Book Review: Elon Musk
“Adversity shaped me,” he (Musk) says. “My pain threshold become very high.”
So I just finished reading the Walter Isaacson biography: Elon Musk. My honest review of the book is that it’s ok. It’s not bad, not good; it’s average and I rate it 2.5/5. I first read Ashlee Vance’s book: Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future back in 2015, and that was absolutely fantastic. Back then ~10 years ago, there was not that much known about Elon Musk or his background and work thus far. Elon was still kind of a mystery, and not the same Elon Musk that we know today. The Walter Isaacson book goes over Elon’s journey from childhood in South Africa to the end of 2022, when he bought Twitter and rebranded it as X.
Here are the pros of the book: What I liked about the book was that it had some really interesting personal stories as to how Elon thinks and how he solves problems in engineering and business. This book does an exceptional job delving into the man’s psychology. Through personal anecdotal stories, the reader truly gets a detailed understanding of Elon Musk the man, especially his strengths and weaknesses. The book also does a good job teaching us some of the intricacies on how Musk operates his companies. The book was generally fair, and highlighted both good and bad features of Musks’ companies. Musk is an inspirational guy, but you definitely don’t want to work for one of his companies, where you will be underpaid and overworked. Maybe they would work for you as a young person, but definitely not if you have outstanding obligations such as family, health issues, hobbies, etc.
Here are the cons of the book: What I didn’t like about the book was that it was pretty long. It took me many months to actually finish the book end-to-end. It was very broad, and I felt that the book lacked depth in many areas. I wished Isaacson went deeper and more technical into engineering, and not just glossed over technical matters at a high level. But then again this might not be a fair critique of Isaacson, who’s not a technical person with an engineering background. I felt that a lot of the chapters were fluff, devoid of any real specific details that we didn’t know from reading public articles about Musk. Some of the quotes and stories were taken directly from public reports and news articles about Musk, which is not adding anything new to the story.
Nevertheless, I did learn some pretty interesting lessons from the book. Here are my top five lessons from the book Elon Musk:
Sometimes when conventional methods are not working on a problem, you have to try unconventional methods: This was the hallmark Musk trait that I took away from the book. Musk was willing to try almost anything to make it happen and solve problems. This was inspiring in some circumstances, and just plain crazy in other circumstances. An example of Musk’s unconventional genius that I liked was the design of the Cybertruck. It was unconventional and not popular, but Musk liked the design and didn’t care if anyone else liked it.He honestly didn’t care if a single person bought the Cybertruck and that ironically is what brought something new and original to the world. An example of Musk’s unconventional ideas going haywire was the acquisition of Twitter on a whim and gutting the whole company without a plan. That was crazy and basically killed a great company.
Musk’s algorithm for building products at scale:
- Question every requirement.
- Delete any part or process you can.
- Simplify and optimize.
- Accelerate cycle time.
- Automate
I liked Musk’s approach to automation and building something at scale. Never introduce automation into the process until you know you are introducing automation to solve a specific problem. Automating too early in the process may result in more trouble down the road. Always get the requirements right first and make sure the problem is addressed with the right specifications first! Most requirements are wrong in the beginning and there’s always a way to do something cheaper and faster. Don’t lose focus and over-engineer a solution.
The importance of taking risks in order to inspire the team to focus on one vision: I liked that Musk was willing to take on the risk burden for everyone at the end of the day. The people under Musk would therefore not feel the burden of failure should it now work out, which gives the team total confidence. One big example was in 2008, when SpaceX failed its third launch and Tesla was basically at bankruptcy. For SpaceX, Musk turned dejection into confidence by going for it (all in) on the 4th launch, even though the team was totally dejected for the third Falcon 1 failure. For Tesla, Musk went all in with all his capital and that’s what inspired the other investors to also go all in. You can never never expect others to do what you yourself would not be willing to do!
Be brutally focused on execution, using metrics to measure progress: Musk had one metric when it came to SpaceX - the amount of payload lifted into space per launch. His metrics for Tesla was - number of cars produced per week/month/quarter/year. Musk’s real genius is that he applied a brutal business approach to his rocket manufacturing and car development. Musk is really not an engineer who builds things or codes; rather he’s a product guy who focuses on the engineering design and business output. Therefore, what we can learn is that to get stuff done means you must set goals and aggressively try to hit those targets. Do not allow slippage or work in progress (WIP) to linger, EVER! I respect this a lot and will try to apply some of these lessons to my own work
Do things fast with a sense of urgency in order to compete against your competitors: I think Musk is one of the most competitive people I have ever studied. He wants urgency ALL THE TIME. He has an aggressive approach and views himself akin to a general commanding troops in war. For him, he doesn’t like to lose and is literally willing to do anything to keep his businesses competitive. I think this approach is harsh and brutal, but it is definitely very effective in getting stuff done. In competitive industries, I think you need this mindset and frankly, innovation can only come from the harshest of conditions. I don’t fully agree with Musk’s approach: I personally think that you also need to have compassion and empathy for your workers. But I understand his approach and I respect it. I can certainly apply this kind of urgency at times when I really need to get something done!
These are my thoughts on the book Elon Musk. I hope you enjoyed it!