company and i said  oh you know i'm fine i don't need a job and   kind of dithered for about a month and finally  like i'm such an idiot i was driving on the   freeway in l.a like what an idiot say yes so i  called him on the phone and i said bleep an idiot   and he laughed and he said welcome to the team so  you got sold on the idea right yeah had a lot of   confidence if you thought it was going to be your  last job um last job on the industry fair enough um but your first job was vice president  of business development so now you had   to sell that idea to customers yes and  spacex was little more than a pipe dream   at the time right you were many years away  from launch what was that selling process like   you know it's interesting when you when you  don't have a product we had an ideal to sell   and it came at probably the best possible time um  you know we had the events of 911 and rapid launch   low cost access to space be it was obvious that  it was going to be very critical and so it was   great engineers i am not going  to take away in fact spacex is   the great company and does the great things  that we do because of our extraordinary staff   it's not because me it's not because of  elon and and so i was selling the team   i was selling the ideal i was selling the promise  and the hope of reason reasonably priced launch i   i still don't think launch is reasonably priced  but if you go by comparison it's much less than   it was before we're getting there yeah so let's  talk about launch and about the first rocket right   um the first rocket was called the falcon one  uh you had three unsuccessful launches it was   2008 the company was running out of money it was  the financial crisis you were promoted to present   ceo because of promises you had made customers  at this point so you'd already been promoted   and the company bet the entire company in this  one launch on the fourth launch of the falcon   one so let's watch that launch five four three  two one zero print stage one liftoff indication one launch vehicle falcon has cleared the tower plus 12. curious thank goodness right so uh it's  a life or death moment for the company right   um is a little more dramatic about that launch  than i am actually i figured we could pull a fifth   launch off but that was it right yeah i thought  we could get to five he thought four was it   i'm glad we didn't have to test who was right on  that one but uh yeah it was quite a relief and   what were the moms leading up to it like what was  the well this is a really this is i think it's a   hilarious story i was in scotland glasgow the iac  was having a show in glasgow so i was in scotland   to apologize discuss explain to the customers  that were on the third falcon one launch that   we failed kind of basically do a paper about that  launch and it was the night before my talk i was   in the hotel room with my husband and this is not  gonna get inappropriate um my husband was sleeping   i'm in the bathroom with the shower on typing up  a proposal for the 1.6 billion dollar con nasa   resupply to the international space station we're  literally writing the proposal i'm on the phone   with my team back in the us because we had to  update our pricing and so i had the shower running   so that my you know poor husband could sleep i'm  like punching away talking and then it's like oh   shoot we're we're about ready to launch right and  so i turned away from my proposal on my laptop to   to the launch and uh was watching it as we lift  it off i ran out to the hotel room and i didn't   care if i woke him up at this point at this stage  we lifted off and we were climbing in altitude and   um and we watched us get to orbit and  then in my like yoga pants and jammy top   ran down the hall that's probably the most  inappropriate thing i'm going to say here   today but ran down the hall knocked on all  the doors from my team that was there and we   hugged and kissed and cried and then kind of  broke into the bar in the hotel because it was   like two in the morning and they they they let us  have the champagne but it was warm but it was it   was extraordinary it was extraordinary i've always  loved how emotional a business this is right yeah   these are just incredible emotional moments right  in fact by the way to future entrepreneurs i   think it's really important to have these big  moments figure out what the big moments where   you can bring your teams together it cures a  lot of ills it really helps with morale and   it's incredible for team building so launches are  easy it's an easy spectacle to do that with but   i think it's really important to find those  kinds of moments in the development for your   future businesses so let's actually move forward  a few years your first big kind of commercial   product was the falcon 9. it was designed in part  of nasa's needs in mind to replace the internet   the space shuttle to go to the national space  station you had done a number of launches   already including seven resupply missions to  the international space station with nasa right   and the eighth one was also supposed to take  critical food supplies medical equipment   international space station but that one  didn't go as well let's watch that video   that's this is two minutes into flight daddy  coming back show us vehicle on course on track poof yeah you had made it seem routine almost at  this point right um and then this happens you're   in crisis management mode what's the first  thing you do yeah so i was actually at my   ranch in texas on this launch it was the first  launch that uh i was not um that therefore yeah   um by the way it was also the first and  only launch that i didn't do my pre-launch   um little routine which we could chat about later  but because i was in my slippers and uh so um   i think the most important thing when you suffer  something like that is you focus everybody on the   job the task at hand right we had failure in  front of us on elon's birthday by the way that   was his birthday um which is why we don't like  to launch on his birthday it just feels like bad   karma actually um so uh you get