Highlights

Leaving JPL for SpaceX (03:46)

"Some of the decisions were made just because of heritage — we've always flown this thing, and you can't fly something new unless it's already flown in space. Well, that's a weird catch-22… So I wanted something that took more risk and that just made a little more sense in how things were operated."

Learning at SpaceX (04:58)

"I just kinda ate the embarrassment… Super uncomfortable, but I took a new job to grow and that was one of the parts of growing. I was always a shy kid, a shy student, shy about asking questions, and I think I gave that up around the time I got to SpaceX, and it's worked out for the rest of my career."

The battery that exploded overnight (08:22)

"I remember emailing Matt Soule, like, hey, we're not the long pole. Celebrate that… And, like, within a day, he's like, have you heard the news? … I will never forget the smell of an exploded lithium polymer battery… The chamber is totally destroyed. Just carnage everywhere. So going from, hey, we're not the long pole to your shit exploded in test in a building overnight. Like, good luck figuring that out."

How SpaceX treated failure (11:22)

"Nobody's like, oh my god, we're totally screwed… It's just like, it failed. That was a bad one. It was kinda cool, kinda bad, but let's keep moving. You know, somebody else is gonna have something like that. The only way forward is through this."

Midnight in Texas (15:06)

"Deep breath. We're all tired. We're all loopy. Take all the weights off of it. Balances perfectly. LR just over designed it a little bit, it worked out fine, but pressure's on, don't lose your cool. And everybody there was in the same boat. Nobody was getting angry. Nobody was yelling. It was just like, we're gonna figure it out. And we did."

The cheese detour (17:10)

"So what's the weirdest thing I could possibly do? Oh, I could go help my brother start a cheese factory in The Philippines… My brother was like, hey, I need an engineer. You're smart. You figure random shit out that you don't know how to do. Like, yeah, that is what I do."

Landing at Zoox (23:05)

"It doesn't feel like you're in a car with no driver. It feels like you're in a Zoox… I came in and somebody had designed, like, a computer box… This looks like a tractor in the back of a Toyota. I brought in one of my Dragon battery box designs. I was like, guys, we could do better. Let me help you."

The takeaway (27:10)

"Putting your pride aside and trying to learn in whatever way was going to be the most efficient. So if it's saying, I don't know, or if it's actually just failing and learning and picking yourself back up… Don't get mad at the lady who misspelled your name on your Starbucks. She might not have slept that much last night… It's just generally how we live, just reminding ourselves to be kind to one another." (28:34)