Inspiring Personality of the month January 2016 is
Elon Reeves Musk
Starting this January 2016, read about one inspiring personality every month.
Who is Elon Reeves Musk?
The founder Solar City, SpaceX, OpenAI, Tesla Motors, Hyperloop, Co Founder of X.Com and former CEO of Paypal ....
... evidently an Over Achiever ... creates a feeling in everyone who reads about him that he/she is so lazy. The meticulous planning for future, the apt beginning with negligible investment, moving ahead step by step achieving his targets one by one and the move is still on.
You can buy his biography Elon Musk : How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is shaping our Future (English)(Paperback) here.
The book traces Elon Musk's life from his childhood up to the time he spent at Zip2 and Paypal, and then onto SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. In the book, Vance managed to get regular interviews with Musk, those close to him, and those who were with him at the most important points of his life.
Having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, he enrolled in the graduate school at Stanford University to pursue studies in the field of applied physics and materials science. However, after 2 days, he left the graduate school and together with his brother, Kimbal Musk, he created his first IT company Zip2.
In 1999, AltaVista (the biggest search engine of that time ) bought Zip2 for $307 million in cash and $34 million in securities.
In 1999, X.com startup became his new business and started to work on electronic payment systems. In March 2000, X.com merged with a rival company Confinity, which developed software to allow owners of PalmPilots and other PDAs to store encrypted information on their devices, creating the first digital wallet. In 2001, after the merger, X.com was renamed to PayPal and Elon Musk became the chairman and chief executive of PayPal.
In 2002, eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion. Elon Musk received $180 million for his share from PayPal and had enough funds to pursue his other interests: space engineering and alternative energy sources. Elon stopped investing in internet business thereafter.
Others
“Rockets are cool. There’s no getting around that.”Table of Contents
| Elon's world | ||
| Africa | ||
| Canada | ||
| Elon's first start-up | ||
| PayPal mafia boss | ||
| Mice in space | ||
| All electric | ||
| Pain, suffering and survival | ||
| Liftoff | ||
| The revenge of the electric car | ||
| The unified field theory of Elon Musk | ||
| Epilogue | ||
| Appendixes. | ||
| Intrigue surrounding Zip2, Musk's academic record | ||
| Musk's time at Paypal and the coup | ||
| Memo to SpaceX personnel : going public |
Early Life of Elon Musk
When I was in college, I wanted to be involved in things that would change the world. – Elon MuskMusk was born June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, Transvaal, South Africa the son of Maye (née Haldeman), a model from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada; and Errol Musk, a South African-born electromechanical engineer.
Musk was initially educated at private schools, attending the English-speaking Waterkloof House Preparatory School. Musk later graduated from Pretoria Boys High School and moved to Canada in June 1989, just before his 18th birthday, after obtaining Canadian citizenship through his Canadian-born mother.
University Education
At the age of 19, Musk was accepted into Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, for undergraduate study. In 1992, after spending two years at Queen's University, Musk transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where, at the age of 24, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in physics at Penn's College of Arts and Sciences, and a Bachelor of Science degree in economics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Musk stayed on a year to finish his second bachelor's degree. While at the University of Pennsylvania, Musk and fellow Penn student Adeo Ressi bought a 10-bedroom fraternity house, using it as an unofficial nightclub. In 1995, at age 24, Musk moved to California to begin a PhD in applied physics at Stanford University, but left the program after two days to pursue his entrepreneurial aspirations in the areas of the Internet, renewable energy and outer space.
Careers, Dreams ... Success
At the age of 9, Elon Musk got his first personal computer, the Commodore VIC-20. He got interested in programming and started to learn it by himself. At the age of 12, he developed a computer game Blastar (a shooter similar to Space Invaders), all by himself. He earned $500 by selling the game to a magazine called PC and Office Technology. The web version of the game is available for download now. A great step ahead into future by a 12 year old boy!
Musk figured out that humanity had to expand the limits of its consciousness to learn to ask the right questions; and he had found his question: what things would have the great impact on the future of humanity’s destiny?
Elon Musk decided that those would be the internet, the transition to renewable energy sources, and space colonization. He wanted to try to contribute in all three of them. To do that, he needed funds.
Having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, he enrolled in the graduate school at Stanford University to pursue studies in the field of applied physics and materials science. However, after 2 days, he left the graduate school and together with his brother, Kimbal Musk, he created his first IT company Zip2.
In 1999, AltaVista (the biggest search engine of that time ) bought Zip2 for $307 million in cash and $34 million in securities.
In 1999, X.com startup became his new business and started to work on electronic payment systems. In March 2000, X.com merged with a rival company Confinity, which developed software to allow owners of PalmPilots and other PDAs to store encrypted information on their devices, creating the first digital wallet. In 2001, after the merger, X.com was renamed to PayPal and Elon Musk became the chairman and chief executive of PayPal.
In 2002, eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion. Elon Musk received $180 million for his share from PayPal and had enough funds to pursue his other interests: space engineering and alternative energy sources. Elon stopped investing in internet business thereafter.
SpaceX
In 2001, Musk conceptualized "Mars Oasis"; a project to land a miniature experimental greenhouse on Mars, containing food crops growing on Martian regolith, in an attempt to regain public interest in space exploration.
Musk realized that he could start a company that could build the affordable rockets he needed. According to early Tesla and SpaceX investor Steve Jurvetson, Musk calculated that the raw materials for building a rocket actually were only 3 percent of the sales price of a rocket at the time. By applying vertical integration and the modular approach from software engineering, SpaceX could cut launch price by a factor of ten and still enjoy a 70 percent gross margin. Ultimately, Musk ended up founding SpaceX with the long-term goal of creating a "true spacefaring civilization".
SpacX develops and manufactures space launch vehicles with a focus on advancing the state of rocket technology. The company's first two launch vehicles are the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets (a nod to Star Wars' Millennium Falcon), and its first spacecraft is the Dragon (a nod to Puff the magic dragon). In seven years, SpaceX designed the family of Falcon launch vehicles and the Dragon multipurpose spacecraft. In September 2009, SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket, became the first privately funded liquid-fueled vehicle to put a satellite into Earth orbit.On May 25, 2012, the SpaceX Dragon vehicle berthed with the ISS, making history as the first commercial company to launch and berth a vehicle to the International Space Station.
In 2006, SpaceX was awarded a contract from NASA to continue the development and test of the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft in order to transport cargo to the International Space Station, followed by a US$1.6 billion NASA launch contract on December 23, 2008 for 12 flights of its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft to the Space Station, replacing the US Space Shuttle after it retired in 2011.
Musk views space exploration as an important step in expanding—if not preserving—the consciousness of human life. Musk said that multiplanetary life may serve as a hedge against threats to the survival of the human species.
His goal is to reduce the cost of human spaceflight by a factor of 10.In a 2011 interview, he said he hopes to send humans to Mars' surface within 10–20 years. In Ashlee Vance's biography on Musk, Musk reveals that he wishes to establish a Mars colony by 2040, with a population of 80,000.
Tesla Motors
In 2003, engineers Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning founded Tesla Motors. Both men played active roles in the company's early development prior to Elon Musk's involvement. Musk led the Series A round of investment in February 2004, joining Tesla's board of directors as its chairman. Musk took an active role within the company and oversaw Roadster product design at a detailed level, but was not deeply involved in day-to-day business operations. Following the financial crisis in 2008, Musk assumed leadership of the company as CEO and product architect, positions he still holds today. Tesla Motors first built an electric sports car, the Tesla Roadster, with sales of about 2,500 vehicles to 31 countries.
In 2014, Musk announced that Tesla Motors will allow its technology patents to be used by anyone in good faith in a bid to entice automobile manufacturers to speed up development of electric cars.
"The unfortunate reality is electric car programs (or programs for any vehicle that doesn't burn hydrocarbons) at the major manufacturers are small to non-existent, constituting an average of far less than 1% of their total vehicle sales",
Musk said.
SolarCity
Musk provided the initial concept, and financial capitals for SolarCity, which was then co-founded in 2006 by his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive.[84][85] Musk remains the largest shareholder. SolarCity is now the second largest provider of solar power systems in the United States.
Hyperloop
On August 12, 2013, Musk unveiled a proposal for a new form of transportation between the Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area. Musk named it "hyperloop", a hypothetical subsonic air travel machine that stretches approximately 350 miles (560 kilometres) from Sylmar (a northern district of Los Angeles) to Hayward (east of San Francisco) and would theoretically allow commuters to travel between the cities in 35 minutes or less, providing a shorter traveling time than even a commercial airplane can currently provide.
Hyperloop is going to be a great way of transportation for large cities located at a distance of not more than 900 miles (1500 km) from each other. For longer distances, aircraft is more suitable, the inventor believes.
Even though Musk is not ready to devote sufficient time to the Hyperloop concept, he is still willing to finance the development of the prototype. He also made Hyperloop design as an open source, allowing everyone to improve the current version of it, guaranteeing all possible support. As Elon Musk said he was not afraid of losing something on Hyperloop financially, but it would be great to make a new mode of transport.
OpenAI
In December 2015, Elon Musk announced the creation of OpenAI, a not-for-profit artificial intelligence (AI) research company. OpenAI aims to develop artificial general intelligence in a way that is safe and beneficial to humanity. By making AI available to everyone, OpenAI wants to "counteract large corporations who may gain too much power by owning super-intelligence systems devoted to profits, as well as governments which may use AI to gain power and even oppress their citizenry".[100]
Quotes from Elon Musk
On Destiny
Well, I do. Do I think that there's some sort of master intelligence architecting all of this stuff? I think probably not because then you have to say: "Where does the master intelligence come from?" So it sort of begs the question. So I think really you can explain this with the fundamental laws of physics. You know its complex phenomenon from simple elements
Others
“Most people, when they make a lot of money don’t want to risk it. For me it was never about money, but solving problems for the future of humanity”– Elon Musk
“I don’t create companies for the sake of creating companies, but to get things done.”
- Elon Musk
- Elon Musk
– Elon Musk
“You’ll be able to travel for free, forever, on pure sunlight.”
Elon Musk at the Tesla Supercharger announcement, May 30, 2013
“When you try new things, you try this idea, that idea… a large number of them are not gonna work, and that has to be okay. If every time somebody comes up with an idea it has to be successful, you’re not gonna get people coming up with ideas.”
– Elon MuskReferences
Elon Musk Biography: Success Story of The 21st Century Innovator. (2016). Astrum People website. Retrieved 7:28, Jan 29, 2016, from http://astrumpeople.com/elon-musk-biography/.
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