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MBA2428 Must Read: Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson
00:18:14
Do you ever wonder what it takes to become a larger-than-life entrepreneur like Elon Musk? What challenges did he face? What can we learn from his journey?
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Hey oh. Welcome to the Hundred Dollar MBA Show. Powerful business lessons you can count on. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. And today's episode is a must read episode on our Must Read Episodes. I share with you a book that has influenced me as an entrepreneur. I share with you its takeaways, its insights, and why you should read it too. Today's must read is Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson. In all honesty, I have delayed the release of this episode for some time. First of all, it took me a while to read this book. It's over 600 pages. But it took me just as much time to form an opinion, to really think about what I consumed, what I learned, and how I feel about this larger than life character, Elon Musk. So much is said about him as the wealthiest man in the world, as a business person, as an innovator. But this book goes far deeper. And I can bet you're going to be surprised about what you learn about Elon Musk in today's episode. He's as inspiring as he is a cautionary tale. More about that in a bit, but I want to talk about Walter Isaacson, the author of this book, the person who wrote this biography. He's one of the best biographers of our time. He he wrote biographies on Steve Jobs, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein and more. And when he writes these biographies, he goes very, very deep. We'll talk about what kind of research he did, how he got to know Elon and all that Kind of stuff so that he can actually write a compelling biography in today's episode. I'm not only going to share with you takeaways and insights that I grabbed from this book, but how my opinion of Elon Musk changed over the course of reading this book. But also share things that you can apply to your own business, your own career as an entrepreneur, entrepreneur that worked for Elon and some of the things you want to stay away from. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. I want to say before I read this book, I was a fan of Elon Musk. I was very inspired by what he has created as an entrepreneur, as an innovator. No person is perfect, he is flawed. And I'm of the opinion that you can be inspired. You can look up to somebody, you can see them as a leader, but at the same time understand they have drawbacks, right? They're not perfect. You don't have to throw the baby out of the bathwater, right? You can take the good, leave the bad. I mean, if we all looked at our lives closely enough, we're going to find flaws as well. And there's plenty of that in this book. Walter Isaacson, the author of this book, does a tremendous job when it comes to the research and putting together this volume of work, this incredible journey of a man's life up to this point. Walter Isaacson shadowed Elon Musk for two straight years. I'm talking about in his meetings, in his parties, a fly on the wall, almost literally. He interviewed his friends, he interviewed his family members, he even interviewed his enemies. This biography is more than objective. It was brutally honest. I was actually quite shocked how honest this book was. It's almost like cringe inducing. So if you think this book is just glorifying this billionaire guy, it's not. That's not what this book is about. This book gives you the raw truth, the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in between. The book goes through Elon's life story from childhood. A bit about his parents, his grandparents, his life growing up in South Africa, all kinds of stuff. And goes through the journey of him starting his companies to the recent day in 2023, around the time he bought Twitter. But in order for this episode to make any sense, I need to give you some context, some background on Elon Musk. Elon Musk was really bullied physically and mentally as a child growing up in South Africa. He didn't have an easy childhood. Now, I know many of us didn't have an easy childhood either. But there is this fake narrative that goes around that these billionaires grew up with a silver spoon. He definitely was not poor, but he didn't have a loving, caring group of people around him all the time when he was growing up. The institutions he was a part of, school was not really great for him. He was bullied a lot. His father is the person he fears the most in the world, is what you learn in the book. In fact, Elon has cut ties with his father and refuses to speak to him. On several occasions, he refers to his father as the character Jekyll and Hyde and that he lives a false narrative in his head about his life in addition to his struggles growing up. Elon wasn't actually diagnosed, but he believes, he suspects he is autistic or on the spectrum of autism. Many around him believe that he suffers from bipolar tendencies and depression. Let's just say Elon is not a happy camper. He's