Elon Musk — not an average billionaire
Why prioritizing human’s future is the best way to do a business
The serial entrepreneur told Tim Urban of Wait But Why that he doesn’t think what he’s been doing is called a business. “All a company is is a bunch of people together to create a product or service. There’s no such thing as a business, just pursuit of a goal — a group of people pursuing a goal.” The more you know about him, the more this statement makes sense.
This guy doesn’t know the concept of doing business
Growing up in South Africa, Elon has been called a nerd since he was around 10 years old. The young boy was only making friends with books, computer, and his siblings. At the age of 12, he wrote a computer game called Blastar, which source code later was sold to a computer magazine with USD500 coming to his pocket. Moving to Canada when he was 17, Elon already had his plan to change the world. He worked to feed himself through college with Physics major. He moved to the US, where big ideas come true, and where he got a scholarship to study at Stanford University. He quit after two days to build his first startup — Zip2.
Zip2 was an electronic yellow page where people could look up directory on their computer connected to the internet. At that point, the internet was still new to people, and the only way to find directory was to open the yellow pages. Elon changed how corporations and customers connect with one another by turing all the information of the yellow pages into electronic pages. Hundreds of companies signed up for his services later on. Zip2 was sold to Compaq 4 years later for USD307 million in cash.
Not stopping for a second, in 1999, Elon founded X.com, an online bank which was credited to transfer money using the recipient’s email address. At that point, it often took weeks to deliver a paycheck when people shopped online or transferred money to each other. Needless to say, the fact that X.com was born totally changed the financial world. X.com was then merged with another Internet moneytransfer company called Confinity, to become PayPal and expanded to global market. Two years later, eBay bought PayPal for USD1.5 billion, and Elon walked away with USD165 million.
Instead of buying an island to enjoy the rest of his life, Elon started another business soon after.
Reading too many comics and scientific books causing inside of him a fantasy of living in space.
He founded SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies) in 2002 after taking several trips to Russia to talk to their experts and bargain for a used rocket. Elon has always wanted to build a space flight system which could take people out of space at affordable prices. Elon wants to turn Mars into another living place for human beings, and even build a greenhouse on it. Starting SpaceX seems to be the very first step in his plan. Regular rocket company would buy the components from other manufacturers, SpaceX builds its rockets from scratch.With three failures in a row when launching Falcon 1, he said “I will never give up. I’d have to be dead or completely incapacitated.” His belief on himself and his team paid off when they succeeded with the next launch. SpaceX became the first private company to have its satellite in space. SpaceX now has proved what he said was true. They surpassed Boeing to sign a billion-worth contract with NASA in 2014 to deliver cargo to ISS.
Dragon - the first private satellite in space (source: spacex)
Constantly thinking about the future of energy, Elon said burning fossil fuel is how people put an end to the Earth. “Why run this crazy experiment to see how bad it’ll be?”, Elon said with clear reasons. Sooner or later, the fossil fuel sources as coal, oil and gas will come to an end, and at that point, human will either run out of things to burn to get energy or damage the Earth, or both.
He thinks it is time to look for sustainable energy. His way is to start with how people transport. The billionaire founded his electric car company called Tesla Motors, and currently serves as its CEO. Tesla has proved cars can run without oil and gas, and still look fashionable. Tesla now has manufactured sports cars, roadsters, and sedans. All Tesla cars are charged for free in charging stations all over the US and other countries.
Cars can be eco and sexy (source: teslamotors)
In order to serve his plan on creating a sustainable energy source, Elon turned to the Sun. He co-founded SolarCity, where solar packs have been produced for both industrial and domestic use. The recent product called Powerpack is a domestic power source that can provide up to 7 to 10 kWh, enough to provide electricity to a house in several hours.
Not stopping at finance, electricity and sustainable energy, Elon has also invested in various fields, all for the development of humankind. Some remarkable investments to mention are Surrey Satellite Technology, Tesla Science School, Future Life Institute, X Prize Foundation, Startup Neuro Vigil (human brain analysis technology), and recently Hyperloop - a super fast train with the speed of 1,200km/h!
Elon Musk might not know what a business is, might not be good at financing and sales – Tesla lost $19,810 per car sold in 2014 — but he definitely knows what he’s been doing to the world and how to inspire people to think of human’s future and what the world needs whenever they do their business. As of this writing, his three companies have been thriving. SpaceX successful delivered THAICOM 8, a communication satelite, to a Super Synchronous Transfer Orbit. Tesla received over 180,000 reservations for the newest car — Tesla Model 3 — on the first launching day. SolarCity was funded $485M in building a Gigafactory, producing 10,000 modules a day, by the State of New York. It is clear that he has been successful in having his people to work for a (ambitious) goal.