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.
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