THE IRON MAN (13A)

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


What was the most surprising thing? 

Wow. What wasn't surprising? I mean honestly before reading this I new Elon Musk was an amazing entrepreneur but I didn't know the full extent of his greatness. He took on two projects that were so amazing yet defying the current standard with almost no money. That's what I found the most impressing is that while he was being stricken down in one area he was excelling at the other until they both took off and he became the person he is today.


What did you most admire? 

I loved his ambition being explained throughout as he was in the depths and almost had to choose one project over the other yet he pushed through and came up with two amazing ideas sticking to his initial goal of alleviating dependency on oil. I admired how he didn't give up. 


What about the entrepreneur did you least admire?

It's hard to not admire Elon Musk I mean he is an amazing example of what entrepreneurship is all about. However, he still receives a lot of hate and one of the things I personally least admire about him is he seems to have a very selective customer of which I am definitely outside of considering I couldn't afford a Tesla with even 100 of my paychecks but he is working on a more cost efficient version. 

Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it?

Elon Musk definitely encountered adversity and failure as discussed in the book, which showed how he was days away from choosing between the Tesla and Space X yet due to PayPal giving him some liquidity and then a huge contract with the government to fund Space X, he was able to proceed with both inventions in 2008. 

What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited? 

He really didn't possess anything outside of the ordinary other than a dream and a huge ambition in order to make that happen. He was depicted as the average man throughout and the key differentiating factor was his desire to succeed he knew he had amazing ideas and found the right people to make those ideas come about. However, he was also said to have this "worldview" that no other entrepreneur has had as he seemingly didn't care about the money but more so improving the world around him.

Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

I was confused when the topic of fighting rules took place there's a quote in the book that says, 

"If the rules are such that you can't make progress, you have to start fighting the rules"-Ashlee Vance

which seems all fine and dandy but is one of those things that is easier said than done. It is hard to fight rules when you don't have a huge name like Elon Musk to support those declarations. It was almost as if it was made to look easy at some points throughout the book.

If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why?

I would ask: 

• Do you regret not just focusing all of your time and money on one product in order to make sure it was the best version it could be?

• What would you do differently during your startup process? 

For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?

I think he had to have a pretty good relationship with hard work he didn't seem to be afraid of it and honestly strived under pressure and high stress. I think he is one of those people that like to work and he saw that at his contribution to society which has been a pretty huge one if I do say so myself. I definitely share that opinion as I know you can't get anything worthwhile without having to work for it and have tried to have the same approach when it comes to school.