The new Elon Musk biography by Ashlee Vance will “likely serve as the definitive account” of the most successful entrepreneur in the world, writes Jon Gertner in the New York Times. But it can also be read as a manual of how to succeed in business. Here are six big lessons for entrepreneurs, young and old:
1. Think Big
While Musk was at college, he decided the three things that would have the biggest positive impact on the human race were: sustainable energy, the Internet, and making life multi-planetary.
Here’s how Vance describes Musk’s big thinking:
“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.”
This passage comes early in the book, and feels as though Vance has been drinking Musk’s Kool Aid. By the last page, however, he’s painted a vivid and balanced picture of a driven man, focused intently on changing the world in a big way, no matter the cost to himself or his family (see No.6 below). So, if you want to succeed like Elon Musk, don’t waste time building a widget that’ll be 10% better than the competition:
Think big, really big, and go for it.
2. Learn to be a Better Boss
Elon Musk was ousted as CEO from two early startups Zip2 and X.com (the precursor to PayPal) because he was a bad boss. In his early days, Musk was a controlling, micro-manager whose “one upmanship” tactics were brutal.
Vance writes,
“Musk’s traits as a confrontational know-it-all and his abundant ego created deep, lasting fractures within his companies.”
According to a colleague at Zip2, he’d rip into junior and senior executives alike, especially when employees told him that his demands were impossible.
“You would see people come out of the meetings with this disgusted look on their face…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.”
These days, he’s still very demanding but has got better at being a decent boss at Tesla and SpaceX and his longtime employees are fiercely loyal.
Of course, part of being a good boss is inspiring your team with an awesome mission (see No.1 above) and articulating that clearly. Early employees of SpaceX were told that “the mission would be to emerge as the South-west Airlines* of Space.” More recently of course, the Mars mission dominates the company’s focus. Who wouldn’t be on board with the mind-blowing goal of making humans a multi-planetary species?
So don’t fret if you’re not getting “Boss of the Year” awards in your early days, but learn from your mistakes, and motivate your team with a grand vision.
3. Hire with Care, Fire fast
Musk is renowned for hiring top talent and for several years, he even insisted on personally interviewing employees fairly low on the totem pole. For key technical hires, once he decides he wants someone, he’ll go above and beyond to hire them. He even cold-calls them himself. A SpaceX employee recalls receiving a call from Musk in his college dorm room and thinking it was a prank call.
But on the flip side, if you’re not a fit for the team, then you’ll soon know about it, according to Steve Jurvetson, a Tesla, SpaceX board member and close ally to Musk.
“Like (Steve) Jobs, Elon does not tolerate C or D players. He’s like Jobs in that neither of them suffer fools. But I’d say he’s nicer than Jobs and a bit more refined than Bill Gates.”
The lesson: hire strategically with great care, and if an employee doesn’t fit, don’t wait.
Some of his “bombastic counteroffensives” worked, others were arguably counter productive and alienated potential allies and supporters.
Yet Vance also offers a more sympathetic interpretation of his tirades as “a quest for truth” as opposed to pure vindictiveness. As Vance writes,
“Musk is wired like a scientist and suffers mental anguish at the sight of a factual error. A mistake on a printed page would gnaw at his soul – forever.”
Although taking things personally and seeking war has generally worked for Musk, it’s a highly risky strategy. Setting the record straight is one thing, but how many bridges can you burn? One key consideration is this: going to war demands a lot of time and energy which might be better spent on getting your mission accomplished.
Choose your battles carefully.
5. Have a trusted assistant
Ashley Vance describes Musk’s long-time assistant Mary Beth Brown as:
“A now-legendary character in the lore of both SpaceX and Tesla….establishing a real-life version of the relationship between Iron Man’s Tony Stark and Pepper Potts. If Musk worked a twenty hour day, so too did Mary Beth…She would emerge as the only bridge between Musk and all of his interests and was an invaluable asset to the companies’ employees.”
