Walter Isaacson has written a number of books about great men. I’ve read his biographies of Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs. I enjoyed both books very much as they are wonderfully written. But I ended up loving Leonardo as a person and detesting Steve Jobs as a miserable person.
In any case, I preordered the biography of Elon Musk and it was delivered by Amazon on the day it was released. The first impression is the sheer size of the book. It is 615 pages for the biography, plus the acknowledgements, sources, notes, index and photo credits. I read the first 615 pages but not the other stuff that takes it to 671 pages total.
Before I started, I thought, 615 pages and the guy is only 52 years old? And while reading the book, I was at 2020 and still had 200 pages to go! Here’s the deal: this guy has done more and accomplished more than anyone. I can’t think of anybody more active than Musk or anyone who has accomplished more. So, yeah, 615 pages divided into 95 chapters. It is chronologically organized with a lot of overlaps, because the guy is working on a lot of things in parallel.
Is it worth reading? I think so and recommend it to you. It is extremely well written, clear and concise and never boring. Isaacson is a terrific writer and storyteller. The book is worth your time, I think. But if you can’t buy into 615 pages, I’m happy to send you my sixteen pages of reading notes. Just hit reply and I’ll send my notes to you.
The book has come in for some criticism from reviewers. There is one incident in particular about the use of Starlink satellites by Ukraine to attack the Russian Navy. The book says Musk personally ordered access to the satellites turned off as the Ukrainian drones got nearer to the Russian ships. Musk didn’t want to be involved in what, he thought, might start World War III. This story has had doubt cast on it.
I found a couple of minor errors, things related to cars. I’m a car enthusiast and know more about cars than Walter Isaacson, or his fact-checkers, it seems. These were minor things, but they cause one to wonder about how rigorous the fact-checking was. What about all those things (everything else) where I don’t know more than Walter Isaacson and his fact-checkers?
Still and all, Isaacson shadowed Musk for two years. He was in many of his meetings, had hundreds of interviews with Musk, checked in on the phone, had access to private emails, texts and, yes, tweets. Musk also encouraged his family, friends, and business associates to talk with the author and most of them did. While there may be a few errors, the book seems to be an authentic story about its subject. I came away feeling I really knew what Musk is like. And that’s not easy as he is a complex character.
Another criticism of Isaacson has been that he doesn’t reach any conclusions about Musk. I really don’t think that is fair. He paints a very thorough picture of Musk and, mostly, lets the reader decide. Plus, the guy isn’t done yet, right? And finally, how does one sum up such a complex personality?
Well, I’ll try. First, to state the obvious, Musk is not a normal human. He is extremely smart and extremely driven. He makes Bill Gates and Steve Jobs look lazy. He is damaged goods. He says he has PTSD from his father’s treatment of him during childhood. He has also self-diagnosed himself as having Asperger’s syndrome.
People tend to wonder, is he an asshole? The answer is, at times. He can be an asshole, but he isn’t a full-time asshole like Steve Jobs was. Musk can also be thoughtful, caring and feels that he needs to save the world, and is trying to on several fronts. The full-time asshole in this book is Elon’s father, Errol.
Why should you read this book? You can learn why Elon Musk has ten children by three women, and that doesn’t count his first child that died in his arms. You can learn why one kid is named X, another Y, and a third is named Techno Mechanicus Musk, but his nickname is Tau. Of course. He has another kid whose name includes a symbol not on my keyboard, so I won’t include it here.
You can learn how he has accomplished more than any businessperson ever; I think. The scope of his accomplishments is astonishing. The author calculated that Musk now runs six companies: Tesla, SpaceX (including Starlink), Twitter, The Boring Company, Neuralink, and X.AI.
You can learn why Musk wants to go to Mars (he thinks humans need to be a multi-planetary species). And how Starlink is his way of paying for going to Mars but is an amazing company in its own right. You can learn how he made space exploration cost effective.
You can learn his real plans for Twitter (to fulfill the promise of PayPal, which has never been realized).
You can learn that he might have gotten ahead of Google in the race to true autonomous vehicles. (My opinion on this is, it could make him the first individual with a net worth of over $1 trillion. But that’s my opinion, not Walter Isaacson’s.)
It’s worth the read. Maybe get a copy for those slow periods over the holidays.
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