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Elon Musk: Crazy Eccentric or Brilliant Entrepreneur?
When I began to read Walter Isaacson’s book, I had no idea what a roller coaster ride it would be. Isaacson was given almost full access to Musk, his friends and wives, children, colleagues and employees. Musk didn’t require his
approval of the manuscript, and didn’t read the book before it was published. This access gives a remarkable picture of an amazing, complicated and brilliant man. In spite of all his shortcomings, his achievements inspired me to wish I could meet this unique man of the 21st century.
Elon Musk grew up in South Africa in a brutal environment:
South Africa in the 1980s was a violent place, with machine-gun attacks and knife killings common. Once, when Elon and Kimbal got off a train on their way to an anti-apartheid music concert, they had to wade through a pool of blood next to a dead person with a knife still sticking out of his brain.
Musk believed that these early experiences, in addition to growing up with an angry and abusive father, likely played a role in the man he became. He said this about his father:
He would end every tirade by telling Elon how pathetic he was. Elon would just have to stand there, not allowed to leave. ‘It was mental torture,’ Elon says, pausing for a long time and choking up slightly. ‘He sure knew how to make anything terrible.’
Whether these experiences shaped his later life, Musk admitted to having difficulty in forming intimate relationships. One of his friends said this about him:
He had trouble picking up social cues. Empathy did not come naturally, and he had neither the desire nor the instinct to be ingratiating.
His mother, Maye, said that he believed he was on the Asperger’s spectrum, and she thought he was probably right. He was never officially evaluated.
Musk was absolutely clear on the goals for his most well-known companies: Tesla, an electric and fully automated self-driving car; Space X, to fly to Mars and make us a multi-planetary civilization; and Twitter, to realize a free speech platform.
The effect on his personal and work relationships was significant. He married several times; in some cases, he didn’t marry but had a total of 12 children with a number of women. He appeared to be sincere in his belief that having children was important to the human race, due to declining birthrates. And he lived out his belief.
Regarding his work relationships, there were many similarities among all the companies that he eventually owned, so I don’t necessarily make a distinction among them in the examples I give. Musk was not an easy person to work for. He had specific expectations for employees’ performance:
Musk had deployed what he called the ‘idiot index.’ That was the ratio of the total cost of a component to the cost of its raw materials. Something with a high idiot index—say, a component that cost $1,000 when the aluminum that composed it cost only $100—was likely to have a design that was too complex or a manufacturing process that was too inefficient. As Musk put it, ‘If the ratio is high, you’re an idiot.’
He also demanded that every employee commit to arduous work schedules and meet his projections for completing projects. If anyone dared to say a task wasn’t possible, he either fired them or re-stated the expectation, leaving them to their own devices. It was amazing how often impossible deadlines were met. He also insisted that the engineers form teams with the design staff and work closely on development. Eventually, he insisted that as many components as possible be manufactured in-house to save time and money.
Strangely enough, Musk seemed to go over the edge when things were going well. He loved the challenge of solving problems. He was known in his various companies for his meltdowns. His brother, Kimbal, was key in helping him return to reality.
Musk decided he had to move himself, literally, to the factory floors and lead an all-in surge; he did this on a few occasions. It was a tactic —personally surging into the breach 24/7 with an all-hands-on-deck cadre of fellow fanatics—that came to define the maniacal intensity that he demanded at his companies.
For his companies to be successful, he expected them to be efficient in developing products, as well as to be fiscally responsible. Here’s one example:
When an engineer came to Musk’s cubicle and told him that the air-cooling system for the payload bay of the Falcon 9 would cost more than $3 million, he shouted over to Gwynne Shotwell in her adjacent cubicle to ask what an air-conditioning system for a house cost. About $6,000, she said. So the SpaceX team bought some commercial air-conditioning units and modified their pumps so they could work atop the rocket.
To make sure that decisions were not just arbitrary, Musk developed what he called his algorithm. This was his explanation for the algorithm and its requirements:
‘Unless a sensor is absolutely needed to start an engine or safely stop an engine before it explodes, it must be deleted,’ he wrote in an email to SpaceX engineers. ‘Going forward, anyone who puts a sensor (or anything) on the engine that isn’t obviously critical will be asked to leave.’
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Question every requirement. Each should come with the name of the person who made it.
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Delete any part or process you can. You may have to add them back later.
