转载来源：锤子阅读
作者：Dolly Singh
译者：starshack
What is it like to work with Elon Musk?
和伊隆 · 马斯克一起工作是什么样的感觉？
After working for Elon for over 5 years at SpaceX as the Head of Talent Acquisition, there are many potential answers to this question. Any answer I might give will be completely colored by my own experiences, so full disclaimer this is not an unbiased piece free of personal narrative.
我在 SpaceX 作为人事部招聘主管为伊隆工作了 5 年，对这个问题有太多可以谈的了。不过事先申明，这里写的完全是我个人的看法，不是不带个人观点的客观报道。
It is said that you cannot dream yourself a character; you must hammer and forge one yourself. If any leader and any company has done that, and continues to do that it is SpaceX. To try and capture in words what working with Elon is like, I’d like to share some specific memories, particularly of one really rough day and its epic aftermath.
人们说，个性不是想象出来的，是通过磨练形成的。如果说有任何公司成功的塑造出了企业的个性，而且坚持不懈，那 SpaceX 得算个中翘楚。让我来分享一些特殊的记忆，看能不能用文字形容和伊隆·马斯克工作的体验。那是特别艰难的一天，以及其后的可以记入史诗的余波。
On Aug 2 2008, 8 months after I joined the company, SpaceX launched its third flight of the Falcon 1 launch vehicle. Falcon 1 was the predecessor to the Falcon 9 launch vehicles that the company flies today.
2008 年 8 月 2 日，那是我加入公司 8 个月后，SpaceX 第三次试射猎鹰 1 号运载火箭。猎鹰 1 号是现在的猎鹰 9 号的前身。
It was a defining moment for the company. Elon had a couple years prior stated in the press that his $100M personal investment in the company would get us up to 3 tries and if we couldn’t be successful by the third flight we may have to admit defeat. In addition to the pressure created by this narrative in the press, the lobbyist armies of our competitors (largest, most powerful defense contractors in the world) had been in overdrive in DC trying to undermine SpaceX and damage our credibility by painting us as too risky and inexperienced in order to protect their multi-billion dollar interests in the space launch business.
对于公司这是个决定性的时刻。伊隆几年前就对媒体说过，他个人的 1 亿美元投资可以支付三次试射，如果第三次还不成功，就只能认输了。压力不仅仅来自这样的背景，我们的竞争者（最大、最有势力的国防供应商）也派出大量说客，试图影响华盛顿，阻挠我们的进程，破坏 SpaceX 的声誉，以保全他们在火箭发射这个产业里数十亿的生意。他们说我们所做的事情风险太高，我们太缺乏经验。
SpaceX executed a picture perfect flight of the first stage (portion of the flight that gets the vehicle away from Earth’s gravity and where the vehicle experiences max Q/maximum dynamic pressure, or basically where the conditions on the vehicle are physically the harshest) clearing some of the highest risk points of mission.
第一节发射（第一节推进让火箭脱离地球引力，火箭在这一节推进中要承受最大的动态压力，所以是对火箭结构和材料上最有挑战的一节）堪称完美，很多最大的风险点都在这一节。
However, shortly after the first stage flight, immediately following stage separation (when the first stage of the vehicle detaches and falls away from the 2nd stage of the vehicle which continues its journey to space) we lost the vehicle and mission.
但是在紧接着的分离环节（火箭第一节和第二节分离，第一节坠落，第二节继续向太空航行)，我们失去了火箭，发射失败了。
▲ 汤姆 · 穆勒
SpaceX, VP of Propulsion Tom Mueller, the modern day godfather of rocket science and one of the most brilliant scientific minds on the planet, and his team had done such a great job redesigning the vehicles engines systems that they were even more efficient and powerful than in some ways projected.
SpaceX 负责推进动力部的副总裁汤姆·穆勒，当代火箭科学之父、地球上最聪明的科学家之一，带领他的团队重新设计了火箭发动机，使它比当初预计的有更大推力，也更有效率。
We turned off the first stage engine, and then proceeded to separate the vehicle stages; however when the stages uncoupled there was still a little leftover ‘kick’ or thrust in the first stage engine- so our first stage literally rear ended our second stage immediately after we had tried to separate the two ps of the vehicle. It was a devastating emotional experience.
我们关掉第一节的发动机，然后开始分离。但是分离后第一节还有一些残余推动力，导致它在分离后“追尾”了第二节。这是令人承受难受的灾难性时刻。
I stood around with the then 350 or so employees, and we cheered the vehicle on as it took off, and as we were watching the mission clock and knew that the stages were about to separate - the video feed was cut. The company is on a 20 second viewing delay from the mission control team as we are being projected the external press feed which is delayed in case of major mission anomalies. So when we lost video, we knew something had gone wrong in a big way.
我和 350 多个员工站在一起，我们在起飞时欢呼，我们盯着时钟知道第一节分离的时间要到了，这时候视频断了。我们看的是和提供给外界媒体一样的视频，这个视频比控制小组看到的延时 20 秒，好让控制小组有时间对重大变故做出反应。所以视频中断的时候，我们就知道大事不妙了。
Elon and about 7-8 of the most senior technical people at SpaceX were commanding the mission from a trailer in the back of the Hawthorne factory; and we all waited anxiously for the trailer door to open and for someone to tell us something. The mood in the building hung thick with despair; you have to keep in mind that by this point SpaceX was 6 years old, and many people have been working 70-80+ hours a week, swimming against extremely powerful currents, like difficult barriers in technology, institution, politics, and finance- by sheer force of their blood and sweat.
伊隆和七八个 SpaceX 的顶尖技术人员在停在霍桑市厂房后面的拖车里指挥这次发射。我们都焦急的等待着拖车门打开，好有人出来告诉我们究竟发生了什么事。空气里都是凝重而绝望的气息。要知道这时候 SpaceX 六岁了，很多员工一直以来一周工作 70 到 80 多个小时，挥洒血汗克服技术、机构、政治、财务等等邻域的各种困难，在极端艰难的情况下逆流而上。
They had all given so much, were mentally and physically exhausted, and really needed a win in order to replenish their spiritual wells and give them the faith to keep following this man up a treacherous mountain that had depleted the hopes and resources of the many others who had come to conquer it.
他们都付出了那么多，身心俱疲。这座高峰曾磨尽了很多人的希望与资源，他们非常须要一次成功来坚定他们跟着这个人继续攀登险峰的信念。
