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Introduction
- Elon Musk is best known as the founder and shareholder of Tesla Motors and SpaceX. He is an American entrepreneur and businessman born in South Africa. He founded X.com in 1999, which was later renamed PayPal, SpaceX in 2002, and Tesla Motors in 2003.
- Also known as: Elon Reeve Musk, Elon Musk
- Birthday: June 28, 1971
- Place of birth: South Africa, Transvaal, Pretoria
- Studied at: Wharton Business School, Pretoria Boys’ High School, Queen’s Business School, University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences, Waterkloof House Preparatory School
- Nationality: United States of America, South Africa, Canada
- Occupation: Entrepreneur, engineer, inventor, investor, chairman
- Spouse: Tallulah Riley
Musk’s best quotes
- A company is a group organized to create a product or service. It is only as good as its people and their passion for creation. I do want to meet a lot of talented people. I just happen to be the face of the company.
- Avoid hiring an MBA if possible. MBA programs don’t teach people how to build companies.
- Being an entrepreneur is like eating glass and staring into the abyss of death.
- A brand is just a perception and over time the perception will match reality. Sometimes it leads; Other times, it lags behind. But a brand is just some people’s collective impression of a product.
- Disruptive technologies that do experience significant technological disruption…tend to come from new companies.
- Don’t fool yourself into thinking something won’t work when it actually doesn’t, or you’ll become wedded to a poor solution.
- Failure is an option here. If things don’t fail, you’re not innovating enough.
- I’m always optimistic, but I’m realistic. I didn’t start Tesla or SpaceX with the expectation of being a huge success…just that I thought they were important enough to do anyway.
- I’m constantly investing my own money in companies that I build… If I’m not prepared to invest in something myself, I’m not going to ask anyone else to invest in it.
- I can watch it happen and I can be a part of it.
- I think if you have a compelling product and people are willing to pay a premium for it, there’s a lot of potential. I believe this is what Apple shows. You can buy a cheaper phone or laptop, but Apple’s products are much better than others, and people are willing to pay a premium.
- I don’t spend my time pontificating on high-concept things; I spend my time solving engineering and manufacturing problems.
- I don’t trust the process. In fact, when I interviewed a potential employee and they said “it’s all about the process,” I thought that was a bad sign. The problem is that in many large companies, this process has become a substitute for thinking. We encourage you to act like a cog in a complex machine. Frankly, it allows you to retain people who are less smart and less creative.
- I didn’t build a company to build a company, I built a company to get things done.
- I don’t think planning to sell the company is a good idea.
- I say something and something usually happens. Maybe it doesn’t go as planned, but it usually happens.
- I think ordinary people can choose to be extraordinary.
- I think it’s important to create a feedback loop where you’re constantly thinking about what you do and how you can do it better.
- I think most of the important stuff on the web has already been built. Of course, innovation will continue, but the major problems of the Internet have largely been solved.
- I think the best way to attract venture capital is to try to showcase any product or service, and ideally showcase it as much as possible. Then, see if you can sell it to real customers and generate some momentum. The further you go in this area, the better your chances of getting funded.
- I believe it is our responsibility to maintain the light of consciousness to ensure that it continues into the future.
- I would just question things…it would piss off my parents…I wouldn’t believe them when they said something because I would ask them why. I then consider whether this response makes sense given everything else I know.
- I wouldn’t say I lacked fear. In fact, I wish I had less fear because it distracts me and damages my nervous system.
- Suppose you have to design and invent something, and you have to figure out how to ensure that the value of what you create is greater than the cost of the input. Well, that’s probably my core skill.
- If you get up in the morning and think the future will be better, that’s a good day. Otherwise it is not.
- If you go back a few hundred years, the things we take for granted today would seem like magic – the ability to talk to people over long distances, transmit images, fly, access vast amounts of data like an oracle. These are things that were thought to be magic hundreds of years ago.
- If you’re a co-founder or CEO, you have to do all kinds of tasks that you might not want to do… If you don’t do the chores, the company won’t succeed… No task is too menial.
- If you want to build a company, it’s like baking a cake. First, you have to mix all the ingredients in the correct proportions.
- I’m interested in things that change the world or impact the future and amazing new technologies that you see and you think, ‘Wow, how did this happen? How is this possible?
- Hiring a large number of people to complete a complex job is a mistake. Numbers never make up for the talent of getting the right answer (two people who don’t know something are no better than one), and tend to slow down progress and make the task prohibitively expensive.
- It’s okay to put your eggs in one basket as long as you can control what happens in that basket.
- It’s important to like the people you work with; otherwise, your life (and) work will be pretty miserable.
- Actually I haven’t read any books on time management.
- My biggest mistake was probably overvaluing someone’s talent over someone’s personality. I think it is important whether a person has a kind heart.
- People should pursue what they love. This will make them happier than anything else.
- People work better when they know what the goals are and why. Therefore it is important that people look forward to coming to work in the morning and enjoy their work.
- Persistence is very important. You shouldn’t give up unless you’re forced to.
- Really pay attention to and solicit negative feedback, especially from friends. … Almost no one does this, and it’s very helpful.
- Some people don’t like change, but if the alternative is a disaster, you need to accept change.
- Starting and growing a business depends not only on the products it sells, but also on the innovation, drive and determination of the people behind it.
- Talent is essential. It’s like a sports team; the team with the best individual players usually wins, but there’s a multiplier effect in how those players work together and the strategies they employ.
- The first step is to determine that something is possible; then probability will happen.
- The path to the CEO’s office should not go through the CFO’s office, nor should it go through the marketing department. It needs to be achieved through engineering and design.
- In order for new technology to be affordable to the mass market, two things really have to be true. One is you need economies of scale. Another is that you need to iterate on the design. So you need to go through several versions.
- You have to have a reason to get up in the morning, you want to live. Why do you want to live? What’s the point? What inspires you? What are you passionate about in the future? I find it incredibly frustrating if the future doesn’t include going interstellar and becoming a multi-planetary species.
- There is a huge bias against risk-taking. Everyone is trying to optimize their butt coverage.
- We’ll make it happen. Because God was my bloody witness, I was determined to make it work.
- What makes innovative thinking happen? … I think it’s really a mindset. You have to make a decision.
- When Henry Ford built a cheap, reliable car, people said, “No, what happened to the horse?” He made a big bet, and it worked.
- When someone achieves a breakthrough innovation, it’s rarely a small thing. It’s rarely a small thing. Often it’s a bunch of things that add up to a huge innovation.
- When something is important enough, you will do it even if the odds are not in your favor.
- Works like hell. I mean, you only have to put in 80 to 100 hours a week. (This) increases the chance of success. If someone else works 40 hours a week and you work 100 hours a week, even if you do the same thing, you know you’re going to achieve in four months what it took them a year to achieve.
- You have to say, “Well, why did it succeed and other people didn’t?”
- You shouldn’t do things differently just because they are different. They need to get…better.
