Musk: A "lonely boy" who changed the world

Speaking of Musk's career, you may already be a treasure, but do you really know Musk himself? As a globally compelling and controversial innovative entrepreneur, many of his actions can actually be answered in childhood. Uncovering the mystery of Musk's contradictory character can also let us see that although Musk's success cannot be replicated, his story can still inspire ordinary people.

Edited by Jennifer 丨May

If there is one of the most high-profile and controversial entrepreneurs in the world today, it is Elon Musk.

Elon Musk

Any of his entrepreneurial achievements is extraordinary:

Founded PayPal, one of the world's largest electronic payment companies, subverting traditional transaction methods in one fell swoop;

Founded the world's first private space exploration company SpaceX, developed the world's highest and most powerful rocket to date, and realized the manned flight of commercial spacecraft;

invented the electric car Tesla, leading the world into the era of electric vehicles;

He also founded SolarCity, the largest supplier of rooftop solar systems in the United States, promoting the consumption and recycling of solar technology...

This "madman" whose mission is to change and save the world likes to think about the future of mankind and firmly believes that if the problem of sustainable energy is not solved in the twenty-first century, disaster will be imminent. Another big question that may affect human survival is whether Mars immigration can be achieved.

He not only has extraordinary imagination, but is really moving towards his mission, gradually turning fantasy into reality.

However, behind the huge success, Musk has a very unsympathetic, even described as a "devil" side. This is reflected not only in his relationships with colleagues and subordinates, but also in his handling of intimate relationships.

Recently, the biography of Elon Musk, written by the famous biographer Isaacson, was released, allowing him to show more growth stories and details. The writer, who wrote "Jobs", followed Musk inseparably for two years, interviewing Musk himself, as well as his family, friends, colleagues, ex-wife and rivals.

"Elon Musk Biography" author: [US] Walter Isaacson

In this biography, the Bund Jun is most interested in Musk's childhood and adolescence.

What exactly shaped Musk and became who he is today? Although the success of this world's richest man and extraordinary innovation cannot be replicated, he may still give us some inspiration as ordinary people.

A boy with a lonely heart

Back in the 80s of the 20th century, Musk in childhood was shrouded in loneliness.

In kindergarten, he spent most of his time in a trance, unable to listen to others. This is because when he thinks about problems, it seems that all sensory systems are turned off, and there is a tendency to stay out of things and ignore outside information.

The temperament of genius also made his socialization difficult. Because he could not stand the "stupidity" of others, he had few friends from the day he went to school, and became lonely and gloomy.

And the trauma in his childhood experiences further exacerbated his loneliness.

He was born into a family with adventurous genes. After his parents divorced, Musk and his father lived in South Africa from the age of 10.

Musk's maternal grandfather was naturally adventurous, and in addition to flying around the world himself, he often took his children to explore the wilderness

His father was an engineer, a tyrannical and emotional man who exercised "extremely harsh dictatorship" over his children.

He sent 12-year-old Musk to a wilderness survival camp called the "Field School." Here, each child is given only a little food and water, encouraging them to fight hard for survival. Every few years, a child dies here.

Musk, who was short and dull as a child, was beaten less. In the worst case, he was beaten to the point of facial deformation and needed to go to the hospital for corrective treatment.

As a victim of school bullying, in front of his father, he received doubly reprimands and insults, calling him a worthless idiot.

Such a scene has become a painful memory of Musk's childhood, and it has also caused him great emotional trauma, which has affected him to this day.

Musk at the age of 8

Musk has tried countless times to get rid of his father's shadow physically and psychologically, but it is difficult to escape his father's mental influence on him. The impact here is mainly twofold:

On the one hand, he began to become a replica of his father in some ways—a lack of empathy, a dictatorial style, and capricious extremes.

Author Isaacson describes Musk as follows: his emotions will cycle between clear skies and dark days, between passion and numbness and dullness, between indifference and alienation and true feelings, and occasionally fall into the "demon mode" that scares those around him.

On the other hand, childhood adversity made his pain threshold very high. To shield himself from childhood nightmares and fears, he also shields himself from other emotions, such as happiness and empathy.

In the eyes of his current and third wife, Musk doesn't know how to enjoy success and appreciate the singing of birds. Because the deepest constraint that childhood brought to him was that life is pain.

