Sachin Tendulkar is God to Cricket lovers.Elon Musk is the God for all startUp enthusiasts.
Ashlee starts the book by saying that securing time from this busy bee is just too difficult. You will not be surprised to see a map in the book which depicts his travel details for a year. The number of flights he took, the number of places he visited and yes the tight schedule he keeps for running so many companies plus managing 5 kids! In fact his personal life is another roller coster.
Elon specially had a ruff personal life, be it his childhood or multiple marriages. The book depicts his childhood and his aspirations in great detail. He caught up with computer programming at the age of 10 and made his first computer game at the age of 12. Now look back and try remembering what were you doing at that age?
Elon is the man behind all the futuristic brands in the world today. Tesla Motors, SpaceX, PayPal, Hyperloop and SolarCity. These are not just brands, these the companies doing things for the environment and are the real future.
But the book is not just about how big these brands are, its about how Elon reached there. Becoming bankrupt twice in this journey. Hard to believe how intelligent Millionaires can also get to this situation. Well, its the passion for doing things that you always loved, gets you there. Its tests your love for it, to the core.
If you are Iron Man fan, you should know that the character got some of its inspiration from Elon. In fact even before the filming of the very first Iron Man movie, Robert Downey Jr. paid a visit to Elon and actually see if such a man exists. Robert was thoroughly impressed. ‘Pepper Pots’ the secretary in the movie is also inspired by the real secretary of Elon.
Elon has always loved outer space and SpaceX mostly started as a Mars Mission thingy but then its now a transport company working in the space industry. Wow, how many companies can write that in their ‘About Us’ section? 🙂 Elon’s most famous statement regarding space exploration is – “I would like to die on Mars, just not on impact”. SpaceX went thru multiple failures before even a single rocket could be shot in the space. Most recently on 28th June, 2015 one of the rocket burst into flames and that day was his birthday too. I cannot even imagine what kind of stress level he lives with.
Having said that, Electric cars is also his passion, Tesla Motors is revolutionising the car industry in the US and soon around the world. His thinking and execution style is so ruff and unique that he is many a times compared with Steve Jobs, who was also known to be very strict leader. But Elon is a different beast, he knows inside out of every little thing in his company, especially SpaceX. Rockets are his babies.
The book is full of inspiration and commitment. Am hoping Elon’s story comes out as a movie soon. I would love to see Robert Downey Jr. play Elon!
Update on personal life: 5th Aug 2015 –
