Making Stuff

Many movies exist about a lone inventor in a garage having a eureka moment, but almost none about manufacturing, so it’s underappreciated by the public. Compared to the insane pain of reaching high-volume, positive-margin production, prototypes are a piece of cake. - Elon Musk

One of the privileges of working thirty years for manufacturing companies was getting to see how things are made.  In factories that make jet engines, light bulbs, silica gel, the sealants to ensure canned foods stay safe, refrigerators, separators for car batteries, medical equipment, locomotives, water treatment products, cement admixtures, materials that go into contact lens solution and toothpaste, the ingeniously designed packaging material that allows meats, chicken, and salads to stay fresh, and gas and wind turbines. The design and engineering creativity and the discipline and knowledge of workers is simply astonishing and, as Musk points out, largely unrecognized.  I enjoyed being part of organizations that made things that people want and use, or made the things that go into the things that people use.