As most of you might know, I have always admired Elon Musk and the fantastic work he is accomplishing in the technology sector. A few weeks ago, my dad bought me a biography on Elon by Ashlee Vance, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  

 

The book paints a very descriptive picture of Elon Musk as a child and as an adult and how he always made sure that failure never dragged him down, but he used failure as a stepping stone to becoming better.

 

The book starts off with Elon’s troubled life in South Africa. People that grew up with Elon would describe him as someone that was always zoning out. He was always thinking about inventions. His parents thought he was sick, and they ended up taking him to a doctor, but later on, they figured out that he was just daydreaming.

 

The book goes on to talk about him moving to Canada and going to university, then his early success with Zip2 his internet start-up, and then on to his first big fortune with X.com which later changed its name to PayPal in June of 2001. 

 

Just like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk lost his position as CEO while he was en-route to Australia on holiday with his then-wife Jennifer Justine Wilson. He was replaced by Peter Thiel as CEO. Elon Musk said he was extremely saddened by his removal and he said it made him determined to start SpaceX and Tesla.

 

In 2008, both Tesla and SpaceX almost went bankrupt. There was the probability of less than 10% that both companies would likely succeed. Elon Musk was on the verge of defeat. If he put all his PayPal proceedings into one company, the other will surely die, if he put the money in both companies, there was a high chance that both will die. So, he took the risk and put all his money into both companies. Lucky, he was able to scrape 20 million from various investors, and 50 million from the German car company Daimler. A few days before Christmas, things were looking bad for SpaceX and it seemed like only Tesla would barely survive. On December 23rd, Elon received a very unforeseen call. NASA had awarded SpaceX a $1.6 billion contract to resupply the ISS.

 

I love that the book also puts a great deal of emphasis on his companies and why they are unique. SpaceX is one of the three companies trying to privatize space travel and has made the most progress so far. Tesla is dominating the market with its affordable, electric, self-driving cars that are taking transportation to a whole different level.

 

One of the things I disliked about the book is the fact that Ashlee Vance didn’t mention Elon’s other work in AI, and Solar power but I figure that maybe at the time, Elon wasn’t that avid in those fields as he is at the moment.

 

In all, I would recommend reading the book as it provides deep insight into Elon’s childhood and life so far, and I feel that there is a whole deal to be learned from it.