#21 in Biographies
Use arrows to jump to the previous/next product
Reddit mentions of Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
Sentiment score: 17
Reddit mentions: 36
We found 36 Reddit mentions of Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. Here are the top ones.
or
- Ecco Press
Features:
Specs:
| Height | 7.9 Inches |
| Length | 1.3 Inches |
| Number of items | 1 |
| Release date | January 2017 |
| Weight | 0.75 Pounds |
| Width | 5.2 Inches |
Yep, kids on the way; had to sell his home and move in on the couch of another silicone valley investor to finish the first rocket launch that landed his first contracts. Said he was days away from being negative. This is an amazing read <EDIT harmless joke out> https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future/dp/006230125X
This notion of "Elon Time" is actually discussed in his biography. To determine the amount of time something will take, Musk asks himself, "how long will it take me to code a line? How many lines will there be?" Then, multiply to get an estimate. These are the values we see in his tweets. His secretary then goes back to customers and gives them a more 'realistic' timeline.
But you have to look at what they have now and extrapolate. The ITS will not come by magic. If developing the FH is this difficult, why should the ITS/BFR or the V2 be any better right away? SpaceX will get there, it will take a lot of time, but we need to be patient.
The Grubstakers podcast did two different episodes about him, I definitely remember this anecdote but I can't remember where the timestamp is. Ep1 Ep2 and they attribute this book as their primary source along with this Rolling Stone profile.
I’d highly recommend reading the biography by Ashlee Vance
It’s really quite fascinating, and confirmation that Musk isn’t just all hype.
While I'm busy expending my fifteen minutes of fame here in /r/mvis, this is the book that the author referred to: Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. Elon is a pretty amazing guy, and I think Ashlee did a pretty good job of capturing what makes Elon tick. Highly recommended.
His relationship with his second wife Talulah Riley still seems to be extremely friendly and supportive? As far as I can tell she’s had nothing but quite lovely things to say about him and their marriages, and vice versa.
“Elon and I are best friends. We still see each other all the time and take care of each other. If this could continue indefinitely it would be lovely. When you’ve been with someone for eight years on and off, you really learn how to love them. He and I are very good at loving each other…”
Link
She also rejected the idea he was the ‘alpha’ in their relationship:
“Elon’s ex-wife Justine has described how, while dancing together at their wedding reception, he told her, ‘I am the alpha in this marriage.’ Given his extraordinary power, wealth and the fact he’s 14 years Talulah’s senior, you might guess that this has been the case with her, too. Talulah bristles and for the first time fixes me with a stare. ‘Alpha is a phrase that gets bandied about in America but it’s not something I really thought about before I moved there. I wouldn’t apply it to Elon or myself.’”
Link
ETA: I also found this quote from Riley taken from a Musk biography:
”Elon doesn’t have to listen to anyone in life. No one. He doesn’t have to listen to anything that doesn’t fit into his worldview. But he proved he would take shit from me. He said ‘Let me listen to her and figure these things out’. He proved that he valued my opinion on things in life and was willing to listen.”
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
The first book that comes to mind is Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. As an entrepreneur, I found it very inspiring—it's all about hard work, perseverance, and doing something that hasn’t been done before. I like to think that’s what we’re doing at 1933, developing unique products for the cannabis market that help people live better lives. I also enjoy reading anything by Ed Rosenthal or Jorge Cervantes, as both taught me how to care for the cannabis plant.
&#x200B;
Great question!
Been loving the responses so far! My own preferences have been changing, and I've been reading a lot more non-fiction than I used to. It has really opened the doors to a lot of books I would not have considered reading before!
On my reading list:
The Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley - this is what I'm almost finished with now. It has been a really insightful read on how little prepared society is for disasters, and the steps we should take to help fix that.
The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker - I've seen this mentioned on reddit a few times and it's in the same vein as the book I'm currently reading.
Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King
The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog by Bruce D. Perry
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries - I'm currently working in the startup industry, and have read similar books to this.
The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz - same as the book above. This is currently going around my office right now so I should be reading it soon!
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk M.D. - this was recommended to me by a friend when he learned I was reading The Unthinkable and The Gift of Fear. Honestly really looking forward to reading this one!
On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society
Books I'd recommend:
Blink by Malcom Gladwell - all about the subconscious mind and the clues we pick up without realizing it. Pretty sure reading this book has helped me out in weird situations.
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance - amazing read about how Elon Musk works and the person he is.
