“First principle is reasoning. Boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there as opposed to reasoning by analogy. Through most of our lives we get through life by reason by analogies, which is copying what other people do with slight variations. You have to do that otherwise mentally you wouldn’t be able to get through the day. But when you want to do something new, you have to apply the physics approach. Physics is figuring out how to something that’s counter-intuitive like quantum mechanics. So I think that’s an important thing to do. And also to really pay attention to negative feedback and solicit it, particularly from friends. This may sound like simple advice but hardly anyone does that and it’s incredibly helpful.” - Elon Musk via TedTalks