A business magnate – His mission is to be the first entrepreneur on Mars with the purpose of setting human civilization on the path to the colonization of the solar system.
SpaceX: Dragon 2 will look like a real alien spaceship
Elon was born an entrepreneur into a family of entrepreneurs. His mother, Maye (Haldeman), a model from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada,was a dietitian and a beautiful fashion model. His father, Errol, was an electromechanical engineer and what a family member described as a "serial entrepreneur." Yes, Errol was from Mars and Maye was from Venus, you might guess as to how it was going to work out.
From these parents he was cast into society a virtual “stranger in a strange land”.
A nerd, yes a NERD, carefully schooled and coached by his parents into exceptionalism.
An “exceptional” nerd living in a South African culture which at the time was a “manly man” type of culture. As you might expect, he was abused and beat by his school mates, finally thrown down a flight of stairs and hospitalized for a week.
A nerd, at twelve, he used an artifact of a computer, Commodore VIC-20, wrote his first game and sold it for $400. The beginning of his own path of being a"Serial entrepreneur."
He finished schooling in a private school, then ran away on his own to Canada and enrolled at Queen's University in Ontario and lived in a dormitory for foreign students. He graduated with degrees in economics and physics and went to Stanford on a full ride for two days, quit to start his first business Zip2, a web software company.
It sold and Musk received $22 million for his share.
Is he from Mars?
He grew up in South Africa without ever really considering himself South African. Like the rest of his family, he was just passing through.
The Musks were a race nearly as much as they were a family, with a specialized awareness of themselves as wanderers and adventurers. Every Musk is able to tell the story of forebears whose accomplishments serve as an inspiration and whose energy endures as an inheritance — a grandfather who won a race from Cape Town to Algiers; a great-grandmother who was the first female chiropractor in Canada; grandparents who were the first to fly from South Africa to Australia in a single-engine plane.
An inside point of view.
"Without sounding patronizing, it does seem that our family is different from other people," says Elon's sister, Tosca Musk. "We risk more." They risk everything.
Well, maybe Mars.
Entrepreneurial success at the top
“I am the Alpha Man in all relationships.” “Am I insane?” Elon Musk
Elon Musk is one of America's top entrepreneurial successes. He is one of the most remarkable billionaire entrepreneurs in America. As of January 2016, he has an estimated net worth of US$12.4 billion, making him the 39th wealthiest person in the US. [Forbes]
As an entrepreneur, most of Musk’s wealth came from starting and owning companies, rather than salary. He is Tesla’s biggest shareholder, with a 23 percent stake, runs closely held Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and is chairman of SolarCity Corp.
Entrepreneur Elon Musk is a man with vision. The founder of PayPal, Tesla Motors, SolarCity and SpaceX – all extraordinary companies in four completely different industries.
Musk somehow delivered the biggest advantage that these industries have seen in decades and he did it in what felt like one Fell Swoop.
Is he really preparing to rule Mars?
Here is a look at the character of Elon Musk through the lens of the PayPal episode.
The PayPal War
More than any other executive today, Musk has dedicated his energies and his own vast Fortune to inventing a future that is as rich and far-reaching as a science fiction fantasy.
That's what separates Elon from mere mortals, he's willing to take an insane amount of personal risk. when you do a deal like that it either pays off or you end up in the bus shelter somewhere.
Musk continually asks, “what do you think, am I insane?”
The creation of x.com would ultimately reveal a great deal about Musk's creativity, relentless drive, confrontational style, and foremost his leadership. Musk would endure the experience of being pushed aside in his own company and the pain that accompanies a Grand Vision left unfulfilled.
In March 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and e-mail payment company, with US$10 million from the sale of Zip2. One year later, the company merged with Confinity, a company which had a money transfer service called PayPal
The merger was never harmonious., Management did not agree, the engineers didn't agree. It reached a tipping point in which his partners staged a coup to try to throw him out.
What followed was one of the nastiest coups in Silicon Valley's long illustrious history of nasty coups. The opposing management and employees gathered one night at Fanny and Alexander, a now defunct bar in Palo Alto, to brain storm how to push Musk out.
They decided to sell the board on having the old CEO return as CEO. Instead of confronting Musk directly with this plan. This conspiracy decided to take action behind Musk's back.
Musk had been married in January 2000 but had been too busy for a honeymoon. Nine months later in September, they planned to mix business and pleasure by going on a fund raising trip to Indiana and ending it with a honeymoon in Sydney to catch the Olympics.
