Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:00:01]:

There's this belief, and frankly in many cases it has created the demise of some missions that if you're behind, you need to hire more people. And I believe so often it's exactly the opposite. If you're behind, figure out the two, three people to let go and that will speed you up. It will not kind of more people is not faster more people. It can be, but you have to be really clear and careful.

Matt Gjertsen [00:00:45]:

Being an HR person in the hard tech world can sometimes make you feel crazy. You are often outnumbered 100 to 1 or 500 to 1. Everyone around you is focused on and arguing about the technical problems that the company needs to solve to be successful. And you are often left yelling into the wind, what about the people problems? But thanks to my guest today, this should no longer be a problem because he is one of the best place people to say whether it is the technical challenges or the people challenges that hold big projects back the most. And the answer, at least to me, was very satisfying. Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen was the Associate Administrator of the NASA Science mission directorate from 2016 to 2022. During his tenure, NASA launched 37 missions, started 55 new missions, and he oversaw the critical years for major programs like the James Webb Space Telescope and the Europa Clipper.

Matt Gjertsen [00:01:44]:

Or to put it another way, he oversaw a total budget of approximately $46 billion. In this discussion, we talk about why you have to be willing to be wrong if you want to take any risk at all. How to balance being hard on your team while still being trusted, and what a leader can do to encourage their teams to think more innovatively. Plus, he gives one of my absolute favorite techniques for ensuring your team is willing to give you feedback. I know you will get a lot out of it. Before we get into the discussion, I do want to remind you that if you are listening to this show and realize that the leaders in your organization need more support. Bilt, my company and the reason that this show exists is here to help. At Bilt, we are on a mission to train the next generation of hard tech leaders how to build teams capable of solving the world's hardest problems.

Matt Gjertsen [00:02:37]:

Just send an email to helloiltleaders.com and see if we can help with that shameless plug out of the way. Let's get into the discussion with Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen. Dr. Z, I'm so excited to be chatting with you today. How are you doing?

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:02:54]:

I'm doing great. How are you?

Matt Gjertsen [00:02:56]:

I'm doing fantastic. I'm really. I was. I was looking at the math and Correct me on this if this sounds correctly. I believe during your tenure at NASA, you oversaw about 50 billion, almost $50 billion worth of budgetary spend. Does that sound about right?

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:03:09]:

So it was something like 8 when I left per year.

Matt Gjertsen [00:03:14]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:03:14]:

And it started at 5, 6 billion. So, yeah, it's kind of, if you add it up times. So take the average times six, six and a half, then they get roughly to that.

Matt Gjertsen [00:03:25]:

Yeah, just some of the biggest, most impressive missions. It's funny. When I was in the military, the last job I had on active duty was as the executive Officer for the 60th Air Mobility Wing at Travis Air Force Base. And so I helped write OPRs, the performance reports for, you know, all these mobility PIL. And I swear half of the C5 pilots in the Air Force had on their OPR helped move James Webb Space Telescope. At some point. It was just a line that would come up again and again. Well, yeah, I really was excited to chat with you today because so much of the questions that I'm trying to answer and the help that I'm trying to provide folks is about how to lead technical teams, technical projects, and that's, you know, you were involved in just the most technical of projects and leading those.

Matt Gjertsen [00:04:21]:

So I'd love to start with actually something that I heard you say. I believe it was on the Off Nominal podcast where when you were talking to them, you were talking about canceling missions. And you said that, you know, when talking about missions at NASA, you said canceling missions gives us the ability to take risks. I'd love to know what you meant by that.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:04:42]:

Yeah. So I want to just start with thanking you for your service and the armed forces. Really appreciate that, also your colleagues, and deeply aware that so many of the things we've done, including every launch, involves the armed forces somewhere and also in many other areas where really the armed forces are supporting what is possible at NASA. The way I talked about innovation in general, especially in the context of missions, is there's a way to go, which is to basically try to be safest. So you could be working on a mission where you change very little what you did before. You use the same technologies that you did. The good news is for a mission like that, it's actually pretty easy, easier to predict how much it will cost because you've done things before. You try to cut down what is new.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:05:39]:

