SUCCESS STORY

Elon Musk: Secrets Behind Success of Today’s Greatest Innovator and Entrepreneur

By Bethany Haag | Human Resource Management and Marketing Double-Major

The rocket successfully launched. Elon Musk knew this was it — the moment a reusable rocket would successfully orbit earth. SpaceX had been trying to launch an efficient and reusable rocket ever since Elon Musk founded the private space company in 2002 with 100 million dollars of his own money (Jacoby 2011). As the rocket neared orbit, Musk felt the air tighten in the room. “BOOM,” the SpaceX team winced as they watched their third rocket explode right before reaching orbit.

After the shock settled in, Musk ordered his exhausted crew to go home and rest. When his discouraged employees returned the next day, he eagerly waited with an announcement. He gathered his team together and announced that he knew what had gone wrong during the launch and assured them a fourth launch would take place in a matter of months. He announced, “I’m gonna raise 40 million dollars to keep this company going… and I’m gonna invest it all myself” (Jacoby 2011). The next day, Elon Musk invested an additional 75 million dollars into SpaceX. His incredible confidence catalyzed a dramatic shift in the opinions of SpaceX, prompting investors. Only a few months later, SpaceX successfully launched a reusable rocket for the first time in history (Jacoby 2011). Many factors enabled Elon Musk to reach a point where he could invent and sell ground-breaking technology. A combination of lucky breaks, personal sacrifices, and strong characteristics allowed him to achieve 10,000 hours of experience as an innovator and entrepreneur, combining to get him to where he stands today.

Elon Musk, today’s greatest innovator and entrepreneur, grew up in South Africa with his mother, Maye Musk, a model and a nutritionist, and his father, Errol Musk, an engineer. The eldest of three, Musk began private school a year early. Short, smart, and smug, young Elon Musk repelled kids his age. He constantly read books and simply “tried to stay out of people’s way” (Jacoby 2011). He purchased every comic book he encountered and read every book he got his hands on. His mother stated, “At one point he ran out of books and started reading encyclopedias” (Jacoby 2011). At age 10, IBM ran an aptitude test at Musk’s school and he received a higher score in computer programming than his own teacher. So he started programming his own video game, Blastar, instead of attending lectures. By age 12, Musk and his brother had devised a business plan to open an arcade and start selling Blastar. Their ineligibility to lease a building was the only obstacle that kept Musk and his brother from opening their business (Jacoby 2011).

As Elon approached 17, he began planning how he could move to America to avoid being drafted into the South African military. Musk believed, “America is where great things are possible, more than any other country in the world” (Jacoby 2011). Not only did he want to move to America to avoid the South African draft, he believed if he could make a difference in the world, the most promising place to start was the U.S. He planned to move from South Africa to Canada and from Canada to America. He reasoned that it would be easier to move from Canada to America than to move from South Africa to America. At age 17 he moved to Canada and at age 19 Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, accepted Musk into their undergraduate program. Two years later, Musk transferred to the University of Pennsylvania where he earned a degree in Physics and Engineering and another in Economics. At age 24, Musk moved to California to begin a PhD in Applied Physics at Stanford University. However, after two days he dropped out to start Zip2, a company that would bring newspapers into the digital world and provide the first online city listing. Zip2 thrived and Musk sold it to a company called Compaq for 22 million dollars, almost instantly using the money to found his next company, X.com. X.com made electronic cash transfers possible for the growing digital world. Soon X.com merged with Confinity to create PayPal. In 2002, EBay acquired PayPal and Musk received 165 million dollars, again almost instantly investing the money into his next company, SpaceX. Musk founded SpaceX with the long-term goal of creating a “true spacefaring civilization” (Jacoby 2011). Of course he didn’t stop at sending humanity to space. In 2003 he co-founded Tesla Motors, an electric motor company, with the ultimate goal of providing world-wide sustainable transportation. In addition to providing sustainable transportation, Musk wanted to provide sustainable energy. So in 2006, he co-founded SolarCity, which is now the second largest provider of solar energy in the United States (Jacoby 2011). When closely analyzing people like Musk, one can discover that many factors contribute to success. More specifically, success can be credited to a combination of lucky breaks, personal sacrifices, and strong characteristics.

