Dish Feuds With SpaceX Over Starlink Dishes Being Used on Moving Boats, Cars

[stormalong]

Musk is a disrupter. He is changing the way we live.

Edison and Ford were disrupters in their time. Edison and Ford were also bastards when it came to social values. Ford hired armed "guards" to shoot striking workers. He published an antisemitic newspaper. Edison was also antisemitic, he went to great lengths to attack his competitors, even though their technology was superior to his. He conned investors and went bankrupt more than once. He claimed credit for inventions that his employees made. At the same time George Westinghouse put his engineer's names on his company's patents and praised their work.

What has Musk done? He built cars that don't burn petrochemicals. With today's $6 a gallon gas that is a pretty damn good thing. He made rocketry more economical and it forcing large space launch companies to innovate or die. At times he has risked his personal wealth to do these and more innovative things.

Big risk brings either big failure or big rewards. Applause for those who take risks and change the world.

[Spurs]

Originally Posted by SV Tom Crean

Well my point was that SpaceX didn’t fire them over freedom of speech. They were fired for using company resources and time to further their cause - ie they sent out an email to a couple of thousand employees using the company servers, and followed up with more emails when people didn’t respond. I understand people have causes (and I’ve supported many) but using company resources to further that cause is where I (and SpaceX) draw the line.

Now if the employees and the business both agree on some action and ok the use of company time and resources, that’s perfectly fine by me.

Most employees send a few private emails a day, so in a bigger company more than 1000 private emails are being sent every day.
But that is completely beside the point. The point was that if you want to be regarded as a champion of free speech it looks very strange when you fire people for exercising their free speech.

[Jdege]

Originally Posted by SV Tom Crean

Well my point was that SpaceX didn’t fire them over freedom of speech. They were fired for using company resources and time to further their cause - ie they sent out an email to a couple of thousand employees using the company servers, and followed up with more emails when people didn’t respond.

There's more to it than just that, I think. There was a group of 20-30 employees who were not just asking other employees to sign on, but were actively pressuring other employees to sign on.

Or, in the words of SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell:

The letter, solicitations and general process made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/or angry because the letter pressured them to sign onto something that did not reflect their views.

[CaptTom]

Originally Posted by stormalong

...Edison and Ford were also bastards when it came to social values...

Good analogy. I think that's why I'm uneasy with the amount of power wielded by the likes of Musk. He might be a great engineer, he thinks big, he takes big risks. And he reaps the big rewards. Fine. But maybe I don't want to live in his opinion of a utopian society. Those kinds of social experiments never look good in retrospect.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

Good analogy. I think that's why I'm uneasy with the amount of power wielded by the likes of Musk. He might be a great engineer, he thinks big, he takes big risks. And he reaps the big rewards. Fine. But maybe I don't want to live in his opinion of a utopian society. Those kinds of social experiments never look good in retrospect.

Musk is not an engineer, he’s an ideas man with money. Nothing he’s done is revolutionary, EV tech was well understood before Tesla , Leo systems had been proposed before starlink etc. Musks ability to raise and spend others people’s money is his unique attribute.

In strict engineering a Porsche Taycan is a far better high performance EV then a model S for example

An EV is still just a car , nothing really disruptive , nor are reusable rockets or space based communications, musks engineers may sometimes build a better mousetrap , but it’s still just a device that catches rodents

[Rumrace]

Beyond these moonshot initiatives, Musk has delivered real results. After Hurricane Maria knocked out power for millions of Puerto Rico's residents in 2017, Musk donated hundreds of solar-powered batteries to the island. And as the coronavirus began spreading worldwide, Tesla began working on ventilator parts and shipping medical devices to hospitals in need.

Now, he's challenging the UN's plea for $6 billion to help millions at risk of dying due to starvation — but said he may cash out Tesla shares to help” insider report.
This while US administration tossed paper towels to hurricane victims

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Rumrace

Beyond these moonshot initiatives, Musk has delivered real results. After Hurricane Maria knocked out power for millions of Puerto Rico's residents in 2017, Musk donated hundreds of solar-powered batteries to the island. And as the coronavirus began spreading worldwide, Tesla began working on ventilator parts and shipping medical devices to hospitals in need.

Now, he's challenging the UN's plea for $6 billion to help millions at risk of dying due to starvation — but said he may cash out Tesla shares to help” insider report.
This while US administration tossed paper towels to hurricane victims

Musk is one of the actual smallest philanthropists amongst his peers. While claiming to be one his actual personal contributions are actually very small unlike say bill gates.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Rumrace

Beyond these moonshot initiatives, Musk has delivered real results. After Hurricane Maria knocked out power for millions of Puerto Rico's residents in 2017, Musk donated hundreds of solar-powered batteries to the island. And as the coronavirus began spreading worldwide, Tesla began working on ventilator parts and shipping medical devices to hospitals in need.

