Marc Andreessen: Elon Solves His Companies’ 52 Biggest Problems—One Every Week, in the Trenches

Marc Andreessen on Elon's method: “He's in the trenches.”

“Elon has developed an operating method that is very unusual by modern standards.

The top line thing is this incredible devotion from the leader of the company to fully, deeply understand what the company does, to be completely knowledgeable about every aspect of it, and to be in the trenches and talking directly to the people who do the work, deeply understanding the issues and being the lead problem-solver in the organization.

Basically, Elon shows up every week at each of his companies. He identifies the biggest problem that the company's having that week, and he fixes it. He does that every week for 52 weeks in a row, so each of his companies has solved the 52 biggest problems in that year.

Most other large companies are still having the planning meeting for the pre-planning meeting for the board meeting, for the presentation, with the compliance review and the legal review.

So it's this level of both an incredible intellectual capability coupled with an incredible force of personality, a moral authority, an execution capability, a focus on fundamentals that is just really amazing to watch.”

Interview with Chris Williamson, December 14, 2024