to work i had to  do a press conference doing it remotely of course   um and we started digging through data of course  we obviously i've i flew back to hawthorne and   pulled teams together and we figured it out was it  was a weird one that one and then so this was in   on june 28 2015 and then we suffered another  failure was not a launch failure on september   1st 2016 not a little over a year later right  um and we basically blew up a satellite that   was sitting on the pad as we were going through a  pre-launch test so two failures not back to back   we had had an extraordinary success in december  of 2015 and we can come back to that as well but   this is a this is a point that i try to make  with students for sure so i think after the   crs-7 that first failure that failure that you saw  there i i felt very comfortable leading the team   through the investigation leading the team  through the physics and getting to the answer   the business wasn't really at risk i mean  failures are incredibly impactful i think   every failure we've had has either cost us  or delayed us about half a billion dollars but i felt like i did a pretty good job in that  time frame i did not do a good job after the   failure uh when we blew up on the pet i was much  more worried about the business this particular   event um was much harder to figure out what it was  and i i definitely showed my not despair that's   probably too much but my concern i definitely  wore it on my sleeve or as my husband says i   have a billboard on my forehead and i i wore  that badly in fact so my lesson there is you   know you certainly don't want to be disingenuous  with your team and with your customers but it's   not really helpful to show your anxiety when you  know when you're suffering because your employees   are suffering worse than you are so it's really  better to keep people focused on the business   keep focused on doing great things and they had  demonstrated that they could do great work until   then too so um yeah so that's a nice little nugget  yeah thanks for sharing that so one of the things   in particular for this first failure that i find  incredible is you had six months without launches   which i'm sure you had a bunch scheduled that  were delayed right but six months later you're   launching a rocket again uh but instead of  simply focusing on getting that rocket and the   customer's payload up into space successfully  you take a huge risk as well and try to land   the booster right do you have that video and i  have that video and i know it's your favorite yes the crown goes wild it was a mosh pit out there was so fun why was  this so exciting okay so what's key about that   is the last launch or the launch just prior to  that one we failed you know and it's disappointing   for the employees it's disappointing for  the company but we failed our customer   this launch so we stood down we discovered  what the problem was we redesigned the rocket   to be able to land because the previous  rockets really couldn't land in that way   so we complete we did a complete upgrade on the  system while figuring out what we did to fail   and then like in complete view of the public  you go out there and you show are you are you   meant for greatness or you need to go back to the  drawing board a little bit so that was a great a   great day it was a great night we had a lot of  champagne at my house that night probably more   than i've ever drank ever i did not feel great the  next day but i did go to work i went to work um   yeah so that was an extraordinary moment for the  company just share with us a little bit why it's   so important to the whole business model yeah  sorry um well first of all no one had ever landed   a rocket before right that was the start and the  key piece of the technology necessary to reuse   rockets so some i know there are some space nerds  out there but there are many of you that are not   by the way if you are a space nerd you  should wear that proudly i certainly do   um but rockets before spacex and to some  extent the shuttle did it but but there was   there's no fully reusable launch system rockets  launch and then they either disintegrate in the   atmosphere the second stage does or they  just get dumped into the ocean right now   and so imagine what air travel would be like  if you took an airplane from san francisco   to new york and you had to toss the aircraft  after that flight like life and society in the   world would be so different if you couldn't reuse  your aircraft and so we take that same approach   with space travel that you have to be able to  reuse your rockets in order to facilitate human   access to space which i think is incredibly  important so that was the start and we had   tried many times before um we tried parachutes  but they rip off in this as speeding through the   atmosphere so that was just an extraordinary piece  of technology guidance navigation and control you   know hyper retroactive propulsion crazy hypersonic  retroactive propulsion was just amazing so that   was great and it started our ability to  refly rockets we didn't refly that one   that one is sitting outside the front  of our building in hawthorne california   you can drive by it and see it in fact it's kind  of a neat monument but we have i don't want to   say perfected because we have not perfected but we  have operationalized the ability to land rockets   refurbish them and re-fly them our goal is  to be able to do that like an airplane like   i was saying in the back room you know they said  something someone asked something about you know   rocket efficiency and we're not very efficient  we we actually aspire to be as efficient as the   airline industry and that's probably horrifying to  many of you in the audience because you probably   don't think the airline industry is particularly  efficient but it's way better than we are um so   it's still a nice model to use right yeah so  after this in 2015 this really became routine   spacex was launching dozens and dozens of trips up  into space every year um in may 2020 the beginning   of the pandemic you took another huge