Musk: My secret

"To all of you who have been offended by me, I just want to say to you, I have reinvented the electric car, and I will send humans to Mars with a rocket ship. But if I were a calm, easy-going ordinary person, do you think I could still do this? ”

This is Elon Musk's opening remarks when hosting Saturday Night Live on May 8, 2021.

In 2021, Musk became the world's richest man, SpaceX became the first private company to send civilians into a predetermined orbit, and Tesla made an epoch-making shift by leading the electrification of the global automotive industry, climbing to a trillion-dollar market capitalization high.

Time magazine editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal wrote: "Musk has had a huge impact, and few people can match life on Earth and possible life forms beyond it. ”

Whether at Tesla or SpaceX, Musk has his own working method, the five-step method, which he also teaches to employees and others, and today we have compiled his workflow to inspire you.

Author: Walter Isaacson

Editor: Mi Liping

Source: Zhenghe Island (ID: zhenghedao)

This article is excerpted from Walter Isaacson's biography of Elon Musk, published with permission as a partner of CITIC Publishing Group.

Step 1: Learn to question

Any request should be accompanied by the person making the request. Never accept a request from a department, such as "legal" or "security."

Next you should question it, no matter how smart the person is. The demands made by smart people are the most dangerous, because people are less likely to question them. After questioning, everyone needs to improve the requirements to make them less stupid.

In 2002, when SpaceX began producing the first Merlin rocket engines, Musk asked Mueller (the head of propulsion that designs the rocket's engine) how much this thing weighed, and Mueller said about 1,000 pounds. Musk said the Tesla Model S engine weighs about 4,000 pounds and costs about $30,000 to manufacture. "If a Tesla engine weighs 4 times as much as yours, why does your engine cost so much?"

One reason is that the manufacture of rocket parts is subject to hundreds of specifications and requirements set by the military and NASA. At large aerospace companies, engineers strictly follow these golden rules, and Musk deviates by asking engineers to question these specifications.

Whenever an engineer uses a "request" as a reason for doing something, Musk asks them: Who made this request? If the engineers answered "military requests" or "legal requests" that didn't satisfy him, Musk insisted that they name the people who made those requests.

He repeatedly told everyone that all requirements should be taken as recommendations, and that the golden rule of immutability is only conditional on those laws of physics.

Musk is focused on cost control, and he often questions the acquisition needs proposed by the team. He asked his men why they had spent $2 million to build a pair of cranes to lift the Falcon 9, and they showed him the Air Force's safety regulations, most of which were outdated. They managed to convince the military to modify them, so the crane cost only $300,000.

For decades, cost-plus contracts have left the aerospace industry indifferent to cost containment issues. A valve on a rocket is 30 times more expensive than a similar valve used in a car, so Musk keeps asking his team to source more parts from companies outside the aerospace sector.

The latches NASA uses on the space station cost $1,500 each. A SpaceX engineer modified the latches used on bathroom cubicle doors to create a locking mechanism that cost as little as $30.

An engineer told Musk that the air cooling system for the Falcon 9 payload module would cost more than $3 million, and that an air conditioning system would cost about $6,000, and then the SpaceX team bought some commercial air conditioning equipment, modified the pumps, and then used it on top of the rocket.

While working for Lockheed Martin and Boeing, Mosdale rebuilt a launch pad complex for the Delta IV heavy rocket at Cape Canaveral. He spent 1/10th of the cost of building a similar facility for Falcon 9. SpaceX not only entered the aerospace field by privatizing property rights, but also completely changed the cost structure of the industry.

Step 2: Drastic deletion

Delete all parts and processes of the request that you can remove, although you may have to add them back. In fact, if you add back less than 10% of the deleted part, it means that you have not deleted enough.

Once, at a Tesla factory, Musk noticed a station on the assembly line that couldn't keep up, an expensive, dragging robot that glued fiberglass strips to battery packs. The robot's suction cups couldn't hold the fiberglass strips all the time, and the glue was applied too much.

After many failed attempts to adjust, Musk finally asked the most basic question: "What are these fiberglass strips for?" He couldn't figure out why he needed a fiberglass section between the battery and the underbody.

