Musk, an action madman who refuses internal friction.

In this era, it may be difficult for you to find a person similar to Musk. His business map is increasingly entering our daily life, and his every move is always exposed to the media.

To some extent, he is also willing to show these aspects. Therefore, in the eyes of the public, although Musk is special, it is not mysterious.

Recently, Liang Ning, a famous product owner and business researcher, shared her understanding of The Biography of elon musk. In her view, the greatest significance of this book is not about Musk himself, but the action and vitality reflected by him and the people around him.

In the era when everyone pursues stability, why do Musk people still choose to break through themselves and try to take risks again and again? Why do they have such powerful energy, and what do they have in common?

The following is Liang Ning’s account:

1. Biography of elon musk is more like the Silicon Valley version of Water Margin.

The Biography of elon musk is the most exciting book I have read in recent two years.

It’s like reading martial arts novels when I was in middle school. A group of top players went to meet the top enemies, showing a state full of vitality-falling down, being beaten with blood, and then getting up and knocking down their opponents.

I am an engineering student studying computer. There is a difference between science students and engineering students. Wandering Earth 2 is a particularly good test yardstick.

For a while, I asked everyone, "Do you like this movie?" I asked more than 100 people, and finally came to a very clear conclusion-liberal arts students don’t like it, science students don’t like it, but engineering students love it.

Biography of elon musk is definitely a book that grows on the aesthetic point of engineering students or engineers.

It’s easy for people to misunderstand this book-simply regard this book as elon musk’s personal biography, so many people think that there is nothing to read, because Musk is actually a person with over-exposure of personal information.

First of all, he is the CEO of a very important listed company, and there are countless interpretations about his company’s business in the news. Secondly, he has a lot of gossip and gossip.

He loves to tweet himself, especially after the acquisition of Twitter. So this leads many people to think that it is unnecessary to read this book. It seems that we already know everything about him.

butThis book, you can’t treat it as a story of one person. In fact, it is a bit like Water Margin, which is about a group of industrial heroes.

Second, Musk left the world behind with action.

I want to talk about many things in this book, such as mobility, learning curve, ability circle, Musk’s life and business, and so on. But if you give me 20 minutes to talk about only one point, what I want to talk about most is mobility.

If I have to judge a person by only one point, it is action.

becauseEverything else can be disguised, your dress, speech, PPT…… … but your action can’t be disguised.

Action is not cognition, nor ability. It does not refer to a state of temporary eruption when a person is forced, but a state of continuous life.

What impressed me most about this book is the vigorous action of this group of people, especially in this era.

In recent years, many friends around me who used to be awesome, such as angry clothes and young heroes, are now depressed, insecure, decadent and whining.

At this time, you can see a group of people in this book, showing you a very vigorous vitality, which is very exciting.

As mentioned in the Biography of elon musk, Musk decided to build rockets because I want to make human beings a trans-planetary species. If human beings want to survive on Mars, of course, rockets have to send people up, so I want to build rockets.

What’s next? The original plan was to buy a second-hand rocket first, but when I went to Russia, I found that people were sitting on the ground and couldn’t afford it.

Without saying anything, Musk immediately began to decompose this matter. The essence of rockets is composed of metal and fuel. These two substances are not expensive. Why do rockets sell so expensive? Can I make it myself?

Everyone told Musk that "you are crazy", but Musk didn’t care at all and immediately started looking for someone. Found his first core employee-Muller.

I especially like the scene in the book when Musk first met Muller-Musk went into the workshop to look for Muller, who was carrying an 80-pound engine on his shoulder, trying to fix it on a frame.

At this time, Musk walked over to talk to him. This buddy answered Musk’s question while carrying an 80-pound engine on his shoulder. It was not until he answered the third one that he felt that he had to put this 80-pound thing down and talk to Musk seriously. This whole scene is very engineer.

Musk asked Muller to meet again next week to talk in detail. Muller didn’t agree at first, because he was going to watch the Super Bowl next week. He just bought a big TV and invited his friends to watch the game together.

Musk ignored all this and insisted on meeting, so that night Musk watched the game at home with Muller and several engineer friends.

In fact, they only watched one round of attack in the end, and then they discussed how to build a launch vehicle all the time. Because for a group of engineers, building rockets is much more interesting than watching games.

Later, the book said that they were looking for a rocket test site. There was a suitable venue in the United States, but it will take a while, andMusk’s characteristic is that he doesn’t want to waste time waiting.

So he looked elsewhere and found Kwajalein Island near the equator.

There is a description in this story that touched me very much. Musk said that the satellite we were going to carry at that time was very big, so we had to launch near the equator, because there would be a faster rotation speed there, which could provide the extra thrust needed for launch.

This sentence is also entirely in the aesthetic point of engineering students. We sit on the earth every day, but we have never thought about how to use the power of the earth’s rotation to our advantage.

Then this group of engineers went to Kwajalein Island, where they worked for four years. During this period, the rocket failed to launch three times before it succeeded for the fourth time.

In these four years, people often take off from Los Angeles and fly to Kwajalein Island for a 40-hour round trip to get a small part.

Don’t sleep, devote yourself wholeheartedly and then do one thing, all for a three-minute rocket test.