And the bad news is it's not really moving us forward. Yeah, like, to a certain extent, you know, I always felt that every mission that we should at NASA should Go should be the way I think about mission. It's a toolbox that is enabling that mission. It's a bunch of tools we take out of that mission. I always said we want to put something new in that box that then the rest can help because at the end we want the United States to have the biggest such toolbox and the most options to do missions across the whole spectrum of missions. Now if you do new things, and especially if we do many new things, it's actually a lot harder to predict. And what you could be ending up with is a situation in which the mission that you wanted to do, suppose you wanted to do a tech demo for 50 million. All of a sudden that tech demo is 250.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:06:31]:

So what you just do is you wipe out the entire RNA program because that tech demo is just basically eating the whole environment. And that's why I said, look, I want to do these new things. But the only way we can enable it is by being sure that it's not eating the neighborhood, that it's not becoming kind of ill contained, kind of in a way. So I'm perfectly fine failing every once in a while. Hey look, I mean, it didn't work. But what I'm not good at is basically so focusing on a new technology, except if it's truly essential, which happens, but it's really rare. It's so essential, we just need to do it. But I don't want to be beholden to that technology and then capture it and then stop doing new things, which is usually what happens if you don't cancel missions.

Matt Gjertsen [00:07:23]:

Yeah, it reminds me again, it's funny, I don't actually talk about my time in the Air Force that much, but I remember when I was in the Air Force there was often this discussion of kind of like for a while, I think in the early 2000s, there's this idea of like the one mistake Air Force, where one mistake could end your career. And what it ended up creating is just like a lot of people who were really scared to, as you say, do anything new or make any, any decisions that were, that were controversial. They always wanted to stay safe, you know, especially I don't know if you have any, any of, kind of the history. If we think about NASA as an organization, which is still to this day, you know, the brand most known for innovation and pushing things forward. How does an organization like that, really, any large organization fall into these places where it's so essential to be safe that we're unable to take risks. Do you have a sense of kind of how that happens over time.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:08:18]:

See what happens if an organization has a purpose that is of national importance, like NASA had during the Apollo program, which is to demonstrate superiority, demonstrate leadership in space, kind of in an environment in which the US was behind ahead of Apollo because of the first human in orbit and so forth. But what happens there? You actually handle risk. We have a good example, Apollo 8. Remember, Apollo 8 was a really, really risky mission. It was done with the intent of catching up with the Russian. At Apollo 8, the US overtook the Russians. That engine up there had not worked previously to the level that it needed to to bring these astronauts back. We're in the middle of the Artemis program.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:09:06]:

You ever notice that Artemis I and Artemis 2 together are the equivalent of Apollo 8 with very fewer technologies yet the rocket is definitely new. But we used to put astronauts on the first rockets, so we're not doing that now. And so for me, what happens, it's an agency kind of as we get bigger and as the kind of the loss of bureaucracy start getting a hold of it. Bureaucracy. It doesn't happen because bad people are there. It's because people are there solving problems in a system that can let them get astray first. Look, I'm going to check. I mean, you made a mistake.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:09:47]:

So from now on, everybody like you, I'm going to check these boxes. Like, I used to trust you. Now I'm not trusting you anymore. I'm going to make sure that your travel reports are done the right way. With a whole department doing travel reports like what we should be doing, frankly, if you falsify your travel report, you're fired on the spot. Yeah, yeah, that is the right way of. But no, no, no, we're not doing that. That's civil servant stuff over there.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:10:12]:

Right. So basically the organization happens that way. And so the incentive to lean forward, the importance of leaning forward, leadership is becoming less important relative to not making mistakes. So I think it's just the natural kind of trajectory that organizations do proud, organizations that evolve and frankly become less excellent. The early NASA, the best people in that field worked at NASA. That's just no longer the case today. Right. We're not even trying that hard.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:10:45]:

You know, organizations that try really hard, for example, are SpaceX. They go all over the country trying to find the best people and hire them. You know, in the government, unfortunately, JPL is better than others, but generally speaking, we're not doing that. You know, like if you go look at Johnson, it's mostly Texas people. If you go to Goddard, it's mostly Maryland people. That tells you that we're not actually trying to get the best people because most of the best people are not in one place, they're everywhere.

