ELON MUSK
PEES FAST
A brilliant talented driven dreamer like Elon comes along once in a generation. He is a present day Henry Ford, Howard Hughs or Arnold Beckman. As this post is written he is ranked as the wealthiest man in the world. He owns Tesla, Space X, Neural-ink, Star Link, The Boring Company and now Twitter.
What impresses me was his all in approach to everything especially business. By all in I mean he has risked his entire fortune more than once. He bet on his ability to do what seemed impossible, delivers it under budget and before schedule. Even though he has fallen short of these goals a few times, he has delivered against all odds many more times to defy his skeptics.
Another admirable trait is that he really doesn't let critics alter his goals. He is not afraid to make mistakes in public, failure is part of the process. He considers using time and energy to polish his public image is a waste.
Time is his friend and his enemy. He works and plays hard with a sense of his mortality so there is no time to waste, ever. He works harder and longer then his employees and he has no problem sleeping on the floor by his desk.
Over the decades NASA has been paralyzed by bad press so its natural that they fear making mistakes. Because of this they have lost their exploration focus and become just another bloated bureaucracy. As an agency with an annual budget they have been taken over by predator politicians. They have redirected money from the basic NASA mission to buy votes and gain more power.
Eventually this will happen to any government program or business using government money. This may explain Elon's urgency to get things accomplished before this happens to SpaceX. I hear criticisms of SpaceX using tax dollars but I feel we are getting our moneys worth, at least for now.
Elon recruits the best and brightest, the opportunity to work with Elon on the cutting edge of technology is the ultimate. Very few survive more then a year or two because of the job demands. They work as long as their mind and body can hold up. In spite of this former employees generally speak well of Elon.
I love how he cuts cost by reengineering existing products. He thinks out of the box and defies the established norms. Doing things for $5000 vs $150000 by using off the shelf electronic products instead of designing and building "special" space products amazes me. Imagine government spending our money with this frugal approach.
The media tries to drag him into the political world where they have an advantage but he does not play their game. He just keeps launching rockets and stays uncommitted because it would be a waste of his time and energy.
Don't get me wrong Elon is not super human, a political genius or a moral giant. He is a driven visionary who understands he needs money to accomplish his goals. He enjoys his wealth but lavishing himself in luxury is not his focus. Wealth is a tool to stretch the limits of human accomplishment.
Like many with extreme personalities I imagine he can be a bit of a jerk, impatient and ruthless. Top level competitive athletes can perform at a super human level but not always have warm fuzzy personalities. I can admire their abilities but I don't want to hang out with them.
He is now the CEO of Twitter with a week or so of cleaning house under his belt. Many on both sides are imposing values and politics on his every move. I think this is foolish and unfair.
I hope he has core American values like free speech and open debate but I don't expect him to be a shill for either political party. He will figure a way to make Twitter profitable and a place for the non crazy to exchange opinions, openly debate and engage in commerce.
I think Elon will do better to stay in his lane and avoid politics, but I do like that he pokes the bear from time to time.
To me the best line in the book was that he "pees fast". I think this captures how urgently and focused he lives his life.
