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nuttakulsvnuttakulsv/think-like/skills/musk/SKILL.md

musk

Skill2 starsChanged 42 days agoMITView on GitHub

The five-step engineering "algorithm" Elon Musk has described publicly, plus first-principles reasoning: make every requirement less dumb and give it a named owner, delete parts and steps, simplify, then speed up, and automate last. Use when a feature, spec, process, pipeline, or architecture feels over-specified or bloated; when estimating cost from scratch; or before automating anything. Triggers: "think like Musk", "first principles", "the algorithm", "delete the part", "question the requirement", "this spec is too much", "คิดแบบอีลอน มัสก์", "คิดแบบ first principles", "ตัด requirement".

1 other project uses a version of this.

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  • Other versions1 project uses a version of this.

    Word for word · 0

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    Wrote their own version · 1

    1. vimkim/my-skills★ 1same name

    How matches are found. Word for word: the exact same text. Edited: shares passages with this file (“99% same” means 99% of its five-word phrases also appear here; 10% or more counts). Their own version: similar meaning, or, weakest, the same name. We can’t tell which project had it first. Projects are counted among the 200 most-starred candidates, and mentions are links to the repository we found, up to 50 per site, so both counts are a floor.

  • In this repository25 other files it gives its agents.

The file

We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent

5 rules. About 0 are common, 5 are distinctive, and 0 are very specific to this project.

  • ≈0

    Common · estimate

    Many files like this have a rule of this kind.

  • ≈5

    Distinctive · estimate

    This author's own choices. Worth a look.

  • 0

    Very specific

    Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.

  • Common
  • Distinctive
  • Very specific
  1. Distinctive:

    Not affiliated with or endorsed by Elon Musk.

    line 24
  2. Distinctive:

    Do the steps in order. Do not skip ahead.

    line 35
  3. Distinctive:

    Delete the part or process step: Remove requirements, features, fields, services, steps, approvals that don't survive step 1.

    line 38
  4. Distinctive:

    Automate: only now, and only what survived.

    line 41
  5. Distinctive:

    Write in the user's language.

    line 53

≈ “Common” is an estimate: at least 1 in 5 of the 350,495 skill files we read have a rule of the same kind, not the same words. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.

Keep what fits and drop the rest. Your version, ready for your agents.
Files
SKILL.md

Think like Musk (the algorithm)

Engineer and CEO of SpaceX and Tesla. In a 2021 factory tour he laid out a five-step process for engineering work and stressed the order: most teams start at step 5 (automate) and end up automating something that should not exist. This skill uses that process and his first-principles cost reasoning, nothing else.

Not affiliated with or endorsed by Elon Musk. Built from the public sources listed below.

When to use

  • A spec or ticket with many requirements nobody can trace to a person
  • A slow build, deploy, review, or approval process
  • Someone wants to automate a manual workflow
  • Cost or effort estimates based on "that's what it usually costs"

Method

Do the steps in order. Do not skip ahead.

  1. Make the requirements less dumb. List every requirement. Each one needs a named person (not a department) who asked for it and the reason. Requirements from smart people are the most dangerous because nobody questions them. Challenge each one.
  2. Delete the part or process step. Remove requirements, features, fields, services, steps, approvals that don't survive step 1. If you never have to add anything back, you did not delete enough (Isaacson's account of the rule puts the add-back rate at around 10%).
  3. Simplify and optimize what is left. Not before: the most common mistake is optimizing something that should not exist.
  4. Accelerate cycle time. Make the remaining loop faster (build, test, deploy, review, feedback).
  5. Automate only now, and only what survived.

First principles for costs and limits: break the thing into its basic inputs (compute, storage, people-hours, API calls) and price those directly. Compare to the quoted price. A large gap means the cost is mostly convention, not physics.

Output

  • Requirements: table with requirement → owner (name) → reason → keep / question / delete
  • Deleted: what goes, and what to watch for in case something must come back
  • Simplified: what changed in what remains
  • Faster: the cycle-time change
  • Automate: only what survived, or "nothing yet"
  • First-principles check: (if costs are involved) bottom-up cost vs quoted cost
  • Write in the user's language.

Anti-patterns

  • Automating or optimizing first
  • Requirements owned by "the business", "legal", or "the team"
  • Keeping something because it might be needed later
  • Treating the person as the method: this skill uses the process, not the persona

Example (illustration)

User: Spec for an admin export: CSV, Excel, PDF, scheduled email, 14 filters, column chooser, audit log. Estimate?

Requirements: CSV (Nok, finance, monthly reconciliation) keep; Excel (nobody named) question; PDF (sales, "looks nicer") question; scheduled email (Nok, monthly) keep; 14 filters (copied from the old screen) question: finance uses 3; column chooser (nobody) delete; audit log (security, PDPA) keep.

Deleted: Excel (CSV opens in Excel), PDF, column chooser, 11 filters. Watch for: sales asking for PDF.

Simplified: one export endpoint with 3 filters, streaming CSV.

Automate: the monthly email, using the same endpoint. Estimate drops from 3 weeks to 4 days.

Sources

  • Everyday Astronaut, "Starbase Tour with Elon Musk [PART 1 // Summer 2021]" (the five-step process is explained in the tour): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t705r8ICkRw
  • Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk (2023), which describes "the algorithm" as used inside SpaceX and Tesla

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