Matt Gjertsen [00:11:15]:

One of the things I heard from that is kind of this idea of you have to have something else to balance risk against in order to take risk, you know. And so the early Apollo missions it was there was this risk of like we are going to lose to the Soviets, we need to beat them. Like that's where we got our appetite for risk from. Organization like SpaceX, you know, is very much centered on Elon, is always centered on this idea of this existential risk to humanity if we don't push this forward. And that's why it's worth to take risk. And so as a leader it's really hard to have something out there with which you can judge risk against. Because if there isn't, then of course like zero risk makes sense. If, if it's not for anything, it has to be for something.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:11:58]:

What leaders then do is they figure out what the opportunity cost is. Because taking no risk has enormous opportunity cost. Yeah, like we're doing the missions are much slower. Like so what we, I mean I can give you a good number. It used to be kind of at the beginning of my career as building instruments a mission, a small mission off the order, 150 million. I mean small as compared to billion dollar missions. It's not small. I know I don't pay 150 million in taxes per year.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:12:29]:

I wish I did. But a small mission of that I used to take three years to accomplish. It's very hard to find a mission now that does it below six years. Yeah, like why is that? Right? Oh like, I mean we're less focused and we're checking boxes. The stack of paper that comes with these missions became a lot bigger. And frankly I think there's five, six documents that are really essential. You should not build a any hardware without these six documents. You need to know what the specifications are.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:13:06]:

You need to know how you test the device. Like okay, so how do I know it works? So those are two of the interface documents. Like okay, if you build one piece, I build one piece. At the end when we come together, it needs to fit. Those documents are important, but the vast majority of these documents are not like that. But that's what we're doing. So that's instead of building that engineering, instead of building the spacecraft, we're doing documents. Right.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:13:33]:

And that of course delays us. So in a world where leadership matters more than it has with China growing on speed with other kind of competitors in it, speed matters. So we can't just be factor of two slower. And so opportunity cost for me is kind of good. Leaders go actually and figure out where's the opportunity cost and attack that. Right. Let's talk to the people about what we're trying to do and how we're trying to improve as we go forward.

Matt Gjertsen [00:14:08]:

I like that idea of having one of a leader's roles is being like understanding that opportunity, gosh. Going and finding those what, in your experience, you've overseen so many of these technical projects work with so many leaders. When you think about what it takes for a leader to lead a technical team, well, what are some other things that come to mind?

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:14:29]:

The other things that come to mind, leading a technical team is really having the right people. I spend a lot of time in any technical team that I'm engaged in a leadership role for really trying to understand the leader. You know, there are leadership jobs that are highly operational, tactical. There's leadership jobs that are highly strategic.

Matt Gjertsen [00:14:54]:

That's a good point.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:14:54]:

You have to look at the world top down. Now. It turns out if you put the best tactical person into a strategic role, that person will look really weak. The same is true in reverse. And frankly, this is one of those things I would say I learned the hard way. And I think today differently than when I was 40. At 40, with my academic background, I basically believed that I could teach anybody anything. I don't believe that anymore.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:15:25]:

