Nathaniel Oliver > Quotes

“My biggest mistake is probably weighing too much on someone’s talent and not someone’s personality. I think it matters whether someone has a good heart.” – Elon Musk”
― Nathaniel Oliver, Elon Musk: Renaissance Man

“The fear of failure can be more crippling than failure itself. While it can be the case that people bite off more than they chew, innovation entails risk.”
― Nathaniel Oliver, Elon Musk: Renaissance Man

“If you want to do something really innovative, you have to apply a sort of first principles analysis. And don’t reason by analogy. Analogies are referencing the past. First principles mean you look at the most fundamental truths in a particular arena, the things that really are almost indisputably correct, and you reason up from there to a conclusion. And if you see that that conclusion is at odds with what people generally believe, then you have an opportunity. You can’t operate like that on all things, because it takes too much mental horsepower, so most of your life, you have to operate by reasoning by analogy, but if you really want to innovate, you must reason from first principles to identify the problem.” - Elon Musk”
― Nathaniel Oliver, Elon Musk: Renaissance Man

“There's a tremendous bias against taking risks. Everyone is trying to optimize their ass-covering." - Elon Musk”
― Nathaniel Oliver, Elon Musk: Renaissance Man

“Technology leadership is not defined by patents.” - Elon Musk”
― Nathaniel Oliver, Elon Musk: Renaissance Man

“The crucial lesson to remember is that if someone has confidence that something will succeed, grounded in a realistic estimation of the risks involved, then fear is just another obstacle to success. Taking risks without anticipating the consequences is foolish, of course, but if you have examined a situation thoroughly and still believe that there is a way through it, it may be worth the risk involved after all.”
― Nathaniel Oliver, Elon Musk: Renaissance Man

“For my part, I will never give up, and I mean never.” - Elon Musk”
― Nathaniel Oliver, Elon Musk: Renaissance Man