Elon had a degree in physics, but he needed to surround himself with
scientists, engineers, standout college students, and other people willing to take huge risks.
Part of what makes Elon unique was his special ability to build
a team, surrounding himself not just with the best and brightest, but with those
who can dream big, innovate, and see obstacles as creative tasks and not boundaries.
After buying a building in a suburb of LA, he painted the walls white
and epoxied the floor the same color. It's time to get started.
The goal- be the Southwest Airlines of space.
Musk felt NASA was simply building Ferraris for
every launch when most of the time he thought a Honda Accord would do.
To give you a comparison a 550 pound payload would cost $300 million to get into orbit.
Elon and the Falcon 1 rocket they were working on would carry 1,400 pounds and
cost them around $6.9 million, you do the math.
Elon's team continued to grow as they work toward building prototypes of the
Falcon 1 rocket.
Engineers, designers, and builders all work together, desks side by side.
Working there you might have been constructing one day and writing code the next.
Crossing and connecting multiple disciplines was just part of
the innovative process, and something schools should definitely take note of.
Something else I admire about Elon is that he was never above getting his hands dirty.
He often would pick up some tools, get to
work, and leave SpaceX covered in epoxy.
As for this young space company, yes, they
were having setbacks including having to travel to a remote island off Hawaii to test Rockets.
But, keep in mind they were starting from scratch, building
everything stateside.
Let's pause for a second. You have to understand that
during all this Elon was working with another startup
you may have heard of, Tesla.
And let's be clear, Tesla was going to go through some
terrible times, so terrible that the company would nearly fall apart more than once.
If you are taking score that's two companies Elon started using his own
money as a primary driver.
Risky? I would say nearly insane.
To understand Tesla
you first need to meet JB Straubel, a Stanford grad with an obsession for electric cars.
In fact, in high school Straubel took a trashed electric golf
cart and rebuilt it, and then in college he converted a Porsche into an electric car.
People thought Straubel's idea about
using lithium-ion batteries in cars was nuts, that is until he met Elon in 2003.
Keep in mind before now these batteries were primarily found in cell phones.
Another name you need to know is Martin Eberhard, a talented engineer who
designed one of the first ebook readers called The Rocket eBook.
Around 2000, he test drove
the T-Zero, the world's fastest electric car created by AC Propulsions.
Eberbard was hooked, and decided he and his business partner Mark Terpening
would build their own electric car using the same types of batteries found in
The Rocket eBook reader, lithium-ion batteries
instead of the old lead acid ones we all know.
In 2003 engineers Martin and Mark incorporated their
company calling it Tesla in honor, of course, of Nikola Tesla.
At this point Tesla needs a
major investor, but someone who was passionate about electric vehicles.
Of course, that someone is Elon. Keep in mind at this point the EV1 and
the Toyota Prius were around, but they lacked creativity, speed, and definitely design.
Question is, how does one tap into the three billion dollar luxury car market?
Also, it's been since 1925 when Chrysler was founded that an American
car company started up shop.
What Tesla needed was cash, a lot of cash.
what they got was not only Elon's money, but his skills in physics and science, and his
detest for America's dependency on foreign oil.
The goal- take a Lotus Elise body,
put a huge battery in it and call it the Roadster.
Sounds simple enough, yeah, it wasn't.
The team had to combine 7,000 lithium batteries, and of
course, makes them work without overheating and exploding.
What I love about Elon SpaceX and Tesla
is the sheer amount of creative process going on.
We often refer to it as the scientific method, but the creative process isn't
much different. Encased in that creative process is ingenuity, and the team at
Tesla had plenty of it.
To give you an example, most car makers
send cars to the Arctic Circle to test them, which takes forever in as costly.
The team at Tesla got creative and rented a big ice-cream box truck, rolled
the Roadster on and got started testing. Simply genius.
Three years later in 2006,
the world sees the first Tesla Roadster with a ninety thousand dollar price tag,
and two hundred and fifty mile range on one charge.
Elon proudly announces,
"Until today all the electric cars have sucked." And to be honest, he was right.
Thousands start pre-ordering this baby, but things were not going as planned.
Batteries from Thailand ,body panels from France, motors from Taiwan, and battery cells from China
were too expensive. And Elon was running out of cash.
He decided that everything
needed to be made in the U.S. Everything.
To add to the stress
SpaceX had another failure while firing its Falcon 1 rocket.
The SpaceX team is literally in tears.
Get this, Elon had dumped over $100 million dollars into
SpaceX, and Tesla was about to go under as well.
In fact, it was so bad
Tesla employees were writing checks to keep the doors open.
Six years after starting SpaceX on September 28th, 2008
the team had successfully launched!
They became the first private space company to ever do so.
By December 23rd Elon had a deal with NASA.
Twelve flights to the space station for around $1.6 billion dollars.
Yeah, the hard work quite literally paid off.
Fast forward to 2012, and Tesla finally puts out the Model S.
A perfect combination of cutting-edge technology, engineering and design.
With a 300 mile range,
0 to 60 miles per hour in 4.2 seconds,
seating for seven,
and a 17 inch touchscreen controlling everything,
Tesla was set to redefine what a car could be.
And most importantly, one with zero emissions.
Of course, even to this day
Tesla and SpaceX continue to see success and struggles, but when you are leading
by innovation the creative process demands a ton of failure to reach success.
SpaceX and Tesla are examples of the future, and we haven't even talked about
Elon's passion for solar energy, or ideas for a pneumatic hyperloop tube to
solve LA traffic.
These ideas are amazing. For Elon Musk I
really don't think it's about money, or making shareholders happy.
He is on a mission to make
this world and mankind better, and more sustainable.
Money for Elon is a means to change,
a way to push the limits of creativity,
and there is no doubt Elon is all-in.
Of course, Elon is human, and has his flaws.
There are definitely those who have experienced the difficult side of his personality
and leadership, but there are certainly those who are inspired by him.
One thing I've realized is that new ideas are not always welcomed,
and often seen as crazy.
But, I love this quote by Larry Page, the co-founder and CEO of Google, and a close friend of Elon.
"Good ideas are always crazy until they are not."
If you have an idea or a dream
you want to pursue I hope you are inspired by Elon's story.
Take it from me, following your dream isn't easy but, it is definitely worth it.
If you want to dig even deeper, I highly suggest picking up the book Elon Musk by
Ashley Vance, which is fantastic.
If you haven't already be sure to subscribe and
leave a comment below.
Until next time, be Artageous!