Elon Musk on Urgency: Why Slow and Steady Loses the Race
The saying “Patience is a virtue” is more harmful than it is beneficial in many situations.
Urgency is often more of a virtue than patience.
Without a sense of urgency important tasks will be patiently deferred indefinitely.
Elon is a man who fully grasps the necessity of urgency for accelerating important advancements.
Elon’s sense of urgency permeates many of his actions.
Elon even eats fast and has said “If there was a way that I could not eat, so I could work more, I would not eat. I wish there was a way to get nutrients without sitting down for a meal.”
Apparently when Elon goes to the washroom he even uses the urinal urgently.
Efficiency is an element of everything Elon does.
In a business context Elon’s sense of urgency manifests itself through the aggressive timelines he sets. This is especially brilliant. Aggressive timelines necessitate innovative thinking and an aggressive work ethic.
The timelines Elon sets are aggressive to the point of borderline unrealistic. He said his unrealistic expectations are a result of his optimism and it seems like they help his teams get more done in less time.
Elon and Tesla do occasionally end up pushing back timelines, but if you zoom out and look at what Tesla has accomplished in the past two decades it’s obvious the urgent timeline strategy is beneficial.
Even if Tesla and SpaceX companies’ projects are late, they almost accomplish what they set out to do, and are making great progress over time.
“I kind of say when I think it can occur, but then I’m typically optimistic about these things…It pretty much always happens, but not exactly on the timeframe.“
Urgency is certainly an asset when it helps expedite positive results.
Slow and steady will lose the race to urgent and steady every time.
If Tesla focused on quantity of investors over quality they might not be in business today.
The concept of quality is so important to the success of a business, especially in the early phases…
And quality over quantity extends to every element of the business, including the venture capitalists and investors it works with.
In a PandoMonthly interview Elon elaborates:
“If you have a choice of a lower valuation with someone you really like or a higher valuation with someone you have a question mark about, take the lower valuation.
It’s better to have a higher quality venture capitalist who you think would be great to work with than to get a higher valuation with someone where there’s even a question mark, really.”
Quality matters.
Strive for quality people as investors and in all aspects of your life and your odds of living a quality life increase.
Elon Musk’s Mastery of the Pivot: Building Empires Through Adaptation
There are plenty of potholes on the roads of business as you climb the winding mountain of success.
Innovating, iterating, and focusing on what is working best seems to be the best way to climb.
With PayPal: “Initially the thought with PayPal was to create a conglomeration of financial services. So that you have one place where all of your financial services needs would be seamlessly integrated and work smoothly…
And then we had a little feature which is email payments.
And whenever we’d show the system off to someone. We’d show the hard part, which was the conglomeration of financial services. Which was quite difficult to put together. And nobody was interested…
Then we’d show email payments, which was actually quite easy, and everybody was interested.
So I think it’s important to take feedback from your environment. You know because you want to be as closed loop as possible.
So we focused on email payments and really trying to make that work. And that’s what really got things to take off.
But if we had not responded to what people said then we probably would not have been successful.
So it’s important to look for things like that and focus on them when you see them, and correct your prior assumptions.”
Adaptability is key.
Modifying the names of brands is one powerful way to adapt for the better as a business.
Elon has adapted the name of the school he created for his children from Ad Astra to Astra Nova for example. And now the name of the school is Synthesis.
Elon’s company Neuralink was originally called Neuralace.
The mission of Tesla was recently changed with a post on X from “Sustainable Abundance” to “Amazing Abundance.”
Constant adaptation and innovation is why Tesla vehicles do not have model years. This way Tesla can roll out new features rapidly, and consistently, rather than waiting for the next model year to implement improvements.
Elon’s companies are always adapting. Always innovating.
And it’s paying off. With each innovation Tesla increases their technology superiority in the auto industry.
“If you don’t sacrifice for what you want, what you want will be the sacrifice.” ~Elon Musk
Tesla faced a severe threat of death during the Model Three production round.
“The company was bleeding money like crazy and if we didn’t solve these problems in a very short period of time we would die.
It was extremely difficult to solve them…
So I started working seven days a week, sleeping in the factory. I worked in the paint shop, general assembly, body shop…
Interviewer: Do you ever worry about yourself imploding because it’s too much?
Elon: “Yeah, absolutely. Noone should put this many hours into work. This is not good. They should not do this. This is very painful…
It hurts my brain and my heart. It hurts. This is not recommended for anyone. I just did it because if I didn’t there was a good chance Tesla would die.”
Elon is committed to the success of Tesla and SpaceX above all else it seems, and this gives him a competitive edge.
While Elons competitors are spending time with their families, watching TV, or spending time in one of a million other ways, Elon is grinding. And the grind creates greatness.
