Elon Musk on Work Quotes

"If other people are putting in 40 hour work weeks and you're putting in 100 hour work weeks, then even if you're doing the same thing, you will achieve in 4 months what it takes them a year to achieve."

"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."

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

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

"If you’re co-founder or CEO, you have to do all the tasks that you might not want to do... No task is too menial."

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

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

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

"If you get up in the morning and think the future is going to be better, it is a bright day. Otherwise, it's not."

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

"I don't spend my time pontificating on high-concept things; I spend my time solving engineering and manufacturing problems."

"There are way easier places to work, but nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week."

"Great companies are built on great products."

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

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

"A company is a group of people organized to create a product or service, and that product or service is only as good as the people in the company."

"I think most people can learn a lot more than they think they can. They sell themselves short without trying."

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

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

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

"My biggest mistake is probably weighing too much on someone's talent and not someone's personality."

"Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time."

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

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

"I say something, and then it usually happens. Maybe not on schedule, but it usually happens."

"Work is much more fun if you are working towards a meaningful goal."

"If you're trying to create a company, it's like baking a cake. You have to have all the ingredients in the right proportion."

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

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

"Long-term, I think it's important to have a sense of purpose and a sense of mission."

"I only hire people who are smarter than me."

"You need to be in a position where you're constantly learning."

"I think it is the most important thing to have a good hardware engineering team."