Elon Musk’s Space Dream Almost Killed Tesla

http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-elon-musk-spacex/

by adventured • 11 years ago

503 176 11 years ago

bloomberg.com

sumedh• 11 years ago

If anyone is interested to hear Justin Musk's viewpoint

http://www.quora.com/How-can-I-be-as-great-as-Bill-Gates-Ste...

js2• 11 years ago

Thanks for the link, but I thouught the third answer from James Altucher about Richard Branson was the real gold on that page.

vidarh2• 11 years ago

Altucher writes well, but I find it hard to overlook the relatively large inaccuracies in the bits I do know about, and keep wondering what else is equally inaccurate. E.g. he seems to think "Virgin Air" (the actual airlines are Virgin Atlantic Airways and Virgin America) is Bransons main business, but Virgin Group consists of a huge number of companies, and Virgin Atlantic revenue only accounts for about 10% of the groups aggregate revenue (Virgin Atlantic revenue is about 20% of Virgin Group revenue, but Virgin Group only owns about half of Virgin Atlantic)

EDIT: The story about how Branson supposedly got the idea also sounds apocryphal. In 1984 Branson was rich already - in fact Virgin Atlantic became profitable in large part because Virgin Records was doing well enough that Branson could use Virgin Records to finance lease of a secondhand plane for the company to start out with.. What was to become Virgin Atlantic was started by Randolph Fields and Alan Hellary before Branson got involved. It's not impossible Branson was thinking of setting up an airline before that, but he didn't start Virgin Atlantic until after he'd been approached by Fields.

ska• 11 years ago

s/Justin/Justine/

soneca• 11 years ago

Also applies to other kinds of uber achievers outside of entrepreneurship. Like Mandela and Gandhi, both struggled with normal expectations a person has regarding the family. Hard to be a present parent/spouse when you are committing your life and mind to a country.

loco5niner• 11 years ago

Justine

parennoob3• 11 years ago

From the article:

Downey appreciated that Musk was not a foul-smelling, fidgety, coder whack job.

Always good to know how the rest of us "coders" are looked upon by Bloomberg, and presumably the average person while they are busy singing Elon Musk's praises.

dfgray• 11 years ago

by Bloomberg

I got the impression that was Downey's expectation, not Bloomberg's. People don't smell or fidget in Hollywood..

ende• 11 years ago

Not after being doused in makeup and qualudes, at least.

smacktoward• 11 years ago

Or rather, when they do, they at least have the decency to call it "art."

parennoob3• 11 years ago

The article was written by Bloomberg. It doesn't mention a direct quote by Downey, so I'm going to assume they are the Bloomberg writer's own words.

cdelsolar2• 11 years ago

Come on, let the first coder here who isn't a foul-smelling, fidgety whack job cast the first stone.

parennoob3• 11 years ago

I think it is an overblown and mostly false stereotype that coders are foul-smelling. I've never actually met a foul-smelling coder. Ill-dressed, yes. But we mostly work in offices with air-conditioning, there isn't much sweating going on. All of my current and former coworkers seemed to wear antiperspirant and deodorant, and so do I.

As for "whack job", this is the kind of language that disparages our industry and unnecessarily lowers our social status. Would a doctor or lawyer take being called a "whack job" by default so lightly?

bpicolo• 11 years ago

This was an incredible article. Just awesome.

jonknee• 11 years ago

Can't wait for the book version next week.

appden• 11 years ago

In late October 2001, Elon Musk went to Moscow to buy an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Has there ever been a better introductory sentence?

agumonkey4• 11 years ago

It all reads like a wonderful technological suspense thriller.

kposehn• 11 years ago

No.

toomuchtodo2• 11 years ago

I don't have a link to further into that story, but after being screwed by the Russians on the price (they did a bait and switch, increasing the price four fold when he arrived), he asked on the plane ride home "How hard can it be to build a rocket?".

EDIT: To add to this, the US government created sanctions against Russia, causing the Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin to say "Use a trampoline to get to the ISS then" [1], which prompted Elon to unveil the Dragon Mk2 crew capsule: "Sounds like this might be a good time to unveil the new Dragon Mk 2 spaceship that @SpaceX has been working on w @NASA. No trampoline needed" [2].

I would not want to be on Elon's bad side.

[1] http://space.io9.com/russia-to-nasa-try-jumping-to-iss-on-a-...