not living his best life, so to speak, right? He has 10 children. And of course, in 2021, he became the richest man in the world when his net wealth reached $190 billion, surpassing the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos. Today, his net wealth is nearly a quarter of a $trillion at $225.4 billion. I don't share this as some fun data point about how much money he has and how rich he is. This is the point that changes one's mindset and changes his mindset in a big degree in regards to what he can and cannot do in this world. One thing becomes very apparent throughout his story. Money matters in a big way. And as I will describe in today's episode, you'll also see how it doesn't matter. I want to get straight to my key takeaways, my key points that I've learned. And I'm going to go right to the one that really hit me the hardest, and that is you don't want to be Elon Musk. You don't want to experience his life. His life is actually not that fun. He's actually a tortured soul in a lot of ways. He's unhappy in a lot of ways. He's stressed out. He doesn't have a lot of trust in a lot of people. He has a lot of mental challenges and emotional challenges. He works at times 120 hours a week. His life is his work. He does nothing else. And the best way to look at this is if you look at anybody who is the best at anything in the world, the best swimmer in the world. The best pianist, or in this case, the richest man in the world. You have to be totally dedicated to what you do at all costs. Let me repeat that again. At all costs. Everything else doesn't matter. Elon's trying to solve a lot of problems in the world. Whether it's space travel or reusable rockets or the energy crisis or, you know, electrifying cars with Tesla. He's trying to solve these big problems and everything else doesn't matter. His own happiness, his own health, physical well being, his relationships, how he treats other people, his ability to enjoy his success. None of that matters. So from the outside looking in, you might think, wow, this guy is so rich he could do anything and yet he doesn't. He does one thing, or in his case, several things in terms of business. But the point here is that he's focused on those successes. That's it. So that's an important point to look at. Because if you want to have a fun, fulfilling lifestyle with your loved ones, enjoy, you know, vacations on the beach and exotic travel, enjoying your successes, that's not Elon Musk, right? That is not what his life is like. He actually doesn't even own a home. He sold all his major possessions at one point a few years ago. He's known as the richest couch surfer in the world. So I wanted to drive this point home first because as I read this book, I admired him less and pitied him more. I really do. I really feel sorry for him because he is really suffering from a personal level. He's achieving a lot of great things and he's advancing the world in a lot of ways. And in a lot of ways he's misunderstood. The other way he's misunderstood is that a lot of people think that Elon is some rich businessman. When you go through this biography from the angle of entrepreneurship, you realize actually he's not the best business person or business mind in the classical sense. He has a brilliant mind. He has the capability of learning something deeply and quickly. He's a great innovator, he's a great problem solver, but he's horrible with people. He is absolutely horrendous. He's not easy to work with. He's flat out rude to people. He's not the best marketer, he's not the best salesperson. His soft skills are pretty much non existent. He's also not super obsessed with the numbers. He tries to lower costs when he can so his business can stay afloat. But he's more focused on the product and Creating something superior. In a lot of ways, I see him mostly as an innovator and a problem solver. And because of that, he solves some of the biggest problems in the world. I mentioned he's not so great with people. Well, a lot of that has to do with he believes he has Asperger's, he believes that he's on the spectrum. But also he has no self control over his emotions. He just says what he wants to say, he blurts things out. He doesn't think about his actions before he takes action. Whether it's, you know, smoking marijuana on the Joe Rogan podcast or, you know, blasting out a tweet that can really hurt his company and hurt him personally. And the author, Walter Isaacson believes after spending all this time with him that he's actually addicted to drama. And he attracts drama to his life because he likes to solve problems and because he's such a great problem solver. He has this incredible fearlessness about him. He is absolutely fearless. He doesn't believe he can lose, right. He actually really has this incredible self belief that he can accomplish anything. And he proves people wrong time and time again. So many times in big ways and small ways, he's proven that they're wrong. And he's accomplished incredible things. No one would ever think it would be possible to reuse rockets, land them. But despite a few failures at the start, he proved the world he could do it.
