The Power Of Visual Thinking

What Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein and Leonardo Da Vinci share in common...

Hello Friend!

Today I picked a nugget from Lex Fridman’s interview with Walter Isaacson — a renowned biographer who recently published a 736-page biography of Elon Musk.

I hope you find it valuable :)

👤 Author

💡Nugget

Question from Lex Fridman:
“Is there [thinking] parallels you see between Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein and Leonardo Da Vinci?”

[Below you can see Walter's response]

✦ Walter Isaacson:

I think they were all visual thinkers.

…

I think visualizing helps a lot.

And with [Elon] Musk, I see it all the time when I'm walking the factory lines with him. Or in Product Development where he'll look at say… the heat shield under the raptor engine of a Starship booster and he'll say:

“Why does it have to be this way? Couldn't we trim it this way? Or even get rid of this part of it?”

And he can visualize the material science.

At one point he's on the Tesla line and they're trying to get 5,000 cars a week in 2018. It's a life or death situation. And he's looking at the machines that are bolting something to the chassis and he insists that Lars Moravy—one of his great lieutenants—come [to see]. And he [Elon] says: "Why are there six bolts here?"

And Lars [Moravy] and others explained: “Well, for the crash tests or anything else, the pressure would be in this way, so you have to…”

And he [Elon] said: “No. If you visualize it, you'll see if there's a crash the force would go this way and that way, and it could be done with four bolts.”

Now that sounds risky—and they go test it and they engineer it—but it turns out to be right!

I know that seems minor, but I could give you 500 of those—where in any given day he's visualizing the physics of an engineering or manufacturing problem.

That sounds pretty mundane.

But for me, if you say what makes him [Elon] special, is [that] he cares not just about the design of the product, but visualizing the manufacturing of the product—the machine that makes the machine.

I don't think you can be a good innovator if you don't know how to make the stuff you're designing. And that's why Musk puts his designer's desk right next to the assembly lines in the factories… So that they have to visualize what they drew as it becomes the physical object.

“The design is not just what it looks like and feels like. The design is how it works.”
- Steve Jobs


“Among the masters of Parisian fashion, Balenciaga was the greatest. Indeed, many would rate him the most original and creative couturier. And he was a true couturier, not just a fashion designer. That is, he could design, sew, cut, fit and finish. And some of his finest dresses, were entirely his own work”.
- Paul Johnson (from his book - Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney)

📁 All the ideas in this article are saved and classified in a searchable Database, which (as of July 2024) contains nearly 2,000 timeless ideas (sourced directly from the most influential doers and entrepreneurs — captured on books, interviews/podcasts and articles).

I call this Database the Doers Notebook, and I’ve recently opened it for anyone who wants it.

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“In an age of infinite leverage [code and media], judgment is the most important skill.”

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I actually made a video where I went through the list of insights I got for the keywords “sales” and “creative”.

So, if you wanna get better at sales and learn to be more creative (and also see all the features of the database and how you can get access) then definitely check out the video 👇

💥 Stuff I Loved

Highlight from The Anthology of Balaji by Eric Jorgenson and Balaji Srinivasan:

Some people believe value comes directly from labor. They price something based on the number of labor hours that went into it. If it takes five hours of a surgeon’s time to do some procedure, it will be really expensive. If it takes one hour, then it is cheaper. At first that seems reasonable, except people pay for the value provided to them. They pay for the impact on them, not the cost to provide it. It might take a lot of time for you to handcraft one chair, but a chair manufactured on an assembly line may be cheaper and better. Even though the first chair might have more labor going into it, the second chair may cost less and have higher quality. Rather than the “labor theory of value,” I think about the “technology theory of value.” The actual value injection is from technology. Think about using a light bulb rather than having humans running around...

I highlighted this passage on my Kindle, and it automatically went to my Readwise account. I use Readwise to frequently revisit all my highlights (ideas that resonated with me) from ebooks, articles and tweets! You can use my 👉 affiliate link to get a 60-day free trial! (2x the usual trial length)

Jeff Bezos is asked: “What is your one hot tip for somebody on the onset of their career?”. His response was really insightful and inspiring…

I’ve been binge watching many of his interviews on YouTube! And recently I created a playlist with all the interviews I could find!

This was the last interview of Charlie Munger ♡

Wishing you a Happy Christmas! 🎄 🎄🎄

Julio xx

P.S. If you liked this article, you'll definitely enjoy my free 80-page ebook. It’s packed with 23 big ideas (from top influential doers and entrepreneurs) to become better, richer and wiser. Download your copy here!