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on May 19, 2015
Solid, well researched book about Musk's early life, early companies (Zip2 and PayPal), and current companies (Tesla, SpaceX and SolarCity). Throughout the book, Vance doesn't just let a startling assertion or quote stand still, he researches events to give the reader a balanced view of what transpired. This is especially important as there have more than a few highly charged emotional events in Musk's life and it would have been all too easy for a biographer to highlight the sensational at the expense of providing insight about complex events.
Vance starts the biography by delving just enough into Musk's early life to help understand who he has become.He then launches into fairly detailed accounts of his early companies (Zip2 and PayPal). These accounts are invaluable as there is little else available about these companies that is reliable and not agenda driven reporting.
SpaceX gets the most coverage in the book, befitting Musk's passion and time spent, although there is a reasonable amount of time devoted to Tesla and a relatively quick overview of SolarCity.
Oddly enough for a 400 page book, I sometimes wished he would provide a more blow by blow account - for instance there was no insight at all into any board meetings in any of the companies. In addition, Vance does not delve in any real depth into the complex technology that Musk has created, relegating the very few verbatim explanations from Musk to footnotes. There was a lot of boosterism about the companies, and while Vance did try to describe a timeline, in the end the book had a lot of unconnected vignettes and stories.
Having said all this, it is a very readable, very interesting book. The 2008 triple Musk meltdown (personal life, SpaceX and Tesla) was gripping. Most people who have not been watching Musk's every move for the past 20 years will find lots of new information here, presented in a very balanced and entertaining way.
Vance starts the biography by delving just enough into Musk's early life to help understand who he has become.He then launches into fairly detailed accounts of his early companies (Zip2 and PayPal). These accounts are invaluable as there is little else available about these companies that is reliable and not agenda driven reporting.
SpaceX gets the most coverage in the book, befitting Musk's passion and time spent, although there is a reasonable amount of time devoted to Tesla and a relatively quick overview of SolarCity.
Oddly enough for a 400 page book, I sometimes wished he would provide a more blow by blow account - for instance there was no insight at all into any board meetings in any of the companies. In addition, Vance does not delve in any real depth into the complex technology that Musk has created, relegating the very few verbatim explanations from Musk to footnotes. There was a lot of boosterism about the companies, and while Vance did try to describe a timeline, in the end the book had a lot of unconnected vignettes and stories.
Having said all this, it is a very readable, very interesting book. The 2008 triple Musk meltdown (personal life, SpaceX and Tesla) was gripping. Most people who have not been watching Musk's every move for the past 20 years will find lots of new information here, presented in a very balanced and entertaining way.
on September 20, 2015
One of the most inspiring books I have ever read. A few life changing points for me:
1) First intro chapter shows how relentless the author was. Great lesson there. He didn't ask for permission, he just went out and wrote it. Said he was going to write it with or without him on board. Which ultimately won Elon's respect since that's how he operates too.
2) Elon and his brother Kimbal coming over at 18 years old from south Africa. Their tactic about picking up the newspaper and cold calling the most interesting people to take to lunch is awesome. I challenge myself to do this now and I think its a great strategy to get out of your comfort zone. I gather he had the idea for pay pal with that tactic - it landed him the bank internship where he discovered the inefficiencies of banking world.
3) Elon has no "fear" button. Inhuman ability to withstand massive risks, pressure, and family drama all at once.
4) I bought 20 books. That's how much I loved it. Would call up and take a "mad scientist" or business investor or tesla owner For coffee/lunch/networking and tell them about how great this book is and see what crazy ideas they had brewing as well. Started connecting them together and meeting all kinds of moonshot thinkers. Great Networking Icebreaker.
5) Requested a tesla charging station be installed at my place of work because well...we need to encourage more telsas around here and If Elon stops by we will be ready.
6) Googled Justine found her Ted talk she did about him And enjoyed Elons commencement speech too.
7) Started an interest in this whole solar idea, Bought a solar cell phone charger that will be a gateway into way Into it and go from there. Tours of people that have solar homes in the area.
8) Most ambitious dude ever with this whole Mars thing.
9) After you read this book you will never again complain about being busy.
10) I didn't realize Larry Page and Elon were so close. Hope he is wrong about the AI thing though, but also triggered me to buy the book "the singularity is near"
I love the impact of the cover and I write a favorite quote in and give as a gift of inspiration to innovators in the area.
