Assignment 27A - Reading Reflection No. 3

Assignment 27A – Reading Reflection No. 3

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance

1.     What surprised me the most about Elon Musk was his relentless nature. He doesn’t take no for an answer and is often ruthless when speaking to colleagues/employees. What I admired most about Elon was his commitment to the advancement of humankind. He was so passionate about the future that all of his goals were some extension of this massive goal. However, this also relates to what I least admired about him. It seemed that he was so overly concerned with the advancement of humanity in general that he didn’t care enough about individuals. He isn’t the nicest guy, and it is because he doesn’t care about people’s individual feelings as much as he cares for humanity as a whole. This can be both admirable as well as slightly despicable. Elon Musk most definitely encountered adversity and failure. To start, he was heavily bullied as a child, not to mention his less-than-enviable home life. His father was barely mentioned in the book. After starting his first company, he was then pushed out as CEO, which was a “failure” but in reality was also a huge opportunity for him. His next companies, Tesla and SpaceX, were on the brink of bankruptcy several times. He went through several divorces. Musk had an amazing ability to endure pain and failure and to persevere. He never gave up (obviously).

2.     Elon Musk’s most obvious competency is his extreme intelligence. The other is his ability to endure adversity and failure. Yet another is his vision.

3.     One part of the reading that was confusing to me was probably all of the technical talk about SpaceX and Tesla because I am not an engineer so some of that stuff went right over my head!

4.     I would ask Elon what his opinion is on personal fulfillment and happiness because it seems like they are not priorities in his life. I would also ask if he thinks his success is a result of his difficult childhood and upbringing. I think the impacts of childhood can last well into adulthood, and it seems like the vast majority of successful people had difficult upbringings. I think people’s childhood experiences might be the fuel that defines th rest of their lives.

5.     I think his opinion, as well as the opinion of every successful entrepreneur, is that hard work is absolutely necessary. However, I’m not sure that Elon even really considers it hard work, but instead simply how he lives his life. When you have as big of a vision as Elon, hard work probably comes naturally. I definitely share that opinion that hard work is absolutely necessary.