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Hello, my name is Noah and today we're talking about the biography of Elon Musk, written
by Ashlee Vance.
Elon Musk is one of the most forward thinking and innovative entrepreneurs of our time.
Early on in his career Musk was successful with PayPal, however more recently he has
focused solely on SpaceX and Tesla.
I have three main points that I want to share with you, so let's get started.
The first point is that you have to do things for the right reason.
Now Elon Musk was successful with PayPal and had a fortune.
There was no reason for him to take any more risk.
But, because of his passion he decided to take on new projects, such as SpaceX and Tesla.
Clearly money wasn't the driving factor in his decision to pursue these ideas.
He had a drive, a vision, and a legacy that he wanted to leave behind and that was what
was in the forefront of his mind when building these companies.
You have to be doing your business for the right reason.
Simply doing it for the money is not a good idea for your long-term plan because at a
certain point your vision, your drive won't be there.
Throughout this book I learned about all the hard times that Musk faced.
But having that vision and that drive was keeping him going.
It wasn't about the money.
If it was about the money, he would have stopped very early on in the career, because there
are so many hurdles that he had to overcome with these innovative ideas.
The second point I want to talk about is the importance of having control.
Now, Musk when he was developing Tesla and SpaceX wanted to have full control over the
product development.
He wanted to have as few parts of the process being shipped out to third parties to take
care of.
And so that was something very interesting because actually in the short-term it had
higher costs, he had to hire more people to build everything.
In the long-term it actually saved them money and time.
It saved them money because they were able to develop the products and the pieces so
efficiently that the costs to create the products were much lower.
And it saved them time in the long run because they had full control and understanding of
all the parts that went into their products.
So they could deliver their products much more quickly, they wouldn't have to ship things
out of house and they could do everything within their own building and headquarters.
And so that was very important to think long-term to be able to be in control of what you're
producing.
The third and final point I want to talk about is being careful what you wish for.
Now, we all have this idea of being a successful, innovative entrepreneur, and we see it as
being sexy and cool.
But the you're going to come up against a lot of resistance.
We oftentimes see the final product, but we forget the process that's involved to get
there.
When you're trying to innovate other companies take notice and oftentimes instead of trying
to improve their products or services, they'd rather focus on trying to limit what you're
able to do.
I also learned that big dreams come with a lot more pressure.
We think that it's great, let's build the next Facebook, let's build the next innovative
product, but when we start doing that there's a lot more pressure and we have to become
more accountable for our actions.
Now, let's go over some of the positives, negatives, and who I think should be reading
this book.
One thing I love about this book is that it gives you insight into the industry of innovation
and how someone like musk goes about creating and developing a product.
That was something that was very fascinating to me, to be able to see what goes on in his
mind and all the processes that are involved in developing a new product and being innovative.
I also really liked in this book that it showed you the good, the bad, and the ugly of being
an entrepreneur and competing and trying to innovate with a new product.
Now, to the negatives.
The only issue I could see people having with this book is that for some people it might
be too many details when it comes to SpaceX and Tesla.
I could see how some people might not be that interested in the details of all the products
that were being discussed in this book, so that's something that I could see people having
an issue with.
Who should be reading this book?
Well first of all, if you're an entrepreneur or want to be an entrepreneur and you're interested
in understanding innovation and all the trials and tribulations involved with the process
of being innovative, this book is for you because it gives you a raw unfiltered look
and insight into the world of innovation.
I also think this book is extremely motivating.
It shows you what truly is possible.
And through being taken on the journey of musks career, you'll see that Wow if I put
my mind to something and I have a vision and the drive to persist, I can achieve something
quite incredible.
And that's something I really liked in this book.
So if you're looking for motivation and inspiration to understand what you can actually achieve
when you put your mind to it, I think this book is definitely for you.
That's it, that's my book review of the biography of Elon Musk written by Ashlee Vance.
If you want to see what I talked about here in a written format, please head over to my
blog www.noahsachs.net.
Next week I'll be back with another book review.
But until then, keep reading and keep learning!