Sadly for Musk, she’s now moved on, but having worked with her briefly in 2012/13 (to arrange an in-depth interview with Musk), I can attest that she was very charming and an excellent surrogate for Musk. She represented him well in a professional and personal capacity.
Read more about her in the biography and try find someone as loyal, talented and hard-working to be your right-hand man or woman. Good luck!
6. Work hard, very hard
Not only does Musk lead two hard-driving companies (which are 300 miles apart) – SpaceX (L.A.) and Tesla (Silicon Valley) – he’s chairman of SolarCity, and has five boys, two ex-wives and a tight circle of friends, that includes Google’s Larry Page. He claims to sleep an average of six hours a night, but almost every waking hour is devoted to his businesses. His ex-wife Justine Musk, describes his work ethic like this:
“I had friends who complained that their husbands came home at seven or eight. Elon would come home at eleven and work some more. People didn’t always get the sacrifice he made in order to be where he was. He does what he wants, and he is relentless about it. It’s Elon’s world, and the rest of us live in it.”
The only regular downtime he allows is to indulge in long showers, but even then, it’s really work. He says that’s when he has most of his innovative ideas.
So, the lesson for you is the same as that espoused by pioneering giants like Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie: there’s nothing like good old fashioned hard work.
Note: Although Musk comes over as a hard-driving maniac in this biography, he does have a more sensitive side. You can see this for yourself in this candid interview. He comes close to tears several times.
Yet the biography is already courting controversy. Today Musk said one passage about his attitude to employees and childbirth was “total BS and hurtful.” He addedthat Vance’s book was “not independently fact-checked” and should be taken “[with] a grain of salt.”
So is there a definitive guide to Musk’s remarkable life? One that doesn’t need fact checked or taken with a grain of salt? You could start with a description of his life from the man himself.
As far as I know, this is the first time Elon Musk has shared his whole life story, so candidly, even tearfully, in front of a live audience.
Watch the video or read the transcript, as Musk takes us on a journey from the suburban streets of South Africa to the tech mecca of Silicon Valley…and beyond. He tells us about his teenage “existential crisis” and his bookish quest for the meaning of life; how the retirement of NASA’s space shuttle both upset him and inspired his space transport startup SpaceX; and why he became the reluctant CEO of electric car company Tesla Motors.
.
Interview highlights and key turning points in his career:
The Rebellious Child: Musk grew up in South Africa. At age 6, he desperately wanted to attend his cousin’s birthday party, but was grounded for some long-forgotten transgression. How did he get there? (This was probably the first of his many rule-breaking adventures.)
“It was clear across town, 10 or 12 miles away, further than I realized actually, but I just started walking…I think it took me about four hours…My mother freaked out.”
The Iron Man Inspiration: He was a huge fan of comics and read Iron Man comics. Did he ever imagine he’d be the inspiration for Robert Downey Jr’s movie character, Tony Stark?
“I did not. I would have said zero percent chance…I wasn’t all that much of a loner…at least not willingly. I was very very bookish.”
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: How did the novel fire his imagination?
“I was around 12 or 15…I had an existential crisis, and I was reading various books on trying to figure out the meaning of life and what does it all mean? …I read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and it highlighted an important point which is that a lot of times the question is harder than the answer. And if you can properly phrase the question, then the answer is the easy part. To the degree that we can better understand the universe, then we can better know what questions to ask. Then whatever the question is that most approximates: what’s the meaning of life? That’s the question we can ultimately get closer to understanding. And so I thought to the degree that we can expand the scope and scale of consciousness and knowledge, then that would be a good thing.”
Why was Silicon Valley his mecca at age 17?
“Whenever I read about cool technology, it would tend to be in the United States…I wanted to be where the cutting edge technology was and of course, Silicon Valley is where the heart of things is…it sounded like some mythical place.”
Why did his startup X.com (the precursor to PayPal) come close to dying in 2000?
“The growth in the company was pretty crazy…by the end of the first four or five weeks we had a hundred thousand customers and it wasn’t all good…we had some bugs in the software…Various financial regulatory agencies were trying to shut us down, Visa and Mastercard were trying to shut us down, eBay…the FTC…there were a lot of battles there. (But) we had a really talented group of people at PayPal…It worked out better than we expected.”
