Reading Reflection No. 1

Book: Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future 

What surprised me about Elon Musk is his unique upbringing and career start. Many successful people in silicon valley are from prestigious schools or families and have had many opportunities in life that led them to their place in silicone valley. Elon Musk had a very different upbringing and start of career. He road tripped, interned, self started, and found his place in silicone valley. While he did attend very well known universities for his education, he didn't just start a career and go forward with it. He worked incredibly hard to get the level of success that he did. Elon Musk is very admirable because he takes things he thinks will work and runs with it even if everyone else doesn't agree with him. When he first started creating Tesla's nobody expected it to be such a success. He continued working and ended up shocking and disrupting the automobile industry with his car. This is a common theme for him as he has big dreams that he intends to achieve no matter what others say. Something that I don't admire is that he tends to make huge promises that cannot be delivered on. While he typically does create amazing new things, he will also promise and talk about creating so much more than he currently can. This is clearly his entrepreneurial spirit showing through, but it makes it difficult for outsiders to get on board and work with him if he can't deliver on what he promises. When they were creating the Tesla, there were massive issues with budgeting and spending. This was a time when they realized that the Tesla would cost about $200,000 to make and they were only going to sell it for around $85,000. Additionally, Musk said about half of the cars didn't even work. Tesla was beginning to fail and Musk had no idea how to save it. Instead of giving up, selling, or restructuring his vision for Tesla, Musk went full force into saving his company. He dealt with issues personally instead of through other employees, he would fly things between factories himself to ensure timely delivery, and he inspired his employees to work tirelessly in order to turn the company around. Ultimately this was a huge success for Musk and Tesla. 

Elon Musk is incredibly driven and focused. He not only comes up with various different new inventions and disruptive technologies, but he sees them through till success. He is not in the industry to create a company, sell it, and enjoy the cash. He loves each and every one of his creations and does not quit until they are a success. He is incredibly firm with his decisions, but he is always open to changing his mind if a well thought out and better solution is presented to him. This attitude makes him good at running his companies because people do not question him unless they truly believe they can improve something. 

Sometimes the technical terminology or discussions of his new inventions would confuse me as I'm not a technologically savvy person.

I would ask him how he continues to work with such drive and never get burnt out. I would also ask him how he can manage to stay so focused and never feel like he's missing something when he gives up personal relationships for his technology and ultimately has few deep relationships with other people and only with his work. 

Elon Musk expects the most at all times. He has absolutely no room for people to slack off. I believe his opinion on hard work is that it's not "hard work" it's just "work" and anyone who isn't doing the absolute most isn't worth his time.