I cannot take an operational leader and making a strategic leader, I cannot do that. They may even sound like a strategic leader, but I put a little bit of pressure on it and they go after details. They think bottoms up, which either way is exactly the right thing to do in many jobs. So as I'm taking over that team, I'm trying to figure out, are people actually in their job? So kind of their natural behavior, like atoms have ground states when nothing happens or they go to that ground state. In your ground state, are you in the job that you're best at? For me, I spend a lot of time on that. I also spend a lot of time trying to actually lean down the leadership team to a place where only the people are in a room that are actually important. There's this belief, and frankly, in many cases it has created the demise of some missions that if you're behind, you need to hire more people. And I believe so often it's exactly the opposite.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:16:27]:

If you're behind, figure out the two, three people to let go and that will speed you up. More people is not faster. More people. It can be, but you have to be really clear and careful. And so for me, that's there. And I think the final thing I would like to say is as a leader, I want to know what my job is and what is not my job. I'm not going to do your job. Your job is your job.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:16:53]:

So we want to be absolutely clear that people know what their job is. And as a leader, every once in a while I jump through the lines because I want to make sure, frankly, standing around within the factory and talking to the people or the cafeteria, which by the way, drove a lot of people crazy because I knew their people better than they did, because I'm like, I'm sitting in the cafeteria with them. How is it going? You know, like, so basically by doing that, I want to make sure that the picture that I'm getting translated through levels of leadership is actually reality. Or is it, you know, worlds off, which we've seen multiple times.

Matt Gjertsen [00:17:31]:

There's so many things in there that I'd love to pick up on, because one, just that idea of, you know, if you're behind, probably you actually need to get rid of people, not add people. Several. I remember, you know, in the middle of last year, as you know, last year was supposed to be the big year for Starship, and of course, so many things went wrong. I kind of had this idea of, wouldn't it be almost ironic if Starlink ended up being the thing that ended innovation at SpaceX? Not that I think it will, but it's like Starlink is what is giving them kind of infinite resources. When the thing that was driving SpaceX for so long was their lack of resources, it was that they had to be scrappy. I think it, it ties to that point of. Very often it feels like adding more, whether it's resources, time, people is what's going to solve the problem. But there can be so much overhead that comes with that and so much clutter that comes with that that it can often really slow things down.

Matt Gjertsen [00:18:29]:

So it's interesting that you've seen that same thing.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:18:32]:

I want to double click on that. So I ran a big entrepreneurship program and I realized that I could literally destroy the motivation of many of the companies by funding them. It's like. Because basically, I mean, that's what I mean, frankly, what I admire most about SpaceX, and by the way, they're not the only ones I look at Planet. And if I look at what Axiom is doing, what I admire most is people who kind of create more out of what they're given than what others can. They see solutions, others cannot. And I remember I was in Vandenberg launching for the first time on the SpaceX rocket and. And the leader there came and told me how little he paid for things.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:19:18]:

Oh, I got this off ebay. And I love those stories and it is true now I do believe that Elon Gwynn, the leadership team there is just incredibly strong. So that is solved at the leadership level and they have solved it over and over again, even during times of abundance. So I quite hopeful there. But I think the observation in general and the question you're asking is really good. Constraints are the friends of innovators that Nazi enemies of innovators like saying, hey, do this. And I used a constraint earlier. Do this mission in three years.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:19:52]:

If you're a day longer, you're canceled. Yeah, I should have done that at NASA. And sometimes because what we're then doing is we're saying you can't be over cost. It's like mom, the actually the best proxy for cost is time. Like how many people work how long. And you know, so kind of total focus, absolute my super focused on the goal with your core team. And this team can walk on water. I mean for me one of the best examples is ingenuity that did that where I managed to kind of shield it so they could not bring God knows how many people to the team.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:20:30]:

We didn't allow that like because there was a cost limit, there was a time limit. And immune, you know, is now working at Amazon and others, you know that they basically build a team which hardcore like the hundred 150 people, that's what they did. And they could finish each other's sentences. Was beautiful. And frankly that is just like miracle. I mean I still amazed that it worked. And of course you're not amazed if you meet the people so they use the same kind of thing. Whereas so often in their environment, when people got behind, I mean my best example there is Psyche, the mission which kind of to my agony missed its launch date.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:21:17]:

People got behind. I mean they added people. And I talked to some of my former students, said look, it's clear what we need to do, but we're not making decisions now. We have more people and it's even slower so that you can really get into that in the abundance.

