With Solar City, it’s about creating a power infrastructure that will enable us to reliably use renewable energy. In relation to Tesla, it’s about transforming the auto industry and reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. In the case of SpaceX, it’s about putting people on Mars. He’s not talking about creating an app, building a website, or making a simple piece of hardware. What I find most impressive is the grand nature of Musk’s ideas. It also goes a long way to showing how determined he is to achieve his vision, at all costs. The book explains a lot about Musk’s personality and what makes him tick. “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future” by Ashlee Vance recounts Musk’s life from his childhood, through his teen and college years, through companies he successfully started as a young adult, through his time at PayPal, to his current ventures with Tesla and SpaceX. When I saw that a similar book had been written about Elon Musk, I knew I had to read it. It was a fascinating tale of how Jeff Bezos conceived and built Amazon. One of my favorite books from 2015 was “The Everything Store” by Brad Stone. I enjoy following and learning about how they have pursued their passions and built companies around their visions. Fortunately, there are two clear exceptions in my opinion – Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. Too much energy and money is spent chasing the latest “quick buck” ideas rather than exceptional breakthroughs. On the whole, I am rather disappointed with the innovation in our current generation. While it can be debated how much came at the expense of the lower and middle classes, the fact remains that their ideas and the businesses they created had a profound impact felt around the world.

It was inspiring to watch how industrialists such as Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Ford transformed America during the late 19th and early 20th century. Back in early 2015, I watched the documentary series, “The Men Who Built America”.

Elon musk by ashlee vance review