Elon Musk

The guiding principle at SpaceX is to embrace your work and get stuff done. People who await guidance or detailed instructions languish. The same goes for workers who crave feedback. And the absolute worst thing that someone can do is

If the rules are such that you can’t make progress, then you have to fight the rules.

“We knew it could be done,” Musk said. “It was a question of how hard it would be and how long it would take us to sort it out.”

Tesla as a place “where we are doing things, not talking about things.”

you kicked out of the room. You need everything lined up. After we presented the plan, he said, ‘Okay, thanks.’ Everyone was like, ‘Holy shit, he didn’t fire you.’” There were times when Musk would overwhelm the Tesla engineers with his requests. He

You don’t tell Elon you can’t do something.

all of the design and technology choices should be directed toward the goal of making a car as close to perfect as possible.

People also linked this type of behavior to Musk’s other quirky traits. He’s been known to obsess over typos in e-mails to the point that he could not see past the errors and read the actual content of the messages.

People also linked this type of behavior to Musk’s other quirky traits. He’s been known to obsess over typos in e-mails to the point that he could not see past the errors and read the actual content of the messages. Even in social settings, Musk might get up from the dinner table without a word of explanation to head outside and look at the stars, simply because he’s not willing to suffer fools or small talk.

The people who suggest bad ideas during meetings or make mistakes at work are getting in the way of all of this and slowing Musk down. He does not dislike them as people. It’s more that he feels pained by their mistakes, which have consigned man to peril that much longer. The perceived lack of emotion is a symptom of Musk sometimes feeling like he’s the only one who really grasps the urgency of his mission. He’s less sensitive and less tolerant than other people because the stakes are so high. Employees need to help solve the problems to the absolute best of their ability or they need to get out of the way.

In his next book, Average Is Over, Cowen predicted an unromantic future in which a great divide had occurred between the Haves and the Have Nots. In Cowen’s future, huge gains in artificial intelligence will lead to the elimination of many of today’s high-employment lines of work. The people who thrive in this environment will be very bright and able to complement the machines and team effectively with them. As for the unemployed masses? Well, many of them will eventually find jobs going to work for the Haves, who will employ teams of nannies, housekeepers, and gardeners.

As Page puts it, “Good ideas are always crazy until they’re not.”

your intuition about things you don’t know that much about isn’t very good,”

you should sell only the amount that you need to improve your standard of living in the short to medium term. I do actually recommend selling some amount of stock, even if you are certain it will appreciate, as life is short and a bit more cash can increase fun and reduce stress at home (so long as you don’t ratchet up your ongoing personal expenditures proportionately).