The "First Principles" of an Uncertain World

Yingzheng Yu is a friend who thinks independently. Here he's compiled Elon Musk's remarks at the G20. The following 11 topics capture Musk's views on issues he cares about right now. Hope they inspire you too. Enjoy.

First principles thinking means: when reasoning through problems and actions, start from the most fundamental principles and common sense. Or trace your assumptions back to their source, stripping away noise to grasp the essence.

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First Principles of "Superhuman Work": I'm Almost Always Working

N: Let me introduce myself. I'm Nadiem Makarim, currently Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology. Before this, I was a tech entrepreneur. I built one of Indonesia's largest on-demand service companies — payments, ride-hailing, food delivery, some other services. I want you to know: I'm your fan. You've inspired many of my peers and colleagues for years. If I may, could I ask you a few questions?

First question: we have many young people here, and I think one thing troubles us all. How do you do so many things? It's a simple question, but I'd love to hear — what are your tools or principles for staying productive? We simply can't believe how much you do. Can you tell us how you manage it all?

Elon Musk: I do put in a lot of time. I'm not sure I'd recommend what I do to others. Because I'm almost always working. I rarely take breaks, not even on Sundays. So I'm not sure — I wouldn't advise many people to do this. As for tools for understanding the world, I think the physics framework is very helpful.

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First Principles of "Understanding the World": The Physics Framework

Elon Musk: In physics, there's this idea of reasoning from first principles. In a given situation, you try to understand the most fundamental truths, then reason upward from there, and test whether your conclusions match those basic truths. So in physics, it's like testing whether you've violated conservation of energy or momentum, things like that. And you keep iterating to reduce error.

So you should always assume you're wrong to some degree. You want to reduce error. I think this is very important. It's been somewhat difficult for me. But it's very helpful for understanding the truth of things — this desire to reduce error.

N: That's remarkable — maintaining healthy skepticism through iteration. And of course, the sheer time you invest. You know, Elon, when I started working, I came from the private sector, so you can imagine the challenges I faced entering government. And one thing I noticed: when you try to make change, the resistance to change is enormous, and very painful. And you encounter entire groups of people I'd categorize as "naysayers," constantly trying to say what you're doing is impossible.

So my question is: Elon, how do you deal with those naysayers? How do you treat people who say "no"? They'll say you're going too far, you're doing the impossible, don't waste your energy, or resist change. How do you handle this resistance, these naysayers, and keep moving forward?

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First Principles of "Handling Skepticism": Anything Within the Laws of Physics Is Possible

Elon Musk: Back to physics again. The only truly impossible things are those that break the laws of physics. So as long as you're not violating physical laws, it's possible. It doesn't matter what anyone's opinion is. Physics is the law; everything else is a recommendation. I've seen many people break laws, but I've never seen anyone break physics.

N: Please applaud, everyone. Anything within the laws of physics is possible.

Elon Musk: You can certainly challenge the laws of physics. But they've been challenged many times already, so they're quite resilient.

N: That's a remarkably simple and powerful response. Given that we have many university students here, we'd like to talk briefly about your youth. I'm curious — in your childhood or teenage years, were there any milestone events that most profoundly shaped who you are today? If so, could you share those moments?

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First Principles of "Youth Education": Curiosity

Elon Musk: I read a lot of science fiction and fantasy. Not surprising — Star Trek, Star Wars, and so on. Actually, Star Wars was the first movie I ever saw in a theater. You can imagine, seeing something so astonishing, and it being your first time at the cinema — I think I was six. It must have had a huge impact on me.

So, reading and watching lots of sci-fi and fantasy. The Lord of the Rings is probably my favorite book. Isaac Asimov influenced me greatly: the Foundation series. Robert Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. And then striving to find the truth of things.

I explored many paths and eventually found that physics is the best way to explore the truth of things. So if you want to venture to the frontier and break records in physics, I strongly recommend studying it first.

N: Amazing. Can we look at — you've done so much innovation within your organizations. You've also explicitly stated that education needs some transformation.

One thing we've recently done in Indonesia, Elon — we've made higher education almost completely open. We've allowed every company, non-profit organization, all external institutions to enter accredited universities for at least one semester. So higher education now is truly a collaborative effort across all institutions. Including tech companies. I wonder what you think about education, and what would education look like in your ideal world? Whether primary or higher education — if you have any thoughts, please enlighten us.

What do you think ideal education looks like today?

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First Principles of "Educational Innovation": Integrating "Instrumentality" Through "Relevance"

Elon Musk: Well, I think when you want to learn something, it's very important to establish relevance — that is: why are you learning this? Because our minds are constantly trying to forget things. At a subconscious level, our minds are trying to determine what's relevant and what isn't. So most of what you see here, your mind doesn't want to remember.

