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The Wired Entrepreneur: The Early Years of Elon Musk

“I didn’t really expect to make any money,” he says of his first venture. “If I could make enough to cover the rent and buy some food that would be fine. As it turns out, it turned out to be quite valuable in the end.”

Zipping Forward: Musk Starts His First Company

It was 1995. Musk was getting ready to begin his doctorate at Stanford University, but it was not the academic world that was exciting him. Instead, it was the Internet craze that he found himself surrounded by in Silicon Valley. “I could either watch it happen, or be part of it,” he says.

Lesson #1: Keep Your Operations Lean And Clean

In 2001, Musk had another one of his many dreams: he wanted to launch a “Mars Oasis” project, landing a miniature greenhouse on Mars. He wanted to see if he could grow food on the planet, which would help pave the way for his long term goal of populating outer space. But when Musk began looking into the project, he immediately ran into a major problem.

Lesson #2: Commit To Failing In A New Way

“Well, I have tried to learn as much as possible from prior attempts,” says Musk. “If nothing else, we are committed to failing in a new way.”

Lesson #3: Make Your Mission Your Holy Grail

“The long term ultimate objective – the holy grail – is we would like to help make life multi-planetary,” says Musk.

Lesson #4: Use Innovation To Break Through Your Limitations

“We are used to things improving every year; we are used to having a better cell phone next year than this year; a better lap top,” says Musk. “We are even used to some basic things, like we expect more from your car in next year’s model than last year’s model. But this is not the case in space; reliability and cost - those are the fundamental parameters of transportation - have not improved.”

Lesson #5: Tap Into Today’s Top Talent

“I think it is a mistake to hire huge numbers of people to get a complicated job done,” says Musk. “Numbers will never compensate for talent in getting the right answer (two people who don't know something are no better than one), will tend to slow down progress, and will make the task incredibly expensive.”

From PayPal To Planetary Success: How Musk Is Changing The World One Company At A Time

“If you have millions of dollars it changes your lifestyle, and anyone who says differently is talking bullshit,” says Musk. “I don’t need to work, from a standard of living point of view, but I do, you know. I work every day and on weekends and I haven’t taken a vacation for years.”

Elon Musk Quotes

Elon Musk Quotes

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