Book notes and lessons learnt: “Elon Musk Biography” by Ashlee Vance

This is a fenomenal book that will give you a hell of a push into thinking bigger! Read the whole thing because that’s the only way you can get a little bit of his mindset to sink into you mind.

• “One of the really tough things is figuring out what questions to ask, so the only thing that makes sense to do is strive for greater collective enlightenment.” (so we know what question to ask)

Elon’s frame of mind that guides every decision he makes is that he’s optimizing human race and granting our evolution as a species. I think that’s why he can take an insane amount of personal risk. When compared to the risks we as a society are facing, his personal risks seem small to him.

For Musk, the distinction between stumbling into something and having intent is important. He wasn’t just sniffing out trends, and he wasn’t consumed by the idea of getting rich. He’s been in pursuit of a master plan all along. “I really was thinking about this stuff in college. It’s not some invented story after the fact. I like to make technologies real that I think are important for the future and useful in some sort of way.”

For Elon, the word no does not exist, and he expects that attitude from everyone around him.

When dealing with the public relation world he has a strong mindset that you let no inaccuracy go uncorrected, no matter how small the mistake might look.

“Money is not his motivation, and, quite frankly, I think it just happens for him, it’s just there. He know he can generate it.” -Justine, ex-wife.

Talking about fin-tech startups (like Paypal nowadays): None of these startups understand the objective. The objective should be — what delivers fundamental value. I think it’s important to look at things from a standpoint of what is actually the best thing for the economy. If people can conduct their transactions quickly and securely that’s better for them. If it’s simpler to conduct their financial life it’s better for them. So, if all your financial affairs are seamlessly integrated one place it’s very easy to do transactions and the fees associated with transactions are low. These are all good things. Why aren’t they doing this? It’s mad.”

Other mindsets for making decisions:

• Approach the problems your are trying to solve from the bottom up. Start with what you know is absolutely true and build your thought from there. Don’t rely on assumptions to draw any conclusions. Eg. When coming back from Russia without being able to buy the rocket he wanted to buy for a decent price, he opened an spreadsheet and calculated how much would cost to build a rocket himself. He did basic math that was just multiplying the costs of available materials at the time needed to build the rocket by and amount of these materials needed.

• Don’t settle for any suboptimal solution when dealing with a hard problem because the result won’t last long enough so you can make an impact in the world. The optimal solution is the only way! Eg. Tesla cars needed to be not just a better electric car. It had to be the best car period, and ow, by the way, it’s also electric. This was the only way the masses would adopt the electric car and fossil fuel stop being burned for everyday transportation.

Most influential books to Elon:

• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

• The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress — Robert Heinlein

• The Lord of the Rings

• Foundation series — Isaac Asimov