Hot take: The people you mentioned are hired to bring big-name cred to the organization. None of them stuck around (correct me if I'm wrong, I've only done a cursory glance just now), they all left. Eg, they're the "top tier engineering" part of the companies, and other employees (and I've dealt with these employees at Tesla in a past life, so I can attest to their terrible attitude) are the "mediocre build quality".
Astronaut Garrett Reisman worked for 7 years there and is on record stating that is all the stress he could handle.[1]:
Jim Keller has a history of joining a company to start a project and then leaving once it is complete. He did this multiple times in his career and was with Tesla until they completed the self driving computer. He has also left behind a team of stellar well known people.
I am not too sure about Andrej Karpathy. I dont know if we have enough of a history to know when he chooses to join and leave companies.
There must be a lot of lower level engineers who have to be developing all these amazing subsystems in the car and other products.
Wonder what the turn over is for the really skilled people. Maybe the truly burnt out people or just stragglers are the ones you are encountering.
I overlapped there with Garrett, and while our work rarely overlapped, he was certainly around and "in the trenches". My point is that, from my point of view, he was a real person rather than a figurehead.
To some extent I could say the same for Elon, who was certainly around a lot. He was more of a general visiting the trenches, though. Also a real person, but of a different caste.
I was one of those lower level engineers building stuff. I stuck around for 3 years, and left when I was happy rather than burnt out. It was my first job after school, and I wanted to try some other companies before settling down.
Based on her TED interview about passenger travel on rockets being in service by 2028 cheaper than business class, I'm gonna say they might be doing well in spite of her rather than because.
I’m sorry but you clearly know nothing about what you’re talking about. Throughout the entire industry she is absolutely credited with SpaceX’s success. SpaceX dominates because of reliability, and the reliability stems from business units Shotwell manages, not Musk.
