In a New York Times interview with David Gelles, James B. Stewart, Jessica Silver-Greenberg, and Kate Kelly, the Times journalists noted that Elon Musk, “choked up multiple times, noting that he nearly missed his brother’s wedding this summer and spent his birthday holed up in Tesla’s offices as the company raced to meet elusive production targets on a crucial new model.”
I’ve followed social media, sites like reddit and twitter, a little more closely when it comes to this particular human. I’m a fanboy. I have followed the sites where Musk has been discussed and I found myself more disappointed than understanding.
Honestly, much of the public commentary reminds me of how people can be real a**hats. Not him mind you, the judgement of him. I’m seeing tweets and comments along the lines of, “woe me, billionaire celeb founder is having a hard time.”
Doing what we do, starting businesses, is among the most stressful life decisions anyone can make. EVERYONE loses it at some point. People are never exceptional and shouldn’t be idealized.
Some of us fall off the grid and just check out (I tend to do this). Some of us lose it at home, quietly, emotionally; if they’re lucky, they have a partner there to help (me too by the way, my wife is an angel). Some of us crack a poorly worded joke, comment, or thought, out of stress more than intention. Some take an ambien to get some sleep, have a drink too many, or worse lose control in the process.
We do work that means that we will fail. Failure is inevitable in entrepreneurship. You spend your money, your time, your reputation, your personal life… in hopes of making the lives of others better.
And we’re constantly judged for the missteps.
Even in making it work, we hear things like, “why is it taking so long??” “why aren’t you/we doing this instead?” Team members leave us, families are strained, and rumors spread in whispers that reach our ears, “maybe they’re full of it and there’s nothing worthwhile there.”
And then one day, you put a battery-powered car in space.
No one is infallible. We’re all, all 400 billion people, in this together for the next few decades. There’s no one else but us and after us, we won’t care what we accomplished nor how much we cried. All that will matter is what those next have and think because of us.
I think the man who helped build PayPal, Tesla, and who is changing the way we get to space, deserves to have some cracks in public. In fact, I applaud that he is cracking, it’s a good reminder that even those we put on pedestals are no better than the rest of us trying to make a difference. Let’s not be too hard on ourselves… no, better: let’s prop each other up rather than tearing down our humanity.
[Photo credit: Photographer, Michelle Andonian for OnInnovation. This photograph is made available pursuant to a Creative Commons noncommercial, attribution, no derivatives license.]
I am a fanboy as well. I identify with him
“Failure is inevitable in entrepreneurship”. True. Entrepreneurship is less about circumnavigating failure and more about creating a wave of some sort. One thing leads to another. You meet new people and learn new things along the journey. Bigger fish just have ever bigger successes and failures, it’s not like the frequency of failures is reduced as wealth is increased – not at all. One thing the wealthy like to do is go into real estate – the easy way out really, since it’s less risky than running a business and is honestly hard to mess up. But it’s just shuffling ownership, it’s not creating new things. Musk has not invested his winnings safely, quite the contrary with interestingly shows his disregard for money.. Had he cared for it, he would’ve gone to real estate or whatnot at 20M and Tesla, Boring Co, Space X would not exit.
I’m personally worried about Elon. He’s been showing signs of “cracking” recently and this interview shows some of that. I hope for his sake he finds what he needs and doesn’t turn to destructive coping mechanisms. If he needs to take a step back to recover from what has to have been an incredibly grueling pace then do it. Don’t worry about the naysayers, do what you need to do to be happy and fulfilled. You can’t help others until you help yourself.
Jeremy Hopkins, yep: put your oxygen mask on first
Here’s the thing I see. It has been stressful for him. I completely get it’s been rough. But he’s brought a LOT of that on himself. By making announcements without thinking through the consequences, by making statements that backs himself into a corner (no more funding needed when everyone knows he will), by spending time on things that aren’t core, by attacking negative press instead of addressing it. There’s a lot of things he’s done to make it worse, not better.
Part of being an Entrepreneur is knowing what battles to pick. And he really seems like he’s not very good at that these days.
