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Productivity

How Elon Musk is so effective

Operating philosophy

  • Relentlessly focused on weekly progress
  • The Elon method boiled all the way down is "what have you gotten done this week?"
  • Rejects traditional corporate timelines and long-term planning over months and years

Engineering-first approach

  • Works predominantly with engineers
  • Personally understands all technical systems
  • Avoids non-engineering meetings/conversations when possible, joins all the core engineering focused meetings
  • Skips management layers completely
  • Talks directly to person in charge of specific project
  • He's in there with 24-year-old engineers and they'll just walk through fire for him
  • Engineers deeply respect his technical knowledge