Fuel Your Ambition: 40 Quotes from Elon Musk to Drive Innovation\"

1. "When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favour."

2. "I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary."

3. Persistence is very important. You should not give up unless you are forced to give up."

4. "If something is important enough, even if the odds are against you, you should still do it."

5. "I say something, and then it usually happens. Maybe not on schedule, but it usually happens."

6. "It's OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket."

7. "If you get up in the morning and think the future is going to be better, it is a bright day. Otherwise, it's not."

8. "I think it's very important to have a feedback loop, where you're constantly thinking about what you've done and how you could be doing it better."

9. "I think that's the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself."

10. "It's very important to like the people you work with, otherwise life and your job is gonna be quite miserable."

11. "I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary."

12. "The first step is to establish that something is possible; then probability will occur."

13. "I think it's possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary."

14. "Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment."

15. "Work like hell. I mean you just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week. [This] improves the odds of success."

16. "The path to the CEO's office should not be through the CFO's office, and it should not be through the marketing department. It needs to be through engineering and design."

17. "When Henry Ford made cheap, reliable cars, people said, 'Nah, what's wrong with a horse?' That was a huge bet he made, and it worked."

18. "It's definitely true that the fundamental enabling technology for electric cars is lithium-ion as a cell chemistry technology. That's why Tesla doesn't spend money on advertising, it's word of mouth."

19. "I don't create companies for the sake of creating companies, but to get things done."

20. "I think it's very important to have a feedback loop, where you're constantly thinking about what you've done and how you could be doing it better."

21. "There's a tremendous bias against taking risks. Everyone is trying to optimise their ass-covering."

22. "I think the best way to attract venture capital is to try and come up with a demonstration of whatever product or service it is and ideally take that as far as you can. Just see if you can sell that to real customers and start generating some momentum."

23. "Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time. Sometimes it will be ahead, other times it will be behind. But a brand is simply a collective impression some have about a product."

24. "People work better when they know what the goal is and why. It is important that people look forward to coming to work in the morning and enjoy working."

25. "When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favour."

26. "I always have optimism, but I'm realistic. It was not with the expectation of great success that I started Tesla or SpaceX... It's just that I thought they were important enough to do anyway."

27. "Great companies are built on great products."

28. "The lessons of history would suggest that civilisations move in cycles. You can track that back quite far — the Babylonians, the Sumerians, followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, China. We're obviously in a very upward cycle right now, and hopefully, that remains the case. But it may not."

29. "There's a tremendous bias against taking risks. Everyone is trying to optimise their ass-covering."

30. "You shouldn't do things differently just because they're different. They need to be... better."

31. "I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary."

32. "Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment."

33. "Don't confuse education with schooling. I didn't go to Harvard, but the people that work for me did."

34. "If you're trying to create a company, it's like baking a cake. You have to have all the ingredients in the right proportion."

35. "I could either watch it happen or be a part of it."

36. "It's OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket."

37. "I don't think it's a good idea to plan to sell a company."

38. "I think it's very important to have a feedback loop, where you're constantly thinking about what you've done and how you could be doing it better."

39. "If you're a co-founder or CEO, you have to do all kinds of tasks you might not want to do... If you don't do your chores, the company won't succeed... No task is too menial."

40. "It's very important to like the people you work with, otherwise life and your job is gonna be quite miserable.