Smash Notes
What Is Elon Musk's Five-step Algorithm? · Founders

Founders

#415 How Elon Thinks

My friend Eric Jorgenson spent years—and thousands of hours—studying Elon Musk. Eric read everything Elon has written, read everything written about Elon, and watched every interview Elon's given. He distilled all of Elon's insights into his new book. This episode is all about How Elon Thinks based on The Book of Elon: Elon Musk's Most Useful Ideas in His…

People

Notes

  1. Why Aren't There More People Like Elon Musk? at 5:01

    David Senra, reading Elon Musk, passes on Musk's answer to why the world does not have more people like him: anyone who wants to be him, or to do what he has… Full answer

  2. How Does Elon Musk Use First Principles? at 9:55

    David Senra, reading Elon Musk, says first principles means breaking a problem down to what you are most confident is true, then reasoning up from that base… Full answer

  3. Why Does Elon Musk Say Money Is Not the Constraint? at 23:03

    David Senra, reading Elon Musk, says money is not the constraint on building great teams and products. Full answer

  4. Why Does SpaceX Design for Simplicity? at 28:52

    David Senra, reading Elon Musk, says early SpaceX designs chose simplicity because fewer components improve reliability and reduce cost. Simplicity wins. Full answer

  5. What Is Elon Musk's Five-step Algorithm? at 30:20

    David Senra, reading Elon Musk, says the algorithm is a five-step process for engineering that every one of Musk's companies has to follow, and the order is… Full answer

  6. Which American Car Companies Never Went Bankrupt? at 41:43

    David Senra, reading Elon Musk, says the number of American car companies that have not gone bankrupt is two, Ford and Tesla. Tesla should not have worked. Full answer

  7. Why Did Elon Musk Start SpaceX? at 45:15

    David Senra, reading Elon Musk, says Musk chose space because the problem was important to fix, and the likeliest outcome was losing all his money. Full answer

Related notes

Related episodes

Plays from this note through the rest of the episode.

Note

Weekly highlights

One letter a week.

The notes worth hearing, with the minute they were said.