4 Lessons to Learn from the way Elon Musk Drives his Businesses
As time goes by, everything is changing each second. Include technology, energy, or even the way humans behave accordingly to the change. These developments will always present along with the existence of living beings. However, these changes might create a downfall if it’s not considering important aspects. It will create various destruction to the world while simultaneously, the future depends on the present. Thus, sustainability for the future is one of the things that need to be considered in developing a product.
One of the people that’s trying to create a better future is Elon Musk. A South African-born American entrepreneur that tries renewable energy to be used in car and visionary with his idea wanting to go to Mars. In his early days, he was known as being introverted and bookish. Despite being an introvert, he has an interest in programming during his 10 years old and taught himself. Two years later, he sold a game software named “Blastar”.
His journey revolves around various business lines that he had founded. Starts from Zip2 in 1995, a corporation for an online city guide that later on was bought by Compaq Computer Corporation. The money was then invested to create PayPal, an online financial/service company in 1999. In the following year, he founded his third company which is SpaceX. It is a space exploration corporation that he founded in 2002. A year later, he founded a company to mass-produces an affordable electric car battery product and solar roofs namely Tesla Motors.
We can see that the common things that he had in his business were an innovative solution and ahead of its time. His idea was to develop a product that’s not merely for the function, but it results to become a disruptive idea for its industry. According to the book by Ashlee Vance “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest of the Fantastic Future,” the way he produces his idea was basically putting the first principle of a problem. Starts from the question of the physics of the problem, time to make it, the cost, and asking whether it can be made cheaper. There are a lot of aspects that need to be understood in order to be able to create something possible and interesting. The physics, engineering, business, and issues revolving around the problem.
Therefore, what we can learn from how Elon Musk drives his businesses are:
First-principles thinking
In facing a certain problem, it’s easy to pick the easiest thing that came through your mind. However, getting the best solution requires an answer that won’t be easily be looked at by everyone. First-principles thinking is the way of thinking by digging deeper into the foundation of the concept. It starts by questioning things to the point it cannot be deducted anymore. Practically speaking, it deconstructs the currently existing products and then reconstructs it again by combining or substituting some parts to create an innovative product.
Commitment
Every time Elon Musk founded a company, he always commits to his doing by putting his money into the next company that he had. When there’s no one that believes in his crazy idea, he invested in his own company, especially during Tesla’s skyrocketed projected cost. His commitment is shown during those times, and he stated that “I’m available 24 hours just to help solve issues. Call me at 3 am on Sunday morning, I don’t care.” Another moment would be during the test drive of Tesla’s Model S, the car’s battery died from Washington to Boston. He then committed to providing a car electrical car charging station across the country free of charge.
Learn to be a Polymath
Try to learn not only one disciplinary field. Elon Musk studied many things in his early days. However, it must be noticed that the knowledge that we will learn must be fundamental before focusing on detail. Therefore, a problem can be reviewed from any perspective. We can also have the skillset that is needed in this fast-paced era. Thus, we can be more standout by understanding and acquiring several skillsets.
Sustainability is the key
Elon stated in the book by Ashlee Vance, “I would like to die thinking that humanity has a bright future.” In order to meet that, he thinks that if we can give a sustainable energy solution and become a self-sustaining civilization on another planet will avoid the worst scenario for humanity which is extinction. Those that have been mention earlier were already proven by how he contributed to SolarCity corporation and electric car. Those two will help in world sustainability to substitute the usage of fossil fuel that’s nearly run out. Hence, to give a solution with a product that can sustain in the future must be an important aspect and need to be paid attention to.
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This writing is used as one of the assignments in Product Development class that I took at 2020.
Reference:
Vance, Ashlee. (2015, May 19). Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future(E-book). Retrieved from http://dln.jaipuria.ac.in:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/2732/1/Elon%20Musk%20Tesla%2C%20SpaceX%2C%20and%20the%20Quest%20for%20a%20Fantastic%20Future%20by%20Ashlee%20Vance.pdf
