In Elon Musk, technology journalist Ashlee Vance describes the life and career of entrepreneur, innovator, and billionaire Elon Musk, the CEO of both SpaceX and Tesla. He describes an entrepreneur who is driven by big goals and personal interests, not trends or get-rich-quick schemes. Despite facing challenges and public doubt, Musk changed three major industries and became a billionaire in the process.
After spending almost 50 hours interviewing Musk, Vance presents unique insight into the life of one of this generation’s most innovative entrepreneurs, as well as the difficult process of building multiple successful companies. Published in 2015, this biography will interest anyone who wants to learn about Musk, his entrepreneurial mindsets, or industries with the potential to change the future.
Vance breaks down Musk’s process of creating Zip2, X.com (later known as PayPal), SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. First, we’ll discuss Musk’s childhood in South Africa. Then, we’ll describe how he built each of his companies and some of the major milestones each business met. Finally, we’ll explore Vance’s reflections on how Musk’s traits and management style helped him succeed.
Elon Musk was born in South Africa in 1971. Vance describes two main challenges Musk faced as he grew up:
1) Being bullied: Musk’s bookishness and know-it-all reputation set him apart from his peers, and he was beaten and bullied by a group of boys for several years. Musk noted that this was one of the most difficult experiences of his childhood. The bullying finally stopped when he switched to a different high school with a more peaceful environment.
(Shortform note: Musk is one of many successful people who were the victims of childhood bullying. For example, entrepreneur Steve Jobs, singer Rihanna, and Duchess Kate Middleton are just a few notable people who were bullied as children. The reasons for the bullying varied—race, disposition, personal interests, appearance, intelligence, or physical size—but all stem from being viewed as different. Often the traits they were bullied for are now part of their success, indicating resilience and embracing these different features are key to success and overcoming the long-term negative effects of bullying.)
2) Living with his father: Vance notes that Musk wouldn’t go into great detail about his father, but he acknowledged that Errol was a difficult person to be around, inflicted a level of psychological torture on him, made his life miserable, and dismissed Musk’s dream of moving to America (which Musk eventually did after graduating high school—despite his father’s discouragement).
(Shortform note: While Musk doesn’t explain the specifics of what made Errol a difficult father, his mother, Maye provided more insight in her memoir A Woman Makes a Plan. She explains that Elon’s father, Errol, was manipulative and abusive—physically, financially, and emotionally. In another interview, Elon supported her claim, stating Errol was physically violent with him when he was very young.)
In 1995, after leaving South Africa and graduating from college, Musk moved to Silicon Valley with his brother Kimbal to try to start a dot-com company. They founded Zip2, a searchable online directory that linked to a map. Vance explains that Musk thought of the idea during one of his internships after a salesman gave a weak pitch for an online Yellow Pages. Musk saw a business opportunity: selling a way for companies to advertise online.
(Shortform note: Musk and Kimbal’s creation of Zip2 supports Michael Gerber’s idea of what he calls the “Entrepreneurial Myth.” In The E-Myth Revisited, Gerber explains that most businesses aren’t started by entrepreneurs with business knowledge, but are instead started by people who are good at something and believe their technical skills are all they’ll need to succeed. Gerber argues that such technical skills are rarely enough, and that entrepreneurs who succeed are the ones who, like Musk and Kimbal, later make a point of acquiring business knowledge to support their idea.)
Then, in 1996, a venture capital firm heard about the site. After Musk’s sales pitch, the investors were impressed with his energy and his belief in the product. The firm invested $3 million into Zip2. Vance explains that while this was an accomplishment for the company, it brought challenges for Musk. The board brought in new engineers, who made changes to Musk’s code. While the changes improved the software, Musk bristled at his new lack of control and often rewrote some of their new code without their knowledge.
(Shortform note: James Kouzes and Barry Posner discuss the danger of trying to exert too much control in their book The Leadership Challenge. They warn against the tendency to start micromanaging other peoples’ responsibilities—like Musk rewriting his engineers’ code—cautioning that doing so will limit you to the level of a supervisor or manager, and you’ll never rise to the level of a true leader. They argue that a leader is one who can stand back and trust her team, knowing that she’s hired capable people, trained them well, and given them the resources they need to succeed. By allowing other people to make decisions on their own, you’ll build a climate of trust that’s an essential element in a strong organization.)
Then, in February 1999, Zip2 received a $307 million cash offer from Compaq Computer to buy the company, which they accepted. Musk made $22 million from the deal. He emerged from the venture as a millionaire with experience bringing a business idea to life.
(Shortform note: While the Musk brothers expanded the Zip2 until it was bought in 1999, the site fell into obscurity within a few years. Zip2 was passed from internet company to internet company until it became unrecognizable from the original site. Google Maps has largely replaced Zip2 and other online directories.)
With money from the Zip2 deal and insight on how to manage a team, Musk was ready to move on to his next venture. In March 1999, Musk incorporated his financial service site, which he named X.com. He put $12 million into X.com, making him the biggest shareholder of his new company. Vance explains that Musk’s personal investment was different from most entrepreneurs at the time, who would make a lot of money, and then use their new wealthy status to convince other people to invest in their next venture instead of making a large personal investment themselves. Musk began hiring engineers and seeking venture capital to bring X.com to life.
(Shortform note: Vance writes that Musk’s personal investment was unusual during the dot-com boom, but others note that in general, many entrepreneurs invest their own money into their ventures. According to a 2021 study, 62% of small business owners use their own funds to handle financial problems. However, some experts advise against following this strategy, as the odds of building a successful business that will support you—both now and through retirement—are low. They believe you should still invest in a diverse portfolio to protect yourself against the higher risk of a failed business.)
Soon, X.com faced a competitor: Confinity and their service called PayPal that completed web-based payments, particularly on sites like eBay. Eventually, Confinity and X.com merged. The team cited that they had more than one million customers, but with its popularity came technical problems to the site such as hacking and crashing. Vance explains that people in the company were uncertain of Musk’s ability to fix these issues.
(Shortform note: Like Musk and the X.com team, Peter Thiel and his PayPal co-founders nonetheless had a big vision for PayPal. In Zero to One, he describes how the original idea was to create an internet currency to replace the dollar. The first version of PayPal allowed people to send money from one PalmPilot to another. But not enough people had PalmPilots for that to be viable. Instead, since everyone had email, the company created a way to send payments via email. It worked well, but expenses were growing faster than customers, thus motivating them to partner with X.com.)
In September 2000, X.com executives staged a coup to replace Musk as CEO. He stayed with the company—which was soon renamed PayPal—as an advisor and an investor. By July 2001, Musk’s influence at PayPal was fading, and he began to search for his next business venture. In July 2002, PayPal accepted a $1.5 billion offer from eBay. Musk made $250 million from the deal.
(Shortform note: In 2015, PayPal separated from eBay, allowing both companies to focus on their respective growth. PayPal later launched a peer-to-peer payment option, encouraging a trend toward digital payments.)
Following the success of PayPal, Musk set his sights on a new industry for his next venture: space exploration, which was an industry he believed had become stagnant. Vance explains that Musk was disappointed that NASA no longer seemed driven to get to Mars or other planets. Vance explains that Musk wanted to reinvigorate America’s interest in space exploration by advancing current technologies and showing the public that space travel was still evolving, particularly since he believes space colonization is imperative to human survival.
(Shortform note: Like Musk, Stephen Hawking believes space exploration is crucial for human survival, presenting two reasons for why we should colonize space: First, our species is quickly running out of space and natural resources on earth. Hawking feels that even if we conserve natural resources by improving how we manage them, in the long term we’re going to need more room for humanity to expand. Second, colonizing space mitigates the risk of extinction. Hawking warns that there is a significant probability that humans could go extinct on earth in the next millennium. But if we’ve colonized other planets by then, at least that won’t be the end of our species.)
In April 2002, after discussing the possibility of space travel with scientists, Musk decided to start a commercial space venture. Vance explains that he wanted to spend between $20 million and $30 million on the venture to space. One expert estimated that it would actually take $200 million.
Musk decided to build a rocket from scratch rather than trying to buy a refurbished one. The experts he’d recruited for the project thought the idea was impossible given his budget. But Musk had made a detailed plan, and after looking over the data, Musk’s team agreed it was viable. They aimed to launch a rocket into orbit in a year and a half.
(Shortform note: In Think Like a Rocket Scientist, the author discusses why Musk’s decision to build the rocket from scratch was so successful. Musk used first-principles thinking by questioning his goal and realizing that what he really needed wasn’t a rocket: It was a way to get to space. By taking this approach, he was able to evaluate the problem from a different perspective and find a creative solution that addressed his true goal.)
The next month, Musk started Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, putting $100 million into the company. He assembled an initial team of scientists and engineers to work on the rocket, and they hired more employees almost every week.
Vance notes that because of Musk’s ambitious deadlines and high expectations, this team worked 12-hour days, six days a week to create the rocket (the Falcon 1) and the engine (Merlin), spending long periods of time at the test facility in Texas and away from their families. Unlike other aerospace companies, Musk focused on making the rocket cheaper and faster, which required improving existing technologies.
The Billionaire Space Race
Musk isn’t the only person making a commercial space venture a reality. Some experts credit American entrepreneur Peter Diamandis for laying the groundwork for the billionaire space race in the 1990s by creating the X Prize to spur interest in space ventures. In addition to Musk’s SpaceX, several companies emerged as competitors:
Blue Origin: Founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin also aims to make space travel cheap and reliable through reusable rocket technology. SpaceX and Blue Origin are longstanding rivals, as are their founders Musk and Bezos. But Blue Origin doesn’t seem to have any intention of going to Mars since Bezos thinks it’s a “dumb” idea.
Virgin Galactic: Founded in 2004 by Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic focuses more on space tourism than exploration. In February 2022, Virgin Galactic announced that passenger tickets were available for purchase for $450,000.
While private investors seem interested in funding these ventures, not everyone is impressed by these wealthy efforts to travel in space. A study found that over three quarters of the people in the UK believe these billionaires—who are worth over $400 billion—should focus on solving problems like world hunger and climate change, not space exploration that can only be afforded by the very wealthy.
In May 2005, SpaceX completed a test where the rocket successfully burned for five seconds on a launchpad. But the team had trouble going further and actually launching the rocket—over the course of the next (almost) three years, the SpaceX team tried and failed three times. The reasons for the failed launches varied—a faulty valve or a fire above the engine—and each time, the team worked to quickly address each issue.
By 2008, Musk was under pressure—he only had money for one more launch, and he was also juggling problems with Tesla. Vance explains that Musk put on a good front and boosted the morale of the SpaceX team in anticipation of the fourth launch.
Then, on September 28, 2008, the rocket launched successfully. After six years, Musk finally met his goal of getting a rocket into space. Although this was longer than Musk originally planned, SpaceX built a successful rocket faster than anyone in the industry expected.
(Shortform note: While the SpaceX team eventually succeeded with its Falcon 1 launch, it went through several failed launches first—but they eventually succeeded because they learned from their mistakes. In Think Like a Rocket Scientist, Ozan Varol explains that rocket scientists have a complicated relationship with failure. Some missions (particularly those with human lives at stake) have very little room for failure. However, in every other scenario, failure is a normal part of life as a rocket scientist taking scientific risks. Therefore, scientists value “intelligent failure”: the kind of failure that can be learned from. Varol argues that good scientists approach their failures with genuine, disinterested curiosity.)
Vance explains that while the launch marked a turning point for SpaceX, the company still had financial problems to address. Musk heard about a $1 billion contract from NASA to resupply the International Space Station, and he advocated for SpaceX and its ability to fulfill the contract. In December 2008, NASA awarded the contract to SpaceX, securing the company’s financial survival.
(Shortform note: In 2021, NASA awarded SpaceX two more contracts. One is to provide launch services for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-U (GOES-U) mission, which uses stationary satellites to monitor atmospheric indicators of severe weather conditions. The other is a $2.89 billion contract to develop spacecraft to take astronauts to the moon.)
Following this achievement, SpaceX continued to advance their technology and build a capsule for their NASA mission. The efforts paid off: On May 22, 2012, SpaceX sent up a capsule to resupply the International Space Station, making it the first private company to do so.
(Shortform note: As of 2021, Northrop Grumman and SpaceX are the only two commercial space companies to resupply the International Space Station. Even after almost a decade, most other private space ventures haven’t caught up with SpaceX’s progress.)
As a leader in the aerospace industry, SpaceX is now known for its intense work environment and 90-hour workweeks. But this hard work pays off: The company launches a rocket about once a month and has the cheapest launches in the world. They’ve turned their attention to developing a reusable rocket, which would further reduce launch costs.
