Ben Gilbert: preference

Transcript context

…There's one more thing that isn't in any of the rules because I think it's just an implicit unspoken assumption. All of this only works if the small group of people that you've brought together are highly motivated. I think the reason this was taken for granted for all of skunk works heyday was, hey, the mission here is preserving your life, the lives of your loved ones, and America from losing World War II, and then having nuclear bombs dropped on it by the Soviet Union. You don't really need a lot of extra cajoling or motivation here. Totally. You got to think back, this was a time where American superiority was not guaranteed. I think we have a reasonable amount of complacency today. Americans feel very secure. Sure they're enemies, but are we going to be fine? Totally. We don't need to think about this that much. We can decide to prioritize other things, have passions, and say, yeah, other people can take care of the national good because we'll be fine either way. That was not the belief at the time. No. There's this great quote in Skunk Works, where Ben Rich tells the story of his first day in Skunk Works, where he's shown the U-2 prototype. We're going to talk all about the U-2 in a minute here. But literally, day one, he's shown the prototype of this top highly classified, highly secret airplane that nobody can know about. He says, "The full weight of government secrecy fell on me like a sack of cement that day inside Kelly Johnson's guarded domain. Learning an absolutely momentous national security secret just took my breath away. I left work bursting with both pride and energy to be on the inside of a project so special and closely held, but also nervous about the burdens it would impose on my life." This is exactly to your point, with great power comes great responsibility here.…

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