Because remembering it is pointless. So you have to establish relevance. You have to think: "Why learn this subject or that subject?" And once you've established relevance, your mind will naturally want to remember it.

I think there are two completely different approaches to education. One is teaching tools in the abstract. The other is: when you need to solve a problem, what tools do you need to solve it? For example, if I teach you to use a wrench, screwdriver, and pliers, it'll be boring because there's no relevance established.

But if we say: "Let's take apart an engine. Now how do we disassemble and reassemble it?" Then we need screwdrivers, wrenches, pliers, maybe some hex keys. You take it apart and put it back together. In doing so, you understand why these tools are relevant, and you'll remember them. It's a very simple but important principle: explaining tools in the context of problem-solving. This way, the tools have meaning. Otherwise, they seem irrelevant, people won't remember them, and it's hard to generate motivation.

N: So you believe in placing these tools in specific contexts to increase relevance. Are education systems around the world doing this now? From the perspective of teachers or curriculum, what do you think needs to change?

Elon Musk: Yes, as I said, I think generally things are backwards. They teach you tools rather than teaching you how to solve problems and then establish relevance with the tools.

For example, you might take a calculus course, but you don't know why you're studying calculus. It seems like just a mental obstacle with no meaning. Actually, for many people it may indeed be meaningless. Because unless you're going to use it later, calculus is useless — at least the detailed equations are. I think learning the principles of calculus is interesting, but solving specific equations, not so much.

So generally I'd say: first, what do people want to do? Then, what problem are they trying to solve? Then, in solving that problem, they need this or that tool. So frankly, I think much of education is pointless. People are taught a pile of knowledge they'll never actually use in the future. So why go to all the trouble teaching people things they won't use?

So frankly, I think much of education is meaningless, unless you're deliberately setting up a mental obstacle to test whether people can pass obstacle courses. I think that's debatable.

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First Principles of "Mental Training": Mental Anti-Virus Software

Elon Musk: Should we force people through these mental obstacle courses? If I were to make one strong recommendation for early education content, it would be critical thinking. Critical thinking is extremely important because it creates a psychological firewall, allowing children to reject concepts that aren't convincing. It's like having anti-virus software for the mind.

If you teach critical thinking at a young age, it forms a psychological firewall preventing people from building false concepts in their heads. I strongly recommend teaching the principles of critical thinking at a young age.

N: Completely agree. We've just removed content-based subject testing from our national exam system. In its place: pure logic, problem-solving, and critical thinking. Computational logic is also treated as a foundational skill. I'm very, very happy to hear you say this, because this is indeed the core. It's not about "what do you know," but rather how you process the content and information you receive.

Elon Musk: Yes, and also: how do you defend against various psychological traps? People will often try to manipulate you with various fallacies. So having defense against fallacies would be an important course.

N: Absolutely. In the digital age, this discernment and healthy skepticism toward received information is almost a survival skill for the next generation. I completely agree with your view.

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First Principles of "Future Trends": Sustainable Energy, AI, Synthetic Biology

N: Elon, could you tell us — if people were to ask you about career directions — what industries do you think will be the most exciting and in-demand? And which industries may decline and lose value in the future? Could you share your views on this?

Elon Musk: Certainly. I think many of these will sound obvious, but anything related to sustainable energy will be very important. So for example, lithium battery technology for stationary storage, or power batteries for cars, planes, ships — this will be very important. AI will obviously be meaningful across all domains: autonomous cars, planes, ships. So I'd probably suggest studying these. Of course, these are very technical subjects. There are other worthwhile pursuits, but as a technologist, these are my recommendations.

I think there will be many opportunities in synthetic biology. For example, synthetic mRNA technology — this will be a revolution in medicine. I think it's comparable to audio going from analog to digital. Synthetic RNA is like medicine going digital. The depth of this transformation, I think, exceeds what most people realize.

But I'm a technologist, so I think many good things come from technology. But from a technology perspective, I'd choose sustainable energy, AI, and synthetic biology. These will likely be the three big areas.

N: In terms of risks, what technology scares you?

Elon Musk: I think we should be somewhat worried about AI, because we don't want digital superintelligence to go wrong and cause harm to humanity. So I think we do need to be cautious about artificial intelligence. In synthetic biology, there are also potential dangers, because it could create destructive viruses more dangerous than those in nature. So these technological tools are absolutely double-edged swords. The more powerful the technology, the more carefully we must use it.

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First Principles of "National Competitiveness": Open, Shared Education for All

N: What do you think Indonesia needs to do to become a global economic power by 2045?

