Elon Musk: by Walter Isaacson

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It’s a scene!” yells the American writer Walter Isaacson, straining to be heard above the cacophony. Elon Musk" offers valuable insights into the creative process of a brilliant mind. The book details Musk's relentless pursuit of innovation and his willingness to take risks that others deemed impossible. For aspiring entrepreneurs and innovators, the book provides a treasure trove of lessons on perseverance, problem-solving, and thinking beyond conventional boundaries. Throughout the rest of the book, finding out additional context about events I've observed as an outsider illuminating. At first these endeavors were rather independent, but eventually Musk would tie them all together, along with a new company he founded called xAI, to pursue the goal of artificial general intelligence.

Musk also has a sense of his own limitations, matter-of-factly describing his own Asperger’s syndrome – not officially diagnosed but presumed by him and his associates – and constantly sighing to Isaacson about his own propensity to shoot himself in the foot: “I should wear Kevlar boots.” Yet the most useful fact we learn here about Musk’s personality is that he’s a dark and relentless ironist. He often says things for effect, and no one around him can quite tell whether or not he’s joking. At Tulane we try to make sure that everyone has a double major in science and humanities — we need kids who are creative, not just those who can code.” Indeed, he believes that the crazy, artistic whirl of New Orleans, where boundaries are made to be broken, is the perfect cauldron for these collisions.That delivered “a wild ride”, says Isaacson. But it also left him (and everyone else) grappling with big questions: do you have to be half-crazy to be truly innovative, or a genius? And how do you stop a brilliant mind from spinning out of control?

Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction". The New York Times. October 1, 2023 . Retrieved September 23, 2023. Someone has said recently that this book is very good, not even as Musk's biography, but as a business book. I tend to agree - it shows moves that appear crazy, but there's always something behind them. the algorithm. The specific modus operandi aimed for effectiveness. Some may not like it, some may disagree with it, but facts prove that it has been consistently successful in absolutely bonkers conditions, so ... So Musk decided to forge ahead with building rival AI teams to work on an array of related projects. These included Neuralink, which aims to plant microchips in human brains; Optimus, a human-like robot; and Dojo, a supercomputer that can use millions of videos to train an artificial neural network to simulate a human brain. It also spurred him to become obsessed with pushing to make Tesla cars self-driving. Shafer, Ellise (November 10, 2023). "Elon Musk Biopic in the Works at A24 With Darren Aronofsky Set to Direct". Variety . Retrieved November 11, 2023. However, exploring the mind of Musk was “not quite like anything I have ever done before”, he says, as we sit down. “I told him at the beginning [of the project] that if I am going to do this I have to be at your side for two years and I want to talk to you almost every day — I want to be like Boswell doing Doctor Johnson.”

Violent fights with his brother

Just present the actions and let the reader make the judgments! We don't need to be spoonfed psychoanalytic explanations for Elon's behavior, like we're his shrink trying to prescribe his meds. Presenting the worldview and then tying that to the actions is enough; we can read the scenes you've chosen and form our own opinions. Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors, 2019 nonfiction book about Musk's management of Tesla

Like the building of Rome, Musk’s march to the right did not take only one day. A series of events lie behind it. Musk is a modern Wizard of Oz. Like the man behind the curtain, he is needy. According to Isaacson, outright rejection – and gender transition – by one of Musk’s children played an outsized role in his change. So did Covid restrictions and a slap from the Biden White House. a b Lyngaas, Sean (September 7, 2023). " 'How am I in this war?': New Musk biography offers fresh details about the billionaire's Ukraine dilemma". CNN . Retrieved October 1, 2023. There's really a lot about the greater good, and grand sense of mission (survival of the human race, bringing in renewable energy sources, etc.) - I'm not really buying that. It sounds like the founder's selling pitch (even to his own people to play with their intrinsic motivations). I have an impression WI fell for that because of not being critical enough / not filtering BS enough. Musk is disdainful of Donald Trump, whom he sees as a conman. This May, on X, Musk hosted a campaign roll-out for another would-be strongman: Ron DeSantis. A glitch-filled disaster, it portended what followed. The Florida governor continues to slide in the polls, Vivek Ramaswamy nipping at his heels. Walter Isaacson charts Elon Musk’s journey from humble beginnings to one of the wealthiest people on the planet – but is Musk a genius or a jerk?Brian Merchant of the Los Angeles Times criticized Isaacson's "great man" biography format as extremely dated and took issue with his persistent framing of Musk as a "moody but brilliant world-mover", writing, "The author will unearth unflattering personal anecdotes and share stories about the subject's capacity to be cruel. In exchange, the subject's greatness will be treated as an assumption." [11] Musk's vision for the future is nothing short of awe-inspiring, and Isaacson does an exceptional job of conveying the magnitude of Musk's ambitions. From colonizing Mars to revolutionizing the automotive industry, Musk's visionary ideas are portrayed with enthusiasm and intellectual depth. Reading about his endeavors leaves you feeling invigorated and excited about the possibilities of our future. Elon Musk first announced that Isaacson was in the process of writing his biography in August 2021. He revealed that Isaacson had shadowed him "for several days so far". [2] Lepore, Jill (September 11, 2023). "How Elon Musk Went from Superhero to Supervillain". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on September 13, 2023 . Retrieved September 14, 2023.

At first Isaacson was baffled by this. But then “Shivon Zilis [an executive at Musk’s Neuralink company who has had twins with him] told him that “Musk engages in batch processing — he sequentially processes information and at times he zones out”. Elon Musk" by Walter Isaacson is an extraordinary biographical exploration of one of the most fascinating and innovative figures of our time. As an admirer of Elon Musk and his ventures, I found this book to be an incredibly insightful and inspiring read that goes far beyond the typical biography. Here's why I believe it's a must-read for anyone interested in technology, entrepreneurship, and the future of humanity.

The staged 2016 Autopilot demo video. In the demo video, which features the title card “The car is driving by itself,” the car was not driving by itself, Tesla’s director of Autopilot software said in a deposition. Musk himself asked for that copy. I learnt not to fill his silences,” Isaacson explains. “Sometimes it would be Elon and me alone after a [company] meeting and I would ask him a question and he didn’t answer, and there would be four or five minutes of silence where he was processing. That is hard — we journalists sometimes don’t have the ability to stay silent for four minutes!” Lopatto, Elizabeth (October 1, 2023). "How the Elon Musk biography exposes Walter Isaacson". The Verge . Retrieved October 1, 2023. The New York Times critic Jennifer Szalai wrote, "Isaacson [...] is a patient chronicler of obsession; in the case of Musk, he can occasionally seem too patient." [10]