(Shortform note: Musk claims that reusable rockets are the only way to achieve cheap space flight. Since the publication of the book, SpaceX made major advancements toward this goal by successfully reusing the rocket booster—the largest and most expensive part of the rocket—in its launches.)
Around the time he started SpaceX, Musk met with an engineer working on battery technology and two engineers who had incorporated Tesla and were working on electric car technology. He suggested that these engineers all work together, and he invested in their venture. They all shared the vision of creating a great car and ending America’s reliance on gasoline. They also decided to build a luxury electric car, rather than a more affordable one that appealed only to environmentalists.
(Shortform note: Tesla had one hallmark of most great teams: a shared vision, or what Simon Sinek calls a Just Cause. A Just Cause is a big-picture vision that provides a framework for your corporate strategies—like Tesla’s vision of creating a car that would help end America’s reliance on gasoline, thus moving people toward a more sustainable future.)
To build the initial car, the Tesla team used a luxury English car as the base. They replaced the engine with the battery pack, and within six months, they had a drivable electric car. In January 2005, Musk drove the car, was pleased by their progress, and kept investing.
But the engineers faced problems with this model—called the Roadster—such as flammable batteries and transmission issues. The design elements Musk wanted also delayed production. While they worked to address these issues, the first model took much longer to reach consumers than initially expected.
(Shortform note: In a 2016 interview, Musk admitted that the original plan for the Roadster wasn’t a good one and that he only gave Tesla a 10% chance of survival, perhaps in part due to the manufacturing issues and delays. In 2011, Tesla announced it would discontinue production of the Roadster. But in 2017, Tesla revealed plans for a second generation Roadster—for $250,000—that was set to debut in 2020, but it was pushed back to 2021 and again to 2022. Tesla noted that the new Roadster will have a range of up to 620 miles, a top speed of 250 mph, and a battery pack twice the size of its others. Some experts believe Tesla may delay the Roadster again to focus on production of its other models.)
While Tesla thought they’d cut costs by manufacturing cheaply overseas, they were actually losing time and money because of manufacturing delays. When Musk heard about the problems, he sent an operations expert to investigate the issues.
Around the middle of 2007, the expert returned with his report on Tesla’s spending and production process. Musk realized the severity of the situation. Tesla reported that each car would cost about $68,000 to make. But the actual production cost was about $200,000. He believed this was a management issue and urged the board to find a new CEO for Tesla, which they did.
Under its new leadership, Tesla addressed many of the manufacturing issues it had, such as the car’s transmission problems, which needed a complete overhaul. Vance explains that Musk began to take a more active role in Tesla’s operations. He also began making more public statements, trying to ease buyers’ minds about the production delays and changes in management.
Improving Tesla’s Entrepreneurial Operating System
Tesla’s manufacturing delays and management flaws highlighted important issues that needed to be fixed to ensure a smooth Entrepreneurial Operating System: the six key components of a successful business. In Traction, Gino Wickman breaks down these six elements of any organization:
1) Vision: You need a compelling vision for your business that you communicate clearly so everyone can focus their energy on it and help you achieve it. While Tesla team members disagreed on some details, they agreed on their overall vision of revitalizing the EV industry with a luxury electric car. .
2) People: You need to have the right people in the right positions. People who are wrong for your company, or are in the wrong positions, hurt your business. After evaluating Tesla’s situation and management, Musk decided that they needed a new CEO.
3) Data: By creating a weekly report on a few key numbers, you can regularly check the vital signs of your business, quickly see and solve problems, and predict the future—without waiting for financial statements. Musk had a professional collect and analyze Tesla’s data.
4) Issues: You need to systematically identify and address issues before they undermine your business. When you take the time to solve a problem, you’ll save up to 10 times that amount of time dealing with the problem or its consequences later. Musk reviewed issues in Tesla’s management and production to address these issues before they crippled the company.
5) Process: Your processes are the way you do business. You need to identify, address, and document each of your core processes, and continually improve them. Musk did this with the production process, since the overseas manufacturing system was too expensive for Tesla and didn’t result in a better product.
6) Traction: Traction—the ability to execute, or make the company’s vision a reality—requires two things: 1) 90-day priorities for everyone, and 2) regular, focused, productive meetings at every level. While Vance doesn’t describe what kind of changes Musk made to improve communication, his active operations role eventually helped make Tesla’s vision a reality.
In October 2008, Musk became CEO of Tesla. By this point, Tesla struggled to stay in business. The company was running out of money: The first model cost $140 million to develop, when it was originally estimated to cost $25 million. Vance explains that the company also faced a few other obstacles:
1) Consumers didn’t believe in the future of electric cars yet. (Shortform note: Over 10 years later, consumers still express concerns about electric vehicles, citing their mileage range, high initial cost, battery flammability, performance, and lack of charging infrastructure. These will be challenges the electric car industry will need to overcome to succeed.)
2) Short sellers altered the price of Tesla’s stock, causing the value to fluctuate. (Shortform note: Despite Tesla’s success, as of 2021, it was the most shorted stock in the market and has been for several years.)
3) Due to the 2008 recession, many consumers weren’t buying cars. (Shortform note: In 2008, consumers bought 3 million fewer cars than the previous year.)
Tesla was spending $4 million a month and needed more funding to survive. Musk began asking friends, family, and investors for money, and Tesla employees invested what little money they had. Many people never expected to see this money again.
In December 2008, Musk took out a loan from SpaceX—which had just received their contract from NASA—and asked Tesla investors for more money. Vance explains that Tesla was hours away from bankruptcy when the deal went through, saving the company.
(Shortform note: While Musk eventually solved his money problem with the loan from SpaceX and some outside investments, financing is a common problem for start-ups, and many of the 90% of failed start-ups cite cash-flow problems as a reason for going out of business. Experts advise that to prevent funding issues, have a clear plan for what you’ll do with your existing money and be creative about finding money, like Musk.)
By 2010, Tesla’s fortunes turned a corner. The US Department of Energy (DOE) struck a deal with the company, loaning them $465 million. Tesla used some of this money to buy a factory to manufacture their cars, hoping to send out Model S cars to consumers. A few months later, Tesla went public, raising $226 million.
Then, after Tesla started shipping out the Model S in 2012, the public perception of electric vehicles gradually started to shift, warming to the idea of electric cars. Tesla had addressed manufacturing issues and common complaints about the car. Additionally, Vance explains that Tesla’s salespeople sold enough cars in the span of a few weeks to make a large profit, ending their first quarter as a public company with $562 million in sales. Tesla’s stock prices rose, and they paid off their loan to the DOE early.
By 2013, Tesla’s Model S received the highest Consumer Reports car rating in history—a 99 out of 100—and won awards in the car industry, baffling competitors and naysayers.
(Shortform note: Tesla is an example of Gary Keller’s idea of sequential success, where you accumulate small wins one after the other, like a domino fall, rather than all at once. In The One Thing, Keller explains that success builds on success sequentially, as you move from one important task to another, until you reach the highest level possible. Over the course of a few years, Tesla accumulated small wins—such as receiving the DOE loan, addressing the manufacturing issues, selling enough cars to make a profit, and receiving high ratings—instead of one big win that made the company an instant success. While one win probably wouldn’t have ensured Tesla’s survival, its accumulated sequential success did.)
Musk had always believed clean energy is the key to human survival and a sustainable future, so in 2005 when his cousins asked for business suggestions, Musk suggested he do something with solar power. Thanks to Musk’s recommendation, his cousins started SolarCity, with Musk as the largest shareholder. Vance explains that the company made improvements on existing solar panels, offered installation packages, and gave consumers an understanding of how solar power would affect their individual homes. Eventually, the company expanded to big businesses like Intel and Wal-Mart. By 2014, SolarCity was worth $7 billion.
Does Musk Have a Conflict of Interest?
While Vance presents Musk’s involvement in both SolarCity and Tesla as a smart business strategy, many experts contend that this is a conflict of interest because Musk owns significant shares in both companies and employs family members. Additionally, SpaceX bought $90 million of SolarCity stock in March 2016.
To complicate matters, Tesla bought SolarCity for $2.6 billion in August 2016, renaming it Tesla Energy. Some shareholders viewed this as a self-serving move—since Musk had a 22% stake in SolarCity at the time—and a bailout for SolarCity rather than a beneficial move for Tesla. After the merger, auditors found that SolarCity didn’t have the necessary funds to continue as a stand-alone company. Investors sued Musk, stating he’d hidden SolarCity’s financial problems from investors.
Experts estimate that the lawsuit could cost him $13 billion if he loses the case. In the trial, Musk remained adamant that the acquisition was part of a larger plan to ensure Tesla’s future as a company committed to renewable energy.
While Musk has many traits and management methods that he used to build his companies, Vance discusses five important factors that helped Musk succeed. Through a combination of being motivated by the future, having a high risk tolerance, hiring exceptional employees, maintaining control of his companies, and setting extreme deadlines, Musk’s businesses have achieved impressive results.
Vance believes Musk’s goals and actions are all motivated by the future. He puts present-day concerns aside to create a better future for humanity. Musk believes the survival of the human race depends on becoming a multiplanetary species—or living on Mars—and by creating sources of sustainable energy. The missions of Tesla and SpaceX are based on those two goals. Musk’s future-oriented mindset doesn’t prioritize his companies’ financial success over his goal to improve the future—to him, these aspects are inherently tied together.
(Shortform note: In prioritizing the future, Musk is thinking of the “infinite game.” In The Infinite Game, Simon Sinek explores the differences between finite games—where players play to win—and infinite games—where players play to survive, thrive, and keep playing the game. And Musk seems to be playing the ultimate game—humanity’s survival.)
Musk’s ability to handle stress complements his high risk tolerance. This means he doesn’t create any safety nets for himself should he fail. This mindset has given him an edge in his professional life. He’s willing to risk everything—his money, his possessions, his health, and so on—to make his vision a reality. Most people would find this level of risk extremely stressful, but Musk sees it as necessary in order to achieve his goals. He’s willing to invest all of his time and money into his businesses for the possibility of even bigger gains.
(Shortform note: While Musk believes in and encourages others to take risks—especially when they’re young—not everyone has his natural high level of risk tolerance. In Who Will Cry When You Die, Robin Sharma offers tips to help you get out of your comfort zone and increase your risk tolerance. He recommends taking small risks—such as striking up a conversation with someone new—and resisting the urge to think about the worst-case scenario, which is unlikely to occur.)
Vance believes much of Musk’s success stems from his ability to find and hire exceptional people. He has an eye for talent, and he appreciates people who are hard workers and critical thinkers. These employees are also efficient, and they can do the work of multiple people. When every employee is doing exceptional work, the combination of their efforts results in something exceptional as well.
(Shortform note: While Musk values star players for their efficiency and hard work, he may have a tendency to overwork—and even injure—these exceptional employees. According to incident reports, Tesla called for ambulances over 100 times between 2014 and 2017 for reasons such as dizziness, seizures, abnormal breathing, and other injuries. One technician noted that sometimes when someone got hurt on the job, another employee was sent to work around that person while they were still injured on the floor.)
After his experience at Zip2 and PayPal, Musk valued maintaining control of his companies. He knows leadership positions give him the most influence, allowing him to run his business how he wants to. Vance explains that Musk doesn’t have a desire for totalitarian control. Instead, he’s concerned about making sure things get done correctly. Musk believes there are certain things that need to be done to achieve his vision, and he thinks he’s the best one to make sure those things happen. This tactic has helped Tesla and SpaceX succeed, since Musk has the vision and drive to effectively lead and make business decisions.
(Shortform note: Musk has retained control as CEO of his companies because he believes he’s the best one to move his businesses toward his goals—to keep the companies playing in the infinite game, where players play to keep playing, not to win. In The Infinite Game, Simon Sinek explains that your CEO must have an infinite mindset to lead your company through its infinite game properly, which can be the difference between long-term survival or failure. Like Musk, your CEO needs an infinite mindset to lead your company through its infinite game and to look beyond her organization and envision where the company will head next.)
In all of his companies, Musk set ambitious deadlines for both himself and others. He told employees, consumers, and executives that certain tasks or products would be completed faster than anyone thought possible. Vance believes he wasn’t setting an arbitrary timeline—this was genuinely how long Musk believed it would take to complete certain tasks.
(Shortform note: While Musk uses ambitious deadlines to achieve results, experts debate their effectiveness and whether they’re worth the stress. Many people say they work better under deadline pressure, but research indicates the opposite. Under deadline pressure, people feel stressed, make mistakes, and have to redo work, which ends up taking more time. Often the mistakes—such as product flaws and cost overruns—have long-term financial consequences.)
