London Richards retweetledi
New episode: "How Elon Works"
This episode covers the insanely valuable company-building principles of Elon Musk
A few notes from the episode:
1. The mission comes first.
2. Retreat is not an option.
3. A maniacal sense of urgency is our operating principle.
4. Product design should be driven by engineers.
5. You should not separate engineering from product design.
6. Having separate design and production departments is bullshit. Keep everything together and feedback immediate.
7. The leader should be on the front lines. You should be a battlefield general.
8. "If they see the general out on the battlefield, the troops are going to be motivated. Wherever Napoleon was, that's where his armies would do best."
9. Apply The Algorithm constantly. (1) Question every requirement. (2) Delete any part of the process you can. (3) Simplify and optimize. (4) Accelerate cycle time. (5) Automate.
10. Repetition is persuasive. "I became a broken record on the algorithm. I think it's helpful to say it to an annoying degree."
11. You should go ultra-hardcore on deletion and simplification.
12. Camaraderie is dangerous. It makes it hard for people to challenge each other’s work. (Refer to point #1)
13. Never ask your troops to do something you wouldn’t do.
14. Hire for attitude. Skills can be taught. Attitude changes require a brain transplant.
15. Good attitude = A desire to work maniacally hard.
16. The only rules are the ones dictated by the laws of physics. Everything else is a recommendation.
17. Keep your entire company committed to a common goal.
18. If things aren’t going well, throw away the existing design, start from first principles, question every requirement based on fundamental physics.
19. Find the limit. You want to delete as much as possible and you can’t do that unless you find the limit.
20. If you aren’t adding back at least 10% of the things you deleted, then you didn’t delete enough.
21. Maintain control. Avoid joint ventures. Eliminate middlemen.
22. Have a relentless dedication to questioning every requirement.
23. No work about work, just work.
24. Go to the problem. Get on the plane. Fly to the source. Go to the exact location in the factory. Go to the problem and stay there until it's resolved.
25. The best part is no part.
26. Be wired for war.
27. Do not fear losing. It hurts the first 50 times but then you’ll be able to play with less emotion. You will take more risks.
28. Stay heads down focused on doing useful things for civilization.
29. When something is important and has to be done quickly, have meetings every 24 hours to run the algorithm and check on the previous days progress. You'll be shocked at how fast this speeds things up.
30. Life needs to be interesting and edgy.
31. Delete, delete, delete, delete.
There are 100 more ideas in the episode. I hope you listen to it. 30 years of Elon’s career + 60 hours of reading and research and me just absolutely ripping through idea after idea at 2x speed for 90 minutes.
It will be hard to find a better use of time.
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