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Elon Musk has built some of the world's most valuable companies, from Tesla to SpaceX. A key driver of his success is a relentless focus on solving problems fast, often by working directly with the engineers or coders who've gotten stuck, Marc Andreessen says.
The legendary venture capitalist shared his insights from working closely with Musk on X, xAI, and SpaceX during a recent episode of the "Modern Wisdom" podcast.
Unlike many CEOs, Musk is devoted to understanding every aspect of his businesses, the Andreessen Horowitz cofounder and general partner said. He's "in the trenches and talking directly to the people who do the work," and acting as the "lead problem solver in the organization."
Musk's businesses include Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, xAI, The Boring Company, and X — formerly Twitter. Andreessen said that every week at each of his companies, Musk "identifies the biggest problem that the company is having that week and he fixes it. And then he does that every week for 52 weeks in a row. And then each of his companies has solved the 52 biggest problems that year, in that year."
In contrast, the bosses of most large corporations spend months or years holding meetings, watching presentations, and conducting legal and compliance reviews before they address their most pressing issues, Andreessen told host Chris Williamson.
Musk sees his businesses almost like assembly lines, and he focuses on removing bottlenecks and speeding up the conveyer belt a little more every week, the billionaire VC and Netscape cofounder said.
His laser focus on fixing problems attracts exceptionally talented people to his companies who want to work extremely hard and meet exacting standards, fueling further success for his businesses, Andreessen said.
When Musk spots a bottleneck, he cuts through the layers of management to talk to the people actually working on the line or writing the code, Andreessen said.
"So he's not asking the VP of engineering to ask the director of engineering to ask the manager to ask the individual contributor to write a report that's to be reviewed in three weeks," the early-stage investor said. "He would throw them all out of the window."
Andreessen said Musk's approach of finding the person grappling with a particular issue, and then working with them to solve it, inspires deep loyalty.
The person thinks "if I'm up against a problem I don't know how to solve, freaking Elon Musk is going to show up in his Gulfstream, and he's going to sit with me overnight in front of the keyboard, or in front of the manufacturing line, and he's going to help me figure this out," the tech guru said.
Musk's strategy of tackling problem after problem has a "catalytic, multiplicative effect" that helps his businesses power ahead of rivals, Andreessen added.
In the past, Musk has been criticized for spreading himself too thin and not allocating enough time, energy, and resources to any one business like Tesla.
The world's wealthiest man has also said at points that he's working too hard and juggling too much, and his "hardcore" management style has been slammed as brutal and mercurial.
But in terms of technical progress and value generation, Musk's approach of getting involved quickly to fix things appears to be paying off.