In Elon Musk, journalist Ashlee Vance explores the life and career of Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, CEO of Tesla, Inc., and founder of X.com (now part of PayPal). Vance argues that Musk is one of the most influential innovators of this generation because he’s driven by big goals and personal passions, not trends or get-rich-quick schemes.
Vance describes Musk’s life and businesses in three major industries: technology, space, and clean energy. He explains the challenges that Musk faced to build some of today’s most successful and innovative companies. Along the way, he discusses Musk’s traits and management methods that helped his companies succeed, such as having a desire to learn, focusing on the future, and working with exceptional people.
Ashlee Vance is a business and technology writer who has reported for The New York Times and The Economist. He has covered a range of topics in technology, such as robots and programming languages. Vance also hosts Bloomberg’s video series Hello World, which explores the newest creations in technology and the people behind them.
Connect with Ashlee Vance:
Elon Musk was published by HarperCollins in 2015. The biography is Vance’s second book. In 2007, Vance published a history of Silicon Valley called Geek Silicon Valley.
This is the first biography that Musk agreed to help with. After Musk initially declined to cooperate for Vance’s biography of him, Vance went on to interview over 200 people who knew Musk or who had worked for his companies. Vance believes he impressed Musk with his determination, convincing Musk to change his mind. When Musk asked Vance to let him add footnotes to any of Vance’s points he disagreed with, Vance declined, wanting to preserve his journalistic integrity.
Over the course of several months, Vance spent almost 50 hours talking with Musk. He also interviewed another 100 people close to Musk to get a more complete understanding of him.
Since the beginning of his career, Musk has always generated public interest for his big ideas and willingness to take risks. People have long said he might be the next Steve Jobs or Thomas Edison, believing he’d revitalize Silicon Valley and inspire a resurging interest in innovation even when, in the early 2000s, companies and investors in Silicon Valley shifted away from disruptive innovations, focusing instead on social media apps and getting people to click on ads.
Musk also garnered public interest for his role as inspiration for the Iron Man movie. He even made a cameo in the movie. This introduced him to the general public. He also appeared in other popular TV shows, like The Big Bang Theory and The Simpsons.
By 2012, Musk had reached billionaire status. In 2010 and 2013, he was one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People. In 2015, when the book was published, Musk had recently unveiled new batteries from Tesla with enough storage for excess solar energy that homeowners could feel confident using power at night or on cloudy days. He has also recently announced his plans for SpaceX’s Starlink, a collection of satellites that provide Internet access to most of Earth.
Musk’s obsession with innovation isn’t a new phenomenon. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, technology and the innovators behind these technologies flourished. The lightbulb, Morse code, the printing press, the car, medicines, and the internet were all major technological advancements during this time. Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates are celebrated for their ideas and inventions.
Vance argues that Musk is an influential innovator of this generation. While innovators create new ideas and products, someone can also be an innovator for developing new or improved methods for existing technologies. Musk may not have invented the idea of the rocket or electric car, but he created new methods that advanced these products.
Elon Musk became a New York Times bestseller. “The Wall Street Journal,” Amazon, Audible, and NPR all named it as one of the best books of 2015.
While most reviewers praised Vance’s thoroughness and objectivity, critics noted that he had a tendency to idolize Musk, calling him a “genius on the grandest quest anyone has ever concocted.” Others thought Musk’s leadership style was abusive and noted that Vance didn’t thoroughly explore this idea.
Vance takes a conversational approach to telling Musk’s story. Throughout the book, Vance interweaves details about Musk’s personal life and descriptions of people close to him. Although the book contains some vulgar language, this is mainly from Musk’s (as well as other interviewees’) fondness for cursing, rather than Vance’s.
The book is split into 11 chapters with three appendices. The first chapter gives a present-day snapshot of Musk’s life and how Vance’s persistence convinced Musk to help with the biography. The next two chapters discuss Musk’s early life in South Africa and Canada.
Then there is a chapter dedicated to how Musk started each of his companies. The final four chapters describe the success of those companies and general musings on why Musk succeeded. SpaceX and Tesla have two chapters each—a chapter discussing how Musk started each company and a chapter describing the success of each company as of 2015.
This organization makes it seem like Musk worked on each new business venture sequentially, when in reality, he often worked on multiple projects at the same time.
We’ve split this guide into six parts. First, we’ll describe Musk’s early life and career, then discuss each of the companies he got involved with later in his career—SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. Then we’ll talk about Musk’s traits that helped him succeed, including a high risk tolerance and a desire to learn. Finally, we’ll discuss Musk’s management style and how he ran his companies. In our commentary, we’ll compare Musk and his methods to other successful innovators and entrepreneurs and provide updated context on the success of his companies.
In Elon Musk, journalist Ashlee Vance explores the life and career of Elon Musk, who he believes is one of the most influential innovators of his generation. He describes an entrepreneur who is driven by big goals and personal interests, not trends or get-rich-quick schemes. Despite facing challenges and public doubt, Musk changed three major industries and became a billionaire in the process.
Vance is a writer and journalist who covers topics in technology. After spending almost 50 hours interviewing Musk, Vance presents unique insight into his life. His biography will interest anyone who wants to learn about Musk, his entrepreneurial mindsets, or industries with the potential to change the future.
In Part 1 of this guide, we’ll describe Musk’s early life and companies. In the following three sections, we’ll discuss SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. In Part 5, we’ll explore Musk’s traits that helped him succeed, including a high risk tolerance and a desire to learn. Finally, in Part 6, we’ll discuss Musk’s management style. In our commentary, we’ll compare Musk and his methods to other successful innovators and entrepreneurs and provide updated context on the success of his companies.
Elon Musk was born in South Africa in 1971. Vance describes how Musk felt like an outsider growing up since he was a quiet, nerdy child. He spent most of his time reading, even consuming encyclopedias after he’d read all of the books at local libraries. Because of his photographic memory, he remembered specific facts and could accurately recite them. Using this knowledge, he often corrected people, thus gaining a reputation as a know-it-all.
Trevor Noah and Growing Up in Apartheid in South Africa
Vance mentions that while Musk “enjoyed a level of privilege,” he felt like an outsider growing up because his nerdy interests and reserved personality differed from the hypermasculine values of South African culture. But Vance doesn’t expand on one aspect of Musk’s childhood that would have given him an automatic privilege in his particular circumstances—the racial tensions that existed in South Africa at the time and “the level of privilege” Musk had as a white person growing up during apartheid.
Apartheid—meaning separateness or aparthood—was a system of institutionalized racial segregation in South Africa, with the white minority dominating the social, political, and financial spheres. Blacks were to have no rights and be constantly monitored and controlled. At its core, apartheid was like a combination of the Indian massacres, slavery, and Jim Crow in America.
Like Musk, comedian Trevor Noah grew up in South Africa, but as a mixed-race person—which was illegal—he experienced a much different, more hateful side of South Africa than Musk did. In Born a Crime, Noah explains how he spent most of his childhood indoors to hide his complexion and how he didn’t have friends because he couldn’t legally play with them, not because they had different interests from his. He also personally saw the violence of apartheid, such as when his mother threw him off of a moving bus since the bus driver wouldn’t stop for them or when his step-father shot his mother twice. Noah’s account provides more context on what life in South Africa looked like and how Musk’s privilege gave him advantages when navigating society.
When Musk was eight years old, his parents divorced, and his mother Maye moved the three children to the Musk’s holiday home on the east coast of South Africa. After a few years, Musk decided to live with his father, Errol. Vance notes that Musk wouldn’t go into great detail about his father, but he acknowledged that Errol was a difficult person to be around, inflicted a level of psychological torture on him, made his life miserable, and dismissed Musk’s dream of moving to America.
(Shortform note: While Musk doesn’t explain the specifics of what made Errol a difficult father, Maye provided more insight in her memoir A Woman Makes a Plan. She explains that Errol was manipulative and abusive—physically, financially, and emotionally. In another interview, Musk supported her claim, stating Errol was physically violent with him when Musk was very young.)
Musk’s bookishness and know-it-all reputation set him apart from his peers, and he was beaten and bullied by a group of boys for several years. Musk noted that this was one of the most difficult experiences of his childhood. The bullying finally stopped when he switched to a different high school with a more peaceful environment.
(Shortform note: Musk is one of many successful people who were the victims of childhood bullying. For example, Steve Jobs, Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, singer Rihanna, and Duchess Kate Middleton are just a few notable people who were bullied as children. The reasons for the bullying varied—race, disposition, personal interests, appearance, intelligence, or physical size—but all stem from being viewed as different. Often the traits they were bullied for are now part of their success, indicating resilience and embracing these different features are key to success and overcoming the long-term negative effects of bullying.)
But his childhood also had its perks—Musk had the freedom and resources to explore what interested him:
Vance notes that Musk’s interests are lifelong ones, as we’ll see reflected in each of his companies.
(Shortform note: While Musk found his interest in technology, renewable energy, and space early on in life, Angela Duckworth notes that this isn’t always the case for people—in fact, she thinks many people have unrealistic expectations of how interests are discovered. In Grit, she contends that most people don’t find their interests early—they discover and develop them over time. So don’t expect to discover your interest early in life or right out of college. You need to nurture that interest through time, persistence, and practice by frequently engaging with it. This kind of passion can last a lifetime.)
After graduating high school, Musk left South Africa for Canada because he wanted to avoid mandatory military service, since that would have required him to contribute to the apartheid regime. He also thought Canada would help him get to America as quickly as possible, which was his ultimate goal. Vance explains that he spent a few years in Canada and attended college. While there, he met and dated another student named Justine, who would eventually become his first wife. Midway through his degree, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, thus completing his goal of moving to America.
(Shortform note: While Musk went to college, he believes it isn’t necessary for success, citing Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as examples of people who accomplished great things without a college degree—although he doesn’t account for the fact that both Gates and Jobs attended university without finishing their degrees. Musk has said that college is “basically for fun” and doesn’t require employees at his companies to have a college degree.)
In 1995, after graduating college, Musk moved to Silicon Valley with his brother Kimbal to try to start a dot-com company. They founded Zip2, a searchable online directory that linked to a map. Vance explains that Musk thought of the idea during one of his internships after a salesman gave a weak pitch for an online Yellow Pages. But Musk saw a business opportunity: selling a way for companies to advertise online.
The brothers rented a small office for Zip2. Despite some financial help from their father, they struggled with a lack of money after their startup expenses. (Shortform note: After the book’s publication, Musk took to Twitter to clarify how much his father helped financially. He explained that Errol contributed just $20,000 to Zip2 in a round of angel funding that raised $200,000 after the company was already well-established, thus asserting that his father didn’t contribute in a meaningful way.)
Vance describes how they lived at the office and worked long hours to create the initial product. Musk handled the coding while Kimbal focused on sales. They slowly started to build their enterprise and hire a few employees to help with the software and with pitching the idea to businesses. Because businesses were wary of the internet (a relatively new technology at that time), it was challenging to convince the companies to buy a listing on their site for better advertising.
Debunking the Entrepreneurial Myth
Musk and Kimbal’s creation of Zip2 supports Michael Gerber’s idea of what he calls the “Entrepreneurial Myth.” In The E-Myth Revisited, Gerber explains that most businesses aren’t started by entrepreneurs with business knowledge but are instead started by people who are good at something believe their technical skills are all they’ll need to succeed. They acquire business knowledge later—in other words, most entrepreneurs don’t set out specifically to create a business, but instead, to put their idea to work. Gerber argues that the entrepreneurs who succeed are the ones who, like Musk and Kimball, make a point of later acquiring business knowledge to support their idea,
Musk and Kimbal didn’t start Zip2 with business knowledge or a clear plan—just an idea and some technical skills. They gained business knowledge as they developed their business and used what they learned for future ventures. So while your first venture may not be an immediate success, what you learn from it can help you in the future.
Then, in 1996, a venture capital firm heard about the site. After Musk’s sales pitch, the investors were impressed with his energy and his belief in the product. The firm invested $3 million into Zip2. Vance explains that while this was an accomplishment for the company, it brought challenges for Musk. The board brought in new engineers, who made changes to Musk’s code. While the changes improved the software, Musk bristled at his new lack of control and rewrote some of their new code.
(Shortform note: James Kouzes and Barry Posner discuss the danger of trying to exert too much control in their book The Leadership Challenge. They warn against the tendency to start micromanaging other peoples’ responsibilities—like Musk rewriting his engineers’ code—cautioning that doing so will limit you to the level of a supervisor or manager, and you’ll never rise to the level of a true leader. They argue that a leader is one who can stand back and trust her team, knowing that she’s hired capable people, trained them well, and given them the resources they need to succeed. By allowing other people to make decisions on their own, you’ll build a climate of trust that’s an essential element in a strong organization.)