After making over $150M from PayPal, why not just buy an island and relax?
“The idea of lying on a beach as my main thing sounds horrible to me…I would go bonkers. I’d have to be on serious drugs…I’d be super duper bored…I like high intensity.”
On the seeds of SpaceX
“I always thought that we’d make much more progress in space…and it just didn’t happen…it was really disappointing, so I was really quite bothered by it. So when we went to the moon, we were supposed to have a base on the moon, we were supposed to send people to Mars and that stuff just didn’t happen. We went backwards. I thought, well maybe it’s a question of there not being enough intention or ‘will’ to do this. This was a wrong assumption. That’s the reason for the greenhouse idea…if there could be a small philanthropic mission to Mars…a small greenhouse with seeds and dehydrated nutrients, you’d have this great shot of a little greenhouse with little green plants on a red background. I thought that would get people excited…you have to imagine the money shot. I thought this would result in a bigger budget for NASA and then we could resume the journey…”
On negotiations with the Russian military to buy two ICBMs
“They just thought I was crazy…I had three quite interesting trips to Russia to try to negotiate purchase of two Russian ICBMs…minus the nukes…I slightly got the feeling that was on the table, which was very alarming. Those were very weird meetings with the Russian military…’remarkably capitalist’ was my impression (of the Russians).”
Why he chose to create his own rocket company, SpaceX
“I came to the conclusion that my initial premise was wrong that in fact that there’s a great deal of will, there’s not such a shortage. But people don’t think there’s a way. And if people thought there was a way or something that wouldn’t break the federal budget, then people would support it. The United States is a distillation of the human spirit of exploration. People came here from other places…people need to believe that it’s possible, so I thought it’s a question of showing people that there’s a way…There wasn’t really a good reason for rockets to be so expensive. If one could make them reusable, like airplanes then the cost of rocketry (and space travel) would drop dramatically.”
How did the vigils for the death of the EV 1 help inspire Tesla Motors?
“It’s crazy. When was the last time you heard about any company, customers holding a candlelight vigil for the demise of that product? Particularly a GM product? I mean, what bigger wake-up call do you need? Like hello, the customers are really upset about this…that kind of blew my mind.”
“I tried really hard not to be the CEO of two startups at the same time…It’s not appealing and shouldn’t be appealing if anyone thinks that’s a good idea. It’s a terrible idea.”
On the idea for SolarCity
“Solar is the obvious primary means of sustainable energy generation…in fact, the earth is almost entirely solar powered today. The only reason we’re not a frozen ice-ball at 3 degrees Kelvin is because of the sun…”
Check back soon for more from Musk on:
where his inspiration strikes (hint: not just Burning Man)
how to build, motivate and retain an excellent team
Technology has the potential to bring us a mind-blowing world of innovation, from self-driving cars to re-engineered food, and even colonies on Mars. Elon Musk and Steve Jurvetson are two of tech’s most influential minds. Here’s my BBC World Business Report on their vision of the future. Spoiler alert: It isn’t all good news.
The report aired today (May 6, 2015) on the BBC World Service. Listen to the podcast from 11:00
BBC Presenter, Mike Johnson: Colonies on Mars, self driving electric cars, re-engineered food… How will technology change our lives in the decades ahead? It’s certainly bringing us an extraordinary world of innovation. It’s known in the jargon these days as “future shock.” Many worry about the consequences, especially the toll that increased use of robots will take on jobs. Alison van Diggelen, creator and host of the Fresh Dialogues interview series reports from California
Audio: [Sound of Tesla Factory welding, metal on metal, robot sounds…]
van Diggelen: It was here in Silicon Valley, in 2012, the first Model S rolled off the production line at the Tesla Factory.
