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I don’t know for sure, but if I had to guess, Musk sketches out a system, throws a bunch of crap together in a lab, gets the crap working, and then goes through the engineering behind it...whereas Boeing specifies the crap out of stuff, convinces themselves that it should work fine, then flubs the testing because they failed to specify one or two critical characteristics...and so has to, essentially, start over...and over...and over.

You read all the books and learn all the math you want, but you will not get an HVAC License, a Plumbing License, an Electrician License, or an Aircraft Mechanic License without having gotten your hands dirty for an extended period of time. There’s a reason for that...

Quite so. In my experience, the best HVAC and appliance repair people are the tinkerers with dirty hands who, treated with kindness and respect, readily confide about the best way to get value and save money. With exceptions, too many engineers these days have little sense of how to tinker with a piece of equipment to get it working.

I confess that I am a little prejudiced on this point. A Polish immigrant grandfather of mine was a self-taught machinist who readily found work even in the Depression because he had a rare talent for fixing errant equipment, quickly and soundly. Alas, I did not inherit that talent but do have his take-no-sh*t-from-anyone attitude.