The engineering team told him that this was requested by the noise reduction team to reduce vibration. So Musk called the noise reduction team and got a reply that the rule came from the engineering team to reduce the risk of battery fires.

Musk said: "It's like the one drawn in the 'Dull Burt' comics. So he ordered the team to compare the sounds in the car with or without fiberglass strips and record them. He asked everyone, "Can you tell the difference?" The answer was no.

"The first step in doing a job should be to question the requirements you receive." Musk said, "Because all the requirements contain more or less stupid and wrong elements, be sure to cut them, cut them, cut them." ”

This methodology works even down to the smallest detail. For example, after the Nevada factory makes the battery pack, it will install some small plastic caps on the tip of the battery pack embedded in the vehicle. When the battery pack arrives at the Fremont facility, the plastic cap is removed and thrown away. Plastic caps at the Nevada plant are sometimes insufficient, delaying the transportation of battery packs.

Musk asked why the plastic caps were placed, and employees told him that the rule was to ensure that the contacts of the battery pack did not bend. He asked again: "Who prescribed it?" "People asked and asked, and in the end, no one could tell who it was.

Musk said: "Then delete this one." They did, and it turns out that there has never been a problem with bending the contacts since.

On the solar roof project, installers asked for construction around the vents and chimney pipes that protrude from the house, while Musk suggested that the dryer and ventilation fan pipes should be cut directly, and the solar tiles should be spread on top and air can still be exhausted from under the tiles.

"Drastic deletion." The roof system has 240 different parts, including screws, clamps, tracks, etc., and he believes that more than half of the parts should be removed.

After seeing the speed of installation by the workers, Musk felt that there were too many fasteners, because each had to be nailed, so the installation time was increased. He insisted that half of the fasteners should be removed. "Instead of nailing two nails in each place, try just one."

According to Musk's instructions, only one nail per foot of tiles was pressed, but this did not work well, and the nails fell apart and fell everywhere, so the installation team began to use two nails again.

It's also part of the five-step approach: if you don't end up picking 10% back 10% of what you deleted, you haven't deleted enough.

Step 3: Simplify complex processes

This should be placed after step 2, because a common mistake is to simplify and optimize a part or process that should not otherwise exist.

Musk has a concept called the "idiot index", which is the ratio of the total cost of a component to its raw material cost.

If the idiocy index is high, such as a component that costs $1,000 and the aluminum that makes it costs only $100, then it is likely that the design is too complex or the manufacturing process is too inefficient. "If you do something with a high idiot index, then you are an idiot."

One day in late 2018, in Palo Alto, Musk sat at his desk at Tesla's engineering headquarters, playing with a toy model of the Model S that looked like a miniature version of the real car. When Musk took it apart, he found that there was even a suspension system inside, but the entire underbody was die-cast into a single piece of metal.

At the team's meeting that day, Musk took out the toy car and placed it on the white conference table, asking, "Why can't we do this?" "One engineer pointed out the obvious problem that the chassis of a real car is much larger and no casting machine can handle something as large as this.

Musk was not satisfied with this answer, he said: "Go and think about how to do it, isn't it just to build a bigger casting machine?" It's not about breaking the laws of physics. ”

He and executives called six major foundries, five of which declined to try the offer, but the Italian Group, which specializes in high-pressure die-casting machines, took up the challenge and agreed to build several very large machines to produce the entire chassis for the Model Y.

They used the world's largest foundry machine, a 6,000-ton machine to produce the Model Y, and later a 9,000-ton machine for the Cybertruck.

These machines inject molten aluminum into the cold casting mold, which can directly "lift out" the entire chassis in just 80 seconds, whereas in the past the production of a chassis required welding, riveting or gluing more than 100 parts together, the problem of this old process is that it is prone to gaps, noises and leaks.

Musk said: "The change in the process has changed the chassis from a very tricky big trouble to a casting process that is extremely cheap, simple and fast. ”

Step 4: Set a deadline

Each process can be accelerated, but only after the first three steps have been followed.

One of Musk's favorite words, or concepts, is "hardcore." When he started Zip2, he used the term "hardcore" to describe the workplace culture he wanted to create.

