I’ve mentioned in some other posts on this blog that I like to read non-fiction books when I travel. Because there are so many distractions when you are on the road, it is nice to find something that you can just pick up and read in chunks here and there.
It took me a year — and two airplane trips — but I’ve finally finished “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future” by Ashlee Vance.
(Don’t let the author’s first name fool you... Ashlee Vance is a male.)
Vance — an experienced tech reporter and author — takes a deep dive into the life of one of Silicon Valley’s most ambitious (and, at times, controversial) technology entrepreneurs.
I pushed myself to finish the book in conjunction with the first manned SpaceX mission to space. The landmark Demo-2 mission saw SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Crew Dragon capsule to the International Space Station on May 30, 2020.
It was the first manned mission from U.S. soil since 2011. The joint SpaceX/NASA mission also has the distinction of being the first manned orbital launch led by a commercial company (all part of Musk’s effort to become an “interplanetary species” in the future).
Vance’s biography (published in 2015) is set up in a “cradle to grave” structure, starting with Musk’s early life growing up in South Africa and following him through the tech ventures he is currently behind.
Readers are treated to youthful anecdotes and accomplishments such as computer game he designed at age 12 called Blastar. We also learn about an episode in school when he was bullied by a group of boys Musk refers to as “a bunch of f*cking psychos.” (Elon had a nose job in 2013 to fix the lingering damage caused by one particular beating.)
Elon Musk has quickly become my favorite entrepreneur. His persona has often been compared to eccentric business mogul Howard Hughes and fictional superhero Tony Stark — the latter a comparison he obviously favors.
“Near the elevators [of the SpaceX headquarters],” writes Vance, “Musk has placed a glowing, life size Iron Man figure.”
My interest in Musk stems from the innovative technologies he has been behind during his professional career. To say he is prolific is an understatement.
Musk is the founder, CEO, and chief engineer/designer at SpaceX, CEO and product architect at Tesla, founder of The Boring Company, co-founder of Neuralink, and co-founder and initial co-chairman of OpenAI.
(Tesla owns solar company SolarCity as a wholly-owned subsidiary).
Musk was also one of the “techpreneurs” behind PayPal in the early 2000s.
As is the case with many motivated entrepreneurs throughout the 20th and 21st century, Musk has been described as being difficult to work with.
“Numerous people interviewed for this book decried the work hours, Musk’s blunt style, and his sometimes ludicrous expectations,” writes Vance. “Yet almost every person — even those who had been fired — still worshipped Musk and talked about him in terms usually reserved for superheroes and deities.”
While the book’s large, biographical strokes are interesting, it is the little oddities that make “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future” fascinating.
For example, Vance writes about one of Musk’s “famous e-mails” (from 2010) titled “Acronyms Seriously Suck” where he expressed his disdain for the practice:
“… a few acronyms here and there may not seem so bad, but if a thousand people are making these up, over time the result will be a huge glossary that we have to issue to new employees. No one can actually remember all these acryonyms and people don’t want to seem dumb in a meeting, so they just sit there in ignorance. This is particularly tough on new employees …”
One of my favorite Musk ventures is electric car company Tesla. The beautiful automobiles are inspiring and provide a glimpse into what most cars will be like in the future.
“Like Steve Jobs before him,” writes Vance, “Musk is able to think up things that consumers did not even know they wanted — the door handles, the giant touch-screen — and to envision a shared point of view for all of Tesla’s products and services.”
The latest Tesla — the Model Y — was released on March 15, 2009. Tesla refers to the car as a mid-size SUV, and it is the natural offspring of the Model X (a luxury SUV) and the Model 3 (the company’s affordable sedan).
Bridget and I had the chance to visit a Tesla Store for the first time when we attended the INBOUND conference in Boston, MA, in 2019. I enjoyed having the opportunity to sit in each of the vehicles on display.
Reading “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future” has given me a greater appreciation for the thought process that goes into the work that Musk’s companies undertake each year.
All of the little details gleaned in Vance’s novel bubbled to the surface as I watched SpaceX’s launch on May 30th.
One of those details regarded a welding technique mastered by SpaceX during the company’s formative years.
“From the early days of SpaceX,” Vance writes, “Musk pushed the company to master friction stir welding, in which a spinning head is smashed at high speeds into the joint between two piece of metal in a bid to make their crystalline structures merge. It’s as if you heated two sheets of aluminum foil and then joined them by putting your thumb down on the seam and twisting the metal together. This type of welding tends to result in much stronger bonds than traditional welds.”
All of these moments — taken in total — paint a picture of a man who is willing to employ new techniques and inventive technologies to create more efficient processes, equipment, and products.
A company like SpaceX has come a long way since the days when Musk traveled to Moscow to try and purchase a refurbished intercontinental ballistic missile from some shady Russians to use as a launch vehicle (the effort failed and Musk eventually decided to build the rocket himself).
As I sit here typing this, it is mere hours after SpaceX’s Dragon capsule carrying two astronauts successfully docked with the International Space Station.
That achievement proves once again that entrepreneurial curiosity and tenacity eventually pays off. Our world needs more businesspeople with a mindset like Elon Musk.
If you are interested in business profiles, “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future” is a worthwhile read. What makes the narrative so compelling is that the author isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty as he delves into the life and work of one of today’s most fascinating minds in technology.
“I remain as convinced as ever that Musk will succeed in his quests,” writes Vance. “He’s not really wired to fail.”
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