To start off, life blessed Elon Musk with a multitude of lucky breaks that added up to form what Malcolm Gladwell called “The Matthew Effect.” He described “The Matthew Effect” in his book, Outliers, as “those who are successful… are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success… success, then, is ‘accumulative advantage’” (30). In fact, “Lucky breaks don’t seem like the exception with software billionaires and rock bands and star athletes. They seem like the rule” (56). Already successful people tend to accumulate special opportunities that further their success. In the case of Elon Musk, life blessed him with the special opportunity of being born into a white wealthy family in South Africa, during the time of the Apartheid. He possessed unlimited access to books, technology, and his family could afford sending him to a prestigious private school (Jacoby 2011). This provided Elon with a huge academic advantage over a majority of the world’s kindergarteners. Secondly, being born to a Canadian mother provided him with another lucky break. Because Ms. Musk was born in Canada she possessed dual citizenship (Jacoby 2011). Her dual citizenship made it less difficult for Musk to become a Canadian citizen and to eventually become an American citizen. Thirdly, the success of Zip2 created a huge lucky break for Musk. In her article “The Shared Genius of Elon Musk and Steve Jobs,” Anne Vandermey quotes Elon Musk saying, “I had zero certainty that we would succeed. In fact, I thought the likeliest outcome was failure” (4). Even Musk himself admitted that the success of his first company should be credited to luck. The lucky break supplied by Zip2 provided him with enough money to found his next company, X.com. Vandermey reflects on this “Matthew Effect” phenomenon, saying, “One success builds confidence (and resources) for the next one. Jobs could not have gambled on Pixar without his Apple money and the confidence it gave him. Ditto Musk” (5). Here she references how PayPal funded SpaceX and how PayPal’s success funded Musk’s confidence. This same phenomenon can be seen in Steve Jobs, who relied on his money from Apple to gamble on Pixar. However, Vandermey elaborates, saying, “Even with all the right mental attributes, the first big success still requires some luck. You have to be in the right place at the right time. Without that, you may have no opportunity to hit the second rung on the ladder” (5). This pattern of success fueling future success continued through every company Musk founded. Because of his previous businesses, he always possessed enough money and confidence to personally fund whatever company he wanted to start next.

Elon Musk could not have reached the level of success he has achieved today without those reoccurring lucky breaks. Consequently, without lucky breaks he could never have obtained the 10,000 hours of innovation and entrepreneurship experience necessary for earning expert-level status. Ericsson and colleagues write in their article, “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance,” that “there is a relatively widespread conception that if individuals are innately talented they can easily and rapidly achieve an exceptional level of performance once they have acquired basic skills and knowledge. Biographical material disproves this notion” (366). Research proves success cannot be credited solely to innate talent. Ericsson and colleagues referenced a study on professional chess players performed by Simon and Chase (1973), which observed that “nobody had attained the level of an international chess master ‘with less than about a decade’s intense preparation with the game’” (366). They continued to write, “The highest levels of performance and achievement appear to require at least 10 years of intense prior preparation” (366). Malcolm Gladwell supported this statement, writing, “And what’s ten years? Well, it’s roughly how long it takes to put in ten thousand hours of hard practice. Ten thousand hours is the magic number for greatness” (41). Study after study proves that expert-level status requires a minimum of 10,000 hours of experience. Without lucky breaks, Elon Musk may not have possessed enough money to start X.com, consequently reducing his many opportunities for experience and success.

Although lucky breaks contributed to Musk’s success, if he had not sacrificed all of his money, time, and personal life, he would not have attained 10,000 hours of experience. Lucky breaks require sacrifice. From the beginning, Musk sacrificed every penny for his businesses. When he and his brother Kimball Musk founded Zip2, “Instead of getting an apartment [they] rented a small office and slept on the couch. [They] showered at the YMCA and had just one computer” (Jacoby 2011). They invested every penny into Zip2, saving barely enough money to survive. Musk said once he sold Zip2 and PayPal, “I had the choice of retiring and buying an island somewhere and sipping Mai Tai’s all day, but that was not of interest to me at all… there really wasn’t a choice of if we were going to do anything, it was what we were going to do next” (Jacoby 2011). Rather than investing his money into retirement, Musk invested 100 million dollars into the founding of SpaceX. Soon after investing 100 million into SpaceX, Musk invested 6.3 million into the founding of Tesla Motors. Then he invested another 75 million into SpaceX when it needed funding for a new rocket launch. When Tesla ran out of money in 2007 and no one stepped up to save the unproven automobile company, Musk took the leap alone. He risked every penny and invested all of his reserved capital into Tesla (Jacoby 2011). If Musk had refused to sacrifice his money for the success of his businesses they would have failed and consequently he would have sacrificed years of priceless experience.

