Elon Musk on the critical things to get right when building a company “The ability to attract and motivate great people is critical to the success of a company because a company is just a group of people that are assembled to create a product or service. That’s the purpose of a company. People sometimes forget this elementary truth. If you’re able to get great people to join the company, work together towards a common goal, and have a relentless sense of perfection about that goal, then you will end up with a great product. And if you have a great product, lots of people will buy it, and then the company will be successful.” He jokes: “It’s pretty straightforward, really.”