Elon Musk - Lessons

Crystal clear vision

"His vision is so clear." Sign said. "He almost hypnotizes you. He gives you the crazy eye, and it's like, yes, we can get to Mars.

Be real

"I certainly don't try to set impossible goals. I think impossible goals are motivating." Musk

Smart people

"I think there are probably too many _____________ pursuing Internet stuff, finance, and law."

Working weekends

"We've grown fuc*ing soft," Musk replied. "I was just going to send out an email. We're fuc*ing soft."

Die trying

"What he went through in 2008 would have broken anyone else. He didn't just survive. He kept working and stayed focused."

Alpha

Elon identified more with the alpha male of the house (dad) and wasn't bothered by the emotional aspect of the decision.

Work ethic

Elon said, "I would tell those people they will get to see their families a lot when we go bankrupt." I was like, "wow", but I got it. I had come out of military culture, and you just have to make your objectives happen." Employees were required to meet at 7 a.m. every thursday for bill-of-materials update.

Vision

Elon view Internet, renewable energy, and space as the three areas that would undergo significant change in the years to come and as the markets where he could make a big impact.

Answers not questions

Elon would always expect people to have answers. He didn't tolerate excuse or lack of a clear plan.

Lean pitch

Every project at Boeing felt large, cumbersome, and costly. So when Elon told the story to Hollman, he was in.

Start-up

For the first three months of Zip2's life, Musk and his brother lived at the office.

Reading

From a very young age, he seemed to have a book in his hands at all times. "It was not unusual for him to read ten hours a day," said Kimbal. "If it was the weekend, he could go through two books a day."

Focus

I'm not sure why I would want to talk about extremely sad events. If you got other kids and obligations, then allowing in sadness does no good for anyone around you.

Fix it

If Elon saw a bad story in press, he would ask someone to "Fix it" and marketing people who made grammatical mistakes in emails were let go.

A players

Like Jobs, Elon does not tolerate B or C players. But he is nicer than Jobs and more refined than Bill Gates.

Resolve

Musk holds in the highest regard people who continue on after being told no.

Questions

Musk said "Once you figure out the right question, the answer comes easy." I came to understand that really we need to increase the scope and scale of human consciousness in order to better understand what questions to ask.

Clear vision

Musk wants to lower the cost of launches to the point that it becomes economical and practical to fly thousands upon thousands of supply trips to Mars and start a colony.

On the edge

Musk was in physical pain", Riley said. "He would climb on me and start screaming while still asleep." The couple had to start borrowing hundreds of thousands of dollars from Musk's friend Skoll, and Riley's parents offered to remortgage their house. Musk no longer flew his jet. He took southwest.

Instant vision

New employees were told that SpaceX would be the "Southwest airlines of Space"

Self-motivation

SpaceX have recruited hundreds of bright, self-motivated people, SpaceX has maximized the power of the individual.

16 hours

The ideal SpaceX employee is someone like Steve Davis, the director of advanced projects. He's working sixteen hours a day every day for years. He gets more done than eleven people working together.

Getting A

There needs to be a reason for a grade. I'd rather play video games, write software, and read books than try and get an A if there's no point in getting an A.

Old industries

Traditional aerospace has been doing things the same way for a very, very long time.

Risk

Under Musk X.com tried some radical banking concepts. Customers received a $20 cash card just for signing up to use the service and a $10 card for every person they referred.

SpaceX

Zip2, Paypal, Tesla, SolarCity - they are all expressions of Musk. SpaceX is Musk.

Backbone

After dispute with one of the early X.com executives ended in Musk sayin "I don't do well with blackmail. I said, 'You should go do that.' So he did." Musk tried to talk Ho and some of the other key engineers into staying, but they sided with Fricker and left.

Confidence

After that Elon didn't care "He just looked and said, I guess we need to hire some more people."

Venture

After the dot com bubble, the goal went from taking huge risks to create new industries and grand new ideas, to chasing easier money by entertaining consumers and pumping out simple apps and advertising. "the best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads," - "that sucks".