In addition to money, from a young age Elon Musk sacrificed his time. As a child, “he spent more time with books than with friends. He inhaled science, history, and comic books” (Vandermey 2). Because he spent the majority of his time reading, Musk rarely spent time with friends. At age 12 he spent his time programming Blastar and planning how he could sell it (Jacoby 2011). Around age 17 he spent his time devising a strategic plan to immigrate to the United States. At age 24 Musk dropped out of graduate school to start Zip2, where he and his brother “worked like hell. [They] were putting in like 80 hour -100 hour weeks every week. The website was up during the day and [Elon] coded at night. [They] worked hard every waking hour” (Jacoby 2011). Musk explained why they worked so many hours, saying, “If someone works 50 hours per week verses 100 hours, the person working 100 hours will get twice as much done as the person working 50 hours in the course of a year” (Jacoby 2011). As Musk grew older he continued to channel all of his time into learning and developing his businesses. When Tesla Motors underwent a financial crisis, Musk announced to his employees, “I’m available 24/7 to help solve issues. Call me at 3 AM on a Sunday morning, I don’t care” (Jacoby 2011). Bill Joy, an American computer scientist born in the 1950’s, embraced a similar philosophy when it came to his work. Joy stated, “I would stay [at the Computer Center] all night… I was spending more time in the Computer Center than on my classes” (Gladwell 45). Joy sacrificed his time for experience in the computer programming field. Like Joy, without the willingness to sacrifice his time, Elon Musk would have struggled to attain 10,000 hours of experience.

Along with the willingness to sacrifice time and money came the willingness to sacrifice his personal life and comfort. As stated by Elon Musk’s ex-wife, Justine Musk, “Extreme success results from an extreme personality that comes at the cost of many other things” (Sorkin 1). Ms. Musk stated, “I just felt that his work always came first. I had a sense of being sidelined” (Jacoby 2011). When forced to choose between his personal relationships and his dream to positively impact humanity, Musk chose to follow his dreams. Not only did he sacrifice his relationships, but he also sacrificed his comfort. Looking back on Zip2, Elon and Kimball Musk sacrificed their comfort by living out of the Zip2 office. Musk sacrificed his comfort when he told his Tesla employees that they could call him 24/7. Without the willingness to sacrifice his money, time, and personal life for his companies, they would not have reached the level of success that they did.

In order for one to attain the willingness to trade everything for 10,000 hours of experience, one must possess certain characteristics. What could drive a person to trade everything that most people value in life? Well, without obsession, Musk would not have sacrificed everything. He obsessed over the details of his products as well his big picture dream (Vandermey 3). Musk “really wants to change the world. In his vision, [humanity] will have clean, renewable sources of energy feeding the grid, and all of our vehicles will run off that. With SpaceX, he literally wants to go to Mars. Like set up private colonies on Mars and push space exploration past that which the government will do” (Jacoby 2011). He dreamed big and planned big daily. In respect to the details, “Musk would notice a headlamp that misaligned by three millimeters. The wrong type of screw in a sun visor ‘felt like daggers in my eyes’” (Vandermey 3). Musk obsessed over the end product as well as whichever product he considered a stepping stone to his big picture goals. Similarly, Bill Gates, multi-billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, also obsessed over his passion of computer programming. Famous for his obsessive qualities in regards to computer programming, Bill Gates stated, “It was my obsession… I skipped athletics. I went up there [the ISI mainframe] at night. We were programming every weekend” (Gladwell 52). Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Inc. also possessed these same qualities, “notoriously involving himself in every single aspect of the design of his product, even the parts nobody would ever see” (Vandermey 3). A certain amount of obsession which can be found in Gates, Jobs, and Musk, is necessary for accessing the motivation to sacrifice everything for a single cause.

In addition to obsession, to obtain the willingness to sacrifice everything one must possess conviction. Vandermey states that “the fire that fuels determination is conviction” (3). Conviction, deeper than determination, “comes about when the possible future that you see aligns with a deeply held view of how the world should be. The greater clarity you have of a possible future and the more passionate your view is of the desirability of that future, the greater your conviction will be” (Vandermey 3). Musk pictured in detail how he believed the world should look and the path to get the world there. The desire that fueled Musk’s conviction stemmed from his “core beliefs of what a better future look[ed] like. Since his college days, he was certain that humanity must move to sustainable energy and that it must find a path to expand beyond Earth” (Vandermey 4). Musk embodied those beliefs, so when he devised a plan to attain those goals, his conviction enabled him to gamble everything to reach them. For example, he felt a deep conviction to make the world a better place by creating reusable rockets. At the time, “the prevailing wisdom in the industry was that the space shuttle program proved that reusability was a fool’s errand” (Vandermey 3). Despite widespread doubt, Musk continued to lean on his conviction and his knowledge of engineering, arguing, “And it was obvious to me that we could never colonize Mars without reusability, any more than America would have been colonized if they had to burn the ships after every trip” (Vandermey 3). Musk truly believed that without reusable rockets the world could not reach the end picture he imagined. In both the cases of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, the products they imagined seemed daunting to others. However, their conviction fueled their determination to continue pursuing their dreams and convincing others to follow them. In the midst of the 2008 market crash, this conviction governed Musk “to gamble the last of his personal funds to keep the company alive and to give the Model S a chance to see the light of day” (Vandermey 4). Witnessing Musk risk everything for Tesla, his employees and investors altered their view of the new un-proven company. Conviction proved critical for the motivation of Elon Musk and Steve Jobs as well as for their ability to persuade others to follow them.