leap and it  involved humans right you launched two astronauts   to the national space station the first astronauts  to launch on a private vehicle and the first to   do so from american soil on any vehicle in nine  years right we were doing it with the russians   um how did you carry that responsibility  and how do you prepare the team for it   so first of all keep your head high don't show  your anxiety but i honestly hate crew launch days   i just don't like them uh it's nerve-racking it's  one thing to you know to have a have a failure   when you've got a satellite even a billion dollar  three billion dollar satellite on top you can't   put a price tag on the two to four people that are  sitting on top of that rocket and it's hurtling   through the atmosphere so it's quite anxiety  producing um it's always a huge relief to   get get dragged into orbit get dragged into  the international space station and then say   okay nasa they're yours now until  we have to bring them back downhill   six months later um so keep people focused on the  work for sure don't let them show your ex you know   don't let them see my anxiety even though i've  talked about this enough they all know i'm like   scared to death during launch days on this follow  your routine be keenly aware make sure you've got   employees that feel very comfortable talking about  hey i might have screwed this up can we go back   and look at the data and make sure that i didn't  screw this up on the rocket or the spaceship so   um yeah keep them focused on the business  don't show how nervous you are and   pray so even this has become routine now  i think you've launched four trips to the   national space station something like that so  we did bob and doug and then we just flew crs4   and then we also flew axiom yeah and then we did  jared and his team that's true okay so so seven   so let's talk about the future then because you  know um and let's talk about starship which is the   big bet you have as a future or this rocket was  previously called the big falcon rocket bfr bfr um who who chose to rename it well  elon named it the first time   and elon named it the second time got it um there  was one in between two its i think interstellar   or something yeah yeah exactly yeah um starship  is better what's so different about this bet and   what does it mean for humanity so the difference  here for those of you that are not space geeks   this first stage goes up delivers the second stage  to carry on its way to orbit comes back so we   reuse the first stage but the second stage is now  reusable it goes to orbit it drops off the payload   takes people around the moon takes people to  mars whatever it is and then it comes back and   lands our second stage right now is not reusable  on the falcon program our third stage if you look   at a dragon is reusable not very operationally  right it lands in the ocean get helicopters and   ships to go get it out of the water take it back  clean off the salt water refurbish it and refly   it but a dragon takes currently like 90 days  we're trying to get it down to 45 and then even   faster but that's not very operationally  efficient starship is meant to launch   land on the pad on the pad the arms come and  pick up another another starship pick it up   put it back on the pad and launch within  an hour so like an airplane that's the plan and it's supposed to take us either to shanghai  or to mars right yeah right hopefully some   version of this would take us to another star  system right which would be so great um so i   want to talk about the development of this  because there's something remarkable about   that as you mentioned it's supposed to be  fully reusable i saw many estimates online   but each one of these costs somewhere around 200  million to build that might be a wild guess um   but your product development strategy seems  to be to blow one of these up every few months   right so let's take a look at starship number  nine we're prepared by preparing to restart   two engines flip the vehicle vertical then  transition to one engine for the landing burn so that seems expensive and completely different  to how traditional rocket technology where it's   like they make the whole rocket as perfectly  as possible they wind test it and they say   once it's perfect we try to you know flight test  it these are prototypes that you just keep going   um what's behind that way of thinking about  rocket technology so and this isn't very well   understood publicly i'm a little surprised  we don't talk more about it we are much more   focused for the starship program on production  building the system that will build the system   than we are on the rocket technology itself  i didn't touch anything no you did all right i break hardware by walking by so this  makes me nervous um so we know how to get   rockets to orbit we know how to do that this  is a completely different one but we we're   very confident in our ability to figure out how  to do that we were much more focused on can we   produce a rocket that can get to orb like really  produce falcon we produce you know between seven   and eleven falcon first stages per year we're  producing a second stage every week right now   but what we want to be able to do is produce a  rocket a day or come much closer to automotive   because if you are going to take people to mars  you're going to go in a flotilla or a swarm i   don't even know yet right what the right term  is yet for a group of starships to head to mars   you're going to need a bunch of them and producing  five a year isn't going to get you there you   really want to launch hundreds on that cyanotic  period with mars when you're taking people there   um so we need to have a production system  build rockets much like a production system   to build cars maybe not quite so many i don't  think we need a million a year but uh we need   more than a couple hundred so it's all about the  production system so we will get this to orbit   i'm not saying that it's easy because it's very  different you'll see the way well not the orbital   part but the the landing part is very different  