How Does Musk Do So Much?
Rabois: How does Elon Musk do so much with the same 24 hours as the rest of us? If you approach every day and every week of your life with what you accomplished this week, I think that compounds. Very few people do that. I think that's the number one ingredient.
The Coffee Line Memo
Rabois: He once caught some interns in line waiting for coffee at SpaceX. A line of interns piling up around the coffee machine. He sent a memo to the company saying — why are all the interns wasting all this time? If you feel like you have nothing better to do than waiting in line, you're at the wrong company. And by the way, I'm installing cameras to make sure we don't have lines at the coffee shop.
People went crazy on Twitter — oh my God, that's so evil. But I think having that mentality towards every bit of entitlement — stamping out entitlement and expecting people to accomplish things every day — does compound over decades.
If you have nothing better to do than waiting in line, you're at the wrong company.
Gas Expands to Fill the Container
Rabois: There's a principle Max Levchin taught me. Like chemistry — gas expands to the size of the container. If you give people a quarter, it'll take a quarter. If you tell people they have a month, it'll take a month. Tell them two weeks, it takes two weeks. Tell them a week, it takes a week.
You want to constantly compress the container size. Because those accomplishments, those building blocks, add up over months, quarters, years, and now decades.
If you tell people they have a month, it takes a month. Tell them a week, it takes a week. Compress the container.