1) First intro chapter shows how relentless the author was. Great lesson there. He didn't ask for permission, he just went out and wrote it. Said he was going to write it with or without him on board. Which ultimately won Elon's respect since that's how he operates too.
2) Elon and his brother Kimbal coming over at 18 years old from south Africa. Their tactic about picking up the newspaper and cold calling the most interesting people to take to lunch is awesome. I challenge myself to do this now and I think its a great strategy to get out of your comfort zone. I gather he had the idea for pay pal with that tactic - it landed him the bank internship where he discovered the inefficiencies of banking world.
3) Elon has no "fear" button. Inhuman ability to withstand massive risks, pressure, and family drama all at once.
4) I bought 20 books. That's how much I loved it. Would call up and take a "mad scientist" or business investor or tesla owner For coffee/lunch/networking and tell them about how great this book is and see what crazy ideas they had brewing as well. Started connecting them together and meeting all kinds of moonshot thinkers. Great Networking Icebreaker.
5) Requested a tesla charging station be installed at my place of work because well...we need to encourage more telsas around here and If Elon stops by we will be ready.
6) Googled Justine found her Ted talk she did about him And enjoyed Elons commencement speech too.
7) Started an interest in this whole solar idea, Bought a solar cell phone charger that will be a gateway into way Into it and go from there. Tours of people that have solar homes in the area.
8) Most ambitious dude ever with this whole Mars thing.
9) After you read this book you will never again complain about being busy.
10) I didn't realize Larry Page and Elon were so close. Hope he is wrong about the AI thing though, but also triggered me to buy the book "the singularity is near"
I love the impact of the cover and I write a favorite quote in and give as a gift of inspiration to innovators in the area.
on March 12, 2016
This book has made me one highly motivated aerospace engineering student and given me some great insight into what it would be like should I ever get hired at SpaceX.
on July 11, 2015
After reading this book I have decided Elon Musk is a VisioRevolutionary.(a term combining the two words Visionary and Revolutionary). A rare combination indeed. I do not think I would be too far off base to say that Isaac Newton comes to mind when looking at Elons accomplishments and work ethic. Ashlee Vance did a great job portraying an extremely complex subject in a comprehensible format. If any biography screamed for a Volume II this one does. On the other side of the coin, if we try to answer Elon's rhetorical question "Do you think I'm insane?", I would think if he marries Talulah Riley a third time, the answer would have to be in the affirmative.
A great insight into an amazing man.
A great insight into an amazing man.
on September 5, 2016
Elon Musk is still alive and the book was published in 2015, so it could be argued that this book is "too new" to read as the history has not unfolded yet. However, the book is still relevant as history did not see any private institution doing businesses on this scale either (in fact, this is true for most of the Silicon Valley startups).
Books of this sort are usually fairy tales, explaining a superman who is running from success to success with his *unmatched vision*. To some extent, this book has that content, too. But the portrait of the successful man is not as important (and informative) as how that man reacts to the failure: You can find many similar spirited people in the garbage of the history because they didn't know how to respond to severe adversity.
In this manner, Chapter 8 explains the time when Musk started failing in almost all of his businesses and his wife, in addition to divorce, went to public and started talking openly about him & details of their marriage in order to hurt him, so consequently the media ridiculed him relentlessly for a while. That chapter alone is a reason to read the book to see how Musk thought that was the end of everything (but he kept going nevertheless) and life unfolded in an unexpected way (so far).
Anyone who is interested in creating such institutions, if you want to see how hard it can *really* get, this author reflected it successfully. Read the book.
Books of this sort are usually fairy tales, explaining a superman who is running from success to success with his *unmatched vision*. To some extent, this book has that content, too. But the portrait of the successful man is not as important (and informative) as how that man reacts to the failure: You can find many similar spirited people in the garbage of the history because they didn't know how to respond to severe adversity.
In this manner, Chapter 8 explains the time when Musk started failing in almost all of his businesses and his wife, in addition to divorce, went to public and started talking openly about him & details of their marriage in order to hurt him, so consequently the media ridiculed him relentlessly for a while. That chapter alone is a reason to read the book to see how Musk thought that was the end of everything (but he kept going nevertheless) and life unfolded in an unexpected way (so far).