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And because he's such a great problem solver, he sees a lot of opportunities that we normally see. He's a master of seeing opportunities and having the will to see them through, having the patience, having the perseverance to say, hey, I see an opportunity here. I think that we can do something here. Let's make it happen. He's very good at understanding things very deeply. So he can break the rules anytime something is not working at, let's say, the SpaceX factory or the Tesla factory, he asks the people that are working on the assembly line, hey, why is this taking so long? Why is there a hold up here? And they'll give an explanation. And you say, well, where did you get that information from? Well, well, so and so said this, well, let's go talk to so and so. And they'll go in the moment, talk to so and so and say, hey, why are you doing it this way? And like, well, that's what the factory recommends, or that's what the factory settings of this component recommends. Well, factory settings are just a suggestion. Maybe we should do it in a different way. He'll question everything until he figures out what's the best way to do this. And then what happens is that people realize, oh, he's right, actually, let's do it this way. Let's change the way we're doing things and they become like 50% more efficient. Most people default to the idea that other people know best or there are experts better than us. He does not accept that. He's like, no, let's figure this out. The only stopping us is us questioning. We need to question everything. And in fact, one of the lines in their mission statement in their manifesto over at SpaceX and Tesla is the only rules are the rules of physics. Just don't break the rules of physics and you should be okay. One of the things that becomes very clear in the book is that he cares very little about what people think of him, about pleasing others. And a lot of people think this is why he's so successful, is that he's so driven. He's able to kind of plow through without worrying about how this will affect other people or how people will perceive him. Yelan kind of cares more about the whole of humanity in a very strong way, more than the individuals in humanity, right? So that's why he could be so harsh and abrasive to a single person, but at the same time trying to save humanity from destruction and allowing us to build a colony in Mars. And by the way, Elon Musk and everybody that works at SpaceX really believe we are going to Mars. Like, they have conversations on the regular about what the rules will be there and what people will wear and how they communicate and all that kind of stuff as if they're really going to Mars tomorrow. They believe it's happening and they're working towards it. Let's talk about the money. Let's talk about all the money that he's made over the course of his career. A lot of people think that it was easy. He was rich, he had a leg up. Well, he didn't actually have, like some sort of nest egg or anything like that, but he did get a good education and he was able to move from South Africa to Canada, get, you know, a college degree, then move to the US he started a company called Zip2. He sold and took that money and started X, which then merged with PayPal. And he became a founder of PayPal. And then when PayPal exited, he took that money and he invested and started SpaceX and Tesla. By the way, he did buy Tesla from the founders. But what we know as Tesla today is not anything like what he bought. A lot of people think, oh, he just bought that company. It wasn't his invention. No. When he bought Tesla from the founders of Tesla, they had no production cars, they barely had a prototype. It was really a concept. It's Elon Musk that made it one of the most valuable automobile companies in the world. We gotta give credit where credit's due. And then he started other companies, SolarCity, the Boring Company, and much, much more. And along the way, you know, he accumulated all this wealth by creating so much value in the marketplace. By the way, that's why people are wealthy, is that they're valuable to the marketplace, not to the side of humanity. Maybe you're a great person, but to the marketplace, he is the most valuable person according to the numbers. And that's why he's the richest man. Now. He doesn't actually spend that extravagantly. He doesn't actually have all these fancy, you know, extravagant houses anymore or cars. He used to have a McLaren. Got rid of all his worldly, you know, possessions. Kind of got sick of it. But what money does buy him is fearlessness. Like I talked about, he basically feels he could do whatever he wants because money will buy pretty much anything and will solve almost every problem. And money's power, when you're that powerful, you can create new rules, new laws, or influence them at least. And that's something that you learn along the way that, you know, he kind of plows through as a maverick because he's able to money matters. When you're trying to, you know, chart a new course when you're trying to colonize a planet. And he knows that. That's why he is seeing this as a tool. One of things you learn also in this journey is that he actually is an engineer. He is very, very good when it comes to aerospace engineering. He understands how everything works just as much as the senior engineers on the floor. He's tireless. He's maniacal about the details. He really cares about what people think about the experience of his product. Not about him, but the products themselves. This book really takes you on his journey and gets you inside of his head, understanding who Elon Musk really is. All in all, I really felt sad for Elon at the end. He sacrificed everything in his life to achieve what he has achieved. He's sacrificed again, his family, his friends, peace of mind, his own well being, his own happiness. Happiness is not even on his list of priorities at all because he's so focused on the goals. I'm so glad I read this book because it really changed my perspective on what it means to be him. And as much as I admire him and I've learned a ton through reading this book and you know, following along and reading his other biography by Ashlee Vance, we have a must read episode on that as well. He's imbalanced. He is an extremist in a way. And because of that, it's a cautionary tale. It's more than a cautionary tale because you look at him and you think, how do I make sure I don't fall into these traps? How do I not get obsessed? How do I not try to win at all costs and realize that everything has a cost and has a trade off? And I got to be careful about what I trade off. That's really what I learned from this book and I'd love for you to read it as well. I think it's a great, great biography on a very interesting and complicated person. If you're a fan of Audible, it's a great book on Audible, well narrated and you'll enjoy the journey in audio form. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 ratio. I hope today's episode was helpful. I hope you pick up Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson. Regardless, if you're a fan of Elon or not, there's a ton you can learn from this book. It's incredibly sobering and thoughtfully put together. If you've gotten something out of our podcast at any time, do us a favor and hit follow right now. Whether you're on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Hitting Follow allows us to get more reach, reach new audiences and grow the show. Allow us to reinvest in the show with that reach. The bigger the show gets, the better it gets for you. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. I really believe that Elon has good intentions, that he actually is coming from a good place regardless of what it looks like from the exterior. He's trying to make the world a better place in his own way, and you got to give it up for him for that. At least he's trying. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you in Wednesday's episode Q and A Wednesday I'll see you then. Take care.
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