Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

by Ashlee Vance

He argued that science fiction, which once celebrated the future, has turned dystopian because people no longer have an optimistic view of technology’s ability to change the world.

running organizations free of bureaucratic hierarchies and applied it to improving big, fantastic machines and chasing things that had the potential to be the real breakthroughs we’d been missing.

The direct sales model embraced by Tesla stands as a major affront to car dealers used to haggling with their customers and making their profits from exorbitant maintenance fees.

Musk built a huge case around a standard PC and lugged the unit onto a base with wheels. When prospective investors would come by, Musk would put on a show and roll this massive machine out so that it appeared like Zip2 ran inside of a mini-supercomputer.

All the bankers did was copy what everyone else did. If everyone else ran off a bloody cliff, they’d run right off a cliff with them. If there was a giant pile of gold sitting in the middle of the room and nobody was picking it up, they wouldn’t pick it up, either.”

‘The longer you wait to fire someone the longer it has been since you should have fired them,’”

Tesla’s strategy of starting with a high-priced, low-volume product and moving down to more affordable products over time, as underlying technology and manufacturing capabilities advanced.

shtick. They would hand out blank envelopes that contained invitations to meet at a specific time and place, usually a bar or restaurant near the event, for an initial interview. The candidates that showed up would discover they were among only a handful of people who had been anointed out of all the conference attendees. They were immediately made to feel special and inspired.

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They’re asked to write an essay for Musk about why they want to work at SpaceX.

Where a typical manager may set the deadline for the employee, Musk guides his engineers into taking ownership of their own delivery dates.

The Model S emerged as the ultimate status symbol for wealthy technophiles, allowing them to show off, get a new gadget, and claim to be helping the environment at the same

Musk put his public relations staff on high alert, telling them that he wanted to try to have one Tesla announcement per week.

And all of Musk’s companies, including SolarCity, have made dramatic use of vertical integration and turned in-house control of components into a real advantage.

“This becomes a competitive advantage for him, too. Why would you want to work for a defense contractor when you can work for a guy who wants to go to Mars and he’s going to move heaven and earth to make it happen? You can frame a problem in a way that’s really good for the business.”