I suspect they were told "if we get off the ground, it's a success." Elon's been saying similar things over the last week.
I would be very surprised if Shotwell didn't have an all-hands to set the whole team's expectations beforehand.
Otherwise you get Boeing.
I've have my own version of this more times than I can count.
For me, I run a trading firm and when I started it was "if we can survive the day without losing a ton of money, its a win." I was happy if the positions even made it to the exchange the way we wanted, haha.
It would be AWESOME if elon included actual fireworks which would go off in the event of a RUD to add some fabulousness to such events.
In fact, all the devices that are stripped out for these test launches should be replaced with their equivalent weights in fireworks. Detonate them when possible during a RUD to allow for more spectacle!
There's something called FTS. Said fireworks were responsible for todays RUD... ;-)
That is what detonated the StarShip today.
You'll find it was notably absent in Soviet rocket tests, for instance with the N1 which veered off course, returned to the ground intact and exploded there instead.