Anyone who is interested in creating such institutions, if you want to see how hard it can *really* get, this author reflected it successfully. Read the book.
on June 8, 2015
When I was a child, I was addicted to science fiction. Many of the novels I read then rhapsodized about human settlements on Mars, the moons of the outer planets, and among the stars beyond. That fantasy morphed into an expectation as the Apollo Project achieved its seemingly impossible dream of landing men on the Moon: surely, some day within my lifetime, I thought, NASA would follow up the Moon landing with voyages throughout the solar system, and a colony on Mars would soon follow.
Sadly, that expectation was dashed as NASA was progressively defunded and disregarded, first, in the throes of the Vietnam War, then in the deep recession resulting from the OPEC oil embargo. The fantasy of my childhood seemed gone — perhaps not forever, but for any future I could foresee.
Now the dream is alive again: an entrepreneur with his roots in Silicon Valley has taken it upon himself to begin humanity’s reach for the stars. Chances are, you’ve come across his name: Elon Musk. Though for years he was vilified as a hopeless romantic, Musk has now founded or helped start three remarkable companies: Tesla, which makes electric automobiles and large batteries for home use; SolarCity, the country’s largest installer of home solar systems; and SpaceX, which is proving that private enterprise can put satellites into orbit and resupply the International Space Station at far lower cost than any government — or any other company, for that matter. Musk is CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, dividing his time between Los Angeles and Silicon Valley.
On paper, Elon Musk is “worth” $10 billion, at least so far as Wall Street is concerned, but that doesn’t seem to mean much to him. Aside from his efforts to move the world into a solar future, it is SpaceX that is clearly the principal agent of his vision of establishing a human colony on Mars. Given the extraordinary skill Musk has displayed in building his three still fast-growing companies, it would be a huge mistake to write him off as a dreamer.
South African by birth, Musk made his first fortune in Silicon Valley as CEO of PayPal. The sale of that company to EBay made him a multimillionaire, providing the capital to fund all three of his companies. Musk went about as far out on a limb as any investor possibly could, “putting $100 million into SpaceX, $70 million into Tesla, and $10 million into SolarCity.” In fact, he came perilously close to bankruptcy and was only bailed out by the seemingly miraculous coincidence that a within a few days around Christmas 2008 a huge government contract saved SpaceX and Musk reached agreement with investors in Tesla to rescue the company.
Ashlee Vance’s well-balanced biography of this truly amazing man — the first authorized biography Musk has permitted — is based on interviews not just with Musk himself in monthly dinners but with some 200 colleagues, employees, former employees, ex-wives, and peers in Silicon Valley. Many of these people see him as a monstrous expression of contemporary capitalism, perhaps not quite as nasty as Steve Jobs but not far behind, either. A few others — those closest to him — know Musk as a warm, caring, funny husband, father, and friend. (With his first wife, he is the father of five boys, twins and triplets, and has them four days a week.) Yet everyone remarks on the ferocity of his single-mindedness in running his companies. Noting the world-class challenges Musk has chosen to meet — reaching Mars and converting the planet from fossil fuels to solar — Vance compares him favorably to Jobs, who gave us the iPod, the iPhone, and the Mac, none of them historically significant on anything approaching Musk’s ambitious goals.
As Vance puts it, “Mark Zuckerberg wants to help you share baby photos, Musks wants to . . . well . . . save the human race from self-imposed or accidental annihilation.” The author even ventures the opinion that Musk’s achievements rise to the level of Thomas Edison’s. Only there does he venture overboard. Obviously, the jury is out. We’ll have to wait and see what comes of Musk’s work in the long run.
You might imagine that such an overachiever would be some kind of genius. You would be right. As a boy, he read as much as ten hours a day. He read two sets of encyclopedias, and his eidetic memory “turned him into a fact factory.” His contemporary coworkers continue to remark on his extraordinary memory for detail. Combined with an off-putting worth ethic that is the bane of his employees’ existence, Musk’s ability to understand and remember virtually everything makes him seem superhuman. Maybe he is. And at this writing he’s only 46.
Sadly, that expectation was dashed as NASA was progressively defunded and disregarded, first, in the throes of the Vietnam War, then in the deep recession resulting from the OPEC oil embargo. The fantasy of my childhood seemed gone — perhaps not forever, but for any future I could foresee.
