Excerpts from - Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson

 Elon's "Algorithm" (Page 283)

• Question every requirement. Each should come with the name of the person who made it. You should never accept that a requirement came from a department, such as from “the legal department” or “the safety department.” You need to know the name of the real person who made that requirement. Then you should question it, no matter how smart that person is. Requirements from smart people are the most dangerous, because people are less likely to question them. Always do so, even if the requirement came from me. Then make the requirements less dumb.
• Delete any part or process you can. You may have to add them back later. In fact, if you do not end up adding back at least 10% of them, then you didn’t delete enough.
• Simplify and optimize. This should come after step two. A common mistake is to simplify and optimize a part or a process that should not exist.
• Accelerate cycle time. Every process can be speeded up. But only do this after you have followed the first three steps. 
• Automate. That comes last. 

The algorithm was sometimes accompanied by a few corollaries, among them:

• All technical managers must have hands-on experience. For example, managers of software teams must spend at least 20% of their time coding. Solar roof managers must spend time on the roofs doing installations. Otherwise, they are like a cavalry leader who can’t ride a horse or a general who can’t use a sword.
• Comradery is dangerous. It makes it hard for people to challenge each other’s work. There is a tendency to not want to throw a colleague under the bus. That needs to be avoided.
• It’s OK to be wrong. Just don’t be confident and wrong.
• Never ask your troops to do something you’re not willing to do.
• Whenever there are problems to solve, don’t just meet with your managers. Do a skip level, where you meet with the level right below your managers.
• When hiring, look for people with the right attitude. Skills can be taught. Attitude changes require a brain transplant.
• A maniacal sense of urgency is our operating principle.
• The only rules are the ones dictated by the laws of physics. Everything else is a recommendation.

Polytopia based "Life Lessons" (Pg 426)

• Empathy is not an asset.
• Play life like a game.
• Do not fear losing. “You will lose,” Musk says. “It will hurt the first fifty times. When you get used to losing, you will play each game with less emotion.” You will be more fearless, take more risks.
• Be proactive.
• Optimize every turn. In Polytopia, you get only thirty turns, so you need to optimize each one. “Like in Polytopia, you only get a set number of turns in life,” Musk says. “If we let a few of them slide, we will never get to Mars.”
• Double down.
• Pick your battles.

Other Quotes

• "The only rules are the ones dictated by the laws of physics. Everything else is a recommendation."
• “Wanting to be everyone’s friend leads you to care too much about the emotions of the individual in front of you rather than caring about the success of the whole enterprise—an approach that can lead to a far greater number of people being hurt."
• "Precision is not expensive. It’s mostly about caring. Do you care to make it precise? Then you can make it precise.”
• “You have to have fear and love for the leader. Both.”
• “I’m a big believer that a small number of exceptional people who are highly motivated can do better than a large number of people who are pretty good and moderately motivated,”
• “This is how civilizations decline. They quit taking risks. And when they quit taking risks, their arteries harden. Every year there are more referees and fewer doers. When you’ve had success for too long, you lose the desire to take risks.”
• He would often go into "surge mode". The goal was to shake things up and “extrude shit out of the system,” as he put it. “There’s no forcing function to succeed other than us.”
• "It's not the product that leads to success. It's the ability to make the product efficiently. It's about building the machine that builds the machine. In other words, how do you design the factory?"

Excerpts from Randy Pausch Time Management Talk

Randy Pausch's video on time management:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTugjssqOT0

Here's the slide he uses:
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Randy/RandyPauschTimeManagement2007.pdf

My take aways:
- Time shortage is a systemic problem and needs a systemic approach.
- You don't FIND time, you MAKE time.
- Learn to say NO.
- Don't approach life like you have all the time in the world.
- Do the hardest thing first. If you have to eat a frog, don't spend too much time looking at it. If you have to eat 3, eat the largest one first.
- Prioritize based on your 1 hour time value.

Tools:
- Make a TODO list - Quadrant.
- Work desk - multiple monitor, speaker phones
- Thank you note
- Group your phone calls. Call at lunch. Hang up on yourself mid sentence.
- Delegate - don't be vague. assign specific thing, specific deadline, specific penalty/reward.
- Delegate - assign task and give them authority and trust.

Excerpts from Warren Buffett videos

Your most valuable asset is your earning capacity.

Habits are very important. Form good habits early on, as it's harder to change later down the life.

When we hire someone we look for 3 things - intelligence, integrity and energy.

Don't do anything with the rationale that everyone else is doing it.


Q: What do you do when you know that what you love to do, does not pay well.
A: I've never met someone who's chosen what he loved and regretted it.

Excerpts from the audio book - Rich Dad Poor Dad By Robert Kiyosaki

Note: - This was an audio book that I listened to. And the below is what I remember of the top of my head.

