#BookReview: The man who would change the world
Biographer Walter Isaacson, who wrote landmark books on Albert Einstein, Henry Kissinger and Steve Jobs, spent two years shadowing Elon Musk and produced a 670-page tome which explores every intimate detail of his life.
Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson
Elon Musk is a fascinating man.
How does this seemingly crazy bloke from a screwed-up Pretoria home invent PayPal, revolutionise the electric car industry, overtake NASA in launching spacecrafts, deliver Internet via satellite, lead the world in artificial intelligence and own the world’s largest social media platform?
Oh, and he’s built a fortune of $230-billion to become the world’s richest man and still found the time to father 10 children.
Is this guy real?
Biographer Walter Isaacson, who wrote landmark books on Albert Einstein, Henry Kissinger and Steve Jobs, spent two years shadowing Musk and produced a 670-page tome which explores every intimate detail of Musk’s life.
From a difficult childhood plagued by a tyrant father and school bullying, through an emotionally turbulent life in which his Asperger’s Syndrome – a form of autism – is turned from a potential disability into a formidable advantage.
Take a child with zero empathy, soak in video games and the science fiction classic The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, add a generous helping of genius level knowledge of physics, engineering and computer coding, focus with a Bunsen burner degree of concentration and fuel with enormous amounts of money – and what you have is a world-changer.
He works all the time, through nights and weekends and without holidays, and demands the same from others.
He understands all levels of his businesses, from design to the factory floor.
He takes enormous risks, doubles down when losing and somehow wins through.
He hires and fires with as much emotion as a Klingon. Deliver the best or you are out!
And yet he displays a weird, quirky sense of humour, and seems to have no inflated opinion of himself, given all his billions.
His remarks on Twitter, the social media company be paid $44-billion for then changed all the rules and renamed it X, showed he is able to both laugh at himself and shoot himself in the foot.
Just as an aside: the Twitterati have been wondering with what to replace the verb “to tweet” now the company is named X. I think it would be delicious, given Musk’s roots, to use “X-sê.”
A fascinating aspect of his makeup is that he does not seem to care about money as an end. It is a means to do greater things. To give humanity electric vehicles and save the environment. To give humanity artificial intelligence to achieve more. To build a colony on Mars to save humanity. Seriously!
He has this to say about himself: “To anyone I’ve offended, I just want to say, I reinvented electric cars and I’m sending people to Mars in a rocket ship. Do you think I was also going to be a chilled, normal dude?”
Some say he is insane. Others say he’s an arsehole. More say he’s the most brilliant human ever. It’s impossible not to have an opinion. He’s Musk.
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