[2] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/461279062837968897

solarexplorer• 11 years ago

I remember reading it here: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a16681/elon-musk-interv...

drzaiusapelord2• 11 years ago

I love how Russian dishonesty led to SpaceX's success in a significant way. It almost like we've had a people who go about things the absolutely wrong way to for everyone else to learn from (Communism, Stalinism, Putinism, etc).

benmorris• 11 years ago

I guess I was so caught up in the fact that he was trying to buy an ICBM. I didn't really think about the timing as well. This would have been within 30 days of 9/11 happening. Hard to imagine even thinking about doing something like that.

mrt0mat0• 11 years ago

the man is pure inspiration. 10 years ago, i was asked who i admired, and couldn't think of a single answer. Maybe that's sad on my part, but when asked now, he's at the top of my list.

baby• 11 years ago

Definitely one of the most inspiring man when it comes to success.

For research I would say Stephen Hawking

For education I would say Neil deGrasse Tyson

( I would put Neil in the inspiring "anti-racism" category as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQLtPWPqsjA )

ValG• 11 years ago

Don't forget Bill Gates. While many may (rightly) fault his business ethics and tactics, he is doing more for the bottom 20% of humanity than most others.

toxican• 11 years ago

This is a really great article. As a casual observer of SpaceX, it seemed to me that they just came out of nowhere a few years ago. It's really great to see a story about their origins.

cspags• 11 years ago

Here's the video of the first Falcon 1 launch that reaches orbit. The series of cheers at each milestone, as the article mentions, is pretty awesome. https://youtu.be/8FQhtMrUQlE?t=18m34s

ljk• 11 years ago

bloomberg video documentary on Musk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh45igK4Esw

alexqgb• 11 years ago

If we're doing a round-up of great Musk pieces, the interview Ross Andersen did for Aeon should not be missed.

http://aeon.co/magazine/technology/the-elon-musk-interview-o...

m52go• 11 years ago

Has anyone else experienced slow scrolling and no visible scrollbar? I'm on Chrome on a Nexus 6.

I fear it's a ploy to keep my eyeballs on the site for as long as possible. Not a fan of this at all.

MBCook• 11 years ago

Same thing on my iPhone. I gave up trying to read the article because of it.

Even safaris built-in reader mode didn't work, it wouldn't look past the first section of the article.

I'm guessing they're playing games with the DOM using JavaScript or something like that. Doesn't really matter, it completely broke to usability of reading the article.

I sent them a comment about it, I hope they listen. I really dislike this new trend of websites implementing their own custom scrolling behavior. I've yet to see one that improved on the default behavior in iOS.

seanwessmith• 11 years ago

What was the moldy Russian book on rockets that Elon Musk was reading???

methodover• 11 years ago

What an absolutely riveting, brilliant article. The title doesn't give it justice -- this article is about a dream, and about a man's relentless pursuit of that dream. Incredible.

I wonder what SpaceX's long term goals are. Much of the article suggests that it's Mars. But SpaceX probably wants to do something that's profitable, right? Missions to Mars won't be profitable for probably a very long time, if ever. I wonder about something like a mining operation on the Moon or other near-Earth objects?

Right now, it's hard to imagine anything more profitable than deploying satellites.

run4yourlives26• 11 years ago

I thought it was the other way around: SpaceX wants to go to Mars and will find profitable things to do to achieve this.

Similar to Tesla selling a nice car so it is in a position to build a battery factory, no?

jbooth• 11 years ago

Yeah, and as always, it comes down to energy -- there's an established way to turn CO2 and H20 into Methane and Oxygen, given enough energy for input. And SpaceX has put some research into methane-fueled rockets already. So some people are theorizing that the play is to plunk an unmanned nuclear reactor and electrolysis equipment on the surface of mars, let it crank out a trickle of fuel for a couple years, and we've got the infrastructure to send a there-and-back mission to mars with on-site refueling. No big deal, right?

hinkley• 11 years ago

Given his other commercial interests I suspect Asteroid Mining has to be pretty high on his list.

futuretext• 11 years ago

Neil DeGrasse Tyson was just talking about how the first trillionaire will come from astroid mining: http://www.salon.com/2015/05/04/neil_degrasse_tyson_the_firs...

Super fascinating read. It's also great because it will create a commercially viable reason for companies to want to explore space, which will make it cheaper for everyone else.

tbabb3• 11 years ago

I wonder what SpaceX's long term goals are.

