There comes a time in life where we all have to clean out those closets, storage lockers and corners of the garage. If you are like most people, one of the main components among the stored items is boxes of old files. Several recent life events, most prominently my step father passing and the experience of cleaning out his house, have prompted me to begin cleaning up all this old stuff I have laying around. I simply don’t want to leave this as a burden to my family and others after I am gone. Not that I am planning on departing this Earth anytime soon, but rather I am simply reflecting on the burden that it leaves behind.
As I surveyed my possessions, even the ones hidden in storage units, they fell into three main categories: auto parts and car projects that I may or may not ever get to, family heirlooms and furniture that I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of and boxes and boxes of books and files.
The car parts were easy to deal with. It was time to either get to finishing the projects or get rid of the parts and the car. This led to a wholesale flushing of my warehouse where all this ‘treasure’ has been contained. I sold a few parts and projects off but more importantly, I decided to send some long unfinished projects out to be finished by others with more time and talent than I have. The broken Maserati that has been sitting for 18 months waiting for me to fix it goes to Ferrari of Scottsdale for repair. The Lamborghini 400GT restoration project goes to Bobileff Motors in San Diego for an extensive restoration. I am reserving the race car projects to finish myself as I truly enjoy building these cars and stand a chance of finishing them in the next few years. All spare parts that I ‘might use’ in the future got sold or tossed. “He was a Hoarder’ will NOT be written as my epitaph !!!
The Lamborghini 400GT in parts. I have spent the last 10 years collecting the parts to reassemble this very rare and valuable car. Time to turn it over to pros to get it done !
Family furniture and heirlooms were a harder decision. How do you treat the cedar chest that your grandmother brought across the plains on a horse drawn wagon ? Its irreplaceable and valuable only to those who cherish the memories. Well, you find a place in your home to put such sentimental artifacts. Same with your grandmother’s rocking chair that you remember from your childhood. You sat on your grandmother’s lap while she rocked you to sleep in this chair. Definitely a keeper. Furniture from the first marriage ? Toss it in the dumpster. I have learned to love Goodwill and their willingness to re-home my old furniture. Thanks to Goodwill, I have avoided much angst in tossing otherwise good furniture and household goods.
Then there are the boxes. Boxes of books. Boxes of kids’ projects from school. Boxes of tax records. Boxes of contracts and files from old businesses. Each box requires a careful look as to not throw away something valuable. The problem is that these valuable items are but a needle swimming in a sea of papers.
The books were easy. Unless they were a particularly valuable or meaningful book to me, they go to Goodwill for intellectual recycling. Books have fallen out of fashion, but I am still of the era where I cherish my books.
The boxes of files are another matter. The temptation is to toss them all out in the dumpster and count yourself free of the burden. After all, how valuable can 20 year old tax records be ? Then the sharp eye catches a rare and interesting file.
One of the boxes I opened contained an old orange manilla folder labeled ‘SpaceX’. I already had what I thought was a complete set of records from my days at SpaceX in my file cabinet. I was surprised at what I found in this heretofore unknown folder. I apparently had early hiring papers and shareholder agreements and this file folder had all of these missing documents. Normally, this would not be such a grand discovery but in this case, I am beginning to see SpaceX and Elon Musk as truly historic to the history of space exploration and this otherwise insignificant set of records as important.
It’s worth keeping all of the papers that document my early involvement at SpaceX. This is especially true today as there is a small group of internet trolls gradually trying to rewrite history. First they tried to modify my Wikipedia page to erase my involvement with SpaceX. Fueling this effort was an interview Elon gave to Eric Berger for his new book where Elon claimed that I “never worked for SpaceX”. Elon’s lawyers have also written me letters to this effect. I shared many of my employment and shareholder documents with Elon’s attorneys in the past and they somehow ceased writing me. I tried to share these same documents with Eric but he chose instead to believe Elon’s missives rather than write the truth. Now the trolls are defacing my Wikipedia page to say that while I never worked for SpaceX, I was somehow ‘dismissed’ by the company. A logical disconnect.
In addition to the controversy over whether I actually worked for SpaceX or not, there has also been a lot of controversy caused by some calling me a ‘co-founder’ of SpaceX. I am very careful to not use that term but many writers and reporters can’t resist the urge of the headline beginning with “SpaceX Co-Founder ….”. Instead, I have opted to refer to myself as ‘SpaceX Founding Member’. What can a person do ? That’s where the official records come in.
So this sets both my memory and official record straight. I was hired as a “Founding Member” of the company in the role of VP Business Development. This should provide solace for those worried about such things. As for me, I am just happy to have found these precious pieces of history rather than having tossed them in the dumpster !