He even hates being content with the present. Therefore, the turbulent environment and violent conflict are extremely attractive to Musk, not only in entrepreneurship, but also in his efforts to maintain but not lasting romantic relationships.

This is why many of his behaviors are childish and even challenge the bottom line:

Freely posting irresponsible tweets and "openly smoking marijuana" in the live broadcast room; And he did not hesitate to break the law to attack those who opposed him...

He became the "mad king" Musk.

Save yourself in reading and acting

Musk once said in an interview that he does not actively seek loneliness, and he does not want to be a lonely person.

To escape loneliness, he started his youth and was keen to attend and organize parties. However, he is often the "bystander" who does not fit in, and sometimes even holds a book to read.

Musk was always a loner in elementary school, curious about the world, obsessed with facts, and considered a nerd by his classmates

It can be said that in his teenage years, what had a profound impact on Musk was reading.

Musk is a veritable bookworm, at most, he can read books for 9 hours a day. He began to be curious about where the universe came from, life and the meaning of the universe very early, and even became frustrated by the meaninglessness of life.

During this period, Musk read a large number of works by existential philosophers, such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Schopenhauer, hoping to find answers to the universe and life.

However, the philosophy of existentialism made him even more confused, even desperate. That's why, he would later say, "I don't recommend teenagers to read Nietzsche." ”

Fortunately, science fiction saved his "existential crisis of adolescence." He rummaged through science fiction titles at school and local libraries, hungry.

Robert Heinley's The Harsh Moon is one of his favorite works. One of the questions explored in the novel later became Musk's focus: Will artificial intelligence develop in a way that will help protect humans, or will machines develop their own consciousness and pose a threat to humans?

Another of his favorite works, the Base Trilogy, inspired his exploration of how to allow humans to fly between the stars, and became the basis for his later creation of Space X.

At his age of intellectual curiosity, the science fiction works that had the greatest influence on him were "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". This witty and humorous story both shaped Musk's philosophical system and helped him get rid of the repressive emotions of existentialism.

After seeing a larger world in reading, Musk began not to be satisfied with traveling in his head, but to seek an escape from the real world.

At the age of 17, Musk decided to leave South Africa and escape the misery of living with his father.

He was very active, went to the embassy alone, applied for a passport of his mother's nationality Canada, said goodbye to his mother and brothers and sisters who were temporarily in South Africa, and went to Canada alone.

This is also the first turning point for young Musk for his life.

He bought a one-way ticket to Canada, carried $4,000 in traveler's cheques and cash, and a list of unmasked relatives, and set out on a trip to a foreign country.

Before leaving, his father said to him contemptuously, "You'll be back in a few months, and you'll never succeed." ”

During the bus ride in rural Canada, Musk did run into big trouble. He missed the car because he got out of the car and lost his suitcase containing traveler's cheques and clothing. At this time, he only had a few books left in his backpack. He spent several more weeks replacing traveler's checks, a very difficult process.

Unexpectedly, it was this unfortunate experience that made him realize for the first time that the financial payment system needed a revolution, which became the ideological spark for his later founding of Pay Pal.

I have to say that the difference between the thinking of big guys and ordinary people may be here. Most people may still be complaining, lamenting, or summing up lessons from the same experience, but the master has already stood in a completely different dimension, thinking about whether there is a possibility of subversion and change.

This way of thinking has been repeated many times in Musk's later growth experience. But then he wanted to solve bigger and bigger problems, from the Internet, to electric cars, clean energy, to the Martian immigration plan.

Genius driven by a sense of mission

Musk, 17, came to Canada from South Africa and attended Queen's University. As always, he has a keen interest in history and science fiction. At the same time, he was immersed in the world of board games and computer games.

Musk during his studies at Queen's University Source: "Elon Musk" biography

Back in South Africa, as a teenager, Musk loved all kinds of video games. In college, he focused more on a strategy game in which multiple players competed against each other, using advanced strategy, resource management, logistics supply chain management, and tactical thinking to build an empire.

This is Musk's ten-minute love game mode: if you want to defeat the enemy, you must implement complex rules and competitive management of resources. In some ways, it also became a tool for him to hone his tactical skills and tactical thinking in preparation for his later business competition.