Matt Gjertsen [00:21:32]:

Yeah. How do you think about that? Because sometimes when people are asking for something, one of a big part of a leader's job is to provide their people with resources. And their team with resources. How do you think about that? When people are coming to you and saying we need this, how do you parse that of saying like no, you don't need this and that's going to help you versus no, this actually is something that you need and providing it is going to do up. Do you have a good framework for trying to parse that?

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:22:00]:

So kind of what I'm really trying to figure out who's on the other side of the table. So you have the ultimate whiners. And then kind of the people that, that they are actually not innovative, they just do everything at the max cost and they want to over solve a problem. They're kind of so nervous. And then frankly like, you know, generally speaking I don't want them to be the managers because like I want to actually a manager to have kind of, especially when we're talking about NASA, but also when I work in a company, I want to think of the taxpayers, I want to think of the stockholders. Like, look, I mean, let's not waste money that is really, you know, it helps to grow up poor. You appreciate money, right? No, we're not going to waste a million. Even if the mission is a billion, we're not going to waste many millions just because you feel better.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:22:49]:

That actually shows. So you have to nose there. And I think generally speaking, what you'd like to see, instead of doing a macroscopic answer, somebody says, I need this. Basically say, okay, can we identify an early milestone that we need to get to? And I would like to figure out, I'm going to play it out. Sometimes that is not the right way, but I'm going to play it out. It's like, okay, I'm going to give you half and I want to see when you get to that milestone that you think takes twice as much. And I'm going to incentivize you to make that. So I want you to train you to sprint.

Matt Gjertsen [00:23:27]:

Yeah.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:23:27]:

Right. Now if somebody for a lifetime has never sprinted, just whether it's sprinting but also working at a big organization, these things never work. Yeah, but if you have great agile leaders, so often in startups it works. If you get to somebody and then what happens is success creates more success and more success creates an abundance of success. So it really is like all of a sudden you want to be in a place where people come and say, we could do this faster, we could do this cheaper. Can we try? It's like go. So what I'm trying to do, I don't have a Model. Kind of like when somebody walks in the door and is like, I'm going to try that.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:24:12]:

I'm trying to measure up. Like, okay, so what is their track record? I try to get data. How good are you actually at achieving goals? Like I with James Webb, like, you never achieved the goal and frankly nobody I felt really cared all that much.

Matt Gjertsen [00:24:29]:

Interesting.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:24:29]:

Oh, there's more money coming. It's like, oh, no, no. Like we're going to take schedule as constant. You need an extra day here, tell me in the next meeting where you take it. And at the beginning it's like, that's impossible. Like over time, look, they figured it out. Like some of these people like that at the beginning looked like, frankly, amateurs and not really competent. I remember these I and T people at Northrop, they came up with ideas of different testing sequences and everybody, that's the right way.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:25:03]:

So we make up these extra things. Of course we're going to hit a problem, but we're not going to just lie down behind the problem and say, oh, that's too bad, no, no, we're going to shave off that. But it takes, it's a trusted relationship because at the end they need to know if they're really in trouble, I'm going to come bail them out. But I want their full effort. We're making a deal together. You give your best and I'm going to back you, but I want you to actually have the feeling of achieving beyond what you think you can. So let's go create that experience together. Because once you get that, you're like, you become a monster, right? You become like this.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:25:43]:

And that's what you see, right? I mean, that's usually seen in some of these companies that we admire, that we've already talked. It's like, holy crap, look at this.

Matt Gjertsen [00:25:52]:

It's great.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:25:53]:

Amazing.

