Source: Minority Investment/CITIC Publishing Group “The Biography of Elon Musk”

In 2014, Elon Musk left a wonderful five-minute sharing during his graduation speech at the University of Southern California Business School. He summarized his thoughts on work and life into five key points, one of which talked about his decision-making method:

“Maybe you've heard me say that you need to think about problems from a physical point of view. This is the first principle. That is, don't make analogical reasoning. You break things down to the most basic elements you can imagine, and then you start reasoning from there, which is a great way to determine if something makes sense.

This kind of thinking isn't easy, and you probably can't think that way about everything because it takes a lot of effort. But if you want to innovate your knowledge, then this is the best way to think. This framework was proposed and developed by physicists, who have identified counterintuitive things, such as quantum mechanics. So this is a very effective, very powerful approach. In any case, I'll definitely try to do this as much as possible.”

This isn't the first time Musk has mentioned his highly advocated decision-making framework in front of the public:First sex principle.

In a previous TED interview, Musk explained this concept in more detail. He said, “There's a good frame of mind. It's a physical thing, a bit like first-principles reasoning. First, we'll do it too. The result of thinking and making decisions in this way is that only minor iterative development can occur.The way of thinking of first-principles thinking is to look at the world from a physical perspective, which means peeling away the appearance of things layer by layer, seeing the essence inside, and then moving up from the essential layer by layer. It takes a lot of brainpower.”

Specifically, how does the first principle work in actual decision-making?

Take Musk's vacuum capsule high-speed rail as an example. If you use comparative thinking or empirical thinking to design a new train product, most people think that existing functions will be improved to make the power more powerful and the fluid mechanics better. However, if we use first-principles to analyze product requirements, we need to return to the essential purpose of means of transportation: to transport more goods from point A to point B. This is the purpose of initially manufacturing means of transportation such as trains; it is not necessary to use traction to achieve upgrading. Under the support of the first principle, Musk proposed using the magnetic levitation model to lower vacuum to build a vacuum capsule high-speed railway.

Musk also gave an example in the interview: During the development of electric vehicles, Tesla faced a problem: the cost of batteries remained high. At the time, the market price of energy storage batteries was 600 US dollars per kilowatt-hour. This market price is very stable, and there will not be much change in the short term.

But Musk thinks from a first-principles perspective: What materials are battery packs actually made of? What is the market price of these battery raw materials? If we buy these raw materials and combine them into batteries, how much would it cost? The answer is that it only costs $80 per kilowatt hour.

Starting from the very essence, studying what materials batteries are made of, and then estimating the price of these raw materials added together to obtain the lowest price for the battery. Through this way of thinking, Musk made commercialization of electric vehicles possible.The starting point for most people to consider the problem is that the current situation of this matter is an established fact, and I can't change it, but Musk's idea is that if this works on a physical level, then I can do it too.

The famous biographer Isaacson also mentioned the concept of the “first principle” many times in “The Biography of Elon Musk.” The first time he mentioned it in his book was when Musk first got involved in the field of space exploration.

His first plan at the time was to build a small rocket to send mice to Mars.

But then Musk began to worry. If the last thing we saw was a picture of a little mouse slowly dying on a small spaceship that made people cry and laugh, that would not be great, so he later thought of sending a small greenhouse to Mars. Greenhouses will land on Mars, and pictures of green plants growing on Mars will be sent back to Earth.

He believes the public will be so excited about this that they can't wait to launch more spacecraft to Mars and complete more missions. The plan is known as the “Mars Oasis,” and Musk estimates he will spend less than $30 million to complete the mission.

The money he had on hand was enough; his biggest challenge was to build a cheap rocket that could take a small greenhouse to Mars. As it turns out, there is one place where he can get a rocket at a low price — Russia.

Musk is planning a trip to Russia to see if he can actually buy some launch slots or rockets. But the trip was worse than expected. On one of these occasions, Musk started talking about the need to make humans a multi-planetary species, and this Russian spat on them.

