I Don’t Need These Russians 129
cheaper rockets. But if you have no experience, you do
not yet know what’s impossible, then it’s much easier to
do what everyone else think is impossible. To find these
new engineers, SpaceX contacted Stanford University ́s
aeronautics and astronautics department to get the names
of the best students. “We start with that layer – young
engineers, young talent, young technicians – who don’t
really know what’s impossible,” a SpaceXer said.^425
As when Elon founded X.com and Zip2, he didn’t have
any practical experience from the industry. Launching
rockets as a kid in South Africa wasn’t enough. But the
degree in physics included some basic theories he could
use, and he was eager to learn what he didn’t know by
reading books and through learn by doing. “It is not like
I ever worked for Boeing or Lockheed,” Elon said. “But I do
have an understanding of how things work in physics and
engineering.”^60
Elon set out to learn everything he could about rocket
technology by asking his employees who were experts in
their respective area. “I’d never seen anything like it,” a
SpaceXer said. “He was the quickest learner I’ve ever come
across. You had this guy who knew everything from a
business point of view, but who was also clearly capable of
knowing everything from a technical point of view – and
the place he was creating was a blank sheet of paper.”^49
It took Elon two years to learn what he needed to know
about rockets. “I know my rocket inside out and backward,”
he said. “I can tell you the heat treating temper of the skin
material, where it changes, why we chose that material, the