Book Review on Elon Musk

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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