Well, I do think there’s a good framework for thinking. It is physics. You know, the sort of first-principles reasoning. Generally, I think there are — what I mean by that is, boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there, as opposed to reasoning by analogy.
Through most of our life, we get through life by reasoning by analogy, which essentially means copying what other people do with slight variations.
That was Elon Musk in a discussion with TED curator Mark Anderson. Musk gives the example of making a cheaper battery. They cost $600/kWh, but the raw inputs only cost $80/kWh, so something could be done in their recombination to lower cost.
Perhaps another way to reason from first principles would have been to look at physical laws and empirical research, and reason that a different set of material inputs could be arranged into a more efficient battery. But then I’m sure most battery researchers would have explored this space of alternatives. Musk came from another direction: he seemed to accept the fundamental physics of the battery and reasoned from a financial and production viewpoint.
I wonder, when Musk reasoned that there must be a more efficient way to recombine materials into a battery, did he then explore the design space (i.e., trial-and-error), or did have a more deliberate plan. In other words, does reasoning from first principles simply help us decide on the problem, or does it do more than that? Can it help us decide whether to optimize an outcome or hedge our bets with alternative experiments?
By the way, I heard this on the Venture Stories podcast right after reading the article above:
Erik: What separates the great CEO coaches from any other CEO coach?
Alex: I suspect it’s about thinking through things from first principles.
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