#25-Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson

Sunday Biographies ?? Perfect for those who love learning from the experiences of successful individuals.

Every Sunday, I'll share biographies I've read and the highlights that resonated with me. Your positive feedback on my previous biography-related posts inspired me to create this newsletter.

To anyone I’ve offended, I just want to say, I reinvented electric cars and I’m sending people to Mars in a rocket ship. Did you think I was also going to be a chill, normal dude? —Elon Musk, Saturday Night Live, May 8, 2021

My top 10 Highlights from the book:

1. He became one of those people who feels most alive when a hurricane is coming. “I was born for a storm, and a calm does not suit me,” Andrew Jackson once said. Likewise with Musk. He developed a siege mentality that included an attraction, sometimes a craving, for storm and drama, both at work and in the romantic relationships he struggled and failed to maintain. He thrived on crises, deadlines, and wild surges of work. When he faced tortuous challenges, the strain would often keep him awake at night and make him vomit. But it also energized him.
2. Elon sometimes has similar mood swings. “When Elon’s in a good mood, it’s like the coolest, funnest thing in the world. And when he’s in a bad mood, he goes really dark, and you’re just walking on eggshells.”
3. Elon was moved aside to chief technology officer. At first, he thought the change would suit him; he could focus on building the product. But he learned a lesson. “I never wanted to be a CEO,” he says, “but I learned that you could not truly be the chief technology or product officer unless you were the CEO.”
4. Like Steve Jobs, he genuinely did not care if he offended or intimidated the people he worked with, as long as he drove them to accomplish feats they thought were impossible. “It’s not your job to make people on your team love you,” he said at a SpaceX executive session years later. “In fact, that’s counterproductive.”
5. “Great things will never happen with VCs or professional managers,” Musk told Inc. Magazine. “They don’t have the creativity or the insight.” One of the Mohr Davidow partners, Derek Proudian, was installed as interim CEO and tasked with selling the company. “This is your first company,” he told Musk. “Let’s find an acquirer and make some money, so you can do your second, third, and fourth company.”
6. She (Justine Musk) was impressed by his aspirations. “Unlike other ambitious people, he never talked about making money,” she says. “He assumed that he would be either wealthy or broke, but nothing in between. What interested him were the problems he wanted to solve.” His indomitable will—whether for making her date him or for building electric cars—mesmerized her. “Even when it seemed like crazy talk, you would believe him because he believed it.”
7. “Elon will say crazy stuff, but every once in a while, he’ll surprise you by knowing way more than you do about your own specialty. I think a huge part of the way he motivates people are these displays of sharpness, which people just don’t expect from him, because they mistake him for a bullshitter or goofball.”
8. He took two lessons from his near-death experience: “Vacations will kill you. Also, South Africa. That place is still trying to destroy me.”
9. “It only improves if a lot of people work very hard to make it better.”
10. “To have a base on Mars would be incredibly difficult, and people will probably die along the way, just as happened in the settling of the United States. But it will be incredibly inspiring, and we must have inspiring things in the world.” Life cannot be merely about solving problems, he felt. It also had to be about pursuing great dreams. “That’s what can get us up in the morning.”

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