ELON MUSK by Ashlee Vance

Elon Musk’s tweet about Tesla Model 3 launch made headlines in India. The Guardian states 400,000 people worldwide have pre-ordered this car and Musk said it is the biggest consumer product launch ever. To my mind - It’s an incredible product campaign - as deliveries of this car will start only at the end of 2017.  I was naïve to think like this… What if Elon Musk owned an Asset Management company? How he may have looked at designing Mutual Fund Products? I started reading Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance to know more about Tesla.

In 1990s, Elon was keen on building a full-service financial institution online. Navigating through regulator was not an easy one, but he still started X.com, a finance start-up. The company had in fact secured a Mutual Fund license but later moved into to Internet payment solutions. My question was answered when I read about his views on Financial Services. He says, all the bankers did was copy what everyone else did. Looking at Elon's track record – he would have created a mutual fund scheme which is highly compelling to invest. 

Ashlee Vance narration about Elon Musk's life is extremely engaging. After reading about Telsa and SpaceX, one can presume that people working in Detroit and Boeing would have never imagined like Musk. In other words, a start-up can catch large corporates unaware.

Mr.Vance story telling on as to how SpaceX was built and team’s experience at early stage is captivating. SpaceX venture demonstrates many insights – about creativity and execution skills. The office was made more like living, because of the number of hours team put it. SpaceX took 6 years and 500 people to make first privately developed liquid fuel vehicle to go into the orbit around the Earth. An inspirational one. Why do large corporates doesn’t create an environment to nurture creativity and get the execution right?

Couple of days ago, I saw a tweet from one of the celebrated fund manager from India that Elon Musk got Tesla and SpaceX right due to sheer luck. I vehemently disagree to his statement. One of the board of directors of Tesla puts it aptly – that ability to stay focussed in the midst of a crisis stands as one of Musk’s main advantages over other executives and competitors. Ashlee Vance has skilfully elucidated the leadership skills of Musk. He has mastered the art of getting the most out of his employees and hence maximized the power of the individual. 

I suggest that this book is a must read for parents. The first few sections of the book tells the story about his grandparents and parents in Africa and his life in Canada. This teaches us how insane set of experiences can alter the way we look at risk. Do parents strive to give powerful learning experiences to their children? Musk attributes his success to his suffering that helped to make him who he is and gave him extra reserves of strength and will.