🚀 3.2.1. Anything you Want ::: Atomic Scaling

 By now, you've got First Principles thinking and Elon's 5-step QDSAA algorithm in your toolkit: strip the system bare before you scale it.

But here's what nobody talks about: Elon's secret weapon isn't his engineering genius or operational discipline.

It's his belief in 42.

3 IDEAS FROM ME

I. The future is whatever you make it

When asked his favourite number, Elon said 42: the answer to "the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything" in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It means infinite possibility. Anything you want it to be.

This is the Silicon Valley founding myth. Google organizing all information. Stripe increasing GDP of the internet. SpaceX going multiplanetary.

⇒ Stop asking "what will the future look like?" Start asking "what future do I want to build?"

II. Optimism is your unfair advantage, and it's contagious

"I would encourage everyone to be optimistic and excited about the future."

Every breakthrough company—Tesla, SpaceX, Stripe, Airbnb—was called delusional at launch. The pessimists had better data. The optimists had better outcomes.

⇒ Pessimism is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Optimism creates momentum. It attracts talent, capital, and serendipity. The optimist builds; the pessimist spectates.

III. Choose the emotion that compounds

"For quality of life, it's better to err on the side of being an optimist and be wrong, than a pessimist and be right."

Even if your startup fails, you'll have spent years energized, learning, building relationships, and swinging for the fences. The pessimist who correctly predicts your failure? They spent those same years miserable and invisible.

⇒ Your emotional state is a strategic choice, not a personality trait. Choose the one that makes you want to run through walls.

2 QUOTES FROM OTHERS:

I.

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it." — Alan Kay, The father of personal computing

II.

“If they choose to underestimate my ability to make stuff happen, it is their problem.” - Peter Vesterbacka, Former Mighty Eagle at Rovio, creators of Angry Birds

1 ACTION FOR YOU:

Pull up your "someday" list. Pick the idea that's "too ambitious" or "too risky." Write down what success looks like if you assume 42, that anything is possible.

Then take the first step this week. If nobody thinks you're crazy for attempting it, you're not thinking big enough.

Make Science-Fiction Less Fiction,

Ludovic Bodin

3x Entrepreneur, 2x Unicorn Investor, 1x IPO
Founder of BOBIC Generational Wealth
Author of Atomic Scaling

P.S. Be in my NEW book

I wrote Atomic Scaling in 2022, when Blitzscaling was gospel.

Everyone said: hire fast, spend big, dominate markets.

I said the opposite: stay small as long as possible. Scale the system, not the headcount.

Published it in March 2024. Within 12 months, the entire narrative flipped. VCs started asking: "Can 10 people build a unicorn?" Founders started optimizing for profit per employee, not headcount growth.

By 2026? Revenue per employee became the new vanity metric. Profit per employee became the new North Star. Lean teams with AI leverage are outbuilding 500-person burn machines.

I didn't just predict this shift. I helped create it.

Thousands of founders - from Manus AI (largest Meta acquisition to date) to Gigaverse (biggest Web3 gaming success) - built with Atomic Scaling: smaller teams, tighter systems, exponential outcomes. They didn't just prove the model works. They made it the standard.

So I'm doing something different.

I'm open-sourcing Atomic Scaling—the book AND the masterclass content.

And I am secretly working on Atomic Scaling (AI Edition) — how a team of 10 + AI builds unicorns in 2026 and beyond.

Hit reply. Tell me what you're building and what you need to win.

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WHAT THEY ARE SAYING:

“We applied Atomic Scaling to build & scale Gigaverse to over $10M in annualised revenue in our first 6 months, with a team of less than 10 people.

When you eliminate coordination overhead and move lightning fast, building without unnecessary bureaucracy, a small team becomes a massive competitive advantage."

- ​Dith​, Co-Founder of ​Gigaverse​