Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell, Virtual Commencement Address, Northwestern University

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SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell, Virtual Commencement Address, Northwestern University · Elon Musk Podcast

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  mountaintops or sea floors. Hey, class of 20 21.
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  I'm incredibly proud to be your commencement speaker.
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  Thank you Morty for inviting me and thanks to the board and
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  Lanny. Martin, its chairman for
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  allowing me to speak, even though you guys know me for my
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  six years of service on this board and that this invitation
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  is a tiny bit risky, but it is an honor to follow and mayor.
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  Lori Lightfoot steps last year, she brought gravitas to this
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  event while she honored. George Floyd, and implored
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  graduates to participate in our democracy.
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  This is a special year to do the Northwestern University
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  commencement. This is my 35th anniversary of
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  my Northwestern University, undergraduate commencement, and
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  most importantly. Stephen Colbert, who also
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  graduated from Nu or almost stood in 1986 did this speech
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  exactly 10 years ago. And he predicted that the
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  speaker for 2021 would be. And I, quote, a zoo parrot with
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  a Mortar board that has been trained to say congratulations.
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  So, here I am when Shotwell yours Parrot of the class of
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  2020 one, congratulations to you class of 21.
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  You have achieved something important, all graduations
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  deserve a celebration, but you this class of 2021 have an even
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  greater achievement. You not only survive but
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  succeeded throughout the insanity of 2020 and into this
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  year, you were able to focus and invest in your future during a
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  period of immense suffering. The many of the issues that we
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  Face going forward will be different.
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  I think, highly Dynamic, social political and And economic
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  situations are the new normal and you are now better prepared
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  to succeed in them. You have lived, it and not just
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  survived, but succeeded feel good about that and carry that
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  new skill with you. I think you will use it, okay?
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  Before I share a few jewels of My Life Lessons Learned, there
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  are a few things you should know about me to help put my remarks
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  in context. I am a mother, a wife, a
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  mechanical engineer and nerd. We aren't all nerds, but I'm
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  proud to be one. I'm a longtime SpaceX.
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  Employee and leader and active listener.
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  A Rancher of course, a wildcat and an aspiring winemaker, I
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  love my country, even though it is flawed and I am committed to
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  helping resolve its social injustices and I am desperate to
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  be a grandmother, but my children aren't cooperating in
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  my vision at least yet. My road to Northwestern started
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  in Libertyville, Illinois, which is a small town north of the
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  University, that's where I grew up.
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  I did very well in the Elementary and high school
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  academics. And I also worked incredibly
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  hard at having a full social life.
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  I decided to be a mechanical engineer after my mother took me
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  to a society of women Engineers event.
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  When I was only 15 or 16, I applied only to Northwestern
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  University School of Engineering, but it wasn't
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  because it was the best engineering school, I applied,
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  because of northwestern's richness, and Other Fields
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  middle was ranked among the top, or was the top at that time as
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  was the theater program. This was important to me because
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  as a teenage, girl, in the late 70s.
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  Yep, I'm that old. I was terrified as being tagged
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  as a nerd. Now, I'm super proud to be one.
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  I was accepted by Northwestern, I'm not sure I would be today.
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  So I think I time that properly and I completed two degrees from
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  this fine institution. A bachelor's degree in
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  mechanical engineering and a master's degree in applied math,
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  though. I criticize my engineering
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  Education as to theoretical. I think the best Engineers are
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  those that can put the theoretical to practice and I
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  got almost no practices and undergrad.
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  Northwestern highlighted the criticality of broad-based
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  thinking just being good in math and science will not drive
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  success. It's whole brain thinking
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  brought to practice that does I'm thankful that Dina Tino has
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  brought a strong focus of this concept and applied it.
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  So well here to Northwestern engineering as I was building my
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  own foundation in engineering. I also found time to build a
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  family Ali I gave birth to and raised to extraordinary children
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  who are better people than I and could be president of the
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  universe rather than just being president of SpaceX.
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  One is a double alum in mechanical engineering from
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  Northwestern and one will be a double Alum from Sanford.
