We often make things more complicated than the actual situation, and smart people are good at deconstructing things and find answers through the following three steps. 1) Break things into the simplest parts; 2) Check and question your assumptions; 3) Build your solution from thi

We often make things more complicated than the actual situation, and smart people are good at deconstructing things, and searches for answers through the following three steps. 1) Break things into the simplest parts; 2) Check and question your assumptions; 3) Build your solution from this starting point. Not only will this lead to a simpler solution, but a lot of your anxiety will disappear.

Musk's success does not only rely on his natural intelligence, but on his ability to use simple and systematic methods to solve his most difficult problems.

01

Three steps to solve complex problems

Elon Musk uses First Principles (First Principles) , its definition is: deduces something until it cannot be further deduced.

Restore a thing to the most basic unit, such as body → organ → cells.

Below are three steps, and then I will provide some examples.

Step 1:

"Step by step to the truth of the origin of things, and then start solving the problem from there, instead of reasoning through analogy." --Elon Musk

"Analogy reasoning" means that we do something because we did it in the past, or because others did it.

Step 2:

lists your assumptions and systematically verify that they are 100% correct.

Step 3:

Use the simplest problem elements and validated assumptions to develop a solution.

02

Example of First Principles

Investors always tell Elon Musk: "Batters are too expensive, we can never produce Electric car ."

Musk immediately linked this assumption with his understanding of history and his argument against cars replacing carriages.

"Logistically speaking, it is impossible to supply gasoline to every car. "

"Gas is too expensive. "

"Cars are too low and too dangerous."

Eron applies the first principles to electric cars, believing that batteries are the core issue.

Step 1: Decompose the problem

• What are the materials for the battery? Cobalt, nickel, aluminum, carbon, etc. What is the market price of each material?

Step 2: Check assumption

• Hypothesis 1: "We can only buy batteries from the current list of suppliers."
• Hypothesis 2: Historically the cost per kilowatt-hour was $600 (kilowatt-hour = 100 miles of electric cars). The returns are negligible.

Step 3: Develop a solution

• Purchase a large amount of raw materials and learn to produce batteries yourself.
• ensures long-term agreements with suppliers to get better prices
• hires scientists/engineers to develop new battery technology.
• Build a large-scale production facility and produce batteries on a large scale. The latter point coincides with the Lattice (Wright'S Law). Lai's Law was first created by Theodore Wright (Theodore Wright) in 1936. Its core content is: for every double the cumulative output of products, the cost will drop by a fixed percentage.

  uses first principles to study problems, just like a doctor checks a patient, or an investor checks a stock .Then analyze it point by point.

  

  Musk also did this on SpaceX.

  assumption.

  "Only the government can send people to space."

  "Space travel is too expensive."

  He found that, as expected, these two assumptions affect each other. The government has never been known for its efficiency.

  He raised this question at the most intense time of space exploration technology: the cost per pound of space flight.

  However, he broke another assumption: a new rocket must be built after each launch.

  03

  How should you use first principles

  Conclusion is very simple: Big problems are a combination of small problems, break it down, and then find out the most important bottleneck.

  First principles are not limited to the business field, but also applicable to many problems, such as the most common personal question below.

  "I can't find a suitable boyfriend/girlfriend."

  1. The basic elements of deconstructing encountering a suitable partner.

  • Understand the type that suits you
  • Contact as many viable candidates as possible.
  • Appropriate behavior makes yourself more popular
  • Maintain your appearance

  2. Check the (error) assumptions about encountering a suitable partner.

  • Only beautiful or handsome men can meet good partners
  • All the men/women around me are perverts and crazy
  • Single is better than love

  3. Based on 1) and 2) build solutions. )

  You can write a separate article to study the above issues.

  For example, if only beauties can meet good partners, then is there only beauties in this world?

  Conclusion is to use scientific methods in thinking. When you face huge business challenges and personal problems, please take a deep breath and think about the first principles.

  . Decompose it into the simplest part.

  . Check and question your assumptions.

  . Build your solution from this starting point.

  This will not only lead to a simpler solution, but a lot of your anxiety will go away.

  We tend to make things more complicated than the actual situation.