What is "first principle"?

If someone told you five years ago that he wanted to build a driverless car, he would also dig a tunnel that could run supersonic high-speed rail, and then make a rocket that could travel freely, and immigrate 6.5438 million people to Mars. You must think this man is a whimsical madman!

However, these absurd dreams are really coming true step by step. This man is elon musk, CEO of Tesla.

Elon musk, elon musk

Musk's fields are staggering: from online payment to driverless cars, super tunnels, solar energy, aerospace technology and Mars immigration.

Zip2, Paypal, Space Exploration Technology, SolarCity, Hyperloop, Tesla, all these dazzling companies have Musk behind them.

Among them, Space Exploration Technology Company is the fourth organization that can launch and recycle spacecraft after the United States, Russia and China.

Super tunnel concept video

How did elon musk do so many difficult things?

In an interview with TED, he revealed that the thinking mode he admired was "first-principles thinking", and translating it into Chinese was first-principles thinking.

1)

What is first-principles thinking? In fact, it is a deductive thinking.

We might as well start with its definition.

"First principles" is a technical term in physics, which refers to some hard rules or conclusions drawn from them. In contrast, "empirical parameters" are regular conclusions drawn through a large number of examples. (Refer to Baidu Encyclopedia)

Simply put, first principles refer to a theorem, or the inference of a theorem.

So, why is a physical concept so admired by elon musk? How to apply it to business?

If you study the definition carefully, you will find that "first principle" and "empirical parameters" are actually two ways of thinking of human beings-deduction and induction.

The "first principle" is a kind of deductive thinking, which is derived from the law of 1 or more, or it is itself a law;

"Empirical parameter" is an inductive thinking, which infers a rule from n known data or phenomena.

What's the difference between them? Give an example to illustrate.

The captain observed an iceberg ahead.

A captain A who is good at inductive thinking will think like this: The iceberg I met last time had a big iceberg underwater, so did the iceberg I met last time, and so did the iceberg encountered by Titanic, so there must be a big iceberg under this iceberg. It seems that I have to go around it carefully.

A captain B who is good at deductive thinking will think like this: observing this iceberg moving means that it floats in the water. According to the principle of buoyancy, F float =G row (that is, the buoyancy of an object is equal to the gravity of the liquid displaced when it sinks), so there must be an iceberg with a large enough volume hidden underwater. It seems that I have to go around carefully.

Although all roads lead to the same goal, it is obvious that these are two completely different ways of thinking. This sentence is very important, which I will mention later.

People are always more accustomed to summing up laws and solving problems with inductive thinking. For example:

Employee A has outstanding sales performance and high telephone volume; Employee b has outstanding sales performance and high telephone volume; ……。

Therefore, it is concluded that the telephone volume is an important indicator affecting sales performance, so KPI increases the assessment of telephone volume.

This is a very common phenomenon in our work. However, it is not a unique phenomenon brought by China's education and culture, but that all human beings are more inclined to use induction.

If you use deduction, how would you think about this sales problem?

What is sales?

It is a process of bringing products into contact with customers, stimulating customers' desire to buy and realizing transactions.

Therefore, sales can be divided into three stages:

Step 1. Let the customer contact the product → Step 2. Stimulate the desire to buy → Step 3. Transaction process.

Step 1 can be divided into official website exhibition, telephone sales and sample delivery; Similarly, the second step can also be divided into official website advertising copywriting and telemarketing terms.

Therefore, if you want to improve the output of 1 step and step 2, you can increase the phone volume. (Note that at this time, the conclusion of deductive method and inductive thinking will reach the same goal again. Marked as conclusion one. )

However, if you look at it from another angle, you can also find out why it is necessary to use telemarketing. Can step 1 and step 2 become new media marketing, e-commerce marketing and online celebrity marketing? (At this point, the difference between deduction and induction appears. Marked as conclusion two. )

Seeing this, you should know the difference between induction and deduction.

Induction can only summarize the laws of the facts that have happened, and often ignores the new things that have not happened internally. However, subversive innovation has not happened, and it is difficult to create subversive products with inductive thinking.

Limitations of induction

2)

Can you become Elon Musk with deductive thinking? Of course not!

Since elon musk put forward the first principle, it immediately spread in the Internet circle, and there are many articles on the Internet explaining what the "first principle" is. I have seen many people interpret it this way:

First-principles thinking is a way of thinking that "traces back to the source". Everything must find the fundamental problem, which can also be called essential thinking.

