How does NASA attract software talent? Not all smart people are in silicon valley selling ads or spying on people.

Plenty of smart people are staying away thanks to the increasing costs to live in the Bay Area.

Also, not all engineers have a risk-taking mentality. The Bay Area attracts mostly the "hacker" types, but there are plenty of more conservative – yet equally technically capable – individuals who prefer working for the government or a Fortune 500 company, where IT is just one of the many departments. Essentially, these are the people who might as well have chosen a career in banking or any other well-paying science-based field. To them, having a stable job is the highest priority.

Against which you have to balance the risk of taking the NASA job, but not getting paid for a few weeks or months every year.

If you really want a 'NASA' job, your best bet is one of their subcontractors that do most of the actual engineering.

JPL is still at work during the current shutdown...

They also get backpay so they are not really losing money.

In a world where "software talent" can be attracted to work on "boring" subjects such as advertising, do you have to ask this question? The same incentives apply.

In most of Europe, software engineers are paid the same as other highly skilled engineers. And Europe has plenty of engineering talent. What it doesn't have, though, is people willing to take and fund bold projects. But building the safest cars in the world[1] is not considered bold at Volvo. That's how they differentiate themselves in the crowded premium car market from Audi, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW.

[1] http://www.thedrive.com/sheetmetal/17546/euro-ncap-volvo-xc6...

Aren’t the Tesla Model S/X the safest cars in the world, though?

An aside:

"While IIHS and dozens of other private industry groups around the world have methods and motivations that suit their own subjective purposes, the most objective and accurate independent testing of vehicle safety is currently done by the U.S. government, which found Model S and Model X to be the two cars with the lowest probability of injury of any cars that it has ever tested, making them the safest cars in history.""

Oy. "that suit their own subjective purposes"? Really?

"So, why the difference between the two crash tests? NHTSA's evaluation does not include small overlap front-end collisions, which the IIHS blames for about a quarter of the injuries and fatalities in front-end crashes."

Seems like it’s disputed. Still, of the safest cars mentioned at the end of the article, none are made by Volvo.

EuroNCAP tests are a way more advanced than those done in North America[1]:

"Ford Mustang hits the wall with 2-star Euro NCAP score [...] Lack of modern safety technology and other flaws mark Ford's sports car down in the latest round of tests. That's the lowest score a brand new vehicle has achieved in quite some time. [...] In NHTSA tests the Mustang scored five starts in every metric."

[1] https://www.evo.co.uk/ford/mustang/18757/ford-mustang-hits-t...

Good info, thanks!

He ment crash saftey :) If you are in a collition, Volvo is world leading. Tesla is only safer because is can break in advance.

Unintentionally hilarious use of homonym, thanks! (Cars that can't be driven can't get into many accidents...)

No

Volvo XC90 is

Teslas are safest for the NHTSA tests, but not the European tests, which, IIRC are better measures of safety

$$$, just like every other company.

How did they attract sufficient software talent for their other advanced active safety systems?