As we are building @bumblebeespaces, the most important lesson I have internalized is the power of ITERATING (or embracing change) - in business, engineering, and design. A few life lessons from my days at @Tesla.

The reason $TSLA is so far ahead of competition and has compounding growth in hardware and software has root in a simple way @tesla and specifically, @elonmusk runs "E.C.O.s."

ECO stands for "engineering change orders" that are rolled into the manufacturing line to enable changes to the parts, assemblies and are done to improve quality, reliability, performance, etc. In other companies, running ECOs is the most boring job you can have as an engineer.

Not at @Tesla. ECOs at Tesla are run by "special forces" - ninjas bringing features, upgrades into the product.

What's mind-blowing is that Tesla runs dozens (maybe 100+) of ECOs EVERY WEEK! For any engineer building physical products with long life-time value, that can seem RIDICULOUS! Imagine the amount of "old generation" products in the field to support! Not for the faint hearted…

Most product companies freeze their release version and aim for stagnation (or stable version) and a B-team of engineers support the on-going cost-reductions, warranties, in-field services, etc. Again, not @tesla. Tesla is iterating even as they ramp!

For instance, a Model S produced 2 weeks apart could have 100+ different parts, vendors, manufacturing processes, firmware, etc. This has been going on since Tesla was born. For customers, it may appear like the same car, but far from it!

This is also the reason that @elonmusk doesn't do annual refreshes. The refresh is a continuum and that's where the compounding effects come in. This is beyond the "Kaizen" continuous improvement for efficiency. It's a micro-product development in every change order.

The concept of “frozen design” doesn’t exist and being comfortable with continuous change is exciting and unnerving at the same time!

The way I see the continuous improvement at Tesla, is similar to the “Creativity Faucet” that @Julian writes about here: https://twitter.com/Julian/status/1327765347936522240?s=20

@elonmusk generates blockbusters through flowing ideas at scale with high rigor. What’s not visible to the world is the daily compounding of the iterations.

There’s a reservoir of possibilities with Tesla and @elonmusk has been letting the creativity faucet flow through the production line. There’s a very high bar to introducing an ECO. It’s not trial and error. It’s real engineering. Hence, the nature of special forces.

It’s also a choreography between engineering and manufacturing. The ability to roll in changes at scale like that is no joke. Also, @elonmusk is truly anti-sunk cost, it’s liberating for new ideas to come in at any moment in the product cycle.

Key takeaways:
- Let ideas flow and act on it continuously with high rigor to iterate (sludge at first, clear water over time)
- Embrace change, don’t shoot for stagnation
- Screw sunk cost… it’s liberating
- Hire special forces only (So proud of @bumblebeespaces team)