Then the reader immediately understood that the old wine in the new bottle had been used at work. I also saw an employee of Toyota commenting at the bottom of an article, "We have been doing this all the time. It is called root cause method in manufacturing industry. " This means that everyone already knows this, and this is not elon musk's unique secret book at all.

But unfortunately, this explanation is actually wrong, misleading many people.

First-principles thinking ≠ Tracing to the source, root cause method, essential thinking method.

Think back to the two examples mentioned before, the iceberg case and the sales case. From this we can find two important conclusions:

First, induction and deduction sometimes reach the same conclusion (refer to the conclusion of iceberg and the conclusion of traffic). This shows that the same conclusion does not necessarily mean the same way of thinking.

Secondly, by deduction, there are two conclusions (refer to the conclusion of telephone volume 1 and conclusion 2). This shows that the same way of thinking, different thinking depths and angles may bring different conclusions.

According to these two important conclusions, we will make new discoveries-

1, according to Article 1: The same conclusion is not necessarily the same way of thinking.

It can be inferred that even if the first-principles thinking and tracing method often reach the same conclusion, it does not mean that they are the same.

2. According to Article 2: The same way of thinking, different thinking depths and angles may lead to different conclusions.

It can be inferred that the same deductive method, first-principles thinking and tracing method adopt different angles, and the conclusions may be different.

In other words, first-principles thinking is a kind of deductive thinking, and tracing to the source and root cause method are also deductive thinking, but they are not the same. And if they think differently, they may come to different conclusions.

That's why big business people with the depth and breadth like elon musk can't be like elon musk. Even people who are good at using deductive thinking are more accustomed to using the deductive method of "tracing to the source". First-principles thinking, a kind of deductive thinking, is only known by very few people.

By the way, I don't mean that different angles of thinking will lead to different conclusions. The reason why people confuse first-principles thinking with traceability thinking is precisely because their conclusions are often the same, and they will mistakenly think that they are the same kind of thinking. )

So, what's the difference between these two deductive methods? You can see the difference intuitively through the fishbone diagram.

Tracing the source method is to start from the problem and analyze the reasons behind the problem step by step until the final reason (yes 1 or n) is found.

Tracing back to the source: starting from the problem

The first-principles thinking method is to start from the principle and deduce it step by step until a suitable solution to the problem is found (1 or n).

First principle: proceed from principle.

Therefore, the basic principle thinking and the traceability thinking are different. One is to deduce the root cause from the problem; One is to deduce the solution from the principle.

Let's carefully analyze why different starting points will bring different results.

The differences brought about by two different concepts

If we use the thinking of tracing the source and start from the problem, then it can find the subpath 1→ path 1→ first principle step by step; But it is difficult to find path 2, path 3 and path 4, because this way of thinking is derived from the problem. The new path (innovation) is only hidden in path 2, path 3 and path 4. This is the fundamental reason why thinking with first principles can often bring subversive innovation!

This is the real reason why elon musk highly praised the first-principles thinking.

If you have read the book The Innovator's Dilemma, you may have a deeper feeling about this sentence, because you can understand the importance of enterprise innovation more clearly.

Looking at the picture above, smart friends may find a problem, that is, the limitations of first-principles thinking.

No principle or law can solve all the problems in the world. Therefore, if the problem is not in your first-principles system, then you can't find a solution by using the first-principles thinking method.

What should we do?

Keep collecting.

The basic principle is a law or a model. The more you collect, the more questions you can answer.

Charles Munger, Buffett's most important partner, once said that he loves learning, especially interdisciplinary learning. In this way, he collected more than 65,438+000 thinking models to make investment strategies.

Charlie Thomas Munger

Thanks to Munger for pointing out a shortcut for us. The shortcut to cultivate first-principle thinking is interdisciplinary learning!

Don't just read business books. In fact, great wisdom is scattered in various disciplines. Newton's three laws of physics, biological evolution theory and seemingly unrelated economic laws are all good first principles. After careful and repeated deduction, you will definitely find a thinking mode that suits you.

Finally, all idea about that basic principles are here:

1, the first definite thinking is a deductive thinking, but it is different from the traceability method;

2. Thinking with the first principle can often bring subversive innovation, which is difficult to achieve by other ways of thinking;

3. First-principles thinking has limitations, and the best way to avoid this embarrassment is to collect more first-principles;

4. Interdisciplinary learning is a shortcut to collect first principles.