The Circle by Dave Eggers - just don't watch the movie :)
I can do better than tell you some, there's a whole book of them!
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future https://www.amazon.com/dp/006230125X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_J5OEAbQBEMRDA
You can read more in depth on all of this in Elon Musk's biography which he actually cooperated with. Like how his first son died of SIDs, his companies were close to bankrupt way more than once, how many arguments there were in the PayPal days, and how absolutely incredible the feats of Tesla and SpaceX really were given the small time frame they were working with.
Yes, that is a good point. That was also detailed in the book I read.
If anyone cares, I think it's this book (I read at least two so I'm not 100% sure): https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future/dp/006230125X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=1475082388&amp;sr=8-5
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance is on Google Play Books and Amazon, but if you don't mind Piracy you can also get it on Library Genesis
His biography
I read the biography about him, which is quite interesting. (https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future/dp/006230125X)
I don't recall the exact circumstances, but the author describes Musk as experiencing horrific bullying as a child, including one incident in which he was assaulted and thrown down a flight of stairs, resulting in him being hospitalized. One would think that the experience would predispose him to be sympathetic to us.
The biography paints him as a man on a mission to save mankind and the planet thru his business ventures. That's why he's so into electric cars and solar energy.
My previous comments here were kidding, but in all seriousness, if there is some reason I should hate him, please do inform me because as best I can tell, he's an astute businessman who is working hard to push innovation that the established players have been resisting for years.
I read this biography about Elon musk. He is definitely an interesting person. While I respect him in many ways and he is certainly going to either directly or indirectly change the world, he is an asshole. For example, there was a story about an employee that was asked to take on an impossible task. The employee came back in defeat. Musk fired him and did the job himself. Musk's mind is amazing, his personal skills are surely lacking.
It has been widely reported on. You're also commenting on an article that spelled it out in the article.
"In the Elon Musk biography by Ashlee Vance, it was revealed that Musk and Larry Page, the head of Alphabet (Google’s parent company), had a deal for the latter to purchase Tesla:
In the first week of March 2013, Musk reached out to Page, say the two people familiar with the talks. By that point, so many customers were deferring orders that Musk had quietly shut down Tesla’s factory. Considering his straits, Musk drove a hard bargain. He proposed that Google buy Tesla outright — with a healthy premium, the company would have cost about $6 billion at the time — and pony up another $5 billion in capital for factory expansions. He also wanted guarantees that Google wouldn’t break up or shut down his company before it produced a third-generation electric car aimed at the mainstream auto market. He insisted that Page let him run a Google-owned Tesla for eight years, or until it began pumping out such a car. Page accepted the overall proposal and shook on the deal.
It was during a brief difficult time for Tesla to ramp up Model S production and deliver cars to customers, but things turned for the better and Musk reportedly dropped the deal."
Yes. There's a book written by Ashley Vance on Elon Musk's companies in large part dedicated to the subject: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/006230125X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1511139448&amp;sr=8-1&amp;pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&amp;keywords=elon+musk&amp;dpPl=1&amp;dpID=5112YFsXIJL&amp;ref=plSrch
Besides that, the information has been largely available as Tesla is a public company and the roadster and approach to that/volume initially is not hidden. If you have not been following Tesla but still plan to invest, that's really a problem of not doing due diligence (not to be a dick but if you do plan to invest in a company, you should not put the cart before the horse and try to gather as realistic a picture as possible which takes into account positive and negative -- part of that is simply paying attention to the company's history).
There’s a book for that
https://www.amazon.com/dp/006230125X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_uycYCbRK1NCA3
Richard Branson's autobiography Losing my Virginity, Elon Musk, Shoe Dog.
Marci Bianco writes: "billionaires' atmospheric ambitions are a 'desire to colonize' tinged with patriarchal undertones... The impulse to colonize, she writes, 'has its origins in gendered power structures,' including the 'entitlement to power, control, domination and ownership.'" But are these traits exclusively linked to men? Is entitlement exclusively a man-thing? Is she implying that these traits (power/control/domination/ownership) are positive or negative?
Bianco is very highly educated (with various degrees from prestigious universities, including an undeniable master's degree in women's studies) so I wished to give her a benefit of a doubt that maybe she's onto something. However, it is immediately obvious that she has not read Musk's biography (by Ashlee Vance) where it was made clear that Elon was interested in space exploration from early childhood (probably before he understood the meaning of the word "patriarchy.") Besides the usual extreme feminist rants about patriarchal pigs, I'm not sure what Bianco's point is. Is it a call for action for more women to get interested in the space program, and for billionaire women to start their own space exploration companies? Or for men to stop being interested in things that women are generally less/not interested in? In either case, Bianco's article appears to be tinged with feminist undertones.
