# The Hitchhiker's Guide to Mars  ## Metadata - Author: [[Mack Moderie]] - Full Title: The Hitchhiker's Guide to Mars - Category: #books ## Highlights - “I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better. I think that’s the single best piece of advice—constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.” ([Location 190](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7FJYF5Y&location=190)) - Tags: [[blue]] - “One of the biggest challenges I think is making sure you have a corrective feedback loop, and then maintaining that corrective feedback loop over time even when people want to tell you exactly what you want to hear…” ([Location 193](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7FJYF5Y&location=193)) - Tags: [[blue]] - Musk is constantly using his own mental feedback loops to iterate and course-correct. At Tesla, he’s heavily involved in vehicle design and production. He has spent time optimizing his way of collecting observations. In the factory, he gathers personal observations about the car, thinks things over, and then makes adjustments to the vehicle. He describes his process like this: “You can train yourself to pay attention to the tiny details; I think almost anyone can. Although this is very much a double-edged sword because then you see all the little details, and little things drive you crazy. Most people don’t consciously see the small details, but they do subconsciously see them. Your mind takes in an overall impression, and you know if something is appealing or not even though you may not be able to point out exactly why. It’s a summation of these many small details… You can make yourself pay attention to… essentially to bring the subconscious awareness into conscious awareness… Just pay really close attention… Look closely and carefully.” ([Location 215](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7FJYF5Y&location=215)) - Tags: [[blue]] - No matter how much you know, it’s useless if you don’t act on it. Humanity’s future depends upon those who take action. ([Location 257](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7FJYF5Y&location=257)) - Tags: [[blue]] - “Physics is the law; everything else is a recommendation. I’ve met a lot of people who can break the law but never met anyone who can break physics. So, for any kind of technology problem you have to make sure you’re not violating physics. First principles analysis I think is something that can be applied to any walk of life; it’s really just saying: ‘Let’s boil something down to the most fundamental principles, the things that we are most confident are true at a foundational level and that sets your axiomatic base. Then you reason up from there and then you cross-check your conclusion against the axiomatic truths… ([Location 296](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7FJYF5Y&location=296)) - Tags: [[blue]] - Another good physics tool is thinking about things in the limit. If you take a particular thing and you scale it to a very large number or to a very small number, how do things change?… Like manufacturing, which I think is just a very underrated problem… So, let’s say… you are trying to figure out… why is this part or product expensive? Is it because of something fundamentally foolish that we’re doing or is it because our volume is too low? So, then you say, ‘OK, what if our volume was a million units a year, is it still expensive?’ If it’s still expensive at a million units a year, then volume is not the reason why your thing is expensive, there’s something fundamental about the design… Then you have to change the design or part to something that is not fundamentally expensive.” ([Location 300](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7FJYF5Y&location=300)) - Tags: [[blue]] - “I think generally people’s thinking process is too bound by convention or analogy to prior experiences. It’s rare that people try to think of something on a first principles basis. They’ll say: ‘We’ll do that because it’s always been done that way.’ Or they’ll not do it because ‘Well, nobody’s ever done that, so it must not be good.’ But that’s just a ridiculous way to think. You have to build the reasoning from the ground up, from the first principles, which is the phrase that’s used in physics. You look at the fundamentals and construct your reasoning from that, and then you see if you have a conclusion that works or doesn’t work, and it may or may not be different from what people have done in the past.” ([Location 317](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7FJYF5Y&location=317)) - Tags: [[blue]] - “I do kind of feel like my head is full! My context-switching penalty is high, and my process isolation is not what it used to be. Frankly though, I think most people can learn a lot more than they think they can. They sell themselves short without trying. One bit of advice: it is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree—make sure you understand the fundamental principles, i.e., the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there’s nothing for them to hang on to.” ([Location 332](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7FJYF5Y&location=332)) - Tags: [[blue]] - “When you go through college… you have to answer the question that the professor gives you. You don’t get to say, ‘This is the wrong question.’ In reality, you have all the degrees of freedom of reality, and so the first thing you should say is ‘This question is wrong.’” ([Location 387](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7FJYF5Y&location=387)) - Tags: [[blue]] - “I had to learn how to make hardware. I never had seen a CNC machine or laid out carbon fiber. I didn’t know any of these things. But if you read books and talk to experts, you’ll pick it up pretty quickly, but I think people self-limit their ability to learn. It’s really pretty straightforward, just read books and talk to people—particularly books. The data rate of reading is much greater than when somebody is talking. What’s the output rate of speech? It’s like, a couple hundred bits per second, maybe a few thousand bits per second if you’re really going full tilt. You can do several times that reading. The main reason I didn’t go to lectures in college was because the data rate was too slow.” ([Location 396](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7FJYF5Y&location=396)) - Tags: [[blue]] - “When you’re trying to learn something, it’s extremely important to establish relevance, to say: ‘Why are you trying to learn this?’ Because our minds are constantly trying to forget things. Our minds at a subconscious level, are trying to decide what is relevant and what is not relevant. So, most of the things you see and hear, your mind does not want to remember because there’s no point in remembering it. So, you have to establish relevance… you want to say: ‘This is why you should learn this subject or that subject’ and once you establish relevance, your mind will naturally want to remember it. ([Location 414](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7FJYF5Y&location=414)) - Tags: [[blue]] - for example, it would be quite boring to have a series of lectures about wrenches and screwdrivers and winches and whatnot, without establishing relevance. But if you say: ‘Well, let’s take apart an engine, now how do we take this engine apart and put it back together? Well, let’s take apart an engine, now how do we take this engine apart and put it back together? Well, we’re gonna need screwdrivers, we’re going to need wrenches, we’re going to need a winch, and we’ll need maybe some Allen keys,’ you’ll take it apart and put it back together and then you’ll understand in the process of doing that why those tools are relevant, and you’ll remember them. This is a very simple but important principle, which is: explain the tools in the process of solving a problem, and then the tools will make sense, otherwise they will seem irrelevant, and people will not remember them and motivation will be difficult.” ([Location 420](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7FJYF5Y&location=420)) - Tags: [[blue]] - “I think my drive to get it done is somewhat disconnected from hope, enthusiasm or anything else. I actually just don’t care about hope, enthusiasm, motivation… I just give it everything I’ve got irrespective of what the circumstances may be… you just keep going and get it done.” ([Location 460](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7FJYF5Y&location=460)) - Tags: [[blue]] - “Persistence is extremely important. You should not give up unless you’re forced to give up, you know, unless there’s no other choice. Now that principle can be misapplied if you happen to be trying to penetrate a brick wall with your head… You have to be cautious in always saying one should always persist and never give up, because there actually are times when you should give up, because you’re doing something in error. But if you’re convinced that what you’re doing is correct, then you should never give up.” ([Location 469](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7FJYF5Y&location=469)) - Tags: [[blue]] - BUILD A CAREER AROUND A PASSION. DON’T BUILD PASSION AROUND A CAREER. The former will provide you with energy and fulfillment; the latter will starve you of both. Find a way to monetize what you love. When you’re doing what you love (or what you feel you’re called to do), you actually gain energy through your work. ([Location 505](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7FJYF5Y&location=505)) - Tags: [[blue]] - “There are three things you look for: You have to look forward in the morning to doing your work. You do want to have a significant financial reward. And you want to have a possible effect on the world. If you can find all three, you have something you can tell your children.” ([Location 514](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7FJYF5Y&location=514)) - Tags: [[blue]] - “There are a lot of negative things in the world, there’s a lot of terrible things that are happening all over the world, all the time. There are lots of problems that need to get solved, they’re miserable and kind of get you down. But life cannot just be about solving one miserable problem after another, that can’t be the only thing. There needs to be things that inspire you, that make you glad to wake up in the morning and be part of humanity… There was a guy called Tsiolkovsky, one of the early Russian rocket scientists. He had a great saying: ‘Earth is the cradle of humanity, but you cannot stay in the cradle forever.’ It is time to go forth, become a star-faring civilization, be out there among the stars, expand the scope and scale of human consciousness… I find that incredibly exciting. That makes me glad to be alive. I hope you feel the same way.” ([Location 527](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7FJYF5Y&location=527)) - Tags: [[blue]] - Leading from the front builds immense trust and boosts morale significantly. If you are building a company and your employees see that their leader is 100% committed and willing to do whatever it takes to succeed in the mission, they will work an order of magnitude harder. On the other hand, it’s hard to fight for someone who has little skin in the game. ([Location 637](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7FJYF5Y&location=637)) - Tags: [[blue]] - “I lived in the Fremont and Nevada factories for three years fixing that [Tesla] production line, running around like a maniac through every part of that factory, living with the team. I slept on the floor so the team who was going through a hard time could see me on the floor and they knew that I was not in some ivory tower and whatever pain they experienced, I had it more.” ([Location 641](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7FJYF5Y&location=641)) - Tags: [[blue]] - “It’s important for a leader to be at the frontlines. Our biggest challenge is ramping up production and so, what’s that about? It’s about being in the factory and understanding where the issues are. I want the very opposite of being up in an ivory tower, I want to be in the middle of the battle and so that means putting my desk in the middle of the factory. So, that’s where it is [Musk points to his desk in the literal middle of the factory during a tour he gave]” ([Location 644](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7FJYF5Y&location=644)) - Tags: [[blue]] - “The probable lifespan of human civilization is much greater if we are a multi-planet species as opposed to a single-planet species. If we are a single-planet species, then eventually there will be some extinction event, either from humans or some natural thing. Now is the first time in the history of Earth that the window has opened, where it’s possible for us to extend life to another planet. It’s been four and a half billion years—that’s a long time. That window may be open for a long time, and hopefully it is, but it may also be open for a short time. So, I think the wise move is to make life multi-planetary while we can.” ([Location 714](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7FJYF5Y&location=714)) - Tags: [[blue]]