Zip2 focused on selling software packages to newspapers—including the New York Times—and big businesses, giving them a quick and easy way to get online. As the company grew, Musk wanted to make Zip2 into a consumer product, not just one for newspapers and big companies. The executives didn’t want to take this new approach yet, preferring to continue with the plan they already had since they didn’t think a consumer approach would be as profitable.
(Shortform note: Musk foresaw the future of the internet more than the other executives did. In a Twitter post from 2018, Musk explained that Zip2 was the first company to calculate point-to-point directions in the US and that he did all of the coding prior to the board’s new team of engineers. The fact that ZIp2 was the original maps program indicates that he predicted that the internet would be about democratizing access to information, not just finding ways for businesses to use it.)
Vance explains that the executives eventually gave Musk the role of chief technology officer, not chief executive officer (CEO). In 1998, when Musk urged the board to make him CEO, they declined and revoked his chairman status. They believed Musk didn’t have the experience required to be CEO of a company yet.
Then, in February 1999, Zip2 received a $307 million cash offer from Compaq Computer to buy the company, which they accepted. Musk made $22 million from the deal. He emerged from the venture as a millionaire and with experience bringing a business idea to life.
(Shortform note: While the Musk brothers expanded the Zip2 until it was bought in 1999, the site fell into obscurity within a few years. Zip2 was passed from internet company to internet company until it became unrecognizable from the original site. Google Maps has largely replaced Zip2 and other online directories.)
With money from the Zip2 deal and insight on how to manage a team, Musk was ready to move on to his next venture. He thought back to his bank internship and his frustration with the bureaucracy of the bank industry. Vance explains that he believed the banking industry needed to modernize and embrace new technology. He decided to create a full-service online bank, complete with checkings and savings accounts, brokerage services, and insurance.
(Shortform note: Musk’s idea for X.com was the product of exploring a way to combine two ideas in a new way and of his frustration with a deficiency in the banking industry, which are two of Charles Duhigg’s four principles of “productive innovation,” or creativity. In Smarter Faster Better, Duhigg explains the other two principles: First, shun clichés, since these ideas don’t feel authentic or meaningful. This means any design or device that is created for convenience rather than because it adds value. Second, remain open to alternative ideas and criticism. Using one or more of these four principles will open you to opportunities to create more inventive solutions.)
In March 1999, Musk incorporated his financial service site, which he named X.com. He put $12 million into X.com, making him the biggest shareholder of his new company. Vance explains that Musk’s personal investment was different from most entrepreneurs at the time, who would typically make a lot of money, and then use their new wealthy status to convince other people to invest in their next venture instead of making a large personal investment themselves. Musk began hiring engineers and seeking venture capital to bring X.com to life.
(Shortform note: Vance writes that Musk’s personal investment was unusual during the dot-com boom, but others note that in general, many entrepreneurs invest their own money into their ventures. According to a 2021 study, 62% of small business owners use their own funds to handle financial problems. However, some experts advise against following this strategy, as the odds of building a successful business that will support you—both now and through retirement—are low. They believe you should still invest in a diverse portfolio to protect yourself against the higher risk of a failed business.)
Soon, X.com faced a competitor: Confinity. They had a service called PayPal that completed web-based payments, particularly on sites like eBay. Vance notes that the two companies fought to get the biggest customer base. PayPal appeared to be the more popular product, but it didn’t have the money to stay in business, unlike X.com.
To optimize PayPal’s popularity and X.com’s cash reserves, Confinity and X.com merged. The team cited that they had more than one million customers, but with its popularity came problems. The site was vulnerable to attacks from hackers, it crashed once a week, and the company was losing more money than it was bringing in due to transaction fees and sign-up bonuses. Vance explains that people in the company were uncertain of Musk’s ability to fix these issues.
(Shortform note: Like Musk and the X.com team, Peter Thiel and his PayPal co-founders nonetheless had a big vision for PayPal. In Zero to One, he describes how the original idea was to create an internet currency to replace the dollar. The first version of PayPal allowed people to send money from one PalmPilot to another. But not enough people had PalmPilots for that to be viable. Instead, since everyone had email, the company created a way to send payments via email. It worked well, but expenses were growing faster than customers, thus motivating them to partner with X.com.)
In September 2000, as he boarded a flight for a delayed honeymoon with his first wife Justine, X.com executives staged a coup to replace Musk as CEO. Vance explains that when he heard this news, Musk took the next flight home to change their minds, but they stood by the decision. He stayed with the company as an advisor and an investor. Soon afterward, they renamed X.com to PayPal.
By July 2001, Musk’s influence at PayPal was fading, and he began to search for his next business venture. In July 2002, PayPal accepted a $1.5 billion offer from eBay. Musk made $250 million from the deal.
(Shortform note: In 2015, PayPal separated from eBay, allowing both companies to focus on their respective growth. PayPal later launched a peer-to-peer payment option, encouraging a trend toward digital payments.)
Like with Zip2, Musk left the venture with millions of dollars. Vance believes he also had a better understanding of how companies work and experience as a CEO. Once again, he’d proven that he could bring an innovative idea to life.
Develop Productive Responses to Failure
While it’s easy to look back on Musk’s time at PayPal in the context of his later success with Tesla and SpaceX, his removal as CEO could have been viewed as a failure at the time. And the relationship between entrepreneurs and failures is a familiar one, as Ed Catmull discusses in his book Creativity, Inc. His main advice is to stop being afraid of failure and to recognize that failure isn’t inherently bad—it’s a consequence of innovative work. He urges people to normalize failure and to expect it. That way, you’ll see it as merely a part of a larger process rather than an end.
Illustrating this principle, some CEOs, like Musk, who are removed from their positions—such as Steve Jobs—end up heading another company, while others don’t. This is often determined in large part by how they react to getting fired. People who can put their ego aside and face their mistakes are better off than those who accept long-term defeat or become bitter. While Musk could have viewed his removal as CEO as failure, his response to the decision was a productive one, since he took the time to reevaluate his priorities and what he wanted his next venture to be.
Following the success of PayPal, Musk set his sights on a new industry for his next venture: space exploration, which was an industry he believed had become stagnant. Vance explains that Musk was disappointed that NASA no longer seemed driven to get to Mars or other planets. Vance explains that Musk wanted to reinvigorate America’s interest in space exploration by advancing current technologies and showing the public that space travel was still evolving, particularly since he believes space colonization is imperative to human survival.
(Shortform note: Like Musk, Stephen Hawking believes space exploration is crucial for human survival, presenting two reasons for why we should colonize space: First, our species is quickly running out of space and natural resources on earth. Hawking believes that even if we conserve natural resources, in the long term we’re going to need more room for humanity to expand. Second, colonizing space mitigates the risk of extinction. Hawking warns that there is a significant probability that humans could go extinct on earth in the next millennium. But if we’ve colonized other planets by then, at least that won’t be the end of our species.)
In April 2002, after discussing the possibility of space travel with scientists, Musk decided to start a commercial space venture. Vance explains that he wanted to spend between $20 million and $30 million on the venture to space. One expert estimated that it would actually take $200 million.
Musk decided to build a rocket from scratch rather than trying to buy a refurbished one. The experts he’d recruited for the project thought the idea was impossible given his budget. But Musk had made a detailed plan, and after looking over the data, Musk’s team agreed it was viable. They aimed to launch a rocket into orbit in a year and a half.
(Shortform note: In Think Like a Rocket Scientist, the author discusses why Musk’s decision to build the rocket from scratch was so successful. Musk used first-principles thinking by questioning his goal and realizing that what he really needed wasn’t a rocket: It was a way to get to space. By taking this approach, he was able to evaluate the problem from a different perspective and find a creative solution that addressed his true goal.)
The next month, Musk started Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, putting $100 million into the company. He assembled an initial team of scientists and engineers to work on the rocket, and they hired more employees almost every week.
Vance notes that because of Musk’s ambitious deadlines and high expectations, this team worked 12-hour days, six days a week to create the rocket (the Falcon 1) and the engine (Merlin), spending long periods of time at the test facility in Texas and away from their families. Unlike other aerospace companies, Musk focused on making the rocket cheaper and faster, which required improving existing technologies.
The Billionaire Space Race
Musk isn’t the only person making a commercial space venture a reality. Some experts credit American entrepreneur Peter Diamandis for laying the groundwork for the billionaire space race in the 1990s by creating the X Prize to spur interest in space ventures. In addition to Musk’s SpaceX, several companies emerged as competitors:
Blue Origin: Founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin also aims to make space travel cheap and reliable through reusable rocket technology. SpaceX and Blue Origin are longstanding rivals, as are their founders Musk and Bezos. But Blue Origin doesn’t seem to have any intention of going to Mars since Bezos thinks it’s a “dumb” idea.
Virgin Galactic: Founded in 2004 by Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic focuses more on space tourism than exploration. In February 2022, Virgin Galactic announced that passenger tickets were available for purchase for $450,000.
While private investors seem interested in funding these ventures, not everyone is impressed by these wealthy efforts to travel in space. A study found that over three quarters of the people in the UK believe these billionaires—who are worth over $400 billion—should focus on solving problems like world hunger and climate change, not space exploration that can only be afforded by the very wealthy.
In May 2005, SpaceX completed a test where the rocket successfully burned for five seconds on a launchpad. Vance explains that the team was encouraged by this progress, so they shipped equipment to the Pacific island of Kwajalein (Kwaj) to continue tests ahead of their launch. In preparation for the launch, the team faced engineering challenges, worked 12-hour days, slept in the small offices, and endured high heat and humidity.
(Shortform note: In Liftoff, Eric Berger interviewed SpaceX engineers who worked on the rocket in preparation for the Kwaj test launches. According to those interviews, the process of working on the Falcon 1 rocket was grueling, with one employee saying he felt like a slave. Berger also reveals that the engineers staged a strike over a lack of food, forcing Musk to send a helicopter with chicken wings and cigarettes for the employees. By 2007, the team had their own kitchen on the island to prevent any further issues.)
But over the course of the next (almost) three years, the SpaceX team tried and failed three times to launch the rocket from Kwaj. The reasons for the failed launches varied—a faulty valve or a fire above the engine—and each time, the team worked to quickly address each issue.
By 2008, Musk was under pressure—he only had money for one more launch, and he was also juggling problems with Tesla and in his marriage (we’ll discuss this more later). Vance explains that Musk put on a good front and boosted the morale of the SpaceX team in anticipation of the fourth launch.
Then, on September 28, 2008, the rocket launched successfully. After six years, Musk finally met his goal of getting a rocket into space. Although this was longer than Musk originally planned, SpaceX built a successful rocket faster than anyone in the industry expected.
(Shortform note: While the SpaceX team eventually succeeded with its Falcon 1 launch, it went through several failed launches first—but they eventually succeeded because they learned from their mistakes. In Think Like a Rocket Scientist, Ozan Varol explains that rocket scientists have a complicated relationship with failure. Some missions (particularly those with human lives at stake) have very little room for failure. However, in every other scenario, failure is a normal part of life as a rocket scientist taking scientific risks. Therefore, scientists value “intelligent failure”: the kind of failure that can be learned from. Varol argues that good scientists approach their failures with genuine, disinterested curiosity.)
Vance explains that while the launch marked a turning point for SpaceX, the company still had financial problems to address. Musk heard about a $1 billion contract from NASA to resupply the International Space Station, and he advocated for SpaceX and its ability to fulfill the contract. In December 2008, NASA awarded the contract to SpaceX, securing the company’s financial survival.
(Shortform note: In 2021, NASA awarded SpaceX two more contracts. One is to provide launch services for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-U (GOES-U) mission, which uses stationary satellites to monitor atmospheric indicators of severe weather conditions. The other is a $2.89 billion contract to develop spacecraft to take astronauts to the moon.)
Following this achievement, SpaceX continued to advance their technology and build a capsule for their NASA mission. The efforts paid off: On May 22, 2012, SpaceX sent up a capsule to resupply the International Space Station, making it the first private company to do so.
(Shortform note: As of 2021, Northrop Grumman and SpaceX are the only two commercial space companies to resupply the International Space Station. Even after almost a decade, most other private space ventures haven’t caught up with SpaceX’s progress.)
Vance notes that SpaceX is now a leader in the aerospace industry. By 2015, it had a net worth of about $12 billion and had a 3,000-person workforce.
(Shortform note: As of October 2021, SpaceX is now worth over $100 billion. Experts also predict SpaceX will make Musk a trillionaire.)
SpaceX is now known for its intense work environment and 90-hour workweeks. But this hard work pays off: The company launches a rocket about once a month and has the cheapest launches in the world. They’ve turned their attention to developing a reusable rocket, which would further reduce launch costs.