Sometimes getting the win means losing out and sacrificing other areas of your life.
If you choose to work 90 hours a week your personal life will suffer.
And the harder you try to win the more sacrifices you will need to make in other areas of life.
Priorities are everything. Priorities dictate how you allocate your time.
The thing about priorities is they are a continuum…so you need to remind yourself on a regular basis what matters to you. Reminders are powerful.
This is why every single day you should write down your priorities.
Winners win because winners take the actions needed to win. So figure out what you need to do…
With awe-inspiring ideas which are launching us into the future, Elon has benefited from first mover advantage in all his business ventures.
Elon even generated a massive amount of press for himself with his highly imaginative idea the Hyperloop.
The Hyperloop is Musk’s proposal for a faster new form of transportation between the Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area.
The system is proposed to use a partial vacuum to reduce aerodynamic drag, which it is theorized would allow for high speed travel with relatively low power.
SpaceX announced an open competition, geared towards university students and independent engineering teams, to design and build the best Hyperloop pod.
Then SpaceX built a testing Hyperloop rig and encouraged groups of teams from around the world to compete in 2017 and 2018.
The event was a great success.
As of 2025 the website on SpaceX no longer shows these images as they are more relevant to Elon’s business The Boring Company.
Grok Imagination is Amazing Image Visualization
However another way an Elon managed company can give your imagination a boost is Grok: Specifically, Grok Imagine.
With Grok Imagine you can visualize almost anything you can think of. Many images on Elonology.com and in the book are Grok images as well. A watermark in the bottom right corner can help you tell.
The images are very life like. Undoubtedly with progress in this area indistinguishability between Grok Imagine and real life will occur.
This is what Grok’s Imagine home page looks like currently. Every image you see is actually a short video.
Try Grok Imagine for yourself and get a better look!
A Company is a group of people working together to create a product or service.
In his commencement speech at USC Elon Musk explained that if you are creating or joining a company the most important thing is to attract great people.
“Join a group that is amazing that you really respect or if you are building a company you’ve got to gather great people.”
For a company to be great it must be made up of great people.
With Tesla Elon says a College degree – or even high school – is not needed.
What is needed is a track record of exceptional results. Elon is smart enough to know exceptional people do not always have college degrees.
In the past I started and grew an inspirational quotes website until we were acquired…
The most enduring and persistent quote that continually resurfaced was from Jim Rohn:
“You’re the average of the five people spend the most time with.”
Or in other words: You are the company you keep.
So keep great company.
Surround yourself with great people.
And give the hard working people on your teams credit when credit is due.
In conversation with Bill Gates Elon said:
“Most of the time – I get way too much credit or attention for what I do. I’m just the visible element. But the reason those companies are successful isbecause we have extremely talented people at all levels that are making it happen.”
Gotta love Elon’s humility.
Because of Elon’s willingness to share the credit undoubtedly his employees are willing to work harder than if Elon selfishly claimed the success was all him – even though it’s clear Elon and his involvement is a massively positive vector for success.
Elon’s powerful friends and terrific teams helped make it happen.
From Elon’s USC Commencement speech he described the importance of hiring smart and said:
“If you are forming a company the most important thing is to attract great people.
All a company is, is a group of people that are gathered together to create a product or service.
So depending on how talented and hard working that group is and the degree to which they are focused cohesively in a good direction that will determine the success of the company.
So do everything you can to gather great people if you’re creating a company.“
How can you tell if someone is great?
There are many different ways talent and greatness are expressed and the types of talent you may need will vary.
One trait Elon looks for when hiring new people is to look for problem solvers and evidence of exceptional ability.
When Elon interviews someone he asks about the problems the interviewee worked on:
“And how they solved them…if someone was really the person that solved it they’ll be able to answer multiple levels.
They’ll be able to go down to the brass tacks and if they were not they’ll get stuck.
And then you can say oh this person was not really the person who solved it because anyone who struggled hard with a problem never forgets it.“
Problem solvers are great people and the people who solve the greatest problems are definitely deserving of their greatness.
Elon is real and more often wears custom t-shirts than he wears a suit. At the Axel Springer round table with a dozen other CEO’s, where Elon won the Axel Springer award, he was the only CEO not wearing a suit or tie.
Elon’s relatability and openness is part of the reason why many millions (if not billions) of people know his name. Certainly his strategies are working well.
Remarkability is a strong strategy so stay different and don’t be afraid to break the mould and stand out.
With products like the Cybertruck and rockets to Mars in 2026 Elon is playing a huge roll in making the future look like the future moreso than ever before.
On a call with investment bankers in 2018 Elon refused several bone headed comments and told day traders or investors afraid of volatility straight up not to buy Tesla stock because:
“I am not here to convince you to buy our stock…I could care less.”
