How did Elon Musk learn enough about rockets to run SpaceX?

Jim Cantrell

Jim Cantrell, On SpaceX founding team with Elon Musk

646.1k Views • Upvoted by Stan Hanks, Serial Entrepreneur since age 12

Answer featured in Forbes.

Jim is a Most Viewed Writer in Elon Musk.

I helped Elon start the company and all of these answers are spot on. He still has my book on rocket
propulsion.....

What I found from working with Elon is that he starts by defining a goal and he puts a lot of effort into
understanding what that goal is and why it is a good and valid goal. His goal, as I see it, has not changed
from the day he first called me in August of 2001. I still hear it in his speeches. His goal was to make
mankind a multi planetary species and to do that he had to first solve the transportation problem.

Once he has a goal, his next step is to learn as much about the topic at hand as possible from as many
sources as possible. He is by far the single smartest person that I have ever worked with ... period. I
can't estimate his IQ but he is very very intelligent. And not the typical egg head kind of smart. He has a
real applied mind. He literally sucks the knowledge and experience out of people that he is around. He
borrowed all of my college texts on rocket propulsion when we first started working together in 2001.
We also hired as many of my colleagues in the rocket and spacecraft business that were willing to
consult with him. It was like a gigantic spaceapalooza. At that point we were not talking about building
a rocket ourselves, only launching a privately funded mission to Mars. I found out later that he was
talking to a bunch of other people about rocket designs and collaborating on some spreadsheet level
systems designs for launchers. Once our dealings with the Russians fell apart, he decided to build his
own rocket and this was the genesis of SpaceX.

So I am going to suggest that he is successful not because his visions are grand, not because he is
extraordinarily smart and not because he works incredibly hard. All of those things are true. The one
major important distinction that sets him apart is his inability to consider failure. It simply is not even in
his thought process. He cannot conceive of failure and that is truly remarkable. It doesn't matter if its
going up against the banking system (Paypal), going up against the entire aerospace industry (SpaceX)
or going up against the US auto industry (Tesla). He can't imagine NOT succeeding and that is a very
critical trait that leads him ultimately to success. He and I had very similar upbringings, very similar
interests and very similar early histories. He was a bit of a loner and so was I. He decided to start a
software company at age 13. I decided to design and build my own stereo amplifier system at age 13.
Both of us succeeded at it. We both had engineers for fathers and were extremely driven kids. What
separated us, I believe, was his lack of even being able to conceive failure. I know this because this is
where we parted ways at SpaceX. We got to a point where I could not see it succeeding and walked
away. He didn't and succeeded. I have 25 years experience building space hardware and he had none
at the time. So much for experience.

I recently wrote an op-ed piece for Space News where I also suggest that his ruthlessly efficient way to
deploy capital is another great reason for his success. He can almost smell the right way through a
problem and he drives his staff and his organization hard to achieve it. The results speak for themselves.
The article is here End of WWII Model Shakes Up Aerospace Industry.

In the end I think that we are seeing a very fundamental shift in the way our world takes on the big
challenges facing humanity and Elon's Way as I call it will be considered the tip of the spear. My hat's off
to the man.
you cannot dream yourself a character; you must hammer and forge one yourself

I'm very fortunate to make more money than I need, but I'm also deliberate about keeping my expenses
far below my income. I know many other technology workers who have lifestyles that consume over
$200k per year and therefore feel extremely threatened and risk-averse when it comes to making any
career or life moves that threaten their income. To me, that would be a horrible feeling. I wake up every
day knowing that if I were to be fired, everything would be absolutely fine (due to my savings and an
inexpensive lifestyle), and that is a sweet, sweet freedom unto which I am deliriously grateful.

I have a realistic grasp of my own strengths and weaknesses. My mind is my weapon. My brother has his
sword, King Robert has his warhammer, and I have my mind … and a mind needs books as a sword
needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.” Tyrion tapped the leather cover of the book. “That’s why I
read so much, Jon Snow.”

"Ganguly was a special man. He wore his heart on his sleeve. His high-handedness often annoyed me,
but I secretly admired his rebellious streak because it gave the team some pepper and it got up
opposition noses, most famously Steve Waugh's."

Surviving death was more frightening than almost dying. It's sobering to cheat the Grim Reaper

I wonder why I was spared and who paid the price so that I might live. I wonder if it will happen again. I
wonder if the next time I will not be so lucky.

Jeff Goodell: Would you explain, in simple terms, exactly what object-oriented software is?

Steve Jobs: Objects are like people. They’re living, breathing things that have knowledge inside them
about how to do things and have memory inside them so they can remember things. And rather than
interacting with them at a very low level, you interact with them at a very high level of abstraction, like
we’re doing right here.

Here’s an example: If I’m your laundry object, you can give me your dirty clothes and send me a
message that says, “Can you get my clothes laundered, please.” I happen to know where the best
laundry place in San Francisco is. And I speak English, and I have dollars in my pockets. So I go out and
hail a taxicab and tell the driver to take me to this place in San Francisco. I go get your clothes
laundered, I jump back in the cab, I get back here. I give you your clean clothes and say, “Here are your
clean clothes.”

You have no idea how I did that. You have no knowledge of the laundry place. Maybe you speak French,
and you can’t even hail a taxi. You can’t pay for one, you don’t have dollars in your pocket. Yet I knew
how to do all of that. And you didn’t have to know any of it. All that complexity was hidden inside of me,
and we were able to interact at a very high level of abstraction. That’s what objects are. They
encapsulate complexity, and the interfaces to that complexity are high level.

"I do fear death. I fear dying in here, while my city burns. There's nobody to save it"