In an email to employees, he made his message very representative, with the caption "Super Hardcore" and the text: "Please be prepared for the extreme intensity of work that most of you have never endured before." People who are not strong enough in psychology cannot subvert an industry. ”

After the third rocket test failed in August 2008, Musk set a six-week deadline for the team to ship the new rocket to Kwajalein.

There was a 12-month gap between the first and second test launches, and another 17 months between the second and third. Since there was no need to make any basic design adjustments to the rocket to correct the problems that arose with the third test launch, Musk calculated a six-week deadline that everyone could do. Plus, considering that cash flow is draining fast, he has no choice.

SpaceX has parts for its fourth rocket at its Los Angeles plant, but it takes four weeks to get it to Kwajalein Island by sea. Tim Buza, SpaceX's director of launches, told Musk that the only way to meet the deadline was to lease a C-17 military transport plane from the Air Force. "Okay, then let's rent." At this time, Musk has decided to finish the battle.

On Kwajalein Island, a group of engineers runs around in the middle of the night, frantically studying a rocket that has been dismantled, like a group of doctors in an emergency room, trying to save a patient's life.

After SpaceX's first three launches failed, Musk began to focus on quality control and risk management. Employees told Musk that if they followed all the new requirements, it would take five weeks to fix the rocket. If they drop those requirements, they can do it within five days.

Musk's decision was: "Well, as fast as you can." ”

They completed the overhaul in the allotted five days, "something the bloated big companies in the aerospace industry wouldn't have imagined, and sometimes it makes sense for him to set crazy deadlines." ”

If the fourth launch fails, SpaceX will die, and it may also lead to the end of the pioneering concept that "private entrepreneurs can lead the field of space exploration", and by the way, Tesla may come to an end.

"We're not going to be able to raise new money for Tesla," Musk said, "and people will question, look at the guy who screwed up the rocket company, he's a loser." ”

The fourth launch was scheduled for September 28, 2008, and Musk boarded the command vehicle as the launch window opened at 4 p.m., where he could see Falcon 1 on the Kwajalein Island launch pad on a monitor.

There was silence in the control room, with only one woman in charge of announcing the countdown. Cheers erupted as the rocket flew off the launch pad, but Musk silently stared at the data transmitted to his computer and the video returned by the rocket's camera on the wall display.

After 60 seconds, the video shows the engine's plume dimming. It's a good sign: the rocket has reached an atmosphere with less oxygen and thinner air. The islets of Kwajalein Atoll gradually shrink and look like a string of pearls in the blue waves of the ocean.

After 2 minutes, it was time for the separation of the two stages of the rocket. The thruster engines were turned off, this time with a 5-second delay before the second stage rocket was released to prevent a collision that led to an accident during the third test launch. When the second stage rocket slowly lifted off, Musk finally released his long-suppressed cheers.

The Kestrel engine on the second stage of the rocket performed perfectly. Its nozzle glows dark red due to the heat, but Musk knows that the material will still work properly after it is white-hot. 9 minutes after liftoff, the Kestrel engine shuts down as planned and its payload enters its intended orbit.

Falcon 1 made history by becoming the first privately built rocket to enter a predetermined orbit from the ground. Musk's team of only 500 employees (50,000 in its analogue division at Boeing) designed the entire system from scratch, did all the construction work themselves, with little outsourcing, and the funding was also privately provided, mainly from Musk himself.

Step 5: Don't overdo automation

"One of the big mistakes I made at the Nevada and Fremont plants was that I tried to automate every step in the first place. We should have questioned all the requirements, removed unnecessary parts and processes, screened out the problems, dealt with them, and then moved forward with automation. ”

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the design of most factories has been carried out in two steps: the first step is to build the production line, and the workers have to complete specific tasks at each station; In the second step, after the production line runs through, robots and other equipment enter the field one after another, gradually replacing the work of some workers.

However, Musk reversed these two steps. He had a vision to create a modern "alien dreadnought" factory, and the first step was to automate everything as much as possible. They have a highly automated production line that uses a lot of robots, but there's one problem – it's not easy to make.