Elon Musk: I think broad-based education obviously makes sense. I think establishing high-speed internet throughout Indonesia would be extremely important. With the internet, even with just low-cost access and capability, you can learn everything. Many MIT courses are free on YouTube. So you can almost learn anything you want on the internet for free — you just need internet access. And some basic education to learn from the internet.

So I think widespread internet access is essential, because it allows people to learn at their own pace, and learn almost anything.

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First Principles of "Confronting Mistakes": Assume You're Wrong From the Start

"Hello, I'm a university student. As a global innovator and the world's top businessman, we've of course heard about your success stories. They've greatly inspired us. What I'd like to ask is: what are the biggest obstacles and failures you've faced? How did you overcome them? Perhaps you could give us students some advice. Thank you."

Elon Musk: Well, frankly, I've made many mistakes. It would take a long time to list them all. So I won't bore everyone with this long list of errors. But I think the higher principle here is: over time, always desire to make the fewest mistakes possible. So admit that you're always wrong to some degree. But hopefully the mistakes become fewer and fewer. And if you can be slightly less wrong every day, you're doing well. Being slightly less wrong every day is hard.

But frankly, even if you get many things wrong on many days, it can still be a big win.

Some things I've spoken about publicly. I think this needs to be valued in the heart and mind, not just the mind. Some of the biggest mistakes I've made in hiring: people had strong minds but not strong hearts. Both are very important.

So I think the true higher principle is: assume you're wrong, you want to make fewer mistakes, and work hard every day to make fewer mistakes. Seek critical feedback, especially from friends.

Usually your friends know what you're doing wrong, but they don't want to hurt your feelings, so they won't tell you. But if you ask them to tell you and assure them it won't hurt your relationship, they will. So I think getting critical feedback from friends is very helpful. Hope that's useful to you.

N: Thank you, Elon. You can't be 100% right forever. We'll always make mistakes. You just need to ensure you're slightly less wrong every day.

Elon Musk: Yes, we'll always make mistakes. You should always assume you're wrong. You should take this approach of hoping to make fewer mistakes, rather than feeling right and trying to prove you're right. The stance you can take is: admit you're wrong, and wish to be slightly less wrong. That's really incredible.

N: And find friends willing to disagree with you.

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First Principles of "Startup Scale": Leveraging Technology

"Hi, I'm your fan. I founded a financial services company providing last-mile payment services for millions of Indonesians without bank accounts. As you said, being a founder is very difficult — like staring into the abyss and chewing glass. I fully understand what you mean. We've now proven we can do this at small scale, but we need to grow to large scale. This is our current pain point. How do we scale?"

"We've already proven ourselves at small scale, able to provide these services for 50 million Indonesians living in the most remote areas. But how do we make it bigger? Reaching more people, going beyond Indonesia to the world. This isn't easy. So if you could give some advice, I'd be very grateful. Thank you."

Elon Musk: I think I'd return to the ubiquity of the internet. It can make a huge difference. Making the cost of every bit of useful information as low as possible is very important. And so many devices are being manufactured — PCs, iPhones, Android devices. Soon the number of devices will exceed the population, so secondhand devices will become incredibly cheap. And we're seeing, in terms of device capability, we're now in a technological plateau. Adding useful features to laptops or phones has become difficult.

So I think the key is: go online, provide cheap devices. I think this is the big trend. So I'm very optimistic about the future.

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First Principles of "Life's Adventures": Let Fear Be Proportional to Actual Danger

"The question I want to ask is: I want to know what daily habits you have that have made you who you are today?"

Elon Musk: My daily habit is staying curious. Curious about the world, curious about how the world works, curious about technology. Actually curious about everything. Curiosity is very important, and being fascinated by curiosity. I think obsessive curiosity might count as one.

Also I think having some sense of adventure is good. Sometimes people fear things they shouldn't fear. You want to make sure fear is proportional to actual danger. I think sometimes our instinctive fears are not proportional to actual dangers.

N: Thank you, Musk. But I want to emphasize something. I really like what you said about "obsessive curiosity." I believe if we cultivate young people with compulsive, super curiosity, we could increase innovation in our country and the world tenfold.

I think your concept about fear — this is one of the most useful things we can learn from entrepreneurs like Elon. All greatness, all change, all progress requires risk-taking. And without risk, there is no progress.

I think if young Indonesians can truly begin to realize and accept this fact: if you want to grow, if you want to achieve something, risk will always exist.

Make it part of your life journey. Manage your fear. 99% of what you fear won't happen; only 1% will. Of what you're afraid of, 99% won't happen. This is what you need to learn to control, so you can move forward.

Thank you so much, Elon, for taking the time for us today. Thank you for your encouragement to everyone. Thank you for refusing to believe in things deemed impossible. It was an honor to discuss with you. Thank you very much.

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