Mars, vis-a-vis making buttloads of money on Earth.

Elon is positioning to launch a 4k-strong comsat fleet, with which he hopes to commandeer a large fraction of Earth's internet backhaul traffic (in addition to securing millions+ of internet customers around the planet, otherwise too expensive and sparse to reach with cables).

My bet is that it will turn out to be SpaceX's biggest financial play, and that the private + NASA orbital launch contracts are functioning as a way to get someone to pay for rocket development and build the necessary capital for the telecom move.

Although once a reusable first stage has been demonstrated, I imagine launch costs will drop by a large fraction, and possibly open up a new rush of investment and innovation in low Earth orbit-- with Musk selling pickaxes and shovels.

It's possible if more people knew the price drop that's about to happen in rocket launches, they'd be scrambling to launch their own 4k-satellite constellations, and that Musk's inside knowledge and control gives him a huge head start into the business.

wj• 11 years ago

My first thought on the satellite network he is launching was to help power self-driving Teslas.

kzhahou• 11 years ago

I applaud Elon, but I gotta say I'm uncomfortable with the extreme adulation. His company merged into Paypal -- he did not invent that payment solution. He was an investor in Tesla before taking it over -- the original idea and company were not his. The press paints him otherwise on both counts. That's undoubtedly a better story (and perhaps we're at a point where we need to believe in a hero-inventor), but I don't think inaccuracy actually serves us well.

Roritharr• 11 years ago

I see him more as an outrageously lucky person that does the very best with the insane amount of fortune that he got.

That image alone is inspiring enough, for most of us are proportionally fortunate aswell and should aspire to do as much with our gifts.

zeidrich• 11 years ago

He's a really smart guy, but there are lots of really smart guys out there.

He's a really lucky guy, but there are lots of really lucky guys out there.

There aren't many really smart, really lucky guys out there. One of the challenges is when we see really smart, really lucky guys, we tend to think of them as unbelievably smart and kind of lucky. One of the bigger challenges is when they start to see themselves that way.

higherpurpose• 11 years ago

If you read Outliers you'll see Bill Gates was also "very lucky".

Panoramix• 11 years ago

No such thing as luck. I read the article and I wouldn't know what qualifies as outrageously lucky. The NASA deal that came just in time, maybe. But it's not luck to get a contract for launching rockets if you already demonstrated you can do it.

joeyspn• 11 years ago

Yeah, to achieve that level of success you definitely need luck, but don't forget that luck has to surprise you while you’re working your arse off...

Swizec2• 11 years ago

With Jobs gone, we need a new hero-inventor to worship. Such is life.

Seriously though, when I was a kid I would read about "famous scientists of old" every night. They were my rockstars. Edison, Watt, Lister, the list goes on. I had a book about them, their lives, their inventions. Everything. I must have read that book a thousand times before I was 14.

Then one day when I was 18 I visited the London technical museum. In it was a Watt exhibit. It said "Watt bought a lot of patents, he invented a few small things, but his main innovation was leasing steam engines instead of selling them."

It was then that I realized all those scientists of old I worship weren't scientists at all. They were good engineers. Excellent integrators of other people's inventions and work. Magnificent funders of scientists' work.

But most of all they were businessmen. Because it doesn't matter who invents a thing, what matters is who uses the thing to bring actual change to people.

It doesn't matter who invented the lightbulb. It matters who invented the electricity grid so people could actually use lightbulbs in their homes.

chriskanan• 11 years ago

The Story of Science is a great six part BBC documentary that talks a lot about the phenomenon you are describing, and episode four talks about Watt specifically. I highly recommend it, and it can be found online.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1xxn3o_bbc-the-story-of-sc...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s9mms

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Science:_Power,_Pr...

Nadya5• 11 years ago

When I was young, I had a large amount of respect for Edison.

When I found out the truth - that he was a businessman more than an inventor - it was quite a let down. Many of his ideas were stolen from people who worked beneath him and the publicity campaign for DC power over AC power is simply terrible.

it doesn't matter who invents a thing, what matters is who uses the thing to bring actual change to people.

And this is the sad truth of many famous 'inventors'.

seahorse• 11 years ago

it doesn't matter who invents a thing, what matters is who uses the thing to bring actual change to people.