If you read Biography of elon musk, you will see that their living conditions on the island are very bad, and they work and sleep in trailers.

On social networks, people often criticize 996 and unscrupulous capitalists who force employees to work overtime, but you will see the engineers described in the book, not only 996, but also these people are working like crazy.

There is another example in the book. After visiting SpaceX, a Boeing engineer was completely infected by the warm working atmosphere here and went directly to Musk to say that he wanted to work for him.

There is a saying that he is particularly touching-he is eager for the same workload as Musk.

As an ordinary person, I think what most people pursue is just to make their lives easy.

But at this time, you find that a group of people choose the difficult mode.

Don’t be easy, challenge the most difficult thing in the world, challenge endless failures, and live a hard life, even if you will be reviled without respect. What kind of action is this!

Judging from the results, by the time their rocket was successfully launched, SpaceX had 500 people.

This is amazing, because when Musk introduced the female president of SpaceX six years ago, there were only seven people in the company.

A small company of seven people had the nerve to appoint a vice president, and dared to talk to NASA about business, and then expanded to 500 people.

There are 50,000 people in Boeing’s similar departments, and there is a manpower gap of 100 times.

And when they also received a mission from NASA, SpaceX has completed the task and sent the load to the space station, while Boeing has not completed the seemingly high-end experiment in the preliminary preparation.

Not to mention elon musk’s mobility. In the 20 years from 2003 to 2023, several major issues about our planet and human existence have evolved because of Musk’s single-handedness.

Transportation energy, artificial intelligence, brain-computer interface, payment, satellite communication, etc., all these basic problems have evolved human capabilities because of Musk and his partners.

What kind of action is this? His mobility alone can be said to be one hundred times that of other people or organizations.

When we look at a person, it is important to see if he has action.

For a person who has no mobility, don’t be lucky, don’t think that he just can’t, and he will have mobility if he knows it. Action is a person’s self-character and a person’s habit.

The fate of any one person, the fate of an enterprise and an organization is actually shaped by their own actions.

Third, where does the super mobility come from?

Why do Musk and his team have such strong action? From my reading of Biography of elon musk, I think there are four points.

The first point is "will", a heartfelt willingness to something.

Why does Musk never stop? In the book Biography of elon musk, including the biographer Isaacson himself.

He wrote again and again in the book that if Musk chooses to retire at this moment, he is the winner of life and can stand at the peak of his career, but he didn’t, and he moved on.

Why? Because of his sense of mission.

From the first day of his life, he got the name "Elon". "Elon" comes from the science fiction novel "Mars Project", and the name of the consul of Mars colony in this novel is Elon.

So he was born with the concept of "Mars" subtly implanted by his name.

For each of us ordinary people, as long as you participate in one of Musk’s series of achievements, it is already a shining moment in life.

But not for him,Musk’s life is a sea of stars, not only to reach Mars, but also to make human beings a trans-planetary species, which is a distant dream.

It is a brilliant achievement in the eyes of ordinary people, but it is just a preface in the eyes of Musk.He has super will and mission, works hard and never stops.

I believe everyone will be shocked again and again when watching the Biography of Musk. Why can Musk always find such a desperate engineer to work with him and be crazy?

But for an engineer, if I have the opportunity to realize what I imagined by myself, I have endured fatigue, harsh living conditions and the bad attitude of my boss, but I have inherent joy in life, so this is a super willing type.

The second point is "knowing how to do it".For example, when Musk decided to build a rocket, NASA’s Mars program was actually interrupted.

When Musk decided to be an electric car, in fact, the entire automobile market had already sentenced the death penalty to electric cars.

At this time, it is useless for him to say "I know how to do it", because the previous experience has failed, so Musk talked about the first principle at this time, which is one of the reasons why we admire Musk so much.

As I said, he not only instigated the change of the world and promoted the evolution of mankind, but also inspired us to rethink the essence and appearance of a thing.

For example, a rocket is just metal and fuel. Why is it so expensive? So can we reconstruct metals, re-select fuels, and then reduce costs and build new vehicles in other ways?

The same is true of satellites. Musk said that I would send 40,000 satellites into space. Everyone thought he was crazy when he heard it, but he calculated that if the satellite cost dropped by 10 times, it would be fine. Reduce the cost by 10 times, and now the team members can’t do it, so they will open it and replace it with a group of SpaceX people, but the common feature of this group is that they have never built a satellite.

At this time, you will find that, as Wang Xing often said, "I can’t, but I can learn". What does it mean to "know how to do it" at this time?

Is that I can know what to do from the perspective of physics and engineering.

Musk said that the only thing he surrendered was the theorem of physics, and nothing made him surrender except physics.As long as physics is not challenged, all other rules can be challenged.

The third point is "no internal friction", which is actually very difficult.How to cure mental internal friction is also an online hot word in the past two years.

I found that many good friends around me, including myself, lived like dogs in the past two years. Full of self-doubt, doubts about the outside world, very tangled, and timid in doing one thing, this is internal friction.

But I found that in this book, Musk was insane, had convulsions, cried and collapsed, butHe has no mental friction. He is always Move on. Because only this strong external pressure can resist his internal pressure.

