Elon Musk
by Walter Isaacson
Buy: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop (Support Independent Bookstores!)
The Net-Net
Elon Musk is biographer Water Isaacson’s brave attempt at chronicling the life of Musk, a complex personality best known for his visionary entrepreneurship, wealth, and penchant for impulsive and controversial behavior. Musk granted Isaacson countless interviews and behind-the-scenes access to his personal and professional life for more than two years during the book’s creation, and one should approach the book with this unusually close biographer-subject relationship in mind. Overall, though, Isaacson’s unique perspective is worth engaging with and delivers an informative and entertaining account of Musk’s life—one that will certainly aid readers in understanding one of the world’s most talked-about public figures. In particular, Isaacson shines in his willingness to constantly question whether Musk’s accomplishments and successes can be separated from, or are instead a byproduct of, the dark and troubling parts of his personality. It’s a question without a clear answer, and one you’ll have to explore for yourself throughout the book.
Top 3 Insights
- Musk is energized by risk and danger. Perhaps Musk’s most distinguishing characteristic as a business leader is his tolerance for peril and uncertainty. Because Musk sincerely believes his work electrifying cars and advancing space exploration is helping us avoid a catastrophic Earth-melting, human-less future, his willingness to take on risky projects is much higher than it would be if he was merely focused on his companies’ bottom lines. Much of Musk’s success is attributable to his eager embrace of challenges and problems that most others would simply turn away from due to the high probability of failure.
- Dire situations can inspire unexpected success. One of Musk’s go-to tactics to induce productivity is to order a so-called “surge,” where he announces a seemingly arbitrary project deadline and expects an all-hands-on-deck, around-the-clock effort from employees to meet it. In the moment, these surges frustrate employees and portray Musk as an impulsive manager who unnecessarily manufactures drama and stress within his companies. In hindsight, though, these surges have been the catalyst for success at several critical moments in Musk’s professional life, from reaching profitable manufacturing scale at Tesla to launching groundbreaking rockets at SpaceX. Often times, the pressure and intensity of Musk’s surges forced his teams to think more creatively and invent process efficiencies that likely never would have materialized otherwise.
- Get closer to the source. Musk insists on small teams and few layers of bureaucracy at his companies. This organizational structure, Musk believes, leaves theoretically little room for things to be lost in translation between leadership and boots on the ground, and makes it easier to identify and engage with subject matter experts. At Tesla’s Freemont, CA factory, for example, designers’ and engineers’ desks are right next to the assembly line such that they can engage with manufacturing workers if problems arise. Musk is also well-known for requesting meetings with the specific engineer responsible for a project requirement he believes is unnecessary, and then pesters them with questions and objections to see if the requirement stands up to his scrutiny.
Actionability
Musk’s life story is far from a blueprint of how to become rich and successful, and many of his behaviors and most relied-upon management tactics would make other business leaders cringe and shake their head in disappointment. That said, Musk didn’t become what he is today by accident, and there’s value in understanding and appreciating elements of his personality and entrepreneurial toolkit that are worth drawing inspiration from. In this regard, Isaacson gives us plenty to work with.
- Challenge my team to simplify existing workflows and delete unnecessary project requirements.
- Have more skip level meetings to improve information flow.
- Critically evaluate how my work is helping address large-scale, societal problems.
Good Stories
Isaacson combines the benefits of exclusive access with exhaustive research to provide a rich and illuminating account of Musk’s upbringing, personality, and professional life. You wouldn’t guess it based on its 688-page length, but Elon Musk is written as a series of short sections—most less than 10 pages. Each section is driven by anecdotes from Musk’s life, which makes for an entertaining read that almost overwhelms you with stories about the biographee. Given how heavily Musk is covered in today’s media, though, some of the sections related to his most recent business adventures (e.g. Twitter acquisition) felt banal and could have been shortened or deleted.
- Musk saving Tesla and SpaceX on brink of bankruptcy in 2008.
- Bill Gates’ attempt to collaborate philanthropically with Musk. Isaacson’s account of this courtship humorously highlighted how quirky and stubborn both men are.
- Musk’s obsessions over the design of Tesla’s cars. From the first Roadster to the most recent Cybertruck, Musk has been deeply involved in the minutiae of Tesla designs, which often frustrates his engineers.
- The book’s opening chapters about Musk’s upbringing, which shine a light on the shockingly brutal and dangerous Pretoria, South Africa that Musk grew up in.
Key Quotes
- “As Max Levchin drily puts it, ‘One of Elon’s greatest skills is the ability to pass off his vision as a mandate from heaven.'” (94)
- “When most [investment banking] clients are given three or four options, they will ask which one the banker recommends. Musk, instead, asked detailed questions about each option but did not solicit a recommendation. He likes to make his own decision.” (490)
- “…Musk could be fiercely stubborn. He had a reality-distorting willfulness and a readiness to run roughshod over naysayers. This steeliness may have been one of the superpowers that produced his successes, along with his flameouts.” (503)
- “If conventional thinking makes your mission impossible, then unconventional thinking is necessary.” — Elon Musk (283)
- “The only rules are the ones dictated by the laws of physics. Everything else is a recommendation.” — Elon Musk (286)
- “All bad news should be given loudly and often. Good news can be said quietly and once.” — Elon Musk (486)
If This Were an MBA Class, it Would Be Called:
Taking The Good With The Bad: Lessons from a Billionaire Mercurial Manager
Best For:
- Designers, engineers, and their close collaborators
- Mission-driven founders
- Silicon Valley history buffs
Can’t get enough? Consider:
- Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
- Walter Isaacson’s interview about the book with Washington Post Live
- Tesla and SpaceX — Elon Musk’s industrial empire (60 Minutes, 2014) and Tesla CEO Elon Musk: The 60 Minutes Interview (60 Minutes, 2018, Paramount+ required)
Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly book summaries