Biography & Autobiography
Ecco
May 19, 2015
400
Simply "WOW" . What a visionary.
The author Ashlee Vance has done a remarkable job in bringing out the real Elon Musk and shown it to the world. There are both larger than life and nasty, ugly shades to his personality.
The book is a detailed journey of Elon Musk's personal and professional life. It starts off with a detailed account of his parents, how they met, their relationship, Elon's childhood and the apartheid.
He has two other siblings, a brother and a sister. As a kid he was not social and was distant. He was a genius from a very young age and way advanced in academics than most of the kids around him. He was often pick upon for being different.
The book moves on to explain how he left for Canada, the harsh conditions and how he worked really hard to find a way to America and into earning enough money to work towards his dreams.
When people make a fortune they usually retire or spend a luxurious life from the money they make. Elon Musk on the other hand invested his fortune from PayPal into other projects so technically he wasn't a millionaire. He loved taking risks.
In 2003 he bought into Tesla which at that time was a struggling company. He faced a lot of challenge from the big car companies all over America and a lot of times he was almost bankrupt. But he didn't give up. It was interesting to read that he did not have a smooth sailing to Tesla's success. Whatever you could imagine could go wrong, did actually go wrong. But he worked hard and where Tesla is now, we all know.
Tesla wasn't his sole interest. There were parallel projects like Solar City and rocket project Space X.
Solar City was the brain child of his enterprising cousins. Today it is the largest solar utilities in America. Not only is he using it to charge Tesla but now Solar City is charging homes and factories all over America,
But the biggest and the most awesome project is Space X. Developing a rocket which could not only make its way back into Earth and but also be re-used. Can you imagine, the company has already achieved this goal. Now it's launching a capsule to not only carry cargo but humans onto Mars. But it doesn't end there, he wants to build a permanent human colony on Mars.
Imagine!
There are other major projects in pipeline which the book just touches but we hear about them on the news like the tube train "HyperLoop" which will connect major cities via tubes and the travel time will be reduced by more than 3 times.
The book also delves into his personal life. His marriages, children, ugly divorces, extravagant lifestyle but that fades out in comparison to what he has and is offering to the humanity.
He has a big ego but imagine a larger than life guy, a computer wiz, an entrepreneur, a visionary someone on whom Tony Stark A.K.A Iron Man's character is based...how can you imagine such a guy to be typical. What he promises to the world, he delivers. Isn't that huge?
If you are a dreamer, a future entrepreneur, an engineer or someone who simply likes to believe, than this book is for you. You will close it on a positive note with lots of energy and a desire to do something good for the environment.