elonology.com

Author: Garin Kilpatrick

  • Elon Musk on How to Improve The Education of Children

    Elon Musk on How to Improve The Education of Children

    Astra Nova is latin for Bright Star and is the name of the school Elon created for his children, and for the children of some of the engineers he works with.

    Initially the school was named Ad Astra, which means to the stars.

    Elon has some great ideas about how children should learn, which has certainly influenced how his school is run.  The first unique divergence from the norm is there are not any grades.

    On a clubhouse audio conversation Marc Andreesen (Salesforce CEO) asked Elon: What kind of education would you recommend for a five year old?

    Part of Elon’s reply was: “I think generally with education you want to make it as interesting and exciting as possible…

    Unless relevance is established people will have a hard time remembering.

    This is much better than having a course on wrenches or a course on screwdrivers.

    Start with a problem and ask what tools do I need to solve this problem?

    That establishes relevance and a compelling narrative thread.

    Asking: How can we make this engine better, what do we need to do?”

    The education is catered to the unique abilities of each student, rather than using a one size fits all approach.  In a 2015 interview Elon explains:

    “Some people love English or languages, some people love Math, some people love Music, and have different abilities at different times.  It makes more sense to cater the education to match their aptitudes and abilities.

    The Astra Nova website explains:

    Each Year Anew: We redesign each year based on our students. We apply the lessons learned from every project, lab, and discussion to inform our next move.

    Another important concept they touch on is the importance of creating… 

    A school children love: What if students were taken seriously and their time well spent? Astra Nova believes in meaningful student experiences across age levels and domains.

    In an effort to make the style of education from Astra Nova more widely available a new company named Synthesis was started.  Synthesis is a weekly, 1-hour enrichment program for students who want to learn how to build the future.

  • Always Be Pushing The Limit

    Always Be Pushing The Limit

    Pushing the Limits: Elon Musk’s Drive to Expand Humanity’s Future

    At the World Government Summit Elon was asked “You always seem to be pushing the human limit.  You are always pushing the human limit.  Why?”

    Elon replied: “I think about what technology solution is required to achieve a particular goal.  And then try to make as much progress as possible in that direction as possible…

    Being a multi-planet species and being out there among the stars is important for the long term survival of humanity. 

    That’s one reason.  Kind of like a life insurance policy for life collectively, life as we know it…

    The part that I find personally the most motivating is that it creates a sense of adventure.  And it makes people excited about the future…

    And if you consider two futures:

    One where we are forever confined to Earth until eventually something terrible happens.  

    Or another future where we are out there on many planets maybe going beyond the solar system. I think that second version is incredibly exciting and inspiring.

    And there needs to be a reason to get up in the morning.  Life can’t just be about solving problems.  Otherwise, what’s the point?

    There’s got to be things that people find inspiring and make life worth living.”

    Elon is accelerating the rate at which humanity is exploring space and that is nothing short of amazing.

  • Envision Big, Believe Deeply, Achieve Greatness

    Envision Big, Believe Deeply, Achieve Greatness

    To achieve a goal it helps to believe you can achieve it.

    After Elon’s first big success (Selling Zip2 to Compaq) he was featured in a CNN video about dot com millionaires.

    The video shows a young Elon (In his late 20’s) accepting delivery of his one million dollar McLaren F1, one of only 62 in the world.

    The best part about the video is the ending of the video where 28 year old Elon says: “I’d like to be on the cover of the Rolling Stone. That’d be cool.”

    Oh, and by the way, Elon Has made it to the cover of Rolling Stone multiple times…

    He’s also made it onto Time Magazine as man of the year and on numerous other magazine covers as well.

    He cut his own hair for the image that made it to the cover of Time.

    Elon’s dreams remind me of the Goethe quote: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 

    — “Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.”

  • Strive for Perfection

    Only by striving for perfection can you hope to come close to achieving it.

    Elon is constantly striving for perfection with his companies.

    At STCP Future Fest he said:

    “Aspirationally, we’re in pursuit of the platonic ideal of the perfect car.  Who knows what that looks like actually, but you want to try to make every element of the car as flawless as possible…

    There will always be some degree of imperfection, but we try to minimize that and create a car that is just     delightful in every way.”

    Perfection might be an impossible ideal but by striving for it you can get closer to achieving the idea.

  • Delight Your Customers

    “As long as people stay super focused on creating the absolutely best product or service that really delights their end customer…

    Stay focused on that (because) basically if you get it such that your customers want you to succeed then you probably will…

    If your customers love you your odds of success are dramatically higher.”

    At InvestHK Elon said: “Really focus on a product your customers love.

    It’s so rare that you can buy a product and you love the product when you bought it.  There are very few things that fit into that category…

    If you can come up with something like that your business will be successful for sure.”

    Tesla produces cars that save plenty of lives and produce plenty of happiness.  So it’s no surprise they have plenty of sales as an outcome of their efforts.  Sales that continue to rise.

    And now SpaceX is delighting not only astronauts and the SpaceX team…they are also delighting civilian crews (led by ultra-wealthy benefactors for now) on trips around the earth.  

    Jared Isaacman and his crew of 4 recently splashed down in the ocean after three days in orbit around earth.  And setting a record for the first time three Dragon capsules have been in orbit simultaneously.

