Reality Distortion & First Principles

There is a quote by Elon Musk often thrown around on social media:

"Stop being patient and start asking yourself, how do I achieve my 10 year plan in 6 months? You'll probably fail, but you'll be a lot further than the person who simply accepted that it will take 10 years!"

One way to eliminate the unnecessary and think in first principles is to adopt a maniacal sense of urgency.

Whenever a team presents a deadline to Elon Musk, he challenges them to cut it in half. Steve Jobs was known for a similar approach, often referred to by his colleagues as the reality distortion field.

Setting unrealistic deadlines can be beneficial. If people believe they might meet them, they tend to put in more effort.

There is a downside however. If the deadlines are truly unachievable, it can demoralize the team.

Despite this, striving to meet aggressive deadlines often leads to accomplishments that others deem impossible.

As SpaceX's rocketman Tom Mueller said in a book: "Even though we failed to meet most of the schedules or cost targets that Elon laid out, we still beat all of our peers. We developed the lowest-cost, most awesome rockets in history, and we would end up feeling pretty good about it."