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4.14 AVERAGE
4.14 AVERAGE
informative
medium-paced
Book club pick, better than expected. Very informative, just not my style
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Isaacson's biography gives an up-close-and-personal look at the good, the bad, and the ugly of the forceful and fascinating personality known as Elon Musk. It's an interesting and engaging read, although at times it's a little too up-close for its own good, lacking the overall perspective of Issacson's similar bio of the similarly aggressive yet impactful tech scion Steve Jobs. Here are my main takeaways:
- Sometimes Musk gained influence or success simply by doing things that almost anybody could have done, but he was the only one who thought to do it. Examples include Elon and his brother cold-calling bigwigs mentioned in news articles and asking them to lunch, or Elon quickly solving a computer issue at a small company that had plagued engineers for weeks not by being a smarter coder but by leveraging internet message boards.
- Musk innovated in manufacturing by asking questions no one else was asking about requirements and ruthlessly throwing out everything that wasn't necessary. While this approach is definitely not foolproof, it consistently leads to orders-of-magnitude improvements. Ashley Vance's biography contained some legendary stories of this, but Isaacson's contains even more, of which my favorite might be the $1,500 NASA locking mechanism that SpaceX replaced with a modified $30 bathroom stall lock. The cost-cutting wasn't limited to government bloat, either; Musk repeatedly sped up internal Tesla factory processes by zeroing in on bottleneck after bottleneck and finding unnecessary details that could be optimized or eliminated.
- Early on, the book largely alternates between the histories of Tesla and SpaceX, interspersed with interludes about Musk's (quite chaotic) personal life (one of the most tragic aspect involving a dark tension between his alienated abusive father and the ways he himself often replicates his father's behaviors). As time goes on, however, Musk takes on side project after ridiculous side project, interjecting himself into everything from tunneling projects to Thailand caves to Twitter. He seems to have a distracting and often destructive habit of repeatedly responding to issues that come to his attention with a savior-complex compulsion that he himself must personally intervene and "ride to the rescue." As with his deep-seated desires to make viable clean-energy cars or make humans a multi-planetary species, these impulses often have noble (if at times misguided) motivations, but taken as a whole it's hard to escape the conclusion that Musk might be more effective if he could simply leave well enough alone and focus on a limited set of the most important projects. Unfortunately, Isaacson's biography splinters its focus right along with Musk's. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the numerous final chapters devoted to the infamous takeover of Twitter, as Musk's somewhat understandable fears about the future of free speech devolve into a cascade of myopic, impulsive decisions that I predict are not going to look nearly as important in ten or twenty years as they apparently did at the time Isaacson wrote about them.
- One of the more relevant story threads involves Starlink, SpaceX's constellation of communications satellites. As a sustainable revenue-generating product that directly progresses Musk's goal of landing humans on Mars, it illustrates a quote from the book: "Elon starts with a mission and later finds a way to backfill in order to make it work financially. That's what makes him a force of nature." Yet Starlink also creates headaches for the impulsive interventionist when Russia invades Ukraine, as he first decides to give the defenders free access (providing faster and more reliable Internet than any government around the world could muster, without which Ukraine may not have survived those crucial first few days), but then decides to cut if off in Crimea to interfere with what he sees as an escalation, entirely based on his personal fears about what actions would or would not lead to World War III. Isaacson presents Musk as reluctantly wrestling with these decisions, but we see noble intentions collide with overconfident and not-entirely-accurate geopolitical understandings that make the reader wonder about the implications of that much power in the hands of one unfocused Twitter-obsessed mega-billionaire.
The book ends, somewhat randomly and abruptly, with the failed first Starship launch of early 2023. I almost wonder if Isaacson hoped a successful launch would make for a tidy happy ending, although he manages to wrap a bow on the failure as a quintessential example of Musk's risk-taking forward-driving style. I was left with the feeling that I had learned a lot about one of the world's wealthiest and most powerful people, but also that I hadn't quite gotten the full picture.
- Sometimes Musk gained influence or success simply by doing things that almost anybody could have done, but he was the only one who thought to do it. Examples include Elon and his brother cold-calling bigwigs mentioned in news articles and asking them to lunch, or Elon quickly solving a computer issue at a small company that had plagued engineers for weeks not by being a smarter coder but by leveraging internet message boards.
- Musk innovated in manufacturing by asking questions no one else was asking about requirements and ruthlessly throwing out everything that wasn't necessary. While this approach is definitely not foolproof, it consistently leads to orders-of-magnitude improvements. Ashley Vance's biography contained some legendary stories of this, but Isaacson's contains even more, of which my favorite might be the $1,500 NASA locking mechanism that SpaceX replaced with a modified $30 bathroom stall lock. The cost-cutting wasn't limited to government bloat, either; Musk repeatedly sped up internal Tesla factory processes by zeroing in on bottleneck after bottleneck and finding unnecessary details that could be optimized or eliminated.
- Early on, the book largely alternates between the histories of Tesla and SpaceX, interspersed with interludes about Musk's (quite chaotic) personal life (one of the most tragic aspect involving a dark tension between his alienated abusive father and the ways he himself often replicates his father's behaviors). As time goes on, however, Musk takes on side project after ridiculous side project, interjecting himself into everything from tunneling projects to Thailand caves to Twitter. He seems to have a distracting and often destructive habit of repeatedly responding to issues that come to his attention with a savior-complex compulsion that he himself must personally intervene and "ride to the rescue." As with his deep-seated desires to make viable clean-energy cars or make humans a multi-planetary species, these impulses often have noble (if at times misguided) motivations, but taken as a whole it's hard to escape the conclusion that Musk might be more effective if he could simply leave well enough alone and focus on a limited set of the most important projects. Unfortunately, Isaacson's biography splinters its focus right along with Musk's. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the numerous final chapters devoted to the infamous takeover of Twitter, as Musk's somewhat understandable fears about the future of free speech devolve into a cascade of myopic, impulsive decisions that I predict are not going to look nearly as important in ten or twenty years as they apparently did at the time Isaacson wrote about them.