Now, he's challenging the UN's plea for $6 billion to help millions at risk of dying due to starvation — but said he may cash out Tesla shares to help” insider report.
This while US administration tossed paper towels to hurricane victims

Well it didn’t go too well according to the Huff Post

Workers from Tesla, billionaire Elon Musk’s electric car and solar energy giant, arrived on Vieques just weeks after hurricanes Irma and María crippled the aging electrical grid and severed the transmission cable that connected this island to the Puerto Rico mainland seven miles west. The company selected the senior center as one of 11 sites on the darkened island that it would equip with power-producing panels and batteries.
Constructing the system was simple. But when workers attached the panels and batteries to the old electrical wiring in the former schoolhouse, the batteries blew out.
“It doesn’t work,” a nurse at the senior center said in Spanish during a HuffPost visit in late February. “It never has

[stormalong]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Musk is not an engineer, he’s an ideas man with money. Nothing he’s done is revolutionary, EV tech was well understood before Tesla , Leo systems had been proposed before starlink etc. Musks ability to raise and spend others people’s money is his unique attribute.

In strict engineering a Porsche Taycan is a far better high performance EV then a model S for example

An EV is still just a car , nothing really disruptive , nor are reusable rockets or space based communications, musks engineers may sometimes build a better mousetrap , but it’s still just a device that catches rodents

I have to disagree. It is revolutionary to push the envelope. Porsche would not be building the Taycan if Tesla did not demonstrated the market demand first. Furthermore if the Taycan needs 500KW to get the same mileage my 75KW Model 3 gets their tech is inferior. Musk has been very hands on and has lived at the factory to get things going. He is the drive behind these products. He saved Tesla Motors from the scrap heap.

Many people have proposed re-usable rockets but Musk delivered. When he started building rockets he invested huge amounts of HIS money to get going. He has beat the huge ULA in price and quality. Again, many have talked about LEO satellite communication systems and others are building them as well but Musk is delivering TODAY.

Ask the short sellers that lost billions betting against Telsa what they think of him now.

[goboatingnow]

Tesla had a long period of “ learning “ to build a EV , including many false starts and issues with the roadster , little in the engineering was “ revolutionary” most of it was normal engineering “ evolutionary “ processes. In fact they made some terrible choices and false starts. Porsche’s EV engineering is demonstrably better as you’d expect from a company with such engineering pedigree.

Musk slept in the plant largely because well he’s “ weird “. Anecdotal employee tales often suggest he hinders progress by these weird actions.

I’m not taking away his achievements but he’s merely a money man with ideas. His engineers are clever indeed , but he’s not the revolutionary engineer that’s for sure.

[hjohnson]

Originally Posted by GordMay

How do you know?

I was in the marina satcom business for quite a while. As long as you were using a type certified antenna, getting a mobile station license was pretty trivial. SpaceX needs to get their antennas type certified for mobile use.

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

he’s merely a money man with ideas

Merely??? I'm an engineer, but it often takes a "money man with ideas" to make big things happen.

[SV Tom Crean]

Not an engineer? Give me a break. He has 3 bachelor degrees and another in physics. He is also the chief engineer at SpaceX and some very smart engineers who worked for me previously now work for him at SpaceX - and he can run rings around them. Very very smart engineer. Try listening to him talking about combustion stability in rocket engines and you'll understand.

Did he invent EVs? No. Did he invent LEO sats or reusable rockets? no. But what he did was perfect them and try and make them mass market - the Porsche Tycan is only different in that it has an 800 volt system (and no, it's not better performance as it's slower and less efficient) but it would not even exist if Tesla/Musk didn't because he dragged the car industry screaming and kicking into the EV world. Remember the Prius? What came after it? Nothing because Toyota didn't and still doesn't believe in EVs but Tesla did.

What he gets is that its easy to build a one off or in small numbers - Its the production that is hard and unless you can get the production cost down, your product is going nowhere. That's why he slept at the Tesla factory - he needed it to get past setup and into production or his business was in trouble.

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Musk is not an engineer, he’s an ideas man with money. Nothing he’s done is revolutionary, EV tech was well understood before Tesla , Leo systems had been proposed before starlink etc. Musks ability to raise and spend others people’s money is his unique attribute.

