Elon Musk

Fun read. Interesting to gain insight into Tesla and SpaceX.

Looking forward to reading more books focusing on Elon Musk's way of thinking (thinking from first principles).

An inside look at one of the worlds most fascinating innovators. I didn't realize just how forward thinking Musk is, of course, as the book reveals he can be ‘awkward' and downright mean. I liked the way the author told the story and look forward to seeing what Musk's next big idea is. It also reinforces the idea to Dream Big.

Book is good, but with how the main character is acting in real life now, I wouldn't recommend anything about him anymore.

merely an informative story

One of the best books I've ever read. It changed my perspective of life and handling challenges. I feel the true power of a book by reading this.

Certainly wouldn't want to work for Elon, but you can't say the man is not a visionary. This is a great overview of who Musk is and what his achievements were, circa 2015. The problem with doing a biography about someone of Musk's stature and vision is that even six years later, this is pretty out of date. But it is perhaps his “origin story”.

The book got very repetitive in the last third, which is basically “Elon tells people to do something by X date, they dont get it done fast enough, Elon gets mad and tells them to do it faster, they do it faster, world is amazed” over and over again.

An insight into the life of one of the most influential people we have on Earth.
Since I've bought this book I've had many opportunities to acknowledge his personality through the news, but nothing compares to the accuracy of what's said in this book about him other than knowing Elon Musk by person. Hope to read someday a second part.

Can't wait to see what he does next

Elon is an extraordinary man and anything short of a masterpiece is an insult to his work.
The book felt like a collection of articles and essays put together awkwardly. Vance had great material to work with but lacked creativity.

This felt like a pretty balanced take on perhaps the most enigmatic industrial titan of our times.

Inspiring

Great book sharing a few things a didn't even know about Mr Tesla! Worth a read!

Each page of the biography of Elon Musk has a lot of motivation. By reading this book, you can not only learn about the unknown facts of the Elon and his family but also learn how to live uncompromisingly to make your dreams come true. How to run several companies at once and make them all successful. How to be a real Tony Stark and change the history of humanity.
The book is very inspiring and recommended to everyone who wants more from life.

If you are informed, your investment strategy is to buy real-estate because “it's the best investment.” If you're better informed, your investment strategy is to put all your money in ETFs because “nobody can't beat the market in the long-run.” But if you're Elon Musk, you invest all of your money into yourself—often to the brink of bankruptcy—and it keeps paying off.

Holy shit is this ever an inspiring book. Musk is doing disruptive innovation in like what, five?, distinct industries right now, and he somehow continues to keep hitting them out of the park. At this point I'm not sure even the biggest cynic can put that down to luck.

While Musk is clearly a bright dude, he doesn't come off as having superhuman intelligence. His comparative advantages seem to be WORKING REALLY HARD and BEING COMPLETELY FEARLESS. The book presents a narrative of Musk as being this guy who doesn't have much trouble raising money, and so he's never afraid to just spend all of it trying to make things happen—critics be damned. My takeaway is that whoever cares most wins, and that if you're capable and smart, investing everything you've got in yourself is probably the best strategy you can ever play.

I listened to the audiobook of this and I can't decide if I actually hate the author or just the guy who read the book.

Either way, that's a minor issue. This was a fascinating read.

Musk is a smart, complicated guy who is doing some really cool and interesting things. Whether these things are as groundbreaking as he says remains yet to be seen.

If you read this book, the drinking game involves taking a shot every time Steve Jobs or Tony Stark is mentioned. Spoiler alert: the Stark references will have you in liver failure in the last couple chapters.

3* for the writing (quite poorly written and very repetitive)
5* for Musk's biography

Extremely inspirational look at an amazing polymath, unfortunately it often reads like a Cliff Notes account of a much longer book. I suppose that's what happens when you are writing about someone as busy as Elon Musk.

Elon Musk is one of a kind and his achievements are very impressive. His dogged determination to follow his believes despite the fact they are against conventional wisdom is inspiring. Elon Musk achievements within aerospace and auto industry are revolutionary and within this book shows non of this accomplishments shows up by luck... Elon fight hard to get where he is and within this book there are people such as his ex-wife narrating; how not only Elon could tolerate dramatic crises he could stay focuse on job in hand at the same time.
Elon believes adversities in his life made him who he is now, he also raised his concerned about lack of adversity within new generation in particular his kids.

akways been my idol now even more so

Executive Summary: This book was pretty enjoyable, but there were parts I found slow. Overall it felt like a pretty balanced biography offering both pro and anti Musk opinions on his success and failures.