Furthermore, unconventional thinking and acting is necessary for distinguishing oneself amidst other innovators and entrepreneurs. As a child, Elon Musk feared the dark until his mother informed him that darkness was merely the absence of light. He researched the nature of darkness and found she was right — darkness was simply a lack of photons. He said to his mother, “Oh, well it’s really silly to be afraid of a lack of photons” (Jacoby 2011). After that he no longer feared darkness. Musk embraced this unique style of thinking from a young age. Musk found his clarity of vison in the basic laws of physics, also known as first principles reasoning (Jacoby 2011). He described first principles reasoning as “boiling things down to their fundamental truths and reasoning up from there, as opposed to reasoning by analogy. Through most of our life, we get through life by reasoning by analogy, which essentially means copying what other people do with slight variations… but when you want to do something new, you have to apply the physics approach” (Vandermey 4). Musk stated that the world does not change by limiting imagination to a variation of what others have already imagined. He never looked at what NASA already invented and wondered how to tweak it. He started fresh, beginning with the basic laws of physics. Successful innovators and entrepreneurs don’t follow a pre-existing path, they create a brand new path (Sorkin 1). Bill Gates didn’t create Microsoft by building off the current technology of the time. He started programming by building up from a completely new product (Gladwell 15–35). Without an unconventional manner of thinking, the innovation and entrepreneurship involved in the success of Elon Musk would not have been possible. Without the obsession, conviction, and unconventional thinking that drove Musk to sacrifice his money, time, and personal life, he would have struggled to utilize his lucky breaks to attain 10,000 hours of experience.

“After that third failure in a row, did you think, ‘I need to pack this in’?” interviewer Max Chafkin questioned Elon Musk. Without hesitation Musk replied, “Never.” “Why not?” Chafkin asked. Musk answered, “I don’t ever give up. I mean, I’d have to be dead, or completely incapacitated” (Jacoby 2011). The mentality displayed in Elon Musk’s answer is the mentality that fueled SpaceX to “accomplish in 6 years what NASA would’ve accomplished in 20–30 years” (Jacoby 2011). Recognizing Musk’s breakthroughs in cost and efficiency, NASA awarded SpaceX a 1.6 billion dollar contract to service the space station (Jacoby 2011). Lucky breaks helped Elon Musk reach this point of success by providing him with opportunities for learning, confidence, and connections. Musk sacrificed all of his time, money, and personal life for his job. He was obsessed, convicted, and unique. His job was more than a job. He sacrificed everything because he envisioned the long-term goals for his businesses. Musk felt convicted to alter the course of humanity for the better. Because of this, he obsessed over whatever it took to reach that goal. Musk possessed a unique style of problem solving that allowed him to truly do what no man had done before. To truly do what no man has done before, one must follow the examples left by Elon Musk. Keep an eye out for lucky breaks. Take advantage of them. Be willing to invest every penny, every moment, and every relationship. To truly do what no man has done before, one must be willing to trade anything for their 10,000 hours of experience.

Works Cited

Ericsson, K. Anders, Ralf T. Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Römer. “The Role Of Deliberate Practice in The Acquisition Of Expert Performance.” Psychological Review 100.3 (1993): 363–406. PsycARTICLES. Web. 29 Apr. 2015.

Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2008. Print.

Elon Musk Profiled: Bloomberg Risk Takers. Oren Jacoby. Perf. Bray Poor, Elon Musk, and Maye Musk. Bloomberg Risk Takers, 2011. Film.

Sorkin, Andrew Ross. “Elon Musk’s Ex-Wife on What It Takes to Be a Mogul.” The New YorkTimes. The New York Times, 27 Apr. 2015. Web. 29 Apr. 2015.

