Elon Musk on building useful things
Elon Musk keeps it simple: “Don’t strive for money. Create useful products and money will come as a consequence.” That mindset ended up at the core of some of the most ambitious companies out there.
Transcript (en)
I'm a big fan of anyone who wants to build. Anyone who wants to, you know, make more than they take has my respect. That's the main thing you should aim for, aim to make more than you take. Be a, you know, a net contributor to society. It's kind of like the pursuit of happiness. You know, if you want to create something valuable financially, you don't pursue that. It's best to actually pursue providing useful products and services. If you do that, then money will come as a natural consequence of that, as opposed to pursuing money directly. You can't pursue happiness directly, you pursue things that lead to happiness. But there's not direct happiness. You do things like fulfilling work or study or friends, loved ones, that as a result make you happy. Sounds like very obvious, but generally if somebody's trying to make a company work, they should expect to grind super hard, except that there's like some meaningful chance of failure. But just be focused on having the output be worth more than the input. That's what really matters, making more than you take.
