The Elon Musk Blog Series Quotes

“I think generally people’s thinking process is too bound by convention or analogy to prior experiences. It’s rare that people try to think of something on a first principles basis. They’ll say, “We’ll do that because it’s always been done that way.” Or they’ll not do it because “Well, nobody’s ever done that, so it must not be good.” But that’s just a ridiculous way to think. You have to build up the reasoning from the ground up—“from the first principles”
― Tim Urban, The Elon Musk Blog Series: Wait But Why

“Instead of a blank canvas, school hands kids a coloring book and tells them to stay within the lines.4 What”
― Tim Urban, The Elon Musk Blog Series: Wait But Why

“And learning, for Musk, is simply the process of “downloading data and algorithms into your brain.”3 Among his many frustrations with formal classroom learning is the “ridiculously slow download speed” of sitting in a classroom while a teacher explains something, and to this day, most of what he knows he’s learned through reading.”
― Tim Urban, The Elon Musk Blog Series: Wait But Why

“I don’t know what a business is. All a company is is a bunch of people together to create a product or service. There’s no such thing as a business, just pursuit of a goal—a group of people pursuing a goal.”
― Tim Urban, The Elon Musk Blog Series: Wait But Why

“So if we want to think like a scientist more often in life, those are the three key objectives—to be humbler about what we know, more confident about what’s possible, and less afraid of things that don’t matter.”
― Tim Urban, The Elon Musk Blog Series: Wait But Why

“Insecurity can be solved the hard way or the easy way—and by giving people the easy option, dogmatic tribes remove the pressure to do the hard work of evolving into a more independent person with a more internally-defined identity.”
― Tim Urban, The Elon Musk Blog Series: Wait But Why

“Humility is by definition a starting point—and it sends you off on a journey from there. The arrogance of certainty is both a starting point and an ending point—no journeys needed.”
― Tim Urban, The Elon Musk Blog Series: Wait But Why

“Over time, big industries tend to get flabby and uncreative and risk-averse—and if the right outsider company has the means and creativity to come at the industry with a fresh perspective and rethink the whole thing, there’s often a huge opportunity there.”
― Tim Urban, The Elon Musk Blog Series: Wait But Why

“Humans walked around or rode horses for 999 of the last 1,000 centuries. In this century, we drive cars, fly planes, and land on the moon.”
― Tim Urban, The Elon Musk Blog Series: Wait But Why

“A company like GM is a finance-driven company who always has to live up to financial expectations. Here we look at it the other way around—the product is successful when it’s great, and the company becomes great because of that.” (This mirrored what Musk had told me earlier in the day: “The moment the person leading a company thinks numbers have value in themselves, the company’s done. The moment the CFO becomes CEO—it’s done. Game over.”) Von”
― Tim Urban, The Elon Musk Blog Series: Wait But Why

“The best friend of a blind Us is a nemesis Us—Them. Nothing unites Us like a collectively hated anti-Us, and the blind tribe is usually defined almost as much by hating the dogma of Them as it is by abiding by the dogma of Us. Whatever”
― Tim Urban, The Elon Musk Blog Series: Wait But Why