Now the dream is alive again: an entrepreneur with his roots in Silicon Valley has taken it upon himself to begin humanity’s reach for the stars. Chances are, you’ve come across his name: Elon Musk. Though for years he was vilified as a hopeless romantic, Musk has now founded or helped start three remarkable companies: Tesla, which makes electric automobiles and large batteries for home use; SolarCity, the country’s largest installer of home solar systems; and SpaceX, which is proving that private enterprise can put satellites into orbit and resupply the International Space Station at far lower cost than any government — or any other company, for that matter. Musk is CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, dividing his time between Los Angeles and Silicon Valley.
On paper, Elon Musk is “worth” $10 billion, at least so far as Wall Street is concerned, but that doesn’t seem to mean much to him. Aside from his efforts to move the world into a solar future, it is SpaceX that is clearly the principal agent of his vision of establishing a human colony on Mars. Given the extraordinary skill Musk has displayed in building his three still fast-growing companies, it would be a huge mistake to write him off as a dreamer.
South African by birth, Musk made his first fortune in Silicon Valley as CEO of PayPal. The sale of that company to EBay made him a multimillionaire, providing the capital to fund all three of his companies. Musk went about as far out on a limb as any investor possibly could, “putting $100 million into SpaceX, $70 million into Tesla, and $10 million into SolarCity.” In fact, he came perilously close to bankruptcy and was only bailed out by the seemingly miraculous coincidence that a within a few days around Christmas 2008 a huge government contract saved SpaceX and Musk reached agreement with investors in Tesla to rescue the company.
Ashlee Vance’s well-balanced biography of this truly amazing man — the first authorized biography Musk has permitted — is based on interviews not just with Musk himself in monthly dinners but with some 200 colleagues, employees, former employees, ex-wives, and peers in Silicon Valley. Many of these people see him as a monstrous expression of contemporary capitalism, perhaps not quite as nasty as Steve Jobs but not far behind, either. A few others — those closest to him — know Musk as a warm, caring, funny husband, father, and friend. (With his first wife, he is the father of five boys, twins and triplets, and has them four days a week.) Yet everyone remarks on the ferocity of his single-mindedness in running his companies. Noting the world-class challenges Musk has chosen to meet — reaching Mars and converting the planet from fossil fuels to solar — Vance compares him favorably to Jobs, who gave us the iPod, the iPhone, and the Mac, none of them historically significant on anything approaching Musk’s ambitious goals.
As Vance puts it, “Mark Zuckerberg wants to help you share baby photos, Musks wants to . . . well . . . save the human race from self-imposed or accidental annihilation.” The author even ventures the opinion that Musk’s achievements rise to the level of Thomas Edison’s. Only there does he venture overboard. Obviously, the jury is out. We’ll have to wait and see what comes of Musk’s work in the long run.
You might imagine that such an overachiever would be some kind of genius. You would be right. As a boy, he read as much as ten hours a day. He read two sets of encyclopedias, and his eidetic memory “turned him into a fact factory.” His contemporary coworkers continue to remark on his extraordinary memory for detail. Combined with an off-putting worth ethic that is the bane of his employees’ existence, Musk’s ability to understand and remember virtually everything makes him seem superhuman. Maybe he is. And at this writing he’s only 46.
on May 30, 2015
First, hats off to Ashlee Vance for: 1. His tenacity in gaining access to Musk and; 2. for not getting thrown under a bus by Musk in the process.
Elon Musk is a complex, passionate, solipsistic, genius as portrayed in this riveting biography. Most enthralling to me was his absolute, undistracted determination to build SpaceX rocketry and avionics from scratch. As Musk’s friend and confidante, Larry Page (Google) is quoted, “Good ideas are insane until they are not.” Scoffed by aerospace titans, Musk blew up a couple payload-bearing launches before his first successful (no payload, this time) launch at one tenth the cost of the industry norm. His success with Tesla is a similar (scary) tale of how he trudged through technical, financial, and media adversity to get the Model S delivered.
The path was strewn with dispassionate firings of loyal advocates and employees. Vance writes about how Mary Beth Brown, Musk’s’ ‘Girl Friday’ for 12 years got the ax after having asked for compensation commensurate with senior executives. On the surface it seemed cruel, but Musk probably did Mary a great favor by prompting her to take her first vacation is 12 years and replacing her in the meantime. His admonishment on her return: go out a live a little…get a life.