42. Financial aptitude is most important. Your biggest wealth is your mind and how fast you can learn. A fool and his money are soon parted. To increase financial IQ you need skills such as - accounting, investing, understanding the market and understanding the law (i.e. the tax breaks and such. Corporations spend first and then are taxed, individuals are taxed first and then spend).

43. There are three kinds of income - salaried, portfolio and passive. Salaried income is exchange of money for time. It's a short term solution to a long term problem. Portfolio income is money in paper - stocks, bonds. Passive income - is real estate rent, fixed deposits, etc money working to produce more money.

44. Habit - Pay your yourself first, then your creditors and then the rest.

45. Habit - Buy assets not liabilities. The poor accumulate consumer debts the most (credit cards, personal loans), the middle class accumulate liabilities the most (fancy car, house, electronics), the rich accumulate assets the most.

46. Habit - Hire people smarter than yourself. It pays to have the best stock broker, the best attorney, the best real estate agent, etc. It is way cheaper than loosing money making wrong decisions.

47. Habit - Discipline to apply. Discipline is the number one factor that delineates the rich from the poor. Most people listen, only a few apply what they learn.

48. Habit - Choose your friends. And choose them well. More of those who you want to be like and some of those who you do not want to be like. You can learn from both.

49. Skill - If you want to sell something you need to learn sales. I recommend you join a multi-level networking company.

50. Skill - Play money related games such as Cash Flow 101

51. Recommended book - Think and grow rich by Napoleon Hill, The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason, The 16 percent solution  by Joel Moskowitz

52. Quotes - The gem, mirror and the sword are the three sacred symbols of a japanese warrior. The mirror represents self inspection, and is the most treasured of the 3. Ask yourself frequently if what you are doing today will bring you closer to where you want to be tomorrow?

53. Quotes - "Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't" - Eleanor Roosevelt

Excerpts from the book - "The Question Behind The Question"

(Pg 15) We always have a choice. Always. Even deciding not to choose is making a choice.

(Pg 26) stress is a choice, because whatever the "trigger event", we always choose our own responses.

(Pg 53) When he sent me out to the mat, he'd always remind me I had three people to beat that day: my opponent, myself and the referee. That I had to beat my opponent was obvious. By "myself" he meant I had to overcome the fears any athlete naturally has. About beating the ref, he'd say, "It doesn't matter how close the match is, John. Even if you lose in overtime by one point, even if he makes a couple of questionable calls, you cannot blame the man in black and white." He'd conclude by saying, "If you want to win, you must be good enough to beat the ref!"

(Pg 97) As my mentor, W. Steven Brown, always taught, "Leaders are not problem solvers but problem givers." They let others tackle the problem, design their own solutions, and take action. How else can people learn? How else can leaders serve?

Excerpts from the book - "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" by Richard P. Feynman

(Pg 33) I thought one should have the attitude of "What do you care what other people think!" I said, "We should listen to other people's opinions and take them into account. Then, if they don't make sense and we think they're wrong, then that's that!"

(Pg 59) By that experience Tukey and I discovered that what goes on in different people's heads when they think they're doing the same thing - something as simple as counting - is different for different people.

(Pg 122) It's the only way I know to get technical information quickly: you don't just sit there while they go through what they think would be interesting: instead, you ask a lot of questions, you get quick answers, and soon you begin to understand the circumstances and learn just what to ask to get the next piece of information you need.

Excerpts from the book - "The Dream" By Gurbaksh Chahal

(Pg 33) I began to see that perception was reality. Many of the most successful companies were making no money whatsoever, but everyone assumed that the Internet was on the verge of exploding and that before long everyone would be rolling in cash.

(Pg 50) In an effort to make sure I understood the intricacies of the business, I started calling around to see what I could learn from anyone who was even remotely connected to Internet advertising.

(Pg 82) What kind of fool was I, that I had let a greedy programmer bring me to my knees? The experience taught me another valuable lesson: Never put yourself in a position of vulnerability.

(Pg 91) You must always negotiate from a position of strength.

(Pg 97) When you make decisions, it's fine to listen to the people around you, but the final decisions need to be yours. If you can't trust yourself to make decisions, you'll never succeed.

(Pg 101) Don't chase the money. Chase substance. If you have substance, the money will follow.

(Pg 110) Pick your battles.

(Pg 140) The market (share market) wasn't in my blood. You need to know what you're all about if you want to succeed. You need to play to your strengths, otherwise you're going to settle for mediocrity.

(Pg 160) Being cheap is good for the company and for the shareholders, but don't be too cheap. Never by cheap with your employees, for example. If one of them is a rock star, pay him or her a rock-star salary. This is very important. When staffing a company, you should always hire people who are smarter than you.

(Pg 178) Failure is not an option. Anyone who even entertains the idea of failure is already doomed.

(Pg 234) Grow a thick skin - a very think skin. People will question your ability to succeed, and the loudest among them might make you doubt your own talents, so you'll need a thick skin to drown out the noise.