Elon Musk and the art of failing successfully
Before Elon Musk became a billionaire, his only assets were his brain and a vision to change the world and humanity. Now, he is a serial entrepreneur, an entrepreneur who continuously comes up with new ideas and starts new businesses, instead, we have coined a new term for him: ‘parallel entrepreneur’
Bullying
Musk was the victim of bullying as a child
Russian debacle
In 2001, Musk conceptualized ‘Mars Oasis’, a project to grow plants on Mars soil.
- He traveled to Moscow to look for Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) that could send the envisioned payloads into the space
- After six months, he visited Russia again for the same project
- They were offered a deal for $8 million for a rocket which Musk considered too expensive
Tesla crisis
In 2003, Elon Musk founded Tesla Motors, a company aimed to produce cost-efficient electric cars.
- The company’s first electric car was Roadster, which was not very cost-effective and faced financial issues leading to the company coming close to shutting down in 2008.
Running on Empty
After pumping all his money into Tesla and SpaceX, Musk was running dry.
- Tesla came to Musk’s rescue, with reimbursing his trips and awarding him 6.7 million stock options. Tesla had been largely surviving on Musk’s personal investments, which was no longer possible.
Near-death experience
He suffered from cerebral malaria, a complication of Plasmodium falciparum malaria, which has a 20 percent mortality rate even if treated
- It took him six months to recover and he lost 45 lbs during that period
- The experience has not affected his spirit, and certainly not his sense of humor
Netscape effort
Musk had applied for a job at Netscape, however, he did not receive any reply as he had no background in computer science
- He even went to their office, but returned as he was too shy to talk to anyone
- After this, he decided to pursue his own ideas and hence started Zip2, a web software company
Son’s sudden death
Seeing your child die is possibly the worst thing that can happen to anyone.
SpaceX crisis
In June 2002, Musk founded SpaceX with an objective to lower space transportation costs and make Mars colonization a reality
- The company’s first three launches failed, and they only had enough money for one more launch
- SpaceX received a contract from NASA for $1.6 billion
- Had to go all out for the fourth launch
Fight over Zip2
Zip2, a company which Musk and his brother founded, was doing great with Musk as its CEO.
Ousted from PayPal
In 2000, Musk got into an argument with the then CTO of PayPal over which operating system to go forward with, Windows or Unix
- This resulted in his ousting as CEO of PayPal while he was on his honeymoon
- He founded X.com, an online-payment company which later became PayPal