They both matter, and you need both. They come with a different price to pay, and a different reward.

hyperpallium2• 11 years ago

Jobs is similar, not actually an inventor (people like Woz did that), but understood it, so could manage, inspire, promote it. A tech CEO. Jobs owned more than one co. too, Pixar.

seesomesense2• 11 years ago

"With Jobs gone, we need a new hero-inventor to worship."

Like Jobs and Munk, it is even better if the "hero-inventor" did not invent a single thing.

phodo• 11 years ago

That's invention vs. innovation.

drzaiusapelord2• 11 years ago

If you don't like this then I'm sure you'll hate the eventual, "Where did we go wrong with the electric car," articles after Tesla fails to deliver a $20,000 EV before going bankrupt. If the government pulls its corporate welfare, which it probably will under a GOP administration, Tesla is going to die a quick death.

Elon can't bring Li-Ion down to any level for compete with ICE cars, has terrible financials, and there's something very off putting politically about hard-working middle-class families subsidizing ultra-sports cars for the wealthy.

The title of this article is amusing because it seems to suggest that SpaceX is Elon's side bet and Tesla is some grand vision. Its not. If anything SpaceX is the great success here and if I was a betting man I'd say Tesla will become a footnote in history when SpaceX succeeds. I just wish he wasn't so anti-AI and anti-robot. I'm assuming he really needs to sell the public on human, not robotic, spaceflight for his company to succeed.

mason240• 11 years ago

there's something very off putting politically about hard-working middle-class families subsidizing ultra-sports cars for the wealthy.

It seemed to work out for our current President, who subsidized auto manufacturers through bailouts and "Cash for Clunkers" to buy electoral votes in OH and MI.

vvanders• 11 years ago

Only a very small part of income car is based on ZEV credits and if those were to go away they'd still have a ~20% profit margin which is well above most traditional auto companies. Their negative income has to do with the rapid expansion they are doing right now.

There always seems to be this ZOMG government bailout around Tesla when that's not really the case when you look at the entire picture.

senna5• 11 years ago

and there's something very off putting politically about hard-working middle-class families subsidizing ultra-sports cars for the wealthy.

Never thought of that actually. I agree with you, Tesla's going to bomb and the only benefit it made was to entertain the 1% for a while.

ChuckMcM2• 11 years ago

There is a certain kind of crazy, the one where you can have $10M in the bank after a lot of hard work and struggle. And then put all of it at risk for something you believe in and everyone else is telling you is stupid. In gambling it is that person who has a fortune in their chip pile and they say "let it ride", except in this case bankruptcy is on the other side.

I think Elon deserves all the credit there. I think of it as a Ferris Beuller complex, people who just "go for it" without a safety net, betting they will be able to adapt, avoid, and overcome any obstacle that gets thrown at them. It is a level of fearlessness that is not supported by any rational process, and it is the thing that turns people from ordinary into extraordinary.

It doesn't always work out. There are always stories of people for whom they didn't dodge when they needed to. And like stories of "can't miss" hedge fund traders, are suddenly just as broke as most of the world. But you have to respect people that can operate at that level of stress. The money quote is this one:

“What he went through in 2008 would have broken anyone else. Most people who are under that sort of pressure fray. Their decisions go bad. Elon gets hyperrational. He’s still able to make very clear, long-term decisions. The harder it gets, the better he gets.”

That is a rare thing

Enzolangellotti3• 11 years ago

That's a hagiography right there.

ArkyBeagle2• 11 years ago

He's a wildcatter.

marincounty• 11 years ago

"Without a safety net"?

Bachelor's in physics, Bachelor's in Econ. at Warton, began PHd at Stanford, comes from a prominent family(usually meaning rich).

He had a safety net. Just wanted to keep it real Homies. (I think the guy is great. It's just he had a safety net. He wasn't going to be panhandling by risk. Plus, when he made his investments his resume was pretty impressive. My biggest hope is his battery factory, and he keeps Tesla afloat when the other car makers hit us with electrical automobiles.)

threeseed• 11 years ago

Ambition and willing to take a risk is not a rare thing.

Musk is no different from the huge number of people involved in startups except that he is investing more money. Many of us are investing all of our valuable time and money in risky ventures instead of saving and taking the rational path in life.

And stop acting like Musk is doing this for pure altruism. He stands to make a lot of money and get written into the history books if these companies are wildly successful. And from everything I've read he has enough of an ego to make those goals a pretty significant reason for these companies.

mej102• 11 years ago

How many people owned Teslas before Musk took over?

