Diving into the life, lessons, and greatness of Elon Musk from Ashlee Vance's book,  Elon Musk: How Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping the Future

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0:50 - Musk Purpose

“If we can solve sustainable energy problems and be well on our way to becoming a multiplanetary species with a self-sustaining civilization on another planet…I think that would be really good.”

2:30 - Asking Better Questions

“A lot of times, the question is harder than the answer, and if you can properly phrase the question, then answer is the easy part?”

The questions he asked himself after graduating college, “What would most influence the world? What are the problems we have to solve?”

7:00 - Belief Before Ability

“He has this belief that he is the guy who can change the world.” - Dave Bearden, a space industry veteran 

8:30 - Personal Risk and Sacrifice

“He’s willing to take an insane amount of personal risk. When you do a deal like that, it either pays off or you end up in a bus shelter somewhere.”

16:35 - Mentality

“My mentality is that of a samurai. I would rather commit sepuuku than fail.”

17:45 - Failing Fast

“If there were two paths where we had to choose one thing or the other, and one wasn’t obviously better han the other, the rather than spend a lot of time trying to figure out which one was slightly better, we would just pick one and do it . And sometimes  we’d be wrong…but oftentimes it’s better to just pick a path and do it rather than just vacillate endlessly on the choice.”

24:20 - Capacity for Pain

“He has the ability to work harder and endure more stress than anyone I’ve ever met,”

"The harder it gets, the better he gets. Anyone who saw what he went through firsthand came away with more respect for the guy. I’ve just never seen anything like his ability to take pain.”

32:10: One Final Note

“Elon came to the conclusion early in his career that life is short. If you really embrace this, it leaves you with the obvious conclusion that you should be working as hard as you can.”