In the case of space exploration companies (like Space X, or Virgin Galactic) the risks (financial, and operational) are enormous; so much so, that many people (regardless of gender) are not willing to invest in these programs. Women generally take on less risk in life (this is also evident in financial trading, where on average, women typically outperform men) and thereby would be less interested, and less likely to pursue such investments. But Bianco only considers three possibilities why someone would be interested in space exploration; and since it' not the "'nationalist' fervor of the Cold War nor 'the American spirit of invention'" (even though Musk is a naturalized American, and a long-time resident) it must obviously be the patriarchy. God forbid someone would think it would be really cool to go into space, and or feel that it's important for humans to have an escape plan.
Either you don't understand Elon's objectives for any of his businesses, or you just don't care to see them through. Everything he's taken on he tries to find new efficiencies. Boring Company goal, improve tunneling efficiency, SpaceX goal, make a better, cheaper rocket. Tesla goal, make a more efficient vehicle that doesn't require as much maintenance, make production more efficient through new manufacturing techniques. Yes, the Tesla goals are extremely ironic at the moment.
Of course it's obvious the hell that they're in is of their own making - that's the cost of trying something new. He doesn't want business as usual, to just nibble away market share from other companies, he wants to change how the whole system works.
I really feel like people here should read this book about him: https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future/dp/006230125X
It is not overtly pro Elon, not even close. The book does a great job showing where he's screwed some things up, including being a dick for a boss. But I think it'd shed a lot of insight to his mindset on his businesses and why he is choosing to run them this way.
https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future/dp/006230125X
>If there is less work to do, everyone can split the work up and work less. Those who work more or do more important work should be compensated accordingly.
How do you fairly define what is 'important work'? How is compensation determined from different types of of work?
>and decide in some democratic way in how to implement it and how to share the wealth. Unlike the totalitarian structure we have today.
What if the janitors in a big company collectively refuse to take any less pay then the highest payed scientist there? You can't get them out, it's collective ownership. Speaking of ownership, is it a 1:1 ratio by person? So said janitors would be the biggest voting block at Google? Is the ratio determined on prestige, skill, or even raw intelligence? How is that fair to those not endowed with said advantages?
>The space program has been driven by public institutions from the beginning. In fact it was the Soviets who started the space race by sending the first satellite and people into space. And we had to create a government program and plan our education around math and science to catch up with them. Capitalism wasn't going to cut it.
Yes! I am for this control of the market. Many pivotal technologies would not have come to exist were it not for government investment. But do you know what companies do to win those contracts? Compete. The government has an abundance of choice when choosing contractors, or simply investing/subsidizing sectors of the economy. While you could recreate this effect in a public system, why not let capitalism do what it does best? Competition.
>I mean, even at SpaceX, people know about Elon Musk but not Thomas Muller, who is the actual brains behind the company. He's an actual rocket scientist and its his work (along with his fellow engineers) that made re-usable rockets possible. Not some billionaire throwing his money around. Labor, not capital, gets things done.
Here is Musk's biography. While he undoubtedly gets help from others, he heads a lot of the technical development there.
>Labor, not capital, gets things done.
The new labor is robots, and the goal is to make people obsolete. Thus, day by day, as technology grows more powerful, human labor grows weaker. The very nature of technology implies immense existing capital. Look at semiconducters, where do you think most of them are built?
Thus, with a democratic means of production, where the labor is mostly robots, how do things even get done? With capital ideally being evenly distributed, everyone would have some of these labor saving machines, but organization into an economy would have to be run by the government.
Why not keep the free market system and give citizens a substantial monthly dividend? While $1000 is a start, I envision it getting much higher as automation truly comes into its own. Strong enough, the dividend would prevent massive capital accumulation, while still allowing all of capitalism's benefits such as inherent market efficiency, automatic, dynamic supply/demand adjustment, and innovation to manifest automatically.
We dont need to tear down the old. We just need strong adjustments to the existing one.
The episode recommended this book for more information about Elon Musk.
