Tesla and SpaceX Alumni on Elon Musk, Decision Velocity, and the Future of Hard Tech | a16z

1. 0:00 – 3:32

   Introduction

   1. CLChandler Luzsicza0:00

      I entered SpaceX four times. I couldn't leave. Like, it was the dream.

   2. TCTurner Caldwell0:03

      I spent about a decade at Tesla and got to run around the battery supply chain.

   3. EPErin Price-Wright0:07

      Chandler Luzsicza is the CEO of Galadyne, next-generation missile propulsion. Turner Caldwell is the CEO of Mariana Minerals, critical mineral supply chains.

   4. TCTurner Caldwell0:15

      When Elon sets, like, super aggressive targets, the goal is actually to get the team to think really deliberately. There's a thousand things that have to happen, but a hundred of them cannot be done in six months, so we have to go attack those hundred things.

   5. CLChandler Luzsicza0:25

      Being somewhat foreign to the missile industry, I realized we don't have enough, they cost too much, and we can't make them fast enough. With my background being purely in liquid propulsion across SpaceX and even at UCLA launching liquid rockets, there's a very real way to apply this technology to missile systems, and we're gonna go do it.

   6. EPErin Price-Wright0:38

      What is the single most important thing that you learned at SpaceX or Tesla that you now apply every single day at your companies? As you know, I spend a lot of my time with founders building in the physical world, and one thing that keeps coming up, uh, is how many of them trained at Tesla and SpaceX. People talk about the mythology, the all-nighters, the flat org, the impossible deadlines, the best part is no part. Um, but beyond the myths are repeatable practices that change how teams build and ship complex hardware. Uh, Chandler Luzsicza is the CEO of Galadyne, next-generation missile propulsion, and Turner Caldwell is the CEO of Mariana Minerals, critical mineral supply chains. Uh, Chandler was the lead propulsion engineer on Starship. Turner led battery and minel- battery, minerals, and metals at Tesla. So it's really great to have you guys here to talk about your experiences in the school of Elon Musk. Uh, maybe to just kick off, um, maybe start at the beginning. Briefly tell us the origin story of your companies, uh, the problems you saw, the first prototype or pilot you built, the moment you realized that this could be a real business. Chandler, let's start with you.

   7. CLChandler Luzsicza1:45

      Yeah, I think being somewhat foreign to the missile industry until the summer of last year, right as I jumped into it, I realized we don't have enough, they cost too much, and we can't make them fast enough. Um, it seemed like everyone in the industry is kinda doing it the same old way, um, and I think, you know, in order to get drastically different results, you have to do things drastically differently. So with my background being purely in liquid propulsion across SpaceX and even at UCLA launching liquid rockets, uh, there's a very real way to apply this technology to missile systems, and we're gonna go do it, so.

   8. EPErin Price-Wright2:12

      Awesome. And what about you, Turner?

   9. TCTurner Caldwell2:13

      Yeah. So, you know, I spent, uh, about a decade at, at Tesla and got to, uh, run around the battery supply chain, uh, most recently was spending a lot of time on the minerals and metals, uh, side of things. Um, and, you know, a lot of our focus was trying to identify how do we debottleneck that part of the supply chain and make sure that the minerals that batteries need, um, could, could keep up with, with battery production. And similar to what Chandler was saying, um, you know, this is an industry that the, the major players are fifty to a hundred years old.

   10. EPErin Price-Wright2:42

       Mm-hmm.

   11. TCTurner Caldwell2:42

       Um, and that way of doing things, um, you know, companies like that, they're large, uh, and conservative, really gets set in that, in that way of doing things. Um, and so as we were engaging or as I was engaging with those, with those companies and as we were building infrastructure in that space, um, at Tesla, what became very apparent, um, is that the industry is massively software deficient, and a lot of the challenges that come out of or come up when you're trying to build this infrastructure is, uh, the coordination layer, the orchestration layer.

   12. EPErin Price-Wright3:10

       Mm-hmm.

   13. TCTurner Caldwell3:10

       How do you manage a large complex refinery with a talent pool that is shrinking? Um, how do you, how do you manage large complex mining operations, again, with a talent pool that's shrinking? Um, and what we've landed on is that, uh, you have to go full bore, kind of like leveraging the advances in autonomy, um, in automotive and humanoid robots to go and apply that to refineries and to, to mining operations.

2. 3:32 – 9:19

   The Single Most Important Thing Learned at Tesla and SpaceX

   1. EPErin Price-Wright3:32

      So there's so much mythology around Tesla and SpaceX culture. Maybe forgetting the buzzwords, what is the single most important thing that you learned at SpaceX or Tesla, uh, that you now apply every single day at your companies?

   2. TCTurner Caldwell3:47

      Um, yeah. I think the f- flat orgs is, is hypercritical, right? You need information to flow, um, as quickly as possible. You need to democratize access to information, and that's really the purpose of flat organizations. It's not... 'Cause, like, if you do flat organizations wrong, it, it can get chaotic.

   3. EPErin Price-Wright4:04

      Yeah.

   4. TCTurner Caldwell4:04

      Right? Uh, like the purpose of flat organizations is really about information flow and collaboration. Um, and so any junior engineer should be able to go to any senior, uh, member of, of any executive team, uh, at any point in time and talk directly to folks that are making decisions, uh, as well as collaborate with teams that are within the company, kind of without having to funnel information through managers and then back down into their teams.

