Is Musk the new Jobs? “
This is a question worth pondering.
Musk, very much like Jobs
Elon Musk is the most legendary figure in Silicon Valley since Jobs.
Similar evaluations are common in various celebrity evaluations and interviews. Even Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak once said bluntly that Musk could fill the vacancy left by Jobs.
There is actually a difference of 16 years between Musk, born in 1971, and Jobs in 1955. When Jobs founded Apple, Musk was only 5 years old.
However, a closer look at their entrepreneurial experiences will reveal that they have very similar personalities and ways of doing things——
For example, think that the meaning of starting a company is to make money, and making products is more important than making money;
For example, maverick, not stick to the habit of thinking;
For example, the great desire to control when interacting with people;
For example, an aggressive communication style, but patiently listening when faced with a well-founded and analytical point of view, as long as the reason is good enough, it will change your mind;
Another example is the ultimate pursuit of product details.
And the common points in these personalities also influence them subtly, making them fellow travelers on the “road of innovation”.
In 2007, Jobs used the iPhone to open the door to smartphones and built an iOS ecosystem exclusively owned by Apple. Its innovative significance does not need to be repeated.
At the same time, Musk is carrying out two entrepreneurial projects SpaceX and Tesla at the same time, and before that, Musk has already had two entrepreneurial “warm-ups”-Zip 2 and X.com.
With the understanding of the products we know well, Zip 2 can be said to be a “Dianping + Baidu Map” website. It was founded in 1995 and was acquired by Compaq for US$307 million four years later. Musk earned US$22 million from it. That year, he was 28 years old.
Except for Musk squandering part of this money, all the rest of his net worth is invested in his next startup “X.com”, which is today’s PayPal; and one of its businesses-input email to transfer money in real time ——It can be said that the era of online payment has started.
The online payment that people take for granted is actually Musk’s first. At that time, Alipay had not yet seen its shadow.
In the end, PayPal was also sold, and was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in July 2002, and Musk received $180 million (after tax) from it. This year he became a billionaire, he was 31 years old.
It is worth mentioning that Musk has the experience of being captured the CEO title in these two entrepreneurial projects, and this overlaps with Jobs in different time and space.
However, in Musk’s many entrepreneurial experiences, its significance is equivalent to Jobs’s use of Apple mobile phones to break the shackles of the traditional mobile phone industry, and it should be Tesla’s transformation of the traditional auto industry.
In Musk’s plan, Tesla will become a great company capable of mass production of electric vehicles. In fact, electric vehicles are not a novel idea. The real innovation lies in the development of new ideas for electric vehicles.
In Tesla’s second product, Model S, a large touch screen is embedded in the car for the first time. You must know that large-screen technology had not yet emerged at that time, and the iPad was only a few years later.
More importantly, Model S takes the automotive operating system as the key point of R&D innovation, and this has also become the core of the new generation of automotive experience. Whether it is the power system or the alarm device, it can be upgraded through the software system.
Based on the organic combination of hardware and software, Musk has gradually promoted the automotive industry from a “functional machine” to a “smart machine”. It is worth mentioning that Jobs’ core product idea is also a combination of software and hardware.
“Silicon Valley Iron Man” wrote that after Tesla, almost all car companies have since followed suit and began to provide customers with remote update services. In such a scenario, the iPhone has also led the way.
In addition, in terms of sales, Tesla does not use dealer channels, but adopts a direct sales model of “online sales + offline experience and services”, selling cars through the Internet and showrooms in high-end shopping malls like Apple stores. , Impacting the original dealer model.
Just as people used to be a fanatical pursuit of Apple’s mobile phones because of Jobs, the current Musk has become a phenomenon in the minds of the public and one of the reasons why they love Tesla; even though he is not the founder of Tesla. people.
Musk, not Jobs 2.0
Although there are great similarities between Musk and Jobs, the similarities may also be found in other great entrepreneurs.
Musk is actually not happy to compare himself with Jobs; even if the latter is a great man who brought changes to the world. Musk once explained in a public interview how much he dislikes being described as a copy of Jobs. He said:
If I was dying, and I was wearing a black turtleneck sweater, then I would take my last breath off that sweater and throw it away.
However, this dislike may be due to the contrast itself, not to Jobs.
As Bill Gates answered when he was asked this question recently –
If you really know these people, this kind of over-simplistic comparison looks weird. Musk is an engineer with strong hands-on ability, and Jobs is a genius in design, selection of talents and marketing. You will not confuse them.
Biographer Ashlee Vance believes that Musk’s ambitious product has the potential to far exceed any product created by Howard Hughes or Jobs.
Ashlee Vance refers to the products, one of which is Tesla in the automotive industry mentioned above, and the other is SpaceX in the aerospace industry.
SpaceX was founded in June 2002. It is Musk’s entrepreneurial project after PayPal. It carries Musk’s ultimate goal-to turn humans into a species that crosses the planet. This idea has been born in Musk’s childhood.
Musk personally invested more than one billion, almost invested the funds from the sale of PayPal, and once again poured all of it. But unlike PayPal, SpaceX is difficult to see profit in the short term, and it is even a “golden black hole”; after all, only the country can afford to go to space.
In the eyes of others, Musk is crazy. In order to persuade Musk, a friend showed him a series of rocket explosion videos, which obviously did not work for Musk.
In order to carry out the space program, Musk even personally went to Moscow to investigate the rocket launch costs and planned to purchase ballistic missiles from Russia; his family and friends’ worries have escalated from “financial and empty” to “man and wealth” for fear that he would be targeted by spies. on.
In the end, the transaction was not reached, but it also opened another plan-self-made rockets. Musk discovered through self-study of the aerospace industry and the physics behind it for several months that it is cheaper to build your own rocket than to buy it.
As a result, Musk began to recruit troops and plans to send the rocket to the sky in November 2003. However, it was not until March 2006 that SpaceX performed its first launch attempt. As a result, within 26 seconds, the “Falcon 1” exploded.
Musk and his employees are no strangers to the explosion. During the development period, the engine was blown up, the test bed was burned, and the cooling chamber ruptured, but the first attempt still poured cold water on the SpaceX employees. Afterwards, Musk told employees:
SpaceX will continue to work hard, no matter how high it goes, it will never give up if it fails.
The failure of the Rockets continues.
The failure of the Rockets continues. The second and third launches exploded one after another, and even caused damage. It was already 2008.
At the time, Musk was in a multi-faceted crisis.
The financial crisis magnified people’s hatred of the rich. Musk, who was in the limelight, became the spearhead of the media. Negative reports about Tesla, the news of SpaceX’s failed launch, and even the accusations of his ex-wife against him were all seen in the newspapers.
In addition, SpaceX’s continuous failures and Tesla’s financing difficulties have made Musk’s funds urgent and facing the option of cutting meat. The fourth launch became the key to the survival of SpaceX.
In September 2008, the fourth rocket launch was a complete success. This was the first time since SpaceX was founded and the world’s first privately-built rocket to enter orbit. Undoubtedly, Musk made history.
From the perspective of today’s development, SpaceX has clearly passed the funding difficulties and has been able to cooperate with NASA. This is something to follow.
The successful launch of the rocket accelerated the development of SpaceX and achieved the first launch of a heavy-duty rocket; proposed rocket recovery; carried satellite launches and established a “Starlink” network; and even achieved commercial manned spaceflight for the first time, creating history again. These are all being realized step by step. , Step by step approaching the future that Musk conceived.
These achievements, so far, only Musk has done.
Musk is Musk
From Zip2 slightly changed the old state of the newspaper industry, to PayPal’s innovative payment methods, to SpaceX’s creation of a history of commercial aerospace from scratch, and Tesla’s transformation of the automotive industry. In the past two decades, Musk has been creating the company.
Even in addition to these projects, there are SolarCity (solar energy suppliers), Neuralink (research brain-computer interface technology), OpenAI, Hyperloop (super high-speed rail) and other entrepreneurial projects closely related to Musk, either for investment or for pro- Create.
Although Musk described entrepreneurship as “chewing the glass and staring into the abyss”, he never stopped for the following reasons:
it’s a right thing to do, and I’m tired of waiting someone else to do it for me.
I just think this is something that I should do, and I don’t want to wait for others to help me achieve it.
For Musk, his ex-wife Justin once commented:
He does what he wants to do as he pleases and works tirelessly for it. This is Elon’s world, and the rest of us are closely related to it.
People often use “Iron Man” to refer to Musk, who thinks he is the closest to the prototype. In reality, the Silicon Valley Iron Man also has a mission to save mankind like a movie, and this sense of mission is far beyond what most people can bear.
Faced with the unstoppable trend of artificial intelligence, Musk is worried about this. He believes that humans will become artificial intelligence pets.
In addition to disapproving voices, Musk is also seeking ways to counter artificial intelligence. In order to pay close attention to the development of artificial intelligence, Musk invested in artificial intelligence companies such as DeepMind and Vicarious, and even directly founded OpenAI.
Not only that, SpaceX’s Mars immigration program and the creation of a new company Neuralink that researches brain-computer connection technology are also related to this. In Musk’s view, humans need to be combined with machines to become a “semi-robot” to avoid being eliminated by artificial intelligence; Neuralink is the product of this idea.
Musk not only proved the feasibility of implanting chips in the brain, but also demonstrated the latest wearable device LINK V0.9 and surgical robots at the Neuralink conference last month, and used the real-time neuron activity of three pigs Demonstrated the actual application process of Neuralink.
Among all the words describing Musk, the word “crazy” seems to be the most appropriate. Even he himself would ask the question “Do you think I am crazy?”
“Crazy” took his unconstrained ideas to the extreme, and vowed to never stop until he reached his goal; “Crazy” allowed him to break through the traditional imprisonment, but sometimes crossed the boundaries of what should be.
During the epidemic, in order to restart the factory, Musk ignored the harmfulness of the virus, directly enforced regulations and forcibly resumed work, and said on Twitter:
Today Tesla violated the laws of Alameda County and restarted the factory. I will be on the same front with you. If anyone is hunted down for this, that person will only be me.
Although these words are quite heroic, but the irony is that Musk, who wanted to save mankind, turned on deaf ears at this time the virus threatening mankind’s statement and forcibly resumed work.
At that time, Ashlee Vance also wrote an article saying-
The biggest irony of Musk’s denial of the new crown virus pandemic is that his purpose of getting SpaceX out is to liberate us from the virus pandemic.
In the eyes of the employees, they respect him and understand his harshness, but they also think that he has reached the point of meanness, which makes people feel capricious, hovering between fear and admiration.
In the eyes of people in the industry, Musk is a naive technical expert who is often talked about as a joke. He is also a competitor between the mischief and the nonsense.
However, as Space X became the first commercial airline to send humans and return to the earth, Tesla became the world’s most valuable automaker, and those original contempt were gradually changing.
“Those who love him and those who hate him are equally irrational.”-This is the judgment given by the biographer Ashlee Vance.
Just as “there are a thousand Hamlet in the eyes of a thousand people”, everyone’s definition of Musk is different.
But to blame, Musk is Musk.
A future retrograde
Musk is like a retrograde man returning from the future, who can always predict what the future will look like in advance and take us step by step to the future he can foresee.
Even if that future sounds ridiculous at a certain point in time, historical experience has proved that as long as he is given enough time, he can always realize it with unparalleled determination.
From the current point of view, whether it is SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, or other entrepreneurial projects, they still face many technical problems, with great uncertainty. Musk may become a hero to save mankind, but it is also possible. Because the dramatic risk will ruin it.
The future that Musk really wants to take mankind to can only be answered by time.
But in any case, Musk is already involved in our future.
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