What did you get done this week?
jasonleow • 7 Oct 2022 •
Killer question I learned this week from the great Elon Musk:
“What did you get done this week?”
Big tech CEO: <Writes many words to persuade, conjole, influence.>
Elon: “What did you get done this week?”
😂😂😂
Tech memes and jokes aside, I found that to be a simple yet piercing question. It’s the simple questions that’s always the most arresting. Especially when asked because someone sees through the BS, from CEO to CEO. Can’t imagine how it feels like to be on the receiving end of that text message!
I love collecting beautiful questions. A great answer stays fixed in time, and might become wrong when the context changes. But a beautiful question is evergreen, always inspiring to reflect on. Ask it each time and you get a different answer. And the most beautiful questions are often the simplest and most unassuming.
This is a great question for self-reflection and journaling, as an entrepreneur, maker, creator.
Did I make anything that moved the needle this week?
Anything that has concrete impact on the mission?
What did I get done this week?
Comments
I have no vested interest in the Church of Twitter, so I can’t wait to pop some popcorn and sit back and watch Elon blow it up.
@viking_sec That’s a good, other side perspective to consider. I don’t disagree - he’s definitely the builder type of CEO who likes to do his own thing at the expense of how others see him. Pretty hard as outsiders to see the objective business situation inside. As a user, I’m on anyone’s side that’s getting more done, making the experience better, as the user experience of Twitter had been pretty disappointing lately.
@therealbrandonwilson It seems like with Elon, everything is popcorn material!
I agree: That is a good question when you ask yourself. Unfortunately, here Musk is using it to manipulate and belittle Agrawal before destroying any relationship he might have had with him. I could even see a good leader asking this question in a meaningful way, but not Musk. This is what Musk says to people before he jettisons them.
Eh. I read that as Elon completely ignoring the business concerns of someone who is doing their best to run a phenomenally stressful business with morale plummeting through the floor due to Elon’s own actions.
What Elon typically doesn’t show much understanding of is that there is more to leadership and management than engineering. It’s why there have been so many complaints of the work culture at Tesla and SpaceX, and why a lot of Twitter employees are trying to leave if Elon takes over. This message convo is a great depiction of that: Parag is trying to lead and is explaining to Elon that what he’s doing is getting in the way of that, and Elon ignores it, instead asking what he’s gotten done. Elon’s texts with Jack display even more engineering hyper focus that is a lot of the reason people are afraid of the Elon buyout.