First Principles Thinking Applied: Elon Musk with Audrey and Nick

Let me ask you: who comes to your mind as the most prominent entrepreneur and innovator who repeatedly brought breakthrough products to live - products that disrupted or created entire industries - and did so by questioning long-held beliefs and ignored industry standards and practices that seemed to be cast in stone? If I had asked you this question ten years ago, the unanimous answer would have been Steve Jobs. And while Steve’s legacy still looms large over the industries that Apple created and dominated, there is a new challenger for the title, and that person is Elon Musk. But how did he actually do that? The answer is: First Principles Thinking! And Elon did not only disrupt one industry but two, self-driving EVs at Tesla and spaceflight at SpaceX, by applying First Principles Thinking.
 

So today, Audrey and Nick are diving deep into what happened when Elon Musk and his teams at Tesla and at SpaceX asked themselves this one fundamental question: "If I started from scratch, what would I create?" As a result, both companies broke with many traditions and long-held beliefs. At Tesla based on the fundamental principle that “Cars should be computers on wheels, not just mechanical machines”. And at SpaceX based on the realization that “Rockets are expensive because they are discarded after one use – so let’s make them reusable”.