I love this quote from a recent Elon Musk email to his employees. In referring to how precise the design tolerances of the Model 3 should be, Elon says that it should be “designed and built with such accuracy and precision that, if an owner measures dimensions, panel gaps and flushness, and their measurements don’t match the Model 3 specs, it just means that their measuring tape is wrong.”
This attention to detail is something that I try and strive for with what I build and this quote is inspiring because it is about setting a standard that is so above and beyond what others are doing that the only reason is due to a love and passion for what is being created.
In your own products and creations I hope you can work on that level of detail as an aspiration. I would not say to start out trying to beat a measuring tape, but under the Japanese concept of “kaizen,” which means “constant improvement,” you are incrementally working each day to try and improve upon what you are creating.
I hope you can take this to heart and work towards your goal, inch by inch, millimeter by millimeter until you are the standard by which others are measured.