What Elon does care about is innovation. He shared some powerful insights about innovation on the on the call:
“What matters is the pace of innovation. It is a fundamental determinant to competitiveness…
Let’s say competitors, maybe they come out with something new every six years. We’re maybe every two to three years.
So if our innovation is let’s say twice that of any given competitor…
And this is true generally of companies in any industry…
Whichever company has the highest rate of innovation, unless that company is actively killed by it’s competitors in some way that’s nefarious, or shoots itself in the foot, it will at some point exceed those competitors…
Like this is obvious that this would occur with Amazon and Wal-Mart because wal-mart’s rate of innovation was negligible. And Amazon’s was very high. The outcome was obvious a long time ago.”
In a more recent interview about the AxelSpringer Award (Which Elon ended up winning) Elon echoed similar sentiments saying:
“The company with the higher rate of innovation will unequivocally win long term.”
The lesson here is clear: Innovation matters most.
Moreover the more aggressively you innovate and iterate the faster you will dominate.
“Innovation per year is what matters. Not innovation absent time. Because if you want to make say 100% improvement in something and that took 100 years, or one year, that’s radically different…
So it’s like “what is your rate of innovation?” that matters and “is the rate of innovation accelerating or decelerating?”
At InvestHK Elon said: Innovation comes from questioning the way things have been done before…
And if in the education system you’re taught not to do that that will inhibit entrepreneurship.
Interviewer: “Being able to question what you were taught?”
Elon: “Being able to say: ‘Is there a better way?”
Elon has innovated with Tesla to the point where multiple sources who confirm Tesla has created some of the best cars ever.
That’s the game changing level of innovation you need to have a position in the marketplace where you are in a category of your own.
Here are some of Elon’s quotes on innovation:
“Starting and growing a business is as much about the innovation, drive, and determination of the people behind it as the product they sell.”
“Great companies are built on great products.”
“Failure is essentially irrelevant unless it is catastrophic.”
Although Elon does not strive for failure, he certainly does not hide from it either. And that is why he was able to push on and succeed with SpaceX after their first three rockets failed and he was down to his last dime.
Facing failure head on and learning from it is a lesson I learned the hard way. Once I got a speeding ticket and rather than setting the court date in my calendar I shoved the ticket in a folder and forgot about it. Since I missed the court date I got the maximum fine in my absence.
Had I faced that situation head on maybe I would have emerged successful. At least I would have gotten a lesser fine, or perhaps the cop would not have shown up for the court date and my ticket would have been dropped.
These days no matter how difficult the issue I might be facing I deal with it as soon as possible so it does not become ignored or forgotten about, causing the punishment of ignorance over time.
Action is the antidote to despair.
As Elon says:
“Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”
“If every time somebody came up with an idea it had to be successful you don’t get people coming up with examples.”
Failure is not to be feared. In fact just the opposite: It should be encouraged!
Because with more experiments, which will cause more failures, you will ultimately end up with more successes and a faster pace of innovation.
Saving Lives on Earth and in Space: Elon Musk’s Vision
At Tesla, safety is the number one priority.
Certainly at SpaceX safety is a priority as well and this is reflected by the fact SpaceX has flown many crew missions to space and the ISS with a 100% survival rate and without any casualties or major problems.
At Tesla, not surprisingly, the great priority of safety combined with Tesla’s incredible rate of innovation have made Tesla into the safest car company in the world.
Tesla is the only car to ever receive better than a five star safety rating. The rating system since it gave them what was deemed an unfair advantage so they are now technically “5 star” even though the latest built Tesla are the safest Tesla’s ever built.
Rapid iteration of safety and other innovations are the reason Tesla vehicles do not correspond with model years: Teslas are improving and becoming safer all the time.
In his interview where Elon had turbulent words for bankers when on an investors call he said: “There are over 1,200,000 automobile deaths per year. How many of them do you read about? But if it’s an autonomous death it’s headline news.”
In fact Tesla vehicles are significantly safer than the competition and are the safest cars on the road.
The mission of SpaceX is directly related to human survival as making life multiplanetary is essentially a backup of humanity and human consciousness.
With The Boring Company the tunnels they create have the potential to create a significant solution for the problem of traffic, which will contribute to many lives being saved.
The Boring Company saves lives with their tunnels by preventing accidents when they ensure vehicles travel along a path, and without the fumes of a combustion engine.
Over 3 million people have already been transported with these tunnels.
Millions of lives can be saved by utilizing tunnels and self-driving cars to mitigate hostile traffic and death caused by cars.
Setup Your Strategy for Survivalism
Any product or service which can be positioned as a lifesaver will find itself with a strong value proposition.
Humans are hardwired for survival.
Emphasise the survival aspect of the products and services you have to offer and human instinct will compel people to buy more of what you have to sell.