One night, Musk walked into the Nevada battery factory with his core team members, including Omid Afshar, Antonio Gracias and Tim Watkins. They noticed that production progress at one station was being delayed, and a robotic arm was gluing the battery to a tube, but the machine had problems grabbing the material and aligning it.

Watkins and Gracias walked up to a table and tried to do the process manually, only to find that their manual process was more reliable. They called Musk over and calculated how many more workers would be needed to replace the machine, so the workers replaced the robot, and the production speed of the assembly line increased.

Musk went from being a believer in automation to suddenly pursuing a new goal with the same enthusiasm: identifying every link in the production line that had barriers to automation and seeing if it could be done faster without automation.

Straubel said: "We started removing the robots from the production line and throwing them into the parking lot. "One weekend, they walked around the factory and drew marks on the robots that were going to be thrown away. Musk said: "We made a hole in the side of the factory building to remove all this equipment. ”

This incident taught him a lesson, and automation has since become part of Musk's "mass production methodology": Be sure to wait until the rest of the design process is done, after you have questioned all the requirements and removed all unnecessary parts, and then introduce automation equipment.

At the Fremont factory, where there are 1,200 robotic devices on each assembly line, Musk believes there are the same problems here as the Nevada factory — that over-automation is dangerous.

At the end of the assembly line, there are robotic arms that adjust the small seals around the windows, but they don't always do well. One day, Musk stood quietly in front of these bulky robots for a few minutes before trying to do the task himself — which was easy.

So he issued a directive: "You have 72 hours to remove all unnecessary machines." ”

Musk voluntarily admitted that he was to blame for over-automation, and he even tweeted: "Tesla overdid automation, this is a mistake." Precisely, it was my own fault that I underestimated the human capacity to work. ”

After completing deautomation and other improvements, the Fremont plant was able to produce 3,500 Model 3s per week by late May 2018, up from 2,000 in early April.

Epilogue:

The real "method" is the brain of dynamic thinking

Musk's five-step work methodology is constantly summarized in his work, and the real "method" is not a routine written on paper, nor a template for making a document, but a brain of dynamic thinking.

Bruce Lee has a philosophy about water:

"A good martial artist should be like water. Because water is invisible, you can't catch it and you can't hurt it with your fists, so we have to be as flexible as water. Empty thoughts, formless and formless, like water. Pouring it into a cup is the shape of a cup, pouring it into a bottle is the shape of a bottle, pouring it into a teapot is the shape of a teapot. ”

The same is true of working methods. Those who really master the method will not be trapped by its "shape", but like water, soft when weak, strong when strong.

A person goes through three stages from mastering the method to finally using it freely:

The first stage is called learning tricks; The second stage is called memorizing tricks; The third stage is called no tricks.

All the moves you have learned are broken and kneaded to understand, and then reorganized according to different problems, then each shot is your new move.

Those who can do this, pick one in a million.

Some corollaries of the five-step working method

1. All technical managers must have hands-on experience, for example, managers of software teams must spend at least 20% of their time programming, and managers of solar roof businesses must spend time on the roof to do the installation work themselves. Otherwise, they are like captains of cavalry who cannot ride horses, generals who cannot dance knives and guns.

2. "Hello, hello, hello everyone" is dangerous, and people will stop questioning the work of their colleagues. There is a natural tendency not to kick their best colleagues off board, and this dangerous tendency must be avoided.

3. It's okay to make mistakes, but it's not okay if you are wrong and refuse to bow your head.

4. Never ask your team to do something you don't want to do yourself.

5. Whenever there is a problem that needs to be solved, don't just talk to the relevant person in charge of your direct management. In-depth research requires cross-level communication, direct communication with your subordinates.

6. Recruit people with a good attitude. Skills can be taught, but it is too difficult to reverse a person's attitude to work, and he has to "change his brain".

7. A crazy sense of urgency is the law of our company's operations.

8. The only rules to be followed are the rules that can be derived from the laws of physics, and everything else is just advice.

Typesetting| Shen Wangwang

Edit| Mihe Rotating Editor-in-Chief| Sun Xuan