Elon Musk's Tesla Strategy: Win Big by Falling Short
The Musk Doctrine: Never set a deadline you’re likely to keep.
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Tesla Motors Inc.'s chief executive officer, Elon Musk, is known for making the future come early. Yet somehow he's always running behind schedule. Some would call this a failure of management, but it might just be a business strategy. Call it the Musk Doctrine.
It goes something like this: People do paradigm-shifting work only when they’re under tremendous pressure, so the key is to ensure deadlines are always impossible. This could help explain why Musk has never launched a product on time, yet no one seems able to keep up with him. It drives Wall Street nuts.