Book note of “Elon Musk – Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future”

1. lessons learned from Elon Musk
   1. The sale of ZIP2 infused Elon Musk with a new brand of confidence.
   2. Musk netted about $250 million from the sale of Paypal to eBay, or $180 million after taxes – enough to make what would turn out to be his very wild dreams possible.
   3. Musk bought $1 million car after the sale of paypal to celebrate his success and call a milestone for his life – it is important to know to celebrate and then to restart a next step of life
2. A great short summary slides on Musk’s life on road to fortune

How Musk Made His Fortune

2. Comments from Amazon review for the book, which I agree fully

I just finished reading Elon Musk’s biography. Musk has always been my hero and this book sure did justice. One quality that I really admire in him is his ability to set clear vision. Once he sets the vision, Elon gives his blood, sweat and tears to make it a reality. People laughed at him when he first announced his vision on inter-planetary life. Since then he demonstrated significant enhancements in rocket technology and was able to produce a re-usable rocket. The analogy he gives is that of commercial plane, imagine after every flight between London and LA you throw away the plane how expensive will be your air ticket. Elon says his reusable rockets will make space travel 100 times cheaper. His reusability concept is brought to life with Falcon 9’s successful landing back on earth. Recently Elon presented how he plans to take humans to Mars in 2022 and build a city. SpaceX’s BFR project will carry 100 crew members along with equipment needed to set up a colony. He is not our typical Silicon Valley techie who wants to create a multi-million dollar corporation and cash out. His goals are bigger than money and fame. He wants to make a significant impact on humanity and make this world or even world beyond us a better place to live. His commitment and drive is unparalleled, he is ready to solve issues 3 in the morning on Sunday, and he works 7 days a week and doesn’t shy away from getting his hands dirty. He is hard to work with and does set tough goals for his people. Do you need to be tough to achieve success like SpaceX and Tesla? Can we taste the similar success with a little softer management style? What makes great entrepreneur? Do we need to be relentless like Elon? Or a management style of Richard Branson is equally productive where you place trust with people and they deliver?

Elon Musk Quotes

1. “Good ideas are always crazy until they’re not.”
   ― Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future
2. “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 teenage Musk then arrived at his ultralogical mission statement. “The only thing that makes sense to do is strive for greater collective enlightenment,”
3. “One thing that Musk holds in the highest regard is resolve, and he respects people who continue on after being told no.”
4. “What Musk has developed that so many of the entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley lack is a meaningful worldview. He’s the possessed genius on the grandest quest anyone has ever concocted. He’s less a CEO chasing riches than a general marshaling troops to secure victory. Where Mark Zuckerberg wants to help you share baby photos, Musk wants to . . . well . . . save the human race from self-imposed or accidental annihilation.”
5. “I think there are probably too many smart people pursuing Internet stuff, finance, and law,” Musk said on the way. “That is part of the reason why we haven’t seen as much innovation.”
6. “There is a fundamental problem with regulators. If a regulator agrees to change a rule and something bad happens, they could easily lose their career. Whereas if they change a rule and something good happens, they don’t even get a reward. So, it’s very asymmetric. It’s then very easy to understand why regulators resist changing the rules. It’s because there’s a big punishment on one side and no reward on the other. How would any rational person behave in such a scenario?”
7. “To the extent that the world still doubts Elon, I think it’s a reflection on the insanity of the world and not on the supposed insanity of Elon.”
8. “To me, Elon is the shining example of how Silicon Valley might be able to reinvent itself and be more relevant than chasing these quick IPOs and focusing on getting incremental products out,”