"Design toward a platonic ideal, not existing tools Musk contrasted two modes of product design: starting with tools you already own versus starting with the ideal outcome. He argued that by default 'people start with the tools and parts and methods that they are familiar with' and this leads to products limited by those tools. Instead, 'imagine the platonic ideal of the perfect product — what is the perfect arrangement of atoms — and now figure out how to get the atoms in that shape.' Without this discipline, 'you might fall victim to the momentum of the way things were done in the past,' producing incrementalism when breakthrough was possible. Source: Elon Musk, Lex Fridman Podcast, Elon Musk"