Musk went to Russia again in early 2002. This time, Musk's main goal is to buy two Dnepr launch vehicles, which are modified old ballistic missiles. But the more he bargained with people, the more expensive he sold them. Finally, he felt he had already talked about it and paid $18 million for the two Dnepr rockets, but then the other party said no; it was $18 million each. Musk said, “I wasn't angry at the time, but when I was outraged, I began to replan the solution to this problem.”

When he was outraged by the Russian people's outrageous bid, he began to think using first principles, going deep into basic physical situations, and constructing a rocket launch model in his mind step by step. As a result, he developed a concept called the “idiot index,” which is used to calculate how much the cost of a manufactured product is higher than the cost of its basic materials.

If the “idiot index” of a product is very high, then it is definitely possible to drastically reduce its cost by planning and designing more effective manufacturing technology. The rocket's “idiot index” is very high. Musk began calculating the cost of carbon fiber, metal, fuel, and other materials in it: using current manufacturing methods, the finished product costs at least 50 times more than the materials.

If humans want to go to Mars, they must completely improve the technology for building rockets. Relying on second-hand rockets, especially from Russia, cannot promote the development of space technology. Therefore, on the return flight, Musk took out his computer and began using an electronic form to pull up a list, detailing all the materials and costs to make a medium-sized rocket.

Coincidentally, in Tesla's design and production process, the “first principle” also plays a critical role.Beginning in early 2017, Musk and von Holzhausen went back and forth discussing the idea of a Tesla Pickup.

Von Holzhausen started with traditional design and used the Chevrolet Solord as a reference. He also placed a Soloder in the middle of the studio for them to study the proportions and components of the model. Musk said he wanted to make a pickup that would be more exciting and even astonishing. So they studied the coolest cars that have appeared in automobile history, the most notable of which was the El Camino, a retro-futurist coupe built by Chevrolet in the 1960s. Von Holzhausen designed a pickup with a similar temperament, but as the two walked around the model, they agreed that the style was “too soft.” “The curvy look,” von Holzhausen said, “not as strong and heavy as a pickup.”

Musk then added another design that inspired him as a reference: the Lutus Esprit, a wedge-pointed English sports car from the late 1970s. Specifically, he is particularly obsessed with a Lotus Esprit that appeared in the 1977 James Bond film series “007: Underwater City.” Musk bought the car he used during the filming of the movie for close to 1 million US dollars and put it on display in Tesla's design studio.

The brainstorming process was fun, yet they didn't come across a prototype concept that excited them. For inspiration, they visited the Peterson Automobile Museum, where they found something unexpected. Von Holzhausen said, “We realized that the appearance and manufacturing process of the pickup truck had remained largely unchanged for 80 years.”

This caused Musk to shift his attention to a more basic question, and he began to derive the question using the “first principle”: What materials should Tesla use to build truck bodies? Through reflection on materials and even repeated research on vehicle structural physics, Tesla can open up new design possibilities.

Von Holzhausen said, “At first we thought about aluminum, but we also considered titanium because durability is really important.” But at that point, Musk became fascinated with exploring the possibility of making rocketships out of shiny stainless steel. He realized that this material might also apply to pickups. The stainless steel body does not require painting and can bear some of the structural loads of the vehicle. The idea was truly unconventional and rethought the possibilities of vehicles.

After weeks of discussions, one Friday afternoon, Musk walked in and succinctly announced, “We want to make pickups from stainless steel.” Charles Kuiman is the vice president of materials engineering at Tesla and SpaceX. One advantage Musk has is that several of his companies can share engineering knowledge with each other. Koeman developed a “cold rolled” superhard stainless steel alloy that does not require heat treatment; Tesla has also applied for a patent for this. This material is strong enough and cheap enough to be used to make trucks and rockets.