Tesla’s Gilbert Passin: See the robot is bringing the flat panel into the press…they are in slow motion …[factory sounds]
van Diggelen: The pioneering carmaker, Tesla Motors, has now produced over 70,000 all-electric cars and is gearing up for the release of the new Model X, a futuristic SUV with falcon wing doors. This summer, it will also start shipping Tesla Energy storage batteries for homes, businesses and utilities. Gilbert Passin leads the Tesla manufacturing team and is proud of the numerous red robots at the factory.
Passin: What we do here is really kick-ass. I mean, look around…. does it look to you like a boring old-fashioned car factory?
van Diggelen: Absolutely not.
Passin: We’re using the latest and greatest and even in some cases innovate in manufacturing techniques.
van Diggelen: The Tesla production team is so fond of its heavy lifting robots, they’re named after action heroes like Wolverine, Vulcan and Colossus.
Venture Capitalist, Steve Jurvetson drives the first Model S to come off Tesla’s production line. He has a reputation for putting his money where his mouth is and backing successful startups like Hotmail, SpaceX, and PlanetLabs. He’s a self-described “raging techno optimist” and has a front row seat on the future of innovation. I asked him what we should expect in the next 50 years…
Steve Jurvetson: (If you look far enough in the future) All vehicles will be electric. We’ll have a Mars colony. We will have to grow more food than since the beginning of agriculture. That will be largely driven by GMOs and a variety of roboticized forms of farming…and moving off meat production in the way we think of it: killing animals. We will “grow” meat in different ways within 50 years and that will have pretty profound effects on Greenhouse Gases to… everything. Entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, are changing the world. In that 50 year horizon, the world’s going to look markedly different than today. Future shock is a perpetually occurring phenomenon.
van Diggelen: As well as being CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk leads SpaceX, the aerospace company that recently launched its 6th mission to resupply the International Space Station.
Ambi: [SpaceX rocket countdown and blast off]
Tesla announcer: 5,4,3,2,1…and lift off…the Falcon soars from its perch to the international space station. [Rocket blasting….]
He envisioned a philanthropic mission to Mars to install a greenhouse…and jumpstart the space race. Here’s Musk:
Musk: You’d have this great shot of a little greenhouse with little green plants on a red background. I thought that would get people excited…you have to imagine “the money shot.” So this would be the furthest that life’s ever travelled, the first life on Mars and I thought maybe that would result in a bigger budget for NASA and then we could resume the journey…
van Diggelen: Of course, in order to get to Mars, Musk and his team would have to invent a low cost space rocket. Enter, SpaceX.
Jurvetson: Being a multi planetary species, (having a colony on Mars and probably the moon) is one of those “greatest hits” in human evolution, up there with the opposable thumb…the neuron, multi-cellular beings.
van Diggelen: These grand visions are all very well, but what will life be like here on planet earth in 50 years?
For now, the tech economy is bringing manufacturing back to the US and Europe, but in the long run robots will take our jobs. This has huge implications for the world economy, business and public policy. Jurvetson admits he’s deeply worried about the growing rich-poor divide that tech innovation is exacerbating. He doesn’t pull his punches…
Jurvetson: Imagine the robots of the future… It’s inevitable the jobs will go away…and we need to prepare for that future…talk about it now so that the transition isn’t violent and horrible….40% unemployment, 80% unemployment…we’re gonna get there.
Last night, Tesla CEO Elon Musk showed he’s getting more like Steve Jobs by the minute. Just as Jobs helped revolutionize the personal computer, music and phone industries; Musk has helped revolutionize the world of e-commerce, space exploration and electric cars. And now he’s set his sights on the energy sector. With this announcement, Musk has burnished his revolutionary status by revealing that Tesla Motors is no longer “just” a car company, but an energy company. You can read the 12 key facts of last night’s presentation here. Some commentators are calling it the start of an energy storage revolution, but there are no guarantees.
Here are some highlights of our conversation (edited for length and clarity):
Fergus Nicholl: Elon Musk…you’ve met the man. How would you introduce him to a global audience?
