Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.
Our reading
Physics teaches reasoning from first principles rather than by analogy.
Mental modelFirst principles
Their wordsAnd physics teaches you to reason from first principles rather than by analogy.
Our reading
Mental modelFirst principles
Their wordsIt turned out that the materials cost of a rocket was around 2 percent of the typical price—which is a crazy ratio for a large mechanical product.
Their wordsOne is the incredible aversion to risk within big aerospace firms. Even if better technology is available, they're still using legacy components, often ones that were developed in the 1960s.
Their wordsSecond, there's this tendency of big aerospace companies to outsource everything. That's been trendy in lots of industries, but aerospace has done it to a ridiculous degree. They outsource to subcontractors, and then the subcontractors outsource to sub-subcontractors, and so on. You have to go four or five layers down to find somebody actually doing something useful—actually cutting metal, shaping atoms. Every level above that tacks on profit—it's overhead to the fifth power.
Our reading
At many big companies, process becomes a substitute for thinking.
Mental modelFirst principles
Their wordsThe problem is that at a lot of big companies, process becomes a substitute for thinking.
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