How the Billionaire CEO
of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future - by Ashlee Vance
Book ELON MUSK-How the Billionaire CEO
OF SPACEX AND TESLA IS SHAPING OUR
FUTURE
Author Ashlee Vance
Country America
Language English
Genre Biography
Published Virgin
Book, Ebury Publishing (2015)
Media
Type Print (hardback)
Pages 387
ISBN 9780753555637
The book on Elon Musk is
not just a speechless bound paper. It is a living, breathing and throbbing
biography of a galvanising personality who is no less than a superhero or a deity;
a deity, because of his vision of providing a better world for humanity. The
burning furnace of knowledge behind those eyes will transport the readers to
Mars. The author, Ashlee Vance has surpassed the reader’s expectations in
painting a well-calibrated and unforgettable picture of a compelling personality.
Ashlee, with his choice of words and flow of emotions through the pages,
startles the readers with Elon’s jerky childhood; amuses them with the ‘Muscan’
element of the SpaceX setup; and thrills them with the spectacle count down of
the successful launch of a gigantic rocket, Falcon 9. As the
chapters unfold, the readers are convinced that Elon is not a robot as he
initially seems to be, but his romantic side is also dominant.
Ashlee Vance honestly
captures every detail to give the reader a vivid picture of Elon’s realm. In
the opening chapter, Ashley confesses that setting up interviews with a
resilient man like Elon, was next to impossible. But once Elon had sensed the
trust, he would never let it fade. It took the author several meetings to get
something going. Elon opened up gradually and the interaction became more lucid.
Elon finally preferred Ashley over the other journalists because of his
relentless pursuit and bestowed him the privilege to enter his life. This is
one quality that reins Elon’s own personality and he looks for the same in his
team of engineers. It is indeed noticeable that Ashley Vance lets the readers smoothly
delve into the personality of, the Iron Man, through the chapters that unfold
his unique and unimaginable trait.
Elon,
a boy with a photographic memory
The author grips the
reader’s attention by taking the reader into the different stages of Elon’s
life and highlighting the transition. Elon Musk, as a child was often a loner.
Instances reveal that he usually drifted into a trance and enjoyed his pensive
moments. He remained unaffected by his siblings yelling next to him, to the
extent that his mother, Maye who was a model, thought that he was deaf.
However, doctors proved it wrong. Elon perplexed people around him as they
began to believe that his brain had graphic chips that could replicate images.
The most striking part of Elon’s character as a child was his compulsion to
read books. Elon was a little boy when once he went missing while the family
members were enjoying their shopping trip. To everyone’s surprise, he was found
sitting on the floor in a book store buried in books in a trance state. His
friends remember him as a boy with a photographic memory. Once at the dinner
table, Elon’s brother and sister wondered what the distance of the star from
the earth was when Elon mesmerized everyone with the exact measurement.
Unspectacular
Childhood
Ashley Vance could make
it possible to write this masterpiece by meeting the close associates of Elon
Musk. The details mentioned in this paragraph are evidently a collection of
personal interaction. Elon’s yearning to correct people and his abrasive manner
repelled the other kids and this isolated him. When his brother was scared to
go into a dark room, Elon tried to explain to him that darkness just means the absence of light. This did not reduce his fear. His friends found his nerdy behaviour
to be unusual and they distanced him. Nevertheless, he was happy to remain confined
to his family. But soon, he saw the happy days in his family come to an end
when his parents separated. Elon and his brother chose to stay with their father,
Errol Musk, who was a brilliant engineer and a pilot. Though he had a strained
relationship with his father, those were the days when Elon got hands-on
experience in electrical wiring, plumbing installing windows, and laying bricks.
Elon owned his first computer at the age of 10-Commodore 1980 and spent 3
sleepless nights to learn basic programming. He loved computer science even
before others knew nothing about it. His friend’s described him as
unspectacular in childhood as compared to what he is now.
