2 April

Setting up Starlink for a family member reminded me again of some brutally hard truths about human beings and their groups. Like buying a Tesla, it’s the most beautifully elegant and simple process. Everything just works, and fast. And then the hardware when it arrives takes a few minutes to set up, and you’re away. Again, everything just works. That’s part of the engineering design. Tesla/Starlink have a very deliberate organisational design that allows them to always put the engineering first. It’s not a company run by committees. It rarely does marketing, it has no dealers for you to negotiate with. It just builds amazing stuff that works out of the box. And that’s not less human (spare me that hippie drivel). The reason things are so often ‘seamless’ with their products is because the engineering has been allowed to drive everything. Meaning there’s no need to be constantly negotiating with people under ‘customer service’, or to do deals. The worst organisations I’ve ever worked in? Everybody was consulted, about everything. You’d think that was more human. It was the exact opposite. It allowed for the most brutal, stupid, status-driven behaviour. Leading to appalling service and products for customers too. Always put the ‘engineering’ at the centre of what you do. The building of things that work. Humans will never agree on anything, but the engineering will force them to. It either works, or it doesn’t. Everything else is hot air.