   5. EPErin Price-Wright4:26

      Mm-hmm.

   6. TCTurner Caldwell4:26

      Um, so that's hypercritical, um, and is a, is a big piece of how we've been building the company. Um, I don't know if you wanna jump in.

   7. CLChandler Luzsicza4:33

      Yeah, I'll jump in. I think an- another part of that, maybe a part of making that successful, or at least in my, from, from my experience, is you need leaders across that flat org that are able to make decisions really quickly.

   8. EPErin Price-Wright4:44

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CLChandler Luzsicza4:44

      Um, I think Decision Velocity, without using a buzzword [laughs] is, is very, very important. With high-conviction leadership who can make strong decisions, um, you, you increase the pace of development, you increase the pace of production cycles. Everything goes faster. Even from a, like, flying people to space perspective, you know, there's, there's a lot of risk, right? And, and by having, you know, high-conviction leaders who can go make really fast decisions in that space too, it helps absolve a lot of risk from the lower level, more junior engineers, and it really just lets them go fast. Like, I think if, if you have a junior engineer who's just now starting out at SpaceX or a Tesla, and they're, they're, like, worrying themself, "Oh, I'm making this crazy big decision. It's gonna cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars. Like, what if I mess up?" If you, if, if a leader can come in and, and remove that concern from the junior engineer's mind by just making a decision and saying, "Go," then you go way, way faster.

   10. TCTurner Caldwell5:27

       Like, you can't wait to have all of the information available-

   11. EPErin Price-Wright5:30

       Mm-hmm

   12. TCTurner Caldwell5:30

       ... uh, to make decisions, right? And oftentimes you won't find out if a decision is correct or not until you've made it-

   13. CLChandler Luzsicza5:35

       Yep

   14. TCTurner Caldwell5:36

       ... tried it-

   15. EPErin Price-Wright5:36

       Mm-hmm

   16. TCTurner Caldwell5:36

       ... and then iterated really quickly on... You know, you're not always gonna make the right decision-

   17. EPErin Price-Wright5:39

       Mm-hmm

   18. TCTurner Caldwell5:40

       ... but you're always just trying to maximize your percentage that you did make the right decision. Um-

   19. CLChandler Luzsicza5:44

       It's all bets.

   20. TCTurner Caldwell5:45

       It is.

   21. CLChandler Luzsicza5:45

       It's all making bets. [laughs]

   22. TCTurner Caldwell5:45

       It is. That's right. Um, but speed, speed is... Speed and, like, exec- uh, uh, excellence in execution, like, those are the two things that, that you're going for.

   23. EPErin Price-Wright5:52

       I mean, I guess, and you need that information in order to be able to make decisions.

   24. TCTurner Caldwell5:56

       You need, you need to accumulate as much information as you can, uh, within the time that you kind of like constrain-

   25. EPErin Price-Wright6:01

       Yeah

   26. TCTurner Caldwell6:01

       ... yourself to, and then make the decision and, and then learn from that decision.

   27. EPErin Price-Wright6:03

       Yeah. And in- incorporate that new information, I guess.Um, [clears throat] you're both pretty deep in the technical weeds. You're both engineers, um, now CEOs of companies. What lesson or experiences did you have, uh, in your previous roles, um, at S- Tesla and SpaceX that maybe directly changed an outcome or how you thought about things at Galadyne and Mariana?

   28. TCTurner Caldwell6:25

       The... Solving like the discrete technical problems-

   29. EPErin Price-Wright6:28

       Mm-hmm

   30. TCTurner Caldwell6:28

       ... um, that is hard. You're ha- you're so- you're solving kind of first-of-a-kind problems in many cases. Um, but then getting large groups of people to work together towards solving those first-of-a-kind problems actually starts to like... That's where the churn starts to appear-
3. 9:19 – 18:24

   Critical Path Focus

   1. EPErin Price-Wright9:19

      What about you, Chandler?

   2. CLChandler Luzsicza9:20

      Yeah. I think, I think my, my answer here is, is really focused on critical path. Um, I think, I think chasing critical path and being a firefighter is something that SpaceX and I would assume Tesla engineers do very well.

   3. EPErin Price-Wright9:29

      Can you, can you-

   4. CLChandler Luzsicza9:30

      Yeah

   5. EPErin Price-Wright9:30

      ... explain what that is?

   6. CLChandler Luzsicza9:32

      Of course. Yeah. [laughs] Totally can. Uh, so critical path just being, you know, the, the, the thing that's driving schedule.

   7. EPErin Price-Wright9:37

      Mm-hmm.

   8. CLChandler Luzsicza9:37

      So really the schedule driving task or, or procurement activity that needs to happen i- in order to unlock the, either the next phase or, um, or get you to the, to the end goal. Um, although we are very young at Galadyne, there's a lot of chasing critical path and playing this constant game of Whac-A-Mole to, to really, you know, get yourself to that next phase or get yourself to that next milestone.

   9. EPErin Price-Wright9:55

      And h-how do you align a team against critical path without making the next decision that comes after the current critical path take longer?

   10. TCTurner Caldwell10:05

       Yeah.

