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Biographies & Memoirs
Biographies & Memoirs
Biographies & Memoirs
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When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.
His father’s impact on his psyche would linger. He developed into a tough yet vulnerable man-child, prone to abrupt Jekyll-and-Hyde mood swings, with an exceedingly high tolerance for risk, a craving for drama, an epic sense of mission, and a maniacal intensity that was callous and at times destructive.
At the beginning of 2022—after a year marked by SpaceX launching thirty-one rockets into orbit, Tesla selling a million cars, and him becoming the richest man on earth—Musk spoke ruefully about his compulsion to stir up dramas. “I need to shift my mindset away from being in crisis mode, which it has been for about fourteen years now, or arguably most of my life,” he said.
It was a wistful comment, not a New Year’s resolution. Even as he said it, he was secretly buying up shares of Twitter, the world’s ultimate playground. Over the years, whenever he was in a dark place, his mind went back to being bullied on the playground. Now he had the chance to own the playground.
For two years, Isaacson shadowed Musk, attended his meetings, walked his factories with him, and spent hours interviewing him, his family, friends, coworkers, and adversaries. The result is the revealing inside story, filled with amazing tales of triumphs and turmoil, that addresses the question: are the demons that drive Musk also what it takes to drive innovation and progress?
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I just received it (29 Sept. 2023). My review (4 stars) is solely based on the book's "hardware," meaning the paper, font, and photos, which are quite good. I preferred the English version, that is, the original language it was written in, because in the Greek translation, some parts may not have had a flawless translation. The book has a cardboard cover with a photo of Musk on the outside, and it is hardbound, meaning it has a "leather" black cover on the inside.
As for its content, which is the most important, I will come back to it once I finish reading it.
[edit 30/10/23] The book is easy to read - its English is not complex with strange terminology, so someone with a lower level can easily read it. I have now read the initial part and I am close to page 120.
The author (Isaacson) has structured the book with short chapters, which makes reading convenient, as if each chapter were lengthy, it might become tiresome. Each chapter also includes relevant photos, creating interest for the following chapter.
The book follows a chronological order, starting from Elon's childhood, his youth, his move to Canada and then to the US for studies, his "socialization" where he went from being an introverted character to becoming social and a party animal (there is a chapter with exactly this title), his early ventures, the founding of Zip2 and X.com (not the current Twitter) which merged with a similar and competitive company owned by P. Thiel, PayPal, the money he made, around 20 million from the first and around 200 million from PayPal, and then SpaceX.
It is emphasized that Elon Musk's characteristic in terms of entrepreneurship is that, unlike the overwhelming majority of other entrepreneurs who take calculated risks, he takes incredible risks that, as mentioned at some point in the book, will either bankrupt him or make him by far the richest person in the world.
The book includes many details, and the source is not only Elon but also his relatives, friends, colleagues, and relationships.
And the book does not only praise Elon, advertising him and mentioning only his positive aspects. It also highlights the "dark" points, such as his difficult character in collaborations and relationships, being controlling, wanting to have control over everything and be in charge, not accepting "no," imposing excessive and even debilitating deadlines on his subordinates. Of course, these "unreasonable" deadlines often fail, and once they do, the question "Why did it fail?" arises. But even with this process, some solutions are found that later contribute positively to the development of the companies, or if - more rarely - they succeed, then his companies achieve something that was initially considered impossible, which is also extremely positive (for the development of his companies).
In short, you learn in detail about Elon Musk's life and character, who is at least one of the most important personalities in the business world of the decades we are currently in, and everything he does is disruptive in his field. You learn about a remarkable personality that appears once in a century (?) - that's what I think. And you can't rely on forming an opinion, from what Elon Musk himself writes, with his tweets - which may be a small glimpse into his personality, maybe even subjective, since Elon himself presents whatever he wants - nor from the brief opinions of third parties (positive or negative) expressed about him, on the occasion of some of his actions and behaviors. You gain a more complete perspective on this great personality in the field of technology, business, and celebrity.
I believe that the book is very good, both for Elon Musk's fans, as they learn in detail about his life and personality, and for those who, for whatever reason, dislike him, and of course it is also good for the intermediate categories of readers, who are neither fans nor haters.
I am thinking of buying the book again, but this time in its Greek edition, to give it as a gift to a friend of mine who dislikes Elon Musk