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
The basis for his case is that earth will not be able to continue supporting humans b/c we will exploit all of earth's resources. If you read Ashlee Vance's biography, he gets into the topic pretty well since it's essentially what's driven Musk to do everything he's done with Solar City, Tesla and Space X. It's a fairly quick, easy read.
waitbutwhy has a series of 5 very detailed blog posts about him that explain who he is and what he wants to accomplish with tesla and spacex (and why those accomplishments are important).
DISCLAIMER: these blog post are really long, more like a short book than a blog post.
if that is not enough there is also a biography written by ashlee vance
> I highly recommend his Biography.
Are you referring to Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future? Or do you have a different recommendation? I haven't read a bio about him yet but I would like to.
https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future/dp/006230125X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1518191826&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=elon+musk
Explains a lot about him
> esqueci o nome
X.com
Recomendo a biografia do Musk, muito interessante.
In Cluj am vazut un model X, superb, culoarea nu prea, maronie/cacanie, dar e ok si asa.. are ECO la numar. Model S am tot vazut pe ruta Cluj-Alba-Cluj.. Si ca sa iti infrumusetez/ocup toata ziua: enjoy watching these videos
Edit: iti recomand si cartea asta, ca sa iti faci o idee cum au luat nastere companiile lui Mr. Musk :) Mie mi-a placut
yes.
It was shortly after he left Paypal if I remember right. He went overseas there with some people, met with them to try to buy rockets, they said he was crazy. The thing to keep in mind is, for that moment it was crazy. Spaceflights like this were always pioneered by governments because of cost, not companies, let alone individuals looking to make a company.
He pulled something off that is absolutely tremendous. He has his flaws... But I think we needed Musk; I bet he has inspired a whole new generation of scientists and engineers.
If you want to read more about this, check out the biography written on him, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. It was very good, and it puts into perspective some of his bigger goals.
If you want to learn more about Elon Musk, this book is a very good biography.
Alternatively, this (free) blog series by Tim Urban is a great in-depth look at him and his companies, part 3 is all about SpaceX
Personally I value how much of an effort he makes. Many CEOs just find one good company, make it as profitable as possible and just sit on their fortune. With all the companies he is creating, to me it really feels like he's trying to do good for the world. SolarCity and Tesla are trying to help the environment. Tesla, The Boring Company and Hyperloop are trying to revolutionize transport. OpenAI and Neuralink are trying to be a safeguard to make sure that computers don't kill us. SpaceX is for when the world can't fix it's problems and needs to go somewhere else.
Elon Musk has problems. Period. Anybody who tells you otherwise is an idiot. He sucks at relationships, he can be practically sociopathic at times, and he frequently sets unrealistic timelines for his most important projects. But on the other hand, his laser-like focus and drive in his companies which makes him practically sociopathic at times results in frequent success in them (albeit not necessarily on the original timeline but still,) which in turn allows them to bring newer, better technology into public knowledge (Who gave a shit about electric cars before Tesla? Practically nobody. Who gives a shit now? A lot of people + car companies). But most importantly, he tries. He truly believes that everything he creates could work, and some of it will. However, I believe that he has already succeeded. Even if his companies go bankrupt in the future, he has already inspired many people, and in doing so he has insured that more people will try to help the world just like him. And even if many of them fail, eventually someone will succeed and then maybe, just maybe, we can start to fix some of our problems.
Just a few notes before I end:
The author interviewed like the first dozen or so people from the company. The book has pages and pages of sources at the end. I highly recommend this book to others. And Elon Musk was not allowed to read the book until it was published.
I borrowed the book from a library but it's pretty cheap on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future/dp/006230125X
Google Mary Beth Brown, she was there step by step with him building his businesses from the start, she was his right hand. Then she asked for a raise to be paid like other executives, he refused, and not only that, he also crapped all over her, and fired her, she was basically described like Starks assistant, in fact Ironman inspiration was Elon musk and his assistant Mary Beth brown.
He is also a dirty pervert, super edgy, insane egomaniac. When someone is flattering you — you blush and feel uncomfortable. This motherfucker sociopath GLOWS when during interviews his ass is being kissed.
He has insane drive to overcompensate, loves to be the center of attention, while pretending to be sheepish. He throws BDSM style parties without sex just so everyone walks around all sexed up. He even visited the burning man and made himself the center of attention there as well by climbing some pole.
It’s all in his biography, go read it
Oh and his speech stuttering — not effects of childhood bullying, his brain works faster than he can speak. He is smart and hardworking, but he is also a huge piece of shit.
I recommend reading Elon’s biography.. might cut through some of the misinformation in the comments section ..
https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future/dp/006230125X