Slow Moore's Law Timing
Start building years before a predictable exponential trend makes your product mainstream.
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 60%
Some of the best long-term bets are made by watching a boring, steady exponential curve rather than a flashy breakthrough. Tesla's founders noticed that lithium-ion battery efficiency was compounding at roughly 7% a year -- a pattern Martin Eberhard called 'slow Moore's law.' Rather than waiting until batteries were obviously good enough for mass-market electric cars, they projected the curve forward, estimated when a 300+ mile range would be achievable, and started the company years ahead of that inflection point. The framework is a method for spotting predictable, compounding technology trends, calculating when they will cross a viability threshold, and starting to build now so the company matures in step with the trend instead of scrambling to catch up once the opportunity is obvious to everyone else.
Origin
Coined by Tesla co-founder Martin Eberhard, who bet on steady annual gains in lithium-ion battery efficiency years before electric sports cars were commercially practical.
Core principles
- 01Identify measurable exponential technology curves (e.g., battery energy density improving roughly 7% per year)
- 02Calculate future-state math: project years ahead to find the inflection point where the trend crosses a viability threshold
- 03Start building now so the company matures in lockstep with the underlying technology curve
- 04Accept being 'too early' in public perception while the trend catches up to the vision
How to run it
- 1
Find a Measurable Compounding Trend
Look for a technology or input reliably improving at a fixed rate, such as lithium-ion battery efficiency gains, and quantify the annual rate of improvement.
Pro tip Anchor the rate in engineering or scientific data, not hype or press coverage.
- 2
Project the Curve Forward
Use the compounding rate to estimate when the technology will cross the threshold needed for a mass-market product, such as a usable driving range.
- 3
Reverse-Engineer Your Start Date
Estimate how many years it will take to build the company, product, and supply chain, then work backward from the trend's projected inflection point to determine when to start.
- 4
Launch Ahead of Obvious Consensus
Begin building while the idea still looks impractical or fringe to outsiders and capital markets, since waiting until the trend is obvious means competitors and easy capital have already arrived.
Watch out Being early means enduring years of skepticism, thin funding, and underpowered early products.
- 5
Iterate the Product While the Trend Catches Up
Ship early, imperfect versions while continuing to improve the product as the underlying trend closes the gap to mass-market viability.
In the wild
The founders anticipated that roughly 7%-a-year lithium-ion efficiency gains would eventually deliver a 300+ mile range car, so they started in 2003 despite the Roadster only managing a fraction of that range at launch.
→ By 2018 the Model S was delivering 300-400 miles per charge, validating the original timing bet years after the company was founded.
Common mistakes
Assuming Trends Stay Linear Forever
Extrapolating steady improvement without checking whether physical or economic limits could slow or break the curve overstates confidence in the timing bet.
Starting Before You Can Survive the Wait
Entering too early without enough capital or runway to survive years of below-threshold products can kill the company before the trend arrives, as Tesla nearly experienced in both 2008 and 2013.
Is it for you?
Not ideal for
Markets without a clear, measurable, and reliably compounding technology curve to anchor projections.
From the transcript
“Tesla was made possible by I think what Eberhard was calling slow Moore's law.”
“I love the notion that if you can see a trend and you know where you want to be in a certain number of years,…”
From the episode
Tesla