This is a translation of "What Working With Elon Musk Taught Me About Success" by Ken Gardner, a serial entrepreneur in Silicon Valley.
I am a serial entrepreneur. With over 40 years in the tech industry, I have founded, taken public, and sold multiple companies. As a result, I have developed a personal perspective on how to succeed and how to avoid failure.
Not everyone goes independent and starts a company. One of the most important things I learned during my years in Silicon Valley is that successful entrepreneurs are intensely positive and confident. And no matter how bad things get, they ultimately demonstrate perseverance and decisiveness. They have both.
Take Elon Musk. I once ran Everdream with Elon, and after four years we wound the company down. He is unbelievably smart, creative, unconventional, and eager to take every risk — even after SpaceX suffered multiple failed launches, he was convinced it would ultimately work. He had no fear. When something went wrong, he was happy to start over from scratch.
Based on what I experienced with him and what I observed, here are some lessons I want to record for entrepreneurs who want to succeed.
Don't rely on luck
Are you truly capable — or were you just lucky? Being in the right place at the right time can lead to early success. There are many founders who have achieved astonishing success exactly once. Some never need to start another company.
It is only when you can vertically launch a second, third, fourth, or fifth company that you truly understand yourself to be an entrepreneur. In Elon's case, he was a founding team member of Zip2, X.com (later PayPal), SpaceX, Tesla, and Solar City.
Laugh it off
Especially when you're trying to motivate your team, you need to develop a sense of humor. Strong negative attitudes and pessimists will predict your failure. But there's no reason to spread negative energy — just make a joke. It's far more effective than yelling at someone.
I always made jokes. Self-deprecating ones, especially. Through humor, employees understood that there were expectations and goals everyone had to clear, and I repeated the joke over and over: "Nobody dies in software." Subjecting people to life-or-death pressure kills creativity and the company itself.
Trust
You may have heard the saying "Trust everyone, but cut the cards." In other words, trust everyone, but don't go deep with just one person. Be fact-driven. Maintain transparency. Be direct and honest.
There is an ironic truth about trust: trust tends to form precisely when it's not needed. Yet the fundamental rule — "don't work with someone you can't trust, no matter how talented or powerful they are" — remains foundational. You don't have time to worry about whether the people you work with have hidden agendas.
Speak up
If you're introverted but aspire to be an entrepreneur, you need to at least learn to fake extroversion when the situation demands it. Leadership requires constant communication. You will be on the front lines with your team, your customers, and your VCs. You must overcome your fear of failure — and more than that, you must be willing to fight the fear and lead your team. It's never straightforward.
We live in an extraordinary time when smart, creative people can easily access capital, pursue their vision of the future, and build wealth by leading confident teams and investors to success. This was never possible before. Be grateful for the many opportunities along every path.
