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Doug Bernauer Wisdom: SpaceX & Elon Musk's Secret to Ambitious Leadership · Giant Ideas

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: Doug, last week we asked you about your giant idea, building nuclear reactors in a box.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: This week we're going to talk to you about your leadership start and what you've learned over the years.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we could start at SpaceX.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: You worked very closely with Elon Musk over the years.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: What did you learn from Elon in terms of leadership and being a great founder?
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: I learned that, you know, this uh your your job as a leader really is to have a vision uh and to press for that vision to happen and actually to push past what sounds reasonable to others.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: So actually the the job is a little bit to be unreasonable.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: And and the point is, right, you will discover where is reasonable.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: If you go a little bit beyond it and then you walk back, you're not limited by your inertia, by the past, by the decades of the past, and you're instead going, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna go to this this place that's ridiculous.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: And this is, I think, how really every great thing happens is you've got somebody being a little bit unreasonable, and it just sounds unreasonable, um, but then you can walk it back and you can go, you know, I want a rocket with legs.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: And Elon did that, and we went, you know, and a year later we had that rocket with legs hopping around out in the middle of Texas, and it was kind of a skeleton crew staffing it because it, you know, it wasn't the main event.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: There wasn't a customer for that thing.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: It was just being a little bit unreasonable, and then you know, it leads to, you know, more rockets uh ever made uh uh by any more rockets than ever made by anyone else, right?
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: And fully recoverable, and even you know, simultaneously landing, synchronized simultaneous landing of these rockets, uh and and then everything that came from that, right?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: Because it reusing the rocket then gives you all this revenue and then generates you know these this network of satellites.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but yeah, it's the the main thing I think that is interesting to share is like you you need to be a little bit unreasonable.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: If you're too unreasonable, people go, you're no, I can't do that.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's a weird balance to strike where you've got to use that to kind of get them out of the box that that they're in and go you know, expand the mind and go that wow, that is a problem I can actually solve.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Got it.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and how have you managed to translate that yourself into Radiant and how have you got the balance right on being unreasonable enough but still retaining credibility with your team?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh it it's a day-by-day thing.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think sometimes I do it right and sometimes I do it wrong.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I do I do recall this and it I think um I didn't know.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: If you asked me this same question five years ago, I would not have been able to tell you what I have learned.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but this is one thing that I really noticed is important to do.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: Because if I listen to the team and they go, here's what we can do, here's what we can do, and I just stick with that, well, we're not really making the future.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: I have to be a little bit stubborn, a little bit outsider, a little bit further visionary, and a little bit unreasonable, and that'll press us.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anything uh from your time at SpaceX that you choose not to bring with you?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Anything from Elon's style that you you you've left behind?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um I don't know.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um I mean this is a very hard one to answer because everyone is a a different person.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um and at and at a different uh you know a different place in their career.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: I think you know Elon started SpaceX at a place where he's where I'm I'll be like uh you know, uh now, or around now, maybe.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's a little different to try to compare those things.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um but you know, certainly there's a there's more of a uh harshness, more of a more of a he has e you know, E Elon's person, like anyone else, and SpaceX is a company and each piece of it had a sort of different culture.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um and there were teams that have had cultures that were uh a bit uh overly aggressive, a bit less inclusive.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: So we try to avoid those things, of course.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Your cult your culture is, I think, as self-described one of kind of radical ownership and transparency.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: How how would you describe the culture of Radiant?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, those are the right terms to be using, and those things are a crossover from SpaceX, but I I think that they're more just how I feel, right?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh like when I joined SpaceX, I didn't feel like, oh, I need to learn this culture.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: I went like, oh, I'm home.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like, great.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody's super serious, and you feel like you're, you know, special forces, like you're you're an elite squad, and your goal is to go and be the best at everything, to know the most about the things that you need to know about, and to go and get things done that will matter to the world, that will, you know, will that will bring prosperity to two of the biggest number of people.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Doug, I want to double down on something you just mentioned before there about being a bit of an outsider as a CEO and the benefits that can have.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, with with what your experience was at SpaceX, that was quite an unusual example, right?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Where Elon's running multiple companies.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think that is actually part of the the secret source there is is having even more distance than usual because he's coming between different companies.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: Is there something in that that is better than that?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: It might be.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I really like that point.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: I think he might be onto something with that.