   11. EPErin Price-Wright10:05

       Does that make sense?

   12. TCTurner Caldwell10:06

       I've, I've got one if you-

   13. CLChandler Luzsicza10:07

       Go for it.

   14. EPErin Price-Wright10:07

       [laughs]

   15. TCTurner Caldwell10:08

       The, um, you, you can't play like second grade soccer. Um-

   16. EPErin Price-Wright10:12

       [laughs]

   17. TCTurner Caldwell10:12

       Like, that, that is the... That's like sometimes how it feels if you, like, are narrowly, narrowly focused on the critical path side of things, right? Um, and, you know, second grade soccer basically means that everyone, like, swarms to the ball-

   18. EPErin Price-Wright10:23

       Yeah

   19. TCTurner Caldwell10:23

       ... on the field.

   20. CLChandler Luzsicza10:23

       Yeah.

   21. TCTurner Caldwell10:24

       Um, and so you have to, you have to, like, set up, you know, uh, systems that enable you to mobilize, like, core groups of teams to go after critical paths while also not letting the next decision kind of fall behind. Um, and a lot of that is around having, you know, little SWAT teams that are able to, like, independently attack things that are in parallel-

   22. EPErin Price-Wright10:41

       Mm-hmm

   23. TCTurner Caldwell10:42

       ... um, or attack things in parallel that enable you to kind of keep the thing that is not on critical path right now still moving without, like, diverting all resources over. Um, that's how we think about it.

   24. CLChandler Luzsicza10:52

       It's easy, right? It's easy for folks who, who aren't getting constantly aligned to, to kind of fall into the hype because it, it is... It, it, it will seem like the hottest thing in town whenever that's happening 'cause it's like, oh, wow, you know, this is literally blocking a rocket launch. This is literally b- blocking a production line. And people are like, "Oh, I wanna help. I wanna help." It's like w- we gotta focus resources so that, you're right, the next thing doesn't actually become that critical path sooner rathe- rather than, you know, never, I suppose.

   25. EPErin Price-Wright11:13

       I guess though as, like as a, especially y- y- you, Chandler, I mean, Galadyne's still very early.

   26. CLChandler Luzsicza11:17

       Yeah.

   27. EPErin Price-Wright11:17

       So how do you, you know, h- how, how do you manage that internally, or are you still at the point where there really is just one critical path?

   28. CLChandler Luzsicza11:23

       I think the latter for sure. Like, we, we have, right now our team is six people, so it's, it's relatively easy to, to control that game. Um, but, but it's still very important. Like, you know, how, how we've structured a lot of the initial team is, is disciplinary based or, or, uh, sort of domain based. So it may not make the most sense for a avionics engineer to go troubleshoot a engine design problem that's literally blocking the production-

   29. EPErin Price-Wright11:45

       Yeah

   30. CLChandler Luzsicza11:45

       ... of, of said
4. 18:24 – 24:05

   All-Nighters and the Intense Work Culture

   1. EPErin Price-Wright18:24

      Both Tesla and, and SpaceX are famous for, you know, all-nighters, like a very intense work culture, long working hours, like really... these really hard deadlines where, you know, you're trying to do something in six months, which n- normally might take 36 months. How do you avoid kind of team burnout in those situations?

   2. CLChandler Luzsicza18:44

      A lot of this comes back to the, to how mission-aligned the company is or, or how strong the mission of the company is. It's [laughs] ... it doesn't feel like working if it's fun. Um, and, and particularly for folks who are, are so aligned with the mission of the company, um, obviously in SpaceX's case, making life multi-planetary, that's a fantastic mission to go stand behind and work your butt off to, to achieve. So it makes, it makes the long hours, the, the overnight- the all-nighters, it, it makes it so that they don't really impact you that much. Um, and I think a, a large, like a [laughs] very high amount of thought on my end right now is going into, you know, how, how do I really convince a lot of folks who haven't thought about defense before to be passionate about defense? Um, because the reality is, is in, in, in my case, there's so much talent that's living at SpaceX, there's so much talent living at Rocklab, Firefly, and Relativity that need to come work this problem set too. You know, it's, it's how do you, how do you build that same fiery mission alignment that, that SpaceX has been able to achieve and other companies have been able to achieve with their workforce now in these, in these, you know, new American dynamism-focused problem sets that people just haven't been working on in a while.

   3. EPErin Price-Wright19:43

      Mm-hmm.

   4. CLChandler Luzsicza19:43

      Um, and then makes, makes it all feel like fun and not like pain. [laughs]

   5. TCTurner Caldwell19:47

      Yeah. The mi- the mission alignment is definitely kind of like the core piece. I think the thing that actually causes burnout is churn, um, and like a lack of feeling like you're making progress towards-

   6. EPErin Price-Wright19:56

      Yeah

   7. TCTurner Caldwell19:56

      ... a goal. And so if people are working towards something and they feel like they're actually, like progressing towards it, and you know, if you're mission-aligned, solving hard problems, um, can be fun because you're... as long as you are, like making progress towards that goal. And so there's a handful of things that can make, like work not fun, which is churn can come from like, you know, erratic decision-making that kind of like moves teams in different dir- dir-

   8. EPErin Price-Wright20:18

      Mm-hmm

   9. TCTurner Caldwell20:19

      ... and there's always gonna be a little bit of that, especially in startup companies that are moving quick and are being very nimble. Um, but the second is like p- politics in companies creates an insane amount of churn, data silos, and kind of hoarding your Legos-

   10. EPErin Price-Wright20:33

       Mm-hmm

   11. TCTurner Caldwell20:33

       ... is what we call it, can create an insane amount of churn, and when people have to deal with that and aren't able to focus on like, okay, I have a problem that I have to solve, the pathway is clear, the decision is clear, the priorities are clear, they'll, you know, they'll work-

   12. EPErin Price-Wright20:45

       'Cause it zaps energy

   13. TCTurner Caldwell20:45

       ... their butts off to go do it.

