The gist: If you want to solve hard problems in unique ways, "first principles thinking" is the strategy that works for the world's most creative people. "If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes."
The gist: If you want to solve hard problems in unique ways, "first principles thinking" is the strategy that works for the world's most creative people. "If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes."
We normally use existing methodologies and analogies to solve problems, which is essentially short-cut thinking. Engaging in 'First Principles Thinking' makes us discard existing knowledge, and get down to the essentials, exploring on our own and questioning everything. This uncharted terrain takes us to the absolute truth which we call the First Principle. When we understand the core of the problem, we can build creative and unique solutions.
By the age of 46 years old, Elon Musk has innovated and built three revolutionary multibillion dollar companies in completely different fields - Paypal (Financial Services), Tesla Motors (Automotive) and SpaceX (Aerospace). This list doesn't even include Solar City (Energy), which he helped build and acquired for $2.6 Billion recently.
First principles thinking: actively questioning every assumption you think you know about a given problem or scenario and then creating new knowledge and solutions from scratch.
Reasoning by analogy: building knowledge and solving problems based on prior assumptions, beliefs and widely held ‘best practices’ approved by majority of people.