Time

Interview with Elon Musk, 29 September 2011.

Content

1 Have people do be focused on doing useful things

So we want to get, have people do be focused on doing useful things. And not involved in sort of internecine politics.

The role of the manager is basically to make sure, you need to be able to decide what is the right strategy, what's the direction to go.

And then make sure people are doing things that are pointed in that direction, and their talents. The opportunity are maximized.

And just sort of like iterate on that loop that's kind of how i think.

2 Ok that the reward will be proportionate to my effort

In terms of recruiting and motivating the best people. You got to make sure it's a reasonably fun work environment.

So if you were looking forward to coming to work in the morning.

It's a lot easier to be productive and focused about if you're interested in what you are doing and you're looking forward to it than if your minds trying to escape and feels like prison where you leave at 5.pm or som like that.

And then the others that is financial reward needs to be commensurate with the effort expended.

So if there work really hard they gonna think "Ok that the reward will be proportionate to my effort".

Obviously if you have a situation where you see somebody is highly rewarded for doing much less effort than you then that's demotivating.

So you want to avoid situations like that.

3 Change the world

The third thing is i think if people think that what they're working at on it there's a greater cause that there's something that can change the world, then i think that's also a motivating factor.

Not everything changes the world or changes to various degrees, but i think for the most talented and driven people it's very important that there be a larger purpose.