Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

Where Mark Zuckerberg wants to help you share baby photos, Musk wants to . . . well . . . save the human race from self-imposed or accidental annihilation.

“There is a fundamental problem with regulators. If a regulator agrees to change a rule and something bad happens, they could easily lose their career. Whereas if they change a rule and something good happens, they don’t even get a reward. So, it’s very asymmetric.

“The mantra was that one great engineer will replace three medium ones,” Lloyd said.

San Francisco has an enduring history with greed. It became a city on the back of the gold rush, and not even a catastrophic earthquake could slow San Francisco’s economic lust for long. Don’t let the granola vibes fool you. Booms and busts are the rhythm of this place.

He will pick the most aggressive time schedule imaginable assuming everything goes right, and then accelerate it by assuming that everyone can work harder.”

Only a cynical dullard could come away from witnessing this feeling anything other than wonder at what man can accomplish.

What Musk has developed that so many of the entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley lack is a meaningful worldview. He’s the possessed genius on the grandest quest anyone has ever concocted. He’s less a CEO chasing riches than a general marshaling troops to secure victory. Where Mark Zuckerberg wants to help you share baby photos, Musk wants to . . . well

This left Musk searching for an industry that had tons of money and inefficiencies that he and the Internet could exploit.

Rarely did Tesla get hung up overanalyzing a situation. The company would pick a plan of attack, and when it failed at something, it failed fast and then tried a new approach.