- One of the more relevant story threads involves Starlink, SpaceX's constellation of communications satellites. As a sustainable revenue-generating product that directly progresses Musk's goal of landing humans on Mars, it illustrates a quote from the book: "Elon starts with a mission and later finds a way to backfill in order to make it work financially. That's what makes him a force of nature." Yet Starlink also creates headaches for the impulsive interventionist when Russia invades Ukraine, as he first decides to give the defenders free access (providing faster and more reliable Internet than any government around the world could muster, without which Ukraine may not have survived those crucial first few days), but then decides to cut if off in Crimea to interfere with what he sees as an escalation, entirely based on his personal fears about what actions would or would not lead to World War III. Isaacson presents Musk as reluctantly wrestling with these decisions, but we see noble intentions collide with overconfident and not-entirely-accurate geopolitical understandings that make the reader wonder about the implications of that much power in the hands of one unfocused Twitter-obsessed mega-billionaire.
The book ends, somewhat randomly and abruptly, with the failed first Starship launch of early 2023. I almost wonder if Isaacson hoped a successful launch would make for a tidy happy ending, although he manages to wrap a bow on the failure as a quintessential example of Musk's risk-taking forward-driving style. I was left with the feeling that I had learned a lot about one of the world's wealthiest and most powerful people, but also that I hadn't quite gotten the full picture.
informative
fast-paced
informative
medium-paced
Good insight into how Musk operates and makes decisions, but Isaacson seems to have been a little too close to Musk for objectivity -- emphasizing his advancement of science and technology while minimizing the toxic culture around him.
informative
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Minor: Child abuse, Child death
informative
medium-paced
The book answers the fundamental questions people have about Musk, namely - is he a brilliant visionary pushing society forward, or is he an unstable asshole, sometimes disconnected from reality, who probably shouldn’t be allowed online? The answer is turns out, to both, is “yes”.
Musk is absolutely critical to the organization and running of the companies he founded, making tons of critical decisions both big and small, and pushing for many unorthodox approaches including building the rocket out of stainless steel, and manufacturing the frame of a car as one solid cast, both dramatically reducing the cost and complexity of the respective products. He has very deep engineering and technical intuition and is able to inspire and push his teams to execute on his and theirs ideas.
On the other hand, he is also often extremely blunt, rude, impulsive, and unconcerned with the feelings of those he works with. He feels he is focused on a larger mission for humanity, and individual humans often do not make a dent in this grander scheme. Additionally, after decades of intensive work without more than several days vacation, sleep deprivation, stress, chronic pain, and increasing responsibilities (which he took on himself), he seems to be increasingly losing touch with some threads of reality around him.
Isaacson is a brilliant narrator, and the book reads as easily and enjoyably as a novel, hooking from the beginning and keeping your attention through to the end. The one detriment of the book is that I don’t think it will age as well as his other biographies as it is a bit front-heavy, with disproportionate attention to the latest two years ending in early 2023 where Isaacson was shadowing Musk directly and can speak from his own observations. While this time period is the most interesting to anyone reading today (covering his Twitter acquisition - yes he regretted it), in a few years time it will read like a ramping up news commentary on aged topics which breaks off suddenly.
So overall I would highly recommend this biography as a read today, though perhaps less so by 2030.
Musk is absolutely critical to the organization and running of the companies he founded, making tons of critical decisions both big and small, and pushing for many unorthodox approaches including building the rocket out of stainless steel, and manufacturing the frame of a car as one solid cast, both dramatically reducing the cost and complexity of the respective products. He has very deep engineering and technical intuition and is able to inspire and push his teams to execute on his and theirs ideas.
On the other hand, he is also often extremely blunt, rude, impulsive, and unconcerned with the feelings of those he works with. He feels he is focused on a larger mission for humanity, and individual humans often do not make a dent in this grander scheme. Additionally, after decades of intensive work without more than several days vacation, sleep deprivation, stress, chronic pain, and increasing responsibilities (which he took on himself), he seems to be increasingly losing touch with some threads of reality around him.
Isaacson is a brilliant narrator, and the book reads as easily and enjoyably as a novel, hooking from the beginning and keeping your attention through to the end. The one detriment of the book is that I don’t think it will age as well as his other biographies as it is a bit front-heavy, with disproportionate attention to the latest two years ending in early 2023 where Isaacson was shadowing Musk directly and can speak from his own observations. While this time period is the most interesting to anyone reading today (covering his Twitter acquisition - yes he regretted it), in a few years time it will read like a ramping up news commentary on aged topics which breaks off suddenly.
So overall I would highly recommend this biography as a read today, though perhaps less so by 2030.
Recommended
One might like or hate Musk but no one can deny his contribution to progress in many ways. This biography doesn’t make him look like a superhero or a villain but more like a human being with serious impulse control issues and his own demons.He is emotionally empty but emotionally draining to others as well as has contradicting speeches and takes conflicting actions afterwards. At the end, it depicts this human being with his successes, shortcomings and failures. I recommend it.
One might like or hate Musk but no one can deny his contribution to progress in many ways. This biography doesn’t make him look like a superhero or a villain but more like a human being with serious impulse control issues and his own demons.He is emotionally empty but emotionally draining to others as well as has contradicting speeches and takes conflicting actions afterwards. At the end, it depicts this human being with his successes, shortcomings and failures. I recommend it.