(Shortform note: Musk claims that reusable rockets are the only way to achieve cheap space flight. Since the publication of the book, SpaceX made major advancements toward this goal by successfully reusing the rocket booster—the largest and most expensive part of the rocket—in its launches.)
Around the time Musk started SpaceX, an engineer named J. B. Straubel tried to improve electric car technology by using lithium ion batteries as a fuel source. He floated this idea around Silicon Valley, looking for investors. Vance explains that no one took much interest—except Musk, who funded Straubel’s work on this new battery technology.
(Shortform note: In 2017, Straubel continued his work with lithium ion batteries and founded Redwood Materials, which recycles the batteries and uses the materials to produce more.)
While Straubel worked on the battery technology, two engineers named Marc Tarpenning and Martin Eberhard worked together on a similar vision: to make electric cars a commercial enterprise, not just a science project. They also decided to build a luxury electric car, rather than a more affordable one that appealed only to environmentalists.
(Shortform note: Tesla succeeded in part because they appealed to a different group of people with a different worldview—namely, wealthy people who were interested in an environmentally friendly electric car. In All Marketers Are Liars, Seth Godin explains that if you’re entering a market where someone else is already succeeding with their story, don’t try to tell their story better. Instead, find a different story to tell them, as Tesla did. Had Tesla tried to make an electric car that appealed to environmentalists, they would have competed with cars like the Prius, rather than creating their own section of the market.)
On July 3, 2003, Eberhard and Tarpenning incorporated Tesla Motors and started searching for venture capital. Vance explains that when Musk heard about their venture in 2004, he became Tesla’s biggest investor. He recommended that they work with Straubel, who’d been improving batteries. They all shared the vision of creating a great car and ending America’s reliance on gasoline.
The Tesla Team’s Just Cause
Tesla had one hallmark of most great teams: a shared vision, or what Simon Sinek calls a Just Cause. A Just Cause is a big-picture vision that provides a framework for your corporate strategies—like Tesla’s vision of creating a car that would help end America’s reliance on gasoline, thus moving people toward a more sustainable future. In The Infinite Game, Sinek outlines five elements of an effective Just Cause:
It stands for something, not against something. While Tesla can frame their Just Cause as being against gasoline, they are also for sustainable energy.
It’s idealistic, bold, and ultimately unachievable. Tesla’s goal required them to change the automotive industry.
It’s inclusive, inspiring others to join the cause. Tesla needs consumers’ support to drive the car to encourage sustainability.
It’s resilient and can endure technological, cultural, political, and industry changes.
It’s service-oriented, aiming to benefit others. Tesla wants humanity to benefit from finding a more sustainable resource than gasoline.
To build the initial car, the Tesla team used a luxury English car as the base. They replaced the engine with the battery pack, and within six months, they had a drivable electric car. In January 2005, Musk drove the car, was pleased by their progress, and kept investing.
But the engineers soon faced a problem: The batteries were incredibly flammable. They’d hoped to make a car less dangerous than gas cars, not more. Vance describes how a small team of engineers worked solely on researching the batteries, and they found ways to arrange the batteries so that fires wouldn’t spread among the batteries.
(Shortform note: While Tesla addressed the high flammability risk, the company still has occasional reports of batteries catching fire, which are difficult to extinguish. But the US federal government’s top auto-safety regulator decided not to open a formal investigation of the flammable batteries, deeming the issue rare enough not to be a concern.)
Next, Musk and the other investors wanted to improve the design of the car. While using the base of another car had been sufficient for the initial engineering tests, the completed model needed to be unique. For the next year, they focused on the car design, eliminating bumps in the body and creating a longer body to accommodate the batteries.
By May 2006, they’d completed a prototype of the car, which they called the Roadster. While the car still had a few engineering flaws, the investors were excited about the new model. Vance notes that Tesla debuted the cars and priced this model at $90,000. Venture capitalists and celebrities paid $100,000 each to put their names on waiting lists for the cars. Musk promised that a cheaper model—at $50,000—would be released in three years.
(Shortform note: In a 2016 interview, Musk admitted that the original plan for the Roadster wasn’t a good one and that he only gave Tesla a 10% chance of survival. In 2011, Tesla announced it would discontinue production of the Roadster. But in 2017, Tesla revealed plans for a second generation Roadster—for $250,000—that was set to debut in 2020, but it was pushed back to 2021 and again to 2022. Tesla noted that the new Roadster will have a range of up to 620 miles, a top speed of 250 mph, and a battery pack twice the size of its others. Some experts believe Tesla may delay the Roadster again to focus on production of its other models.)
After the event, Tesla attracted more widespread attention than Musk himself. In a New York Times article about Tesla, Musk was not listed as a founder. Vance explains that while the article was good publicity for Tesla, Musk was angry that he wasn’t mentioned at all in the piece.
But soon, Musk received more publicity. In 2007, filming for the first Iron Man movie started. As insight into his role, actor Robert Downey Jr. met with Musk and toured the SpaceX facility. The filmmakers included a Tesla in the movie, and Musk made a cameo in one scene. Vance explains that when Iron Man was released, people exaggerated the similarities between Musk and Tony Stark. Musk received more attention from the press after this, and he became a public figure.
Musk enjoyed some aspects of his new celebrity status, such as hanging out with other celebrities and being invited to exclusive events. Vance notes that Justine also enjoyed their celebrity status, and she blogged about their experiences, which gave people a more intimate look into their life.
But the press also brought new scrutiny to his companies. Over the years, the press would often mock and scrutinize Musk and his business decisions. Whenever SpaceX and Tesla missed deadlines, the press were harsh and predicted that the companies would fail. Musk told Vance that the press sometimes caused him to question what he was doing and if his companies were headed for failure. With so much public doubt, Musk faced more pressure to succeed.
Billionaires’ Changing Relationship With the Media
Musk has a love-hate relationship with the media attention he receives. On one hand, he seems to thrive in his celebrity status by going to Met Gala events and posting headline-worthy Twitter threads. And Tesla even cited media attention as one reason for its good sales.
Yet Musk has also criticized the media for portraying him in a negative light, scrutinizing his businesses, and predicting his companies’ failure. His criticism highlights the complicated relationship between high-profile billionaires and media outlets, and he has threatened to create his own site that would rate journalists and editors.
Musk has a cult-like following, with over 78 million Twitter followers, and his widely publicized opinions have real-world consequences, influencing everything from Dogecoin to GameStop’s stock prices. In April 2022, Musk demonstrated how much he values Twitter as a means of communication by buying a 9.2% stake in the social media company—making him the app’s largest shareholder—and joining its 11-person board. He expressed interest in making “significant improvements” to Twitter, which may relate to his belief that the app is too heavily regulated.
Musk isn’t the only one rethinking his relationship with the media, pointing to the growing trend of billionaires buying news outlets. For example, Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post, Morningstar CEO Joe Mansueto purchased Inc. and Fast Company, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson bought The Las Vegas Review-Journal.
While some reports note that these billionaires brought much-needed financial resources to struggling news outlets and have remained relatively removed from editorial decisions, experts are skeptical of why so many billionaires are making this investment.
Like Musk, they may be concerned about what they view as unfair representations of themselves, their companies, or political discourse, causing concern that there may be a less democratic and more oligarchical media ownership than the current one.
Having debuted the first model, the Tesla team worked to improve safety features and complete performance tests so they could send out cars to everyone who’d paid to be on the waiting list. But they kept delaying the production of the Roadster, largely because of changes Musk wanted. Vance explains that he insisted that the car be more comfortable, and he wanted new technology for the door handles and material of the car body. The Tesla engineers grudgingly agreed to his requests.
But then production slowed dramatically due to two issues: the transmission and the overseas manufacturing. Vance explains that Tesla wanted a quick, smooth transmission system, so they hired other companies to build one for them. However, when Tesla ran tests on the transmission, they found 14 separate issues that could severely damage the car.
Second, Tesla planned to manufacture car parts overseas, shipping battery parts from China to Thailand and sending body panels from France to England to Los Angeles.
While Tesla thought they’d cut costs by manufacturing cheaply overseas, they were actually losing time and money with this strategy. When Musk heard about these manufacturing issues, he sent an operations expert to investigate the issues.
Around the middle of 2007, the expert returned with his report on Tesla’s spending and production process. Musk realized the severity of the situation. Vance notes that the team didn’t use their financial software, so Tesla’s spending and budget were incorrect. Tesla also reported that each car would cost about $68,000 to make. But the actual production cost was about $200,000. He believed that Eberhard had mismanaged Tesla and failed to tell the board about the financial situation. Musk told Eberhard that he would be demoted from CEO. The board found another CEO and made Eberhard an advisor. He stayed for another few months before leaving Tesla in December 2007.
Under its new leadership, Tesla addressed many of the manufacturing issues it had, such as the car’s transmission problems, which needed a complete overhaul. Vance explains that Musk began to take a more active role in Tesla’s operations. He also began making more public statements, trying to ease buyers’ minds about the production delays and changes in management. He also announced plans for a new model.
Improving Tesla’s Entrepreneurial Operating System
Tesla’s manufacturing delays highlighted important issues that needed to be fixed to ensure a smooth Entrepreneurial Operating System: the six key components of a successful business. In Traction, Gino Wickman breaks down these six elements of any organization:
1) Vision: You need a compelling vision for your business that you communicate clearly so everyone can focus their energy on it and help you achieve it. While Tesla team members disagreed on some details, they agreed on their overall vision of revitalizing the EV industry with a luxury electric car.
2) People: You need to have the right people in the right positions. People who are wrong for your company, or are in the wrong positions, hurt your business. After evaluating Tesla’s situation and management, Musk decided that Eberhard was in the wrong position as CEO, thus hurting the business.
3) Data: By creating a weekly report on a few key numbers, you can regularly check the vital signs of your business, quickly see and solve problems, and predict the future—without waiting for financial statements. Musk had a professional collect and analyze Tesla’s data, especially since the team wasn’t using their financial software.
4) Issues: You need to systematically identify and address issues before they undermine your business. To do this, maintain and regularly review an issues list. When you take the time to solve a problem, you’ll save up to 10 times that amount of time dealing with the problem or its consequences later. Musk reviewed issues in Tesla’s management and production and was able to address these issues before they crippled the company.
5) Process: Your processes are the way you do business. You need to identify, address, and document each of your core processes, and continually improve them. Many entrepreneurs don’t fully appreciate the value of having the right processes—however, sound processes create efficiency and make your business scalable and more profitable. Musk did this with the production process, since the overseas manufacturing system was too expensive for Tesla and didn’t result in a better product.
6) Traction: Traction—the ability to execute, or make the company’s vision a reality—requires two things: 1) 90-day priorities for everyone, and 2) regular, focused, productive meetings at every level. While Vance doesn’t describe what kind of changes Musk made to improve communication, his more active role in Tesla’s operations eventually helped make Tesla’s vision a reality.
In October 2008, Musk became CEO of Tesla. By this point, Tesla struggled to stay in business. The company was running out of money: The first model cost $140 million to develop, when it was originally estimated to cost $25 million. Vance explains that the company also faced a few other obstacles:
1) Consumers didn’t believe in the future of electric cars yet. (Shortform note: Over 10 years later, consumers still express concerns about electric vehicles, citing their mileage range, high initial cost, battery flammability, performance, and lack of charging infrastructure. These will be challenges the electric car industry will need to overcome to succeed.)
2) Short sellers altered the price of Tesla’s stock, causing the value to fluctuate. (Shortform note: Despite Tesla’s success, as of 2021, it was the most shorted stock in the market and has been for several years.)
3) Due to the 2008 recession, many consumers weren’t buying cars. (Shortform note: In 2008, consumers bought 3 million fewer cars than the previous year.)
Tesla was spending $4 million a month and needed more funding to survive. Musk began asking friends, family, and investors for money, and Tesla employees invested what little money they had. Many people never expected to see this money again.
In December 2008, Musk took out a loan from SpaceX—which had just received their contract from NASA—and asked Tesla investors for more money. Vance explains that Tesla was hours away from bankruptcy when the deal went through, saving the company.
Three Funding Issues Start-Ups Face
While Musk eventually solved his money problem with the loan from SpaceX and some outside investments, financing is a common problem for start-ups, and many of the 90% of failed start-ups cite cash-flow problems as a reason for going out of business. Experts advise that to prevent funding issues, follow these three tips:
Don’t ignore scalability: When looking for funding, many founders don’t clearly communicate how they will grow their business. Show investors and financial institutions a plan for how you’ll use the money they loan or invest in your company. This was an issue for Musk, since he had inherited what he viewed as a mismanaged financial situation from Eberhard.
