Elon Musk
1971– · American businessman (born 1971)
Topics: engineering leadership, software engineering, simplicity, software design
The extreme difficulty of scaling production of new technology is not well understood. It’s 1000% to 10,000% harder than making a few prototypes. The machine that makes the machine is vastly harder than the machine itself.
— Elon MuskEvery person in your company is a vector. Your progress is determined by the sum of all vectors.
— Elon MuskUndesigning is the best thing. Just delete it. That's the best thing.
— Elon MuskSooner or later, we must expand life beyond our little blue mud ball--or go extinct.
— Elon MuskAll designs are wrong, it's just a matter of how wrong.
— Elon MuskBasically, if it took an extra 10% longer for conscious life to evolve on earth, it wouldn't evolve at all, because it would have been incinerated by the sun.
— Elon MuskIf a schedule is long, it's wrong. If it's tight, it's right.
— Elon MuskThe CEO of an aircraft company should know how to design aircraft, not spreadsheets.
— Elon MuskEverything works in PowerPoint; but if you have the physical item or some demonstration software, that's much more convincing to people than a PowerPoint presentation or a business plan.
— Elon MuskPossibly, the most common error of a smart engineer is to optimize something that should not exist.
— Elon MuskWe're not paying attention. We worry more about what name somebody called someone else, than whether AI will destroy humanity. That's insane. We're like children in a playground.
— Elon MuskIf the design takes a long time to build, it's the wrong design.
— Elon MuskMy approach is simply to seek out very talented people, ensure that the environment at SpaceX is as motivating & enjoyable as possible and establish clear & measurable objectives.
— Elon MuskAI is much more advanced than people realize. ... Humanity's position on this planet depends on its intelligence so if our intelligence is exceeded, it's unlikely that we will remain in charge of the planet.
— Elon MuskFor my part, I will never give up and I mean never.
— Elon MuskWhen something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.
— Elon Musk