Elon Musk

De: Walter Isaacson

Narrado por: Jeremy Bobb, Walter Isaacson

The #1 New York Times bestseller from the author of Steve Jobs—this is the astonishingly intimate story of the most fascinating and controversial innovator of our era—a rule-breaking visionary who helped to lead the world into the era of electric vehicles, private space exploration, and artificial intelligence. Oh, and took over Twitter.

When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.

His father’s impact on his psyche would linger. He developed into a tough yet vulnerable man-child, prone to abrupt Jekyll-and-Hyde mood swings, with an exceedingly high tolerance for risk, a craving for drama, an epic sense of mission, and a maniacal intensity that was callous and at times destructive.

At the beginning of 2022—after a year marked by SpaceX launching thirty-one rockets into orbit, Tesla selling a million cars, and him becoming the richest man on earth—Musk spoke ruefully about his compulsion to stir up dramas. “I need to shift my mindset away from being in crisis mode, which it has been for about fourteen years now, or arguably most of my life,” he said.

It was a wistful comment, not a New Year’s resolution. Even as he said it, he was secretly buying up shares of Twitter, the world’s ultimate playground. Over the years, whenever he was in a dark place, his mind went back to being bullied on the playground. Now he had the chance to own the playground.

For two years, Isaacson shadowed Musk, attended his meetings, walked his factories with him, and spent hours interviewing him, his family, friends, coworkers, and adversaries. The result is the revealing inside story, filled with amazing tales of triumphs and turmoil, that addresses the question: are the demons that drive Musk also what it takes to drive innovation and progress?

©2023 Walter Isaacson (P)2023 Simon & Schuster Audio

Another great life story!

No one tells the life story of some of the most amazing people in the world like Walter Isaacson! The story made me laugh at some of the events and others made me feel inspired. A great story about the truly great human being that is Elon Musk. A must listen!

Remarkable!

Fantastic insight into the life and mind of one of the world’s most important, and influential people. Isaacson effectively connect the dots, and gives context to all the diverse, fragmented, and poler descriptions from which the average person needs to draw upon, to try and understand this remarkable and extraordinary— driven and sometimes tormented human being.

Great story, less political bias

The book was well researched and very interesting. Author is clearly on the left and can’t help but interweave his politics into the story and show sustain for musk thinking differently

Great

Tesla and space x was really interesting about their development. He’s an interesting study as a human.

Ride or Die

I’m on the Musk Starship! He is a visionary. I’m happy to have learned about his life. I am excited to hear more in the future!

Must read with an open mind

A true look at what it can take to innovate. I'm a huge Elon fan, however, I am not a huge fan of the way he treats people. This book shows the cost of fast and aggressive innovation. It also shows how slow other companies are. He says and does a lot of things I do not agree with. But there isn't any argument to the positive impacts that he has had on todays society. He's done more for rockets, cars and tech in the last 10 years that many companies have done in 20+.

I believe he is a true NET positve on society, with a trail of hindsight mistakes we can all learn from and true accomplishments we get to stand on.

A true yin and yang of qualities.

Excitingly Motivational

As I listened, realizing that I knew about all of the ups and downs of each company, it was so fascinating to learn about the real events without the media filter. I feel a bit disappointed that the book came to an end

Fantastic read

Great storytelling and narration. Elon is doing great things, and to be able to peek into that is priceless. I enjoyed the book a lot and would recommend it to anyone, especially if you are into biographies.

Incredible!

Riveting look into a man I completely misunderstood until this book.
The author did an excellent job of weaving his story just as if we are there. Thank you

One of the best books ever in our time

I am in awe of Elon Musk. I wish I was a few decades younger to apply some of his brilliant genius (with maybe a tad of compassion but not too much 😁). We are lucky to be watching Elon change the world before our eyes. I’d love to have a Red Bull with him. Actually, a really expensive glass of wine.