you know we belly flop to dissipate the heat   and then come vertical right at the last second  it's different from the way we're doing it on   falcon but we i mean we and we did it we stuck a  landing bringing it back no it wasn't from orbit   it was just from altitude it was not from orbit so  you're trying to do really hard things and i want   to talk about what that a little bit right spacex  has the most ambitious goals on the tightest of   timelines and actually quick question what's our  latest timeline on getting to mars getting to mars   oh i think we'll put people down within a decade  right so you're in charge of i know i'm crazy   you're in charge of executing on that goal to get  human beings to mars within a decade right that's   more elon than me but i'm here to help right but  how do you balance those ambitious goals right   which like maybe elon comes out and says and  getting the team comfortable that is possible   so there's a couple of strategies to do that  first of all you always aim high we have achieved   everything we have wanted to never in the timeline  we fail on timeline but that feels like the right   fail to make as opposed to not achieving  what you're trying to achieve technically um so you demonstrate that you've been able to do  these crazy insane absurdly ambitious things   in the past you can continue you know pump people  up to do it again and you try to pull apart these   the seemingly impossible situation and how are we  going to design and develop this and you pull it   into smaller pieces you build a prototype you test  it you put prototypes you know subsystems together   and you test that and you kind of use a building  block approach to reach your goals and the team   they're very enthusiastic about it like it's  the biggest of goals rockets are super cool yeah   so you've been at spacex for over 20  years now this year yeah and now you   lead a team basically 12 000 people um what  have you learned about your leadership style   over the years what do you wish you knew  now that and you knew then that you know now   oh let me answer the other stuff first um i'm  not a regretter so it's really hard for me to   kind of go back and say oh i wish i did  this thing um i'm a very collaborative   leader actually i've got some employees here  you can tell me if i'm a bs artist here or not   i like to get to solicit people's opinions  but i'm not afraid to make a decision   i need more data than elon does to make a decision  in fact and i don't know whether that's experience   or or risk taking i don't know what it is but  i like a little bit more data but i definitely   like making decisions i like to hear  the conversation until you're done and   you have to make a decision and it's rare  that you get people to agree on any topic   right so you collect the best data that you can  you listen as hard as you can you ask questions   you bring more data back and then you gotta go  yeah um so a slightly different question your   job is to run the business right sometimes things  come up in the organization that are core to the   culture uh that are according to who you are as an  organization um the sexual misconduct allegations   against elon last week are just maybe one example  of that i'm wondering how you think about those   moments those moments of truth and how you  think about responding to different stakeholders   so i think leaders in any business face adversity  and really hard challenges and i what's most   important is that you first of all you think hard  about what happened what the response is going to   be and i think you just have to be really honest  with yourself about what the right approach is   i did send a letter i came out last  night very exciting for this particular   discussion here i did send a letter to  employees they were screaming to hear from me   and i was advised to not send that letter not by legal but by my press team and i said you  know what i first i have to speak to the people i   have to speak to my employees they're you know the  reason why spacex is what it is and i care deeply   about them but i knew i would no matter which way  i played that someone was going to be unhappy with   me but i i had to say it i have worked for  elon for 20 years i don't believe he could   have done what was what he was accused of but he  is imperfect right he's imperfect i'm imperfect   and i thought being honest about that was  the right approach regardless of what my team   told me to write or not what was left out of that  letter by the way is the end where i basically say   we are spacex is who we are because of you and if  you ever feel uncomfortable at work please call me   right so that part's always left off right um  at any rate so you face adversity and i think   the only way to get through it is to make sure  you understand the situation to the greatest   extent you can and then be honest with yourself  and pick a path and and do it and don't be afraid   to say you made a mistake if you make a mistake  right yeah i'm irish that's very irish by the way   to admit you were dummy and i'm not admitting that  in this case by the way i'm just saying one should   be willing to do that speaking of mistakes i've  heard that spacex has a culture of feedback that's   something we take very seriously here at the  gsb as well we have a whole class where we learn   how to give feedback feedback  is a gift as a continuous motto   of the school almost i'm wondering how  spacex operationalizes that in the day-to-day   so critically important feed 360 feedback and  immediate the sooner you get feedback the better   off you are that's a golden nugget of data on how  you are impacting your co-workers your company the   project so that feedback is so critical so give  feedback as quickly as you can and we always   try to tell people to do it our review system  we require that you get reviewed 360 feedback   from at least three you know sometimes in  you know if you've got employees that have   you know that are really great in some areas  and really not great in other areas you try   to solicit more feedback to figure out