Mar 24, 2026 · 20 min · 12 segments
Love him or hate him, Elon Musk has upended entire industries - from cars to rockets - by doing things differently. Jon McNeill, former president of Tesla, reveals the thinking behind Tesla and…
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What is the first step of that algorithm, and how did it shape the way Tesla was built?
This algorithm got developed over time, basically through the mistakes that we had made, and we did a lot of time riffing and reflecting on mistakes that we've made.
And the first step of the algorithm comes from a number of experiences, and that is question every requirement.
Ask if those requirements are a requirement of law, of physics or safety, and ask for the name of the person who came up with the requirement so you can go interrogate whether that is really true or not.
And then we started s- to brainstorm, could we sell a hundred thousand dollar product online sight unseen? Like, how would we do that? And one of the things we always concentrated on was the friction that we would put between ourselves and the customer.
And Elon asked me, like, "How many clicks does it take to buy a Tesla?" And I happened to know.
I said, "Sixty-four." And he said, "Just for fun, just for kicks, pull out the Domino's app.
He's like, "Let's get it down to ten." And I said, "Well, forty-four of the sixty clicks are in one document, and that is the loan or lease document.
But let me figure out if there's a way around that." And so I went and questioned the requirement of every paragraph that was in a loan document.
It's well-meaning corporate at-attorneys who are trying to protect their bank, but none of this stuff matters." So I went back to the next week's brainstorming session with Elon.
I'm like, "Do you know what? What I just heard was twelve pages of loan docs that everybody assumes are required aren't required.
It can be done in one paragraph." So I went and talked to, like, ten different banks.
What is the first step of that algorithm, and how did it shape the way Tesla was built?
This algorithm got developed over time, basically through the mistakes that we had made, and we did a lot of time riffing and reflecting on mistakes that we've made.
And the first step of the algorithm comes from a number of experiences, and that is question every requirement.
Ask if those requirements are a requirement of law, of physics or safety, and ask for the name of the person who came up with the requirement so you can go interrogate whether that is really true or not.
And then we started s- to brainstorm, could we sell a hundred thousand dollar product online sight unseen? Like, how would we do that? And one of the things we always concentrated on was the friction that we would put between ourselves and the customer.
And Elon asked me, like, "How many clicks does it take to buy a Tesla?" And I happened to know.
I said, "Sixty-four." And he said, "Just for fun, just for kicks, pull out the Domino's app.
He's like, "Let's get it down to ten." And I said, "Well, forty-four of the sixty clicks are in one document, and that is the loan or lease document.
But let me figure out if there's a way around that." And so I went and questioned the requirement of every paragraph that was in a loan document.
It's well-meaning corporate at-attorneys who are trying to protect their bank, but none of this stuff matters." So I went back to the next week's brainstorming session with Elon.
I'm like, "Do you know what? What I just heard was twelve pages of loan docs that everybody assumes are required aren't required.
It can be done in one paragraph." So I went and talked to, like, ten different banks.
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From 64 Clicks To Ten
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