Don’t neglect personal relationships: When networking with potential investors or banks, make a personal connection—don’t just try to secure funding. Even if they do provide financial support, you’ll be working with them, so foster a good relationship.
Know how funding works: There are several ways to fund your business: venture capital, loans, angel investors, and so on. Research different options and determine what’s best for your company. Musk resisted going public with his companies to retain control, but this meant he needed to find other ways of securing funding.
By 2010, Tesla’s fortunes turned a corner. The US Department of Energy (DOE) struck a deal with the company, loaning them $465 million. Tesla used some of this money to buy a factory to manufacture their cars, hoping to send out Model S cars to consumers. A few months later, Tesla went public, raising $226 million.
Then, after Tesla started shipping out the Model S in 2012, the public perception of electric vehicles gradually started to shift, warming to the idea of electric cars. Tesla had addressed manufacturing issues and common complaints about the car.
Vance explains that Tesla’s salespeople sold enough cars in the span of a few weeks to make a large profit, ending their first quarter as a public company with $562 million in sales. Tesla’s stock prices rose, and they paid off their loan to the DOE early.
By 2013, Tesla’s Model S received the highest Consumer Reports car rating in history—a 99 out of 100—and won awards in the car industry, baffling competitors and naysayers.
Later that year, Musk announced plans for a free charging network, meaning consumers would no longer have to pay to fuel their car. His plan was to generate more excitement around electric cars and encourage consumers to transition from gasoline to electric cars. He later revealed that for the price of a tank of gas, customers had the option to replace the batteries in their car for a quicker recharge.
(Shortform note: Tesla is an example of Gary Keller’s idea of sequential success, where you accumulate small wins one after the other, like a domino fall, rather than all at once. In The One Thing, Keller explains that success builds on success sequentially, as you move from one important task to another, until you reach the highest level possible. Over the course of a few years, Tesla accumulated small wins—such as addressing the manufacturing issues, selling enough cars to make a profit, receiving high ratings, and announcing the new charging network—instead of one big win that made the company an instant success. While one win probably wouldn’t have ensured Tesla’s survival, its accumulated sequential success did.)
Alternative Perspective: The Government’s Role in Tesla’s Success
Tesla’s survival—and success—largely relied on going public and on taking advantage of the timing of new loans from the DOE. In A Promised Land, former president Barack Obama describes the thought process behind setting up these loans, as he recognized that tackling climate change was crucial. His administration was the first to put in place a White House team to seriously address climate change.
Like Musk, the Obama administration saw that U.S. public policy was massively tilted toward fossil-fuel interests, with special tax breaks for oil companies, public highway subsidies, and government-funded oil pipelines and ports all contributing to America’s disproportionate share of global emissions.
Early on, the Obama administration tried to reverse this policy course by embedding $90 billion in clean energy investments into the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the “stimulus bill”). Among other things, these investments planted the seeds of what would become a green energy revolution throughout the 2010s, providing funding for wind turbines, clean-energy battery storage systems, and the retrofitting of existing buildings to make them more energy efficient. The stimulus also provided loans to clean-energy technology companies, such as Tesla. These loans were crucial to the success of companies like Tesla.
In the years after this incident, enough consumers bought the first car to keep the company afloat. During that time, Tesla worked on a new car model—the Model S—and refined its manufacturing. Vance explains that Musk wanted to perfect the car, not just create a functional electric car. The team improved the design of the car’s body and reduced the weight of the car by making it out of aluminum.
They also added extra features that would enhance Model S. For example, Musk had Tesla’s cars equipped with a touch-screen display, which had never been done in a car before. Although these caused more delays on the production of the car, many of these features are now trademarks of Tesla’s cars.
Vance notes that Tesla introduced other features to change the way cars are manufactured, serviced, and sold. Notably, he enabled overnight software upgrades and regenerative braking, which extends the life of brake pads and thus decreases the maintenance needed for the car (instead of brake pads slowing the rotation of the tires, regenerative braking reverses the motor, thus slowing the vehicle down). Customers appreciated these changes, and Tesla’s reputation for quality increased.
Tesla’s Design Features Were One of Seven Important Keys to Success
While Vance notes that the perfected car was a major part of Tesla’s success, Peter Thiel situates how the design features fit into Musk’s overall plan and approach toward Tesla. In Zero to One (which happens to be one of Musk’s favorite books), Thiel explains that Tesla is one of the few cleantech companies that lasted because it had good answers to Thiel’s seven entrepreneurial questions:
Technology: What made Tesla really stand out was its ability to integrate many components—like the aluminum body, touch screen, software upgrades, and regenerative braking—into one great product, the (2013) Tesla Model S sedan.
Timing: Musk seized the opportunity to secure a half-billion-dollar loan from the government in the small window before the government pulled the plug on cleantech subsidies.
Monopoly: Tesla started with a tiny submarket it could dominate: high-end electric sports cars. It then moved into the luxury electric sedan market and is positioned to continue expanding into broader markets.
Team: Musk assembled a team good at both engineering and sales.
Distribution: Tesla decided to own the distribution chain. It sells and services its cars in its own stores. The cost is higher than for traditional dealership distribution, but the approach gives it control over the customer experience, strengthens its brand, and saves money in the long run.
Durability: By getting a head start, moving faster than anyone else, and establishing a strong brand, Tesla is set to extend its lead in the future.
Secrets: Tesla realized that while rich people wanted to look green by buying an electric car, they'd rather look green and cool at the same time—if he gave them the opportunity, they’d choose his sleek car over the boxy Prius. Tesla created a product based on the secret that cleantech was in large part a social phenomenon.
Just before Tesla finished its very first prototype in early 2005, Musk and his cousin Lyndon went on a road trip to discuss business ventures. Musk had always believed clean energy is the key to human survival and a sustainable future, so when his cousin asked for business suggestions, Musk suggested he do something with solar power. Vance explains that at this time, the solar industry wasn’t making any effort to decrease the cost of solar panel manufacturing. Further, while consumers could install solar panels for their homes, they had no way of knowing if solar panels would work well for their homes based on location and how much sunlight they received.
(Shortform note: While the solar industry has made improvements in the past 20 years, experts have identified four main obstacles the industry still needs to overcome. First, find lower cost and more efficient materials to make the solar panels out of. Second, improve storage and transmission of solar power over long distances. Next, implement floating solar panels for lakes and oceans, while also preserving aquatic ecosystems. Finally, streamline the process of acquiring solar panels to make them more accessible for individuals and businesses—experts note that government cooperation and regulation will be instrumental in overcoming this challenge.)
Thanks to Musk’s recommendation, his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rives started SolarCity, with Musk as the largest shareholder. Vance explains that the company made improvements on existing solar panels, offered installation packages, and gave consumers an understanding of how solar power would affect their individual homes. Eventually, the company expanded to big businesses like Intel and Wal-Mart. By 2014, SolarCity was worth $7 billion.
Since SolarCity and Tesla shared a similar goal of advancing alternative energy technologies, Musk’s companies provided mutual benefits to each other. When Musk announced that Tesla would expand its network of charging stations, he got SolarCity to supply these stations with solar panels. Tesla also shared its battery technology with SolarCity. Not only did Musk influence two major companies in the alternative energy industry, they are in a better position today to work together because of his involvement.
Does Musk Have a Conflict of Interest?
While Vance presents Musk’s involvement in both SolarCity and Tesla as a smart business strategy, many experts contend that this is a conflict of interest because Musk owns significant shares in both companies and employs family members. Additionally, SpaceX bought $90 million of SolarCity stock in March 2016.
To complicate matters, Tesla bought SolarCity for $2.6 billion in August 2016, renaming it Tesla Energy. Some shareholders viewed this as a self-serving move—since Musk had a 22% stake in SolarCity at the time—and a bailout for SolarCity rather than a beneficial move for Tesla. After the merger, auditors found that SolarCity didn’t have the necessary funds to continue as a stand-alone company. Investors sued Musk, stating he’d hidden SolarCity’s financial problems from investors.
Experts estimate that the lawsuit could cost him $13 billion if he loses the case. In the trial, Musk remained adamant that the acquisition was part of a larger plan to ensure Tesla’s future as a company committed to renewable energy.
While Musk spent a lot of time and energy on his businesses, he also made time for his personal life, including dating, having children, and divorce.
In May 2002, Musk and his first wife, Justine, welcomed their first child, Nevada. When he was 10-weeks old, Nevada died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The Musks were devastated. Musk confided in a few of his friends about his grief. But while Justine openly mourned, Musk didn’t think making his sadness public was productive. Instead, he turned his attention to the future and his companies.
(Shortform note: Some experts note that the death of a child may result in lifelong mourning and grief. Vance notes that Justine and Musk grieved differently after Nevada’s sudden death, and experts note that there is no right or wrong way to grieve. But these differences can result in misunderstandings between partners. Instead, experts encourage people to respect others’ style of grief, whether it’s emotional, action-based, internalized, or a mix of everything.)
By 2008, Musk was devoting his time to Tesla’s production issues and SpaceX’s launch problems. He usually worked seven days a week, and as a result, he didn’t spend much time at home with his family. Justine was unhappy due to postpartum depression following the birth of their triplets in 2006, and she was dissatisfied with being treated like a trophy wife. Their relationship deteriorated until Musk filed for divorce.
The next month, Musk met a 22-year old actress named Talulah Riley, and they got married a few weeks later. Justine continued to post on her blog about the divorce and Musk’s new wife. This exacerbated the bad press surrounding Musk and his companies, which added to his stress. Musk and Riley later divorced, remarried, and divorced again.
(Shortform note: Musk’s turbulent marriages and divorces highlight an important part of the entrepreneurial lifestyle—they may be more prone to divorce than the US average, which is already one of the highest in the world, for a number of reasons. First, entrepreneurs take risks, especially when it comes to finances—they’ll use their own money to back their ventures. But an entrepreneur often doesn’t understand how risk affects their spouse, who often doesn’t have as high of a risk tolerance. Another reason is that entrepreneurs usually devote the bulk of their time and energy to their business, rather than their spouse’s life or emotional needs, which can foster feelings of neglect or resentment in a spouse.)
Musk’s unique combination of personal traits helped him build his companies. In this section, we’ll discuss the traits that helped Musk succeed, beginning with his future-oriented mindset.
Vance believes Musk’s goals and actions are all motivated by the future. He puts present-day concerns aside to create a better future for humanity. Musk believes the survival of the human race depends on becoming a multiplanetary species—or living on Mars—and by creating sources of sustainable energy. The missions of Tesla and SpaceX are based on those two goals. Musk’s future-oriented mindset doesn’t prioritize his companies’ financial success over his goal to improve the future—to him, these aspects are inherently tied together.
In 2014, he revealed that Tesla would open-source all of its patents, meaning they’d be available to the public. This might seem like an unwise business decision, since Tesla would be giving competitors the blueprint to making great electric cars. But Musk believed it was the right thing to do. By sharing Tesla’s technology and ideas, it would speed up the process for other car companies to develop their own electric vehicles, thus encouraging consumers to transition away from fossil fuels. Musk believed moving to sustainable energy was more important for the future than hoarding valuable information for profit.
A Future Mindset Helps Musk’s Infinite Game
In prioritizing the future, Musk is thinking of the “infinite game.” In The Infinite Game, Simon Sinek explores the differences between finite games—where players play to win—and infinite games—where players play to survive, thrive, and keep playing the game.
Sinek discusses Musk’s decision to release Tesla’s patents as a smart move for an infinite game. Musk saw his real competition not as other electric car companies, but as a lack of a full electric car market—so in releasing his technology, he hoped to create an industry and thus foster worthy rivals. Being the only player would have hurt him in the long run, as it wouldn’t have fostered innovation or competition. Worthy rivals help you focus on improving and the process, rather than winning and the outcome.
Tesla’s infinite-minded move aligns with Sinek’s concept of viewing competitors as worthy rivals, but with a caveat: While Musk sees other EV brands as worthy rivals, he views combustion-engine brands as rivals to beat. His sharing of patents is clearly aimed at putting EV engines in a stronger competitive position to combustion engines in a win-or-lose game. In this way, Musk seems to play both an infinite and a finite game at the same time. Yet this finite game also fits within Musk’s ultimate infinite game—humanity’s survival.
Vance explains that Musk is more concerned about the future of humanity as a whole than about one person’s needs. While this belief affects Musk’s business decisions, it also directly impacts his work ethic, as well as his employees. Vance believes he puts humanity’s needs ahead of his own, driving him to work nonstop, sleep on couches, experience weight fluctuations due to stress, and rarely take vacations.
