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In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen · 4 min · Sep 16, 2026

Ambitious targets force teams to rethink the operating system

Jon McNeill · CEO & Co-Founder, DVx Ventures

Jon McNeill says 50–100% growth goals force a different formula than incremental targets.

In this episode

Full analysis
  1. 1:22Tesla cut online car orders from 300,000 configurations to twoPro pick 5 min
  2. 10:25Speed reveals broken processes before it improves themPro pick 6 min
  3. 15:47Tesla nearly went bankrupt by automating too early4 min
  4. 8:30Tesla targeted 30% gross margins against a 10% industry norm2 min
  5. 5:59Mapping the work reveals steps customers do not pay for2 min
  6. 20:24Ambitious targets force teams to rethink the operating system4 min
  7. 27:34Curiosity and financial levers guide McNeill's management calls3 min
“When you set a goal of 50% to 100% growth, people have to rethink entirely how they're doing that.”
Jon McNeillat 22:46 · In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen
22:46

Takeaways

  1. Weekly progress can add up to major breakthroughs.
  2. Build key inputs in-house when they do not exist.
  3. Elon could be thrilled with 50–60% of a stretch goal.

About this segment

Jon McNeill says 50–100% growth goals force a different formula than incremental targets. Teams may deliver only half, but starting the work creates a learning loop that compounds.

Jon McNeill

Jon McNeill is CEO and co-founder of DVx Ventures; author.

Founded and scaled six companies, then grew Tesla revenue from $2B to $20B as president.

From “Jon McNeill: The Algorithm Behind Tesla and SpaceX | Podcast | In Good Company”, Sep 16, 2026. Watch the full episode

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

  1. 20:30

    It's a weekly process that is driven by the CEO. And this, I think, is I talk about secret ingredients. One of the things that I think academics, when they study Elon Musk 20 or 30 years from now and say, what made this person such an effective industrialist? One of the things that's going to stand out is that he managed the key aspects of the simplification and innovation of the business weekly and drove weekly progress, which adds up over time to look like huge breakthroughs.

  2. 21:04

    But those huge breakthroughs are broken down into a couple percent that you pick up every week that eventually you figure out how to land a rocket and catch it. Eventually, you learn how to produce a car at twice the margin that your competitors can produce and eventually learn how to let the car drive itself. But does it help to kind of own and control the whole business and to have no labor unions?

  3. 21:29

    i mean the framework i mean tell me about the framework yeah the the framework uh definitely favors those who control their entire production system and you'll see that uh there's a lot of vertical integration once you start to innovate this way because you need to have control of the systems a good example of that is in robotics today uh and when you start to build the hand of a robot and understand that many of the actuators that you need to make that hand work don't actually exist, then the only way you can really break through on that innovation is to produce your own and vertically integrate. So you do see in the most successful companies that are innovating at a breakneck pace, they're vertically integrating. And that would include not only Tesla, but places like BYD and Shomay in China, where they are innovating this way too,

  4. 22:21

    through controlling the entire process, which includes some of the key inputs. Steve Jobs also had this reality distortion field or whatever you call it when you set totally crazy goals. How does that tie into this? I think goal setting is a key, key piece of this. And if I had a redo on the book, I'd put another chapter in for goal setting. Because I think the principle is probably pretty clear. When you set a goal of 5% to 10% growth, you're going to get 5% to 10% growth.

  5. 22:51

    When you set a goal of 50% to 100% growth, people have to rethink entirely how they're doing that. You obviously can't deliver 100% growth with the same formula or system that you're delivering incremental change with, with 5%. And so part of Elon's magic and part of Steve Jobs' magic with the reality distortion field is to set incredibly ambitious goals, not just for financial outcomes, but really to change the mindset of the people that are actually doing the work.

  6. 23:19

    But I mean, where does it meet realism? I mean, if you say, hey, we're all going to be living on Mars in two years' time, how hairy can goals be before they become totally unrealistic? Before they become ridiculous or unrealistic. I think that's a great question. I used to tease Elon that when he put a goal out there, I knew that if we had 50% or 60% of the goal, he'd be thrilled. He said, absolutely.

  7. 23:41

    Absolutely, I will. And so that's part of it is you're setting a mindset difference. It can't be so ridiculous that people just give up from the start and say, this is impossible. It's got to be somewhat within reach. And that's a key part of that ambitious goal setting. But the whole point of the process really is to get started. And as teams start, they start to learn and the feedback loop starts to fold back on itself.

  8. 24:10

    And you get recursive learning within an organization, which means you're getting more rapid innovation. If you start down this path of how could we double? How could we get to Mars in two years? How could we get a car to drive itself? Um, that whole process, when you begin, uh, you start to build a compounding advantage versus your competitors who haven't yet started the journey.