Elon's Rule: Every Requirement Needs a Name. Not a Department. A Name. Step 1 of Elon's Algorithm: Question every requirement. Or as he puts it: "Make your requirements less dumb." When Knudstorp walked into LEGO in 2004, the company had over 12,000 unique brick types. He asked why. Nobody had an answer. Before he cut anything, he asked one question: what is LEGO's core? The answer was a brick that inspires creativity. Everything got measured against that. If it didn't serve the brick, it didn't survive. Designers had been free to create whatever they wanted. Each new set introduced new pieces. Nobody ever asked: can an existing piece do this job? So the count ballooned for a decade and nobody noticed until the losses forced the question. Every one of those 12,000 bricks was a decision someone made. A requirement with no expiration date. And most had no name behind them. Ghost requirements. Created by people who moved on, costing millions. Elon has a rule for exactly this problem: every requirement needs a named human attached. Not "from legal." From Pam in legal. So you can go ask Pam why it exists. If Pam left two years ago, the requirement is automatically suspect. Knudstorp later said: "Rather than doing one adjacency every 3-5 years, we did three to five adjacencies every year. That's what nearly killed us." Theme parks. Video games. Clothing lines. Each one is a requirement somebody created. Nobody revisited when the world changed. Every operation has its own version of 12,000 brick types. Go find out who created your most expensive requirement. If they're gone, the requirement deserves a hard second look.