elonology.com

Category: Strategy

  • Ignore The Competition

    Why Elon Musk Doesn’t Obsess Over Competitors.

    When speaking at the InvestHK conference Elon said:

    “We don’t think too much about what competitors are doing because I think it’s important to be just focused on making the best possible products…

    It’s sort of analogous to what they say about you if you’re in a canoe if you’re in a race.  They say don’t worry about what the other runners are doing, just run.”

    Elon does not suggest ignoring competition altogether.  Competition can inspire innovation but obsessing over the competition distracts from obsessing over your own business.

    So be aware of your competition but don’t let it distract you from your main goal: Making your business and your life as awesome as possible.

    The grass will be greener on your side when you focus more energy on making your grass green and less time worrying about your neighbors grass.

  • Set Aggressive Timelines and Goals

    Set Aggressive Timelines and Goals

    The Power of Aggressive Goals: Lessons from Elon Musk’s Playbook

    Although there have been a number of timelines at Tesla and SpaceX that have been pushed back, and pushed back again, no one can dispute that Tesla has risen to become the definitive dominating automotive giant in the world at an impressively fast speed.

    Aggressive outcomes are impossible without aggressive effort…

    So where does the aggressive effort come from?

    Firstly it comes from the awesomely important missions Elon is embarking on…

    And also it comes from the agressive effort because of the aggressive timelines Elon sets for company milestones, combined with many other optimizations.

    Because without an optimized work force Elon’s 90,000+ employees would not optimize and deliver their dominating results.

    By setting these aggressive timelines engineers and employees must stretch their ability to innovate and work long hours to the limit.

    In the Ted Talk “Elon Musk: A future worth getting excited about” TED’s Chris Anderson asks Elon about timelines and says:

    “And so in general, when people talk about Elon time, I mean it sounds like you can’t just have a general rule that if you predict that something will be done in six months, actually what we should imagine is it’s going to be a year ot it’s like two-x or three-x, it depends on the type of prediction…

    Is there an element that you actually deliberately make aggressive prediction timelines to drive ambitious people to be ambitious? Without that nothing gets done?“

    Elon replied: “Well, I generally believe, in terms of internal timelines, that we want to set the most aggressive timeline that we can.

    Because there’s sort of like a law of gaseous expansion where, for schedules, where whatever time you set, it’s not going to be less than that.  It’s very rare that it’ll be less than that…

    But as far as our predictions are concerned what tends to happen in the media is that they will report all the wrong ones and ignore all the right ones.”

    And Elon works hard to ensure all of the predictions he makes come true, sooner or later.

    Elon certainly seems like an example of how the harder you work the more momentum you can gain.

    Elon has led by example and has sometimes worked for so many hours straight when he did sleep he would sleep in the conference room, or even on the factory floor.

  • Be Extremely Tenacious

    Be Extremely Tenacious

    The Power of Extreme Persistence: Lessons from Elon Musk’s Near-Bankruptcies

    Here is a definition for the word Tenacious: 

    Adjective Not readily relinquishing a position, principle, or course of action; determined.

    The determination to keep going when the going gets tough is what saved SpaceX and Tesla when both were on the verge of bankruptcy.

    Elon poured all of his money from the sale of PayPal into these companies so they could survive and his tenacity in doing so saved them from insolvency.

    The perseverance and hard work Elon has shown in making every company he has worked with a success reminds me of this quote from Steve Jobs:

    I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.

    Elon met Steve Jobs once and said Steve was a jerk to him after Google co-founder Larry Page introduced him…but nonetheless Elon has praised Steve and uses Apple products like the iPhone (in combination with PC’s) to this day.

    Despite the snubbing from Steve Jobs Elon seems to respect him for his tenacity and craftsmanship. Elon shared this video below where Jobs shares a Rock Tumbler metaphor. I recommend you check it out:

  • The Recipe for Business Success

    The Elon Musk Recipe: How to Create and Scale a Successful Startup

    Interviewer: “You’ve mostly created new companies.  What is your recipe for that?”

    Elon: “Well I think it’s quite difficult to create a new company and have it be successful.  And generally I do not recommend creating new companies unless you feel very compelled to do so…

    It’s quite difficult.  But I mean the basics of starting a company are: 

    You have to have an idea that is compelling or you have to have a product that you think could be very valuable to the world.

    And then you’ve got to find alot of talented people and convince them to do this new thing…

    Because talented people are already doing something.  So you have to convince them to do the new thing.  And it’s pretty hard to do that.  

    And then you have to build the company up.  And the company goes through a life cycle.  Like a human.  Or like any animal.  They start out very simple.  Like one cell.  Then a few more cells and then it’s…kind of like a baby, and then a toddler and then the lifecycle of a company is very much like that of a creature, and you have to reinvent the company at every stage.”

    So this is why some companies get to be a large size and some do not.  It’s because you actually have to reconfigure the company at each of the various stages in its lifecycle.

  • Keep It Simple

    “[Simplicity] is our mantra because it gets you both reliability and low cost.” (Discover magazine)

    Simplicity amplifies efficiency.

    Keep it simple, because simplicity and efficiency are powerful.

    Punchy statements like:

    Tight is right, long is wrong (For time expectations).

    Or all input is error (for Tesla) are two examples of simplicity at work.

    And my favorite: The best part is no part: It weighs nothing, costs nothing, can’t go wrong.

    Think how these statements can apply to your life and work to help you get more done.

    Good luck!

