“It’s OK to be wrong. Just don’t be confident and wrong.”
“Never ask your troops to do something you’re not willing to do. Whenever there are problems to solve, don’t just meet with your managers. Do a skip level, where you meet with the level right below your managers. When hiring, look for people with the right attitude. Skills can be taught. Attitude changes require a brain transplant. A maniacal sense of urgency is our operating principle. The only rules are the ones dictated by the laws of physics. Everything else is a recommendation” these are parts of what Elon Musk calls ‘the algorithm’.
This is part of the mantra, the Africa born engineer - investor, would repeat at production meetings at Tesla and Space X.
One has to ask: How can one be more productive? How does the world’s most affluent individual who co-founded seven leading edge tech companies get things done? Walter Isaacson’s 2023 biography of Musk makes for fascinating reading, providing more than a few clues.
Works from a cubicle
An engineer who works from a work station on the production line, Musk is a serial tasker, who focuses on the biggest problem that one of his companies has, solves it with a team, and then moves onto the next.
Having tackled the biggest constraint, he lets the managers get back to running the company. ‘Work-life balance’ is not on his screen. Working at times 120 hours a week, for him, life is work, and that provides a precarious sense of balance.
Taking unusual risks, that just about all entrepreneurs would shy away is Musk’s way of being. While today he is amazingly influential, in 2008 he was on the brink of defeat. Three Space X flights had failed, and Tesla was 30 days from bankruptcy. With a high tolerance for stress somehow he pulled a rabbit out of the hat, and the rest is in the pages of recent history.
Turning demons into a driving force
Like everyone, there are many sides to his personality. Walter Isaacson explains: “Well, there's certainly multiple Elon Musks, multiple personalities, whether it's the hardcore engineering mode that you know so well where he can figure out how to make a battery cell or, more importantly, figure out how to make steps on an assembly line that make the battery cell. But there's also almost a demon mode of Elon Musk where he gets really dark and that can be very problematic. But with a Musk or anybody else, you figure out how they channeled those demons and turned them into drives.”
Love at first sight
Tululah Riley, is the intelligent charming 22-year-old English actress Musk met in July 2008 after giving an address to Royal Aeronautical Society in London, at one of his most difficult periods.
Smitten, within two weeks of meeting her, Musk got engaged. While risk has its rewards, it can also literally be your fatal downfall.
Here is how Isaacson describes the nerve-wracking months of late 2008, when both Space X and Tesla looked doomed to fail.
“Talulah watched in horror as, night after night, Musk had mumbling conversations with himself, sometimes flailing his arms and screaming. “I kept thinking he was going to have a heart attack,” she says.
“He was having night terrors and just screaming in his sleep and clawing at me. It was horrendous. I was really scared, and he was just desperate.” Sometimes he would go to the bathroom and start vomiting. “It would go to his gut, and he would be screaming and retching,” she says. “ I would stand by the toilet and hold his head,” writes his biographer.
Think for yourself
So, what can we learn from this? Love him or hate him, Musk is outside of the normal curve. An independent thinker, famous for his back to basics, first principles thinking, and cost consciousness, he has been at the forefront of electric cars, space exploration including a mission to colonise Mars, AI, solar technology, Twitter, Starlink and the list continues.
Break things down to their essential elements. Question conventional wisdom. Keep asking: Why? Musk has close to what is often called a ‘beginners mind’. A state of openness and curiosity, free of preconceptions of what is, or is not possible. A problem solver, he sees things others miss, and with a demonic, laser-like ability to focus, some would call Musk crazy.
But as Steve Job’s said: “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”
David J. Abbott is a director at aCatalyst Consulting. [email protected]