nenos 23/09/2023
“Revolutionizing industries is not for the faint of heart”
I was wondering when would there be a sequel for Elon Musk since the first one written by Mr. Ashlee Vance became outdated with so much distinctive checkpoints from 2015 to this day. He is allegedly addicted to storm and stress, known for being harsh with people, for being a bully, brutally honest and for lacking empathy. From tech millionaire to one of the most influential person on the world, Elon Musk has an interesting story to be told so far. And in charge for telling us the story of this multifaceted man, renowned Mr. Walter Isaacson.
Starting a new company with the common intent to make it thrive, was never considered to be a simple task. In Mr. Meyer Rothschild words: it requires boldness to get it and ten times as much wit to keep it. Then, entrepreneurship becomes ten times harder when you’re trying to invent a service, a formula, a delivery method, do unique things to make it patentable, to deliver a unique user experience or to identify isolated market segments. You don’t just “go to work”, it becomes a way of living.
In evaluation terms, SpaceX and Tesla are considered business models very hard to replicate. With a Silicon Valley disrupter mentality and a lack of deference toward the traditional industry, Elon Musk and his team were not only privatizing space with its upending cost structure and building the first-ever reusable rockets. But they were also turning what was once boring and slow electric cars into what became not only a car, but a machine learning gadget built for you to literally be able to just take the hands off the wheel.
With more than 20 years of existence, SpaceX has been through a long journey to conquer the majority of NASA’s launches and to hold many statuses such as most successful private rocket company. To put in perspective, Space Exploration was never considered to be a priority, and is but a tiny fragment of the military’s budget. In the author’s words: We were experiencing for more than fifty years with the retirement of the Space Shuttle, a lapse in ability, will, and imagination that as astonishing for a nation that, two generations earlier, had made nine missions to the moon.
Hero or Villain? Well-written biographies such as Mr. Isaacson’s are meant to write, in unbiased terms, about worth-telling stories about people who have exerted a great amount of influence in humanity’s outlook. Musk is, like many of us, a human who suffered a great amount of dark times, a human who’ve learned from join and pain. Standing up for idealism, to set grand visions and to construct an ethical universe focused on the delivery of big goals are not at all for the ordinary faint of heart.
One can only imagine how corrosive would be the responsibility, the influence and the power Twitter administration has. The story of twitter controversy takes a great amount of this book chapters, a massive revolution full of controversies, from the takeover from content moderation. I can’t actually fathom how big of a challenge this is, but I know this: Most people are self-absorbed narcissistic assholes. They might revel in your shit for a minute, because it distracts them from theirs. But soon, they forget about you, going right back to their own shitpile.
It’s the beginning of the machine learning, electric vehicles, commercial space flight and reusable rockets era. As of now, tech industry has been, in the author’s words: Moore’s law in steroids. But it doesn’t happen overnight, and it surely doesn’t happen with complacency. Suddenly, people start to notice how few throughout history, made by an admixture of hubris, audacity and risk aversion, fundamentally transformed the world with both epic accomplishments and failures.
Link to my highlights: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1U-XxgRHDjTp7bM1o70OtE0-SNPqLE9NF/view?usp=sharing