    Soon SpaceX will be doing a civilian lunar tourism trip around the moon called “dearMoon” with Japanese benefactor Yusaku Maezawa.  

    The dearMoon mission will take place on a larger spaceship (Starship) and will take Maezawa, 8 civilians, and one or two crew members around the dark side of the moon.

    An artist did this rendering of a floating violinist playing for the dearMoon audience in space.  Undoubtedly the show will be a delight.

    Whether it’s Tesla vehicles, SpaceX rockets, The Boring Company flamethrowers or any other awesome company he’s involved with you can be sure as long as Elon is calling the shots the fantastic products his engineering teams bring to light will continue to delight.

  • Optimize Your Work Environment

    Optimize Your Work Environment

    Most car factories are dark and gloomy.

    Tesla takes a different approach.

    The Tesla factory was inspired by the SpaceX work environment and features plenty of bright paint and a well lit environment.

    The Tesla factory can be seen in the image below of a WIRED timelapse video of the Tesla Model S production line below.

    The Tesla factory also features pedal bikes that employees can use to get around faster.

    These innovations and many more help make for an efficient environment where maximum productivity can occur.Elon calls the Tesla factories Alien Dreadnaughts and this factory fly through shows how much robotics and machinery is used inside the belly of the Giga factory Berlin.

  • Continually Improve

    Continually Improve

    Elon said that the single best piece of advice he can give is to:

    “Constantly think about how you can be doing things better.”

    I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better.

    I think that’s the single best piece of advice: Constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.

    I doubt if Elon would advocate questioning yourself if it afflicts you with analysis paralysis that stops you from taking action to make progress in the direction of your goals.

    Know yourself.  Question yourself insofar as it enables you to better yourself.

    Many words could describe Elon Musk: Genius, Determined, Successful…but perhaps the word that describes him most of all is: driven.

    If you want to emulate Elon’s success, find the drive in yourself to work hard and execute on making your dreams a reality.

    The more hours you work the greater your odds of success are.

    “You’re not going to create revolutionary cars or rockets on 40 hours a week.  It just won’t work. Colonizing Mars isn’t going to happen on 40 hours a week.“

    ~Vogue, Sept 21st, 2015

    The only thing better than a perfectly executed plan is perfect execution of a better plan.

    Start by finding your drive and refining your execution plan: 

    As you execute on your goals and action items, question how you can improve your plan and actions.

    Invest in your success by putting in as much work and effort towards your business as humanly possible.

  • Improvise and Keep Moving Forward

    When SpaceX was told to wait to launch rockets in the U.S. Elon went and found an island in the Pacific he could use straight away.

    Elon once jumped on his private jet and flew to England to take a needed machine tool to a factory in France and speed up production.

    When Tesla needed to test a prototype in the cold he hired an ice-cream truck with a big refrigerated trailer.

    When there is a will there is often a way.

    When you are willing to improvise and take action to solve the problems you face this will help you find your way through the darkness of despair and into the brightness of success.

  • Elon Musk’s Out of This World Ambition

    Elon Musk’s Out of This World Ambition

    Beyond Earth: Elon Musk’s Bold Vision for Humanity’s Future.

    Elon’s mission to colonize Mars is amazingly ambitious and incredibly important.

    Making human life multi-planetary by colonizing Mars is much more than a business decision for Musk, even though SpaceX is a thriving business.

    The mission of SpaceX is focused on the future of humanity:

    “I think it’s important that humanity become a multi-planet species. I think most people would agree that a future where we are a spacefaring civilization is inspiring and exciting compared with one where we are forever confined to Earth until some eventual extinction event. That’s really why I started SpaceX.”

    In Ashlee Vance’s biography on Musk, Elon reveals that he wishes to establish a Mars colony by 2040, with a population of 80,000.

    He’s well on his way.

    Elon Musk’s companies employ many tens of thousands, with: 

    • Neuralink (hundreds),
    • Tesla leading (around 120k-140k employees, fluctuating), followed by 
    • SpaceX (13,000+), 
    • X/Twitter (significantly reduced, aiming for ~100), 
    • xAI (1,200+),
    • The Boring Company (~200)

    Totaling well over 100,000 individuals across his major ventures, with Tesla being the largest employer. (December 2025)

    It’s not just the quantity of these teams that matters, it’s the quality. Elon has been able to assemble strong engineering talent partially because his goal is the biggest goal in the world. And big goals help attract skilled talent.

    How many will a Mars settlement take?

    Likely this will be determined by how well humanoid robots are able to go there and make the living buildings we will need to survive.

    A Moon Base alpha is also in the cards. The future is getting more exciting fast.

    Mars will be determined by the strength of the technology we amass and the Starships leaving Earth with a blast.

  • Sex Sells

    Elon knows that sex sells and uses this to his advantage.

    Every Tesla car has sexual undertones.

    Currently Tesla manufactures the model S, the model X, and The Model 3 (stylized as three horizontal lines “Ξ”), which was initially named the model E.

    The letters representing the three vehicles literally spell SEX.

    The sexy image in this post comes from Grok Imagine, another one of Elon’s products.

    Clearly Sex Sells is a strategy Elon applies across the board as much as he can.

    With the new model Y the fantastic four Teslas currently in production spell:

    SEXY when lined up side by side.

    And trust me: Driving a Tesla is definitely a SEXY experience.