When you run a rocket company, the algorithm sometimes demands that you buy Twitter14 and use it to take over the United States government. It’s far from the riskiest thing Musk has done on his path to Mars. At this point, it might be wise to stop betting against him.

Permission to fail in public is one of the most powerful assets an organization has, and it flows directly from the top. This, too, is something for which Musk deserves credit.

Most corporate communications departments live in flinching terror of the slightest whiff of negative PR. Meanwhile, SpaceX’s puts out official blooper reels of exploding rockets. More seriously, one of the company’s lowest points came in the aftermath of the CRS-7 mission, when a rocket exploded two and a half minutes after launch and totally... See more

Armadillo Aerospace, founded by none other than John Carmack, a man who built a career in pushing hardware to its absolute limits. Seriously, read that link about the fast inverse square root algorithm (or watch a video explainer here).2 Carmack is built different.

Most people will make a to-do list, do as many of the items as they can until they get tired, and then go home and go to bed. These people will never build successful companies. If you want to succeed, you need to do all of the items on your list.

If you want to succeed, you need to do all of the items on your list.