   14. EPErin Price-Wright20:46

       Yeah.

   15. TCTurner Caldwell20:47

       Yeah.

   16. EPErin Price-Wright20:47

       Yeah.

   17. TCTurner Caldwell20:47

       But it, but it definitely, it, it destroys kind of like the excitement-

   18. EPErin Price-Wright20:50

       Yeah

   19. TCTurner Caldwell20:50

       ... um, if you have things that are around the team that, um, are taking away from like the core mission.

   20. EPErin Price-Wright20:55

       Yeah.

   21. TCTurner Caldwell20:56

       Um, so the... People can get excited about like impossible goals, um, because-

   22. EPErin Price-Wright21:00

       In fact, it's-

   23. TCTurner Caldwell21:01

       ... we're gonna go prove it.

   24. EPErin Price-Wright21:02

       Yeah. It's like-

   25. TCTurner Caldwell21:02

       That it can be done

   26. EPErin Price-Wright21:02

       ... the only thing that people do really get excited about-

   27. TCTurner Caldwell21:05

       Yeah

   28. EPErin Price-Wright21:05

       ... if it feels impossible.

   29. TCTurner Caldwell21:06

       Um, but that's the other thing that Chandler mentioned, which is like if a- as long as you're setting goals that are, um, aggressive but are possible, like that has to be, like, it has to be in the realm of possibility-

   30. CLChandler Luzsicza21:16

       Within reach. [laughs]
5. 24:05 – 32:18

   Approaching Every Problem With a Factory Mindset

   1. EPErin Price-Wright24:05

      So, um, maybe switching gears a little bit, both Tes- Tesla and SpaceX are famous for approaching every problem with this kind of factory mindset. Um, you know, everything is a factory, everything... You, you touched on it earlier, Turner, everything kind of boils down to a manufacturing problem. Um, so I wanna talk a, a little bit about what that means in practice. Um, Ch- Chandler, maybe starting with you, can we talk about iteration on Starship? So from V1 to V2 to V3, how did you balance system complexity and production rate?

   2. CLChandler Luzsicza24:34

      Yeah. [clears throat] I, I, whene- just to give some context, I, whenever I started in the Starship program, it was around Flight 3 timeframe, um, so a little bit of V1 play i, i- in terms of full stack, um, and then pushed all the way through the VT development cycle and then started s- to touch V3 and, and kind of lay that out be- before, before I left the company. Um, [clears throat] I think really what it, what, what this trade for us came down to is, is, a- and what enabled kind of the speed and thinking with, um, this, this factory mindset is and, and really just production focus in general, is requirements. Like from, from the design side, if you can boil up all of the requirements that sound stupid as fast as possible and then give yourself a chance to whack them out of the equation, you, you now leave yourself-

   3. EPErin Price-Wright25:14

      Like what? Give me an example.

   4. CLChandler Luzsicza25:16

      Uh. [clears throat]

   5. EPErin Price-Wright25:16

      If you can.

   6. CLChandler Luzsicza25:17

      Yeah, there is, there is one that's kind of interesting. It's kind of getting into the weeds, but, um, we, we had the opportunity to pull some hardware from, from Booster. So Booster was a little bit ahead of, uh, Ship, the Ship team in terms of, uh, their V3 design. They kind of skipped V2 for, for Booster. They went from V1 to V3. Um, and they had some hardware design for, for the V3, um, vehicle that actually could've been plugged into Ship very easily. And then we had so many... We had very limited engineers to go design a ton of prop systems hardware, and we identified that, oh, we can maybe use this. And we kind of brought it over early, which would've been an earlier imple- earlier implementation than Booster. And one of the things that popped up that, that sounds kind of silly is it was essentially a circle that lives inside the fuel tank, and you could condense liquid inside that circle. And [laughs] the valves that, that were, you know, effectively venting the tank there, um, don't like liquid. Uh, [laughs] so when we were, like, trying to go super fast, like, "Oh, sweet, we got free hardware, we can skip a whole design cycle. Let's go fast, then we can, you know, just jump into production sooner rather than later," we were like, "Oh, we're gonna get liquid [laughs] in this thing, too. I don't know if the valves are gonna like that." And what we did is we just spooled up the, the necessary resources to go prove that that's gonna be okay, and what that, what that did was not only allow us to go roll in this whole hardware, uh, design into production sooner, but it also enabled Booster once they got there to go use the same hardware.

   7. EPErin Price-Wright26:28

      Mm-hmm.