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Simplify and optimize. This should come after step two. A common mistake is to simplify and optimize a part or a process that should not exist.
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Accelerate cycle time. Every process can be speeded up. But only do this after you have followed the first three steps.
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That comes last. The big mistake in Nevada and at Fremont was that I began by trying to automate every step.
There are many, many more stories that Isaacson shares to give us Musk’s inside story. He was a mass of contradictions. He didn’t believe co-workers should be too attached to each other, but he believed in teamwork. He knew his plan to lead Tesla, Space X, Neuralink, Starlink and Twitter would be impossibly demanding, yet he was unwilling to relinquish control. He probably took more risks than any other company leader, but when they didn’t work out, he’d just try another solution.
Isaacson closed his book with two fascinating paragraphs:
(from Musk)
‘This is how civilizations decline. They quit taking risks. And when they quit taking risks, their arteries harden. Every year there are more referees and fewer doers.’ That’s why America could no longer build things like high-speed rail or rockets that go to the moon. ‘When you’ve had success for too long, you lose the desire to take risks.’
(from Isaacson)
Published in Book ReviewsSometimes great innovators are risk-seeking man-children who resist potty training. They can be reckless, cringeworthy, sometimes even toxic. They can also be crazy. Crazy enough to think they can change the world.
Well obviously you never had a tourist trip to Romania gone wrong.
Don’t worry. Next time the left will make sure the piles of money go to someone who will fail with them, as is traditional.
I highly suspect, as well as hope for your and yours’ sake, that your revulsion towards the incentives/disincentives built into our tax code does not rise to a level that prevents your from availing yourself of all available means (legal, of course) to minimize your tax bill(s), i.e. from picking up whatever money our tax code leaves laying around for you.
I was part of two startups – the Entrepreneur who led these enterprises was a bit of both. They tend to think outside the box and create the energy to move forward.
There is a difference between lowering the amount the government takes from you and being given more than you ever paid to the government. I take my deductions, but on the whole government takes from me.
I learned a lot in that book. I still wonder how much of it is true.
Regardless, I think the author specializes in making people look nutty, if there are two ways to ascribe a motive, the author will choose the sinister variation. He did the same hatchet job to Steve Job.
What’s especially good is to use the extra subsidies and payouts to make contributions to the election campaigns of those who would unelect the persons who enacted them into law. Elon is sort of doing that. The left it hates that. It intended to buy your vote and for you to stay bought.
Looking for nutjobs in tech is much like looking for lying weasels in Congress. It’s a target-rich environment.
Trust me, a quarter inch of clotted blood on the floor, spread over a meter, makes it seem like you are wading through it.
The following stats should make you very happy regarding Musk from that standpoint:
1.
Since its inception to the present, Tesla has received roughly ONE billion (a bit under, to be more accurate) in federal subsidies of various kinds (grants, loans, etc.,).
2.
In 2021 alone, Musk paid roughly … ELEVEN billion in federal taxes.
Links:
https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/tesla-inc
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/20/elon-musk-says-he-will-pay-over-11-billion-in-taxes-this-year.html
In general, and overall, that does please me. He still gamed Cap and Trade, which is an idiotic system to begin with. Carbon Credits? Why?
That is true. However, that not-quite-empty booster weighed somewhere in the vicinity of 600 tons, which is quite a lot to let free-fall from space and snatch from the sky in the final seconds.
I thought it was an awe-inspiring example of excellent engineering.
I suggested once that I think the Super Heavy booster will eventually land on legs, rather than be caught, simply because of the risk to infrastructure catching it at the launch tower represents. I still think there’s a good chance of that, but I admit that I don’t know the costs associated with transporting the booster were it to land on a pad or (enormous) drone ship. Maybe they’re high enough to justify the risk of doing extensive damage to the launch infrastructure. (And who am I, after all, to second guess Elon Musk? The last rocket I assembled came from Estes.)
What do you mean by “gamed”? When you take full advantage of all deductions available to you, are you “gaming” the system? Would you think it reasonable for anyone to question why you’re doing that?
Valid Point, but Cap and Trade is not a deduction. It is trading Carbon Credits. Other companies, that generate CO2 (Plant Nutrient) pay Tesla for Credits. Cash, not deductions.
