What Church People Can Learn from Elon Musk, Tesla, & Space X

I hate audiobooks. I consider my $149.50 Gold Membership to Amazon’s Audible one of the worst investments of the year. It’s not Audible; it’s me. Two things usually happen: the author will make some point in the introduction and then my mind will run. That’s great until I come back into orbit in chapter 3. That happens or I fall straight to sleep.

And then Ashlee Vance’s audiobook Elon Musk: Tesla, Space X, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future was recommended to me by a priest friend… Elon’s story has me captivated!

Elon Musk co-founded two startups in Silicon Valley in the 90’s; we know one of them today as PayPal. But when Ebay bought PayPal in 2002 for $1.5 billion, Elon didn’t just sit on his $165 million return. That’s when he got to work. Today, Elon runs three companies (Space X, Tesla, Solar City) and his net worth is over $14.2 billion.

Lots of people have lots to say about Elon Musk: “He’s a visionary.” “No, he’s insane.” “He’s inspiring.” “No, he’s a narcissist.” I’m not here to make judgments on him, his vocabulary, his personal life, or his business practices. I want to highlight one thing:

Elon Musk takes the status quo in his hands and he snaps it across his knee.

Let’s take two examples: the car and the rocket. You say that you can’t make attractive electric cars. Elon says: the Model S. You respond by saying that those attractive electric cars can’t also be affordable. Elon says: well, the…