Elon Musk's guide to success.. 6 secrets behind the richest man in the world
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos
breakthrough he decided to dust off that interview and share it with readers, sourced Elon Musk's Guide to Business Success.
1. It's not about the money!
This is central to Musk's attitude toward business, Rowlatt says, when he interviewed him in 2014, he told him he didn't know how rich he was!
"It doesn't mean that I have a lot of money somewhere," he said. "It's just that I have a certain number of shares in Tesla, SpaceX and SolarCity, and the market places a value on these shares. He has nothing to prevent the pursuit of wealth if it is done." in a good moral way. But he emphasized that this was not his motive.
Indeed, like Bill Gates, Musk might consider leaving billions in banks a sign of failing to put that money to good use.
2. Follow your passion!
The Mars base is evidence of what Musk believes is the key to success. "You want things to get better in the future," he said in the interview. "You want these new and exciting things that make life better."
Taking SpaceX as an example, Musk says he started the company because he was frustrated with the US space program, which was no more ambitious.
"I kept hoping we'd go beyond Earth, put someone on Mars, have a base on the Moon and have frequent orbital flights," he says.
Since that didn't happen, he came up with the idea for the Mars Oasis Mission, which aims to send a greenhouse to the Red Planet.
The idea was to get people interested in space again, and to persuade the US government to increase NASA's budget. As he tried to bring this idea to life, he realized that the problem was not "a lack of will, but a lack of a way to do it", as space technology was exorbitantly expensive.
Musk told the reporter that he considers himself an engineer, not an investor, and that what wakes him up in the morning is a desire to solve technical problems.
In fact this is the measure of progress, more than the dollars hoarded in the banks, he knows that every obstacle his companies overcome helps others trying to solve the same problem, so it is solved forever.
That's why, shortly before that press interview, the businessman announced that he would release all of Tesla's patents to accelerate the development of electric cars around the world.
3. Don't be afraid to think big
One of the really amazing things about Musk's work is how daring it is. He wants to revolutionize the auto industry, colonize Mars, build high-speed trains in vacuum tunnels, integrate artificial intelligence into human brains, and change solar power and the battery industry.
But all of his projects have one thing in common, which is that they are the kind of futuristic fantasy that you might find in a children's magazine from the early 1980s. Musk does not hide the fact that he was influenced by books and films from his childhood in South Africa.
Which brings us to Musk's third tip: Don't hold back. He believes that low-ceilinged ambitions are built into the incentive structures of most companies.
Considering that many companies take a “incremental” approach, he said, “If you are the CEO of a large company and your goal is to make a modest improvement, if it takes longer than expected and does not work well, no one will blame you.. You can say it was not your fault, It's the service providers' fault."
Conversely, if you are bold and looking for a real game-changer, and you don't succeed, you will almost certainly be fired.
So Musk says that's why most companies focus on making small improvements to their existing products, rather than daring to imagine entirely new products.
So his advice is to make sure you're working on what he calls "things that are going to matter," and two things stand out in Musk's hierarchy of those things that matter.
First, accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels.
Second, ensuring the long-term survival of humanity by colonizing Mars and "making
4. Be willing to take risks
According to Musk, one must have the stamina to do a good job, the one who takes the most risks. In 2002, he sold his shares in his first two companies, one a virtual city directory called Zip2 and the other the online payments company PayPal.
He had just turned 30 and had nearly $200 million in the bank.
He says his plan was to put half his fortune into the business and keep the other half, but it didn't turn out that way, with the BBC journalist noting that the interview coincided with Musk's exit from the darkest period of his career.
Musk's new companies had all kinds of problems, with the first three SpaceX launches failing and Tesla with all kinds of problems in production, supply chain and design, and then the financial crisis hit.
Musk said he faced a tough choice: “I can keep the money, let the companies go down, or invest what's left, there might be an opportunity."
Indeed, he kept spending money, and at one point he was so in debt that he had to borrow money from friends to pay his living expenses. At the time, was he afraid of bankruptcy?
No, he says, "My kids had to go to public school. It's great. I went to public school."
5. Ignore criticism
What shocked Musk was the joy of many experts and commentators at his plight.
"Liberal schadenfreude (the pleasure in the misfortune of others) was really cool," he said. "There have been many blogs calculating the time of Tesla's death."
Journalist Justin Rowlatt believes that people wanted him to fail because they thought there was some arrogance in his ambition.
But Musk refused, saying, "I think it would be arrogant if we said we would definitely do it, rather than that we aspire to do it, and that we would do our best."
This brings us to Musk's next lesson on business success: Don't listen to the critics!
Musk also told him that he didn't think SpaceX or Tesla could make money when he created them, and the truth is no one thought so. But he shrugged it off and continued anyway, judging success based on the major problems he solved, not how much money he got.
He's not worried about looking stupid because his huge financial gamble didn't pay off, he just keeps pursuing big ideas programme.
In 2020, Crew Dragon rockets carried six astronauts to the International Space Station, the first such mission from US soil since the space shuttles were retired in 2011.
6. Enjoy!
Musk is notorious for being a workaholic, bragging about working 120 hours a week to keep Tesla Model 3 production on track, but he seems to have been enjoying it.
He has sparked controversy over his character with allegations of defamation and direct drug use and an uproar on social media. And in 2018, he faced a problem before the Securities Exchange, the regulator of financial markets in America, when he tweeted about his intention to put Tesla for subscription.
And when the Covid-19 pandemic forced Tesla to halt production at its San Francisco Bay plant, Musk became a vocal opponent of the coronavirus restrictions.
On Twitter, he called the virus panic "foolish" and the stay-at-home orders "forced imprisonment", saying they were "fascist" and violated constitutional rights.
He also announced on Twitter that he would give his newborn son a strange name, X Æ A-12 Musk.
And the year 2020 ended with obstacles related to the test of the Starship launch vehicle, which is expected to take the first batch of humans to Mars, as the landing process failed and the giant rocket exploded when it fell six minutes after takeoff, but Musk praised the test and described it as an “astounding” success, and began on Immediately search for other solutions to ensure the return of the missile to the ground safely.
Musk's unpredictable behavior doesn't seem to have affected his business, he's still the ambitious entrepreneur he always has been and is now the richest man ever