Focus

My note to self from reading the book: “THINGS LOOK GOOD AT THE END OF THE JOURNEY, NOT DURING.” Tesla and SpaceX were not built. They were willed into existence, against all odds.

SpaceX failed to launch many times, and was ridiculed by many people. After their third (or fourth) failed launch, Elon sends an email to his team: “ SpaceX is in this... See more

The tendency of people and organizations is to lose focus. So one way to identify outstanding people is by their ability to commit and focus on something for a long period of time.

The only people you should hire are focused ones. The only competitors you should worry about are the focused ones.

When outcomes suffer, there's more and more pressure to identify the problem. There's more and more pressure to identify that single thing causing the problem. Finger-pointing increases. Scrutiny increases. Trust decreases. Transparency decreases. People become more territorial and more defensive.

As outcomes suffer, the team loses confidence in... See more

Focus accelerates the accumulation of skills and accurate world models. In open-ended domains, such as writing, relationships, or business, there is nearly endless room for skill growth.

One thing I do look back on fondly was how incredibly focused we were. Resources and time were so tight that you could feel the weight of all the things you weren’t working on. You had real conviction that the thing you were doing was the most important thing.

To pick a somewhat trivial example, at fireside chats with Mark (the predecessor to the... See more