As they boarded their flight one night, X.com Executives delivered letters of no-confidence to the board asking for their support.
He heard about what was happening while he was in flight to Sydney. When he landed he immediately hopped on the next plane back to Palo Alto.
It was shocking and underhanded but here was how he handled it. For a brief period he challenged the board to reconsider its decision. In that brief period, he realized that the “force” was not with him. He relented the CEO position quietly.
Musk relented, but started talking to the new management, and said it wasn't so much that he wanted to be CEO but had determined there were some pretty important things that need to happen and he was not sure they were going to happen. After discussing these, they agreed that they would make these things happen.
Concluding the situation, he says, “I mean, it's not the end of the world.”
He showed incredible restraint. He embraced the role of being an advisor to the company and kept investing in it, continuously increasing his stake as PayPal's largest shareholder. You would expect someone in Elon's position to be bitter and vindictive but he wasn't.
In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for US$1.5 billion in stock, of which US$165 million was given to Musk. Before its sale, Musk, who was the company's largest shareholder, owned 11.7% of PayPal's shares.
At the end of all this, Elon would say that this is not a normal business environment, and you have to suspend normal business thinking.
“Life is to short for long grudges.” – Elon Musk
Near Death
After PayPal, while considering the state of the universe, he decided to go on vacation, his first. He and His wife traveled to South Africa. While there he contracted the most vile of the strains of Malaria.
The symptoms only started showing after their return back to the US. Thinking it was only the flu they waited until he couldn't get out of bed before taking him in to the emergency room.
Of course, he was misdiagnosed and hospitalized. After a few days, his signs were very bad, very bad indeed.
He was near his end when a visiting doctor casually strolling down the hallway passed his room and leasurly noticed his chart. The doctor recognized the condition immediately for what it was and administered the correct treatment.
Elon spent 10 days in intensive care and recovered. The visiting doctor was never mentioned again.
I guess the doctor dropped in from Mars for a stroll down a hallway?
Shortly after his recovery, he commented “vacations are not healthy and I never plan on taking another.” As far as anyone knows, he never has.
Space-X Mars and Beyond
“When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.” Elon Musk
Here's a sign. At the headquarters of SpaceX in Hawthorne California, visitors will find two giant posters of Mars hanging side-by-side on the wall leading up to Musk's cubicle. The poster on the left depicts Mars as it is today, a cold Barren Red Orb. The poster on the right shows a Mars with a humongous green land mass surrounded by oceans. The planet has been heated up and transformed to support humans. Musk fully intends to try and make this happen so he has a place to retire.
Turning humans into space colonizers is his stated life's purpose. “I would like to die thinking that Humanity has a bright future in space.”
Mars in his own words
“You need to live in a dome initially, but over time you could terraform Mars to look like Earth and eventually walk around outside without anything on… So it's a fixer-upper of a planet.” Elon Musk
“I would like to die on Mars. Just not on impact.” Elon Musk
“Mars is the only place in the solar system where it's possible for life to become multi-planetarian.” Elon Musk
“My vision is for a fully reusable rocket transport system between Earth and Mars that is able to re-fuel on Mars – this is very important – so you don't have to carry the return fuel when you go there.” Elon Musk
“Land on Mars, a round-trip ticket – half a million dollars. It can be done.” Elon Musk
“In order for us to have a future that's exciting and inspiring, it has to be one where we're a space-bearing civilization.” Elon Musk
Elon Musk is from Mars.
Today, he demonstrates the great drive of American Entrepreneurship, he takes and manages risks without concern and he does this daily. He witnesses his own failures almost every day and keeps moving forward.
Failures are those events that guide him on his path.
Is he remarkable? Yes, in a billionaire sort of way. He is obsessed with succeeding. His mission is to succeed in manifesting his “ideas”, not success in and of itself and not the money, its the act of succeeding. Money is just another tool for chasing his ideas to successful completion.
I have read great science fiction authors my whole life, 100's of them. These authors create the future in stories. When Elon Musk “writes” science fiction it appears before your very eyes.
He Channels Mars. He is a Martian and really wants to take us home with him.
Resources:
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, by Ashlee Vance. A biography.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk
http://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/, Forbes “The Worlds Billionaires”
The Chronicles of Musk, the first Mayor of Mars City. Mars City Library 2075 edition
And news article to numerous to list, there are about 5 new ones a day.
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If you are interested in participating in this effort to lift these children to inspiration, please join me in the Markethive group “Green Fire”. It is from here that we will start a crowd funding campaign to aid Green Fire in its mission – The Children of the Landfill.
David