Today I want to talk about someone that most of us are becoming increasingly familiar with, Mr. Elon Musk. With a huge macro vision of the world and the future of humanity, Elon Musk is making big plays and having huge impacts on society and the economy. I am inspired to write this post because I recently was talking with the owner of a limo company in Phoenix I use often, and he was telling me he met Elon in person a few years back, and he was a force of nature. He said he was only able to speak with him for a minute or so, but that’s all it took to realize how powerful this 44 year old is.
From interviews I’ve watched it is very evident that Elon is on a mission for both himself and humanity as a whole. With an overarching vision for humanities future and a great understanding for where things are moving societally, environmentally and technologically, Elon has created very successful and impactful businesses. With this keen sense of where things are going he has become the first person to create three companies that are individually worth a billion dollars, from the ground up.
His success started with his creation of Paypal, because he knew the inevitable future market for online commerce, and just a few years after its creation he and his partner sold Paypal for $1.5 billion to eBay. Elon used this capital to fund both his latest projects SpaceX and Tesla Motors. From the interview below it sounds as though Elon’s true baby is SpaceX and his goal of helping to colonize Mars is his biggest aspiration and his current north star. Though populating Mars may sound absurd to many, Elon knows this is the trajectory man is heading, and making big strides in helping us get there.
This forward thinking mentality is exactly what spawned Tesla Motors as well. He knows inevitably we are heading towards electric vehicles as our main source of transportation, so why not help to expedite that movement. Additionally Musk has founded Solar City, California’s largest residential solar provider since 2007. Understanding how under developed solar has been, he has made large efforts to expand solar nation wide with competitive solar leasing options. This has led to his recent Tesla Powerwall batteries and Powerpack batteries, which are used to store large amounts of electricity. These technologies offer residents the ability to store large amounts of electricity in case of emergency, but also the ability to pull electricity from the grid during off peak hours and use it during on peak hours, which means people spend less on electricity. The batteries coupled with solar power are making renewable energies more viable and increasingly prevalent in homes across the country. Theses technologies are offering residents really affordable ways of being more energy efficient and in most cases saving them money with no money out of pocket.
There are few people who can live life at the velocity that Elon Musk is currently living his life, as well as offer so much of themselves to the business that they have put forth. In fact there are few people who could stand so bravely on the edge of failure like Elon has and persevere through it. In many interviews Elon has made it very clear that failure is not an option and those words speak loudly considering the hurtles he has overcome to make both Tesla Motors and SpaceX profitable businesses that still stand today. Although some may think that living your life so full-throttle, is no way to live; we must thank people like Elon for doing what so many are not willing to do and helping to provide humanity with solutions to our modern dilemmas.
It’s hard to say what direction Elon will go next with his career, or maybe it’s not, because everything seems to be a calculated part of one big plan. Whatever the next step is in the overarching plan, I am sure it will be huge, and game changing.
Check out the interview below to get further insight into the mind of Elon Musk.