First Principles Thinking by Ajitesh Shukla

Have you wondered how Elon Musk has been super successful time and again to create game-changing innovative products that created tremendous value for society at large? Are you an entrepreneur or a product manager aspiring to apply a similar “creator” and “innovator” mindset to build winning products, the products which are loved by the end-users? Do you want to learn about what it takes to innovate and create great solutions for complex problems?

If the above sounds like you, one of the techniques you need to learn is first principles thinking.

First principles thinking is defined as a method of reasoning or a thought process in which you try and understand a problem or a thing by breaking it down into its most basic elements and building your argument up from there. These basic elements represent the most fundamental truths and are referred to as the first principles.

The book is a sincere attempt to help you learn basic concepts and reasoning techniques about how to approach problems based on first principles thinking. The book represents related concepts from Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Nyaya/Vaisheshika philosophy (Indian Philosophy). It will help you understand the basics of first principles thinking and provide you with a step-by-step method for adopting this technique in your own work. You can start using this approach in any area of your life including solving real-life problems, building innovative products and solutions. With first principles thinking, you can identify what you think is true (subjective reality) and then work to understand what is actually true by the nature of things (objective reality). With this foundation, you’ll be able to understand problems in a holistic manner and find creative solutions.

Targeted Age Group:: 20-50

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
There is a great deal of ambiguity in relation to what can be called first principles thinking. Many on social media sites such as Twitter have been asking about whether there is a methodical way of doing first principles thinking. This was the inspiration to write this book listing down concepts and methods which can be used for first principles thinking.

Book Sample
The first principles thinking is often associated with Elon Musk, who uses this approach to come up with his business ideas, create innovative product designs, and build winning products. Through this approach, he has been able to build Tesla, SpaceX, and other innovative and successful companies. As a result, first principles thinking has seen a widespread resurgence in popularity, as more and more people are realizing its potential for innovation in relation to problem-solving, product development, etc. First principles thinking can be applied to solving complex engineering, science, business, or product-related problems in addition to the problems we face in our everyday life. It helps us to view everything in this world in the form of cause and effect relationships and demystify the causes further to understand the most fundamental reasons why a thing or a problem exists and how can they be tackled in an innovative manner. Recognizing that there are fundamental causes of reality (the world of effects) is the first step in first principles thinking. First principles thinking is a way of understanding or knowing problems or things based on acquiring true knowledge by first identifying what you think is true (subjective reality) and then moving on to acquire knowledge about what is true by nature (objective reality). Different questioning techniques such as five whys, the Cartesian method of doubt, Socrates' reasoning, etc act as great tools in reasoning by first principles. First principles can be better understood if you get a good understanding of Aristotle’s Metaphysics concepts about the first causes of any effect including things/products or problems. In this book, the concepts from Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Indian philosophy (Nyaya / Vaisheshika) have been referred to while describing how to acquire knowledge about a thing or a problem by knowing its first causes.

It’s advantageous to learn first principles thinking because they give us a foundation on which we can build our understanding of any problem or anything in this world and create innovative solutions or things thereafter. That said, thinking about first principles isn’t always easy, but once you’ve mastered the process of thinking through a problem in this way rather than making assumptions or substituting your knowledge for an easier answer, you can innovate and come up with creative solutions to the problems or create innovative things or products.

From a Mathematics perspective, the first principle can be thought of as Axioms. Axioms are propositions that are regarded as accepted or self-evidently true. For example, any number multiplied by zero is zero. From a physics perspective, the theoretical work is said to be from the first principles if it starts from the established laws of Physics. From a Philosophy perspective, first principles are considered as the first causes including final, formal, material, and efficient causes based on which different conclusions can be derived in relation to a thing or a problem. In this book, first principles thinking has been described based on the concepts derived from Greek and Indian philosophy. The concepts related to the first principles thinking, as described in the later chapters can be applied to solving day-to-day real-life problems or building great products in an innovative manner.

We will learn about the concepts of first principles thinking with the help of examples. Here are some common questions which will be addressed in this book:
1. What are first principles & first principles thinking? Why first principles?
2. What are the different steps for the first principle thinking?
3. How do we know if we are applying the first principles in the right manner?
4. What are some questioning techniques which can be applied in the first principles thinking?
5. How could first principles thinking be applied to solve real-life problems?
6. How could first principles techniques be applied in building great products?
7. Can the existing products be innovated using first principles thinking?
8. Can the new product be created from scratch using first principles thinking?
9. Can one think creatively based on first principles thinking? Can the technique of first principles thinking be applied for creative thinking?

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All information was provided by the author and not edited by us. This is so you get to know the author better.