In a 2014 conversation with Vanity Fair, Musk took questions from the audience during a live event. One attendee asked how he comes up with his “crazy ideas” and how he plans to bring them to life, in cases where there are limited financial resources.
Musk responded by pointing to the power of intellectual capital. “The great thing about software or anything which just involves intellectual capital… is that you can just do it,” he said.
“That’s why doing some sort of internet thing or software thing is great as an initial company to create. That’s why Zip2 and PayPal gave me the capital to attempt more capital-intensive activities.”
As for idea generation, Musk explained that he relies on “first principles thinking,” a problem-solving approach rooted in physics. Instead of relying on assumptions or analogies, he breaks things down to their fundamental components.
“For example, on rockets, you could reason by analogy and say the rocket’s going to cost a certain amount because that’s what prior rockets have cost,” Musk said. “Or you can say, what is a rocket made of? What are the material constituents? What’s the cost per unit mass? That sets the limit for what a rocket can be.”
Musk also highlighted the value of cross-industry innovation: “Combining ideas from different industries is really helpful. What do people discover in one industry that can be applied to another?”
“Usually just struggle on a solution,” Musk concluded. “You try a bunch of things… most of them don’t work, and occasionally one does.”
