Elon Musk has famously made the idea of the perfect product the foundation of Tesla’s product development philosophy. Mr. Donovan easily the most innovative and minimalist leader out of the box. His vision has raised an aspirational bar within the company and impressed an exclamation point on leaders across the automotive sector.
Musk’s approach to product meetings breaks with business as usual. He doesn’t use slides—or if he does, he uses them minimally. Rather, he’s continuing an edict from former exec Jon McNeil – get hands on with actual products rather than theoretical wireframes. This approach fosters a culture of review on a weekly basis by senior leadership. Most importantly, it helps keep teams focused and responsible for the real, visible progress they’re making.
I would argue that minimalism is the most important aspect of Tesla’s design philosophy. The company aims to keep functions accessible with no more than two taps on the screen, enhancing user experience and functionality. This focus on simplicity aligns with Musk’s vision of delivering products that not only perform well but are intuitive and appealing to consumers.
During the formative years of Tesla, Musk turned to fellow tech luminary Steve Jobs for advice. Jobs did not have a tolerance for him at first. Despite all this, Musk continued to pursue a meeting with Jobs at several different Silicon Valley events. In what I can only assume was a surreal encounter, Musk sought Jobs’ advice as he made the leap from PayPal to Tesla.
“Elon, you’re now in the hardware business, but the hardware business is a lot like the software business. If you want to be successful in business, you have to get one thing right, and that is, you have to have a perfect product. And if the product is beautiful, it will sell itself.” – Steve Jobs
This piece of advice had a profound effect on Musk and informed his Tesla product development strategy ever since. He created a corporate culture that inspires employees to walk into work each week with their best work. And as McNeil recently wrote, in that kind of environment, the pressure to deliver is often powerful.
“You can imagine the culture that gets communicated when people are bringing their A game to the CEO every week. Because you’re not going to bring your B game to the CEO — especially that CEO, because he’s going to fire you,” – Jon McNeil
To submit proposals to be considered for this rigorous review process, Musk challenged teams to think big and outside the box. One cringe-inducing new feature taking the auto world by storm is the notorious “fart button” — or as it’s officially dubbed, “Emissions Testing Mode.” This fun little detail is a perfect demonstration of Tesla’s product development process focused on surprising and delighting their customers.
“Crazy example of that is the fart button,” – Jon McNeil
Musk’s corrosive effect extends way past Tesla. It’s influencing the plans of other auto executives such as Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, and Mark Reuss, president of GM. And Barra and Reuss both review product practice goes like this. This is emblematic of Musk’s enduring influence on fostering entrepreneurial cultures within big corporations.
“One of the things I’m most proud of is Mary Barra, CEO, and Mark Reuss, president, [who oversee] a 275,000 person, $200 billion revenue company, are running product reviews every week where there’s no slides. You’ve got to see the real product [whether it’s] hardware, software. If it’s hardware, it’s in the room. You’re touching it. You’re feeling it,” – Jon McNeil