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  Both mechanical engineering and business, as a mother giving
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  advice to potential future parents, never tell your
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  children what they should be when they grow up.
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  They will in fact do the opposite but you can be a good
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  role model or show them. Good Role Models as my mother
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  did for me She was an artist for the last nearly 19 years.
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  I have worked for one of, if not the finest physicist and
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  engineer Elon Musk. He gave me the opportunity to
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  help him, bro, SpaceX from 10 people to nearly 10,000 people
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  and from zero Revenue to billions annually.
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  I have helped bring the commercial launch business back
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  to this country along with the tens of thousands of jobs that
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  come with it. The one accomplishment that we
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  have that I am most proud of is helping to get our country
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  flying astronauts again on American-made.
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  Rockets and spaceships. We are now positioned to fly
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  astronauts from all over the world on our Dragon spaceship.
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  And later this year, we will fly the first, all civilian mission,
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  where regular everyday people will travel to space on a
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  multi-day journey around Earth, and this is just the beginning.
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  I hope that I have helped create a path that allows humans to
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  live on earth. The moon, or Mars, whichever
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  their choice. I hope for a future where people
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  can live even further out amongst other star systems and
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  galaxies. I often joke about wanting to
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  meet other people and see otherworldly fashion.
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  I know I won't see that in my lifetime, but I hope that my
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  work serves as a foundation or a small beginning to achieve that.
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  Okay, so now that you know more about me, it's time to share
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  some advice, I'll name three? And then I'll go back and talk
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  about them set and try to achieve absolutely absurd goals
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  and don't be afraid of failing if you can't achieve them, work
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  hard really hard and be helpful, be kind, but at minimum be
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  respectful. Don't be afraid to admit that if
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  you fail you were wrong and take a different path or better yet
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  don't even consider trying something and not getting the
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  outcome that you want. Want as failure considerate, the
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  growth. When I was considering joining
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  SpaceX back in 2002, I was struggling with the decision and
• 9:20
  drawing it out for weeks. It seems so risky for me
• 9:23
  personally to join this little startup in an industry where
• 9:26
  none had ever succeeded. At the time, I was a part-time
• 9:29
  single mother and this was just too far out of my comfort zone.
• 9:32
  I was driving on the freeway here in La.
• 9:34
  When it finally hit me, I was being a total idiot.
• 9:36
  Who cares if I tried this job and either I failed or the
• 9:40
  company failed. What I recognize that that
• 9:43
  moment was that it was the Part that was the most important try
• 9:47
  that risky thing. Be a part of something exciting.
• 9:50
  I don't want to imagine what my life and career would be like.
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  Had I said, no, I'm sure I would have been fine but I would not
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  have been a part of this amazing company working alongside such
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  extraordinary people not taking that job would have been the
• 10:03
  fail on a business. Level SpaceX took massive
• 10:06
  reputational risk mastering the technology and operations
• 10:10
  associated with Landing a rocket.
• 10:12
  In fact, we were continually criticized by our competitors
• 10:14
  and The media for these failures, I looked on these
• 10:18
  failures is a source of Pride. Our very first attempt to land
• 10:21
  the rocket on a drone ship. We hit it, we didn't land on it
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  but we hit the Drone ship. That tiny Target was hundreds of
• 10:28
  miles away from the launch site in a vast ocean.
• 10:31
  After about a dozen attempts, we finally succeeded in landing
• 10:34
  that rocket and Landing Rockets has become almost routine for
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  us. Still tricky, but it's almost
• 10:40
  routine and that technology has been enormously helpful to our
• 10:43
  business and is Hold to establishing a settlement on
• 10:47
  Mars. If you can't land the rocket,
• 10:49
  you can't get people to the surface working hard and being
• 10:52
  helpful. I was hired as vice president of
• 10:55
  Business Development. That means head of sales.
• 10:58
  Well, I did my job and we got customers but then their
• 11:01
  missions needed to be managed and we needed an accounting and
• 11:04
  finance function because we actually were bringing in money.
• 11:06
  We needed to work closely with the launch ranges and get
• 11:09
  permission to be able to launch from them.
