00:43:56 · Eric Jorgenson, Ty Morse
[00:43:56] S1: I think there are different, archetypes of great founders, you know, like, Tobi Lütke is a very, like, engineering minded founder. Elon is more of a conqueror. Like, I think, you know, the the extremely willful. And, you know, Napoleon, I I think, like, Naval referenced Napoleon in his forward too. Like, Napoleon's ability to be... To his instant bias to action and, like, strategic brilliance, I think, are both traits I see, Marc and Elon. And I know Elon studied a lot of military history. He also talks about... In the book, he talks about the tendency people have to use their contemporary morals to judge the historical actions of others, which... Who existed in a, like, completely different moral environment. And so, like, you know, it's not that long ago, the the fish that ate the whale, like Sam Zemurray, overthrew the Honduran government, like, hired assassins, like, you know, in the robber baron era, the industrialist era, like, you know, there were violent protests and people were, like, putting down picket lines with mercenaries. Like, the the tools of the trade are are different at different eras. I expect that Elon is the kind of person who would win in the domain that he chose to play in. [00:45:10] S0: Do you want to talk about empathy at the, like, individual level versus empathy at the mission level?
00:45:16 · Eric Jorgenson
[00:45:16] S1: It's it's sort of one of Elon's maxims that empathy is not an asset. And I think a lot of leaders over index on empathy for the individual rather than empathy for the team or for the mission. And and this is what a lot of people, I think, criticize jobs for. They criticize Elon for is like, oh, he he should have given that person another chance. He shouldn't have fired them so quickly. And the reality is that 99.9% of firings probably air on the side of caution, not on the side of, well, you should have given them another chance. You should have, you fired them too soon. And we, as people, just always want... We feel like we deserve another chance, and so we put ourselves... We we put ourselves in the shoes of someone that we feel is on the receiving end of an injustice, and we feel like Elon perpetrated an injustice to an individual maybe by not giving them, you know, a second or third chance. But in a situation where there's billions of dollars of capital and equipment and the whole rest of the team is performing, it is empathy for the mission and empathy for the team to make sure you've got the right person in that seat and get rid of anybody who's not, you know, an a player and a plus player. He says, this is like the special forces, like excellence is the passing grade. And that's why these companies are some of the most effective places on Earth. You know, Marc Andreessen has talked about what makes Elon effective, and he says, like, going to SpaceX is like being dropped into a shocking zone of competence. Like, the bar is just so high for everybody there, and, yeah, everybody knows the quote about a players wanna work with a players. That becomes self reinforcing, and that culture becomes self perpetuating. And it does filter for people that wanna be really excellent, push to be even more excellent, and work as hard as they possibly can.
00:46:58 · Ty Morse
[00:46:58] S0: What role does fear play in, like, being someone that others fear?
00:47:02 · Eric Jorgenson
[00:47:02] S1: It's a good question. I... And the the Machiavelli quote, right, about, like, you could be feared or loved and, you know, fear is more reliable or something like that. I think there is probably a mythos around Elon and, like, an Elon meeting and the fear of being, you know, fired on the spot, because you weren't prepared is is a real thing. You know, I think there's you can be motivated by carrot and stick, and the combination is the most effective. You know, you're working on a grand, beautiful mission. You're being pushed. You're being held to a high bar, and you can get the most out of yourself when you've got something that you're like, I really... I know I wanna clear that bar, and I know the stakes for not clearing that bar are high. I think Elon would say and has said, like, I try to give people... I give people hardcore feedback. Right? But he also says I try to do it about the the action, not the person, which is a very important distinction. And he's been on the receiving end of that, you know, himself. Like, he seeks negative feedback. He says that's a very important part to close the iteration loop. You know, and there's stories from the Isaacson book that I'm sure, you know, we we've both read many times. It's like, you know, you failed quite badly in this meeting. You should know all your parts, you know, in order by their idiot index. And if you don't, you're gone. If you don't, you're gone. I expect improvement or your resignation will be accepted. I'll see you tomorrow. Like, this is what I expect, and this is when I expect it. Let's see it. And, you know, the person that that story is about showed up and crossed the bar tomorrow, and it was like, I am a different and better person now as a result of being held to that, and I understand things and do things that I didn't before.
00:48:38 · Ty Morse, Eric Jorgenson
[00:48:38] S0: I don't know that I've seen this other organizations, but there is this constant idea of churn. As soon as you join an Elon company, you're just running down a clock and who knows exactly how long that clock is. Like, was listening to the biography from Walter Isaacson, and a lot of people inside of the organizations that Elon runs don't even necessarily like that he's fired a lot of the people that he's fired. [00:49:02] S1: Yeah. [00:49:03] S0: And yet he keeps on doing it. And so I almost feel like it's having some result that they don't necessarily understand. Like it forces... It does force some fear. It forces like some urgency. If you don't have your shit together, you might be exited at any given moment. What do think the benefits are?
00:49:19 · Eric Jorgenson
[00:49:19] S1: Churn is a frame that's kind of used usually for, like, customers quitting a product. And so it's it's sort of an inherently negative frame. And I'm not sure that that's totally the right frame. Right? People are the right people for different companies at different times. And one of the things Elon's point out is like, you generally turn a whole company over at each order of magnitude or 80% or something like that. And companies like Tesla and SpaceX are growing so quickly that in particular in leadership positions, the the person to take the company from a 100,000,000 to a billion is a different, you know, VP than the person who's gonna take the company from a billion to 10,000,000,000. And a two year tenure looks short at a typical company, but a two year tenure where you covered an order of magnitude is a great tour of duty, especially if it's one where your lifestyle is completely compromised as the employee, right, where you're like, you know, I I seven. Yeah. Or working twenty four seven or or living on Quatch or, you know, if your family's in LA and you're working at Starbase, that's not a a situation that people necessarily wanna be in for ten or fifteen years, and there's not an inherent moral good to working at one place for twenty years. I feel like that's a pretty kind of outdated idea. But I think I think, you know, fresh new talent, the ability to rise quickly, the ability to prove yourself quickly, and understanding that you have a relatively short period of underperformance before you'd be pushed out of an organization is a way to keep the bar really high.