Transcription
Elon Musk. Elon Musk. Elon Musk. Elon Musk. Elon Musk fan. Elon Musk.
Can one man change the world? Born in South Africa in the early 70s, a boy from Pretoria faces childhood problems. He reads 10 hours a day.
Star Wars and comic books, but this one's got talent for technology and for business.
Game begin. At only 12 years of age, he programmed his first computer game called Blastar on the good old Commodore. Young Elon sold the game to a computer magazine for $500. Develop things, let them grow, sell them fast. This is how he builds his empire and paves his way to go even further.
One thing he never wanted to hear, you're in the army now. So, he grabbed his passport and moved to Canada, leaving South Africa's apartheid regime behind. He was only 16 years old.
After spending some time in Kingston, he left Canada and moved to his ancestral homeland, the United States of America. Ah, the land of opportunities, a place where dreams come true, a place where he always wanted to come.
After completing his bachelor's from the University of Pennsylvania, he moved south, Stanford University, Palo Alto. Elon had a deep fascination with the idea of electric cars ever since he was a little boy.
Following his childhood curiosity, he enrolled himself in a PhD program at Stanford. Research on the energy density of ultra capacitors, make them viable to power electric cars. That was the plan. But right at that time, another interesting thing just came along. The rise of the internet on the superhighway. It is called internet.
He soon realized that he could have a much bigger impact by helping build the internet rather than producing some useless research papers at Stanford. So just after 2 days at Stanford, he put his grad studies on hold and moved to Silicon Valley where all his dreams were about to come true.
Elon Musk was one of those who founded the legend of the valley. With just $2,000, a computer, and a car, and nothing more, he founded Zip 2, a company that provided and licensed online city guide software to newspapers. His brother, Kimell Musk, joined him to help in this endeavor.
But it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. Every day seemed like a challenge. The brothers had so little money that they couldn't afford to rent a house. The solution? Rent a small office, use it as a workplace during the day, sleep on the couch at night, and shower at the YMCA. Elon spent months coding the company's website, working 7 days a week, all the time.
Four years later, Compaq acquired Zip 2 for a massive $37 million. Elon's share in the company made him a whopping $22 million. Quite a story, but just the start.
A typical story of those times. Develop and invest. Find allies, merge, disrupt. His next mission, enable people to make payments in real time using the internet. The rise of PayPal mafia. Elon Musk changed the financial sector forever. PayPal was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion. Elon held 11.7% of the company, making him $180 million.
A big winner in the big game. Money that he allocates to solve big problems. Money that he uses to make the world a better place. Next, he attacked the world's most competitive market, the automotive industry, Tesla. Disruption at its best. He reinvented the electric cars.
Not everything worked out perfectly. But his long breath proved him right. Tesla Model S achieved the best safety rating of any car ever tested. And today Tesla is the largest automotive company, leaving the giants like GM and Japanese automakers far behind. He's pushing all his competitors forward. He is expanding. He leads technology. He leads logistics and infrastructure. And if necessary, he works and sleeps at the factory.
"I sleep on the couch over there." "So, you're just laying here on the couch." "Yeah. Last time I was here, I actually slept literally on the floor cuz the couch was too narrow."
His next mission, autonomous driving. Why drive when you can just sit in the car, do the stuff that you love while your car takes you to your destination autonomously? Well, it is fun to drive a Tesla. But on an endless road, even riding gets tiring. It's natural. We're bored easily. So, let the car drive and get some food for the brain while it does the work.
And last, but not least, it uses energy that is eco-friendly. Just plug in your car at any supercharger and there you have it. A 400-mile range to travel anywhere you love, anywhere you want, without the guilt of polluting the planet. Elon embraces his responsibility, but this is never enough. Much more is needed.
Elon can't stop thinking about the future, of making things work even better, more efficient. He reaches out for the stars, the real ones, the stars that shine bright at night in the sky. He is a superstar and still the kid who loves sci-fi. "Do you see a butterfly?" He questions why confined to only one planet when we have millions of more to explore just within our own galaxy alone.
The result, SpaceX. The rise of Elon Musk's engineering masterpiece. It is not only a business. It's not a hobby. It's a passion. Elon is the CEO and its chief engineer. It is all rocket science, really. A visionary, a man who never gives up.
Although there were a few moments when giving up would have been a more than plausible option. His first three rocket launches failed. Bankruptcy stared him in the face. Many doubted him. Many laughed at him. The Russian officials went as far as spitting on him when he tried to negotiate a rocket deal. But Elon Musk must not be quoted by them. Too ambitious, too determined.
The odds were against him. But when something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor. That is the philosophy by which he guides his actions. He kept pushing during the darkest times. Slowly but surely, things started to turn out. His big break, SpaceX's fourth launch finally made it to orbit. And he never looked back.
For over a decade, the US relied on Russians for transporting its cargo and astronauts to the ISS. But he crushed the Russian monopoly. He reenabled America to send its astronauts back to space. American astronauts in American rockets from American soil.
But it's just the beginning. His mission is much bigger than this. It's not just about America. It's not just about any one country. It's about the entire human race. His next big mission, establish a permanent self-sustaining city on the red planet. A life insurance for life collectively. Transporting a million people to Mars. The greatest adventure in human history.
It is no mean feat. He's manufacturing Starship, the largest rocket ever made by far. It has more than twice the thrust of the Saturn 5 rocket. He dreams big. He executes fast. And he makes the impossible possible.
But it doesn't stop there. He keeps taking on some of the most difficult problems, life-changing problems, problems that no one dares to touch. What if we could treat neural disorders of handicapped people by connecting the mind with machines? Voila, the Neurolink. What if we could have high-speed internet access anywhere in the world, be it a desert or some insanely remote location in a jungle? Voila, the Starlink. What if we could get rid of traffic on our city streets? Dig a deep long tunnel beneath them and shoot the cars from one side of the city to the other. Voila, the Boring Company.
How about a high-speed transportation system for both public and goods in pods and evacuated tubes at 700 mph? Hey, voila, the Hyperloop. What if you could merge with machines and be part of the AI revolution? After all, we don't want to end up having a Skynet type situation where artificial intelligence gets out of hand. Voila, OpenAI.
And last but not least, he's developing the Tesla bot, a humanoid robot that will help you with dangerous, boring, and repetitive tasks. Making your life less stressful. Making your life more meaningful. And it keeps on going.
So, can one man change the world? Yeah, sure. Elon Musk is doing it and he inspires millions across the globe to do the same. If you liked this video, please subscribe to our channel and join us on our quest to become more like Elon everyday. Thank you for watching.