At SpaceX, work was taken away from me in case I “might retire or die.”
At SpaceX, work was taken away from me in case I “might retire or die.”
Our latest Lioness story.
A Lioness story out today, by a former employee at Elon Musk’s SpaceX:
I was a “hardcore” Principal Engineer at SpaceX, achieving performance goals and working longer hours than most of my colleagues—yet I saw my work roles gradually transferred to younger engineers who fit the company’s “frat bro” mold.
By John Johnson, former Principal Engineer at SpaceX
I have watched the recent news about the takeover at Twitter without much surprise. I was an employee of one of Elon Musk’s other companies; for many months, I’ve refrained from speaking about my experience there. As an older white male, I hadn’t confronted the impediments to success that many people face—until I started at SpaceX. But as we move into this new era of wealthy industrialists taking the helm of the largest tech firms, I feel compelled to tell my story, as I believe it is essential that their workforces reflect all the demographics of our pluralistic society, not just the male-dominant youth culture that saturated my former workplace.
In 2018, at age 58, I was hired at SpaceX for my deep expertise in a niche sector called optics engineering that is key to diverse applications, such as the spaceborne instruments used to acquire and send satellite images to Earth. During my job interview, a person much younger than me commented about the youthfulness of the other engineering staff, and asked whether I’d “be okay” working with young colleagues. I thought it was a strange question; having spent my career in age-diverse companies, I hadn’t even considered that this could be an issue. I knew mentors and colleagues 20 years older than me who were still actively employed, valued, and high contributors at their jobs.
Both my manager and vice president (who is also a Tesla VP) were enthused to have me onboard and were encouraging from the start, saying things like, “You’re the only expert we have in optics manufacturing,” and “SpaceX needs you to tell us when we’re fucking up.” I was truly excited to be among the few high-level Principal Engineers at SpaceX, bringing decades of acquired knowledge in my field to achieve the company’s lofty goals. Ad astra!
But that’s not quite how things panned out…
(Read the rest of the story here…)
These small "territorial games" add up over time. What is amazing is that the bro culture considers them "fair play." The competitive context blinds these guys from protecting the resources and staff they already have. The assumption there is always someone better means everyone is eventually treated as "not good enough." Competitive cultures undermine collaboration....or really what happens is that those who collaborate are seen as weak by those who can only conceive of power as dominance.