“The economy is shit,” he says, apropos of nothing and everything. Though Elon Musk almost never raises his voice and doesn’t now, his tone is unmistakably…chipper. “Do you realize what that’s going to do to the value of secondhand machines? They’ll be in the toilet! We can get an EB welder on-site!”
It’s the damnedest thing. The world is shit. Elon’s world is shit. Yet when Elon asks, “Should we buy a welder?” he seems to be doing so in the same way a 10-year-old asks, “Should we ride the roller coaster now?” Here in the von Braun, everything that comes out of his mouth, whether in the form of a question or comment, is about building, hiring, investing. If and when the present woes of the world are acknowledged—the economy is shit!—the point is to exult in how easy that’s going to make things.
That's the kind of guy I like to work for. Seeing the upside of a bad situation is the kind of guy I strive to be. It ain't easy.
Will the molten slag cause any problems?
Nah, it’ll all be blowin’ off so hard…
If we think of this as an upside-down Dragon…
If we need three inches of cork, how the fuck will the inflatable survive?
And so it goes. It’s quite something to see a group of human beings offering themselves up in the service of facts the way these men are.
And it is quite something for a writer to see this as a phenomenon worthy of comment. Operating on facts, not opinion - isn't the way most people operate?
