SpaceX employee #13# @_Eric_Romo describes the moment @elonmusk and SpaceX knew they had to become vertically integrated: "They're canonically so vertically integrated now. But at the time, we were outsourcing basically everything." "Any time we would need some new part built, it was like, 'Send the drawing to the vendor and get it built.'" " Maybe two weeks later, if you're lucky, you get this part back." "One of the [vendors] was always the quickest, pretty cost-effective, and very communicative. We were really reliant on this one." "I remember sitting in the bunker in Texas underground with @lrocket and the team, and we get a call from that vendor and he's like, 'Hey sorry, but we're shutting down. We're closing our doors.'" "We realize we have to go hire as many people from that vendor as we can, and we have to build up the internal capacity because that's what's going to help us iterate." " It's all stuff that seems super obvious now." "But in 2003, that was not so obvious at the time."