Elon Musk’s Success Decoded
From Bullied Kid to Billionaire Disruptor
🎧Listen to Episode 1 of Success Decoded with Hasan Kubba on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts. Otherwise, sit somewhere comfy and enjoy the read… 😊
(5 minute read)
Introduction
"I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary." - Elon Musk
Welcome to Success Decoded, a new in-depth article and podcast series about the remarkably successful: the entrepreneurs, the ultra-achievers, the game-changers. I share with you their stories, attempt to decode the factors that made them successful, and what practical lessons we can learn from them to find our own success.
This first series is about a man who’s no stranger to media attention. He is the ultra outlier, the man who has completely baffled the rest of humanity with his seemingly superhuman accomplishments. The alien. The robot. The genius that is: Elon Musk.
“I hope to die on Mars… just not on impact” — Elon Musk on his dream to colonise Mars
Okay, I know that sounds a bit over the top, and I wasn't a huge fan of him before I started researching him for this series. I thought what he was doing with Tesla was cool. But I can now say that if we can apply the phrase visionary genius to anyone, it would be to Elon—despite his flaws.
Elon Musk is the self-made billionaire founder and CEO of SpaceX, co-founder and CEO of Tesla, founder of The Boring Company, co-founder of Neuralink, OpenAI and SolarCity, in addition to conceptualising Hyperloop, and Starlink, and also to founding his own school for his children, Ad Astra.
Before this, he was also one of the founders of early fintech behemoth PayPal (plus, he had become a self-made multimillionaire even before that). He is now one of the top 20 richest people in the world, with a rabid fanbase and also a very sizeable ‘hater-base’ as well, which isn’t surprising with all the industries he’s disrupting, and his impulsive outspoken-ness.
He is often compared to other world-changing industry titans and mavericks like Steve Jobs, Howard Hughes, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison.
He is one of the most successful, provocative, and meme-able people in tech. With his achievements so vast, innovations so mindblowing, and ability to prove the naysayers wrong so relentless, he’s often accused, half-jokingly, of being an alien or robot.
But, assuming he is a mere mortal, how on earth did Elon Musk become Elon Musk?
What was his background? What was his upbringing like? Did he have any big breaks?
Is there anything we can learn from him? Or is he just a one-in-a-billion superhero figure?
(I mean, he actually was the inspiration for Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man!)
Elon becoming the man he is today — gif source: Empire Flippers
Find out how he made his first millions, then hundreds of millions, then almost losing it all and actually needing to borrow money from friends to pay for rent when both his businesses were on the brink of failing. Find out how was he was able to claw back from the brink of bankruptcy, to his now meteoric rise to the top.
Jump to Chapter 1—The Making of Elon Musk ->
The Idea Behind Success Decoded
Success Decoded is a super in-depth article and podcast series based on The Unfair Advantage book which I co-authored with startup veteran Ash Ali.
Ash Ali and me at our book launch event in London
The series is based on our main idea—that success is not based purely on hard work and effort, rather it is more about developing and leveraging Unfair Advantages. By Unfair Advantages we don’t mean unethical or illegal advantages (although those obviously do exist), we just mean factors that give you an inherent leg-up over the competition.
An Unfair Advantage could be having the privilege of a world-class private education, being naturally gifted at certain skills, or simply being born into money. However, it’s also about how advantages and disadvantages can both be double-edged swords. For example, having little money can make you more creative and going through adversity can help you develop grit and resilience to bounce back and learn from the failures on your road to success.
The different categories of Unfair Advantages are outlined in the MILES Framework below. You’ll notice they’re all set on the foundation of Mindset, because without having the right mindset, you can never get anywhere even with all the Unfair Advantages in the world.
(We all know kids who grew up super privileged achieving nothing despite the world laying at their feet.)
We all have Unfair Advantages, and the people we’ll discuss in this Success Decoded series had more than their fair share compared to others, but they also had the right mindset, vision and work ethic to make it happen.
Sources for the Elon series:
I have, to the best of my ability, attempted to verify every single fact through my extensive research. If there are any mistakes please reach out (with the source) and I’ll be happy to update.
The main source is Elon’s Biography by Ashlee Vance (a really great read if you want even more depth), plus a load of other interviews, articles and books.
Elon’s Biography by Ashlee Vance — Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future, Virgin Books, 2015
Startalk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Foundation with Kevin Rose
Bloomberg: Elon Musk: How I Became The Real ‘Iron Man’
60 Minutes: all their interviews with Elon
Rolling Stone: Elon Musk — The Architect of Tomorrow
WaitButWhy: The Elon Musk Post Series
YCombinator — Sam Altman interview with Elon Musk
Inc Magazine — Entrepreneur of the Year, 2007: Elon Musk
Maye Musk’s Memoir (Elon’s mother) — A Woman Makes a Plan: Advice for a Lifetime of Adventure, Beauty, and Success, Penguin Random House, 2019
Third Row Tesla Podcast — Episode 7 — Elon Musk’s Story
Thank you to Ash Ali, Todd Brison, Imran Dean, Viren Samani and Hussain Ajina for your invaluable help and feedback.
Really hope you enjoy this new podcast and article series. Please feel free to share it far and wide 🙏🏼
🎧Here are the podcast links again for your convenience: Listen to Episode 1 of Success Decoded with Hasan Kubba on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts. Feel free to subscribe!
Great breakdown! looking forward to the next chapters