Hello, and welcome!
I’m delighted you picked up this book. I’ve put thousands of hours into collecting, curating, and editing Elon’s most useful ideas for you.
You may be seeking purpose, a mission worthy of your life’s effort. You might already have a clear purpose and seek the tools for success. You will find both in this book.
Elon’s purpose is to help humanity survive and thrive. He thinks in sweeping timescales, like a sci-fi epic. By funding and leading SpaceX and Tesla, Elon Musk has done the entrepreneurial equivalent of running a two-minute mile. Twice. At the same time.
Regardless of your industry, mission, or beliefs—there is something to learn from this feat. After seeing what Elon and his teams have accomplished, we stand taller, and the universe seems smaller.
To me, Musk represents the idea that I am capable of more than I ever imagined. Even more importantly, he shows that together we are capable of the currently impossible.
He models our moral duty to grab the impossible and drag it into the possible through massive effort, ingenuity, and force of will. This is how we build an ever-better future.
In the past, the richest man on Earth was a monarch, oil heir, or financier. Now, the richest man on Earth is an engineer, entrepreneur, and American immigrant who has taken massive personal risks to build new things that solve problems on a planetary—and interplanetary—scale. We are learning to respect the builders more than the rulers.
Elon Musk has joined a lineage of legendary entrepreneurs who transformed our culture. Henry Ford’s greatest impact was creating car culture. Steve Jobs’s greatest impact was on computer culture. Elon Musk’s greatest impact will be advancing the culture of engineering, entrepreneurship, and adventure over the next century.
Elon’s energy, vision, and his team’s achievements have stoked a fire in my chest. I feel activated to advance human prosperity, knowing that humans are a few years into an inspiring million-year journey of knowledge and construction. Working on this book gave me a new level of spiritual satisfaction and inspiration. You and I may be ants, but we are building an intergalactic cathedral.
I want you to stare down the biggest problems humanity faces and attack them with furious ingenuity. If the next generation has one million Musks, our grandchildren will flourish beyond our wildest dreams.
One million Musks. That’s my dream for this book.
Seeing life-changing ideas dissolve into the algorithms breaks my heart. I build these books to rescue knowledge and preserve it in our most proven, permanent format.
When I create books, I focus on making them as useful as possible. No fluff, no filler. I hope you have a highlight on every single page.
As you read, imagine you are out to dinner with Elon Musk. You’re deep in conversation as he shares stories and ideas you can apply in your own life and work. I hope you feel personally tutored by the greatest living entrepreneur.
I focus entirely on Elon’s most useful ideas. We spend zero pages on Elon’s family life or politics. This is not a biography or a gossip column. My books are about sharing timeless ideas that work.
This book has four parts:
1. Pursue Purpose: The foundations of a unique life
2. Ultra Hardcore Work: Mindsets and principles for achieving the barely possible
3. Building Companies: Stories and strategies from PayPal, Tesla, and SpaceX
4. On Behalf of Humanity: How you can be part of elevating the future of humanity
The first half is filled with principles and tactics Elon uses to guide his life and build his companies. I guarantee you will get valuable ideas in the first few pages.
The second half has more stories. They share Elon’s adventures and how he applied his principles to choose worthy missions and built SpaceX and Tesla. We finish with Elon’s view of the years ahead and how you can make an impact.
When you’re done reading (maybe a few times!), I hope you enact more of Elon’s hardcore work ethic, boundless optimism, and unabashed courage.
If this book resonates with you, know that we’re fast friends. You’re joining a global community of allies in pushing progress.
I’d love to hear from you and hope you will help us spread these ideas far and wide. Let’s leave humanity better than we found it.
Forward. Together.
Eric
“All of physics is either impossible or trivial.
It is impossible until you understand
it, and then it becomes trivial.”
— E r ne s t R u t he r f o r d 1