Audiobook: Fred Sanders does a good job here. Unlike a fiction book, my main thing from the narrator I want is clearly spoken and good inflection. It can be very easy for the narrator to get in the way of a nonfiction book, and thankfully Mr. Sanders doesn't do that here. Audio is definitely a decent option for this book.

Full Review
I've always been interesting in knowing more about Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX. This book proved to be a good resource for that. It's grown a little dated now, especially on the SpaceX front as things are getting very interesting for SpaceX since its publication. I'd love to see an update on both companies in another 3-5 years time.

The similarities of Musk and Steve Jobs are quite startling to me. The author discusses it, and outlines why he feels they are quite different, but I'm not sure I agree.

Musk seems a bit more likeable, but it could simply be that he cares more about his public image than Jobs did. Both seems to be polarizing in that some love them and many hate them. The amount of credit they get also seems to be higher than each deserved too. However I feel that you can't argue that their respective companies wouldn't have been nearly as successful without them.

Even if you don't think Musk offered anything on the technical side of things, his belief in both companies and his willingness to stake so much of his own money on both pushed them through the time periods where either company would have easily failed if owned by someone else.

I was less interested in Mr. Musk's personal life and upbringing, so I found those parts a bit slow. However I think their inclusion is important to the book to get a better understanding of who Elon Musk is, and what drives him.

Overall I thought this was a pretty good book. I've been following both Tesla and SpaceX for a few years, and I'll continue to do so for the foreseeable future. I hope both companies continue to be successful, because I feel like science has always been one of the strengths of America, and it's been something we seem to be taking for granted lately.

Decent biography of an egomaniac visionary (aren't they all?). Hearing all about Musk's projects is fascinating, especially since his drive comes from a quest for a better future (on earth or elsewhere). Hearing about how he runs his big companies as if they are fresh startups (when it comes to work hours, benefits, attitude) is first entertaining and then a bit scary and disappointing. On one hand he seems amazing at discovering talent, on the other hand he burns through that talent at an exhausting rate.

Some of the economical examples didn't quite hit home. As the text seems to praise Musk for pushing his engineers to develop products at half the price of off-the-shelf products, but then fails to consider the extra development time in the actual value equation. I imagine if you're building 1 of each for every rocket, your total count won't be high enough to make up for development time.

The book covers Elon Musk's biography and the forces that led him to become the man he is today, somewhere between Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller. “When Elon gets into something, he develops just this different level of interest in it than other people. That is what differentiates Elon from the rest of humanity”. His accomplishments in sustainable technology have led to astonishing new levels - along with a complex personality and enormous ego. “For Elon, the word ‘No' does not exist, and he expects that attitude from everyone around him.” He's being notorious for setting unrealistic goals, assigning incredible workloads, and verbally abusing his employees. “The longer you wait to fire someone, the longer it has been since you should have fired them,” once said. Yet, Musk is rightly considered today's leader in the aerospace, automotive, and solar industries.

A biography that offers a nuanced and relatively detailed view into what makes up the persona of Elon Musk. Ashlee Vance achieves this by having interviewed a large number of Musk's acquaintances, friends and foes and letting their viewpoints intersect to conjure up the real Elon Musk. This approach is complimented by author's own personal interpretation of the man. This personal interpretation makes the overall narrative of the book consistent and easy to follow, but at the cost of regularly inducing a feeling of looking at the story via rose tinted glasses. That is unfortunate and the biography might have benefitted more from sticking to building up the mosaic with the opinions of Musk's companions. Regardless of this minor gripe, the book is very readable and enjoyable and carries a great potential to teach and inspire the readers.

It's not often that a book exceeds my expectations, but Musk's biography blew me away. I almost didn't read this because I've already heard a lot from both the pro- and anti-Musk camps, but I'm incredibly glad I picked it up. He's determined, driven, lucky?, and successful - and it's been a roller coaster of a life. Looking forward to what SpaceX and Tesla do next!

Outstanding book and of course Musk himself. I am confident now that Elon Musk is one of the greatest minds of today. If he continues to exceed everyone's expectations, he will change the world not just once, but multiple times. I can say much about this book and Elon, but you should read it yourself first