The source
In late November 2025, Nikhil Kamath interviewed Elon Musk on his People by WTF podcast. I wrote down three ideas from it in my notes. Before I used them, I looked for reports of the interview. Two of the three held up. One detail in my notes did not.
I am quoting a public figure on ideas, not endorsing him. I did not check his own record. These ideas stand or fall without it.
Idea one: appearance and reality
Reports of the interview say he called it easy to give money away to get the appearance of goodness, and hard to give it in a way that truly helps. I see the same split in my own work.
A commit count is an appearance. So is a count of merged pull requests. Both can rise without helping anyone. The reality is whether the reporter's problem got solved, and no git log records that. In my open-source work, a pull request can merge and leave the reporter's problem open. Another can close unmerged because the maintainers shipped their own fix, and the problem is still solved. The count rates the first higher than the second. The reporter would not.
Idea two: happiness is indirect
He said you cannot pursue happiness directly. One report names meaningful work, study, and time with friends and loved ones. My note says "going to the gym". None of the sources I read mention the gym, so I cannot attach it to him. It is a good example anyway, so I am keeping it as mine: I do not get happy by trying to be happy. I get there by sleeping, moving, and seeing people I like.
Idea three: value first, money after
His advice, as reported: build useful products and services, and money follows. Create more value than you take. My note says "output more than you input". I read this as a test for a project, not a promise of income. Ask who gets something useful from it. If the honest answer is "only me, and only on paper", it is probably not worth the hours.
What I changed
I added a progress digest to my hub. It counts commits and merged pull requests by week. It cannot count value. Its README says so, and I read each digest next to my journal, where I write what actually got solved.
What I might be wrong about
- A person with enormous wealth may talk about money differently than someone building from nothing. These ideas may not transfer cleanly.
- Money does not always follow value. Useful work often goes unpaid. I read the idea as a direction.
- I read reports, not the full recording. Quotes in articles can be trimmed or reordered.
What I took from it
- Counts of activity show appearance. Whether someone's problem got solved shows reality.
- I cannot pursue happiness directly, so I keep the habits that lead toward it: sleep, movement, people.
- For any project, ask who gets something useful from it besides me.
- If I cannot verify a detail in my notes, I mark it as mine or I drop it.
Originally published on my site.