Musk is not completely addicted to the online world, he is lonely and unsociable, but he has a strong "self-recommendation" ability in the real world.

While studying at Queen's University, Musk and his own brother Kimball developed an interesting habit: after reading the newspaper every day, they each selected the most interesting person, and the younger brother called and tried to invite each other to lunch.

At one point, they selected Peter Nicholson, Scotiabank's strategic planning executive. Unexpectedly, the executive, who has a master's degree in physics and a doctorate in mathematics, agreed to have lunch with the brothers.

After discussing philosophy, physics, and the nature of the universe with the other party, Musk was appreciated by this senior, and also got a summer internship job and directly entered the other party's strategic planning team.

Although the internship was short, it made it clear to him what kind of career path he should take - that is, he was better suited to entrepreneurship than working for others.

There is no doubt that Musk is an ambitious careerist, but his ambition is still driven by the "big problems" that he focused on as a teenager, and gradually became his mission during college.

In 1992, in order to seek academic challenge, Musk once again took the initiative to change. With the support of scholarships and student loans, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania in the United States and began a new college life.

Musk and Ren Yuxiang at the University of Pennsylvania Source: "Elon Musk" biography

While studying at Penn, Musk, who was interested in engineering problems, decided to major in physics. He wanted to become an engineer and study the most basic principles of physics. This is also the "first principle" that he later advocated, starting from the essence and seeking solutions to problems.

At the same time, he also decided to pursue a double major in business. This is not because he is interested in business, but because he is worried that if he does not study business, he will have to work for those who have studied business in the future.

Here, Musk met the only person he admitted to being "better than himself in physics" — Ren Yuxiang, who won the gold medal at the 22nd International Physics Olympiad for the Chinese team and later became his important partner in building the Tesla factory in Shanghai.

Together, they conduct experiments to study how various materials change in extreme temperatures and discuss how the laws of physics can be applied to building rockets. During this time, Musk has been nagging to make a rocket that can fly to Mars.

The unattainable dream of rockets was planted at this time.

Source: Documentary "Back to Space"

Musk in college also paid great attention to electric vehicles. While sitting on the campus lawn for lunch, he flips through academic papers on batteries. When he learned that California had just passed a rule that 10 percent of vehicles in 2003 must be electric, Musk's first reaction was, I want to achieve that goal.

At the same time, he believes that the fledgling solar energy is the best way to achieve a sustainable energy vision.

In his thesis, "The Importance of Building a Solar Society," he wrote, "Human society will soon have no choice but to focus on renewable energy." On the last page of the paper, he also shows what his vision of the "power station of the future" looks like.

The professor gave him a high score of 98, saying that the paper was "very interesting and well written, except that the last picture was too abrupt and a little inexplicable."

Looking back, the three areas Musk focused on as a student — the internet, sustainable energy, and space exploration — really shaped his career step by step, personally founding disruptive companies like PayPal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX, and Solar City.

Musk is not just a genius, in a way, he is also a careerist driven by a sense of mission.

In his childhood and adolescence, the big questions he pondered and the obsessive science fiction works contributed to the formation of a sense of mission, and in the days to come, further fermentation and maturity.

Even his motivation for future learning is driven by a strong sense of mission to achieve big problems in his mind and make an impact in the real world.

Source: Documentary "Back to Space"

When a person learns knowledge with the desire to change reality, knowledge will be transformed into ability and value.

epilogue

A gifted child, blessed by reading, action and a sense of mission, succeeds in a matter of course.

However, this genius who is changing, or has changed the world, also has to deal with his own demons from time to time.

As author Isaacson says, his father's influence on Musk in childhood is like a dark force. This strong and fragile boy is ready to take on this dark force on his epic expedition.

Source: Documentary "Back to Space"

The story of genius cannot be replicated, but we can still see how magical a person's childhood experience is in shaping him.

At the same time, for the vast majority of people, we don't have Musk's amazing talent, nor do we necessarily have some of his opportunities, but it should be a good thing to find your area of interest from reading, discover the changes you can make from the real world, and live and learn new knowledge with a mission-like enthusiasm.

Unlabeled images are all from the Internet