OrwellianChild• 11 years ago

A bit over 400. Of those, 75% of them needed to be recalled due to manufacturing issues. [1][2]

My perception is that Musk brings very capable executive-level management to his projects. Tesla was dying without strong leadership (and had a string of temporary CEOs prior to Musk).

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-recalls-345-roadsters-2...

[2] http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-the-origin-story-2014-1...

EDIT: Fixed citations...

sandstrom• 11 years ago

Regarding Paypal, I think it's fair to say it was a merger of equals (Confinity and X.com). This post gives some more insights into the merger, I found it an interesting read.

http://gawker.com/230076/an-alternate-history-according-to-e...

zem• 11 years ago

read heinlein's "the man who sold the moon" for a very good portrait of a hero-entrepreneur-visionary. i think that's more in line with musk's mystique than hero-inventor; he's not so much the man who invents things as the man who collects inventors together and makes things happen.

marze2• 11 years ago

Why is this rather pointless comment voted so highly?

You could certainly argue that Musk was quite fortunate at certain key points, but really, who else has accomplished anything remotely similar?

maaku• 11 years ago

SpaceX was pretty much him though.

agumonkey4• 11 years ago

For a reason, I always thought he was Tesla founder and only a SpaceX space-fan investor.

run4yourlives26• 11 years ago

Reading the article, there is enough even there to give credit to the adulation. The guy's main company is SpaceX, oh and while he was figuring out how to launch rockets into space at a fraction of the cost of the norm (a massive challenge), he happened to rescue another company that he became CEO of from bankruptcy.

The big losers in Musk's life are clearly his wife and kids, but I don't see how you can suggest he didn't do (and continues to do) some very very special things for humanity as a whole. If the electric car succeeds and we move from fossil fuels in a big way, he will be a major reason for this. If we commercialize space and become a space-faring species, the same position holds.

I'm not sure how admiring that is hero worship.

def_illiterate• 11 years ago

Hear hear.

tajen• 11 years ago

The big losers in Musk's life are clearly his wife and kids

He met his first wife at age ~20 then divorced her at 37. He was already successful when he met his second wife, so she knew what was in the social contract and probably chose on purpose.

throwaway234323• 11 years ago

I've tried editing a bunch but always get downvotes, so here it is on a throwaway.

-> how would you work Hyperloop into your list of examples?

You couldn't, in my opinion, because it's counter to your argument and position, which is needlessly, gratuitously negative. Perhaps you can't see the difference between someone to idolize, who is an engineer that can proceed from first principles to leaving no stone, degree of freedom, or axis unturned and delivering a solution...and, someone like kzhahou above who literally ignores 1 out of 4 examples we have of Musk's invention, creativity and leadership. (The 4 examples we have are as a PayPal cofounder only, as a Tesla investor and ALSO product architect - his official role -, which we can see whenever he talks about the trade-offs, as a SpaceX investor, and in envisioning and engineering the basic constraints in HyperLoop.)

you are saying the "inaccuracy" of him being a hero-inventor doesn't serve us well. I say it does, because people will give him money, and he can deliver on great designs as he has proven an ability to do.

taking that away from him because you're uncomfortable with extreme adulation is the opposite of everything capitalism stands for: if you prove you can design, engineer, build, manage, and lead to great things, you get to do more of them.

(sorry you can't tell the difference, but reflecting on why you chose to leave out the quarter of his ventures that he is chief inventor on would serve you well. also reflecting on the degree to which he is product architect at tesla would do the same. finally you can look at zip2, which is what he did, including personally, before payapl.)

ForHackernews6• 11 years ago

Hyperloop doesn't exist. Musk isn't even trying to implement it, and lots of good engineers think it's totally impractical. If anything, it's a good counter example to his other ventures, which are outstanding executions of non-visionary ideas.

At any rate, parent comment is correct that there's an unhealthy degree of hero-worship veneration for Musk around these parts.

Htsthbjig• 11 years ago

Paypal did not invent electronic payment. Tesla did not invent the electric car or batteries. SpaceX did not invent rockets. SolarCity did not invent solar roofs.

But I have an enormous respect for this man, just making rockets affordable is a great service for humanity.

