Steve Davis' Cost Revolution

A story about Steve Davis, one of Elon Musk's trusted executives at SpaceX, who showed incredible dedication and quirky entrepreneurship.

"One time Elon Musk was dealing with the production of a part for the rocket that cost $120,000. Elon said 'We need to get this down to $5,000' and everybody was like 'What are you talking about?' But Elon just left the room.

Steve Davis takes that as a personal challenge. He works for months trying to figure out how to do this for 5k instead of 120k. He finally gets it done for $3,900. He emails Elon so excited: 'We did it! After months we figured out how to lower the price to less than $4,000 - you said 5, we got it under 4!' Elon just replies 'okay.'

While at SpaceX, Steve was also known for working 16 hours a day, every single day, for years. But what's really interesting is while he was stationed in DC for SpaceX, he missed California frozen yogurt so much that he opened up a froyo shop called Mr. Yogato. He would work there after his SpaceX job for fun.

He created ridiculous policies at the shop - if you could stump him with a Seinfeld question, your froyo was free. If you came dressed as Bjorn Borg, 25% off. If you let him stamp Mr. Yogato on your forehead, 10% off. When he had to leave DC, he sold the entire shop to someone for $1, with the only condition being they had to keep some of the rules alive, like getting 20% off if you could recite a Braveheart speech in a Scottish accent."