@jaynitx
Walter Isaacson literally revealed the secret to Elon Musk's productivity in just 6 minutes: Lex Fridman asks about time management, noting that Elon runs six or seven companies depending on how you count. Isaacson responds: "Musk is in a league of his own. Steve Jobs had to run Pixar and Apple for a while. But Musk, every couple of hours, is switching his mindset from how to implant the Neuralink chip and what will the robot that implants it in the brain look like, to the heat shield on the Raptor engine, to human imitation machine learning for full self-driving." He shares a story from the night Twitter accepted Elon's offer: "On the night the Twitter board agreed to the deal, this is huge, around the world, 'Musk buys Twitter', I thought, okay. But then he went to Boca Chica in South Texas and spent time fixating on, if I remember correctly, a valve in the Raptor engine that had a methane leak issue. And what were the possible ways to fix it. All the engineers in that room, I assume, are thinking, 'This guy just bought Twitter, should we say something?' And he's like..." Isaacson continues: "Then he goes with Kimball to a roadside joint in Brownsville. Just sits in the front and listens to music. Nobody noticing him." On how Elon actually works: "One of his strengths, and sort of weaknesses in a way, is that in a given day, he'll focus serially, sequentially, on many different things. He'll worry about uploading video onto X or the payment system, then immediately switch to some issue with the FAA giving a permit for Starship, or how to deal with Starlink and the CIA." Isaacson explains the key distinction: "When he's focused on any of these things, you cannot distract him. It's not like he's also thinking, 'I'm dealing with Starlink, but I've got to also worry about the Tesla decision on the new $25,000 car.' No. He'll, in between these sessions, process information, then let off steam." He describes the release valve: "For better or worse, he lets off steam by either playing a friend in Polytopia or firing off some tweets, which is often not a healthy thing. But it's a release for him." Isaacson clarifies a common misconception: "I once said he was a great multitasker, and that was a mistake. People corrected me. He's a serial tasker. Which means he focuses intensely on a task for an hour, almost has a, what do they call it at restaurants, a palette cleanser. He does some palette cleanser with Polytopia. And then focuses on the next task." On whether others can learn from this: "There are some things these people do where you say, 'Okay, I can be that way. I can be more curious. I can question every rule and regulation.' But I just don't think anybody should try to emulate Musk's time management style. Because it takes a certain set of teams to deal with everything else other than the thing he's focusing on, and a certain mind that can shift. Just like his moods can shift." Isaacson contrasts himself: "You and I go through transitions. If I'm thinking about what I'm going to say on this podcast, I'm also thinking about the email my daughter just sent about a house she's looking at. I'm multitasking. He doesn't actually do that. He single-tasks sequentially with a focus that's hardcore." On the fierce urgency: "The fierce urgency that drives him is important, and it's sometimes ginned up. Like the fierce urgency of getting to Mars. On a Friday night at the launch pad in Boca Chica, at 10pm, there are only a few people working because it's a Friday night. They're not supposed to launch for another eight months. And he orders 'The Surge.' He says, 'I want 200 people here by tomorrow working on this pad. We have to have a fierce sense of urgency, or we will never get to Mars.'" Lex reflects: "That sense of urgency is also a vibrancy, like really taking on life fully. Even the mundane can be full of this richness. You just have to take it in intensely. The switching enables that kind of intensity, because most of us can't hold that intensity on any one task for a prolonged period of time." On knowing yourself: Isaacson offers perspective: "It goes back to: know who you are. There are people who can focus intensely. And there are people who can see patterns across many things. Leonardo da Vinci, he was not all that focused. He was easily distracted. It's why he has more unfinished paintings than finished paintings in his canon. But his ability to see patterns across nature, and in some ways procrastinate, be distracted, that helped him some. But Musk is not that way." He describes Musk's pattern: "Every few months, there's a new surge. You don't know where it'll be. But all of a sudden it'll be on solar roofs, and there has to be 100 solar roofs built by tomorrow. Or 'Make a Starship dome by dawn.' Surge and do it. There are people who are built that way." Isaacson closes with a caution: "It is inspiring. But let's also appreciate that there are people who can be really good, but also can savor the success, savor the moment, savor the quiet. Musk's big failing is he can't savor the moment or the success. And that's the flip side of hardcore intensity."