Alison van Diggelen: He is a genius inventor…the (Thomas) Edison of our day…incredibly sharp minded, a big old geek, but he’s very personable. He has grand visions and wants to make it happen…he has the ability to paint a picture, and motivate a team and build a team. He’s changed the world of electric vehicles and he’s now planning to change the world of power, utilities and battery storage.
Fergus Nicholl: That is an application that would apply in many many countries, beyond India. The idea that you could weather blackouts, brownouts…you’re saying you could bank it, use it when you need it and not necessarily get hit by little domestic crises?
Revathy Ashok: Absolutely. It’s pretty common in India for a normal household to have a one to three hour battery back up.For the last 12 hours it’s been raining heavily…we’ve had no power at all, so all connectivity is lost. I have three hours of battery backup which is all gone…
Alison van Diggelen: The main idea is, if you’ve got solar panels on your roof, or windpower, your house can become a power station with the addition of these batteries. No matter what natural disaster, earthquake etc. is happening, you will have a reliable source of power. You won’t need the utility anymore. You can just disconnect from the grid, go “off-grid.” So that’s the huge potential and that’s why people are really excited about tonight’s announcement.
Fergus Nicholl: The Gigafactory (in Nevada)…tell us more about it…a net zero energy factory…it’s quite an extraordinary project.
Alison van Diggelen: Yes, a net zero energy project means it will be solar powered itself and will produce as much energy as it uses to make these batteries. It’s definitely quite revolutionary and has Elon Musk’s fingers all over it.
Fergus Nicholl: In this picture, the entire roof is vast solar panels, kind of like a solar farm laid perfectly flat. I guess Nevada is probably the best place to be for that?
Alison van Diggelen: Indeed, several states were actually fighting over it. California was hoping to get it too, but Nevada won out because they gave some very juicy incentives…The Gigafactory will produce more batteries, once it’s fully operational, than the world’s supply of batteries in 2013. That’s what they’re predicting. It’s a mind blowing amount of batteries and Tesla board member, Steve Jurvetson told me they’re planning to build more Gigafactories around the world, once this one is operational. As well as being Net Zero, they’re going to be creating a lot of employment, so there will be a lot of communities wanting them in their back yard too.
Fergus Nicholl: They’ll be lining up in different countries…
***
Note: We didn’t have time to discuss the competition that Tesla will face in the battery storage space. There are already major players like Samsung, LG Chem and Mitsubishi working on energy storage solutions and a slice of what Deutsche Bank estimates is a $4.5Bn market. The question is, will Tesla’s strong brand and reputation for quality emulate what Apple achieved in the cellphone market, and leapfrog over the existing competition? In his usual hyperbolic (Steve Jobs) fashion, Elon Musk said last night that “existing battery solutions suck.” But the success of his high risk venture in the energy storage market will depend on swift execution and competitive pricing that makes the Tesla Powerwall a viable solution for a wide spectrum of potential buyers, from wealthy consumers and businesses in California to rural communities in India, Africa and beyond.
Why are robots getting close and personal? Here’s my BBC World Business Report about The Brave New World of autonomous cars and social robots. It aired on BBC World Service Monday April 13, 2015.
Two pioneers, Elon Musk of Tesla Motors and Cynthia Breazeal of Jibo Robot, explain why autonomous cars and robots are poised to invade your home and (potentially) make your life easier and safer.
Here’s the program. Listen at 12:16 on the podcast.
WBR Host, Susannah Streeter: The era of robots is getting personal. They’re slowly moving into our homes and our garages. What’s the business case for robot cars that can chauffeur you autonomously and desktop robots that can be your personal assistant? Will they be job killers or job creators? Alison van Diggelen reports from Silicon Valley, California where two pioneers recently described a brave new world full of robots.
Jen-Hsun Huang (Nvidia CEO): Ladies and Gentlemen, Please welcome Tesla CEO, cofounder, Elon Musk [applause]
Elon Musk: In the distant future, people may outlaw driving cars. It’s too dangerous. You can’t have a person driving a two-ton death machine. [laughter]
That’s Elon Musk, the CEO of electric vehicle maker, Tesla Motors speaking at a recent Silicon Valley tech conference. He helped revolutionize the world of electric vehicles by creating a sexy, high performance car that left the “golf cart” era in the dust. Now he’s joined the charge in autonomous driving, led by Google, and claims that taking a self driving car will soon be as everyday as using an elevator. But are you ready to step into a robot car?
