The ‘principles first’ philosophy has become an integral part of Elon Musk’s business empire.

Linda Yaccarino knows what she has to do, or at least, memorize her first memo as the future Twitter CEO.

Here, she finds herself in tune with Musk’s philosophy: absolute acceptance of the so-called ‘principle-first approach’. This is a combination of physical and philosophical reasoning that aims to break down the problem instead of simply relying on previous practical experience.

“We need to think big. We need to change. We need to do it all together,” Yaccarino wrote on Monday, a week after announcing his new role at the social media company. “We can do it all from these first principles—question assumptions and build something new from scratch.”

According to the WSJ, the ‘first principle’ approach has become an integral part of Elon Musk’s business empire. Throughout his career, the billionaire has frequently referenced these arguments, whether it’s at rocket company SpaceX, electric car maker Tesla or even in the education of his children.

For instance, the story of SpaceX began when Elon Musk objected to the notion that rockets cannot be effectively reused. He outlined a million-dollar gamble, proving that going into space is possible based on the basic math of how rockets work and the cost of cheap raw materials.

It can be said that Elon Musk’s SpaceX has gone through an energetic 20-year journey, from doubts about only 1% of success to the step by step conquering new historical milestones. The seeds that Elon Musk, the crazy guy or the great guy depending on the reviewer sowed 2 decades ago have now really grown into sweet trees.

According to SpaceX, Starship is the most powerful and unique rocket ever due to being reusable. This means that the cost of orbiting will be significantly reduced, specifically saving about $ 10 million for every 100 tons of materials sent into space. Musk thinks this is possible in a few years.

“We’re going to build a lot of ships and boosters. The dream on the moon will be fulfilled soon,” Elon Musk said.

Bà Linda Yaccarino

Meanwhile, with Tesla, Musk also built the largest electric car factory in the world thanks to his strong belief that they can be created at an affordable price. Such thinking stood in stark contrast to a popular notion at the time, that EV batteries were too expensive to make ‘green dreams’ a reality.

In fact, affordable electric cars — what Tesla calls its “next-generation platform” — could ease the 2 pressures Tesla is facing. The first is to meet consumer demand for a low-cost clean energy vehicle. The second is to successfully persuade Wall Street investors to ramp up production. Cheap electric cars also help Tesla become a truly global phenomenon, according to BI.

However, the ‘principle-first approach’ sometimes has drawbacks. People who have worked with Musk say they can lead to many breakthroughs, but sometimes too complicated.

“When you want to do something new, apply physics,” Musk said, adding that examining the past can lead to many ruts. “They find ways to discover new things, as opposed to intuition, such as quantum mechanics.”

To make breakthroughs, Elon Musk advocates ‘first principles’. He describes this approach as follows: “Think of everything as basic and simple as possible, then find the best answer.”

As a principle-first, Musk himself has educated his children in this way of thinking, even founding a school called Ad Astra in 2014 to popularize the philosophy. “It’s fundamental for Elon Musk,” said Joshua Dahn, co-founder of Ad Astra, adding that the school educates children between the ages of 8 and 14 at SpaceX’s headquarters until 2020.

Elon Musk applies ‘first principle’ to SpaceX

The ‘first principle’ essentially envisions the broadest view of success, then is open to any path that leads there. According to James Clear, author of the best-selling book on self-help, “no one embodies this philosophy more effectively than Musk.”

For example, car companies have long integrated sensors to detect rain, then automatically turn on the wipers. However, Musk believes that the camera behind the front window can also perform this function and save the company from having to add an additional sensor. In conducting the study, programmers faced many challenges, such as having to design an AI system that could distinguish between raindrops and dust spots.

“I know I post weird things on social media, but that’s how my brain works,” Musk said. “To anyone who feels offended, I just want to say that I’ve redefined electric cars and am about to send people to Mars. Do people think I’m a normal guy?”

Another recent example is how Tesla switched to using a giant molding machine to produce its Model Y sport utility vehicle to reduce the cost and complexity of the manufacturing process. Musk got his idea from producing toy cars, but applying to the size of an electric car is not easy.

“Can you build such a big casting machine?” recalls Musk. “The staff were like, ‘Well, nobody has ever done that before.’