What I Learned From Elon Musk

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I just finished reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Elon Musk. What fascinated me the most was his ability to get things done — no matter the circumstances.

As of this post, Elon’s built four multi-billion dollar companies:

Tesla: $1 trillion

SpaceX: $100 billion

The Boring Company: $5.6 billion

Neuralink: $1 billion

It would take any other normal person several lifetimes to accomplish that (if ever). But as you’ll soon find out, Elon is no normal dude.

Here’s what I’ve learned from Elon Musk:

• Elon’s personality

• Management style

• Mission-driven attitude

• First-principles thinking

• Hardcore Mode

Elon’s Personality

Growing up, Elon was different from his schoolmates.

When he was three, his mother wanted to start him in school early because of his intellectual curiosity. But because he was a lot younger than the rest of his class Elon would often get bullied.

He took the physical abuse on his chin and learned to distance himself emotionally during times of stress or pain.

Even though Elon would get bullied, it didn’t mean he wasn’t intense and uncompromising. He was unwilling to suffer politely to those he considered fools, often calling other kids “stupid”… which only worsened the bullying.

His brother Kimbal said, “[Elon] has this fierce determination that blows your mind and is sometimes frightening.” Elon later admitted, “I tend to do things very intensely.”

Elon also had a streak of a rebellious attitude. “He had a resistance to regulations. He did not like to play by other people’s rules.” Isaacson wrote, “He did not like, nor was he good at working for other people.”

Elon was intense, uncompromising, and sometimes flat-out crazy.

Management Style

Elon’s personality shined through his management style.

One of his former employees wrote, “Elon is a hyper-competitive guy, and challenging him means that a meeting can go to hell.”

Isaacson wrote, “When I was reporting on Steve Jobs, his partner Steve Wozniak said that the big question to ask was Did he have to be so mean? So rough and cruel? So drama-addicted? When I turned the question back to Woz at the end of my reporting, he said that if he had run Apple, he would have been kinder. He would have treated everyone like family and not summarily fired people. Then he paused and added, “But if I had run Apple, we may have made the Macintosh.”

Here are a few leadership rules from Elon:

• Comradery is dangerous. It makes it hard for people to challenge each other’s work. There is a tendency to not want to throw a colleague under the bus. That needs to be avoided.

• Never ask your troops to do something you’re not willing to do.

• Whenever there are problems to solve, don’t just meet with your managers. Do a skip level, where you meet with the level right below your managers.

• When hiring, look for people with the right attitude. Skills can be taught. Attitude changes require a brain transplant.

• A maniacal sense of urgency is our operating principle.

• The only rules are the ones dictated by the laws of physics. Everything else is a recommendation.

Mission-Driven Attitude

Elon’s sense of mission drove him, even when he was on the brink of failure. “While other entrepreneurs struggle to develop a worldview, [Elon] developed a cosmic view.”

Elon painted a vision of what he wanted the future to look like. Then he didn’t stop until that vision became a reality.

One of Elon’s former employees said, “What I didn’t appreciate is that Elon always starts with a mission and later finds a way to backfill in order to make it work financially. That’s what makes him a force of nature.”

When things get tough, it’s your vision of the future that pulls you through. A mission gets you excited. A mission allows people to rally around something. A mission gives you something to point to and say “That’s where we’re headed.”

Elon’s Rule: Work on things that make you excited about the future.

First-Principles Thinking

Since rockets had such a high “idiot index”, Elon developed what he called “The Algorithm” which was his five simple rules for production:

1) Question every requirement. The latches used by NASA in the Space Station cost $1,500 each. A SpaceX engineer was able to modify a latch used in a bathroom stall and create a locking mechanism that cost $30.

2) Delete any part of the process you can. If you do not end up adding back at least 10% of them, then you didn’t delete enough.

3) Simplify and optimize. This should come after step two. A common mistake is to simplify and optimize a part of a process that should not exist.

4) Accelerate cycle time. Every process can be speeded up. But only do this after you’ve done steps 1-3.

5) Automate. Always wait until the end of designing a process — after you have questioned all the requirements and deleted unnecessary parts — before you introduce automation.

Elon was obsessed with building the machine that builds the machine.

He said, “It’s not the product that leads to success. It’s the ability to make the product efficiently. It’s about building the machine that builds the machine. In other words, how do you design the factory?”

Hardcore Mode

The most impressive aspect of Elon Musk is his ability to get things done. Repeatedly, Elon would become dissatisfied with the current progress, set an impossible deadline for his team, go into hardcore mode, and then somehow get things done in time.

Over and over and over again, Elon would pull this stunt. And it worked.

As one of his former employees said, “Demon mode causes a lot of chaos, but it also gets shit done.”

Elon is extremely demanding and doesn’t accept anything less. If an employee expressed a negative thought or said something couldn’t be done, he’d fire them on the spot. “He just wanted people who would make things happen.”

This battle-like intensity also had its downsides…

Elon got himself into a lot of unnecessary trouble because of this approach. He later said, “I guess I’ve always wanted to push my chips back on the table or play the next level of the game. I’m not good at sitting back.”

Final Thoughts

It’s irrefutable that Elon is one of the greatest entrepreneurs to ever live. And there are so many lessons to take away from him.

One of the biggest lessons is that you can change the world through careful planning and definitive multi-year plans.

But in my opinion, even more valuable than learning what you can do, is learning what NOT to do.

While I do aspire to build wealth, I don’t aspire to sacrifice the other parts of my life.

I want to be a good dad and husband. I want to have good health and to always be learning. I want to be skilled at my craft and have fun while doing it.

While that means I may never be an extreme outlier like Elon, there are some things that money can’t measure.

- Jay