The Elon Musk Equation: The Simple Formula Behind Tesla, SpaceX, and Massive Impact

Nov 13, 2025 · 3 min read · In a 2016 Y Combinator interview with Sam Altman (now the CEO of OpenaAI), Elon Musk outlined a remarkably simple model for assessing the magnitude of impact: “You should try to maximize the area under the curve of positive impact — which is ‘change...