Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs is one of my favorite books of all time. It provides a detailed image of what made Steve Jobs the revered revolutionary he is today. Even by Silicon Valley's lofty standards, changing an entire industry is no small feat. Doing so time and time again is unprecedented. Intriguingly, the person who comes closest to matching the magnitude of Jobs' impact across industries is Elon Musk. I recently read Ashlee Vance's biography of Musk, and several similarities stood out.
What also struck me as interesting is this methodology of examining similarities, rather than studying individuals. When we look at individuals, the aura and magnitude of the perceived persona can make it difficult to extract meaningful takeaways. Analyzing a comparison doesn't face this obstacle, since the characteristics are not directly tied to a person.
While this article draws heavy inspiration from Elon Musk and Steve Jobs, I've noticed the ideas mentioned here in a broad range of people — through their writings and interviews. There's hardly anything novel here. You probably already know this. Yet, oddly enough, most people aren't really doing much about it.
Vision
What should the future look like?
This question isn't new, but in my experience, people don't usually spend enough time pondering it. The most important key to making a significant change in the future of humanity is to thoughtfully answer this question. The "should" here matters. It's personal. How do you envision the future? If the future were up to you (and it certainly is), how would you like people to exist? How would a day in your life look like ten years from today?
To shape the future, you have to live in it.
A point I'm compelled to make is, your vision should be bold. We're here to achieve greatness, and achieving greatness begins with dreaming big.
Elon Musk dreamt that humans need to be an interplanetary species. Steve Jobs envisioned an AGI that’s capable of capturing human consciousness and making it immortal 50 years before LLMs made this future plausible.
Don’t hold back.
What’s missing from this future?
After deciding what the future should look like, the next step is to spot what's lacking. What hasn't been created yet? What's hard now that must become easy for this future to happen? What will you need in ten years to function and live a fulfilling life?
Your role is to find what's missing and fill those gaps. It's not easy. In fact, it could be one of the hardest things you do in life. But it could also be one of the best ways to use your limited time.
In Steve Jobs' vision of the future, computers were absent. They needed to be personal devices to aid your expression and function. The Mac was a logical first step and the iPhone was a natural progression. Apple's Vision Pro appears to be a reasonable next step. In many ways, Apple has always worked to enhance reality.
Elon Musk saw a future where humans live on multiple planets. When he’s not shit-posting on Twitter, he's been tackling fundamental problems to make this future a reality.
Knowledge
Abstractions are bad. They give an illusion of knowledge that can shatter when the abstraction fails. They also hide assumptions and standards that should be questioned. Knowledge is deep, it isn't shallow. This profound understanding is what both Musk and Jobs aimed and inspired others to build.
Consensus should not always be trusted. "It's Impossible" is not always a fact. We are naturally inclined to trust consensus as it helps save mental energy for survival. However, it's important to overcome this instinct and validate consensus using a basic principles approach.
The devil is always in the details.
What do we know is absolutely true? Let's start from there. Let's dive into every abstraction to make sure there are no negative assumptions or outdated standards hidden in the fine print.
The detail-oriented approach that Musk applies to the electronic systems of the Falcon-9 rocket, or the one Steve Jobs used for the Macintosh circuitry, is only achievable with deep knowledge.
Grit
Venture capitalists go gaga for grit. It’s yet another buzzword, with enough oomph to have self-help best-sellers named after it. Yet it’s a phenomenal four-letter summary of a very powerful concept — the ability to strive on, in the face of challenges.
Nothing significant in life is easy. If you plan to change the world and create a future you've envisioned, everything will be tough. Change isn't easy, but it is necessary. Dealing with difficulties is a skill. It requires an extreme level of self-belief, the kind seen in people like Must and Jobs. You’ve set out to realize a vision, you believe in it, you’re all-in, and this is the most important thing you’ll do in your life. That’s probably the only way to have the level of conviction it requires.
Vision, Knowledge and Grit. Let’s go build.
