What Does Elon Musk’s Operating System Have to Do with LEGO Bricks? I’m reading Eric Jorgenson’s new book, The Book of Elon. 200 pages of Musk talking directly to you about how he builds companies. Jorgenson spent five years on it. David Senra did a great interview with him about it on Founders podcast. One idea from the book got me thinking about how Elon’s operating principles apply outside of rockets and EVs. It made me think of LEGO. Yes, the toy company. In 2003, LEGO was losing a million dollars a day. $800 million in debt. Sales down 30% in two years. They burned through $300 million that year while nobody could agree on what to cut. Analysts gave them 18 months before bankruptcy. This was a company built over seven decades into the most recognized toy brand on earth. What killed them? They kept adding. Theme parks. Clothing. Watches. In-house video games. Retail stores. A focused brick company turned itself into a conglomerate that couldn’t explain what it was anymore. Their new CEO, Jorgen Vig Knudstorp, nailed the diagnosis: “Most companies don’t die of starvation. They die of indigestion.” Elon has a five-step operating system he calls the Algorithm. Question requirements. Delete. Simplify. Accelerate. Automate last. It works because it strips away human-created friction to get closer to what physics actually allows. Everything that isn’t physics is a recommendation. And recommendations can be killed. Knudstorp had never heard of the Algorithm. It didn’t exist yet. But what he did maps perfectly onto those five steps. From the edge of bankruptcy to the world’s largest toy company by revenue. One decade. I’m going to walk through each step using the LEGO story and Elon’s own words from Jorgenson’s book. Four more posts coming. Even if you don’t like Elon’s politics, some of his ideas are profound. The book is worth a read, especially if you’re in business.