Elon Musk Book Summary

 

Elon Musk Biography Summary Ashlee Vance

Elon Musk is arguably one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our times – being involved with Paypal, Spacex, Tesla & Solar City. Here are the 4 Keys lessons learned from Elon Musk biography:

  1. Believing in the cause rather than the strategy to achieve that outcome.

    You have to believe in why you want to do something. You have to believe in the cause so passionately that it does not matter whether you are going to succeed at it or not.

  2. Willingness to bet it all. Willingness to die for it.

    He has a very high tolerance for pain and he would go all in. He is relentless. He is willing to go all in and that is why his rate of success is very high. If that is the kind of conviction that you have for your startup, then you could see how you could be successful.

  3. Hardcore work ethic.

    He is famous for saying, ”If you work for 50 hours a week and I work 100 hours a week, I will do in 5 years what you will do in 10 years. So I will work 100 hours a week”.

  4. Thirst for Knowledge and Reading.

    He read a lot, went to the experts, sought out knowledge and that has always been a constant theme in his life.

    Complete Elon Musk Book Summary:

    What an amazing book and what an amazing story of an extraordinary entrepreneur! If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, you have much to learn from this biography of Elon Musk. He’s one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our times. He is one of the co-founders of PayPal, moving on to doing SpaceX, Tesla and Solar City. He has just been a phenomenal entrepreneur in so many different industries.

     

  • Believing in the cause

One of the greatest lessons you can learn from Elon is believing in the cause rather than the strategy to achieve the desired outcome. This means believing in “why” you want to do something. You have to believe in the cause so passionately that it doesn’t matter whether you’re going to succeed at it or not… you’re just going to keep on going after it.

So, when after he made around $250 million from the acquisition of PayPal, Elon began investigating and started building a rocket company. His friends thought he was crazy to just throw away his hard-earned money into something crazy like going into a private enterprise doing rockets or trying to launch rockets but Elon was not to be deterred. Some people have often asked him, “Why did you go into this crazy endeavor of launching rockets into space? Do you think you’re going to be successful at it?”  Surprisingly, he replied, “No, I did not think that we’re going to be successful.”

He explained further in his words and I quote him: “I really believe that if something is really important, you must really go after it even if the likely outcome is failure.”

Very powerful, very profound words from Elon. It’s almost understanding that when you have a very strong “why”, it doesn’t matter how you’re going to accomplish it; you’re just going to figure it out. If you know your “why”, the “how” will come. That is what Elon is trying to tell us – that if it’s important enough, the probability of the outcome doesn’t matter. You have to keep on going after it because it’s just so important.

I love to talk about Elon’s life because it teaches us a lot. Another story of his life is when Elon was wooing Justine, who later became his wife. They were in college, he had just met her and asked her out on a date. She agreed but then when he showed up to pick her up, she flaked on him and she did not show up for the date. But Elon was so persistent; he went and searched her best girlfriend. He asked her what Justine’s favorite ice cream flavor was and where she was going to be on this day at this time. Elon showed up at the library with two cones of chocolate chip ice cream because he knew she liked that. So, he was not to be deterred. If he wanted her, he was going to get her. That’s what Justine said as well. Elon kept on calling her up until she answered the phone and he was so persistent he just could not take no for an answer. She said he’s like a “terminator” –  once he realizes that he wants you, he’ll just lock on you. He says, “You shall be mine” or “This thing shall be mine.”

So, that is the amazing thing about Elon – He believes in the cause more than the strategy.

Back in 2008, Elon was about to lose both Tesla and SpaceX that  were on the verge of bankruptcy. He said the thing that bothered him the most was the idea that people would stop believing in space exploration and people would stop believing in electric cars. He wasn’t just rattled with the idea that he would lose all his wealth! He was much more worried about the cause which was electric cars and space exploration. He did not want people to lose faith in something as important as that and that is really, really important to understand –  the difference between the “why” of doing something and the” how” of doing something; the cause versus the strategy of getting to that cause.