"That's undoubtedly a better story" (Citation needed) This sounds to me like : I feel so envious because someone else did something remarkable, that if I accept to give merit to him I will be accepting that I could do better than I do. So something, somewhere must exist to prove he has not merit.

"but I don't think inaccuracy actually serves us well." Again (Citation needed), after stating your prejudice, you jump to take it as fact.

What is inaccurate about Elon here? The article talks about good, but also not so good things about Elon personality.

I created my own companies and had to take very similar risks in my life, with everybody in my life believing I was crazy when I put "safe" money in the bank at risk(specially in Europe and Asia taking risks is a big no,no). Everything in the article sounds pretty veridical for anyone with experience in this field.

mozumder7• 11 years ago

But I have an enormous respect for this man, just making rockets affordable is a great service for humanity.

His business means rockets are going to go from $400 million to $150 million. That's nice and all, but it's not an extraordinary revolution. For equivalent, or cheaper rockets, see the Indian space program. They've launched rockets to Mars for cheap already.

I don't get the millennials adulation for him, either. Seems like a random guy for so many millennials to latch onto.

My guess is, because millennials never grew up with the amazing Apollo or Space Shuttle era, they feel Elon is somehow doing something novel and innovative, even with the Indian/Chines space programs going on as well.

If you want to see some sci-fi magic, just look at the Space Shuttle, That's some amazing witchcraft right there. The ideas NASA were throwing around in the 70's were insane. They were talking about constructing giant space stations with multiple shuttle vehicles at a time, with artificial gravity. Too bad Nixon killed their funding.

btian• 11 years ago

Or just that Silicon Valley is a place that celebrates execution over ideas.

After all, it is not that difficult to imagine an electric plane with 4 seats that flies itself, but it's damn hard to make one.

Apple didn't invent anything, but look at iPhone sales.

whyenot• 11 years ago

All three of Musk's most recent ventures (SolarCity, Tesla, and SpaceX), depend either on direct or indirect government subsidies. It's not just that Musk is a workaholic, or possibly innovative, but his ability to "work" the system that sets him apart. US tax payers are paying a significant portion of the bills for his ventures. Since I agree with his goals, it doesn't personally bother me very much but it still is something worth thinking about.

NhanH• 11 years ago

US Tax payers will be paying for something, considering that the majority of the US economy is private, and the government has to get stuffs done somehow. So if you agree with the goals of a private entity that the government is spending the money on, it's about as good as it could be.

anon4this12• 11 years ago

If the govt offers subsidies/handouts/contracts, then you take them. It is simply good business, whether you need them or not.

marze2• 11 years ago

Why is this somewhat pointless comment voted so highly, everyone jealous?

You could certainly argue that Musk was quite fortunate at certain key points, but really, who else has accomplished anything remotely similar?

agumonkey4• 11 years ago

One thing for sure is that after going through all this, he must be pretty zen now. He has talent(s), funding, market, trust, ...

BrandonMarc• 11 years ago

Great article. Even without mention Elon's drunk-tweeting about Catherine the Great.

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2011/12/30/elon-musk-tweets-on-c...

DigitalSea• 11 years ago

Wow, reading through this story and you can't help but notice some comparative traits to the late Steve Jobs. The incredibly high work ethic, not taking no for an answer and being highly optimistic in the face of bankruptcy. Those familiar with Steve Jobs and the story of Apple will know that Apple found themselves in this exact situation, a man with a vision burning through cash and not really making any ground - only for them to become a highly profitable company.

After all is said and done, SpaceX is not only profitable, but Musk somehow remains its largest stakeholder, even though he went through a desperate period of trying to raise more capital. Seems taking on debt helped Musk retain SpaceX's majority stakeholder (a brilliant move if you know you're going to succeed).

This is probably one of the most inspiring things I have read in a very long time. A very well-written article that doesn't skip on the details. Absolutely riveting, I was supposed to be working and I could not stop reading this. We need more opportunistic thinkers like Musk, everyone thought he was mental or was having a breakdown, but he proved his detractors wrong by not giving up (even when it looked like bankruptcy was the likely option).

tbabb3• 11 years ago

I get two things out of this article:

1) Elon's tremendous luck. He took huge gambles, repeatedly, and they all turned up heads. They were all very worthy ambitions, but nine times out of ten, they would not have worked out. I don't condemn him for taking those risks at all (in fact I applaud it), but:

There are probably plenty of entrepreneurs out there with comparable intelligence or ambition, but when they fall on their faces, we just shake our heads at them and say "well, that's what you get". But each of them simply wasn't lucky enough to have an Elon story. We should keep this in mind either while heaping adoration on Musk or while rationalizing someone else's failure.