But his mentality doesn’t always leave a good impression on his employees, causing Musk to seem callous toward individual employees, and he has been accused of a lack of loyalty and a harsh leadership style.
For instance, Vance describes how one employee missed a Tesla event to witness his child’s birth. Musk expressed his disappointment and told this employee to consider where his priorities were. This incident demonstrates how his beliefs don’t favor the individual in a compassionate way.
(Shortform note: Following the book’s publication, Musk denied this claim in a series of tweets, stating that the biography was never independently fact-checked and that he supports pregnancy-leave. Vance responded to Musk’s denial, saying he stands by everything he reported in the book.)
Should We Rely on Billionaire Philanthropy?
While Vance argues that Musk is more concerned with the greater good than the individual, Musk’s status as one of the richest people in the world might seem to inherently contradict this idea. Some people point out that if he really was concerned about other people's well-being, he could do much more than he currently does philanthropically.
To his credit, Musk seems open to the idea of using his wealth for a more tangible philanthropic mission than traveling to Mars. In 2021, he set up a $100 million carbon-removal prize.
But, other actions of his hint at less altruistic motives: that same year, the UN challenged Musk on Twitter to give $6 billion to stop world hunger. Musk said he would sell Tesla stock and donate the money if the UN could provide a detailed plan of how that money would be used. The UN eventually responded with a plan. Soon afterward, records revealed that Musk had indeed sold almost $6 billion worth of Tesla stock to donate it—but there was no evidence of where this money was donated. Experts believe Musk may have placed it in a donor-advised fund (or DAF)—not the UN—which is a kind of investment account where investors can claim an upfront tax deduction with the promise that the money will eventually go to charity.
This sequence of events sparked a debate about philanthropy and led people to question how much of any billionaire’s donations—not just Musk’s—actually make it to the public.
Vance believes that Musk is motivated by the idea that things and industries can be improved. He doesn’t accept anything as perfect or good enough. Instead he looks for innovative ways to enhance industries and products using new technologies.
On a large scale, Musk saw room for improvement in big industries that had stopped evolving.
Vance explains that Musk applies his mindset of improvement to how he runs his companies. Musk doesn’t believe in doing the bare minimum, and he seeks ways to improve the technologies he builds and how he builds them.
For example, Musk wanted SpaceX to use friction stir welding for rocket development. This is a process that joins pieces of metal, allowing for stronger and lighter metal bodies of the rockets. But before SpaceX, companies hadn’t tried this technique for rockets. Despite it adding an extra step to production, Musk saw ways to improve even basic parts of the rocket.
However, Vance notes that this trait can come across as perfectionism. Since Musk values every detail of his companies and products, his mentality often results in high standards for his employees. For example, employees who had typos in their emails were fired. While this trait benefits him in some ways, it makes Musk difficult to work for.
(Shortform note: Like Musk’s companies, many work cultures are characterized by perfectionism, which can stifle a work culture’s creativity and learning. In Dare to Lead, Brene Brown argues that these behaviors are toxic to the potential for innovation. The antidote to a stifled work culture is brave leadership, where leaders approach fear and uncertainty head-on, and they teach their teams how to do the same. Musk’s workplaces seem to function despite his perfectionism, and this may be due to his brave leadership—his perfectionism leads him to action, not inaction.)
Using an Eye for Improvement to Create a Blue Ocean
Musk’s desire to improve seems crucial to his ability to create what authors W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne call blue oceans, or an uncontested and innovative market (versus red oceans, which are markets where there is fierce competition and a lack of innovation). His success lies in finding opportunities to make blue oceans out of red oceans, like the car, banking, and space industries.
In Blue Ocean Strategy, the authors explain that markets are dynamic, demand-driven, and can often be reshaped by market players—like Tesla or SpaceX—to expose new demand. If a company can create new market sectors for itself, it can profit from them without having to displace a competitor. They believe blue ocean strategy focuses on creating new demand in uncontested market spaces, leading to profitable growth—in Musk’s case, he was able to do this with his companies.
Vance explains that one of Musk’s most distinct traits is his ability to handle extreme amounts of stress. He perseveres even when a situation gets difficult. Musk credits this ability to having a rough childhood and learning to endure hard circumstances.
He frequently used this ability, given the high-stakes nature of his businesses. But on top of the stress of his financial situation and companies, Musk experienced stress from the death of his first child, the scrutiny of the press, and his divorce. Most of these incidents happened in 2008, when both SpaceX and Tesla faced bankruptcy. While most people would have broken down from this amount of stress, Musk kept moving forward.
Practice Stress Exposure Training
Vance argues that Musk has an innate ability to handle high amounts of stress, unlike most people. If you’d like to build your stress tolerance, research shows that forms of “stress exposure training” or “stress inoculation” methods can help with this and is shown to help athletes, military personnel, surgeons, and others perform better in stressful situations.
Formal stress exposure training is usually a three-phase program: First, instructors teach you about the psychological and physiological effects of stress. Then, they teach you coping mechanisms to deal with the stress in the situations you are likely to encounter. Finally, they try to simulate the stressful situation in question so you can practice under realistic conditions.
However, you don’t need a formal training program to practice handling stress. In A Mind For Numbers, Barbara Oakley suggests putting yourself in everyday situations that are mildly stressful to you, such as giving a speech or taking on a challenging task at work, so you can practice handling stress and build up your tolerance for it.
Musk’s ability to handle stress complements his high risk tolerance. This means he doesn’t create any safety nets for himself should he fail. This mindset has given him an edge in his professional life. He’s willing to risk everything—his money, his possessions, his health, and so on—to make his vision a reality. Most people would find this level of risk extremely stressful, but Musk sees it as necessary in order to achieve his goals. He’s willing to invest all of his time and money into his businesses for the possibility of even bigger gains.
When starting his companies, he invested almost all of his money into his ventures. When both SpaceX and Tesla had financial problems in 2008, Musk sold his car and other possessions for extra money so he could keep the companies afloat. While Musk faced the possibility of losing everything, his hard work paid off, and he has seen a great reward from the risks he took.
Develop Your Risk Tolerance
While Musk believes in and encourages others to take risks—especially when they’re young—not everyone has his natural high level of risk tolerance. In Who Will Cry When You Die, Robin Sharma notes that taking risks is beneficial in life as well as business, since you’ll experience more of life and live with fewer regrets.
You may struggle to take more risks and be more adventurous if you’re naturally risk-averse. While you can’t eradicate your risk aversion, you can hone your risk-taking skills so that, moving forward, you build up your risk tolerance:
Practice with low-risk and low-pressure decisions. Take the risk of purchasing a new toothpaste brand, for instance.
Create a pros and cons list and weigh them against each other.
Don’t fixate on the worst-case scenario. This may stymie you, and the worst-case scenario is unlikely to occur.
Think like someone else. Limit your natural risk aversion by adopting a persona when making decisions. Approach decisions as a world-famous rock star, for instance.
Musk often thinks in terms of the big picture, such as changing the aerospace industry or revolutionizing clean energy. He sets large goals for himself and his businesses. But while Musk is a big picture thinker, he also doesn’t underestimate the importance of small details, which enhance his end product. He knows that small parts make up the larger whole. By perfecting all of the details, Musk built better overall products.
For example, at Tesla, Musk wanted to build a great car, not just a functional electric car. To him, this meant perfecting the electric car technology, as well as adding other new features that would improve a car. He wanted hidden door handles that emerged when the driver got close to the car, and he worked on new, distinct designs for the body of the car. Musk’s attention to detail and commitment to big goals pushed the company to success.
Navigate the Levels of Detail
Musk’s ability to situate details into the bigger picture may stem from an ability to understand situations and decisions at multiple levels of detail. In Principles: Life and Work, Ray Dalio explains that there is a top level of the most important points, as well as lower levels of supporting detail. Whenever you make a decision, you should be clear about what level of detail you’re on. For example, here are levels of detail for someone who’s deciding about a career:
High level, big picture: I want to do work that provides personal meaning and lets me engage directly with people.
Supporting picture: I want to become a doctor.
Subpoint: I need to get into medical school.
Sub-subpoint: I need to get a good GPA in college.
Sub-sub-subpoint: I shouldn’t go out and party tonight; I should study.
The lower levels of detail support the higher levels and form a complete logical picture. It’s important to see these different levels, rather than seeing all the points as a random pile of facts with no greater logic. Musk balances these levels of details efficiently when making decisions for his companies.
According to Vance, Musk embraces being a lifelong learner. He is curious about the way things work, which makes him willing to learn new, complex subjects. His willingness to learn new subjects enables him to enter a complex industry or topic without any background knowledge.
Musk exhibited a desire to learn with all of his businesses. He learned about finance with X.com, rocket engineering with SpaceX, and electric cars with Tesla. Consequently, Musk has a deep understanding of these industries, of how his products work, and of almost every aspect of his companies.
Musk has found a way to learn subjects quickly, without taking courses or hiring tutors. He believes asking the right questions to the right people is more important than having the right answer. By asking people the right questions, Musk gets to the heart of issues and topics, allowing him to learn what the other person knows.
Musk’s employees explained that Musk would ask them questions and have them explain how something worked. At first, this made the employees nervous that Musk was testing them. But after time, they realized that he was trying to absorb the knowledge they had so he could understand what they were working on. This approach allows him to fill in the gaps of his knowledge and learn from people who know more about a subject than he does. By doing this, Musk gained a holistic understanding of his companies and products.
Musk: An Ultralearner
Like Musk’s style of self-directed learning, Scott Young presents his idea of ultralearning to master any skill, advance your career, or stay relevant in your field. In Ultralearning, he defines ultralearning as a strategic approach to learning that is intensive and self-directed, meaning you should take a disciplined approach to learning as deeply as possible at an accelerated pace. Ultralearning should also be tailored to you and your own learning style.
There are many variations of ultralearning, but ultralearners share several characteristics:
They work independently (but not necessarily alone). Musk often works with and manages his teams, but he always works as a capable unit within that team.
They’re obsessive about improving their learning process. Musk found new ways to expand his knowledge, including asking his employees to explain things to him.
They’re motivated primarily by a love of learning, not by the prestige of credentialed achievements.
They constantly push the limits of their intellectual comfort zones. Musk took on increasingly more difficult topics, from banking regulations to rocket science.
Musk has a do-it-yourself attitude toward his work, meaning that if he wants something done and he knows how to do it, he’ll do it himself. As part of his DIY mentality, Musk learned to take on many different roles in each of his companies. Even if a task isn’t one typically done by a CEO, he’ll complete it. His job is to fulfill the company’s mission, not be confined by roles.
Musk thinks it’s important that his employees know that he’s working just as hard as he expects them to work. His work ethic is a testament to his belief in their mission. This effort has paid off, because his employees and people close to him note that he’s an extremely hard worker. They admire that he’s not afraid to do any job, even working on the factory floor to test a valve seal.
However, not everyone appreciates this approach. Some employees find this tactic abrasive. For example, employees at Zip2 would return to their work to find that Musk had gone in and changed their code while they were gone. To them, this was rude and made their effort feel like a waste of time. To Musk, this was the quickest fix to the problem he’d noticed. He knew he could fix it and didn’t consider how it would make his employees feel.
Honoring the Technician Role
Musk’s DIY work ethic is reminiscent of Michael Gerber’s idea of the technician in The E-Myth Revisited. The technician is an individualist and a doer who produces the product or service, taking a tactical approach focused on the work that needs to be done. Experts echo the importance of Gerber’s idea of the technician role—which often goes overlooked once the company starts succeeding—noting that a good business leader can complete any job in the company. Musk doesn’t slack in his technician role, despite his business’ success.
Gerber explains the three roles or mindsets every business owner needs to cultivate to run a successful business. A business won’t succeed if its leader fulfills just one role—it takes all three to succeed: creating a vision (entrepreneur), translating your vision into action through systems and processes (manager), and getting the work done (technician). As in the case of Musk, when all three roles are balanced, the business can succeed.
Musk used his unique traits to his advantage as he built his businesses. This exercise will explore your own traits and how you can use them in your own career.
Consider your natural talents or personality traits. What things do you naturally do well? Perhaps you’re an avid reader or a good listener. (Remember that something other people may not view as a talent might secretly be a strength—Musk was bullied in school for his natural desire to read and learn, but this skill proved useful in learning about complex topics like rocket science.)
What do your friends, family, or coworkers compliment you on? Maybe they appreciate your ability to encourage others or your strong writing skills.
Consider how you can use those traits to your advantage in your career. Perhaps you can use your listening skills to get employee feedback and make your workplace better. Or maybe you could take on a new project to use your writing skills.