   8. CLChandler Luzsicza26:28

      So from a company goal perspective, it was fantastic, and it was, like, the, the perfect direction, I think. I won't even take... I won't take credit for all of that i, i- ideation. Uh, actually another guy on the team who's still there, uh, kind of brought it to my plate, and I'm like, "Oh, man, that's freaking great. Let's do it. Let's go fast." Um, but that, that's one thing, and it's really just, you know, staying super clear on, on this intention to question every requirement because what that does is it enables your requirement set whenever, you know, an engineer steps in to go actually design the hardware to be, you know, enabled to design a very simple solution. And simple is fast. Simple is cheap. Um, so really, I, I think that whole part of the SpaceX mantra is very real. Uh, and, and it is happening across Starship. It's even happening on, on fixes on Dragon and Falcon as some sort of-

   9. EPErin Price-Wright27:06

      Like, if you hadn't been focused... If you, if you hadn't been thinking of two steps ahead about production, you would've just designed-

   10. CLChandler Luzsicza27:12

       Yeah

   11. EPErin Price-Wright27:12

       ... something from scratch-

   12. CLChandler Luzsicza27:14

       Yeah

   13. EPErin Price-Wright27:14

       ... that was perfectly bespoke to the set of requirements that you got.

   14. CLChandler Luzsicza27:16

       Exactly. It's like we... Yeah, exactly. Bespoke requirements, and I think, you know, we, we literally had a whole design for all this hardware before realizing, "Oh, crap, we should just go use that," 'cause then we can go start figuring how to build these-

   15. EPErin Price-Wright27:26

       Yeah

   16. CLChandler Luzsicza27:27

       ... you know, somewhat complex weldments sooner rather than later and then build the production of those very quickly.

   17. EPErin Price-Wright27:31

       That's where information access really matters.

   18. CLChandler Luzsicza27:33

       Yeah, absolutely.

   19. EPErin Price-Wright27:34

       Yeah. What about you, Turner? Um, you know, you helped build Tesla's billion-dollar lithium refinery in Corpus Christi, which is, you know, up and running. Um, what, what were some of the hardest challenges you overcame? How did you, how did you approach them with this kind of factory and production mindset?

   20. TCTurner Caldwell27:52

       Yeah, I think that, so des- design for, uh, manufacturing is kinda like how you do product design and ensure that you can kind of scale that into something that can be produced at scale with, you know, very, uh, short tack times and all that. Um, but-

   21. EPErin Price-Wright28:03

       Yeah, but I mean, people don't really think about a refinery-

   22. TCTurner Caldwell28:05

       Exactly

   23. EPErin Price-Wright28:06

       ... as a product. [laughs]

   24. TCTurner Caldwell28:07

       So, ex- exactly. And so the, the... What we spent a good amount of time thinking about, uh, and then obviously we thought about, uh, when I was at Tesla, was, um, when you're in, when you're in, like, construction, basically, um, the, the environment is you're building a custom thing, right?

   25. EPErin Price-Wright28:22

       Mm-hmm.

   26. TCTurner Caldwell28:22

       And so you have to break that down into, like, modular subsets that can be manufactured offsite and brought to site. The, um... And then you have to think, like, everything should have a tack time analysis associated with it, right? Like a very-

   27. EPErin Price-Wright28:35

       A what analysis?

   28. TCTurner Caldwell28:36

       A tack time analysis, which is basically, um, breaking down all of the discrete steps required to go... to, to build something effectively. Um, and that needs to happen in-

   29. EPErin Price-Wright28:46

       Is that a Tesla, a SpaceX term-

   30. TCTurner Caldwell28:47

       No, no
6. 32:18 – 37:53

   Vertical Integration: Really Expensive, Really Hard

   1. EPErin Price-Wright32:18

      Um, maybe talking a little bit about vertical integration. It's, um, one of the most obvious and talked about Tesla and SpaceX principles. Uh, it's also really expensive, really hard. There's been, you know, various debates. TVPN had a good session on this-

   2. TCTurner Caldwell32:32

      [laughs]

   3. EPErin Price-Wright32:32

      ... uh, recently. Um, you know, should all tech har- hard tech startups vertically integrate? Where and when do you vertically integrate? How do you guys think about it? You know, how do you balance speed with capital intensity and operational risk? I'd love to hear your, your, your thoughts on, on vertical integration. Maybe, uh, Ch-Chandler, why don't you-

   4. CLChandler Luzsicza32:52

      Yeah, I can jump in.

   5. EPErin Price-Wright32:53

      Why don't you jump in?

   6. CLChandler Luzsicza32:54

      I was talking with Mike Vinciati about this directly [laughs]

   7. EPErin Price-Wright32:56

      [laughs]

   8. CLChandler Luzsicza32:57

      Uh, after the-

   9. EPErin Price-Wright32:57

      It caused quite a stir.

   10. CLChandler Luzsicza32:59

       It sure did.

   11. EPErin Price-Wright32:59

       [laughs]

   12. CLChandler Luzsicza32:59

       Uh, I was... Yeah, we had a good back and forth. It was funny. I, I'm largely in support of the take that was on there. Um, I think... [clears throat]

   13. EPErin Price-Wright33:05

       Maybe for the people who didn't see it, what, what was-

   14. CLChandler Luzsicza33:07

       Of course, yes

   15. EPErin Price-Wright33:08

       ... the take?