Elon’s school projects
often dumbfounded his teachers. He spearheaded his classmate’s projects with
homemade explosives and rockets. His eccentric interests did not go unnoticed.
Elon’s spectacular academic feats continued to impress experienced techies. His
passion for video games and owning a Video Arcade made him more serious
towards his entrepreneur pursuits. He rented a place and google searched the
procedures of opening a Video Arcade without his parent’s knowledge. At every
stage of life, he ventured into entrepreneurship of different levels. During
his summer break, he led his cousins into selling Easter Eggs door to door. Ironically,
to the readers, Elon’s brilliance is a spectacle.
Elon
known for his firm views
At this stage, it is
evident to the readers that Elon had a strong footing on his views. The transition
in his personality had begun. Close friends of Elon, Ted Wood, and Beney,
claimed that Musk’s firm views on Colonizing Planets, Solar Energy and
Paperless Banking was seen in his debates and discussions. Elon felt like a
prisoner in South America. His soul lingered in Silicon Valley. His adventures
began when he escaped to Canada. With no shelter and food, Elon spent several
months in a hostel with odd jobs like gig cleaning in a lumber mill. He made
cold calls in his free time to important people, finding their contact details
in the newspaper. He managed to get an internship with a bank. The enormity and
intensity of his behaviour were seen not only in his career but also in his
personal and romantic life. He never accepted a ‘No’. Justine, his first love
called him a terminator and said that he locked his gaze on to something and
said that it would be his. After several attempts made by Elon, Justin Musk accepted
his proposal. But their relationship could not flourish for long.
Elon
stood among the high achievers and differed from the rest of humanity
The style adopted by
the author in this description is dramatic and holds the reader’s interest. The
readers encounter the confluence of different personality traits of Elon
through the eyes of the professors and the employees. His style is such that,
readers begin to feel that it is their own thought. The writer redeems himself
in describing the entrepreneur. Elon’s Project paper on the topic, ‘The
importance of being Solar’ reflected his unusual knack. His professors were
impressed with the precision and his advanced scientific thoughts. His passion
to conquer the web world was dominated by his intent to make a greater impact on
the world. The ZIP 2 idea was ingenious. He worked with authenticity by listening to
depressing status reports and reflecting over it. Elon himself dealt with the problems
that mounted with Tesla. His confidence and Leadership skills grew over the
years. He differed from others in his way of working and hiring. His demanding
management style became acceptable to the brilliant team that he had generated.
Marketing employees were fired if he found grammatical mistakes in their email
content. It was intimidating to convince him for a ‘No’. Employees had to make
a plan and have a solution with perfect calculations to convince him. Employees
learnt quickly that Elon meant business. He could not tolerate people beating
about the bush. He often left meetings because he could not adopt a softer
means of disapproval. He advised his employees to achieve more than the
impossible. Those who adopted his ways could sustain. But the others would soon
realize that it was not meant for them.
Though the employees at
SpaceX called his interaction tyrannical and found it frustrating to work
with Elon, they worshipped his broad vision and his personal involvement. They
adored him and were ready to die for him. They worked without seeing their families
for months. But, they forgot their hardships when they saw the tall bizarre
artifact rise steadily into the sky with clear intent. They wet their cheeks
with ecstatic joy and rapturous cheers.
Dolly Sing, an HR of Talent
Search had developed an uncommon way of hiring brilliant engineers. The team
would rummage Academic Journals and shortlist candidates with ravishing ideas.
Presenters were shortlisted from Seminars and Conferences. Candidates would be
called to restaurants for the first meeting. They would be given special
treatment. The surprised candidate would then be subjected to different quizzes
and 500 lines of coding. The last phase, required an essay that they had to
write for Elon, mentioning why they would like to join the company. Once they
were through, the reward was they got to meet Elon. The new recruits were
briefed before they met Elon, on his usual style of continuing his work on the
laptop while letting them speak. He acknowledged their presence without eye
contact. Finally, they answer his favourite science quizzes that leave them with bitter self-realization. He would hire engineers who tried to build things at a young age. He insisted on developing the awareness of how machines work along
with technology. Elon made this point evident by giving a personal touch to the
Space X Factory. The three-story glass structure inside the hive of the
industry was built with a purpose. Musk
wanted his engineers to watch what was going on with the machines. They had to
walk through the factory and interact with the technicians on their way to
their desks. The Data Center was bathed with blue lights to give it a Ski-Fi
feel.
