(An article)

(An article)

This is not just a succinct distillation of a practical and powerful work method but one for a successful company culture too. And this is how Musk runs his companies. Isaacson's book is easily worth the read for the countless case studies illustrating exactly how these points are applied.

The trick to getting the best out of Musk's method is to realize that you needn't celebrate the madness as much as merely accept that it's part of a package deal. Like it so often is. One of the memorable quotes from the book reveals that even Musk himself realizes this: "Did you think I was just going to be a normal, chill dude?".

You can absolutely learn from people you wouldn't want to be. Extracting wisdom from Musk's success does not oblige you to become his disciple or his mirror. Besides, you'd probably fail miserably in an attempt of the latter anyway.

Design by First Principles is simple, really: all design projects, be they video games, cathedrals, constitutions, etc, all come from the interplay of three things:

• First Principles (FP's)
• Limitations
• Design Decisions (DD's)

First principles are your goals. But more important than that, they have nothing to do with implementation. If you're trying to cross the river, your first principle is "get to the other side," not "swim across."

If you believe NASA, late in 2026 Americans will walk on the moon again. That proposed mission is called Artemis 3, and its lunar segment looks a lot like Apollo 17 without the space car. Two astronauts will land on the moon, collect rocks, take selfies, and about a week after landing rejoin their orbiting colleagues to go back to Earth.

But where Apollo 17 launched on a single rocket and cost $3.3 billion (in 2023 dollars), the first Artemis landing involves a dozen or two heavy rocket launches and costs so much that NASA refuses to give a figure (one veteran of NASA budgeting estimates it at $7-10 billion). The single-use lander for the mission will be the heaviest spacecraft ever flown, and yet the mission's scientific return—a small box of rocks—is less than what came home on Apollo 17. And the whole plan hinges on technologies that haven't been invented yet becoming reliable and practical within the next eighteen months.

...Advocates for Artemis insist that the program is more than Apollo 2.0. But as we’ll see, Artemis can't even measure up to Apollo 1.0. It costs more, does less, flies less frequently, and exposes crews to risks that the steely-eyed missile men of the Apollo era found unacceptable. It's as if Ford in 2024 released a new model car that was slower, more accident-prone, and ten times more expensive than the Model T.

For two years, Isaacson shadowed Musk, attended his meetings, walked his factories with him, and spent hours interviewing him, his family, friends, coworkers, and adversaries. The result is the revealing inside story, filled with amazing tales of triumphs and turmoil, that addresses the question: are the demons that drive Musk also what it takes to drive innovation and progress?