2) Elon almost didn't succeed on more than one occasion because somebody else was actively trying to screw him over. And that (human shittiness) is one of the stochastic forces that made his success so unlikely. The world would have been a worse place and civilization would have been set back, all by the selfish behavior of some VC company. It is reprehensible that lollipop-yanking and sandcastle-stomping is not only actively impeding our society's progress, but despite this, it is actually tolerated or even revered.

titanomachy• 11 years ago

True. If NASA had awarded the contract to someone else and SpaceX had folded, we wouldn't be saying "look at that brilliant guy who got dealt a bad hand", we'd be saying "look at that asshole who earned a fortune and then blew it all on an idea that everyone warned him was nuts"... or more likely "who? never heard of him".

eellpp• 11 years ago

There are lots of point of views around the thoughts:

- He did not invent anything

- He had privileged background, education and luck

- He takes extreme risk but has background to fall upon etc etc ... So he is not great or a hero.

The fact of matter is that he has a personality and attitude for getting things done. He dreams of something, faces extreme challenges but still pursues it and gets it done. What matters is this attitude of never giving up. The extreme odds against which the person fights, makes him stand apart. But people with similar attitude, fighting against extreme odds can be found in all walks of life. Whether we find that narrative interesting or not depends on "our" background/interest etc.

Example could be someone with no means for basic education and learns on his own to become a great mathematician(or a architect who turns desert into greenfield) or someone who becomes a great artist/sportsman/writer(basically excellence in anything) against extreme odds.

I bet people with this kind of attitude don't care whether you find them heroic or not. The may even not care to read things like this. Fighting on this (whether its heroic or not) is just silly. Some people will find the story of single mother, working multiple jobs to provide for her family more heroic. But then that's good for them and does not steal the fact that Elon musk is hero for lot of us.

anon4this12• 11 years ago

Luck?

You can become a millionaire or even a billionaire by luck.

Risking an entire 9 figure fortune in order to run both 1) a business that most at the time thought was impossible (mass produced electric cars) 2) a space company that most at the time thought was impossible to do without being a nation state

and managing to against the odds make both of them succeed and become 11 figure companies is not luck. it is immeasurable slog, vision and competence.

there are tens of thousands of people worth hundreds of millions and ~1500 billionaires on earth, can you name a single one taking anything like the risks and producing the results elon is producing?

tempestn6• 11 years ago

While both side are impressive, I think the risk is really the big story. Of those people worth at least tens of millions, how many would be willing to risk their entire fortune on a venture that, in their honest assessment, would probably fail? (There's a quote somewhere, where Musk actually says he expected SpaceX to fail, but did it anyway because of how great it could be if it succeeded.)

I bet the number is pretty damn small. A big part of how he got to this point is simply the fact that almost no one else would have been willing to try. Beyond that, he must have been extremely skillful and lucky to actually succeed.

tbabb3• 11 years ago

Luck, like dedication and talent, is necessary but not sufficient.

lloeki• 11 years ago

Luck?
immeasurable slog, vision and competence.

In many ways I find luck is to competence what magic is to technology: indistinguishable for the uninitiated.

redmaverick• 11 years ago

When I was going through the article, these two quotes came to my mind.

“There are some people who just get what they want in the world. If you want to start a startup you have to be one of those people. You can’t be passive and wishy-washy,” – Paul Graham

"A formidable person is one who seems like they'll get what they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way."- pg

bshanks• 11 years ago

"they were in the process of finalizing the paperwork for the funding round when Musk noticed a problem. VantagePoint Capital Partners had signed all of the paperwork except for one crucial page...Musk believed that Salzman’s tactics were part of a mission to bankrupt Tesla. Musk feared that VantagePoint would oust him as CEO, recapitalize Tesla, and emerge as the major owner of the carmaker."

From other sources it seems that VantagePoint may have owned less than 10% of the company. I am surprised that a minority shareholder could legally have the power to block an additional funding round; couldn't the other shareholders have brought it to a vote and overrule VantagePoint? Was the reason this wasn't done just the lack of time, or could VantagePoint really have had some procedural right to block this?

Elon Musk’s Space Dream Almost Killed Tesla

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