Yes, I know all that. I’m now making a more general point about the incongruity of being outraged at Musk for availing himself of any and all revenue-maximizing strategies that are available while you yourself do the very same when it comes to paying taxes.
Michael Gibson, who cofounded and co-manages the 1517 venture fund, has devoted a lot of thought to what kinds of people are successful at running startups, and has identified polytropos as a key character trait. It is a Greek word meaning “of twists and turns”, also “well travelled, resourceful, and crafty” (Or so I am told–I don’t speak Greek, either ancient or modern) and was applied to describe the character of Odysseus in the Odyssey. The person with this attribute is good at overcoming barriers and figuring out ways to get it done, whatever it may be. He thinks creatively, at a practical level, and is not bound to operating only inside a particular defined conceptual framework.
Gibson’s book, Paper Belt on Fire, is well worth reading.
Indeed. That’s exactly the image I took from the text.
The late Mr. She once had an artery–or so I presume–at his ankle pop while he was sitting at the computer one day. Having considerable neuropathy in his extremities by then, he didn’t even notice until his entire foot was sloshing around in his slipper and he called for help. By that time, the slipper was full of blood and it was thick and getting sticky all over the floor, at least a couple of feet in all directions. Most definitely, a “pool of blood.” When I took his slipper off, it started spurting all over the place. Got him as far as the living room, spurting blood all the way, before realizing I couldn’t possibly get him to the hospital in that state. Did some quick work with elevation, wadded-up washcloths, and an old pair of pantyhose (sometimes all that field and barn work with the four-leggedy beasties comes in handy), and called 911. When the pair of EMTs got here things were largely under control and they were a bit dismissive. I sent the young woman into the other room to survey the field of battle and see how much blood he’d lost, and she started screaming in horror that it looked like a slasher movie set. They bundled him into the ambulance and took him to the hospital. I have no problem at all with a vivid “wade through a pool of blood” image whose effect on the mind can last for decades. (I doubt those who’ve ever served on the front lines and in combat find it all that implausible, either.)
As for whether or not Musk was a brilliant inventor or a crazy eccentric, I think he has both qualities in abundance. That doesn’t make him an admirable human being, but the fact that he might not be one should not take away from his achievements, many of which likely are made possible by the substantial amount of cray-cray and “who dares, wins,” in his makeup.
IIRC the control panel at issue was on the ground, so not the legitimate issue you bring up. On the other hand, regarding the spacecraft, NASA insisted that the testing on the ground be down using a pure oxygen atmosphere, which was recommended against by this subcontractor. There were multiple monitoring systems using many wires connected to various things around the capsule and during one of these ground tests one of the astronauts stepped on a wire (or group of wires) resulting in a spark with a devastating result.
Ah, yes. Remember the half a billion that went to Solyndra?
When you drive down I-880 you can see the Solyndra plant we paid for:
Does that include all the subsidies received by people who bought Teslas?
Any idea how much Seagate paid for it?
If you declare rules, you have created a game. If you create a game, someone is going to play it. If they play it better than intended, whose fault is that?
Can’t say I created the game or the rules. Voted against the people who did. Game was to encourage something that I thought had no benefit.
It doesn’t matter. Musk didn’t make the rules either.
About risk-taking, we need entrepreneurs and they are risk-takers who aren’t afraid of failure. Musk and Trump get along well, both are entrepreneurs. The left doesn’t understand them. They always attack Trump mentioning his failures but never address his successes. They want to believe he is a failure so they post constantly that he is. They are obsessed with his wealth. They are desperate to discover he isn’t as rich as he says and that he cheated along the way. They were obsessed with his tax returns. There is no doubt in my mind that some corrupt employee leaked them. Yarob linked to an article written by someone who claimed to have seen them. They came up empty as you would suspect since all lawsuits against him had to settle on fabricated crimes.
Another thing you can see with your very own eyes is the person who was given 42 billion dollars to spend to bring broadband internet to rural America. She has accomplished nothing with it — hasn’t connected one person to the internet or given anyone a better connection. Now she’s busy campaigning for president.
Can you please give an article or something. Where did 42 billion dollars come from?
Biden-Harris Admin Threw Over $40 Billion At An Internet Buildout — Three Years Later Not A Single Project Is Underway
Google is your fren’.
Musk has his government money. I don’t have to like it.
But if, as seems to be the case, he’s still paying a lot more in taxes, then it’s basically just another deduction.