Erik Nordeus - The Engineer

If you want to describe the companies Elon has founded with one theme, you can say that they improve the world with the help of innovative technologies. This is exactly what our world needs.

The history of mankind begins about 50 000 years ago. We know little of the first 40 000 years, except at the end of them, we had learned to use the skins of animals. Then we emerged from our caves to construct other kinds of shelter. 5000 years ago, we learned how to write and how to use a cart with wheels. Now began the acceleration of technological progress. Within only a few hundred years, we invented the steam engine, electric lights, telephones, cars, and airplanes. In the last few years, we developed penicillin, television, and nuclear power. 19

Then something happened. Everyone forgot the larger problems and began to focus on the smaller problems. The computer in a modern phone is more powerful than the computer in the craft that landed on the Moon, but we are only using the power to fire birds against pigs and to watch pictures showing what our friends ate for breakfast. Was it that future we wanted? In a famous speech, the former US President John F. Kennedy said, “So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this State of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward.” 19

We are no longer moving forward with ever-greater speed, we are moving slower. The Concorde could fly across the Atlantic Ocean in three hours, and the commercial said, “The world is now a smaller place.” But with the decommissioning of the Concorde in 2003, the world is now a larger place. We’re not just flying slower, other modes of transportation are also moving slower. The US state of California ordered a bullet train that would be one of the slowest bullet trains in the world at the highest cost per mile.

The world has not just become a larger place; we are also destroying the world. One explanation to why we no longer are moving faster is because we are using expensive, dirty, and sometimes dangerous energy sources. We are not only using nuclear power plants, we are a world dependent on oil. The problem is that oil is a finite natural resource we are running out of, and we may begin to run out of it as soon as 2020. Unless we want to start using horses, we need to design technology that doesn’t rely on oil.

The question is why we are focusing on the smaller problems and forget the larger ones. One of the reasons might be that it’s complicated and more expensive to build an electric car, while it’s less expensive to build yet another Facebook clone. Another reason might be that we are satisfied with what we have. We don’t have to replace the world’s oil dependency today. But what happens when we need to? What if we need to leave the planet because something has happened or will happen to it. Then we have to trust that someone has the answers to these larger problems no one cares about today.

But someone who cares about these larger problems is Elon. He knows how we can replace our dependency on oil. He knows how we can colonize Mars and escape to the red planet if something happens to Earth. To yet again make the world a smaller place, he has designed an aircraft that’s faster than the Concorde.

The difference between Elon and other pundits is that he realizes his ideas. To save the world from its oil dependency, he’s creating companies with exactly that purpose. To be able to escape to Mars, he has already begun building the rockets needed. To make the world a smaller place, he will release the technology for free. The rest of the world needs to just sit back and enjoy the ride.

You can find several stories about the engineer Elon Musk. One of them took place on and around the Sand Hill Road in California. It goes like this:

A 28-year-old Elon wanted to buy a new car. The price of the car wasn’t important because he didn’t need to think about money anymore. He had just made $22 million from selling his company. 327His garage had already included a 1967 Series 1 E-type Jaguar, which is considered to have the best car design ever made. Now he wanted the fastest car he could find.

A magnesium silver McLaren F1 met his requirements. The British made McLaren F1 is essentially a road-ready version of a racing car from the Formula One World Championship. With a top speed of 231 mph [372 km/h], it set a record in 1998 as the fastest road car in the world. It only takes 3.2 seconds to reach 60 mph [100 km/h].

It was a close call when Elon bought his dream car. The fashion designer Ralph Lauren tried to buy the same one, but Elon signed the deal one hour earlier. 263When McLaren began selling it, the fortunate customers paid one million dollars to get one. But since only 106 cars were ever manufactured, the price today can be as high as four million dollars. Elon bought number 67. 10

A large black truck delivered the McLaren F1 to Elon’s home. He was now famous in Silicon Valley, so a film crew behind the documentary Silicon Valley Gold Rush followed each step. Like a boy before Christmas, Elon jumped around the truck while the car was unloaded. The first person who walked by said, “Is that a McLaren F1? Oh my God. That’s unbelievable.” Elon was happy. “Wow, I can’t believe it’s actually here,” he said. “That’s pretty wild man. Just three years ago, I was showering at the YMCA and sleeping on the office floor, and now I got a million dollar car.” 27

Enthusiasts described the McLaren F1 as the purest super car ever manufactured. This may sometimes be a drawback with owning one because enthusiasts chase them like a paparazzi chasing a movie star. “I lined up next to one at a light in Palo Alto a few months ago,” a proud enthusiast said. “I think it was the one that belongs to the X.com/PayPal founder guy [Elon Musk]. Made my day.” 9

Seeing the car in Silicon Valley wasn’t anything unusual. The region has the largest density of McLaren F1 in the world. “I’m more excited about seeing this car than I have ever been about anything else,” another enthusiast said. “Nothing else compares at all. As he [Elon Musk] braked for the 90-degree right to get on the freeway, the rear diffuser popped up exposing its gold foil covered underside. That sent a chill up my spine – go ahead – laugh all you want. When he decided he’d had enough of me tagging along beside him he practically disappeared down the FWY. Considering he’s got about five times the power of my car, I just let him go.” 111

In 2000, Elon drove his McLaren F1 along Sand Hill Road. Located in California, the Sand Hill Road has the same appeal as Wall Street in New York. Venture capitalist companies flock to the road, and it provides easy access to the Stanford University and Silicon Valley. During the height of the tech bubble – when the difference between being the next big thing and looking like it didn’t matter – the commercial real estates on Sand Hill Road were more expensive than almost anywhere else in the world. The prices were so high it would be less expensive to live on Manhattan in New York. It was impossible to find vacant office spaces or any legal places to park. Those who could afford to live in the area accepted the cost of parking tickets as part of the high price of living there. But money wasn’t a problem for most people. You could hear comments like, “Let’s call our team Gold Rush because we all want to make a lot of money.” 167

Together with Elon in the car sat his friend and co-worker Peter Thiel. They were on their way to the famous venture capital firm Sequoia Capital where they would brainstorm fund-raising strategies. Thiel sat in one of the two passenger seats. The driver in a McLaren F1 is sitting in the middle of the car in a seat personally customized for each owner. Slightly behind the driver, there are two passenger seats on each side of the driver’s seat. 8,123