Philip Wheat he did bring a lot of it on himself, but it could have been a result of the already internally melting down. We often don’t self diagnose until it’s way too late. That’s where close loved ones need to help you see it before it becomes something more serious.
If only everyone were treated so kindly. Not to say that he doesn’t deserve it, but that kind of forgiveness is lacking in society as a whole. The nature of the issue didn’t change because it’s Musk. The type of attention does.
Irrespective of the context this post is powerful and should be shared; the more “successful” people that echo this message the better we’ll all be in the long run— authentic vulnerability is a break in the facade of the “inevitable invincible destined-to-be success”
I agree. Elon Musk is highly gifted person. He exhibits the traits. If every person had his genius and his relentless pursuit of excellence…just think where humanity would be.
See below.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/3tpzyx/elon_musk_almost_in_tears_hearing_criticism/
I was moved when I saw him describing his reaction to people like Gene Cernan criticizing what they were doing at SpaceX.
Nice thoughts Paul. Thanks for sharing.
I hear ya, i really do. As a species we should be more symathetic and empathetic to each other and the world would be a much better place all around. My particular issues with Musk though have to do with what seems to be a troubling trend that shows that ethics are optional in his world and an absolute hatred of transparency. Does this make him the worst person ever? Obviously not. The worst business person ever? I’d have to say no again… But that also doesn’t mean that I don’t think some of the criticism levied against him as of late isn’t spot on and absolutely fair.
Are we forgetting his Pravda campaign? He really has brought a lot of the criticism on himself with his own lack of empathy to others.
What’s that line from Dark Knight, you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain
I agree startup mode is incredibly draining both physically and emotionally and after a few months of it the best of us breakdown
He has been in that mode for years and in a very public way
No one is that strong to not crack a little
IMO it speaks to the importance of life-work balance. You have to take care of yourself, set an example, and not expect the people that work for you to give up their lives for work. Really. His accomplishments are amazing but obviously at too high a price.
Interesting how many historical innovators weren’t exactly nice or even good people yet we still view them thru a hazy fogged sentimentality of their accomplishments
maybe social media unmasks them today in a way that wasn’t possible before
A few examples are Jobs , Einstein, Ford , Kellogg , Hearst and even the founding fathers and Columbus
Perhaps it’s the norm ?
Intruiguing. Maybe, just maybe, we’re all flawed and our high expectations of success make us want to tear down people to make ourselves feel better; because we’re all rather like that
Oddly this just came on the radio .. everybody plays the fool …. sometimes..
Meh. Poster child for hubris.
Well said!
Well said! I’ve admittedly been an Elon fan-boy for years, and I agree that he’s showing some cracks. What’s amazing to me though is that he revolutionized the payment, automotive, space, and solar industries before showing those cracks. I think Paul’s words really echo the sentiment of the Austin startup community as a whole: “let’s prop each other up rather than tearing down our humanity.”
“Fall off the grid” <= me too!
I’m a fanwoman as well and have been saddened to see all the bad attention Elon has been getting. Thanks for adding the humanity the media so often leave out!
I’m not a fanboy, but do look to Musk for some inspiration and as a good model for the good things he does, also feeling he is highly flawed. He should be held accountable for his hubris, missteps, etc, as we all should – he does not get a pass, no one does. I do very much appreciate the perspective you’re advancing here though Paul, because it is vulnerable and honest and we need more of that in startup. And some people will always hate him, no matter what he does, and that’s okay, I’ve learned I’m going to have to accept that with my own work. But it’s important to humanize all these people too. I hate genius theory.
I’m kind of tired of people making excuses for a billionaire grown man who is clearly not listening to the people he hired to support him. He can be brilliant and an asshat at the same time, the two things are not mutually exclusive. And he is self aware enough to know (and has acknowledged publicly) he is pushing himself too far physically and that it is destroying his relationships.
I have a very hard time having sympathy for someone who knows they are on a crash course and continues on it.
Too many entrepreneurs trade in hubris and not being able to acknowledge that they need help and can’t do it all alone.
