"No, I never give up. Unless I die or are completely incapacitated. "--- Elon. Musk
After watching Iron Man in Silicon Valley: Elon Musk. The biggest feeling of Musk's Adventure Life is that some people are born to change the world, and this talent comes not only from the family, but also from themselves.
When I wrote these words, in addition to being full of enthusiasm, I also had a little timidity. Many people treat Musk like a god, or a strange person from outer space. His dreams, ambitions, and innovations have reached heights that I can't find a word in the dictionary praising him.
It is rare to see a book that can be praised by so many successful people, and the people who write the recommended preface to this book are all domestic bigwigs or founders of various industries.
Sogou CEO Wang Xiaochuan said Musk is an ambitious inventor and entrepreneur. Zhou Hongyi, chairman of 360, said that only the word "crazy" can describe Musk.
Zhou Hang, the founder of Easy to Use, said Elon was an ambitious adventurer. Yu Chen, co-founder of EBao Pay, said entrepreneurs like Musk may be a scarce species in the Chinese business community...
Once ma yun talked to Musk at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, some people feel that Ma Yun and Musk are not at the same level at all, the pattern and world view of the two are different, one only thinks about how to make money, the other thinks about how to innovate.
Ma Yun said that he was not interested in Mars exploration at all (Musk advocated Mars exploration), and as soon as he said this, many people said that Ma Yun's pattern was small. Although everyone's field is different, Ma Yun is also a winner of the best, but compared to Musk, the gap in the pattern is still quite large.
After all, one is a businessman, and one is not only a businessman or an entrepreneur, a creator, a dreamer, etc., their conversation is not in one dimension at all. Some people even joked that someone as grumpy as Musk could talk to Ma Yun for so long, it was really difficult for him.
"I don't argue with people now, because I'm starting to realize that everyone can only think on the basis of his cognitive level, and later someone tells me that 2+2 equals 10, and I'll say, you're awesome..." --- Elon. Musk
He was a genius
Elon. Musk was born in South Africa and came from a humble family. His father was an indifferent mechanic and his mother was a well-known Canadian model. Because Musk was not very talkative when he was a child, and he was often bullied by his peers at school, books became Musk's only companion, and the library became his favorite place to go.
After his parents divorced, 8-year-old Musk saw that his father had nothing alone and chose to live with his father. However, this has also become the biggest reason for classmates to bully and ridicule Musk, and then Musk is even less talkative, and his personality has become withdrawn and introverted. In addition to being nearly killed by his classmates at school, his father also abused him emotionally, and his entire childhood was full of shadows.
But Musk is unyielding in life, still tenaciously surviving in his world, spending a lot of time every day immersed in books, especially books about the universe. His mother once said that Musk has a super memory, you can remember it after reading it once, if you have knowledge points and do not understand to ask him is the most correct choice, known as the encyclopedia.
Slowly Musk became obsessed with video games, and at the age of 10, he used his pocket money and his father's sponsorship fees to buy the first computer in his life, and at the same time taught himself the BASIC programming language. At the age of 12, he designed a game called Blstar and earned his first pot of gold.
By the age of 17, Musk had left his hometown alone, carrying only a backpack full of clothes and a handbag full of books. When he first came to Canada, he had planned to go to a distant cousin, but when he arrived, his mother told him that his cousin's family had already moved, so he had no choice but to live in a hostel, during which he had done all the work of planting land and moving bricks.
Later, Musk was admitted to the Wharton School of Business in the United States, and in 1995, when the Internet was just emerging, he resolutely dropped out. He rented a cheap office in Silicon Valley, opened a company, and raised $3 million in less than half a year.
Later, Musk launched a world-changing business, online real-time transfers. In 1999, Musk was 31 years old and already had a net worth of 250 million.
But for him, that's just the beginning. In 2004, Musk acquired Tesla, in 2012 he opened the era of private operation of space transportation, and in 2021, the Hurun Global Network Rich List was released, and Musk became the youngest richest man in history in the world.
Work like purgatory
Musk puts in 80-100 hours a week (14 hours a day) to work, and he thinks all of that effort increases your chances of success. He used his week to the extreme, worked hard every day, and his efforts were no less than anyone's.
When he first started his business, Musk never seemed to leave the office, he usually slept in a sleeping bag by his desk, and the colleague who came early was responsible for waking him up and then he continued to work. Even sometimes his girlfriend has to live in the office in order to be with him.
Musk says he has a strictly enforced five-step process, simply put: goals, solutions, optimizations, innovations, automation. I have to say that successful people naturally have their own methods of success, and luck is sometimes just a gift of strength.
Sometimes you think Musk's work ethic is chilling, he once said to his employees: I can help you solve problems twenty-four days a day, and it doesn't matter if I wake up at three o'clock in the morning on Sunday."
