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One thing that Musk holds in the highest regard is resolve, and he respects people who continue on after being told no.
In 2005, Huebner delivered a paper, “A Possible Declining Trend in Worldwide Innovation,” which was either an indictment of Silicon Valley or at least an ominous warning.
Musk rejected that logic by throwing $100 million into SpaceX, $70 million into Tesla, and $10 million into SolarCity.
When Musk sets unrealistic goals, verbally abuses employees, and works them to the bone, it’s understood to be—on some level—part of the Mars agenda. Some employees love him for this. Others loathe him but remain oddly loyal out of respect for his drive and mission. What Musk has developed that so many of the entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley lack is a meaningful worldview.
We need to look at different models of how to do things that are longer term in nature and where the technology is more integrated.” The integration mentioned by Jung—the harmonious melding of software, electronics, advanced materials, and computing horsepower—appears to be Musk’s gift.
As his ex-wife, Justine, put it, “He does what he wants, and he is relentless about it. It’s Elon’s world, and the rest of us live in it.”
“In the comics, it always seems like they are trying to save the world. It seemed like one should try to make the world a better place because the inverse makes no sense.”
“He points out that one of the really tough things is figuring out what questions to ask,” Musk said. “Once you figure out the question, then the answer is relatively easy. I came to the conclusion that really we should aspire to increase the scope and scale of human consciousness in order to better understand what questions to ask.”
“The only thing that makes sense to do is strive for greater collective enlightenment,”
Part of this ability stemmed from the very visual way in which Musk’s mind worked.
The most striking part of Elon’s character as a young boy was his compulsion to read.
Outside of his studies, Elon would read the newspaper alongside Kimbal, and the two of them would identify interesting people they would like to meet. They then took turns cold-calling these people to ask if they were available to have lunch.
Adeo Ressi, who would go on to be a Silicon Valley entrepreneur in his own right and is to this day as tight with Elon as anyone.
“I really like computer games, but then if I made really great computer games, how much effect would that have on the world,”
But for Musk, the distinction between stumbling into something and having intent is important.
“My mentality is that of a samurai. I would rather commit seppuku than fail.”
“Really smart people sometimes don’t understand that not everyone can keep up with them or go as fast,” said Derek Proudian, a venture capitalist who would become Zip2’s chief executive officer.
“You don’t get to where Elon is now by always being a nice guy, and he was just so driven and sure of himself.”
I had to think, Okay, what are the things that affect how a team functions. The first obvious assumption would be that other people will behave like you. But that’s not true. Even if they would like to behave like you, they don’t necessarily have all the assumptions or information that you have in your mind. So, if I know a certain set of things, and I talk to a replica of myself but only communicate half the information, you can’t expect that the replica would come to the same conclusion. You have to put yourself in a position where you say, ‘Well, how would this sound to them, knowing what
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There was one guy who wrote a quantum mechanics equation, a quantum probability on the board, and he got it wrong. I’m like, ‘How can you write that?’ Then I corrected it for him. He hated me after that. Eventually, I realized, Okay, I might have fixed that thing but now I’ve made the person unproductive. It just wasn’t a good way to go about things.”
This left Musk searching for an industry that had tons of money and inefficiencies that he and the Internet could exploit. Musk began thinking back to his time as an intern at the Bank of Nova Scotia. His big takeaway from that job, that bankers are rich and dumb, now had the feel of a massive opportunity.
The creation of X.com would ultimately reveal a great deal about Musk’s creativity, relentless drive, confrontational style, and foibles as a leader. Musk would also get another taste of being pushed aside at his own company and the pain that accompanies a grand vision left unfulfilled.
394 University Avenue in Palo Alto.
Jeremy Stoppelman, an X.com engineer who went on to become the CEO of Yelp.
Valleywag, the technology industry gossip site, piled on as well and turned bashing Musk into one of its pet projects.
(For more on Musk’s take on the PayPal years, see Appendix 2.)
PayPal staff pioneered techniques in fighting online fraud that have formed the basis of software used by the CIA and FBI to track terrorists and of software used by the world’s largest banks to combat crime. This collection of super-bright employees has become known as the PayPal Mafia—more or less the current ruling class of Silicon Valley—and Musk is its most famous and successful member.
Manifest Destiny
Michael Griffin,
They were building a Ferrari for every launch, when it was possible that a Honda Accord might do the trick.
Jeremy Hollman
Aerospace Engineer
“There was an almost addictive quality to the experience,” Hollman said. “You’re twenty-four or twenty-five, and they’re trusting you with so much. It was very empowering.”
What Musk would not tolerate were excuses or the lack of a clear plan of attack.
I thought it was more important to let him know quickly what happened, but I learned it was more important to have all the information.”
“Elon can be very demanding, but he’ll make sure the obstacles in your way are removed,”
To the extent that the financial situation unnerved Musk, he rarely if ever let it show to employees. “Elon did a great job of not burdening people with those worries,” said Spikes. “He always communicated the importance of being lean and of success, but it was never ‘if we fail, we’re done for.’ He was very optimistic.”
Many consumer electronics devices like laptops were running on so-called 18650 lithium ion batteries, which looked a lot like AA batteries and could be strung together. “We wondered what would happen if you put ten thousand of the battery cells together,”
AC Propulsion
Throughout these early years, the engineers credited Eberhard with making quick, crisp decisions. Rarely did Tesla get hung up overanalyzing a situation. The company would pick a plan of attack, and when it failed at something, it failed fast and then tried a new approach.
He asked the Tesla engineers why he had put that picture up. One of them guessed that it was because people like his daughter would drive the car.
Marks began interrogating various groups at the company to try to figure out their problems and to prioritize the issues plaguing the Roadster.
He also put in some basic rules like making sure that people all showed up at work at the same time to establish a baseline of productivity—a tricky ask in Silicon Valley’s work anywhere, anytime culture.
All of these moves were part of the Marks List, a 10-point, 100-day plan that included eliminating all faults in the battery packs, getting gaps between body parts to less than 40 m...
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While running Flextronics, Marks had overseen a vast, global supply chain and knew the difficulties of manufacturing intimately.
Instead of doing the fashionable Silicon Valley thing of “pivoting” toward a new idea or plan, Musk would dig in deeper.
While the customers complained a lot about the delays, they seemed to sense this passion from Musk and share his enthusiasm for the product.
When an issue like the Roadster’s faulty carbon-fiber body panels cropped up, Musk dealt with it directly. He flew to England in his jet to pick up some new manufacturing tools for the body panels and personally delivered them to a factory in France to ensure that the Roadster stayed on its production schedule.
argued that everyone had been working so hard just to get the car done, and they were ready for a break and to see their families. Elon said, ‘I would tell those people they will get to see their families a lot when we go bankrupt.’
Popple found Musk’s style aggressive, but he liked that Musk would listen to a well-argued, analytical point and often change his mind if given a good enough reason. “Some people thought Elon was too tough or hot-tempered or tyrannical,” Popple said. “But these were hard times, and those of us close to the operational realities of the company knew it. I appreciated that he didn’t sugarcoat things.”
One employee missed an event to witness the birth of his child. Musk fired off an e-mail saying, “That is no excuse. I am extremely disappointed. You need to figure out where your priorities are. We’re changing the world and changing history, and you either commit or you don’t.”*