The decision to use stainless steel on Tesla's Cybertruck had a significant impact on the vehicle's engineering design. The steel body can be used as the vehicle's load-bearing structure, but in the past, the chassis played this role. Musk suggested, “We can put all the strength on the outer ring, make the car body the vehicle's exoskeleton, and then put everything else inside it.” The use of stainless steel also introduces new possibilities for the appearance of the truck.

Compared to using a stamping machine to carve carbon fiber into curved body panels, stainless steel is more suitable for straight and sharp angle designs. This gave the design team an opportunity — and, to some extent, no choice — to explore more futuristic, avant-garde, and even seemingly incongruous design ideas.

Musk's respect for the “first principle” is also reflected in cost control.

Musk is extremely concerned about cost control, not only because he wants to spend his own money, but also because spending every penny on the blade is critical to achieving his ultimate goal (colonizing Mars).

He was not satisfied with the prices of components offered by aerospace component suppliers, and he questioned these prices, as the price of these parts was generally 10 times higher than similar parts in the automotive industry. His focus on costs and his natural desire for control led him to think that as many parts as possible were manufactured in-house rather than purchased from suppliers, which was common practice in the rocket industry and automobile industry at the time.

There was one time SpaceX needed a valve and the supplier asked for $250,000, Mueller recalled. Musk said their heart was too dark and told Mueller that we should make it ourselves. They completed the job within a few months and at a very low cost.

Another supplier is responsible for providing a drive that can rotate the nozzle of a higher-level engine at a price of $120,000. Musk said the thing wasn't much more complicated than a garage door switch, so he asked one of his engineers to build it at a cost of $5,000 each. Jeremy Holman, a young engineer working for Mueller, discovered that the valves used to mix cleaning solutions in car wash systems can work with rocket fuel after modification.

Another supplier delivered a batch of aluminum fairings fitted to the top of the fuel tank, then raised the price of the next batch of products. “It's like a painter has painted half of your house, then the price starts on the floor. It costs you 3 times the price before you finish painting the latter half. Elon wouldn't eat this set.” Mark Juncosa said he is Musk's closest colleague at SpaceX. Musk said that people who blackmail him like this are no different from guys who sell rockets in Moscow. He said to Junquesa, “Let's do it ourselves.”

As a result, a new section was added to the assembly facility to create a fairing. A few years later, SpaceX completed 70% of its rocket component manufacturing work in-house. When SpaceX began production of the first Merlin rocket engines, Musk asked Mueller how heavy this thing was, and Mueller said it was around 1,000 pounds. Musk said the Tesla Model S engine weighs about 4,000 pounds and costs about $30,000 to manufacture. “If Tesla's engine weighs 4 times as much as yours, why is your engine costing so much?”

One reason is that the manufacture of rocket parts is limited by hundreds of specifications and requirements set by the military and NASA. At a major aerospace company, engineers strictly abide by these golden rules, and Musk is deviant. He asked engineers to question these specifications. This later became the first step in his five-step work method. Within the company, this step was called “questioning,” and this was his mantra when developing products.

Every time engineers use a “requirement” as a reason to do something, Musk asks them: Who made this request? If the engineer responds to “military requirements” or “legal requirements,” he cannot be satisfied; Musk insisted that they name the person making these requests. “When we discuss how to identify the level of the engine and determine whether the fuel tank is qualified, he asks everyone: 'Why do we have to do this? '”

Tim Buza said that he was a former Boeing employee and later became SpaceX's vice president for launch and test missions. “We'll say, 'It's required in military specifications. ' He also asked, 'Who drafted it? Why is that required? '”

Musk repeatedly advised everyone all the time that all requirements should be treated as suggestions, and that the golden rules that cannot be changed are only those that are bound by the laws of physics.In other words, start from the essence of things, don't be bound by past experiences, avoid excessive analogies with similar things around you, and see the essence of things through heavy fog.

Editor/jayden