First Principles Thinking

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First Prin­ci­ples Think­ing

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Intro­duc­tion

Most peo­ple think by anal­o­gy: “What has been done before? What do oth­ers do?”

But true inno­va­tors think dif­fer­ent­ly. They break prob­lems down to their fun­da­men­tal truths and then build solu­tions from the ground up. This method is called First Prin­ci­ples Think­ing.

It’s one of the most pow­er­ful tools in strate­gic thinking—used by great minds from Aris­to­tle to Elon Musk.

What is First Prin­ci­ples Think­ing?

At its core, First Prin­ci­ples Think­ing means:

1. Iden­ti­fy the prob­lem.
2. Break it down to its most basic, unde­ni­able facts.
3. Rebuild your solu­tion from these fundamentals—ignoring assump­tions and tra­di­tions.

It’s like peel­ing an onion—removing every lay­er of assump­tion until only the core truth remains.

Exam­ple: Elon Musk and Rock­ets

When Elon Musk want­ed to build rock­ets, the indus­try told him it was too expensive—around $65 mil­lion per rock­et.

Instead of accept­ing this, he broke the prob­lem into first prin­ci­ples:

• What is a rock­et made of? Alu­minum, cop­per, car­bon fiber.
• What’s the cost of these raw mate­ri­als? Much less—about 2% of the fin­ished rock­et price.
  From this, he asked: Why not build rock­ets from raw mate­ri­als our­selves?
  This First Prin­ci­ples approach led to SpaceX’s break­through in afford­able space trav­el.

Every­day Exam­ple

You don’t need to build rock­ets to use First Prin­ci­ples.

Let’s say you’re strug­gling with stud­ies. Most peo­ple think: “I’ll just study hard­er because every­one else does.”

But First Prin­ci­ples asks:

• What’s the core truth? Learn­ing hap­pens through under­stand­ing, prac­tice, and recall.
• So what’s the solu­tion? Design a study method that max­i­mizes recall and prac­tice instead of just hours of read­ing.

Reflec­tion Activ­i­ty

Think of one chal­lenge you face—studies, career, health, or per­son­al.

• Step 1: Write down the prob­lem.
• Step 2: Break it into the most basic facts.
• Step 3: Ask your­self: If I were start­ing from zero, what would be the best way for­ward?

Con­clu­sion

First Prin­ci­ples Think­ing helps you cut through noise, tra­di­tion, and assump­tions to find truth.

It’s not about copy­ing oth­ers, but about rebuild­ing your own path from the ground up.

✨ Remem­ber: “Don’t ask what oth­ers are doing. Ask what is true.”

In the next les­son, we’ll explore the 80/20 Rule—another pow­er­ful tool for strate­gic focus.