   16. CLChandler Luzsicza33:08

       The, the, the take, at least h- my read back on it was it needs to be strategic. Like this, this blank slate, idealistic, we're gonna vertically integrate is like, I think, almost naive in a way. Like vertical, vertical integration is not easy. [laughs]

   17. EPErin Price-Wright33:23

       Certainly not, yeah.

   18. CLChandler Luzsicza33:23

       It's, it's very much not easy. Uh, and I think there's f- we, we've, we're coming from places that have made it look easy, for sure. Uh, but it's-

   19. EPErin Price-Wright33:32

       [laughs]

   20. CLChandler Luzsicza33:32

       ... it's not. [laughs] It's really not easy.

   21. TCTurner Caldwell33:34

       From the outside. From the outside.

   22. CLChandler Luzsicza33:35

       From the outside it looks super easy. Um-

   23. EPErin Price-Wright33:36

       Yeah, it's a very romantic dream.

   24. CLChandler Luzsicza33:38

       Absolutely. And, and I think you have a lot of people who maybe haven't lived that pain to understand the, like, the, the trade associated with, with going for that strategically. So I think how, how I think about it is we have to bring in the assemblies in-house that, that are going to bottleneck our supply chain as fast or bottleneck our production line as fast as possible. So I think what that looks like for us is, is some of the bigger weldments. Like starting, starting with that sort of thing, bringing it in-house sooner rather than later is something that's relatively easy to do but is a very complex thing that has multiple steps that, that if we can bring that in-house, we, we, we whack one mole on the table, um, of, of getting to this, you know, 10,000 missiles per year number. Um, I think there's of course many more challenges or you, you kind of just... Whenever you're looking at your end state product, you need to go and see what are the things that are, are really hitting me on schedule.

   25. EPErin Price-Wright34:23

       Mm-hmm.

   26. CLChandler Luzsicza34:23

       And for us, there's probably five of those right now that are, are like screaming at us, like, "Please help. Please help." [laughs] So those things are obviously gonna be top of mind to like how could we do this? Like, what is, what is the way we would do this? And, and then you can actually start to analyze the, the how intense the capital is to, to make it happen, how, how extensive the time is required to actually go and achieve on that. Um, but it's [laughs] it has to be strategic, and I think a lot- the, a lot of the takes that are, uh, we're fully vertically integrated this, we're fully vertically integrated that, is just, uh, it's, it's, it's going to spend a lot of money, that's for sure. [clears throat]

   27. TCTurner Caldwell34:56

       Yeah, I don't think, uh, vertically integrating for the point of vertically integrating, to kind of echo what Chandler was saying-

   28. CLChandler Luzsicza35:00

       [laughs]

   29. TCTurner Caldwell35:01

       ... uh, is makes any sense. Um, I think every vertical integration decision, which there, there are thousands of them, um, need to boil down to like one question, especially in like the early days of companies, is does the company exist or not if you make the decision to ver- if you don't make the decision to vertically integrate. And so like if you boil it down to like a subset of problems that are binary and like does Mariana exist or does Mariana not exist, the, that makes the decision easy where... And, and that could be a number of drivers. So either the part doesn't exist, the technology doesn't exist, or the cost is like so insanely high that the company can't exist by not vertically integrating into the thing. And so if the... And I call it the thing because there's many, many things, uh, and, and like subcomponents or s- parts of the software stack-

   30. EPErin Price-Wright35:43

       Mm-hmm
7. 37:53 – 44:30

   The Caliber of Talent Tesla and SpaceX Are Famous For

   1. TCTurner Caldwell37:53

      stack.

   2. EPErin Price-Wright37:54

      So something that both Tesla and SpaceX are, you know, pr- pretty famous for is the caliber of talent that they're able to hire, and p- you know, part of it comes back to this mission, this mission problem, this mission alignment that you guys talked about before. Part of it comes down to, you know, people who, pe- people wanna work with other smart people and learn from other smart people. Um, but it's, you know, it's pretty remarkable how many excellent engineers and founders have come out of these companies. So how does hiring work at these companies? Like, how do they get such excellent talent and excellent engineers in the door, and how do you bring that, the, some of those lessons into the companies that you're building today?

   3. TCTurner Caldwell38:36

      Yeah, I think the, like, the, the key part of the hiring process at, at, at, you know, Tesla at least, and I'm sure at SpaceX, um, is the, the, like, technical, um, evaluation, it goes quite deep.

   4. EPErin Price-Wright38:48

      Mm-hmm.

   5. TCTurner Caldwell38:49

      Um, and so they're, you know, you're going to talk to six engine- if you're applying for an engineering role, you're probably talking to six engineers before you're getting an offer. You're almost certainly doing a technical test that kind of shows how you think through problems, and are you able to solve the problems that your resume says you're able to solve.

   6. EPErin Price-Wright39:03

      Mm-hmm.

   7. TCTurner Caldwell39:03

      And so that level of, like, technical rigor that goes into assessing folks that are coming into the company is pretty extensive. You- you're gonna have eight to 10 conversations before you get an offer, and we've-

   8. EPErin Price-Wright39:14

      And that's a feature, like-

   9. TCTurner Caldwell39:15

      100%.