Elon Musk: You’ll be able to tell your car: Take me home, go here, go there, anything…in an order of magnitude safer than a person. It’s going to be the default thing and could save a lot of lives.
Although you might grimace at the thought of relinquishing control, for Musk, Google and several major car manufacturers, the business case for autonomous cars is a no brainer – they say it could save $400 Billion a year in accident related expenses. Researchers at Columbia University found that a shared driverless fleet of cars could reduce personal travel costs by 80%.
But will robotic cars and other types of robots kill jobs?
Cynthia Breazeal argues they won’t. She’s a pioneer in social robots – ones that focus on human-robot interactions. She invented Jibo, a singing, dancing tabletop robot that looks like a cross between the Pixar lamp and an iPad.
Jibo Announcer: Introducing Jibo, the world’s first family robot. Say hi Jibo…
Jibo: Hi Jibo! [laughter]
Jibo Announcer: Jibo helps everyone out throughout their day [music]
Jibo is a personal assistant robot that can photograph, video, entertain and educate you and your family. It can remind you to call your mum on her birthday and even read your children bedtime stories.
Jibo: Let me in or else I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in!!
Girl: [Giggling]
Jibo announcer: He’s not just a connected device, he’s one of the family.
Girl: Shhhhh. Good night Jibo! [Computer sounds]
.
Although some people might find Jibo a bit creepy, the company’s crowd funding campaign showed its strong consumer appeal. Last year, it raised over $2M from Indiegogo in just 8 weeks. This year, it secured $25M in venture capital. Jibo goes on sale next year.
Breazeal acknowledges that robots were viewed as job killers, historically.
Breazeal: When robotics first came onto the market, it was a lot about replacing human labor. (So that’s been the assumption) Social robotics as a whole research discipline has been about a very different paradigm. So Jibo is not being designed to replace anyone or anything. (Sometimes people talk about, ‘it’s going to replace my dog…’ it’s not about that.) Jibo creates a different kind of relationship…like with your doctor, your dog for example. It’s about supporting the family, those who help care for the family, doctors and nurses…This high touch high tech technology is much better able to address those in need.
Her robot might one day be a job killer for healthcare workers and personal assistants. But for now, Breazeal is on a hiring spree, looking for engineers and she has MILLIONS to spend.
Ultimately, the brave new world of robots envisioned by these pioneers is as inevitable as the relentless advance of tech innovation.
Musk is only half joking when he says this:
Musk: I just hope there’s something left for us humans to do…
***
The report was recorded at the Nvidia Conference, Silicon Valley on March 16, 2015.
How did the vigils for the death of the EV 1 help inspire Tesla Motors?
Steve Jurvetson: (If you look far enough in the future) All vehicles will be electric. We’ll have a Mars colony. We will have to grow more food than since the beginning of agriculture. That will be largely driven by GMOs and a variety of roboticized forms of farming…and moving off meat production in the way we think of it: killing animals. We will “grow” meat in different ways within 50 years and that will have pretty profound effects on Greenhouse Gases to… everything. Entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, are changing the world. In that 50 year horizon, the world’s going to look markedly different than today. Future shock is a perpetually occurring phenomenon.
Alison van Diggelen: The main idea is, if you’ve got solar panels on your roof, or windpower, your house can become a power station with the addition of these batteries. No matter what natural disaster, earthquake etc. is happening, you will have a reliable source of power. You won’t need the utility anymore. You can just disconnect from the grid, go “off-grid.” So that’s the huge potential and that’s why people are really excited about tonight’s announcement.
Elon Musk: In the distant future, people may outlaw driving cars. It’s too dangerous. You can’t have a person driving a two-ton death machine. [laughter]
