Success Journey Of Perhaps The Most Innovative Visionary And Successful Business Magnate Alive Today: Elon Musk

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One man who has arrayed 34th Richest in America and 38th most Powerful in the world – the name is Elon Musk. The legendary innovator and business is the founder of SpaceX, chief product originator of Tesla Motors, chairman of SolarCity, and co-founder of PayPal, and overall – an entrepreneur, business tycoon, investor, surveyor and inventor.

Going by the data until June 2016, he has an expected net worth of $11.5 Billion, making him the 83rd richest person in the world.

He is known to be the second entrepreneur in the Silicon Valley (first: James Clark) who has endured to formulate three corporations that have a market capitalization of more than $1 billion – PayPal, SpaceX, and Tesla Motors.

He is one of the few people that believe in funding in schemes that operate the potential of reshaping our world. As a matter of fact, Elon individually engages in the drawing of electric cars and spaceships at his companies. Such is his innovative approach to world deferring and development.

Musk was born on the 28th of June 1971 in South Africa, to a model and dietician mother and an electromechanical motorman father.

Following his parents’ divorce in 1980, Elon lived often with his father. During that phase, he exhibited an interest in computing with the Commodore VIC-20.

He self-learned computer programming and used to sell the code for a video game he had created called Blastar for $500, to an arsenal called PC and Office Technology.

Now, this was not just all petals and roses, thrones were either in the life of this business magnate. His teenage has been actually travailing and yet he overcame the demons which haunt him to an extent of self-abuse.

Throughout his childhood, Elon was severely bullied and was even hospitalized when was thrown down a flight of stairs and then beaten until he blacked out.

After graduating from a secondary school in Pretoria, Elon left his home and migrated to the United States. Without the support of his parents! Although, he didn’t get into the United States right away!

When he moved to Canada, he began with low paid jobs and somehow survived on the verge of the defect and poverty.

Elon Musk read for two years in Ontario and then, finally, got the possibility to relocate to the United States in 1992. He had earned a scholarship from The University of Pennsylvania: Penn.

He went on to complete his Bachelor of Science degree in Physics and then also went on to achieve a degree in Economics from The Wharton School.

In 1995, Elon finally moved to Stanford University in California to attain a PhD in applied physics but left the record after two days to pursue his entrepreneurial yearnings in the areas of the Internet, renewable energy and outer space.

Zip2

Elon and his brother Kimbal obtained $28,000 from their father and propelled a software company called Zip2 in 1995.

The Internet was springing by manifolds, and papers were trying to reckon out how they could make the best use of the distinct fortuneteller.

Soon, the organization also converted contracts from major players in the shareholders, including The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, and even assured the board of directors to drop plans for an amalgamation with CitySearch.

Eventually, in February 1999 the Musks sold Zip2 to Compaq for $307 million in cash and $34 million in stock options. Compaq later got sold to HP.

X.com

Soon after the sale, using $10 million from the sale of Zip2, Elon co-founded another venture called X.com!

X.com was an online financial service and e-mail payment company, which got absorbed in roughly a year with Confinity – that had a money transfer service called PayPal.

The merged company mainly focused on the PayPal service. Its early growth was driven mainly by a viral marketing campaign where new customers were recruited when they received money through the service.

In October 2000, Elon was ousted from his role as CEO (although he remained on the board). This was due to the disputes with other company leadership over his desire to move PayPal’s Unix-based foundation to Microsoft Windows.

Space X

Not ready to give up, the group yielded back to Russia bringing along Mike Griffin in February 2002. This time they went on a hunt for three ICBMs and even met with Kosmotras, but since they were offered a very steep price of $8 Million, Elon assailed out of the meeting and responded back.

While on his flight back, Elon realised that he could start a company that could build the affordable rockets he needed. And by involving vertical integration and the modular approach from software engineering, they could cut the launch price to one-tenth of its original value and still enjoy a 70% gross margin.

Ultimately, with $100 million from his early fortune, in June 2002, Elon desisted up establishing Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX.

He was the CEO and CTO of the California-based company, which aimed to develop and manufacture space launch vehicles with a focus on advancing the state of rocket technology.

Since its induction, the company has operated on to create a lot of news, for several of its successes. Their first two launch vehicles (Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets), and their first spacecraft (Dragon) became the 1st two clandestinely funded liquid-fuelled vehicles to put a satellite into Earth’s orbit.

In seven years, SpaceX has also transpired to design a family of Falcon launch vehicles and the Dragon multipurpose spacecraft, which has also berthed with the ISS (International Space Station).

In 2006, SpaceX received a contract from NASA to continue with the development and test of the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon probe in order to expatriate cargo to the International Space Station.

Presently, Elon is now tugging on the first unmanned flight of the larger Mars Colonial Transporter (MCT) spacecraft that is aimed for divergence to the red planet in 2022. This will be followed by the first manned MCT Mars flight in 2024. He wants to colonize Mars!

As of January 2016, Musk owns about 28.9 million Tesla shares (about 22% of the company) and homes a year-long salary of mere $1, similar to Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg.

Musk has also expressed his desire to make AI available to everyone, and reduce the power from the multinationals who own super-intelligence systems consecrated to gains.

And lastly, throughout his course – the most mattering and valuable recitation that he has learnt and still ensues is that….

The most difficult thing in life will be to come up with the right questions!

(-said by the man himself!)