Elon Musk

`3:37:51`

And is this at our tiny scale, something I've tried to do in the same order where when we hire programmers, for example, it's gonna be interesting now with AI as the new challenge. But up until this point, the main pivot point for getting hired was not your resume, was not the schooling you've had, it was not your grades, was not your pedigree, it was how well you did on two things. A, your cover letter. Because I can only work with people remotely if they're good writers. So if you can't pen a proper capital letter and can't bother to put in the effort to write it specifically for us, you're out. Two, you have to be able to program really well to the degree that I can look at your code and go like, yeah, I wanna work with that person. Not only I wanna work with that person, I wanna work on that person's code when I have to see it again in five years to fix some damn bug. So we're gonna give you a programming test that simulates the way we work for real and we're gonna see how you do. And I've been surprised time and again

`3:38:53`

where I thought for sure this candidate is a shoe-in, they sound just right, the CV is just right and then you see the code getting turned in. I'm like, no way. No way are we hiring this person. And the other way has been true as well. I've go like, I don't know about this guy or this woman. Eh, I dunno. And then they turn in their coach stuff and I'm like, holy shit, can that person be on my team tomorrow, preferably? The capacity to evaluate work product is a superpower when it comes to hiring. — There's a step that I've seen Elon do really well, which is be able to show up and say, this can be done simpler. — [DHH] Yes. — But he knows what he's talking about. And then the engineer, because Elon knows enough, the engineer who's first reaction, you can kind of tell like, it's almost like rolling your eyes if your parent tells you something. This is not, no, we've I've been working on this for a month, you don't... But then when you have that conversation a little more,

`3:39:53`

you realize no, it can be done simpler. Find the way. So there's a good, when two engineers are talking, one might not have perfect information. But if the senior engineer has like good instinct that's like been battle earned, then you can say simplify. And it actually will result in simplification. — And I think this is the hallmark of the true greats. That they not only have the insight into what's required to do the work, but they also have the transcendent vision to go beyond what the engineer would do, the programmer would do. I think if we are looking at these rarities, obviously the myth of Steve Jobs was also this. Even though perhaps he was less technical than Elon is in many ways, he had the same capacity to show up to a product team and really challenge them to look harder for the simplification or for making things greater

`3:40:55`

in a way that would garner disbelief from the people who are supposed to do it. Like this guy is full of shit. Like this is crazy. We can never, and then two months later it is. So there is something of this where you need the vision, you need it anchored by the reality of knowing enough about what's possible, knowing enough about physics, knowing enough about software, that you're not just building bullshit. There are plenty of people who can tell a group of engineers. No, just do it faster. Like that's not a skill. It's gotta be anchored in something real, but it's also gonna be anchored in, it's a tired word, but a passion for the outcome to a degree where you get personally insulted if a bad job is done. This is what I've been writing about lately with Apple. They've lost that asshole who would show up and tell engineers that what they did was not good enough in ways that would actually perhaps make them feel a little small in the moment, but would spark that zest to really fix it.

`3:42:00`

Now they have a logistics person who's very good at sourcing components and lining up production Gantt charts, but you're not getting that magic. Now what's interesting with that whole scenario was I actually thought how well Tim Cook ran things and has run things at Apple for so long that maybe we were wrong. Maybe we were wrong about the criticality of Steve Jobs to the whole mission. Maybe you could get away with not having it. I think the bill was going to come later and now it has. Apple is failing in all these ways that someone who would blow up Steve's ghost and really insult him would say like, see? This is what's happening now. So the other thing here too, of course, is it's impossible to divorce. Like your perception of what's a critical component of the system and the messy reality of a million different moving parts in the reality of life. And you should be skeptical about your own analysis and your own thesis at all time.