Elon Musk

 Elon Musk

Every person has a leader whose personal qualities and professional achievements cause admiration. My leader is Elon Musk, and I believe that he is a true hero of modernity. It seems that among the legends of the technological business, Elon Musk is the one receiving stunning comparisons and loud epithets most frequently. He is often compared to Leonardo da Vinci as people consider him a modern version of this great artist. Without this person, there would be no Tesla electric cars, the PayPal payment system, and the first private space flights. Not only did Elon Musk want to give people an opportunity to drive electric vehicle and ease the world’s dependence on oil with the help of a super-charging network for electric vehicles and solar energy but he also dreamt about making the human civilization interplanetary and start the Mars colonization. Elon Musk has made his way from an uneasy childhood in South Africa to the top of the world business, and he is my leader for this reason.

Biography

Pretoria, South Africa was the place where the future businessperson and entrepreneur was born in 1971. Musk is the eldest of three children. His father is an engineer and an Englishmen while his mother of the Canadian-British descent was an expert in the dietary field. The boy was only 9 when his parents divorced. At first, he lived with his mother, but later, he started living with his father. He learned to read early, and he preferred spending his free time with books. During his childhood, Musk was cruelly harassed by other children. He even was admitted into the hospital once, after he lost consciousness when peers brutally had beaten him. When at the age of 9 Elon was presented his first computer, his world transformed. The boy became interested in writing programs and studied programming languages. At 12, Musk created a video game shooter and soon sold it. This game brought his first earned money. Since that time, the life of the future entrepreneur has changed greatly.

One of the most important episodes in Musk’s biography that marked the beginning of his stunning successful career was his decision to move to the United States. He left South Africa after he had turned 18. Nonetheless, he could not come to the USA immediately. Thus, young Musk moved to his mother’s relatives in neighboring Canada. In this country, he acquired the Canadian citizenship and worked at low-skilled jobs for approximately a year. During this time, he lived on the verge of poverty. In 1990, the young man became a student of one of the most prestigious universities in the world – the University of Queens. Several years later, Musk began to study at the American University of Pennsylvania. After the graduation, he received a bachelor’s degree in two disciplines – economics and physics. Later, he became a graduate student at Stanford University, aiming to receive a doctorate degree in physics. Nevertheless, he did not achieve this aim since he abandoned his education to be engaged in business.

His career started in 1995. That year, he founded his first IT-company. It specialized in the elaboration of programs for the support for websites and the publication of news content. This was a successful period because it was a boom of the Internet. Several years later, Musk sold the startup to the search engine AltaVista. He decided to work in the fields of activity that could transform the world. Elon Musk believed that the most significant spheres that could have the biggest influence on people included renewable energy and the colonization of space. Therefore, he began working on their development. However, to achieve this, he required more money, which led him to the creation of his next project. His subsequent project was the startup X.com that was launched in 1999. Two years later, the company received a new name, PayPal. Musk developed a perspective idea of electronic payments. Thus, he established one of the leading payment systems these days.

Elon Musk founded his next company with the goal of space exploration. Since his youth, he had wanted to reach and colonize Mars. With this aim, he created the design of greenhouses that could serve as independent ecosystems for the inhabitants of the planet. Despite this promising idea, there emerged the problem with their delivery to Mars. The inventor did not want to buy space carriers because of their inflated prices. Consequently, he began his work on the development of a spacecraft that would be used multiple times. Initially, Musk invested $100 million in the company but later, he also attracted a number of large investments into his project. Eventually, NASA signed a contract for $1.6-billion to send 12 consignments of cargoes to the International Space Station. For the first time, private sources financed the creation and development of a spaceship, and in 2009, it delivered cargo to the Earth’s orbit. This event changed the future of the world’s space industry.

Elon Musk combined his space-related activity with the development of electric vehicles. Thus, in 2004, he joined Tesla Motors, a company that had been created by two inventors. This company claimed to be the pioneer in the manufacturing of electric cars. Musk worked on the creation of a sports vehicle. Following his suggestion, new design elements were introduced into the design of headlights, the battery compartment was improved, and the weight of the model was minimized greatly. Elon Musk won an award in the sphere of ecology for this work. Despite the huge success of the company, it still experienced great financial difficulties. To avoid bankruptcy, he had to sell his sports car and even fire some employees. At the same time, he was involved in the creation of charging stations for electric vehicles. The area of his interests also includes the development of the project SolarCity that specializes in the installation of solar power panels and plants. These days, people participate in the most dangerous experiment in history that tries to determine how much carbon dioxide it is necessary to throw into the atmosphere before it would be possible to realize that everyone faces imminent death. Many people do not like changes, but it is necessary to learn to accept them. It is especially true if a disaster in the future awaits the humanity. Therefore, Elon Musk wants to change the modern world by stopping people’s dependence on oil and other fossil fuels.

Personal and Professional Qualities

I admire this leader because Elon Musk has a set of rules and professional qualities that make him a professional. The first important rule includes multitasking. Musk writes messages while checking invoices and manages the business from his phone while sitting at meetings. This allows him to save his time greatly. Musk prefers text messages and tries to avoid telephone conversations, which enables him to follow his strict schedule precisely. A clear schedule is another characteristic of a successful work according to the entrepreneur. Musk has a rather specific schedule where everything is allocated into five-minute slots. The entrepreneur calculates his moves many steps ahead. He knows what people will need in the future. Moreover, he hires people who are smarter than him since it is 90% of the success of a business project. In addition to his good professional qualities, Elon has personal ones that help him lead a successful business. He has such a well-developed critical thinking, perseverance, high efficiency, and accurate analysis of events and his actions. However, he is also highly emotional. Elon Musk spends significant sums of money on charity. He transfers money to researchers, working on the creation of artificial intelligence. Musk thinks that the development of AI is potentially dangerous for people. Therefore, he has decided to send money to an organization that works on the study of the threats, connected with artificial intelligence.

Similarities and Differences

Having carefully studied the biography, achievements, personal, and professional qualities of this great entrepreneur, I can conclude that there is much in common between Elon Musk and me. Firstly, before achieving such a grandiose success, Elon had a long and difficult road. Peers mocked him and he had to choose between two parents constantly. In my life, I have a similar situation when other people do not often understand my ideas properly. At the same time, our personal qualities are also similar. Like Elon Musk, I am persistent and diligent. However, in contrast to Musk, I am often afraid to make a mistake. Nonetheless, he believes that it is natural to make mistakes, but it is important to make mistakes in something new. A person should always discover and try something new, and I want to learn this ability. Just like Elon Musk, I want to be a part of what changes the world.

Conclusion

The computer industry has provided a start in life to a large number of charismatic personalities who could make a great amount of money and create something revolutionary at the same time. Elon Musk is one of such people. He is an entrepreneur, engineer, innovator, business tycoon, and inventor who invests in grandiose projects. I believe that Elon Musk should be an example to follow. Thus, the money, which he has earned on computer technologies, is invested in the projects that could change the modern world. Musk’s projects are versatile – from electric cars and solar panels to the space exploration and colonization of Mars. The most important thing is that Elon Musk tries to make the world better, which should be the goal of anyone on this planet.

The article was composed and written by professional writer Lola Nickson, more her papers you can find at paper-land essay affiliate program