Elon Musk on why he works extreme hours and takes big risks early. He says a product must be truly superior to compete, and that working twice as many hours yields twice the output. He built PayPal, Tesla, and SpaceX by focusing on R&D over advertising and hiring people who solve deep problems.
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He's worth over $11 billion. He's created game-changing businesses like PayPal, Tesla Motors, and SpaceX. He's the closest thing we have to real-life Iron Man. He's Elon Musk, and here are his 10 rules for success.
That third failure in a row, did you think, "I need to pack this in"?
Never.
Why not?
I don't ever give up. I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated. Really liking what you do, what Whatever area that you get into, given that, you know, even if you're the best of the best, there's always a chance of failure. So I think it's important that you really like whatever you're doing. If you don't like it, life is too short. If you like what you're doing, you think about it even when you're not working. I mean, it'll just— it's something that your mind is drawn to. And if you don't like it, you just really can't make it work, I think. So many people tried to talk me out of starting a ride company, it was crazy. One good friend of mine collected a whole series of videos of rockets blowing up and made me watch those. He just didn't want me to lose all my money. We're doing these things that seem unlikely to succeed, and we've been fortunate, and at least thus far they have succeeded. Now is the time to take risk. You don't have kids. As you get older, your obligations increase, so you— And once you have a family, you start taking risk not just for yourself but for your family as well. It gets much harder to do things that might not work out. So now is the time to do that before you, before you have those obligations. So I would encourage you to take risks now. Do something bold. You won't regret it.
How did you figure you were going to start a car company and be successful at it?
Well, I didn't really think Tesla would be successful. I thought we would most likely fail, but I thought that we at least could address the false perception that people had that an electric car had to be ugly and slow and boring like a golf cart.
But you say you didn't expect the company to be successful, then why try?
If something's important enough, you should try even if the probable outcome is failure. Focus on signal over noise. A lot of companies get confused. They spend money on things that don't actually make the product better. For example, At Tesla, we've never spent any money on advertising. We put all of the money into R&D and manufacturing and design to try to make the car as good as possible. And I think that's the way to go. For any given company, just keep thinking about, are these efforts that people are expending, are they resulting in a better product or service? And if they're not, stop those efforts. When I interview someone to work at the company, it would be to ask them to tell me about the problems that they worked on and how they solved them. And if someone was really the person that solved it, they'll be able to answer multiple levels. They'll be able to go down to the brass tacks. And if they weren't, they'll get stuck. And then you can say, oh, this person was not really the person who solved it, because anyone who struggled hard with a problem never forgets it. I think if you're creating a company or if you're joining a company, the most important thing is to attract great people. So either be with— join a group that's amazing that you really respect, or if you're building a company, you've got to gather great people. I mean, all a company is, is a group of people that have gathered together to create a product or service. And so depending upon how talented and hardworking that group is and the degree to which they are focused, cohesively in a good direction, that will determine the success of the company. So do everything you can to gather great people if you're creating a company.
You've got to make sure that whatever you're doing is a great product or service. It has to be really great. And I go back to what I was saying earlier where if you're a new company, I mean, unless it's like some new industry or new market that If it's an untapped market, then you have more ability to— the standard is lower for your product or service. But if you're entering anything where there's an existing marketplace against large entrenched competitors, then your product or service needs to be much better than theirs. It can't be a little bit better, because then you put yourself in the shoes of the consumer and they say, why would you buy it as a consumer? You're always going to buy the trusted brand unless there's a big difference. So a lot of times, you know, entrepreneur will come up with something which is only slightly better, and it's not— it can't just be slightly better, it's got to be a lot better.
Depending upon how well you want to do, and particularly if you're starting a company, you need to work super hard. So what does super hard mean? Well, When my brother and I were starting our first company, instead of getting an apartment, we just rented a small office and we slept on the couch. And we showered at the YMCA. And we were so hard up, we had one computer. So the website was up during the day and I was coding at night. 7 days a week, all the time. And I— I sort of briefly had a girlfriend in that period, and in order to be with me, she had to sleep in the office. So work hard, like, I mean, every waking hour. That's the thing I would say, particularly if you're starting a company. And I mean, if you do simple math, say like, okay, if somebody else is working 50 hours and you're working 100, you'll get twice as much done in the course of a year as The other company.
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