Study of Elon Musk
Marc Andreessen: Elon inspires incredible loyalty from his employees because they know he’ll sit all night with them to solve a problem. “Elon actually delegates almost everything. He’s not involved in most of the things that his companies are doing. He’s involved in the thing that is the biggest problem right now until that thing is fixed. And then, he doesn’t have to be involved in it anymore, he can go focus on the next thing that’s the biggest problem for that company right now. In manufacturing, there’s this concept of the bottleneck. In any manufacturing chain, there’s always some bottleneck, something that is keeping the manufacturing line from running the way that it’s supposed to. Whatever the bottleneck, it’s holding everything up. The job number one is to remove that bottleneck and get everything flowing again. I think Elon basically has universalized that concept and he basically looks at every company like it’s some sort of conceptual assembly line. I don’t need to manage everything else because everything else, by definition, is running better than that. I can go focus on that. A lot of CEOs, especially non-technical CEOs, would really struggle to implement his method. When he identifies the bottleneck, he goes and he talks to the line engineers who understand the technical nature of the bottleneck. If it’s people on a manufacturing line, he’s talking to people directly on the line. Or if that’s people in a software development group, he’s talking to the people actually writing the code. He’s not asking the VP of Engineering to ask the Director of Engineering to ask the manager to ask the individual contributor to write a report that’s to be reviewed in three weeks. He doesn’t do that. He would throw them all out of the window. There’s just no way he would do that. He goes and personally finds the engineer who actually has the knowledge about the thing, and then he sits in the room with that engineer and fixes the problem with them. This is why he inspires such incredible loyalty, especially from the technical people who he works with. They’re like, wow, if I’m up against a problem I don’t know how to solve, freaking Elon Musk is going to show up in his Gulfstream jet, and he’s going to sit with me overnight in front of the keyboard or in front of the manufacturing line, and he’s going to help me figure this out.” Interview of
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on Youtube, December 14, 2024
- Elon Musk fixes the biggest problems at his companies every week, Marc Andreessen says.
- Musk quickly tackles pressing issues by working directly with engineers and coders, the VC said.
- The Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s method attracts great talent and inspires deep loyalty, Andreessen said.
Elon Musk has built some of the world’s most valuable companies, from Tesla to SpaceX. A key driver of his success is a relentless focus on solving problems fast, often by working directly with the engineers or coders who’ve gotten stuck, Marc Andreessen says.
The legendary venture capitalist shared his insights from working closely with Musk on X, xAI, and SpaceX during a recent episode of the “Modern Wisdom” podcast.
Unlike many CEOs, Musk is devoted to understanding every aspect of his businesses, the Andreessen Horowitz cofounder and general partner said. He’s “in the trenches and talking directly to the people who do the work,” and acting as the “lead problem solver in the organization.”
Musk’s businesses include Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, xAI, The Boring Company, and X — formerly Twitter. Andreessen said that every week at each of his companies, Musk “identifies the biggest problem that the company is having that week and he fixes it. And then he does that every week for 52 weeks in a row. And then each of his companies has solved the 52 biggest problems that year, in that year.”
In contrast, the bosses of most large corporations spend months or years holding meetings, watching presentations, and conducting legal and compliance reviews before they address their most pressing issues, Andreessen told host Chris Williamson.
- 12/07/2024 – Musk’s speech to support Trump
(1) Gail Alfar on X: “Elon Musk at Lancaster Town Hall Part 1: The Vision & Innovations” / X
FULL VIDEO: Elon Musk Lancaster Pennsylvania Town Hall
- 11/28/2024 – Elon Musk’s $100 million school gets the green light | Watch
- 11/25/2024 – Elon Musk’s New $100M School Gets Permit
Elon Musk’s latest venture is not a rocket or an electric car, but Ad Astra, an educational institution for early childhood education.
Ad Astra has officially received its permit to operate in Bastrop County, Texas. Musk, who is co-leading President-elect Donald Trump’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), invested $100 million in the school via his X Foundation.
The school is set to open its doors for the 2024-25 academic year, offering a progressive, STEM-focused curriculum for children aged 3 to 9. It will be run by Greg Marick, CEO of Xplor Education, a firm that partners with U.S.-based companies to deliver Montessori-style programs. STEM refers to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Ad Astra, Latin for “to the stars,” sums up Musk’s vision of cultivating the next generation of problem solvers and builders. According to the website, the school’s mission is “to foster curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking.” It says it emphasizes hands-on, project-based learning where students are encouraged to explore, experiment, and find solutions to real-world problems.
The curriculum is described as integrating STEM subjects with activities ranging from coloring and collage-making to studying maps and globes.
“When I was in college, I wanted to be involved in things that would change the world. Now I am.”
—Elon Musk
- 11/12/2024 – (1) Elon Musk (@elonmusk) / X
- 10/07/2024 – The Rise of Musk: From Video Games to SpaceX | Watch (msn.com)
- 10/06/2024 – How Do You Solve a Problem Like Elon Musk? (nymag.com)
- 08/17/2024 – Behind Elon Musk’s Management Philosophy: First Principles – WSJ
The entrepreneur has long talked about a physics-based, problem-solving viewpoint that his new Twitter CEO invoked in her first memo to staff
The first principles process involves envisioning what ultimate success looks like and then being open to any path that leads there. Even something so ingrained in traditional schooling, such as accreditation, showed how Musk’s mind applied first principles reasoning in decision making, raising very simple questions: “What’s accreditation? Why does it exist? What’s it for? What’s the cost? What’s the opportunity cost of doing that?”
And the answers can’t simply be: That is what other schools do.
“Reasoning by analogy, especially in the early days, is the thing that’s a total killer,” Dahn said.
Musk’s business successes and his often-stated focus on first principles have sparked interest in others. James Clear, the bestselling self-help author, has written about the approach, writing that while great minds from Aristotle to Johannes Gutenberg have employed such reasoning, “no one embodies the philosophy of first principles thinking more effectively” than Musk.
Ad Astra closed at SpaceX in Hawthorne, Calif., when Musk’s children moved on. Dahn has since spun off his work into Astra Nova School, an online offering for a broader population of students.
Still, it isn’t an easy approach. For Musk’s engineers, the work of unlearning assumptions can be challenging, especially at times when the tried-and-true method would be quicker.
Musk lectured on first principles at his children’s school years ago, diving into his reasoning behind starting SpaceX, including the math behind a rocket and the economics behind its costs.
As he began, Musk asked the kids: “Does anybody have any experience with first principles analysis?”
