Both companies are fine, and Shotwell is an industry veteran who is no doubt valuable to SpaceX, but don't be ridiculous to think either company would be anywhere without Elon at the helm.
I really don't understand this recent wave of people who until now loved the guy but after he took a page out of President Trumps say whatever you're thinking book, people hate him.
This is really distorting progress in our country because while going public may severely impair any longterm revolutionary goals of a company, it'll also make you [the founders] filthy stinking rich.
In the "risk-on" phases of the past few cycles, the stock markets have loved risk takers. The problem, I believe, is in management not wanting to ruin a good thing.
Hindsight is 20/20 after all. And vision is only lauded in hindsight. Because a vision that ends in failure gets a big "I told you so." from people who usually have none.
It's only niche until the price comes down, like for computers, cars, air travel, aluminum, coffee, etc.
From here... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium
"As Wöhler's method could not yield great quantities of aluminium, the metal remained rare; its cost exceeded that of gold. [57]
...
[57] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#cite_note-Venetski-6...
1. Things can be niche because there just aren't that many people who want them, rather than because you couldn't make them cheaply if there was demand. A good quality Videodisc player for example costs far more now than it did at the height of the format, because only weird retro collectors want one so there's no reason to mass produce them. Videodisc players are niche.
2. We're talking about literal space, it can actually fill up. Some orbits are either so low that everything de-orbits soon enough anyway and needs replacing, or so high that we'd never conceivably fill them, but in between are plenty of useful orbits that are finite, so filling them up with more crap doesn't make any sense even if you could do it for free.
So even if getting up there gets cheap the things we put up there will still need to be expensive.
The average joe had and could have had nothing to do with SpaceX's success. I think OP is referring more to people who could have had an impact, like government entities or aerospace company CEOs.
You mean capacitors. Ba dum tshhh.
They met the payload goals thanks to unanticipated improvements to Falcon 9 performance. But it rather gives the lie to the "the CEO made a plan and they executed that plan" narrative; actually a substantial part of the CEO's plan was a blind alley and they wasted a lot of time chasing it.
Most seemly well-run companies are a total shit-show from the inside. Stupid projects with features that no one wants, that engineering can’t build, destined to never sell.
It’s just plain refreshing when you see a company firing on all cylinders (sorry, couldn’t help myself) to the point where a shrewd move that helps capture the market only becomes apparent, even to industry insiders, months or years later.
It’s particularly satisfying when the CEO maps it all out in public years ahead of time and then executes on that vision relentlessly for a decade, despite the constant hate and doubt.
</Fanboy>