The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos

by Christian Davenport

NASA, the customer, was indicating it was moving in a different direction. But its traditional contractors ignored it, or didn’t take it seriously, or weren’t nimble enough to move with it. That created an opening. A small one. A mere crack a couple million dollars wide that was easy to ignore when they were marching through a gilded, billion-dollar doorway.

Rivalry, it turned out, was the best rocket fuel.

“We all have passions,” he told the students sitting before him on the floor. “You don’t get to choose them, they pick you. But you have to be alert to them. You have to be looking for them. And when you find your passion, it’s a fantastic gift for you because it gives you direction. It gives you purpose. You can have a job. You can have a career. Or you can have a calling.”

You never want to get a surgeon [who operates] just a dozen times a year. If you need to have surgery, find somebody who does the operation 20 to 25 times a week. That’s the right level of practice.”