   10. EPErin Price-Wright39:16

       Yeah.

   11. TCTurner Caldwell39:16

       And, like, it does, does it make the, like, hiring process a little bit slower? Yes. Um, but it is really important to do your darnedest- [laughs]

   12. CLChandler Luzsicza39:26

       [laughs]

   13. TCTurner Caldwell39:26

       ... to make sure that the folks that are coming to the company are gonna come in and be autonomous and able to, like, balance authority and accountability, um, which means that they have to really, really have the deep technical understanding of the field that they're going into. We've mirrored that effectively, um, and ensured that, uh... And it's ha- it's harder when you don't have the brand that, uh, Tesla or SpaceX have, right? Of, you know, the folks who are trying to get a job at those companies, they're like, "Yes, I'll do a tech test. Yes, I will talk to as many people-

   14. EPErin Price-Wright39:53

       Mm-hmm

   15. TCTurner Caldwell39:53

       ... as you want me to talk to." And so you, you know, you, you do have to manage that a little bit with candidates. Um, but for the folks who are really excited about the mission and the folks who are really excited about the company, um, who are the folks that you wanna bring in anyways, um, they will go through that process. Um, and we typically pitch it in both directions. It's like, "Look, if you're gonna join, you're joining a startup that has, you know, inherently has high risk. Um, and so you should also get to know the team that we have."

   16. EPErin Price-Wright40:17

       Mm-hmm.

   17. TCTurner Caldwell40:17

       And so it goes in both directions.

   18. EPErin Price-Wright40:19

       I've always found that extremely rigorous and ha- actually hard interviewing processes positively filter for people who are motivated by the really hard interview process.

   19. TCTurner Caldwell40:30

       Yep.

   20. EPErin Price-Wright40:30

       Like, if you're a cracked engineer, you wanna work with other cracked engineers, and you wanna know that other engineers have gone through the same process that you have. And, like, a really hard interview process is pretty fun, but they're very hard to design. Um-

   21. TCTurner Caldwell40:42

       Yep

   22. EPErin Price-Wright40:42

       ... it's not for the faint of heart on the interviewer side.

   23. CLChandler Luzsicza40:45

       I, I think to not just repeat what he said-

   24. EPErin Price-Wright40:47

       [laughs]

   25. TCTurner Caldwell40:47

       [laughs]

   26. CLChandler Luzsicza40:47

       ... just to answer the question-

   27. EPErin Price-Wright40:48

       Sorry. [laughs]

   28. CLChandler Luzsicza40:48

       No, no, that's good. Uh, it, it is very similar, uh, but the distinction I'll make, and I think the value I can add here is, um, I, very true on the full-time, like, say, multi-year experienced person who's coming to a SpaceX. Like, they're going through four, five, six screens, right? A panel interview to finish it off. Um, I think the, the, the value that I can add here is particularly related to the internship funnel.

   29. EPErin Price-Wright41:10

       Mm-hmm.

   30. CLChandler Luzsicza41:10

       I think given the brand with Tesla and SpaceX, like, literally it's been quantified. These are, like, the most applied-to programs ever. [laughs] And they've got this insane interest from the public, which obviously is a double-edged sword, right? It's like you, you get very good, but you also get very bad. It's a, it's a broad spread. Um, however, I think looking at the, the impact of, of these, of these internsh- internship programs on the eventual full-time candidates or the full-time, um, uh, employees, it, it gives, it gives a three-month trial period to these people.
8. 44:30 – 50:05

   Advice for Young Engineers Starting Their Careers

   1. EPErin Price-Wright44:30

      Uh, maybe wrapping up, um, gi- given we're talking about hiring interns and, and young talent, both of you started your careers at Tesla and SpaceX, you know, relatively young, um, what advice would you give to a young SpaceX or Tesla engineer, or in fact just a young engineer overall, who's thinking about maybe one day leaving to start a company? How should they be thinking about that journey?

   2. TCTurner Caldwell44:53

      Yeah. I would, I would say, um, you know, if you, if you're at a company that has, you know, really, really high talent density, um, and you're in a position where you feel like you're constantly learning and every day is kind of like a growth opportunity, um, and you get to see projects from, like, the messy phase, the, the, the early messy phases through the middle messy phases through the kind of deployment messy phases, um, like, that experience is, is incredibly valuable. And getting to do that-

   3. EPErin Price-Wright45:21

      Seeing something through end to end

   4. TCTurner Caldwell45:23

      ... end to end. So I would say that I wouldn't go and start something, uh, until you have, like, been able to sit around a project that you have seen go end to end and then done that multiple times. That enables you to see how, like, how much better can you get with each iteration of, um, of, of, like, from concept through to deployment. And getting that to, getting to do that with, like, the most awesome people in the world, um, is, is, like, a very unique experience that positions you to be able to go and start something eventually. But I wouldn't, like, rush to leave and go start something because, one, your credibility, um, to bu- really your credibility to attract talent-

   5. EPErin Price-Wright45:59

      Mm-hmm

   6. TCTurner Caldwell45:59

      ... 'cause, like, the, like, the companies are, are ultimately, like, this assembly of, like, awesome people who are driven towards a, a mission that everyone's excited about. Um, and so convincing people to join you on that mission, that's going to be painful. It's going to be risky. Um, you have a lot more credibility if you have, like, been through the execution cycle multiple times-

