Lessons from Tesla’s Approach to Innovation

Tesla’s innovation strategy — which focuses on transforming the auto industry as a whole — offers enduring lessons for any innovator, especially in terms of how to win support for an idea and how to bring new technologies to market.

The core strategy has unique elements at each level of the ecosystem: overturning the core product architecture, positioning themselves in key bottleneck components, and resolving system-level limitations that slow the adoption of the technology. At the same time, they have applied an effective approach to build their innovation capital so they can... See more

In our view, efforts like the Cybertruck aren’t really about making money; they are about getting attention and proving that Tesla is one of the world’s most innovative companies, specifically for the purpose of building Tesla’s ability to win support from stakeholders — what we call innovation capital.