Elon Musk: Don’t Follow Trends—Reason From First Principles or Risk Running Off a Cliff

Elon Musk in 2011: I often see that people do things because there's a trend instead of reasoning from first principles.

“I tend to see that, instead of reasoning from first principles, people will do things because others are doing them, because there is a trend, or they just see everyone going that direction. So, they think that must be a good direction to go. This is sometimes correct, but then sometimes you're going to run off a cliff.

It's much better to really look at things from a first-principles standpoint: What are the most fundamental truths in an arena? And any conclusions that you come to must be derived from those fundamental truths.”

Source: Cleantech Summit, January 2011