• 11:11
  So I took that on as well. And as we demonstrated success
• 11:14
  we needed A government Affairs function to play defense for us
• 11:17
  in DC as our competitors. Started fighting us.
• 11:20
  I remember even vacuuming the carpets before a big customer
• 11:23
  event in 2008 when we won our biggest contract to date a
• 11:27
  nearly two billion dollar effort from NASA to take science
• 11:30
  experiments and cargo to and from the International Space
• 11:33
  Station, Ilan needed a partner and he asked me to do it.
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  I think it was in large part because I had kept growing my
• 11:40
  scope being helpful in other areas to the company, all trying
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  to do a great job. Being kind.
• 11:46
  But at minimum you must be respectful note that almost
• 11:49
  everyone that you interact with every day is battling some Demon
• 11:52
  or trying to get through some issue, please consider this as
• 11:56
  you battle your way to work on the subway as you're hurrying
• 11:59
  through the lines at the grocery store or as you get frustrated
• 12:03
  with someone in a meeting at work at SpaceX, we have a no
• 12:06
  asshole policy. These kinds of people assholes
• 12:10
  interrupt others, they shut down or Co-op conversation, and they
• 12:14
  create a hostile environment. Fireman where no one wants to
• 12:16
  contribute. This is not a way to promote
• 12:18
  sharing, good Innovative, and even outrageous ideas that are
• 12:22
  required to solve hard problems in short.
• 12:25
  The best way to find solutions to hard problems, is to listen
• 12:28
  harder, not talk, louder embrace, the ideas of your
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  fellow workers especially when they differ greatly from yours.
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  Stuff that I'm not sharing lessons on but that I think are
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  really important especially to talk about in a commencement
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  speech in 2021. I'm worried about a lot of
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  things, but I'm not knowledgeable enough in these
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  things to have any useful advice for you at least, not yet.
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  However, I cannot in a commencement speech in 2021
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  failed to mention the things that I worry about knowing that
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  many are problems. I want to help tackle in the
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  future. I'm worried about our nation's
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  children. We are not giving all of our
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  children and education that will shape them into resourceful and
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  productive people. All that our country needs to
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  remain relevant. Every child is a resource to
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  better our future and our future will be driven by technology.
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  That is why I am so concerned about the science and math test
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  scores that we have in this country.
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  China scores, First Ireland, I just bring this up because it's
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  where my Heritage is, my ancestors are from Ireland,
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  scored 12 and the United States ranks 25th, worse than that, if
• 13:31
  there is a worse than scoring 25th in math and science as well
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  as Is that the gap between our lowest scoring students?
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  And our highest scoring students is widening.
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  We are not preparing our children for their future.
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  I love this country and I'm worried about the widening
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  economic social and racial divide, which was Amplified,
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  during the pandemic not addressing education for our
• 13:53
  youth is not helping that we are not treating, our neighbors with
• 13:57
  restore, the respect that they deserve, we are not listening
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  hard to each other and respectfully.
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  Working on the really important issues that we face as a country
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  and as a human One race. I haven't helped our country
• 14:07
  work on these issues yet. I whine a lot about it and it's
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  time probably in the very near term for me to commit and help
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  fix them. Maybe we can work on these
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  things together. So I've given you some actual
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  experience that taught me that more can be accomplished when
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  crazy ideas are respected listen to and evaluated that being
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  helpful in hard-working pays off, it did for me and that
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  wasting resources, especially human capital, is a moral, and
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  ethical sin. And that a small group of
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  people, like those of us here at SpaceX can change an industry
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  and by extension can help change the world growing up and even
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  early in my career, my friends colleagues and I focused on
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  getting a Head with an aside or maybe even an afterthought, that
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  maybe we should do something good for the world.
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  But as I accumulate more life's lessons, it's clear that a far
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  richer life results from switching that up finding a
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  career where your pursuit of a better world leads to York
• 15:03
  getting ahead. And all of you having you right
• 15:07
  now, all of it, you need to start your pursuit of a better
• 15:10
  world. Congratulations and Godspeed.