Matt Gjertsen [00:25:54]:

Yeah, and it's, and it's great to hear, you know, kind of your first hand experience with this, because I do think, you know, there's so much negativity around the major primes or just traditional aerospace companies. And many people who criticize them make sure to not criticize the people. Like, and you're, what you're saying is emphasizing, it's kind of like a cultural constraint or a systematic way of the way things were done that led people down certain paths. And you as a leader can change that and tweak that. And, and I love the example, you kind of described it almost like treating your team like you're a vc. Okay, here's your Series A. Go get this. All this problem.

Matt Gjertsen [00:26:35]:

Here's your series B. Go solve this problem to kind of like get them changing. And even in these companies that in programs that have struggled, it's still a systematic thing, not a individual thing. And by changing the way decisions are made, changing how the incentives are aligned can over time steer those teams to be just as high performing, which. Which sounds really encouraging.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:27:01]:

The one thing that leaders will then have to do is protect the teams from overreach of bureaucracy. And I just want to say, like, I was not always successful at that. Like, so that's still a kind of a challenge that you have if you're in a big company that a small company you don't have. On the other hand, you have this kind of bench of history and bench of experience that you can reach back for. But no, I'm very bullish on people. It takes, however, courage. Now the question is, what is your incentive system for leaders? Right. The incentive system for leader is nobody can ever say a negative thing about you.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:27:38]:

Let's actually go in and grind one out. That is not. There's going to be times like people are a little bit upset. Like, we never do it to just be angry with people or hurt. And I've never hurt. But for me, we really want this in the interest of this team. But every once in a while, work a new sprint until it hurts. I just ran up and down the mountain, not because it's easy.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:28:08]:

I ran up there because I struggle. That dirt path there at the very end, at the very top is like, wow, today it seemed a little bit higher, but I love it. I'm dying. Like you get, you know, I want to do it again tonight.

Matt Gjertsen [00:28:23]:

Yeah. How do you find. Think about finding that balance, whether personally or how have you seen it in others, of pushing people, calling out mistakes, creating a space of criticism where criticism is allowed and encouraged, but still making it sure they know that you have their back and trust you. And like, there's a delicate balance there that I think, you know. That's why I think, Jocko, the dichotomy of leadership is so correct because it is a dichotomy. How do you think about finding that balance?

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:28:55]:

I think it's really important that there are some principles that are absolutely clear and you will not deviate from. If you deviate in emotion, you need to go apologize. There's no other way. And that is, for example, that you critique every idea, never the person, not in front of others. If we have a problem together, I'm going to take you out on the side, it's like, look, I mean, don't do that. There are things where you have to do it. Kind of cultural things. Like for one of the things that I felt really passionate about is we never badmouth our colleagues, even if they're not in the room.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:29:32]:

I don't do that. We need to be successful as a team. I will not have that. And I'll cut you off in the middle of the sentence. And I have multiple times. Because we will be successful as a team and we will not create that negative energy. Then the antibodies go. So there's rules that go there.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:29:53]:

Again, every idea is attacked, including mine. And I will frankly, I will even at times put a bad idea out deliberately, really deliberately. By the way, I learned that from a channel that I've seen it or an admiral. I forgot which branch of the military was that. I knew I did get big investigation of a big accident in the United States and I talked about the people who were there and said, this is a strategy used. I said, I'm going to steal that. So for me, if I'm fresh in a room, I put out things that I want people to attack. And then I'm saying, yes, thank you.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:30:35]:

I made that mistake. By the way, you should watch all of my things because so for me, like attack that and when you do that. So kind of my. I remember at NASA, kind of whenever somebody came and briefed to us, like they always, my team took on the sites like, this is going to be the most uncomfortable briefing you've had because every idea will be attacked. But the good news is you will never be personally attacked. And every idea will be attacked not because they hate the idea, because they won't understand it. And when you have them on board, they will be the best champions. And so yeah, like by the way, I was told that when I left, this is what everybody said.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:31:14]:

