This was Musk's explanation of the thinking method behind his most ambitious ventures. Reasoning by analogy — doing something because that's how it's always been done, or because that's what competitors do — was how most people and most companies operated. First principles thinking was the alternative: strip away all assumptions and rebuild from the ground up. Musk noted the method was 'developed by physicists to figure out counterintuitive things like quantum mechanics, so it's really a powerful, powerful method.' He acknowledged it was hard — 'we can't think that way about everything, it takes a lot of effort' — but insisted it was essential for anyone trying to create something genuinely new. This was the thinking that led Musk to conclude rockets could be built for a fraction of the existing cost (SpaceX), that electric cars didn't have to be slow and ugly (Tesla), and that solar energy could be integrated into roofing materials (SolarCity).