Elon Musk on Deep Work Quotes

"You should take the approach that you’re wrong. Your goal is to be less wrong."

"If you get up in the morning and think the future is going to be better, it is a bright day."

"One of the biggest mistakes people make is to reason by analogy rather than from first principles."

"Focus on signal over noise. Don't waste time on things that don't actually make things better."

"If you're co-founder or CEO, you have to do all the kinds of tasks you might not want to do."

"I think you should always bear in mind that entropy is not on your side."

"I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary."

"You want to be extra rigorous about making the best possible product you can. Find everything that's wrong with it and fix it."

"When I was in college, I wanted to be involved in things that would change the world."

"There have to be reasons that you get up in the morning and you want to live. Why do you want to live? What's the point?"

"I would like to die on Mars. Just not on impact."

"You need to be in a position where you're doing something that you're passionate about."

"Being an entrepreneur is like eating glass and staring into the abyss of death."

"Physics is a really good framework for thinking. Boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there."

"Any product that needs a manual to work is broken."

"If something is important enough, you should try; even if the probable outcome is failure."

"I'm interested in things that change the world or that affect the future and wondrous, new technology."

"Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough."

"Great companies are built on great products."

"People work better when they know what the goal is and why."

"Boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there, as opposed to reasoning by analogy."

"The path to the CEO's office should not be through the CFO's office, and it should not be through the marketing department."

"The first step is to establish that something is possible; then probability will occur."

"Constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself."

"The reality is that AI is going to be much smarter than the smartest human."

"I think we have a duty to maintain the light of consciousness to make sure it continues into the future."

"Starting a business is not for everyone. Starting a business - I'd say, number one is have a high pain threshold."

"Persistence is very important. You should not give up unless you are forced to give up."

"Really pay attention to negative feedback and solicit it, particularly from friends."

"It's OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket."

"Work like hell. I mean you just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week. This improves the odds of success."

"I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better."

"It is a mistake to hire huge numbers of people to get a complicated job done. Numbers will never compensate for talent."