Elon Must: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
Author: Ashlee Vance
October, 2016
- Rating:
Though I have read about Elon Musk at various places, so not everything in this was new, the new was the insights provided during the struggling days of Tesla and SpaceX and how he was able to achieve what everyone termed “impossible”. The book starts with his childhood days in South Africa and how he turned himself into a book eater, swallowing books over books to satiate his never ending quest for knowledge. He continues that habit till now to increase his knowledge by reading massively about a topic at an incredible pace and with equally unfathomable rate of comprehension. He made himself very clear during his teenage to move to US as soon as he could, and once the target is set he worked the universe to achieve that. That also still continues.
His business plan is always simple – produce at insanely low cost in exceptionally small amount of time and ofcourse with flair. SpaceX is producing rockets at process much cheaper than any other similar industry. The toll of his out of the world (literally) ambitions are taken by the employees of his company, but the employees are driven more by the outcomes and inspired by his passion.
The thing that I liked about the book is that the discussion on his personal life was kept limited, probably because no one opened about his personal life to him, and author was sane enough to not to speculate his own theories.
I also felt that author was very much influenced by the personality of Elon Musk, as you see he is all praises for him in the book. I am sure Elon is worth all the praises, but from a researcher point of view you want to see all the sides. I do not blame Ashlee for that; probably Musk is just too smart for him to know properly, it seems that he wrote the story that Elon wanted him to write. The whole book is full of times of hardships he went through, I am sure there were other times as well, which could have deserved place in the book.
Book is a worth read for anyone who wants to know the working style of Elon and what it takes to achieve what he claims. The book will surely be inspirational.
Share: