The man who followed Elon Musk everywhere: Walter Isaacson

An episode of The diary of a CEO, An interview with Walter Isaacson on Elon Musk

Memo

Working closely with the Elon:

  • Has a superhero complex.
  • Elon is mostly focused on engineering, rather than design. He is a great engineer.

Elon Musk’s childhood:

  • Leonardo da Vinci (Left-handed, gay), Albert Einstein (Jewish in Germany), Steve Jobs (adopted)
  • Elon Musk:
    • Autism spectrum disorder.
    • No friends.
    • Often beatten up by friends and father. Could be the origin of his superhero complex

Musk’s ‘demon-mode’:

  • His father was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
  • Elon also has it in him. “He truely gets cold.”
  • He has multiple personalities.
  • Having demons to harness tends to drive you a bit more.

Could anyone become Elon Musk?

  • Elon wasn’t a good student.
  • But he has an intense focus on the things he likes.

First principle thinking:

  • Whenever you face the problem you just go to the very basic physics of it, not all rules and regulations.
  • Regulartos vs. risk-takers.

Elon’s change of ideology & his child transitioning:

  • Xavier: “I’m transitioning. My name is now Jenna, and don’t tell my father now.”
  • Elon said to W. Isaacson: “Nothing caused me more pain.”

Buying Twitter:

  • Urgent insensity over psychological safety
  • He wanted a “hard-core all-in environment.”

Did Steve Jobs and Elon Musk want to be liked?

  • “If you try too hard to be liked, you’re not going to be disruptive enough.”
  • “Empathy can be your enemy.”

Elon’s mission to conquer Mars

  • He said he has three missions:
    • To get humanity to Mars.
    • To have sustainable energy.
    • To make robots safe.
  • Why Mars?
    • Human consciousness is rare, or could be unique.
    • It’s the great adventure. We need an inspiring vision.

Elon’s fear of dying before accomplishing his mission

  • His estimation is about 10 years. But his estimation is alway wrong by 2 to 3 times. lol
  • Elon’s diet is very unhealthy compare to Sam Altman and Jeff Bezos

Concerns about Elon’s mental health

  • His mental health is not great.
  • Has kind of a multiple personalities.
  • Took prescribed medications for bipolar disorder.

Commonalities between Steve Jobs and Elon Musk:

  • They have passion.
  • They both cared about details.

Are they delusional?

  • They are crazy and crazy enough to think they can change the world.
  • Reality distortion field is a geek’s way to saying delusional.
  • It works 80% of the time, but sometimes it doesn work:
    • Jobs tried to will his cancer away but failed.
    • Elon’s full self-driving car. (He said for past 10 years that it could be done in a year.)

Is Elon happy?

  • No. He doesn’t value happiness.

Elon is afraid of being alone?

  • He likes drama, fighting, and intensity.
  • But he’s always afraid of being alone. He said that he was so lonely as a child.

2024 © ak