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Elon Musk: Starting a Company Is Like Eating Glass and Staring Into the Abyss

By Elon Musk · Leadership · 2 min read

Musk says people think starting a company is fun. It's not. As CEO, you get a distillation of all the worst problems. There's no point spending time on things going right.

Key Points

As CEO you get a filter for the crappiest, most vicious problems in the company
The abyss: you constantly face the extermination of the company — 90%, probably 99% of startups fail
The eating glass: you work on the problems the company needs, not the problems you want

Starting a company is like staring into the abyss and eating glass.

It's Really Not That Fun

Musk: A lot of times people think creating a company is going to be fun. I would say it's really not that fun. There are periods of fun. And there are periods where it's just awful.

Particularly as CEO — you have a distillation of all the worst problems in the company. There's no point spending your time on things that are going right. You only spend your time on things that are going wrong. And things that are going wrong that other people can't take care of. So you have a filter for the crappiest, most vicious and painful problems.

You only spend time on things going wrong. You have a filter for the crappiest, most vicious problems.

Staring Into the Abyss

Musk: You have to feel quite compelled to do it and have a fairly high pain threshold. A friend of mine says starting a company is like staring into the abyss and eating glass. There's some truth to that.

The staring into the abyss part — you're going to be constantly facing the extermination of the company. Most startups fail. It's like 90%, probably 99%. You're constantly saying — if I don't get this right, the company will die.

You're constantly facing the extermination of the company. 90%, probably 99% of startups fail.

Eating Glass

Musk: The eating glass part is you're going to work on the problems that the company needs you to work on, not the problems you want to work on. You end up working on problems that you'd really wish you weren't working on. That's the eating glass part. And that goes on for a long time.

You work on the problems the company needs, not the problems you want. That's the eating glass part.