[TusharK]

Walter Isaacson, known for his biography of Apple's Founder and CEO Steve Jobs, has released his newest book, "Elon Musk". The award-winning author gives us a peek into the life of the self-made billionaire who runs Tesla, SpaceX and the largest microblogging platform on the internet, formerly known as Twitter.



Elon Musk was born in South Africa. The book talks about his relationship with his family, especially his father, Errol Musk, mother Maye and his siblings Kimbal and Tosca.

Musk calls himself bipolar, but some suggest that he may have undiagnosed Asperger's Syndrome. The writer has described Elon to be emotionally erratic. He can be goofy, detached, and a drama magnet, and occasionally goes into what people around him call "demon mode".

Isaacson describes the year 2018 as an inflection point when it comes to Musk's public life. “Musk went through periods when he oscillated between depression, stupor, giddiness, and manic energy,” he writes.

Elon is said to be obsessed with the "first principles", namely the importance of getting to Mars, making humanity a multi-planetary species, and avoiding dictatorship by artificial intelligence.

Isaacson spent two years shadowing Musk and interviewing people around him. His latest biography is now available on Amazon.

Source: LA Times

Link to Team-BHP News

[ValarMorghulis]

This is on my To-Read list. Will get the Kindle edition probably, once I complete the one's I'm currently reading.
I've read his autobiography by Ashlee Vance; and though I don't remember much from it (read it in 2017) I did rate that 4/5. Hoping for another blockbuster from Isaacson.

[Kurrant]

Originally Posted by TusharK

Elon is said to be obsessed with the "first principles", namely the importance of getting to Mars, making humanity a multi-planetary species, and avoiding dictatorship by artificial intelligence.

I have not dwelled much on Musk or his thinking or objectives, but I got the impression that by 'first principles' he always meant boiling things to their fundamental truths. I thought it meant some concepts rather than some objectives.

[Indraneel Bhat]

To Be honest, I prefer reading biographies of people who have retired or no more. When they are still alive and well there's still so much that's left for these great men to do.

Case in point, the 2 biographies of Lance Armstrong. So inspiring until his doping scandal went public. Personally I agree with what he did. He was the best doper in a field that doped widely. "Not getting caught" was the un-official name of the game at the time.

I gave those books in the "raddi".

I'm sure the Elon Musk biography will be an interesting read though.

[GTO]

Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs was mind-numbingly good. Extremely well-written, superbly-paced, has the ability to get you hooked and you can't put the book down (or more likely, close the Kindle app or browser tab ).

Elon Musk is arguably as much of an icon as Steve Jobs was. Steve Jobs revolutionised phones, digital music, tablets etc., while Elon Musk changed the direction of a 100-year old industry, pushing everyone to build EVs. Before Tesla, EVs were boring, slow & built merely for compliance with government regulations. Today, EVs are desirable, fast and can actually be superior daily drivers to ICE cars. And we aren't even getting into his other achievements in the world of rockets & more.

Keeping that in mind, I am extremely disappointed by this book. Read a few chapters yesterday and it simply lacks the magic, charisma & quality of his Steve Jobs biography. I'll give this book a 3 / 5 rating at best (Steve Jobs biography was a 5 / 5). At least that's my impression after reading it for an hour and flipping through some boring chapters.

[ninjatalli]

^^I'm not surprised by the initial feedback on the book.

I had read the previous biography on Elon Musk - "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future" by Ashlee Vance (a New York Times best seller apparently); which came out when he was in the big spotlight for all the good news about a decade ago.

Back then I found the book more of a fanboy that sung a lot of praises about him without really giving the entire picture. I think this is/will be a constraint with Musk as he's too much of a narcissistic to allow any writer to give the correct picture. Granted Steve Jobs was no different; but Jobs wanted a writer of Walter Isaacson's mettle to pen down the biography given his health condition and was courting him in parallel (this is covered in that book). To that, Isaacson was able to put his conditions about no-holds-barred and that comes out in the fantastic biography on Jobs. Obviously this is not the case with Musk.

[ValarMorghulis]

Originally Posted by GTO

...extremely disappointed by this book. ...lacks the magic, charisma & quality of his Steve Jobs biography. I'll give this book a 3 / 5 rating at best ...my impression...

Sigh. This is disappointing. I was really excited about this book.

Originally Posted by ninjatalli

...found the book more of a fanboy that sung a lot of praises about him without really giving the entire picture...

To be fair to Vance, Musk had a halo round him at that time. A lot of politics has happened since then.
If you really want to read a fanboy account read "the AirBnB Story by Leigh Gallagher". Reads like a smitten school girl/ boy's account that makes the founders seem like the next best thing since sliced bread.