It's like, that's exactly what I want. So for me it really is finding that. But you are correct, it is a balance. And also not every day I can take as much the same amount of criticism every day and I need to be able to just put the hand ups like, can we do this tomorrow? I can't handle it today. Right, yeah, you should be able to do that too. And everybody else, right. So for me, the importance of the individual, how they feel is critical. But again, boundaries are absolutely critical.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:31:46]:

Now I understand not every leader is the same. And I just want to say my type of leadership works for me. Yeah, I mean if somebody says Elon Musk was not successful. I don't know what they've been. And he's using very different leadership styles.

Matt Gjertsen [00:32:02]:

Very different.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:32:02]:

Yeah. And so for me, you know, the Nvidia CEO is even different. Right. Kind of. So for me, what I'd like to tell every kind of young leader is kind of said, look, what I'm doing is what works for many people and here's the mechanics. But you need to figure out who you are.

Matt Gjertsen [00:32:20]:

Yeah.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:32:21]:

And what are your tools to really bring the team on board at the end, success matters, you know, not just in a single project, but lasting success. That's how we're going to figure out whether we're successful.

Matt Gjertsen [00:32:32]:

Yeah, I think that's, it's so true in that that's why there's never going to be like the end all, be all book on leadership because it's just, it's, there's so many different situations. It is so personal. But definitely, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong here, you know, I mean, maybe this is intentional just because of kind of the nature of this podcast, but it sounds like when you think about technical projects and what makes them succeed, there's a lot of the. I guess I'll just ask the question. Where do you think is the balance between what most commonly leads technical projects off track of like the people and the leadership and the incentives and the culture side, or just the technology and the, the hard stuff side? Which do you think is most common?

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:33:19]:

I had it really wrong. If you asked me on day one or even after six months, I would have said, what is the reason things fail? Is it because of technology or people? Just as a shortcut for what you just said. Which one? And of course they all will happen and which one is going to be there? And I would have guessed it's like 80 or 70, 20, 30 technology. 80, 70 people. 20, 30. And I kept track. It's the reverse really. Oh, it's 70 to 80% people and the technology.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:33:55]:

We usually figure technology out. It can happen that we can't figure. So it's like if somebody says that technology doesn't matter. No, in a great technical organization, we usually figure technology out. The vast majority of big screw ups are people things. Go look at the Columbia Challenger disasters. Go look at some of the things that, I mean, like, are you kidding me? Like, you know, James Webb. I mean there's three near death experiences.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:34:26]:

The one that I had is entirely culture and nothing to do with technology. It's not equal MC squared. It's easy stuff that we fail to be able to do because we had. We did not have the motivation of the people. We were not training the right way. We were not aligned. Like, we had chasms in the team. And it's like, are you kidding me? It's like, yeah, like, this is the most expensive mission and we're failing on, like, how to fast and bolt.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:34:56]:

Are you. I mean, there's not a technology thing. It's the culture things like. Yeah, you know, so. No, no, I'm a strong believer. Look, the way I think about a rocket or a spacecraft, it's two systems, and both need to work to make it successful. It's an engineering system that comes together, understand how it goes together. And there's a people system that's next to it.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:35:20]:

And kind of the weather and how you do it depends on both of these systems. And kind of my warning is the people system originates a lot more failures than the engineering system.

Matt Gjertsen [00:35:32]:

Yeah, I definitely agree with you, and I think that's a perfect way to end it. So it's been fantastic talking with you. There's definitely a few nuggets in there. Like this idea of kind of throwing out bad ideas and seeing what people send back your way. I love that as just kind of a tool. So there's definitely a lot of these in there. Yeah. So this has been fantastic, and thank you so much for your time.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen [00:35:56]:

Thanks for yours, and thanks for the work you do and to make us all better. Really appreciate it. Thanks, Sam.