And there's a friend of mine who says like starting companies like staring at the abyss and eating glass
and
there's some truth to that there were times when
Something is important enough you believe it enough that you do it in spite of fear. I'm just in general critical thinking is good
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There are just times when
Something is important enough you believe it enough, but you do you do it in spite of fear
Okay, let's hit get off with rule number one have a high pain threshold
One does have to be focused on the short term and money coming in when creating company because otherwise the company will die
so that I
think that a lot of times people think
like creating company is
Gonna be fun. I would say it's not it's really not that fun
I mean there are periods of fun and there are periods of where to where she's awful
And particularly if you CEO of the company
You actually have a distillation of all the worst problems in the company
There's no point in spending your time on things that are going right
so you only spend on things on your time on things that are going wrong and
And there are things that are going wrong that other people can't can't take care of so you're like the worst
You have a filter for the crappers problems in the company
the most pernicious and painful problem
So I wouldn't say it's it's it I think you have to feel quite compelled to do it
and
Have a fairly high pain threshold, and there's a friend of mine who says like starting companies like staring at the abyss and eating glass
and
There's some truth to that
We're starting to the best part is that you're gonna be constantly facing the
Extermination of the company because most startups fail
Yeah, it's like 90 percent ugly 99% of startzville. So I
So you that that's the staring into the abyss part. You can't stir constantly saying?
Okay, let's if I don't get this, right the company will die
Should be quite rightful quite stressful and and then
The eating glass part is you've got you've got to do you've got to do the problems
You're gonna sell you're gonna work on the problems that the company needs you to work on not the problems you want to work on?
and
So that the that's you and I've working on problems that that if you really wish you weren't working on
Okay, so that's the eating grass part
Then that goes on for a long time
So, how do you keep your focus on the big picture when you're constantly faced with we could be out of business in a month?
Well, it's just a very small percentage of mental energies on the on the big picture like you know
you know where you generally heading for and
And the fascial path is gonna be some sort of zig zag thing in that direction
And try not to deviate too far from the path
That that you want to be on but you're gonna have to do that some degree
But I don't want to I don't want to diminish the I mean
I think the product the profit motive is it is a is a good one if the rules of an industry are properly set up
So there's only fundamentally wrong with profit
In fact profit just means that people are paying you more for whatever you're doing. Then you're spending to create it
That's a good thing
and if you're not if that's not the case, then you'll be out of business and rightfully, so
Sure, you're not adding enough value rule number two, don't let failure stop you what was your biggest failure and how did I change you?
To really think hard about that failure
There's your answer yeah, well there's a ton of failures along the way that's for sure
Like I said as a support for SpaceX the first three launches failed and
We were just barely able to scrape together enough
Parts and money to do the fourth launch that both launch had failed. We would have been dead. So multiple failures along the way
I
Tried very hard to get the right expertise in for for SpaceX
I tried hard to find a great chief engineer for the rocket
But it but the good chief engineers wouldn't join and the bad ones. Well, there's no no point hiring him
So I ended up a chief engineer at the rocket
So if I could have found somebody better then we would have maybe had less than three failures
rule number three work super hard on your vision
I think certainly being focused on something that you're confident will have high value to someone else
And just being really rigorous in making that assessment
because people are attend tend to
Natural human tendency is wishful thinking
So a challenge for entrepreneurs is to say well, what's the difference between really believing in your ideals and sticking sticking to them?