In strict engineering a Porsche Taycan is a far better high performance EV then a model S for example

An EV is still just a car , nothing really disruptive , nor are reusable rockets or space based communications, musks engineers may sometimes build a better mousetrap , but it’s still just a device that catches rodents

[GordMay]

Tesla Motors [now Tesla Inc.] was founded by CEO Martin Eberhard, and CFO Marc Tarpenning, in 2003. Ian Wright was Tesla's third employee, that year.
Other co-founders [as determined by a 2009 lawsuit] included JB Straubel, Ian Wright, and Elon Musk.

Elon Musk joined the company, in 2004, as an investor, with a $6.5 million investment, and became Chairman of the Board of Directors.

In 2006 Tesla unveiled the prototype for their Tesla Roadster which entered production, in 2008 [led by CEO Ze'ev Drori].
Eberhard and Tarpening left the company [alleging that they were forced out] around 2007, or 2008, when Musk took over as CEO, and fired 25% of the company's staff.
In 2010, the company went public [$17/share].
In 2011, the company unveiled its [much cheaper] prototype Model S sedan, which went into production the next year.
In 2013 the company made its first quarterly profit.

More ➥ https://www.thestreet.com/technology...tesla-15088992

[GordMay]

As previously noted, SpaceX has fired a number of employees, who wrote, and shared a letter [1], criticizing the behavior of CEO Elon Musk, with the company’s president criticizing the letter as “overreaching activism.”
Shared in an internal SpaceX Microsoft Teams channel, with more than 2,600 employees, the letter [1] argues that the company is not living up to its oft-stated “No *******” policy, and its zero-tolerance sexual harassment policy.
The open letter [1] from the employees referenced recent accusations of sexual misconduct involving Musk that reportedly prompted a $250,000 settlement. Musk said the allegations were "utterly untrue" and made a crude joke about some of the details on Twitter.

[1] The Open Letter:

”An open letter to the Executives of SpaceX,

In light of recent allegations against our CEO and his public disparagement of the situation, we would like to deliver feedback on how these events affect our company’s reputation, and through it, our mission. Employees across the spectra of gender, ethnicity, seniority, and technical roles have collaborated on this letter. We feel it is imperative to maintain honest and open dialogue with each other to effectively reach our company’s primary goals together: making SpaceX a great place to work for all, and making humans a multiplanetary species.

As SpaceX employees we are expected to challenge established processes, rapidly innovate to solve complex problems as a team, and use failures as learning opportunities. Commitment to these ideals is fundamental to our identity and is core to how we have redefined our industry. But for all our technical achievements, SpaceX fails to apply these principles to the promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion with equal priority across the company, resulting in a workplace culture that remains firmly rooted in the status quo.

Individuals and groups of employees at SpaceX have spent significant effort beyond their technical scope to make the company a more inclusive space via conference recruiting, open forums, feedback to leadership, outreach, and more. However, we feel an unequal burden to carry this effort as the company has not applied appropriate urgency and resources to the problem in a manner consistent with our approach to critical path technical projects. To be clear: recent events are not isolated incidents; they are emblematic of a wider culture that underserves many of the people who enable SpaceX’s extraordinary accomplishments. As industry leaders, we bear unique responsibility to address this.

Elon’s behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks. As our CEO and most prominent spokesperson, Elon is seen as the face of SpaceX—every Tweet that Elon sends is a de facto public statement by the company. It is critical to make clear to our teams and to our potential talent pool that his messaging does not reflect our work, our mission, or our values.

SpaceX’s current systems and culture do not live up to its stated values, as many employees continue to experience unequal enforcement of our oft-repeated “No *******” and “Zero Tolerance” policies. This must change. As a starting point, we are putting forth the following categories of action items, the specifics of which we would like to discuss in person with the executive team within a month:

Publicly address and condemn Elon’s harmful Twitter behavior. SpaceX must swiftly and explicitly separate itself from Elon’s personal brand.

Hold all leadership equally accountable to making SpaceX a great place to work for everyone. Apply a critical eye to issues that prevent employees from fully performing their jobs and meeting their potential, pursuing specific and enduring actions that are well resourced, transparent, and treated with the same rigor and urgency as establishing flight rationale after a hardware anomaly.

Define and uniformly respond to all forms of unacceptable behavior. Clearly define what exactly is intended by SpaceX’s “no-*******” and “zero tolerance” policies and enforce them consistently. SpaceX must establish safe avenues for reporting and uphold clear repercussions for all unacceptable behavior, whether from the CEO or an employee starting their first day.

We care deeply about SpaceX’s mission to make humanity multiplanetary. But more importantly, we care about each other. The collaboration we need to make life multiplanetary is incompatible with a culture that treats employees as consumable resources. Our unique position requires us to consider how our actions today will shape the experiences of individuals beyond our planet. Is the culture we are fostering now the one which we aim to bring to Mars and beyond?

We have made strides in that direction, but there is so much more to accomplish.”