Part of living a highly public life is taking the occasional arrow along with the praise and adulation that is far less notable because it is the more constant and present state of things in that world. You lead a company that got $1.3 billion in economic incentives from Nevada while armed with a business track record wasn’t much more than the back of an envelope, a front loader full of chutzpah and not much else, well, criticism comes with the territory when it looks like things are going astray. Here’s the thing: criticism doesn’t mean a goddamn thing if the business can deliver on its promises. Thus far Tesla has been hit/miss on that front and so their shield from the public has some holes in it.
Well, there’s also the part about people giving you $19B and wanting some kind of return on that in a reasonable time frame.
America loves a good comeback story, so “we” have to figuratively shit all over the occasional success story, kick them when they’re down, so they can rise from the ashes! ?
I’m absolutely a fan of Elon and a certified Tesla cult member, and while I have no well-formed opinion on this cracking, I do think it’s useful in encouraging all of us to perhaps stop glamorizing entrepreneurship quite so much.
I often wonder why we think tech is something special. That there’s something magical about what we do. Let me give a quote from the late Anthony Bourdain’s book “Kitchen Confidential” that really seems to parallel so much of tech entrepreneurship.
“Of course there are many, many operators who do well in the restaurant business, who know what they’re doing. They know from the get-go what they want, what they are capable of doing well, and exactly how much it’s going to cost them at the outset. Most important, they have a fixed idea of how long they’re willing to lose money before they pull the plug. Like professional gamblers, a slick restaurateur never changes his betting style. He doesn’t bother with magic bullets, changing pricing strategies or menu concepts. With steely resolve, a pro, in the face of adversity, will suck it up and redouble his efforts to make the restaurant what he wanted and planned it to be all along-hoping that the great unwashed will eventually discover it, trust it, learn to love it. These guys know that when you hit the panic button and call in the consultants (read: unemployable chefs, failed restaurateurs who still like to eat for free), or start taking austerity measures like combining waiter/bartender functions on slow lunches-or worst of all, closing early that they may as well close the doors for good: it’s just good money after bad. A smart operator will, when he realizes things haven’t worked out, fold up his tent and move on-before he’s knocked out of the game for good. One disastrous restaurant venture can drag down an entire string of successful ones, as I have seen many times.
These knuckleheads are even less easy to explain than the novice owner with a hard-on for waitron nookie. Proven operators, guys with two or three or even more thriving restaurants, guys who’ve already beaten the odds, who have had and still have successful money-making joints, spitting out dough-what makes these guys over-reach? Often, the original flagship operation is a simple, straightforward concept: a bar with decent food, or a simple country Italian restaurant, or a bistro loved for its lack of pretension. But success makes these guys feel invulnerable. They must be geniuses, right? They’re making money in the restaurant business! So why not open a 300-seat interactive Tuscan restaurant/take-out/with merchandising outlet in a high-rent district? Or three more restaurants! Maybe the Hamptons! Miami! The Seaport! Two frat-bar saloons with two Chinese cooks and a large-breasted bartender as overheads have been raking in the dough, so why not open up a jazz-club theme restaurant in Times Square? A multistory one with a three-star chef and live music?
The answer is simple. Because it’s not what they’re good at! Making money in the bar business? What’s wrong with that? You’re a lucky man! Stay in the goddamn bar business! Hang on to your money! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen cunning, powerful, even wildly successful men fall victim to this kind of delusional power grab, this sudden urge to expand the empire-only to find their personal Stalingrad waiting for them. Some get away with it for a while, and though things aren’t exactly rocket-to-the-moon, they aren’t going too badly, either: the second place isn’t losing money, it looks like it might even make money someday, so why not open two more at the same time? When they finally go to the well once too often, find themselves overextended, have to start ignoring the original operation the one that made all the money for them in the first place, eventually bleeding it dry-next thing you know, the Russian tanks are rolling through the suburbs, misusing your womenfolk, and Mr Restaurant Genius is holed up in the bunker thinking about eating his gun.”
Well said.
Maybe he shouldn’t be mean and violate sec stuff.
Such Penetrating insight into this small class of people only comes from experience. Well said Mr. O’Brien
Glass houses. Have any of these people ever tried to start a complex technology company? For example – I hear ad consultants and marketing people criticize tech entrepreneurs all the time – and you gotta laugh – our struggle ain’t the same man.