First principles thinking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_principle
The first principle
The first principle is something that dates back to good old Aristotle over 2,000 years ago. It is defined “as the first basis from which a thing is known”. It is a concept that top industry leaders like Elon Musk use on a regular occurrence. At its core, it breaks down a thought process to the beginning, instead of building on what is known.
Let me give an example: Let’s say you want to create the next great dinner table. One way of thinking is, “Well, let’s find the best table on the market and have a think tank figure out all the tiny flaws, then come up with creative ways to fix them. Like, we should add a built-in ridge to hold cups so they don’t spill — that would make this table much better.”
The way a first principle thinker would attack it, would be to say, “Forget the traditional table of four legs and a square or circle shape. What are we trying to solve here? Is it a place for people to eat meals and put their stuff down? Maybe we can get rid of the entire tabletop and simply have small floating orbs that have no restrictions and you have barely any tabletop.”
Break it down
So, instead of building on what you know or are told, we would do the opposite — break things down to their most basic form and then address the same question.
Reason from First Principles
- from the article “Top 10 Elon Musk Productivity Secrets for Insane Success”
In 2004, Musk called a supplier to get the price of an electromechanical actuator. The supplier quoted $120,000.
Reasoning from first principles, Musk broke down the components needed and asked Steve Davis, now SpaceX’s director of advanced projects, to build one from scratch for under $5,000. Davis spent nine months designing and building the actuator for $3,900, which flew to space inside the Falcon 1 rocket.
I tend to approach things from a physics framework. And physics teaches you to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. - Elon Musk
A first principle is a basic assumption that can’t be deduced from any other proposition. It’s the only sure thing in a complex problem.
Musk reasons from first principles, rather than by analogy (such as previous experiences). This way you build your reasoning from the ground up:
“You look at the fundamentals and construct your reasoning from that and then see if you have a conclusion that works or doesn’t work. And it may or may not be different from what people have done in the past. It’s harder to think that way, though.”
Here’s an example of first principles reasoning, from Musk himself: “What is a rocket made of? Aerospace-grade aluminum alloys, plus some titanium, copper, and carbon fiber. Then I asked, what is the value of those materials on the commodity market? It turned out that the materials cost of a rocket was around two percent of the typical price.”
Instead of buying a rocket for millions of dollars, Musk decided to purchase the raw materials for cheap and build the rockets himself in his own company.
And SpaceX was born.
Application in daily life
Reasoning from first principles forces you to think differently. First Principles is about getting to the root cause of the problem. You have to break down the problem into its basic elements.
There are three main steps to apply this thinking framework:
- Identify and define current assumptions: when faced with a problem, write down your current assumptions about it
- Break it down into the fundamental principles: find the most basic truths or elements of the problem. Is Musk’s words: “Boil things down to the most fundamental truths and say ‘okay, what are we sure is true’…and then reason up from there.”
- Create new solutions: if you deconstructed the problem following the first two steps, you are now ready to create new solutions from scratch
Reading material
- A very good article: The Cook and the Chef: Musk’s Secret Sauce