Elon’s
Prolific Mind
Elon met the Russians
to negotiate for rockets. He was disappointed and exasperated to learn the
cost. But his months of study and research of Aerospace assured him that
rockets could be made cheaper than the Russians quoted. Elon’s friends who
accompanied him to Russia, while returning from the disappointing meeting saw
Elon in an exasperated mood. He quietly worked on his laptop in the
Flight. However, they were swept off
their feet when saw his spreadsheet. His prolific mind had already given a
shape to his revolutionary ideas. The spreadsheet had every detail that was
essential to begin building reusable rockets.
The author often brings
back the reader’s mind to Elon’s ability to work harder, endure more stress, and
stay focused in the midst of crisis through different situations. Musk usually
distracted himself from mounting pressures by cycling around the town at midnight
or going to Disneyland and having masked parties. He doted on his five kids and
made sure that the Tesla Model S cars are bigger from inside than from the
outside because they should be able to accommodate 5 children. On Christmas
Eve, he struggled to close the TESLA deal. But his desire to gift his wife,
Talulah Riley a Christmas gift, made him rush to the store. He managed to get a
shiny trinket with plastic monkeys and coconuts on it. This speaks of his
scientific mind with a tinge of romance.
Elon
emerges as a towering figure
The readers, as they
turn the last page of the book, can easily visualize Elon as a towering
Industrialist making history and creating ripples through his array of startups:
Zip 2, Paypal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX, and Solar City. Elon differs from the run-of-the-mill-entrepreneurs
in Silicon Valley, as he is not absorbed by the idea of getting rich. A
constant yearning to provide a better future for humanity, a constant push
towards advancement and modernization and, a never-ending explosion of creative
ideas epitomize him as a running engine without resistance.
Some of his words to
his employees which reverberate in the reader’s mind are:
He is a man who
believes in, ‘Do or die but never give up’, said Elon’s friends during a
cycling race, when he completed it though purple in the face.
‘We don’t talk, we do
things’-was one of the advertisements for the TESLA company.
‘Think till your head
hurts’- Elon bluntly advised an employee who had written a wrong code.
‘We will sleep under
desks, until it got done’- Elon addressed his employees who complained against
working on weekends.
Finally, he is a man
who believes in the philosophy, ‘Build quick and learn quickly.”
“Our future lies in the
stars. So we must not be confined to the earth.”
Recommendation
I could have ended the
review in two paragraphs. But I wanted the young and emerging engineers to make
note of the fact that the achievements of the most Powerful people, beacons
their hardships and erratic passion.
I recommend this book
to all those who have read my article because it is a rare opportunity to be
able to get a glimpse of the working of a brilliant mind. It is a book that can
be chewed and digested, in the words of Francis Bacon. It is not necessary to
be Tech Savvy or a gadget lover to adore the personality of Elon Musk. The
riveting account given by the writer compels the readers to emulate his
insatiable drive to reinvigorate the passion for science and technology.
The thematic intensity
and the authentic style of writing are greatly appreciated by other reviewers.
Here is one observation.
“An
intensely reported, wonderfully spirited account of Elon Musk’s rise to the
pinnacle of the business world. This is the definitive look at the man who may
have the biggest impact on the human race. Should Musk bring humanity to Mars,
this will be the planet’s founding document.”
-
Brad Stone, author of the bestselling
The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
This question is for the young
and emerging engineers: Can you imagine
what the world will be like if there are several Elon Musks?
Ms. Shashi Prabha
Assistant Professor
BNM
Institute of Technology
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