Your Resignation Will be Accepted

This is a review of the book Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson. Some readers might find the subject contentious, especially given the current political environment. I should probably therefore declare at the outset that I am neither an unqualified fan nor an abject hater of Musk. Overall, I do find him to be a fascinating character.

Many aspects of Musk's life are described in the 670-page book; in this review I will focus on the scientific and engineering aspects, and also some of the managerial philosophies. From my perspective the contents of the book may be described by basically stating Musk's agenda plus algorithm and his various ventures.

The Musk Manifesto

1. Start with a grand motive. Focus on making this mission succeed, rather than on making profit.

2. Obtain and maintain individual control of the project.

3. Have a superaggressive sense of urgency. Set impossible deadlines. This drives people to accomplish tasks they thought were outside their reach.

4. Remove all that is not necessary from the path. One of Musk's favorite words is 'delete'. He believes only the laws of physics are fundamentally binding on any enterprise; everything else is a recommendation. If at least 10% of what was deleted was not reinstated then not enough deletion had been made in the first place.

5. Trust that a few capable - Musk's preferred word is 'hardcore' - people are more effective than a big inertial task force. Hence his tendency to fire employees, often using the phrase in the title of this post.

Companies

i) Zip2: Combined business directories with maps in the early days of the internet. This was the first company started by Musk. It was later acquired by Compaq.

ii) PayPal: Allowed online financial transactions. This was set up in collaboration with Peter Thiel and others.

iii) SpaceX: Made spaceflight commercial. Musk believes human consciousness to be precious and wants it to survive any planetary disasters Earth might face. The most immediate aim is to get to Mars (preferably before Musk dies). The subsidiary Starlink provides internet connectivity via a satellite network. This service has featured recently in the war in Ukraine.

iv) Tesla: Made electric vehicles commercially mainstream. This was done, at least initially, in collaboration with Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Later, Tesla diversified into clean energy, acquiring SolarCity which makes solar panels, etc.

v) OpenAI: This company focuses on the uses of artificial intelligence. The negotiations in the book feature now well-known characters like Demis Hassabis (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024) and Sam Altman. See here for a video of Optimus the humanoid robot. Musk eventually left the company.

vi) The Boring Company: Provides infrastructure (such as tunnels) aimed at solving transport problems.

vii) Neuralink: Interfaces human intelligence with AI, by putting chips in our brains. See this video of a monkey playing electronic ping-pong mentally.

viii) Twitter/X: As everybody knows.

Summary

In my opinion Isaacson has done a really good job of conveying Musk's thinking, his commercialization of disruptive technologies, his thirst for constant innovation, and his avid risk taking.

The aspects of Musk's life that I did not cover - his childhood, family and romantic life, business and personal relations - are quite dramatic and combined with its technological highlights and sociological relevance - make the book unputdownable.