what's  going on in those areas and try to work with   them to figure out how you can get people to this  place where it's all contribution all the time   so so it's in our review system uh we talk about  it at the first day of work please you know   give feedback um but engineers and well you know  it's not really human nature to be willing to   look someone in the eye and say hey that was not  helpful not super helpful could you do it this   way you know be objective try to not personalize  it in almost every case and it feedback could be   technical it doesn't have to be like hey you were  a total jerk to me and i'm really mad about it   um but in almost every case the person at least in  my experience person is not malinten not intending   to do bad things they either made a mistake they  were unaware um so i think approaching it as   not part taking it not personal but just talk  about how this situation impacted you or how this   person's work caused your work to not be great  you couldn't finish your project or whatever   it's just really important that's exactly  what we we preached here as well yep um   before we go to q a and i know that a lot of  great questions in the audience two questions   again about the future first and you already made  a reference to this what comes after mars yeah so   um we are not working on a ship that yet has the  propulsion technology to take us to other star   systems but i certainly hope that mars is that  example that shows that humans can live beyond   planet earth and that we will focus on propulsion  technologies or some way of getting to a place   that would otherwise take four thousand or five  thousand years so i'm very excited about that it   will not happen in my lifetime but i hope that  some of the work that we're doing will kick off   the aspiration to go do that  like the shows that you watch   you know we we can't and they're always about war  by the way star wars like what is that i don't   star trek is not necessarily about war but it's  still military i don't know why it is that way   but um hopefully we can go there in a civilian way  and meet other sentient beings and that would be   great yeah that would be quite something so for uh  for this for the second question i actually want   to bring us back to earth to this auditorium  because many of us are thinking about our   very immediate futures i checked this morning i  graduate in two and a half weeks as do many of   my classmates here you're our last view from the  top speaker of the year you have the stage what   advice would you have for us as we embark on the  next chapter of our lives so it's a very simple   statement and i'll follow it up with a couple of  examples you want to take risks in your career   you absolutely want to take risks yeah maybe in  your life too although you have to balance right   you got to balance it um i almost said no to elon  when he asked me to join spacex would have been so   i would look back i'm not a regretter that is  the one thing that i would go back and regret   i almost said no when elon asked me to be  president because i really loved my job my   colleagues my brother and sister vps were great  compatriots and i thought it might be weird to   be the boss so i almost said no um and i'm so  glad that i didn't but it felt like a risk to to   to say yes there and then this is a more personal  risk um so when i first met my current husband   husband number two sorry um we had our first date  and i thought he was roughly my age roughly my age   and then he said something about the gulf war and  you know wanting to have been a pilot i was like   go form like help and i were in the car  and i looked over i'm like how old are you and he he was about eight years  younger than me and i was like   not interested why would i go  out with this infant no way and and luckily luckily i i didn't take that  little voice in my head and i took the risk and   dated a much younger man and happily married so  it's not really silly but a little personal but   i almost said i am not going to date someone  that's 8 years younger than me that is weird anyhow took the risk paid off what uh what  a great note to end on so with that um yeah before we close and we are almost out  of time i want to do a traditional view   from the top lightning round oh okay  ready i'm very terrible at these okay   would you rather live in the univer universe or  the metaverse i'm not sure what the metaverse   is by the way but i think i'm all universe  all the time there's a lot of students here   who know what the better verse i don't yeah um  what are your favorite pre-launch rituals which   you mentioned before oh i put uh the inside of  my shoes with sticky notes that say scotland   on them so i am in scotland for every launch  because we got to orbit for the first time when i   was in scotland yep and the only gross thing about  that is there if i don't take them out right away   you like stepping on paper and it kind of  disintegrates and then you get like feet   paper all over the place and you really  have to vacuum it up it's pretty gross   toast lunch rituals i don't have a post launch  ritual actually favorite celebration champagne   every time no every launch  well we're launching a lot maybe not every time maybe not every time certainly not during the day  at work that's an at-home thing   favorite space movie firefly and that's the show  but there also was a movie firefly hands down   and you have a starship at your disposal  it's yours you can go anywhere on earth   or into space where would you take it i go to  the moon orbit or land i would like to land successfully yeah i love the moon and why  the moon and not mars mars is six months   um it's further uh i don't like to camp so  you're you're you're traveling for six months   to really camp in the most extreme way humans  have ever camped whereas camping on the moon   it feels like ah if you hate it you just just  come home or you can you can put up with it   for a couple of days and then you just get  home mars you're kind of stuck for two years   please welcome me in thanking grandchildren you