   7. EPErin Price-Wright46:17

      Mm-hmm

   8. TCTurner Caldwell46:17

      ... know, have, like, the kind of embedded understanding of, like, how long does some part of that process take or how long does that whole process have to take so that you can credibly set targets that the team can then rally behind and go build, uh, build to. And so, um, I would say that getting... Like, having done that, you take, take full advantage of, like, ecosystems and companies where you have the ability to do that, um, and, and where, you know, they're insulating you a little bit from the risk that you have to be able com- like, be comfortable taking. Um, and as long as you're getting authority and accountability in, like, the scopes that you're getting within the company, and then you're getting, like, more and more of that, that is gonna be invaluable experience that, uh, that will enable to s- set you up to be successful.

   9. EPErin Price-Wright46:57

      I see you nodding, Chandler.

   10. CLChandler Luzsicza46:59

       Yeah. I'm, I'm trying to think about... Again-

   11. EPErin Price-Wright47:00

       [laughs]

   12. CLChandler Luzsicza47:01

       ... I think Turner and I live the same life. [laughs] Just he's a little bit, a couple years ahead. Um, I started at SpaceX when I was 18 years old. Like, that was when I first entered the doors into the fun candy land that was SpaceX, and it was the dream.

   13. EPErin Price-Wright47:11

       [laughs]

   14. CLChandler Luzsicza47:11

       Right? And I told myself from day one that I'm gonna be a sponge. Like, I, I want to be the biggest sponge I possibly can to absorb as much freaking information from all these amazing people as I can. Um, that's not, not an internship-limited thing. That's a forever thing. I'm still doing it today. But I think, yeah, a lot of, a lot of how I approached it and how I think people should approach it generally, not, not just if they're going to a SpaceX or a Tesla, but they should, they should really approach, you know, this from a how can I surround myself with the best people in the world, um, and work on a project from start to finish and, and do those reps, like what Turner was saying. I will s- I will caveat that, though, with it, it's, it's hard, right? If, if you're, if you're fresh coming out of school, you may not know what that looks like. So maybe, maybe some actionable recommendation is, you know, lean on, lean on your network. Lean on people you know, both in school, peers who may have interned elsewhere and seen other environments. Or, um, if there's professors, other people in your life that you can have meaningful conversations with about perspective on, on certain companies, just missions, products, that sort of thing, like, go do that thing, because it, it can be hard. Like, it, it can be kind of scary. You don't know because you haven't already done it. You don't know if-

   15. EPErin Price-Wright48:11

       What good looks like

   16. CLChandler Luzsicza48:12

       ... what g- what good looks like, exactly. So it... I, I will, yeah, caveat it with, with it's hard, but once you find that, that sweet spot of, of place to be, then just go be a sponge.

   17. EPErin Price-Wright48:21

       Yeah. I think knowing what good looks like and being able to develop an understanding and intuition for how exceptional teams build is, like, pretty invaluable.

   18. CLChandler Luzsicza48:32

       Yep. Yeah, I, I don't think I could start Galadyne with- without having spent, you know, a handful of years doing the things I did at SpaceX, so.

   19. TCTurner Caldwell48:40

       Yeah, I think that m- maybe the last thing I'll say is that you're, you'll never actually be, like, fully trained to go and start a company.

   20. CLChandler Luzsicza48:46

       Totally.

   21. EPErin Price-Wright48:47

       [laughs]

   22. TCTurner Caldwell48:47

       Like, the [laughs] like, it's not like you stay there for... It's, it's, there's no recipe. It's not like you stay somewhere for 10 years, and then you go and you work on... You go and start a company. The... And so there's always gonna be an, like a, a, a, when, when do you feel yourself confident to go and take a risk, and different people are gonna have different perspectives on, like, when do they feel ready to go and do it. But I generally think that you want to have as strong of a technical basis before you go and have to learn all of the company-building-

   23. EPErin Price-Wright49:12

       Mm-hmm

   24. TCTurner Caldwell49:12

       ... uh, side of, of things. And so making sure that you're kind of, like, over-indexing on the technical side before you go and, uh, kind of sign up for figuring out how to hire and figuring out how to fundraise and figuring out how to build all the eco- the ecosystem around a company that, and the infrastructure around a company that has to be built, um, 'cause you are gonna keep learning as, once you go and start something. But, you know, being hyper-focused on building that strong technical basis is the, is the key.

   25. CLChandler Luzsicza49:35

       Yeah, I can imagine [laughs] like this, already having the technical basis and going and growing into the fundraising, all of this other stuff that I didn't know how to do, like, this is already hard. I could not imagine the inverse.

   26. EPErin Price-Wright49:44

       Mm-hmm.

   27. CLChandler Luzsicza49:45

       Like, going in, and, and being, uh, going and needing to figure out all of the technical chops that I have up till this point, or at least enough to, to be successful in what we're trying to do, uh, would be very, very difficult. [laughs]

   28. EPErin Price-Wright49:57

       [laughs]

   29. CLChandler Luzsicza49:58

       So I'd much rather have-

   30. EPErin Price-Wright49:58

       Don't, don't, don't, don't try to learn how to build rockets on the job-

Episode duration: 50:25