During the company's tough times, Musk will also ask employees to work Saturdays and Sundays, even if they sleep under the table to complete the plan. When someone wants to rest with their family, he tells those people directly that if the company goes bankrupt, you will have more time to spend with your family. If someone is left behind at work, it will pay a heavy price.
There was an employee who missed an event because of the birth of a child. Musk immediately sent a barrage of emails: "This is not an excuse. I was very disappointed. You need to figure out what is most important to you. We're changing the world, changing history, and if you're not going to go all out, then you're not going to do it. ”
Those employees were terrified every time they reported to work, because if they accidentally made a mistake, they risked being fired, so after the meeting, his employees would say happily: It was good, there was no dismissal. So some people think Musk is too tough or grumpy, even like a tyrant.
The most serious mistake was to tell Marx that his demands could not be fulfilled. For example, it is absolutely impossible for an actuator to fall to his psychological price, or it is impossible to create a component by the deadline he determines. Musk will say, "Well, this project has nothing to do with you, from now on I'm the CEO of both companies and I'm also the head of the project, and I'll do your work, but I can do it." ”
The most crazy thing is that he actually does it, every time he fires someone, he takes over that person's job, and he can complete whatever the project. I think this is the most incredible thing, he is not just talking, the key is that he can also replace any employee, this technical operation ability is indeed better than many people.
Although Musk is extremely harsh on his employees, he is not so for himself. He said he spent every penny on the company and moved into the basement of his girlfriend's parents if it went bankrupt. He could have laid down and eaten interest, but he risked burning money to build rockets, and if he hadn't been harsh, he wouldn't have achieved what he has now.
Start-up companies have repeatedly been on the verge of bankruptcy and family life has fallen apart. He himself said that the so-called entrepreneurial life was to chew glass and stare into the abyss, and his second wife called it a "Shakespearean tragedy".
Although his financial situation is getting worse and worse, he almost never shows this side in front of employees, but only asks employees not to worry about financial problems, which shows that he is very good at appeasing employees, and his ability to resist pressure is particularly strong.
Although many people leave the company because they can't stand Musk's management style, many people who stay within the company are afraid of Musk, worship Musk, and even willing to give their lives for Musk, and many of them have both.
To live is to change the world
In the face of a sense of mission, money and status are worthless. Musk achieved wealth freedom early on when he founded companies such as Zip2 and X.com. Airplanes, luxury cars, mansions were everything, but material abundance did not bring him any sense of accomplishment.
Musk made his own logical mission statement as a teenager. "The only meaningful thing is to fight for greater collective enlightenment for humanity." He saw mankind's journey in the universe as a personal mission. If humans have to find cleaner energy or build spaceships to expand human living space, then do it
In 2001, Musk went to Russia with hundreds of millions of dollars in cash to buy rockets, because the price was too expensive to afford, so he decided to build it himself. In order to build the rocket, he collected relevant information, and he himself detailed the cost of building, assembling and launching a rocket, as well as recruiting all the best rocket talents.
SpaceX is a private company, when it first started with less than 20 employees, when they proposed to build rockets, the world thought Musk was crazy, only Musk felt that he was not crazy. In fact, many scientific and technological projects such as rockets are supported by the state, and Musk alone has done what a country and even the world should do.
The first rocket exploded less than 10 seconds after launch, shorter than fireworks. However, the cost of the rocket is as high as 300 million US dollars, and the money is burned out in a few seconds, which is all his wealth. Later, he sold his house, car, and villa, raised money with friends, started building rockets again, and exploded again in the second 35 seconds, if he gave up, it would mean ruining his family.
After that, he returned to the factory to give a speech, telling the employees to gamble again for the sake of all mankind, if he lost, he would jump directly from the top of the 65th floor, after his speech, none of his employees resigned, and invested his wealth in it, saying that he would work with Musk and gamble for all mankind.
The third SpaceX rocket launch, live broadcast of the global attention, many people thought it would fail, but the final launch was successful. Although the rocket launch was successful, Musk did not meet the status quo, and he has been testing reusable rockets that can carry loads into space and then return to Earth.
From the successful launch of the Falcon 1 rocket to the recovery of the Falcon 9 rocket, it has set a milestone for human exploration and rocket recovery. Musk once said that "SpaceX will continue to work hard, no matter whether it is in heaven or earth, it will not give up until it succeeds." ”
He took all his fortune to business, suicidally working in three high-tech industries that had been stagnant for a long time: aerospace, electric vehicles and solar energy.
After completing these seemingly impossible tasks, he did not stop and ambitiously began a plan for the next ten years to try to allow humans to colonize Mars.
What drives such industrialists to advance the world is usually not fame and fortune, but a strong sense of mission and dreams and ambitions full of personal heroism, and a precious lifelong curiosity in a very small number.
Finally, I hope to see Musk's interstellar travel civilian in his lifetime.
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