Hoo You Know
Feed

Mike Smayda

Founder & CEO, Fortastra

What’s A Challenge You Faced Early On?

It was definitely an adjustment going from academia to the SpaceX environment.


When you're out in the world, it's a different framework – you have to do the thing and it must work, whereas an academic environment, I think, is a bit more forgiving.


Figuring out how to do things at a massive scale with much larger teams, can be a challenge to learn. At SpaceX, for example, figuring out what the right thing to do was just as important as doing the thing correctly and well.

I really enjoyed it though – lots of fun and a lot of growth.

Next interviewTuesday 10amFeed

Join 1,400+ UVA students and alumni and finally take a breath when thinking about your career