The Greatest Week For An Entrepreneur?
To Investors,
Two statements:
Elon Musk just had one of the greatest weeks an entrepreneur can have.
Strive to ship products like Elon Musk.
…
Last week Tesla revealed a bunch of AI powered products that they’ve been working on.
First was the Optimus humanoid robot. Remember that it was just in 2021 at their AI Day when Tesla first announced they would start building humanoid robots powered by AI. In that reveal, Elon brought out a human being dressed in a costume who did funny dances.
3 years later, Elon and Tesla introduced a highly functional and interactive humanoid robot.
Optimus is estimated to cost around $30 000 when its produced at scale, and will be able to cook you food, serve you drinks, and do other house chores. Ultimately though I think that these robots will be working as human replacements mostly in the most dangerous jobs possibly in the mining, and construction industries.
In that same AI Day event last week, Tesla rolled out an example of a Tesla cybercab - a fully autonomous vehicle that anyone can own, and will be able to make money from by sending it out as a robo taxi.
Along that reveal Tesla rolled out the cybervan, a fully autonomous minibus-like vehicle that will seat ~20 people.
Now mind you, these autonomous minibuses are already a thing in China, so the use case is already proven.
A couple of days later, SpaceX pulled off one of the most daunting feats in the history of the space industry - attempting to make the most powerful rocket in history reusable. The example Elon gave a while ago was that rockets must be reusable to enable humans to be a multi-planetary species. If rockets aren’t reusable, then space travel will become infeasible - because imagine if you had to throw away an aeroplane after every flight.
So this past Sunday SpaceX launched their fifth test flight of Starship, the most powerful rocket in history, and as if that wasn't enough, upon its return (on the first ever attempt) they caught the booster with a pair of mechanised “chopsticks”. For context, the Startship booster is ~69m high. It's essentially a 20 story skyscraper!
That mission was incredible to watch. If you haven’t seen it, please watch it here!
Exhibiting that your products work and that your ideas were not all that crazy is a founder's biggest dream. Well done to the Tesla and SpaceX teams! These guys know how to ship products!
But I also want to point out another thing that people aren’t talking about enough, and that’s the solution roadmap for Tesla specifically.
A solution roadmap for a business is a breakdown of how the company will achieve its mission. For example for Tesla their mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. This mission drives the company's focus on developing electric vehicles, renewable energy products, and battery storage solutions.
This was the solution roadmap for Tesla, pay attention to the execution here:
Under Master Plan Part 1 Drawn of in 2006:
Tesla's first master plan laid out its long-term vision to help the world transition to sustainable energy by creating electric vehicles across different market segments. Key products mentioned to achieve this mission include:
High-performance electric sports car: Tesla started with the Tesla Roadster to prove that electric cars can be powerful and desirable. ✅
Affordable electric sedan: The plan was to use profits from the Roadster to build the Model S, a more affordable yet high-performance electric vehicle. ✅
Mass-market affordable car: After the success of Model S, Tesla aimed to produce an even more affordable car, which eventually became the Model 3. ✅
Zero-emission electric power generation: Tesla planned to integrate solar energy products (like solar panels) to further promote sustainable energy. ✅
Under Master Plan Part Deux Drawn out in 2016:
The second master plan expanded Tesla’s mission to cover more aspects of sustainable energy and autonomous transport. The key products mentioned include:
Solar Roof: Tesla introduced the Solar Roof product to integrate solar power into everyday homes, combined with its Powerwall energy storage. ✅
All-electric vehicles across major market segments: ✅
Electric trucks: The plan included building an all-electric Tesla Semi for freight transport. (Thats revealed and is in development stages)
Electric buses: Tesla also proposed creating electric public transport options, such as autonomous buses. (The cybervan mentioned above)
Electric pickup truck: Tesla planned to develop the Cybertruck as an all-electric pickup to cater to utility vehicle needs.
Autonomous driving technology: Tesla committed to developing fully self-driving cars that could be part of a shared autonomous fleet, allowing owners to make money with their Tesla vehicles when they aren't using them. (The cybercab and cybervan mentioned above)
Here’s what I learned from this:
Do what you say you're gonna to do.
Be relentless about it, especially in the faces of haters.
Know how to attract and retain talent so you can build great teams that believe in you.
I’ve seen a lot of hate towards Elon Musk and I don't understand why. You have to be very anti-progress to hate this guy and hate the companies that he’s building.
I put Elon Musk in the same bucket as Steph Curry, Julius Caesar, Henry Flagler, and John D. Rockefeller. Relentless and extremely ambitious human beings who must execute!
As a young man and early builder it's great to learn what success looks like and how it's achieved.
I hope you enjoyed reading this letter.
On the journey to becoming a master capital allocator, one lesson down, a billion more to go.
Hope you have a great day
-Mansa