Book Review: Elon Musk. written by Ashlee Vance
The book in 1 sentence:
An honest, raw & exhilarating insight into the life of one of the greatest Entrepreneurs history has seen.
Who should read it?
This book is NOT for the faint hearted. This is a great insight that should be read by all who aspire to challenge the status-quo in life and build industries that disrupt how we live. Heres a few few statements for those who want to read on:
· You want to learn how to build a thriving business that challenges how things are done today
· You have experienced heartache, betrayal and failure in your ventures and feel like no one has walked the same path
· You ask yourself - is it all worth it and what does accomplishing the impossible look like on the other side
How the book changed me.
I learned that Elon’s life was FAR from perfect. In fact he failed substantially more than he succeeded. Often some of his big ideas took years of tough work, fruitlessness & pure faith when haters & investors would write off his ideas. It taught me that failure is necessary and when things don’t go how we expect, they make us stronger to handle the victories and responsibilities that follow once the impossible is accomplished.
I learned that vision is greater than any monetary reward. We must fix our eyes on a problem we want to solve & do so with passion discerning our steps. Our vision doesn’t change once we sell out. Elon always had incredible vision about Space & Cars that outweighed simply settling after selling PayPal more than 20 years ago.
My favourite 3 quote’s from the book:
- “If you ever asked Elon how long something would take to get done, there was never anything in his mind that would be more than an hour.”
- “One great engineer will replace 3 medium ones.”
- “Once you figure out the question, the answer is relatively easy.”
Summary & Notes:
How Elon handled money
- He wasn’t consumer by the idea of getting rich.
- He quotes: ‘Money is low bandwidth, its an entry on a database.’
- As soon as it was clear the company was going to be sold, Elon was already onto his next project
- Money is not his motivation, quite frankly it just happens for him. It’s just there & he knows how to generate it
- In less than a decade at 27 Musk went from back packer to multi millionaire worth around 22 million at the time.
- Musk put 200mil of his own fortune into Tesla & Space X
- When things went south, he taught his employees how to make tradeoffs between spending money and productivity
His unique & inquisitive mind
- He would quiz employees until he got 90% of what they knew out of them
- The key test for an acronym is whether it HELPS or HURTS communication
- Space X’s hiring model – Find engineers who have exhibited a Type A personality trait for most of their lives
- Made a huge statement with the touchscreen in the car. This was the year the ipad was released.
- He has the consumer sensibility of Steve Jobs & ability to hire good people like Bill Gates
Never die attitude:
• “SpaceX is in this for the long haul and come hell or high water, we are going to make this work.”
• He never took NO for an answer. Bit by bit he would wear people over and bring them to his side
• Never drank, never did anything that would distract him from his purpose
• Either you’re trying to make something spectacular with no compromises or you’re not.
• He never said ‘if we fail we are done for.’
• After 6 years (4.5 more than Musk hoped) & 500 people, the miracle of landing the rocket happened
Conclusion:
Elon Musk has and is changing history each day. His ability to stay on task and not give up until his way prevails is astounding. He is not a man who chases money, he chases his life purpose & money chases him. He is an example of how we can build the character and right motives to create businesses of the future that change history.
