1) You read about an entrepreneur:
What surprised you the most?
The thing that surprised me the most about Elon Musk started out at an internship at the company "Pinnacle Research Institute. Based in Los Gatos, Pinnacle was a much-ballyhooed start-up with a team of scientists exploring ways in which ultracapacitors could be used as a revolutionary fuel source in electric and hybrid vehicles" (Vance 36)
What about the entrepreneur did you most admire?
The thing about Elon Musk that I most admire is the fact that he started in the 1990s and just like many of the others valued the risk of leaving college to pursue his first dream Zip2. The book mentions it like this "He initially intended to pursue a doctorate in materials science and
physics at Stanford and to advance the work he’d done at Pinnacle on ultracapacitors. As the story
goes, Musk dropped out of Stanford after two days, finding the Internet’s call irresistible" (Vance 37).
What about the entrepreneur did you least admire?
The thing about Elon Musk I least admire is the fact that he gave up control of his company Zip2 too quickly. The book mentions the fact "the venture capitalists pushed Musk into the role of chief technology officer and hired Rich Sorkin as the company’s CEO. While Musk agreed to the arrangement, he came to resent giving up control of Zip2. “Probably the biggest regret the whole time I worked with him was that he had made a deal with the devil with Mohr Davidow,” said Jim Ambras, the vice president of engineering at Zip2"(Vance 40). But the thing that I don't admire is that he didn't think anything through before deciding.
Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it?
I noticed a couple things while reading the book as it mentions that Elon Musk received a lot of internships in a variety of fields that helped produce the initial startup. He obtained one at "the Bank of Nova Scotia. His big takeaway from that job, that bankers are rich and dumb, now had the feel of a massive opportunity" (Vance 46)
2) What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited?
The core competencies that I noticed that Elon Musk is his approach with other companies and the internal marketing environments. The original name of PayPal was X.com in June of 2001. "Musk and Moritz, though, urged the board to reject a number of offers and hold out for more money. PayPal had revenue of about $240 million per year and looked like it might make it as an independent company and go public. Musk and Moritz’s resistance paid off and then some. In July 2002, eBay offered $1.5 billion for PayPal, and Musk and the rest of the board accepted the deal" (Vance 52).
3) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.
Many people wrote articles about Musk, one being by "Eric Jackson, an early Confinity employee, wrote The PayPal Wars: Battles with eBay, the Media, the Mafia, and the Rest of Planet Earth in 2004 and recounted the company’s tumultuous journey. The book painted Musk as an egomaniacal, stubborn jerk, making wrong decisions at every turn, and portrayed Thiel and Levchin as heroic geniuses" (53). Compared with others like Jobs and Gates, Musk had a personality in which many thought he couldn't take criticism. His ex-wife mentioned that "Musk’s grim childhood and the intense range of emotions he could exhibit" (Vance 54).
4) If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why?
If I had to ask Elon Musk a question, I would ask him "Why did you give up PayPal so quickly?" and "With your current project SpaceX, how far do you think you will remain CEO of it?". These questions would allow Musk to think about the critical choices he made and will possibly make.
5) For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?
Elon Musk's opinion of hard work is that Musk "sets unrealistic goals, verbally abuses employees, and
works them to the bone" (Vance 13). I strongly disagree with that opinion because there is a line between verbally abusing employees and motivating them. We must motivate employees to exceed expectations but not to overwork them. You can set unrealistic goals because goals are meant to be achieved in steps.
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