What Can We Learn from Elon Musk and His Advice. A short 10 point Summary of advice and learnings from Elon for his success at Paypal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX and Solar City. This talks about his 1. Hard work 2. Critical Self Analysis 3 First principles thinking 4 Networking 5 Risk taking etc skills. DO read and share if you admire his work and want to inculcate some of his advice and skills. Youtube Videos on Elon Musk: Bloomberg Documentary: http://goo.gl/eBMbRe Elon Musk at TED: http://goo.gl/KdALA9 Fireside chat with Elon Musk Pandodaily: http://goo.gl/pYtOfo Future of Design, SpaceX http://goo.gl/PMWXmw Musk keynote at SXSW http://goo.gl/GQZfId Detailed Magazine Articles: The telegraph story Elon Musk: Jan 2014, http://goo.gl/tXBjl7 The New Yorker Story: http://goo.gl/Xn4yLf Elon Musk enthusiast website: http://elonenthusiast.com/ Elon Musk: Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk Elon Musk twitter account: http://www.twitter.com/elonmusk/ Quora: Summary of Quora links on Elon Musk http://www.quora.com/search?q=Elon+musk Key Quora Link: http://goo.gl/deRsmB

1. What Can We Learn From Elon Musk ?
A Handy Summary for All Time Reference
A Compilation by: rohitp@media.mit.edu
Rohit Pandharkar, Feb 2014
http://in.linkedin.com/in/rohitpandharkar

2. Be extremely tenacious, and just work like
hell. Put in 100 hours every week.
If someone else is putting in 40 Hrs a
week, even if you are doing the same
thing, you would be able to achieve in 4
months to do what others do in a year
1
http://www.quora.com/Elon-Musk/What-keyqualities-does-Elon-Musk-have-that-onecould-most-easily-emulate-and-benefit-fromemulating
100 Hr Work-Week

3. I think it’s very important to have a
feedback loop, where you’re constantly
thinking about what you’ve done and how
you could be doing it better. I think that’s
the single best piece of advice: constantly
think about how you could be doing things
better and questioning yourself.
2
Self Feedback Loop
http://mashable.com/2012/04/13/elon-musksecrets-of-effectiveness/

4. Focus on something that has high value to
someone else, be really rigorous in making
that assessment, because natural human
tendency is wishful thinking, so the challenge
to entrepreneurs is telling what's the
difference between really believing in your
ideals and sticking to them as opposed to
pursuing some unrealistic dream that doesn't
actually have merit, be very rigorous in your
analysis.
3
http://www.changemakrs.com/a-n/focus-onsomething-that-has-high-value-to
Attacking Problems
That Matter To Many

5. 4
Accurate Analysis of
Your Belief In Product
Accurate analysis of your belief in product. It's
difficult to do so, since you're too close to
yourself by definition. People do not think
critically enough. People assume too many
things to be true without sufficient basis in
that belief, so it's very important that people
closely analyze what is supposed to be true,
and build it up, analyze things by the first
principles, not by analogy or convention, which
is actually what most people do, that makes it
difficult to gain insight as to how things can be
bettered. In any argument or train of thinking,
you want to make sure that the underlying
premises are valid and applicable, and how the
conclusion reached is necessarily driven by the
underlying premises and the interconnection
between those premises. It's the foundation of
rational thought.
http://www.kimeshan.com/2014/01/03/golde
n-advice-from-elon-musk/

6. People tend to over-weigh risks on a personal
level. It's one thing if you've got a mortgage to
pay and kids to support, so that if you were to
deviate from your job, well, how are you going
to feed your family and pay the rent? That's
understandable, but let's say you're young and
you're just coming out of college, what are
your risks? You're not going to starve, certainly
not in any kind of modern economy. It's so
easy to earn enough money just to live
somewhere and eat food. Very easy to do. So I
don't know what they're afraid of. Mostly
afraid of failure, I think, but people should be
less risk averse, when there's not much at risk
http://blog.bearingconsulting.com/2012/11/25/21st-centuryinnovator/
5
Taking Risks &
Living With $1 A Day

7. Really liking what you do, whatever area that
you get into, given that even if you're the best
of the best, there's always a chance of failure. I
think it's important that you really like
whatever you're doing, if you don't like it, life
is too short. Also, if you like what you're doing,
you think about it even when you're not
working, it's something that your mind is
drawn to, if you don't like it, you just can't
really make it work, I think
6
Doing What You Like
http://www.changemakrs.com/a-n/reallyliking-what-you-do-whatever-area-that

8. I think it’s important to reason from first
principles rather than by analogy. The normal
way we conduct our lives is we reason by
analogy. [With analogy] we are doing this
because it’s like something else that was
done, or it is like what other people are doing.
[With first principles] you boil things down to
the most fundamental truths…and then reason
up from there
Musk gives an example of the first automobile.
While everyone else was trying to improve
horse-drawn carriages, someone looked at the
fundamentals of transportation and the
combustion engine in order to create a car.
7
First Principles Thinking
http://99u.com/workbook/20482/how-elonmusk-thinks-the-first-principles-method

9. In every interview of Musk, you subtly notice
and tend to ignore his healthy body. A 100 Hr
hectic work week with full focus is n’t possible
without a healthy body.
8
Good Health

10. Elon Musk knew Larry page even before Larry
received VC funding for Google.
Page introduced Musk to Steve Jobs
Elon Musk travelled straight to Russia and met
best of space experts from Russia when he was
analyzing space travel as a business idea.
Being able to talk to Russian space experts
while being a private American space company
Shows Musk’s ability to reach out to right
people when he needs to.
9
Personal
People Network

11. Five years ago [2008] Musk was on the verge
of a nervous breakdown. Both Tesla and
SpaceX were losing cash and Musk had to
make a tough decision: try to rescue both of
his projects from bankruptcy or devote all his
resources into one -- without knowing if either
company could survive in the long run.
He chose to go all-in, and pushed both the
companies. Today, both are changing the
shape of their respective industries [Electric
vehicles and space travel ].
10
Not Giving Up
What You Believe In
Musk was Tesla’s first investor, and he kept the company afloat until
recently through round after round of funding. After a Tesla employee
leaked word in October 2008 to a reporter that the company was down
to its last $9 million in cash, Musk promised to personally refund car
buyers’ deposits if Tesla couldn’t deliver the vehicles — a promise he
made in the pages of Car & Driver. At that time, those deposits —
which Tesla calls “reservation payments” — were an important source
of cash for the company.
http://venturebeat.com/2010/05/27/elon-musk-personal-finances/

12. Youtube Videos on Elon Musk:
Bloomberg Documentary: http://goo.gl/eBMbRe
Elon Musk at TED: http://goo.gl/KdALA9
Fireside chat with Elon Musk Pandodaily: http://goo.gl/pYtOfo
Future of Design, SpaceX http://goo.gl/PMWXmw
Musk keynote at SXSW http://goo.gl/GQZfId
Detailed Magazine Articles:
The telegraph story Elon Musk: Jan 2014, http://goo.gl/tXBjl7
The New Yorker Story: http://goo.gl/Xn4yLf
Elon Musk enthusiast website: http://elonenthusiast.com/
Elon Musk: Wikipedia page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk
Elon Musk twitter account:
http://www.twitter.com/elonmusk/
MORE
A Compilation by: rohitp@media.mit.edu
Rohit Pandharkar, Feb 2014
http://in.linkedin.com/in/rohitpandharkar
Quora: Summary of Quora links on Elon Musk
http://www.quora.com/search?q=Elon+musk
Key Quora Link: http://goo.gl/deRsmB
More On Elon Musk