Elon Musk on coming up with business ideas, Sam Altman on persistence, and the language of winning

Welcome back to the Z Fellows newsletter! Every Monday we share 3 ideas - to help you build companies, ship products, and create your life's work.

1: Elon Musk on coming up with business ideas

• Start with software for ease and capital generation - "The great thing about software or anything which just involves intellectual capital is that you and a couple of your friends can just do it. That's why doing some sort of internet thing or software thing is great as an initial company to create."

• Think from first principles - "I think I tend to think of things from sort of a physics standpoint, from a first principles standpoint."

• Cross-pollinate between industries - "Combining ideas from different industries is really helpful for innovations. What have people discovered in one industry that cannot be applied to other industries?”

• Expect failure and persistence - "Usually you just struggle on a solution and you try a bunch of things. Some of them don't work, and most of them don't, but occasionally one does."

Source: Elon Musk: Idea Generation

2: Sam Altman on Persistence

“A big secret is that you can bend the world to your will a surprising percentage of the time—most people don't even try, and just accept that things are the way that they are.

People have an enormous capacity to make things happen. A combination of self-doubt, giving up too early, and not pushing hard enough prevents most people from ever reaching anywhere near their potential.

Ask for what you want. You usually won't get it, and often the rejection will be painful. But when this works, it works surprisingly well.

Almost always, the people who say "I am going to keep going until this works, and no matter what the challenges are I'm going to figure them out," and mean it, go on to succeed.

They are persistent long enough to give themselves a chance for luck to go their way.”

Source: How To Be Successful by Sam Altman

3: The language of winning

13 principles laid out by Tim Grover,

Source: W1NNING by Tim Grover

Best of The Week

See you next Monday,

- The Z Fellows Team

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