Elon Musk: Method And Madness
Isaacson biography of today's most controversial entrepreneur is a treasure trove of insights on innovation, manufacturing and more.
We should be thankful for people like Elon Musk, because they make the world less boring. His biography by Walter Isaacson is a pleasure to read and full of insights:
Biography or thriller?
Unlike the previous book I discussed here (Suleyman on containing AI), I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this one. Walter Isaacson is a master at bringing the story to life and creating suspense — this biography reads like a thriller. The account of Space X’s make-or-break fourth rocket launch after three consecutive failures stands out as especially gripping. Of course having a subject as recklessly addicted to risk as Elon Musk helps. Plus, the pages are sprinkled with humor — again helped by the subject, because as one of the quotes in the book points out “He [Musk] operates on an irony setting that goes up to eleven but never goes below four.” The detailed attention to Elon Musk’s personal story, from his hard childhood in South Africa to his escape to Canada and then the US, to his eventful personal life, adds important depth and context to the story.
Love to hate him, hate to love him
What makes the book especially worth reading is that Elon Musk has become one of the most controversial characters of our time in a way that defies the classic left vs right war of the echo chambers. Initially idolized by all those who worry about climate change for successfully spearheading the electric vehicles revolution, he has then been vilified by many of the same people for his off-script views against the Covid policy response and against the woke wave. Likewise, many of those who love his vocal opposition to the big-tech censorship machine can’t forgive him the government consumer subsidies that contributed to Tesla’s success. His purchase of Twitter, now rebranded X, has brought all this to a boil.
Consider this: today’s society pays great positive attention to those of us who have physical or mental challenges or different abilities. We have finally understood that everybody should feel valued, even when their abilities differ from the average. Yet somehow the fact that Elon Musk is obviously on the autism spectrum only counts against him.
Elon Musk likes to think for himself; an unforgivable sin in today’s society, but crucial to his success and to his multiple contributions to innovation (and very much in line with the spirit of this column).
Like other original and outsized personalities, Musk gives you plenty of reasons to strongly like and dislike him. Isaacson paints the picture of a man who is highly intelligent, but often emotionally deaf; an ambitious visionary with a pathological appetite for risk, who after every major success seems compelled to put all his chips back on the table and risk bankruptcy; a man who gives 100% in his work effort but demands the same absolute dedication from everybody else; a man able to build and motivate great teams, but ready to toss aside his best and closest collaborators when he thinks they’ve lost their edge; an inspired visionary whose can-do attitude allows him to achieve what others think impossible, but whose optimism can cause him to underestimate risk to a dangerous extent — witness Tesla’s legal troubles for having allegedly oversold the capabilities of its self-driving technology, or Musk’s serious neck injury from a reckless fight with a Sumo wrestler.
Innovation: a mad man’s guide
Here is a man who ignited the electric vehicles revolution without any prior experience in car manufacturing; re-launched space exploration rethinking rocket design; and is pushing the limits of neural implants. Maybe there is something to learn here about innovation at scale. Here are my takeaways:
First an obvious classic: the visionary drive that over-rides the simple pursuit of profit, and refusing to believe something is impossible just because everybody else says it can’t be done. Think about the visionary impact of reconquering space — it’s enormous.
Second: the ability to assemble and motivate the right talent. Here Musk prizes an enthusiastic can-do attitude almost above all else. Quote: “Skills can be taught. Attitude changes require a brain transplant.” The sense of camaraderie in the Space X enterprise, at a crucial point working with 500 people to the 50,000 in Boeing’s comparable unit, is inspiring.
Third: the dogged determination to challenge every assumption and every rule. Whether building cars or rockets, Musk never seems to accept that something is done a certain way either because “it’s always been done this way” or because some rule or regulation requires it. He questions everything, demanding to know who wrote a rule and why. Quote: “The only rules are those dictated by the laws of physics. Everything else is a recommendation.”
Fourth: maniacal attention to detail. Here you have a CEO who systematically walks the factory floor to understand how everything is done and why, constantly looking for ways to improve and simplify the process.
Understanding the central role of manufacturing
One thing that sets Musk apart from most Silicon Valley innovators is that he understands how important manufacturing is. In a recent interview on the Joe Rogan podcast, Musk again made the point that manufacturing, the actual execution, is the hardest part of innovating at scale. This is why he spends a lot of time on the factory floor, and insists that designers and engineers work side by side and within shouting distance of the factory floor, so they can immediately see how easy or hard it is easy to execute their ideas.
This also lies behind his constant drive to simplify to the maximum, to reduce complexity and cost. Here you can also see the power of technical expertise: Musk seems to have an uncanny engineering and scientific intuition for what is actually possible. The book has a wealth of interesting examples from car manufacturing to rockets to neural implants. And Musk’s basic insight: if you do not end up putting back in 10% of the components you have simplified away, it means you have not simplified enough.
Isaacson’s telling of the Roadster, the first Tesla car, provides an eye-opening account of the complexity of global supply chains. The risks implicit in complex global supply chains have then been exposed by geopolitical shocks, natural disasters and a pandemic, but here you get a glimpse of the complexity and costs that were always part and parcel of global supply chains.
The relevant sections of the book should be mandatory reading for all manufacturing executives.
Bonus lessons
Some more food for thought:
We keep hearing louder calls for greater government intervention: to stabilize finance, to combat climate change, to rediscover industrial policy. Space X shows the private sector taking over something we thought only government could do, and doing it a lot more efficiently.
Maybe nothing is impossible, but some things are truly hard: Space X provides an inspiring example of the impossible becoming reality, whereas truly autonomous vehicles are always just around the corner.
Most coins have a “side B”: Musk’s unstoppable drive and attention to detail can be inspiring, but can also veer off into micromanaging and dictatorial attitudes. Likewise a tendency to exaggerate what is possible can drive phenomenal achievements but also create risks, as the Autopilot example underscores.
My personal favorite: play to your strengths. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter/X is the most controversial and so far the least successful. This is partly because it struck at the core of the US’s ideological fracture — Musk's declared aim to combat censorship and wokeness inevitably got him labeled as a far-right dictator bent on killing free speech. But more important is that, as Isaacson notes, Twitter is not a tech and engineering company, it is an advertising and media company, arguably not where Musk’s expertise is, nor his heart.
Read it
This is an extremely enjoyable book, well-written, fast-paced, full of interesting insights; and Musk is such a controversial character that whether you hate him or love him, you should know more about him. Even if you don’t care about the man, there is lot to learn here about innovation in fields that will be crucial to our future.
He does worry me sometimes, but this is the land of the free. He is entrepreneurial in the extreme and why he gets questioned by the American government is a mystery to me. I thought I understood capitalism but apparently not. Woke will restrain anyone who is super successful. Which is OK if he is exploiting the market...but is he. Ditto for Google and the rest...what markets do these guys operate in...they are probably as confused as me.
Sounds good to read! First gotta finish bio of oppenheimer