[SuoDuanDao]

I would disagree and say that Elon Musk has repeatedly cited working twice as hard as everyone else as the key to his success. But the trick he seems to be following is that if you work flat-out on difficult problems until exhaustion, you spend a lot of time in flow state and consequently learn a lot faster than someone who isn't pushing themselves.

[manigandham]

I'm not sure what you disagree with, since it seems to fit with that I'm saying. Elon doesn't focus on the work, he focuses on the results. The effort he puts in is just what's necessary to meet those ambitious goals.

Waking up at 5am because other people are doing it won't get magically get you anywhere. However when you focus on achieving similar goals, you'll probably find yourself getting up at 5am too.

[gph]

Anecdata. There were undoubtedly many other engineers working just as hard as Musk at other startups that never turned into Paypal.

You can credit him and his cohorts for having the foresight to work on products/services that turned out to be winners, especially given that he's followed that success with other potentially successful ventures. But I don't buy that work alone got Musk where he is.