versus
pursuing some unrealistic dream that doesn't actually have merit and it's it's that is it that is a really difficult thing to
To tell you can you tell the difference between those two things
I know so you need to be sort of very rigorous in in your self self analysis
I think certainly extremely tenacious
and
And then just work like hell, I mean you just have to put in
You know 80 hour 80 100 hour weeks
every week
And then matter like that, but all those things improve the odds of success, okay, I
mean if other people are putting in 40 hour work weeks and you're putting in 100 hour work weeks then even if
You're doing the same thing, you know that in in one year, you will achieve what that she you you will achieve in
Four months what it takes them a year to achieve when my brother and I was studying our first company
Instead of getting an apartment. We just rented us a small office and we slept on the couch
and we showered at the YMCA and
We're so hot up. We had just one computer. So the
The website was up during the day and I was coding at night
Seven days a week all the time
And I
Sort of briefly had a gopher in that period and in order to be with me she have to sleep in the office. So I
Work hard like and it mean every waking hour
That's that's the the thing I would I would say if you're particularly if you're starting a company
and
I mean if you do simple math to say like okay if somebody else is working 50 hours when you're working 100
You'll get twice as done as much done in the course of a year as the other company rule number four act
despite fear you are unusually fearless and
Willing to go in the face of other people telling you something that's crazy
And I a lot of pretty crazy people you still stand out
Where does that come from or how do you think about making a decision when everyone tells you this is a crazy idea?
Where do you get the internal strength to do that?
Well, first of all, I'd say I actually think I feel feel fair quite strongly
So it's not as though I just have the absence of fear. I've I feel it quite strongly
but there were times when
Something is important enough you believe it enough that you do you do it in spite of fear. So
Speaking of important things like people shouldn't think III I should if you should think well
I feel fear about this and therefore I shouldn't do it
It's normal to be to feel fear. Like you'd have to do something mentally wrong. You shouldn't feel fair
So you just feel it and let the importance of it drive you to do it
Anyway, yeah, you know, actually we're something that can be helpful as fatalism
some degree
If you just think it's just accept the probabilities
Then that diminishes fear
so
We're starting SpaceX. I thought the odds of success were less than 10%
And I just accepted that actually probably I would just lose lose everything
But that maybe would make some progress if we could just move the ball forward even if we died maybe
Some other company could pick up the baton and move and keep moving it forward
So that were still do some good
Yeah same with Tesla
I thought your odds of a car company succeeding were
extremely low and rule number five the last time before a very special bonus clip is
Create a great team. You need a team around you to deliver a lot of idea
How do you choose your team be somewhat?
Well, I suppose honestly that
It tends to be gut feel more than anything else
So when I interview somebody
The might of your question is always the same it's just I said tell me the your life and
and the decisions that you made a long way and why you made them and
then
If and it and also tell me about some of the most difficult problems you worked on and how you solved them and
That that question I think is very important because the people that really solve the problem
They know exactly how they solved it
they know the little details and
The people that pretend it to solve a problem they can maybe go one level and then they get stuck
Advice I forgot
Well, I think the
You know the physics training is a very good training where
It's a good framework for reasoning. We you're trained to
think about first principles and reason from there and that means blending things down to
The most fundamental truths and then connecting those truths in a way to try to understand how reality is
Because you know physics has this problem where they're trying to figure out things that are totally counterintuitive
And so they had to have a framework for forgetting they're like quantum mechanics is incredibly counterintuitive
But it's true
And so you had so the physics developed a framework for figuring out
Things that aren't obvious and that's why I think it's it's what it's it's a lot of advice but it's it's it's the right framework
and then
Just in general critical thinking is good, you know examining whether you have the correct axioms are the most applicable axioms
Does the logic necessarily connect and then what are the what are the range of probable outcomes?
Outcomes are usually not deterministic there and they're there a range
and so you want to figure out what those probabilities are and make sure
Ideally that you or the house
You know, it's fine to take spot it's fine to it's fine to gamble as long as you're the house yeah and
You know and it's up so that is is to
Listen to critical feedback which we alluded to earlier
voice oolitic solicit critical feedback particularly from friends
Because generally they will be thinking it but they want to tell you ways your standard
Apple at the core is core values
Is that we believe that people your passion can change the way people
Not one drop of my self-worth depends on your it's suppose to mean
If you want more ilan check out the video I made on how to be the next Elon Musk
The link is right there next to me
I think you'll enjoy it continue to believe and I'll see you there a challenge for entrepreneurs is to say well
What's the difference between really believing in new ideals and sticking sticking to them?
