Reduce noise and Master Basics
Sam Altman says the biggest factor for a startup's success is the iteration speed. Fail fast and improve fast. If you are failing because you didn't have strong fundamental concepts understanding then that's wrong.
Richard Feynman says if you are not able to make a 10 year old understand any topic in simple words then you don't know it properly.
Coming to the first principles which Elon musk and other intelligent people advocate, the case is to break down complex ideas into their fundamental forms that cannot be reduced further and think from there.
The common point in all these is mastering the basics. While doing that, especially in this new internet era where information or slop is everywhere, its very hard to not get distracted.
You may think why I need to learning Eigen vectors or MAB or even simple linear regression, as the world already has better models or concepts let me try them. But learning the building blocks is important. They lay the foundation and are ever green. Then only you can iterate faster or completely understand a topic or innovate using first principles.
Hence it is must to do the necessary stuff which take you toward your goal while ignoring things that are not necessary or simply noise. I have heard that Steve jobs was a master of this art.
I will do my best to reduce noise and master the basics.