5. The History of SpaceX With Eric Berger [FourWeekMBA Podcast]

What this episode covers

In this episode of the FourWeekMBA podcast, I interview Eric Berger, Senior Space Editor at Ars Technica since 2015, Founder And Editor of Space City Weather, and author of:Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX(https://i0.wp.com/fourweekmba.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Screenshot-2022-02-15-at-17.48.05.png?resize=673%2C1024&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)Gennaro [FourWeekMBA]:Eric, thanks for joining this conversation. It’s a pleasure to have you in this session.Eric Berger:Oh, it’s my pleasure. Thank you.How did you actually get to cover SpaceX? What was the background that made you actually write the book in the first place?Eric Berger:Yeah, I mean, I’ve been covering space for a long time. I’m based in Houston, Texas, where Johnson Space Center is located. And so space is a big part of the fabric of community here. It became clear to me about a decade ago that the real future of space flight, at least in the United States, was in the private sector. It was at that point that SpaceX was just starting to take off. And then they’ve had really tremendous success over about the last five years with all the rockets they’ve launched, putting humans into orbit, and demonstrating reuse.And so it was back in about 2018 that I realized that SpaceX basics was not just sort of a really interesting company. They were really transforming the industry and continue to do so. And I wanted to understand why they had been successful. And so I was wondering, is this because of Elon Musk or did he just get lucky? Is he really as involved as he says he is? And so it was sort of with the goal of answering those questions that I embarked upon the project of really understanding the beginnings of SpaceX.Gennaro [FourWeekMBA]:Yeah. Interesting. And for a little bit of context to the audience, because in this series, I also had an interview with the author of The Founders, which is a book about PayPal. And it’s a very interesting connection because actually when Elon Musk used the funding for SpaceX, it was actually the money that Elon Musk managed to get from an exit from PayPal. It was like around 2002 when PayPal was acquired by eBay, and that was what gave him actually the money to get started with SpaceX.And the interesting notice also that just one or a couple years before Musk had been ousted from the company, because he had been like the CEO of the company, and then there was a sort of interesting story behind it because Max Levchin and David Sachs organized, let’s say, ousting of Musk from PayPal. And there is a whole story behind it, which is very interesting and we cover in the other episode. Why did Musk get started with SpaceX? I mean, he is a software guy, one of the most incredible people that, of course, you have in business. But why did he get to space?Eric Berger:Yeah, I mean, it’s really interesting that he went from software into space flight, and then not too long after that, into electric vehicles. And I think the answer really begins with his unique personality. He is very much an engineer, and so he looks at the world, sees problems, and wants to solve them. And so I think after he’d sort of made it with PayPal in the sense that he was now sort of well off and could do the things that he wanted to do, he started to look around.

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