VALUE: After Hours (S08 E11): Why Elon Musk Sets Impossible Deadlines (And Why It Actually Works)

During their recent episode, Taylor, Carlisle, and Eric Jorgenson discussed Why Elon Musk Sets Impossible Deadlines (And Why It Actually Works). Here’s an excerpt from the episode:

[Eric] And actually when it comes to selecting timelines, here’s another thing I’m sure every professional investor fucking hates hearing this, but he picks deadlines that he thinks he, their organisation is 50% likely to make. That is his heuristic, right? He believes there’s like a gaseous expansion level law of schedules.

And so he’s like, if you pick a deadline, you’re a hundred percent likely to make one, the work will take that amount of time, even though it will waste tremendous amount of time and resources. And two, you probably still won’t make it because that’s the nature of deadlines and how people treat them anyway. So if you pick a deadline that you’re only 50% likely to make, it’s this forcing function where some of the time you’re going to make it and way faster than anybody else thought you would.

And the rest of time you’ll fail, but you’ll still be way ahead than if you made it twice as long. And so of course there’s the nature of that is that there’s going to be broken, like quote unquote broken promises or over promise and under deliver, whatever, all over the place. But he’s like his true North star is making the future happen faster, getting the best product possible out into the world as quickly as humanly possible.

And through that lens, like short timelines are just a means to do it rather than, you know, the ultimate thing is not like the goal of his life is not to be correct about the predictions that he’s making about his performance is to make the performance as good as possible.

You can find out more about the VALUE: After Hours Podcast here – VALUE: After Hours Podcast. You can also listen to the podcast on your favorite podcast platforms here:

 Apple Podcasts

 Breaker

 PodBean

 Overcast

 Youtube

 Pocket Casts

 RadioPublic

 Anchor

 Spotify

 Stitcher

 Google Podcasts