  • Optimize Your Meetings

    Elon Musk on Meetings: Avoid, Shorten, or Walk Out

    In a powerful letter to his employees he explained some tips for productivity.

    The first three tips were about meetings.

    Here they are: 

    1. “Excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time. Please get [out] of all large meetings, unless you’re certain they are providing value to the whole audience, in which case keep them very short.”

    2. “Also get rid of frequent meetings, unless you are dealing with an extremely urgent matter. Meeting frequency should drop rapidly once the urgent matter is resolved.”

    3. “Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value. It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.”

    These strategies are key to achieving operational efficiency.

    Saying “Is what I’m doing as useful as it could be?” (STVP Future Fest) is a smart way to keep yourself on point. 

    Compare Elon’s thinking with the culture of many other companies – where plenty of employees dread long meetings due to their irrelevance and drudgery – and it’s clear that Elon’s meetings methods are one of the many reasons he and his teams are winning.

  • Win The War

    Win The War

    The War Mindset: How to Dominate in Business and Life.

    Business is a battle.  

    Find yourself on the victorious side of the battles you face in life.

    Life is hard but ignoring the warlike character of human life is harder.

    Those who find the will inside to attack life as if it is war and survive are those who are most likely to thrive.

    Elon says: “I’ve lost a few battles but I always win the war.“

    The outcome of business is rarely fair.

    Business is like war.  If you think otherwise you may lose to a competitor who treats his business with the seriousness of a warrior.

    Having a war-like mind state will help you capture more profit and more market share.

    Best of luck with your battles and personal development.

    Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

    ~@Garin

  • Think Multiple Steps Ahead

    Think Multiple Steps Ahead

    How to Outthink and Outmaneuver the Competition like Elon Musk.

    Elon wins by being ahead of the game and controlling the game by thinking at least one move ahead of the competition.

    The intuitive way to think is to deal with the immediate reality around us and react directly.  To win like Elon you need to apply grandmaster chess level thinking.  Elon has contempt for Chess, because there is no fog of war in Chess he says.  

    Elon plays the game of life in hell mode, hence his devilish profile pic which he kept for many months.  Elon is not afraid of the smoke, just ask Joe Rogan and the weed and whisky he drank on his show.

    If you are living life in easy mode or even normal mode you will lose versus the person battling their way through hell on a daily basis.

    The point is not simply to say what you think.  But to think about what people will think about what you say and craft your statements accordingly.

  • Stay Optimistic

    Stay Optimistic

    Elon has said: “It’s better to be optimistic and wrong than to be pessimistic and right.”

    Looking on the bright side of life is the most lit way to think.

    When you see the positive in everything more positive outcomes naturally flow.

    For example, when you see everything as a positive you will look for and find the lessons in the hardships.

    Pessimistic thinking leads to pessimistic outcomes.

    You reap what you sow: So sow the seeds of success with smart and optimistic thinking!

    Stay optimistic and work to make the positive future you envision real.

    As Peter Drucker says  “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

    When Elon started SpaceX and Tesla he said the most likely outcome was probably failure…

    But ever the optimist Elon and his teams persisted and because of this optimism and persistence SpaceX and Tesla have weathered brutal storms and simultaneously risen to achieve success at the highest level.

  • Maintain a Startup Mindset

    Maintain a Startup Mindset

    On the Lex Fridman podcast episode 333 Lex interviewed the former Director of AI at Tesla Andrej Karpathy, who had the opportunity to work with Elon Musk, and is currently working on AGI.  (AGI is a hypothetical intelligent agent which can learn to replicate any intellectual task that human beings or other animals can.) 

    Lex asked: “What did you learn from working with Elon Musk?”

    Andrej replied: I think the most I’ve learned is about how to sort of run organizations efficiently and how to create efficient organizations and how to fight entropy in an organization. (Entropy means gradual decline into disorder.)

    He basically runs the world’s biggest startups. I would say Tesla and SpaceX are the world’s biggest startups.

    Tesla is actually multiple startups. I think it’s better to look at it that way… 

    The Tesla tech tree is an awesome example of this.

    In the interview with Lex, Andrej continues:

    He has a very good intuition for streamline processes, making everything efficient. Best part is no part simplifying focusing and removing barriers moving very quickly, making big moves all this is very startup, but at scale.

    Cybertruck is an example of bold Startup thinking since it breaks the mold of a traditional truck.

    “Disruptive technology where you really have a big technology discontinuity…tends to come from new companies.” ~Elon Musk

    The Startup ethos Elon cultivates is especially evident at SpaceX.  Because SpaceX is still owned in majority privately Elon has the freedom to move rapidly and implement innovations without answering to investors.

    Elon retains majority control of SpaceX and because of this he can tweet whatever he wants about SpaceX.  By staying private Elon is able to steer SpaceX in whatever direction he chooses.

    Elon’s majority control of SpaceX helps ensure the rapid roll out of new technology.  

    Hopefully Elon never loses majority ownership of SpaceX because he is clearly steering SpaceX rockets towards greatness and his accomplishments so far are nothing short of fantastic.

    The problem with taking a company public is how investors tend to be solely concerned about ROI and quarterly shareholder meetings.  And this might create conflict with SpaceX since SpaceX is optimizing to make human life multi-planetary rather than optimizing for maximum profitability.  However interplanetary transit will certainly be big business one day if it can be achieved.

    This is why Elon intends to IPO Starlink the Internet company, not SpaceX the rocket company.