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“It was not unusual for him to read ten hours a day,” said Kimbal. “If it was the weekend, he could go through two books in a day.”
As Elon got older, he would take himself to the bookstore when school ended at 2 P.M. and stay there until about 6 P.M.,
I like to make technologies real that I think are important for the future and useful in some sort of way.”
The Russians, who often skip breakfast, would ask to meet around 11 A.M. at their offices for an early lunch.
I thought it was more important to let him know quickly what happened, but I learned it was more important to have all the information.”
Tesla’s strategy of starting with a high-priced, low-volume product and moving down to more affordable products over time,
Throughout these early years, the engineers credited Eberhard with making quick, crisp decisions. Rarely did Tesla get hung up overanalyzing a situation. The company would pick a plan of attack, and when it failed at something, it failed fast and then tried a new approach.
we were reminded that building the car was not about getting to an IPO or selling it to a bunch of rich dudes but because it might change what a car is.”
Elon has a mind that’s a bit like a calculator. If you put a number on the projector that does not make sense, he will spot it. He doesn’t miss details.”
Just get the job done.
I’ve just never seen anything like his ability to take pain.”
“We were looking for people that had been building things since they were little.”
“He doesn’t say, ‘You have to do this by Friday at two P.M.,’” Brogan said. “He says, ‘I need the impossible done by Friday at two P.M. Can you do it?’ Then, when you say yes, you are not working hard because he told you to. You’re working hard for yourself.
One of my favorite things about Elon is his ability to make enormous decisions very quickly. That is still how it works today.”
If a regulator agrees to change a rule and something bad happens, they could easily lose their career. Whereas if they change a rule and something good happens, they don’t even get a reward.
There’s a degree to which it’s just never enough for Musk, no matter what it is.
Tesla had transformed the car into a gadget—a device that actually got better after you bought it.
It’s a computer on wheels.”
“One of the things Elon pushed hard with everyone was to do as much as possible in-house,” Lloyd said. Tesla would make up for its lack of R&D money by hiring smart people who could outwork and outthink the third parties relied on by the rest of the automakers. “The mantra was that one great engineer will replace three medium ones,” Lloyd said.
“where we are doing things, not talking about things.”
Either you’re trying to make something spectacular with no compromises or you’re not. And if you’re not, Musk considers you a failure.
What Musk had done that the rival automakers missed or didn’t have the means to combat was turn Tesla into a lifestyle. It did not just sell someone a car. It sold them an image, a feeling they were tapping into the future, a relationship. Apple did the same thing decades ago with the Mac and then again with the iPod and iPhone.
This sort of relationship is hard to pull off if you don’t control as much of the lifestyle as possible. PC makers that farmed their software out to Microsoft, their chips to Intel, and their design to Asia could never make machines as beautiful and as complete as Apple’s.
With Tesla, I decided to raise a huge amount of money just in case something terrible happens.”
The rule is they have to read more than they play video games.
