Lifted in toto from Azeem Azhar's LinkedIn, September 2:
This is an excerpt from my Sunday newsletter.
SpaceX is a quintessential Exponential Age company. It has a focused ambition, iterates quickly and as a result, generates substantial learning effects. And now it’s coming to the rescue of two American astronauts stranded in space by Boeing’s space jalopy, the Starliner.
This is a test of evolutionary fitness.
Boeing epitomises the end of the late industrial era. It is burdened by bureaucracy; it relies on regulatory and political capture; and it has taken management theories like outsourcing past the extreme to the absurd. The firm has dispersed R&D and manufacturing across a global network of suppliers – a strategy that yielded quality issues and, at times, had fatal consequences.
In contrast, SpaceX embodies the vertically integrated model of the Exponential Age, with in-house production that delivers rapid innovation and dramatic cost reductions in space launches.
Since its founding in 2002, SpaceX has brought down the cost of space launches into low Earth orbit by 90%. Ten years ago, Boeing received a $4.2 billion contract from NASA to develop crewed launch vehicles with zero success. The same year, SpaceX got a $2.6 billion contract and has completed nine crewed launches so far. The tenth will be the rescue of the astronauts stranded by Boeing.
More LinkedIn posts by Azeem.