Most people build like this: they see what’s already out there, tweak a few things, maybe slap on a new coat of UX, and call it innovation. That’s reasoning by analogy, copy, modify, repeat. It works fine when you’re optimizing. But if you’re trying to do something new? Something that doesn’t exist yet? Analogy’s gonna fail you.
That’s where first principles thinking comes in. It’s not a buzzword. It’s not some Elon-only genius trick. It’s just a way of asking: What’s actually true here? Not what people assume. Not what “everyone does.” Just the fundamentals.
Imagine you’re designing an electric car in the early 2000s. Everyone’s asking, “How do we make a better gas car?” But a first-principles thinker asks, “What is a car for? What does it need to do? Move people. Be safe. Store energy. That’s it.” From there, you rebuild, ditch the gas tank, rethink the drivetrain, reimagine the entire stack. That’s how Tesla happened.
This kind of thinking isn’t reserved for billionaires. It’s a tool. And once you see how it works, you can use it anywhere: code, product design, startups, even life decisions.
At its core, first principles thinking is about stripping a problem down to the bare essentials; no assumptions, no hand-me-down logic, just the raw truths. You break things apart until you’re left with atomic facts, and then you reason upward from there. It’s like saying, “Forget the blueprint. What are the building blocks?”
Let’s ditch the tech for a second. Say you want to bake a cake. Most people look up a recipe and follow it. That’s reasoning by analogy: “This worked before, so it should work again.” But a first-principles approach would ask: What actually makes a cake a cake? You’d think in terms of chemical reactions; how flour provides structure, sugar caramelizes, eggs bind, heat transforms. Suddenly, you’re not following someone else’s instructions. You’re engineering a cake.
Same thing applies to product design, business models, or even your calendar. Don’t ask “What do other people do?” Ask, “What am I actually trying to achieve, and what’s truly required to make that happen?” The moment you stop copying and start building from truth, you’re thinking from first principles.
Think back to the early 2000s. Electric cars were basically golf carts with doors; short range, slow, and kind of embarrassing. The industry consensus? Electric can’t compete with gas. So legacy carmakers kept iterating: lighter frames, hybrid models, better batteries... all based on the assumption that the gas-powered car was the default. That’s reasoning by analogy: “Let’s just make what already exists a little better.”
Then Tesla flipped the script.
Instead of asking “How do we improve the gas car?”, they asked, “What are the first principles of a car?” The goal wasn’t to beat gas, it was to build the best vehicle for the job, period. So they broke the idea of “car” into fundamentals:
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It moves people.
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It needs energy storage.
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It should be safe, fast, and desirable.
From that, Tesla reimagined the architecture. Electric motors were simpler and had fewer moving parts. Battery packs could sit low in the chassis, improving stability. Software could be treated as a first-class citizen. All of that came from starting at zero, not from copying Toyota.
That’s first principles in action: ignore the existing models, ask what’s actually true, and build upward from there. The result? A car that changed the industry.
Why First Principles Thinking Is Powerful, But Rare
Here’s the truth: most people don’t think from first principles because it’s hard. It takes mental work. It forces you to stop trusting what “everyone knows” and start questioning it. And let’s be real, challenging assumptions isn’t just uncomfortable, it’s risky. You might end up wrong. You might look weird. You might break things.
But that’s also where all the leverage is.
Most markets, most tools, most ideas are saturated with people iterating on old ideas. That means the space for 10x solutions, not just 10% tweaks, is wide open, if you’re willing to do the thinking. You don’t win by asking, “How do I compete?” You win by asking, “What’s broken about how this works now? What would I do if I didn’t know anything about the way it’s always been done?”
That’s uncomfortable. But it’s also where breakthroughs live.
How to Actually Use First Principles Thinking
You don’t need to be building rockets to use this. First principles thinking works whether you’re redesigning a product or rethinking your daily schedule. Here’s a dead-simple process to get started:
1. Define the Goal
Ask: What am I really trying to achieve? Strip away all the noise. Be brutally specific.
Example: “I want to launch a newsletter that people actually read.”
2. Break It Down
What components make up this thing? What are the basic units or conditions required?
For a newsletter: content, distribution, audience attention, time to write, tools.
3. Question Every Assumption
This is the uncomfortable part. For each component, ask: Is this really necessary? Is there a simpler way to do this?
“Do I need Substack? Do I need to publish weekly? Do I even need to write, or can I use voice notes?”
4. Rebuild From Scratch
Now, build back up, not by copying what others do, but by combining the essentials in a new way that fits your unique context.
Maybe your newsletter becomes a monthly voice memo that auto-transcribes and goes to a curated Telegram channel. That’s weird. That’s yours.
5. Test, Tweak, Repeat
First principles thinking isn’t about overthinking. It’s about clearing the path so you can actually try something different. Start small. Run experiments. Course correct.
Thinking from first principles isn’t a magic wand, but it is a cheat code for original ideas. All it asks is that you stop trusting what everyone else is doing… and start trusting your ability to think from scratch.
Start from Zero, Your brain’s better than Copy-Paste
If you’ve ever looked at a problem and thought, “There has to be a better way,”, you’re already halfway to thinking from first principles. The trick is to pause before you reach for someone else’s playbook. Stop. Strip it down. Ask what’s really true. Then build from there.
You don’t need permission. You don’t need credentials. You just need the courage to say, “What if we start from zero?”
Try it once this week. Pick one thing, your product, your pricing model, your to-do list, your workout routine, your job search strategy. Break it down. Question the defaults. Rebuild it your way.
You might surprise yourself.