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um because then, yeah, if you're context switching, you got an idea from how you've been thinking in this other organization or something you've just seen, and you're you're pivoting and going, Well, I've got this, I'm I'm hearing these things from people I've uh they're and they're used to working on this problem together, but you you might have some totally different angle just just from the context switching, where you're then like bringing some knowledge and wisdom from this other this other company to the other one that you're you're running.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: So that's obviously one big influence on your leadership style, but it may not be the only one or indeed the the most important one.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit more about the mentors you've had over the years and the people whose leadership styles you've drawn on to become a leader yourself.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I think the biggest one to mention is uh Hyman Rickover.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: He's the father of the nuclear navy.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: He uh created the Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, it was the first power reactor of any kind.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: Reactors before that were only made to make weapons and materials.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um and he's not he's not a very well-known figure, I'd say globally, but uh he's uh unbelievable.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: He uh I think he's also the longest serving naval officer or even longest serving officer period in the United States.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think served into his 80s.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um and he gave a couple of speeches, and those speeches are a huge point of inspiration for me because when you read them, uh you just hear the passion of a person who who will not stop, who's who's brilliant, who wants to do great things for the world.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um and he tells you things like uh knowledge is not that great end of life, action is, right?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: If you know something, if you learn something, that's you dr you're drawing in information and you're not giving back.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so your goal is to know enough to then do something, and that doing something might even just be get other people to get that knowledge.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um but there are these couple little speeches by Rick over which are a huge inspiration for me.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe if we just step back and reflect on your life generally, Doug, and if you had to picture your life in three photographs, we'd love to reflect with you on what those three photographs would be, what the snapshots would say about you as a person and the wisdom you've accumulated along the way so far.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I well, I I think you've gotta if you're doing a whole life in three snapshots, uh, you know, I'd want to reserve the last one for for what's happening next.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but the you know, the first one has to be childhood and like your your story of origin.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like uh just a kid from kind of out in the middle of nowhere, Ohio, and just always have loved life and been passionate.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: I never had a like a group of friends were my only.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: I would talk to everybody and and know everybody, and uh and I was always organizing.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I formed uh formed bands, learned learned taught myself how to play guitar, um, had played saxophone, uh, like singing too and music.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so everywhere I've gone, like in in my high school and college and and and even later, I've always been an organizer to go like, all right, we're playing in my garage, like let's do this like every week.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: We'll go out and we'll play shows, we'll do cover songs.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it's that, it's that kind of early organizer.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: I was a dungeon master, I think, when I was 12 years old for Dungeons and Dragons, which wasn't too popular in the 90s, but I was like the only one who knew anything about it, and so it would draw all these people to me, and I would just I was always just making something out of out of nothing.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um and yeah, so that's the maybe the childhood picture.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then that second picture has to be kind of the transformation, you know, me which would be me finding SpaceX and going from you know, just an engineer who was just you know full of energy and liked to work on things to to one who really took uh an idea that it was Elon's that was unreasonable to others and making it real, and then doing it on repeat, you know, because it's it's not only grasshopper that first rocket with legs, but we did the first grid fins.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: We did Hyperloop, which is a 4,200 foot long tube, uh vacuum chamber six feet in diameter.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: We built in less than a year and pumped down to one percent atmospheric pressure, and then ran an electric vehicle 350 miles per hour in that tube.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: I made that vehicle too, and then boring company.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um but yeah, I I've learned how to basically just like on repeat, just like hit these massive wins uh for someone who I loved working for and really respected.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that I think turned me into what I what I what I am now, which is that third chapter is uh I want to make the company that makes more nuclear reactors than have ever been made in the past, uh, right, which at 50 reactors a year, that's 10 years, and we'd have more reactors than exist in the world.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I want those to be able to be used for any purpose.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: And to do that because power is prosperity.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: If people have access to power, they can do things.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: Power is what actually makes us human without electric power or the ability to use that to do things, whatever we want.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you only have your muscles.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: You have like human or animal muscle, or you have motors and power.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: And like I'm a motors and power guy.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm uh we're humans, that's what we need to have.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: So that's what that third frame has to be.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Incredible.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it started with making songs in your garage in a band, then you started hacking nuclear reactors in your garage, and next we're gonna provide energy to the world.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: So um sign us sign us up for that final chapter.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us so much, Doug.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Doug.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks so much, it's been great.