Vandermey, Anne. “The Shared Genius Of Elon Musk And Steve Jobs.” Fortune 168.9 (2013):98. Business Source Premier. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bethany Haag, a freshman business major at Bethel University, seeks an internship with a business that strives to improve lives globally. Haag enjoys pursing athletic activities that challenge her, searching to educate herself on international cultures and the political foundations of foreign countries, and participating in a band as a drummer and singer at her church.

WHAT I’VE LEARNED

Sprawled out on the love seat under my lofted college bed, I shut my computer out of frustration. I couldn’t find an interesting and successful or influential person who was worthy of writing a paper on. Slouching and cuddling up to my microfiber zebra blanket I treated myself with an iPhone break. “I bet Bryan would know of someone successful and influential, he knows everything…” I thought to myself as I clicked on his name and asked my boyfriend what ideas he had. Sure enough, he listed off few names. George Bush, Bill Gates, Nelson Mandela, and Elon Musk. I didn’t recognize Elon Musk. However, I began researching him and developed a new obsession. I couldn’t believe I had never heard of him before! He was probably the world’s most successful innovator and entrepreneur.

The research I found shocked me multiple times as I learned about Elon Musk. I had no idea the products he invented even existed. The fact that he launched a reusable rocket blew my mind away. The fact that thousands of homes and businesses were being powered with renewable solar energy was news to me. Before reading about Musk, I mistakenly believed that his accomplishments were merely humanity’s unreachable goals that had yet to be attained, due to the lack of focus on the big picture of today’s innovators and entrepreneurs. The characteristic that distinguishes Elon Musk’s work is one of large importance — an impactful vision to positively influence humanity in the long-term.

My Tuesday/Thursday College Writing class followed a similar big-picture philosophy. Professor Winter assigned each task with a big-picture goal in mind — to enable our class with the ability to use multiple sources and multiple experiences to our advantage in a research paper, whether they be conventional or non-conventional.

Whether or not Professor Winter planned to teach patience, I learned patience and trust through College Writing. Asking myself, “Why do we have to finish this assignment?” or “Why do we have to write every day if he is never going to grade the writings?” and learning to trust the reason behind them and take advantage of those opportunities to improve.

Taking initiative has always come easy to me. Taking a risk and putting myself out there by doing something unconventional has never come easy to me. It probably never will. I am not a risk-taker. However, College Writing challenged to me to take risks, no matter how small, such as writing an unconventional cover letter. College Writing taught me following the rules does not necessariy catch peoples’ attention — skillfully and cautiously not following the rules does.

I dread researching. Typically researching is an extremely grueling process for me. In very few instances have I successfully located a decent article in under 3 hours. However, slowly but surely, college writing improved my researching techniques, starting by teaching me that it is OK to ask for help. If I had been too stubborn to ask Bryan for help it would have taken me at least another hour to come across a decent candidate for my paper.

Apparetly research does not have to be limited to articles found through EbscoHost. Interviews or documentaries posted online are much more intriguing.

I have always disliked group assignments or interactions, due to poor experiences with cooperation and participation. Despite this, Professor Winter integrated numerous group assignments and interactons into the curriculum, leading me to realize how beneficial they can be. The majority of people like to contribute and it is my responsibility to be open to that and not assume they will let me down.

One trap I often fall into is the misconception that I can be the best at everything if I try. I’m often too disappointed if I don’t always come out on top and researching success has forced me to realize that I can not always be the best at everything. Those who are the best at a certain profession or talent sacrifice their whole lives for that one thing. They must put in at least 10,000 hours to get to the point where they are the best. There is not physically enough time for me to put 10,000 hours into everything to be the best at everything. Researching success has forced me to make a decison — do I truly want to be the best at something? Or do I want to have many different relationships and hobbies in my life that I can be pretty good at?

In the dim light of my lamp at midnight on a Wednesday, butt falling asleep, head pounding, and roommate snoring in the background, I completed my rough draft. A week early. I found it annoying that my roommate had gone to bed at 9:00 and I knew she didn’t have to get up until 11:00 the next morning, until I realized I was annoying too. I had finished my 10-page paper a week before everyone else for the heck of it. I’d started it five hours ago and had only moved once to pee, because that’s what it takes for me to write a paper. I have to do it all in one sitting. However, I found that there was something much easier about writing this paper. All of my research had already been completed and integrated into the big picture of my paper. I hadn’t done it in one sitting after all. Being a part of the writing covenant (a.k.a. College Writing) taught me how to keep my eyes open for useful sources that can be integrated into my paper so I don’t have to sit at my desk for 8 hours keeping my roommate awake with the clicking of my keyboard.

Being part of the writing covenant also means I get free animal crackers.

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