Sleeping on an office couch is one thing. Having a girlfriend spend the night there because it’s the only way she’d see you is another.
Long before Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX (SPCX) CEO Elon Musk became the world’s richest person, he and his brother, Kimbal Musk, were living inside their startup. They showered at the YMCA, lived on inexpensive meals from Jack in the Box, shared a single computer, and worked so relentlessly that, years later, Musk pointed to that stretch as proof that founders willing to outwork everyone else can gain a powerful edge.
Musk shared the story during the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business commencement ceremony in 2014, where he argued that extraordinary companies are rarely built on ordinary effort.
The 100-Hour Formula
“You need to work super hard,” Musk said.
To explain why, he looked back at the early days of Zip2, the software company he co-founded with his brother and Greg Kouri. Instead of renting an apartment, the Musk brothers leased a small office, slept on the couch, and showered at the YMCA to save money. They could only afford one computer, so the website stayed online during the day while Musk wrote code throughout the night, seven days a week.
He even recalled having a short-lived girlfriend who ended up sleeping in the office because it was the only way they could spend time together.
For Musk, the advantage came down to simple arithmetic.
“If somebody else is working 50 hours a week and you’re working 100, you’ll get twice as much done in the course of the year as the other company.”
The rest of the commencement speech echoed the same philosophy. Musk urged graduates to hire exceptional people, focus on signal instead of noise, think from first principles rather than following conventional wisdom, and take meaningful risks while they still had time to recover from failure.
A Career Built on Beating the Odds
Musk has spent much of his career chasing goals that many people dismissed as impossible. Tesla came within weeks of running out of cash during the 2008 financial crisis. SpaceX endured three consecutive rocket failures before finally reaching orbit on its fourth attempt. Rather than walking away, Musk poured his remaining resources into keeping both companies alive.
That persistence has become one of his defining traits. Whether the challenge involved reusable rockets, electric vehicles, or artificial intelligence, Musk has repeatedly argued that difficult problems are worth pursuing if the outcome could change the future.
His remarks about 100-hour workweeks weren’t meant to glorify exhaustion for its own sake. They reflected his belief that, particularly during a startup’s earliest days, speed of execution can become a competitive advantage.
More than a decade after the speech, that advice remains one of Musk’s most frequently cited observations about entrepreneurship.
What It Means for Investors
Musk’s philosophy isn’t a blueprint most people want to follow. Few are willing to sleep on an office couch, survive on fast food, or work 100-hour weeks in pursuit of a startup dream.
Investors, however, don’t have to build the next Tesla to benefit from entrepreneurial success. They can own shares in companies led by founders with that same relentless drive once those businesses reach the public markets.
Tesla is perhaps the best-known example. Investors who recognized Musk’s long-term vision and tolerated years of volatility have been rewarded with one of the stock market’s biggest success stories. While not every founder or company will deliver those kinds of returns, Musk’s comments offer a reminder that some of the world’s most valuable businesses were built by entrepreneurs willing to endure years of sacrifice before the payoff arrived.
On the date of publication, Caleb Naysmith did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.