I can’t help but think of a scene in Monty Python and The Holy Grail as a metaphor for Musk: King Arthur (Musk) and his loyal knights approach the “Bridge of Death” and a crusty old bridgekeeper (the Aerospace and the Auto Industries) challenge him with 3 questions lest King Arthur be jettisoned into the ravine under the bridge. The 3rd question is about the airspeed velocity of an unburdened swallow…Arthur asks for clarification, “an African or European swallow? The bridgekeeper is confounded “uh, I don’t know” and he, the bridgekeeper, is jettisoned into the ravine.
Musk leads a complicated and, for the most part, a charmed life. This book of his life (to this point) is a great read.
Elon Musk is a complex, passionate, solipsistic, genius as portrayed in this riveting biography. Most enthralling to me was his absolute, undistracted determination to build SpaceX rocketry and avionics from scratch. As Musk’s friend and confidante, Larry Page (Google) is quoted, “Good ideas are insane until they are not.” Scoffed by aerospace titans, Musk blew up a couple payload-bearing launches before his first successful (no payload, this time) launch at one tenth the cost of the industry norm. His success with Tesla is a similar (scary) tale of how he trudged through technical, financial, and media adversity to get the Model S delivered.
The path was strewn with dispassionate firings of loyal advocates and employees. Vance writes about how Mary Beth Brown, Musk’s’ ‘Girl Friday’ for 12 years got the ax after having asked for compensation commensurate with senior executives. On the surface it seemed cruel, but Musk probably did Mary a great favor by prompting her to take her first vacation is 12 years and replacing her in the meantime. His admonishment on her return: go out a live a little…get a life.
I can’t help but think of a scene in Monty Python and The Holy Grail as a metaphor for Musk: King Arthur (Musk) and his loyal knights approach the “Bridge of Death” and a crusty old bridgekeeper (the Aerospace and the Auto Industries) challenge him with 3 questions lest King Arthur be jettisoned into the ravine under the bridge. The 3rd question is about the airspeed velocity of an unburdened swallow…Arthur asks for clarification, “an African or European swallow? The bridgekeeper is confounded “uh, I don’t know” and he, the bridgekeeper, is jettisoned into the ravine.
Musk leads a complicated and, for the most part, a charmed life. This book of his life (to this point) is a great read.
on November 19, 2016
After reading this book it is clear for me that people like Elon Musk, and Steve Jobs look at life with a higher purpose in mind. They don't slow down for anybody and keep always going forward because they know they are creating something that will revolutionize the future.
It's perceived as selfish when they simply fire someone who is loyal and has sacrificed a lot for the company. Elon can be seen as a villain but in true he simply is looking at the bigger picture.
This man is building humanity's future, electric cars that don't damage the environment and can be recharged within few minutes, solar panels that will someday replace the electrical systems we currently use, rockets that aim to take people to Mars to populate it. He is a visionary and I am glad I decided to read Ashlee Vance's book about him.
It's perceived as selfish when they simply fire someone who is loyal and has sacrificed a lot for the company. Elon can be seen as a villain but in true he simply is looking at the bigger picture.
This man is building humanity's future, electric cars that don't damage the environment and can be recharged within few minutes, solar panels that will someday replace the electrical systems we currently use, rockets that aim to take people to Mars to populate it. He is a visionary and I am glad I decided to read Ashlee Vance's book about him.
on March 28, 2017
Like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk lacks empathy. He often abuses employees to squeeze every ounce of work out of them, then he discards them. One x-employee said Musk treats employees like ammunition. His visions yield successes. He is often challenged to share the success which he rarely does based on merit. He uses his power to run away with the gold case after case after case. Elon loves to use the f-word in mixed company. He finds ways to get rid of any strong minded team members who have the courage to disagree. Mercedes-Benz invested early in Tesla ($50,000,000 in 2009). This 10% position at the time provided much-needed affirmation. He crashed his beloved McLaren. He nearly went belly up more than once. Elon is a risk taker who has managed to build an empire in very different businesses. He divorced his wife who gave him five sons. The day he started the divorce, he cut off her credit cards without having the courage to tell her face to face. What a dick.
I applaud the author, Ashlee Vance, for the supreme effort to interview so many people to garner the deep picture of this bizarre man, Elon Musk.
I applaud the author, Ashlee Vance, for the supreme effort to interview so many people to garner the deep picture of this bizarre man, Elon Musk.
