[Founder Notes] Elon Musk
Look to history. The people tell you about human nature. The difference between icons and everyone else is their software, which can be changed by how you spend your time.
Build from first principles. Look at the fundamentals of a thing and rebuild from there. Then see if your conclusion is different from others. Most people look at the question and think smaller, but the reality box tends to be much bigger.
"Dopamine doesn't know what's good for you." You don't know shit. No one knows shit. So learn. Being a game changer is about disrupting society enough to realize you can change the rules of the game. Negative feedback is good. Don't get trapped in your own history. Take a new approach.
How Tesla Will Change the World
Change doesn't happen on a familiar landscape. You'll have to create it. Focus on what customers will need even before customers know they'll need it. By solving your own novel problems, you can create net-new industries for the copycats that will inevitably come.
Product first — the moment the company thinks numbers have value in themselves, the company is done. Great products make great companies. Most car company design starts with concepts. Tesla begins by reinventing the concept of a car from scratch. Grow the industry. Collaborate and profit from it.
Why SpaceX Will Colonize Mars
Motivated by two things: it's good for others (survival of humans), and it's fun. What better adventure? Find play.
To become an expert rocket builder: read a ton of books and talk to experts, drilling a series of questions. Elon looked at raw materials of aerospace and realized it was only about 2% of rocket cost, so there had to be a better way to build rockets. He knew each component of a rocket to the roots — temperatures and variables parts would need to survive.
SpaceX is heavily vertically integrated. They do nearly all major pieces themselves. Manufacture 80–90% of equivalent chips and software. For quality control this is necessary. Decrease steps. Decrease cost.
— Jay