Here is Kevin Rose interviewing Elon Musk (SpaceX, Tesla, Paypal). Along the lines of Clay Christensen’s comments on welcoming critical feedback, I couldn’t help but share Elon’s response to the question of his most important advice to entrepreneurs:
TODO: Find video
To paraphrase:
It’s very important to actively seek out and listen very carefully to negative feedback. And this is something people tend to avoid because it’s painful, but it’s a very common mistake. When friends get a product, I don’t say “Tell me what you like,” I say “Tell me what you don’t like.” Your friend doesn’t want to offend you, so you really need to coax negative feedback. Underweight positive feedback, and overweight negative feedback.
The video is cued up to the moment of the above question, but the whole interview is interesting.