Episode #438 from 43:47
Elon's approach to problem-solving
Can you just speak to what it takes for a great engineering team for you? What I saw in Memphis, the supercomputer cluster, is just this intense drive towards simplifying the process, understanding the process, constantly improving it, constantly iterating it. Well, it's easy to say 'simplify,' and it's very difficult to do it. I have this very basic first principles algorithm that I run kind of as a mantra, which is to first question the requirements, make the requirements less dumb. The requirements are always dumb to some degree. So, you want to start off by reducing the number of requirements, and no matter how smart the person is who gave you those requirements, they're still dumb to some degree. You have to start there, because, otherwise, you could get the perfect answer to the wrong question. So, try to make the question the least wrong possible. That's what question the requirements means.
Why this moment matters
Can you just speak to what it takes for a great engineering team for you? What I saw in Memphis, the supercomputer cluster, is just this intense drive towards simplifying the process, understanding the process, constantly improving it, constantly iterating it. Well, it's easy to say 'simplify,' and it's very difficult to do it. I have this very basic first principles algorithm that I run kind of as a mantra, which is to first question the requirements, make the requirements less dumb. The requirements are always dumb to some degree. So, you want to start off by reducing the number of requirements, and no matter how smart the person is who gave you those requirements, they're still dumb to some degree. You have to start there, because, otherwise, you could get the perfect answer to the wrong question. So, try to make the question the least wrong possible. That's what question the requirements means.