Justin Lopas has seen the management style of Elon Musk closely, and he embraces some of the things he has learned.
Lopas, a 30 -year -old co -founder, worked in manufacturing and mechanical engineering at SpaceX and Andundil before launching his company Base Power, a home battery company based in Texas in 2023.
He spoke to BI of the way in which his stay in the two companies and the experience of working directly with Musk, helped guide his own work based on the interview process.
The representatives of SpaceX and Andundil did not respond to a request for comments from Business Insider.
Determine jobs and get the right people
Lopas was only a second year student at the University of Michigan when he won an internship at Musk’s Rocket Company in 2013. He later returned to SpaceX full -time in 2016 and moved to Andundil in 2020. In SpaceX, he divided his time between work on the Falcon rocket and the construction of manufacturing capacities in Boca Chica Village Starbase).
In his interviews in SpaceX and Andundil, Lopas said he had noticed that interviewers tended to focus on practical skills and answering the real questions that the company was facing.
He uses the same strategy when he speaks to candidates for basic power.
“It’s like” here is a problem that we are working on now, how did you solve it? “” Said Lopas. “I found that it was a much more effective way to judge someone’s technical talent than:” Can you solve this type of problem of mechanical engineering homework? “”
Related stories
Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know
Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know
Culture is everything
The biggest point to remember from Lopas of his years in SpaceX was not limited to engineering expertise.
“Culture is the most important thing, I believe it quite firmly,” he said. “I learned a lot specifically at SpaceX.”
When he was there, Musk’s company highlighted some basic concepts that Lopas is now trying to instill in basic power: high property, the first principles and good work ethics.
High ownership is the idea that an employee must have a problem related to his work, even if he does not explicitly fall into his post description.
“Are you going to go solve the problem, or are you going to seek means to define the problem so that it is not your problem? The answer must be” yes “to the first,” said Lopas.
He also learned to approach all the problems of the concept of “first principles”: to ignore hypotheses on how things should be done.
“For almost everything we do, there is a” traditional “ way of doing it, “he said.” But if you think about the problem of the first principles, the way it is normally done is not the way it should be done. “”
His team applies the concept to apparently small decisions, such as mounting the batteries on the ground instead of the more conventional location on a wall.
Speed counts
Lopas said that “speed is essentially everything” at SpaceX and Andundil. The emphasis on the reduction of bureaucracy was another key lesson, although he declared that a certain degree of internal management was necessary.
“What SpaceX taught me and that we try to embody here is:” Does this person or this process add value to the company or to the organization? “” He told Bi. “And if the answer is no, you should get rid of.”
After having acquired Twitter, for example, Musk reduced almost 90% of the staff, and many criticized his similar approach to chainsaw to bring the federal government through the White House office.
Before President Donald Trump took office for the second time, Musk wrote in an editorial that Doge was aimed at considerably reducing the workforce and costs and fighting a “constantly increasing bureaucracy”.
Musque as a boss
Lopas worked directly with Musk in the village of Boca Chica and “really appreciated” it. He said the billionaire could quickly go to the root of a problem and simplify it.
“I was fascinated by the speed with which he was able to learn things or understand things in which he did not necessarily have training,” said Lopas.
The basic power is still at its beginnings, but Lopas reflects on how to build a company that borrows the principles of those from which it has come. In doing so, he said he thought he was a good chance of creating a business that can “resist the time test,” he said.
Do you have a tip or experience in one of Musk’s companies? Contact this journalist by email to atecotzky@insider.com or signal on alicetecotzky.05. Use a personal email address and a non-work device; Here is our guide to share information safely.
businessinsider