 

  • Willing to bet it all

Another thing that really stands out about Elon is his willingness to just bet it all, to die for it. He has a very high tolerance for pain and he can go all in; he is relentless. He’s willing to stake it all. He’s willing to go all in and that is why his rate of success is very high. It sounds counterintuitive but a lot of things in life are counterintuitive, if you think about it. So, this is how Elon thinks and acts – absolutely relentless.

When he was starting his own company, he was talking with a venture capitalist to get funding. This VC, who agreed to invest, wanted to get to know him more.  Elon described himself like this. He said, “I am like a samurai. I am willing to die. I am staking my existence on this company. That is the way I operate this business. I will do whatever it takes to make it work.”  That is what kept the venture capitalists coming at him.

Moving on to another story One of the greatest stories of his life, greatest now in retrospect; back then, it was one of the most painful times of his life. In 2008 he had divorced Justine, his first wife, and he had 5 kids from the marriage. Not only that, both SpaceX and Tesla were about to go bankrupt and this was in December; it was almost Christmas time. Both companies were about to go bankrupt and Elon  was wondering if he should split his money between the two companies or if splitting wouldn’t work, he would have to save one company while sacrificing the other. But he couldn’t just do that either because he wanted both of them to survive. He got to the brink of not being able to make payroll the next day. On top of that, some of the venture capitalists on his Tesla Investment were starting to feel like they could get a lot more. They wanted ownership of the company because they figured out that if they could twist his arm, they could make some quick money. Elon didn’t want to do that so he refused; he kept on persisting, trying to figure out a way to make money. It was almost December 23, 2008 but he still didn’t have the money; the companies were going to shut down in a week’s time and he was living on his friend’s couch since his personal fortune was down to a few hundred thousand dollars and he was maxed out.  But he kept on hustling and on December 24th,, NASA called him up and awarded him with a contract worth $1.6 billion dollars. This turn of events allowed him to fund Tesla as well because he was able to take a loan now. But the main thing is that he went so close to failure. He went so close to being all out of everything but he kept on going. He did not give up on the dream: he did not give up on the cause and that is the amazing thing about this guy. He is willing to take it to the death and if that is the conviction you have for your startup, for your business then you can see why you’d be successful.

  • Hardcore Work Ethic

The other thing to learn about Elon is his hardcore work ethic. He is well-known for saying, “If you work for 50 hours a week and I work 100 hours a week, I will do in 5 years what you take 10 years to do. So, I will work 100 hours a week.” In reality, Elon works more than that. In fact, he will set up his desk in the middle of the factory on Fridays and Saturdays and Sundays just to emphasize that he’s working and he expects everyone else to be working hard as well. When he was starting, Elon and his brother did not even rent an apartment. They said they were just going to use the office. They’re going to sleep in the office, they’re going to shower at the YMCA, and they’re going to work all day long on the startup and that’s what they did. Elon would sleep under his desk after coding all night long. Whoever was the first one to come in the office would just wake him up and he would get back on the computer and start again. That was the obsession he had. Sheer hard work no matter what. And even when he was dating his girlfriend – the girl would come over and would actually sleep at the office because that was the only option she had and she was okay with it. This guy was on a mission so he was not going to be stopped. He was going to keep working hard.

  • Read a LOT!

Another thing that really stands out in this book on Elon Musk  is his thirst for knowledge and reading. When he was 12 years old, he was reading ten hours a day. He would read 2 books a day and in fourth grade, he ran out of books to read in his school library and he went on to read all volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica. That is his thirst for knowledge and it shows because he’s one of the most knowledgeable men out there when it comes to all these different perspectives – physics, astronomy, electric cars, rocket science, or biographies of famous people, and even science fiction. His favorite book was Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.  

There’s another story: Elon and his friends were partying it up in Las Vegas after they had made their hundreds of millions of dollars in PayPal. Elon had also made $250 million dollars. While his friends were partying at the pool, Elon was sitting in a corner, reading some obscure rocket science manuals and books. His friends were just surprised at how intense this guy was when it came to seeking knowledge and figuring it out. He did not have the knowledge to build electric cars and rockets but he figured that out. He read it, he went to the experts, he sought out knowledge and that’s always been a constant theme in his life.

These are really powerful ideas from one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our times. I highly recommend you look into learning from this book.



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