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.