First Tuesday How do you see world Lessons from - Elon Musk

When I attended Nanyang Girls High prize giving ceremony, I realised I have almost forgotten how to strive for excellence. Some students achieve a few firsts and two outstanding students spoken about how they appreciate the nurturing environment to excel in this school. I was siping lime juice whilst watching the ceremony.

How do you see this world?  

I felt with digitization, we are getting further away from people, getting lonelier. When I was having dinner with a group, most of other tables have folks playing with their mobile phone and not talking. I felt guilty sometimes hanging around my phone all the time.  What are we doing to this world?

Be someone who inspires

One book I have came across tells us we can cause an impact. I have borrowed from Singapore digital library an biography of Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance. The thing that inspired me is that he wanted something so hard that he is dying to Fix something in his lifetime.

Turning humans into space colonizers is his stated life purpose. “I would rather die thinking that humility has a bright future”.

For once, I started to appreciate being an engineer.  We are here to solve problems and build things.

“I think there are probably too many smart people pursuing Internet, finance and law,” Musk said on the way. “That is part of the reason why we haven’t seen so much innovation.”

Pursue comfort or being excellent

The pull of being financial freedom, sitting on a beach chair drinking cocktail and listening to waves is really strong. Who likes suffering? The point is, perhaps being financial savvy is easier than toiling hard to create something.

“Elon would always be at work on Sunday, and we had some chats where he laid out his philosophy”

What will let me sacrifice my Sunday? In this post series below, the speaker Yee Tong talks about passion, compassion and innovation. How can we as Singaporeans bring more opportunities into this country like our forefather did?

Being right - Estimates are not accurate  

 If you are asked how Long you will take to finish a tasks. For something completely ew, we can be out 200%. Once you get the hang of it, estimates get more accurate.

Musk often asked for highly detailed proposals for how project will be accomplished 

Use acronym right

Over many years in my company, I came across many acronyms. Short form of words are supposed to make life easier. For someone like Elon, who wants to do things more efficiently, set a rule that all acronyms go through his approval.

The key test for acronym is to ask whether it helps or hurt communication.

Customer experience 

Tesla delivers car in a concierge way.  Go ahead to read chapter ten and you shall see how one can make the customer feels like king.

Hiring the best

Elon’s mantra for hiring is to get a great engineer that can replace three medium ones. Jim Rohan also said that we are the sum average of five people we hang around with. Tesla budgeted 130 million to produce Model S sedans while most car manufacturerS spend one billion and hire thousands of people to reach the same goal. On the other hand, if your company lacks SMART goals, even the most intelligent employees in your company may slack.

Open source Tesla

What I have most admired about him is Elon allows Tesla open-source all its patents. He don’t chase money. How many people you know chase for fame, material possessions and things they don’t bring to after-life?

If open sourcing Tesla patents meant other companies can build electric cars more easily, then it is good for mankind, and the ideas should be free.

Go crazy

There were times Elon Musk, Larry Page and George Zachary will talk about crazy things before they arrived at the most promising ones. Imaginations are unlimited, anything is possible.

Larry Page on skills

He was thinking that there are some gaps in educations and recommended
- engineering
- science
- leadership
- MBA
- organisational skills

Conclusion

In short, I have ran out of words. My recommendation is to read the biography and remember that there is limited time you have. Get busy living. 

“Help others achieve their dreams and you will achieve yours.” — Les Brown