Sean Kelly Profile picture
Jun 10 12 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Elon Musk fired 80% of Twitter (6500 people) and everyone thought that Twitter was doomed.

He was right. Everyone was wrong.

It’s the management masterclass of the decade and every entrepreneur must understand why it worked 🧵: Image
Disclaimer: The intention of this thread is not to support layoffs. They suck for everyone involved, especially those who are let go.

Rather, my objective is to show that often it's best to zig when everyone else is zagging.

And that smaller teams often perform best.
After the right-sizing, Twitter has rolled out more features than they ever could before.

Andrej Karpathy, who worked directly under Elon, explains 4 ways Elon runs his companies differently 👇
1. Small, strong, and highly technical teams

Elon is against large teams. To give you a context, look at the people he has fired over time.

Why? Because he understands Parkinson's Law pretty well.

Let me explain: Image
Parkinson's law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

So no matter how many people you allocate to a task, they will feel busy.

Due to the excess of time, they'll start focusing on less important tasks.

Small teams help you avoid that. Image
2. Wants the workplace to be vibrant

Elon wants to nurture activity and people doing their best work.

So people are always pacing around, coding, and prioritizing getting real work done.

There's not much pampering - you're simply expected to do great technical work.
There are also NO large meetings.

Anyone can walk out of a meeting if they're not contributing or don't feel they need to be there.

According to Elon, small teams make quick and independent decisions.

Look at the email he wrote to employees 👇 Image
3. Skip layers and stay ultra-connected to the teams

Companies have different layers you need to cross to get in touch w/ the CEO.

But Elon knows that only the person working on the project knows it best.

So he spends 99% of the time talking to them. Not to VPs/Directors.
4. Remove bottlenecks wherever possible

Elon is so involved that he removes bottlenecks as soon as he learns about them.

A company usually goes through tons of exercises and documented procedures to solve an issue.

But when Elon learns of them, he tries to solve immediately.
RT the first tweet if you found this thread valuable.

Follow me @seanpk for more threads on entrepreneurship, investing and human performance.
A bit about me:

20 years ago, I was a broke biomedical engineering college student trying to get my first biz off the ground.

Since then, I’ve grown six 7-figure businesses, three 8-figure businesses & raised $50M+ in VC. I'm also a General Partner at The Family Fund.
And I do all of this while prioritizing my health, traveling for fun every month & not grinding 247.

I go deeper into everything I’ve learned about building businesses, investing & founder performance in my newsletter.

Join thousands of founders here: get.founderiv.com

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More from @seanpk

Apr 30
In 2016, two guys appeared on Shark Tank.

Their ask was the highest till that time - $2M for a 5% stake.

The judges laughed, ridiculed, and roasted them.

Today, they're doing tens of millions every year & have a $6M contract with the US Dept of Defense.

Here's the story 🧵 Image
Here's a clip from their time on Shark Tank.

In the end, the founders said "It's gonna be cheap in the long run".

And they certainly weren't wrong.
Michael Brandt and Geoffrey Woo first met at Stanford.

They were dormmates studying computer science together.

Michael was an avid triathlete and marathoner interested in optimizing human performance. Image
Read 26 tweets
Apr 27
Nicotine is the most misunderstood chemical compound.
Humans have been consuming it for 12,000 years for pleasure.

But with the correct dosage, nicotine elevates memory, attention, mood and cognitive function.

Let me explain:
Nicotine as a nootropic helps in:

- Improving short and long-term memory
- Increasing alertness and attention
- Elevating Mood
- Boosting overall cognitive and brain function

Let's dive into it 🧵 Image
Nicotine binds with various neurotransmitters in the brain.

This releases dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, and acetylcholine itself.

All this leads to:

- Increased arousal
- Enhanced cognitive alertness
- Improved memory
Read 18 tweets
Apr 17
I'm convinced everyone aged 30+ needs to watch this exchange between longevity experts Peter Attia & Andrew Huberman.

Understanding this may extend your lifespan by 10 years.

Let me explain in simple language 👇:
The first key to living longer is to prevent the main causes of death. These are:

- Heart disease
- Metabolic disease
- Neurodegeneration
- Cancer Image
Exercise is clinically proven to reduce All-Cause Mortality (ACM), i.e. death from any kind of disease by 500%.

This is not a headline. It's a fact.
Humans as a species evolved to live an active life outdoors.
It's not surprising that exercising has such life-altering effects.
Read 30 tweets
Apr 9
Hard skills get you the job, soft skills get you promoted.

Master these 2 soft skills to change the trajectory of your career 🧵
Warren Buffet talks about how the greatest investment you can make is in YOURSELF.

Learning the arts of communication and dependability is a great place to start.

There are no soft skills more important to master.
1. Mastering Communication

Being a great communicator largely comes down to expressing your ideas clearly & concisely while fostering an environment of mutual understanding.

There are few better career accelerants than becoming a great verbal & non-verbal communicator.
Read 17 tweets
Apr 6
8 years ago, Jensen Huang hand delivered to OpenAI, the first AI-focussed GPU made by Nvidia.

This moment marks the end of Intel's dominance.
It wasn't luck, it was deeper.

Jensen has said publicly that Nvidia 'did it' by religiously following 4 core values 👇🏻 Image
Value 1. Have low expectations (but high standards)

Jensen believes that people with very high expectations have very low resilience.

But resilience - forged from the experience of pain & suffering - is required to achieve meaningful success.
If you have high expectations, anything other than a great result can throw you off course.

Bouncing back from failures can become more difficult over time.

Trade high expectations for a commitment to your goal.

And an understanding that pain is a key part of the process.
Read 14 tweets
Apr 2
I pay $24,000/yr to my EA to handle a multitude of tasks.

She saves me 20+ hours per week.

I'm able to run 3 businesses, travel the world & give my family enough time while working out every day.

Here's how I hired and trained an EA to 2X my productivity 🧵
Right now your day looks like this:

You wake up & get crushed by 5-minute tasks:

- Email inbox w/ 100 messages
- Need to delegate 25 tasks to 5 different people
- 10 scheduling requests
- 8 meeting agendas
- Personal: 5 errands & appointments

This takes up 50% of your time. Image
Here's what happens after you get an EA:

You wake up, work out and

- Your inbox is cleared, filed & responded to
- All meetings/appts are set up
- Every meeting has an agenda
- Your team knows what to do
- Your travel is booked

You focus on what's important: Real work + family Image
Read 18 tweets

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