This book review was written by Eugene Kernes
“From the very beginning of his career, Musk was a demanding manager, contemptuous of the concept of work-life balance. At Zip2 and every subsequent company, he drove himself relentlessly all day and through much of the night, without vacations, and he expected others to do the same. His only indulgence was allowing breaks for intense videogame binges.” – Walter Isaacson, Chapter 10: Zip2: Palo Alto, 1995-1999, Pages 74-75
“Musk restructured the company so that there was not a separate engineering department. Instead, engineers would team up with product managers. It was a philosophy that he would carry through to Tesla, SpaceX, and then Twitter. Separating the design of a product from its engineering was a recipe for dysfunction. Designers had a corollary that worked well for rockets but less so for Twitter: engineers rather than the product managers should lead the team.” – Walter Isaacson, Chapter 12: X.com: Palo Alto, 1999-2000, Pages 91-92
“Musk was laser-focused on keeping down costs. It was not simply because his own money was
on the line, though that was a factor.
It was also because cost-effectiveness was critical for his ultimate
goal, which was to colonize Mars. He
challenged the prices that aerospace suppliers charged for components, which
were usually ten times higher than similar parts in the auto industry. | His
focus on cost, as well as his natural controlling instincts, led him to want to
manufacture as many components as possible in-house, rather than buy them from
suppliers, which was then the standard practice in the rocket and car
industries.” – Walter Isaacson, Chapter 18: Musk’s Rules for Rocket-Building:
Space X, 2002-2003, Page 129
Is This An Overview?
Elon Musk is a brilliant visionary with an aptitude for
hardware and software, but Elon is someone difficult to work with. Does not like sharing power, and does not
accept no as an appropriate response. During
childhood, Elon went through physical and emotional turmoil. Becoming callous and impulsive. Elon can be intimidating. Elon potentially has Asperger’s, given the
lack of social skills, emotional connectivity, and self-regulation. Elon is frank with people, which does not
endear Elon to others. But Elon does not
think that managers need to endear themselves to others, that endearment would
be counterproductive for a manager. Elon
loves to argue, and is drawn to chaos.
Stability and contentment are not acceptable. Rather than mitigate risk, Elon seeks risk
out.
Elon Musk is a demanding manager, who instills a constant
sense of urgency. A relentless work effort
during the day and night. Elon expects
others to do the same. A work ethic that
can inspire, but also demoralize. Leisure
is rare, with videogames being an accepted indulgence. Teams are formed to enable people from
different production aspects to work together, rather than separately. A system in which engineers and designers
work together, and gain immediate feedback on how their ideas affect the product
and manufacturing capacity.
Elon has a production algorithm for what everyone working
needs to consider. The algorithm asks to
question requirements, delete anything unnecessary, simplify, accelerate cycle
time, then automate. Rather than rely on
established requirements, everything needed to be experimented and tested. To experiment as much and fast as possible to
quickly find the problems that needed to be resolved. Sometimes finding that the requirements had good
reasons and were costly to test, and sometimes taking the risk improved the
product.
To achieve long term goals, Elon needed to keep costs down
as much as possible. Rather than
outsource components, Elon decided to manufacture components in-house when the
market price of the components was high.
Deleting as much as possible from the product. With the claim that if at least 10% of the
deleted parts were not brought back, then not enough was deleted. Cutting costs has enabled product
improvements, but sometimes cost cutting came at the expense of safety.
Caveats?
This biography covers a range of sensitive topics. From personal to the different
companies. Sharing a person who is
complex, and has complex views. From how
Elon’s personality can motivate, but also cause harm. Setting up the narrative for the reader to
make their own decision on what to think of Elon Musk.