Channel: Stanford Graduate School of Business

Views: 501,059

Keywords: stanford, stanford gsb, stanford graduate school of business, mba, informational series, gsb, business takeaways, stanford mba, business insights, higher education, grad school, business school, stanford business school, stanford university, stanford business, viewfromthetop, technology, access to technology, innovation, innovation technology, decision making, stanford vlog, stanford student, entrepreneurship, gwynne shotwell, spacex

Id: 1b-vAeYTxRA

Length: 39min 31sec (2371 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 03 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/whatsthis1901]

This was great thanks for posting. I enjoy watching her talks she really seems like an amazing person to me.

[u/proteanpeer]

"Every failure we've had has either cost us or delayed us about half a billion dollars." Wild.

[u/blitzkrieg9999]

Thanks for posting. This is great. It seems like she is the perfect compliment to Elon and I kinda get the impression that she is one of a few people on earth that can say "No" to Elon and he will listen.

If so, good on Elon for hiring and promoting someone that he will listen to instead of surrounding himself by "yes men".

[u/citizen_of_europa]

So nice to hear from her in this format. Thanks for sharing this!

[u/teshreve]

Good gravy. This is super good.

[u/crabcakesandbeer]

Great interview, count me as a fan.

[u/Twigling]

Not seen the video yet but isn't it the case that Bezos wanted her for Blue Origin? Thankfully she had the good sense to work for SpaceX instead. :)