As the richest person on the planet, what kind of ultimate experience can you have?
Like jeff Bezos, the former world's richest man and founder of Amazon, who chose a yacht sports car, top food, and a new love, ST's "world's richest man" and Silicon Valley Iron Man Elon Musk also had such a luxurious life.
But for a serial entrepreneur who now makes colonization to Mars, interstellar exploration, etc. a lifelong wish, Musk has added a new way of playing for the ultimate experience that other wealthy people can enjoy on Earth - elected academician.
But Musk's journey to become an academician has not been smooth.
First, the controversial president
Some time ago, the SEC began investigating whether Elon Musk and his brother Kimball Musk violated insider trading rules in tesla's stock trading.
On November 6, 2021, Musk launched a vote on Twitter asking Tesla fans if they wanted to sell nearly 10% of the stock, and the survey results showed that 58% of them expressed support. So, in the months that followed, Tesla's stock began to fall, falling by more than 44 percent at its lowest. Musk's younger brother Kimball sold $108 million worth of stock the day before Musk's vote, making it hard not to suspect that Kimball was involved in insider trading.
Given that Musk's relationship with the SEC has never been good, it is not easy to judge before the results of the investigation come out. But just asking fans on Twitter to decide whether to sell stocks is enough "Musk's." Fortunately, insider trading investigations did not affect Musk's "job title rating."
On February 14, 2022, Musk was successfully selected in the list of 133 academicians released by the National Academy of Engineering. In the future, Musk, who only has a bachelor's degree, has one more nickname in addition to "Silicon Valley Iron Man" and "Technology Madman"- "Academician Ma".
The National Academy of Engineering, referred to as NAE, is affiliated with the American Academy of Engineering and currently has a total of 2388 members, including 310 foreign academicians. Being able to obtain the title of academician of the National Academy of Engineering represents the outstanding achievements created by the academician himself in engineering research and practice. As Musk, who has led SpaceX, Solarcity, Tesla and other companies to achieve great success in scientific exploration and commercial applications, it seems that the title of "academician" is also deserved.
Since 1999, after selling equity in projects such as PayPal to achieve wealth freedom, every once in a while Musk will take the initiative to ignite his next entrepreneurial dream. Today, he can become a member of the American Academy of Engineering, which is closely related to his dream of spaceflight.
Second, the inventor who burns money for love
In June 2002, in a casual conversation with friends, Musk, who found that NASA had long abandoned mars exploration, founded his space transport company SpaceX, and began to try to build near-Earth launch vehicles and manned spacecraft. At that time, the cost of a rocket was as high as $62 million, and in order to realize the unattainable dream, Musk had to live a "996" and "715" life. So much so that his wife at the time, and many of his later girlfriends, were surprisingly consistent in their reasons for breaking up with him — no sign of Musk. It's also like when Musk learned that he was the richest man in the world, the first thing he said was, "Okay, let's all go back to work." ”
In 2006, after NASA opened up cooperation with private space companies, Musk became an orator, running to form teams in major airlines, Boeing's 15-year tenure as a rocket test supervisor, McDonnell Douglas aircraft experts, TRW liquid thruster experts, etc., have been successfully recruited by Musk. In the same year, SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket was launched for the first time, but before it could be celebrated, 1 second later, the Falcon 1 failed to launch due to a ruptured fuel pipe.
In 2008, with the failure of Musk's "Falcon" rocket three consecutive launches, SpaceX's funds also burned out, but even so, Musk still gambled on his house, savings, and credibility, and chose to carry out the fourth launch. Although the cost of launching the rocket has been greatly reduced by Musk to $6.7 million, if the launch is not successful, Musk will have to declare bankruptcy even if Musk has the talent.
Fortunately, the emperor did not pay off, and the fourth launch of the Falcon rocket successfully entered the predetermined orbit, and this success also allowed SpaceX to receive a $1 billion order from NASA. SpaceX was saved, and Musk's dream was saved.
At this time, Musk is not only the largest single shareholder of SpaceX, but also the CEO of SpaceX and the CTO who provides technical support. Therefore, by his own strength, he became the only private company in the world that could launch rockets at that time, and Musk's professional skills in the field of space exploration were beyond doubt, and it was well deserved to win the us Academy of Engineering academicians.
Throughout the history of the United States, entrepreneurs have been elected academicians, such as Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Apple founder Jobs and so on. In Contrast, in China, why are chinese entrepreneurs rarely heard of being elected academicians?
Third, the path of Chinese entrepreneurs
When Musk is realizing the dream of colonizing Mars step by step, the domestic "two horses" are still fighting for the last kilometer of traffic entrance, fighting for the blood flow. We need to admit that at present, the top technology companies in China are rarely the first to eat crabs, but they are the most crab-picking.
Always imitating others, waiting for others to open source and open patents, why do domestic entrepreneurs not pay attention to basic innovation? In fact, not all Chinese companies are. For example, Huawei will spend more than 10% of the company's total revenue on research and development every year, and the amount of investment each year exceeds 100 billion. However, the reason why domestic companies really lack an innovative atmosphere is that there are very few scientific entrepreneurs.
According to statistics, in China, the probability of failure of scientists to start a business is as high as 97%. Because of this situation, first, scientists dare not start a business, second, angel investors dare not invest in scientists who do not have a sense of business smell, and third, scientists with a sense of business smell dare not engage in high-risk industries. In the end, the innovation achievements of many domestic science and technology enterprises are always imitating and following, and it is difficult to surpass.
IV. Conclusion
In 2019, Wang Chuanfu and Li Yanhong, who were candidates for academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, were ultimately defeated due to public pressure.
Perhaps, the reason why few of our entrepreneurs can be elected academicians is not the lack of composite talents who are connected with business and science in China, but our lack of understanding and tolerance of entrepreneurs.
In order to cater to the public and create a perfect image, for Chinese entrepreneurs, "following" may be their best choice.