Now that we understand Musk’s motivations and traits, we’ll discuss some of the common methods he used that helped his companies succeed. Through a combination of hiring exceptional employees, maintaining control of his companies, organizing cross-functional teams, and setting extreme deadlines, Musk’s businesses have achieved impressive results.
Vance believes much of Musk’s success stems from his ability to find and hire exceptional people. He has an eye for talent, and he appreciates people who are hard workers and critical thinkers. These employees are also efficient, and they can do the work of multiple people. When every employee is doing exceptional work, the combination of their efforts results in something exceptional as well.
Musk handled a majority of the recruiting and hiring for all of his companies, and he found many talented employees.
However, Vance explains that these exceptional employees must also be willing to remain in the background of the operations and allow Musk to have the limelight. Tom Mueller, one of the engineers at SpaceX, has proven this. He helped Musk develop the plan for the initial SpaceX rocket, opening up the possibility of building a new rocket at a lower cost. Mueller remained at SpaceX, but he doesn’t publicly take much credit for his part in SpaceX’s rocket development.
Overworking and Injuring Employees
While Musk values star players like Shotwell and Mueller for their efficiency and hard work, he may have a tendency to overwork—and even injure—these exceptional employees. According to incident reports, Tesla called for ambulances over 100 times between 2014 and 2017 for reasons such as dizziness, seizures, abnormal breathing, and other injuries. One technician noted that sometimes when someone got hurt on the job, another employee was sent to work around that person while they were still injured on the floor.
In October 2016, Tesla reduced the time of their average workday since employees were putting in 12-hour days, six days a week. Tesla reported that the change caused a 50% decline in overtime hours. This may also help the long-term effects of working long periods of time in uncomfortable positions, which have caused arm and chest pain for some employees. Musk said he put his office in the most uncomfortable place, slept in the office, and put in more hours than his employees to show that he was working just as hard as they were.
Musk expects employees to be accountable for their work by taking complete ownership of their specialty and project as well as the process required to complete it—Vance contends he wants each employee to be the CEO of her own project. Musk’s employees work as an independent unit, completing their work fully and to the best of their ability.
When every employee takes accountability for their work, it eliminates inefficiencies like asking for permission, filling out forms, or waiting for requests to be processed or approved. At SpaceX and Tesla, this approach allows employees to act independently and in the best interest of the company.
Vance explains how Musk often talks to employees about a project and asks them, “Can you do it?” This forces employees to take responsibility for their work because they willingly agree to do it, rather than completing tasks they were ordered to do.
If an employee is developing a rearview mirror or coding a new command, Musk expects her to put her full attention and effort into the task. And whenever developments are delayed, Musk is known to ask for regular updates about the status of the hold-up, why the task is taking longer than anticipated, and what’s required for the employee to complete the project. Employees eventually realized that they should come to Musk with potential solutions to problems, rather than coming to him with problems. This is a more efficient process, and it allows Musk to focus on other tasks, rather than walking employees through problems they’re qualified to solve.
Lack of Behavioral Accountability
While Musk encourages his employees to be accountable for their actions, this accountability seems only to extend to work-related tasks, not to good workplace behavior. Musk’s companies have allegations of sexist and racist work environments, indicating employees are not held accountable for disrespectful and harmful comments and actions.
SpaceX employees have reported instances of sexual harassment at work and note that the company hasn’t done anything about the problem. Some employees felt SpaceX’s lack of action was motivated by management’s desire to avoid work disruptions.
Additionally, reports reveal instances of discrimination, racist graffiti, and Tesla employees—including supervisors—using racial slurs. An investigation into Tesla’s work environment also found that black workers are given more physically demanding jobs.
But research has shown that discrimination in the workplace actually makes employees less productive, indicating all kinds of accountability—both task- and behavior-based—are important.
After his experience at Zip2 and PayPal, Musk valued maintaining control of his companies. He knows leadership positions give him the most influence, allowing him to run his business how he wants to.
Vance explains that Musk doesn’t have a desire for totalitarian control. Instead, he’s concerned about making sure things get done correctly. Musk believes there are certain things that need to be done to achieve his vision, and he thinks he’s the best one to make sure those things happen. This tactic has helped Tesla and SpaceX succeed, since Musk has the vision and drive to effectively lead and make business decisions.
Musk kept control of Tesla and SpaceX by being the largest shareholder and being CEO. While Tesla’s precarious financial situation forced it to go public, Musk resisted making SpaceX a public company. Vance notes that he didn’t like how short sellers messed with Tesla’s stock or how Tesla’s financial statements were available for scrutiny. Musk wanted to retain control of SpaceX and to avoid the volatility of going public.
The Right Leader for a Just Cause
Musk has retained control as CEO of his companies because he believes he is the best one to move his businesses toward his goals—to keep the companies playing in the infinite game, where players play to keep playing, not to win. In The Infinite Game, Simon Sinek explains that if your CEO doesn’t have an infinite mindset, she’s not going to lead your company through its infinite game properly. Choosing who to lead an organization can be the difference between long-term survival or failure. Unfortunately, finding the right leader can be difficult.
Like Musk, your CEO needs an infinite mindset to lead your company through its infinite game. An infinite-minded company needs someone who can look beyond her organization and envision where the company will head next; she must be more of a “CVO” (Chief Vision Officer) than a CEO. Other executives—Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer, and so on—have the luxury of being finite-minded, since they are tasked with dealing with specific issues within their departments. But the CEO does not have that luxury; she needs to be able to focus on the company’s Just Cause—their overarching mission—above all else.
The different visionary requirements of a CEO as compared to other executives can lead to problems when a CEO steps down and one of those other executives takes her place. Sometimes, a person who functioned excellently in a more finite role has difficulty adjusting to the infinite mindset needed for the top position, and they lose sight of their Just Cause. It seems that Musk doesn’t want to take the chance of a new CEO not having an infinite mindset for Tesla or SpaceX.
Musk uses a cross-functional approach to his businesses in which employees from different departments and with different skills work together on a project or goal. This allows the teams to come up with better, more inventive solutions using employees’ expertise.
Vance discusses how Musk’s approach is different from other manufacturers, who wait weeks for another department to hear about and fix problems. Musk has engineers and technicians work together to complete tasks. When testing Tesla’s cars for weather and temperature performance, software engineers and technicians were there to make software changes on the spot. Other manufacturers sent the test data back to the offices where employees would analyze results, make changes, and go back later for more rounds of testing. Musk’s tactic maximizes efficiency and technological improvements.
(Shortform note: Musk’s companies benefited from having his teams work toward a common goal, which supports experts’ claims that cross-functional teams perform better, resolve conflicts, effectively engage employees, and cause employees to feel more appreciated. Other benefits include a more collaborative work culture, opportunities to learn leadership skills, and improved insight and innovation when solving problems.)
Musk’s cross-functional approach is even reflected in the design of the SpaceX facility. Offices for engineers are located in the middle of the factory, forcing engineers to walk through the factory floor and talk with technicians. The walls of the office are glass, so engineers can see the work that technicians do. Vance believes this design creates a collaborative atmosphere, rather than making departments separate from each other. All departments work together toward a common goal.
The Panopticon of SpaceX
SpaceX’s facility design is reminiscent of a panopticon, which is a famous architectural design for prisons. Traditionally, a watch tower is placed in the center of the prison so guards can monitor all prisoners, intended to maximize control and intimidation—not collaboration.
But unlike a traditional panopticon, where prisoners aren’t sure whether or not guards are watching them (so the fear of being watched keeps them in check) SpaceX offices highlight to both engineers and technicians that they are being watched, thus placing every employee in the position of both prisoner and guard. Some experts question the benefits of these layouts, noting that open office spaces decrease face-to-face interactions by 70%, indicating that collaboration actually decreases when offices are made less private.
Vance explains how Musk used vertical integration for his businesses. This is when a company controls as much of its production and supply chain as possible, rather than outsourcing labor from a different country or buying parts from another company. If a part was too expensive, Musk wanted employees to create a newer, better part that cost less to make. As a result, SpaceX produces almost 90% of its parts and electronics for its rockets.
Vertical integration benefitted Musk’s companies in several ways:
1) It kept costs down. Musk cut down the costs of his companies by finding ways to produce parts for cheaper than the average market price. For example, Tesla needed to test how its cars would respond to cold temperatures. Most car companies would pay for a special cooling chamber for testing. Instead of paying the high cost for one of these chambers, Tesla developed its own chamber, using an ice cream truck and a large cooled trailer. This was a cheaper method than buying one of the special cooling chambers.
2) It improved existing technologies. Both Tesla and SpaceX succeeded by creating new technologies to solve problems that arose while creating the rocket and electric car. Since they were figuring out how to make new parts and technologies anyway, Musk’s teams took the opportunity to improve the parts. They found that different metals or changing the software could improve the performance of the part and, by extension, the product as a whole.
3) It increased efficiency. By making everything in-house, Musk’s companies could speed up their manufacturing process. If anything went wrong, they could replace or fix a part much quicker than waiting for a new one to be shipped in.
Pros and Cons of Vertical Integration
Vance notes that Musk’s companies benefited from vertical integration by keeping costs down, improving technologies, and increasing efficiency, but experts note a few other advantages of this kind of production process. Vertical integration also allows companies to avoid quality issues, since they can address problems directly, rather than working with another company to fix the issue and send them a new part. Additionally, businesses who control more of their production process are often more profitable.
However, vertical integration has disadvantages. The initial cost and effort of setting up your own supply chain are significant, which may result in acquiring more debt. And sometimes, it’s a good idea to outsource to a reputable company with a good product or service.
While there isn’t a right or wrong answer as to whether vertical integration is right for your business, you should weigh the pros and cons and determine what’s best for your company and your goals. For Musk’s goal of building a cheaper rocket with SpaceX, he saw vertical integration as necessary for reducing the overall cost of a rocket.
In all of his companies, Musk set ambitious deadlines for both himself and others. He told employees, consumers, and executives that certain tasks or products would be completed faster than anyone thought possible. Vance believes he wasn’t setting an arbitrary timeline—this was genuinely how long Musk believed it would take to complete certain tasks.
Employees soon understood that if Musk said something would take a day, it would actually take a few days or a week to do. They also learned to create daily—and sometimes hourly—schedules that included bathroom breaks. Employees understood the consequences of not meeting these deadlines.
Although setting these extreme deadlines put a lot of pressure on Musk and his employees, this habit is a large part of Musk’s success. Musk rarely met these deadlines, but by creating an extremely ambitious schedule, his teams achieved impressive results in a faster time frame than anyone else thought possible. For instance, NASA took about a decade to build a satellite; Musk’s original goal was to launch a rocket into space in a year and a half. Given NASA’s timeframe, Musk’s deadline seemed impossible. It took SpaceX six years to successfully launch the rocket. While SpaceX didn’t meet the original goal, completing the rocket in six years was still faster than anyone in the industry had predicted.
Use Parkinson’s Law and Ingvar’s Rule for Deadline Setting
While Musk uses ambitious deadlines to achieve results, experts debate their effectiveness and whether they’re worth the stress. Many people say they work better under deadline pressure, but research indicates the opposite. Under deadline pressure, people feel stressed, make mistakes, and have to redo work, which ends up taking more time. Often the mistakes—such as product flaws and cost overruns—have long-term financial consequences.
Instead, try using Parkinson’s Law the next time you need to set a deadline. Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fulfill the time available for its completion. So if something must be done in six months, it will take six months. Create a plan based off of that deadline, and make choices and tradeoffs to accomplish it. While experts believe Parkinson’s Law shouldn’t be used to create overly-ambitious deadlines, it can be used as a thought experiment to explore how long it might actually take to complete a project. Consider what it would look like to cut your deadline in half. What would it take to complete it by then? Alternatively, what could you accomplish with an extended deadline?
For accounting for smaller tasks like meetings or even bathroom breaks, consider using Ingvar’s Rule, or the 10-minute Rule, which assumes that a task needs to take no more than 10 minutes. Many people default to an hour for these types of activities, but 10 minutes is often enough time.
Musk values employees who work well together and control over his management and production process. Determine what is most important to you and your business so you can focus your energy there—not on things you don’t actually care about.
Consider your most important goals for yourself or your business. What are they? Musk’s goal for Tesla was to make luxury electric cars a viable option for consumers—perhaps your goal might be to produce twice as much online content than your current amount.
How might you achieve these goals? Determine the essential elements of achieving your goal. The essential elements of the aforementioned goal might include hiring another content producer to your team.
Are all of the elements you listed actually essential? While advertising might traditionally be considered essential for cars, Tesla doesn’t advertise its products. Perhaps you could alter your content production process for efficiency rather than hiring another person to your payroll.