I will reflect on why we have internal friction, but neither Musk nor his team has internal friction. They just go ahead, open the way to the mountain, bridge the bridge when encountering water, kill Buddha when encountering Buddha, and kill God when encountering God.

First, hisThe goal is very clearThis is actually the difference between an engineer and a businessman.

People usually have three goals when they do something, in order to "make it", "make money" and "maximize their experience".

Of course, when doing one thing, there may be three kinds of goals mixed at the same time, but some people’s goal is to make money, in order to make more money. Everything is just a tool for him to make money.

But this is not the case for an engineer. For an engineer, the greatest achievement is that I can solve problems that others can’t solve. We are born to solve problems.

You will find that Musk’s goal is extremely clear, and he has the momentum that the stronger the enemy is. My enemy is clear, the difficulty I want to solve is clear, and I will solve it.

His ultimate goal is to go to Mars, so all his motivation is to do one thing for it.

The second reason for not having internal friction is thatClear process. Musk’s consistent working method can maximize the clarity of the whole process.

For example, when Musk launched a rocket, he numbered all the parts and was responsible for the specific person.

Finally, when the rocket exploded, you can clearly see which part is out of order by recycling all the parts, and then directly locate who is responsible for the problem.

Therefore, Musk is not afraid of mistakes, and he is afraid that the process is not clear. As long as the process is clear, it can be optimized.

The reason why we have a lot of internal friction is because there are a lot of fuzzy areas inside.

If you can’t look it in the eye, it will exist forever.Musk pursues a clear goal, a clear process, and constantly develops a refinement process to make every link controllable.

So he doesn’t need internal friction, because he has sorted out every detail, which is the characteristic of an engineer.

For example, his third rocket failure was due to the 11th risk in the risk list. Lock in this risk after failure, so just tick this one and pay attention later.

For Musk, the process of launching a rocket is to constantly clarify, get feedback, and then iterate in the feedback to make sure that he is in the process of progress.

Therefore, the internal evaluation scale is more important. Originally, I didn’t know how many risks there were, but now my risk list is very clear, I know how to check one by one, I know who is responsible for all the parts, and I know how to improve anything.

From complete ignorance to complete control, this is the learning process of Musk.

The outside world can only recognize whether you have succeeded from an obvious signal-if you have successfully launched, OK, you have won; If you don’t launch successfully, you are a loser. The evaluation of the outside world is so shallow.

The fourth point is the ability to deal with setbacks.Because we can see that Musk has done so many things in the past 20 years. There is an old saying in China that "the more you do, the more mistakes you make."

The greater the work, the greater the grievance, and he is bound to be one of the people who suffer the most setbacks and failures on this earth.

Our culture is very concerned about external evaluation, so we are very afraid of facing failure. Why do ordinary people have no mobility, while Musk and his team have super mobility?

Maybe we have the will and know what to do. But we are too mentally exhausted to deal with setbacks.

Fourth, failure is a person’s competitive barrier.

What do we have to see through the book elon musk?

Failure is your real tuition, and failure is the barrier to competition.

Just now, I said that Musk launched the rocket and opened all the details in the process. His second rocket launch failed because the salt in the sea breeze corroded a spiral ring.

He said that if anyone wants to gain the most failure experience, he should run to the equator to send rockets.

In the past 20 years, I have had countless friends to start businesses, and I have met countless entrepreneurs. Many people can keep going, while more people stop at a point. Why?

Because he can’t afford the tuition, because his psychological energy can’t bear the failure and the unknown, so his road to entrepreneurship ends here.

Why Musk can lead a team of 500 people to build a rocket is because he said that we should make it as soon as possible, then blow it up and see where its limit is. We can iterate in the next edition.

When I first saw this description, my real feeling was: Is he crazy? But when you look at it again, you will want to say that SpaceX is 500 people, blowing up a pile of steel, and getting data and optimized solutions; Boeing has 50,000 people, reading paper, having meetings, and staying in the same place for discussion.

SpaceX blew up the rocket and got feedback. In fact, it saved organizational costs. However, in most of our enterprises, everyone will think that it is normal for enterprises to keep a bunch of people in meetings every day and pay wages normally every month.

But if an enterprise blows up a pile of materials, this is the wrong thing. For wasting organizational costs, everyone does not agree.

However, if we consume some experimental costs and verification costs, everyone will think that this is a risk or a failure. So this is a completely different corporate values and action.

Many people say that I know so much, why can’t I live such a bad life?The question is not how much you know, but how much you do.

I am very happy to share the book "Biography of elon musk", to exchange the person Musk, and to exchange this group of people in Musk’s various teams mentioned in the book.

With this vigorous action and vitality, in just 20 years, on our small planet, in so many fields-automobile, energy, satellite communication, artificial intelligence, brain-computer interface and so on, changes have taken place at the bottom of the industry.

What is the shallowness of business?

Is that the world is not made of business, the world is made of life. Business is big and small, and the characteristics of every life are licensed and respected.

You can seek a stable life, watch all kinds of great men stand tall and live a small life under their protection. I think there is no problem with this life. The world is meaningful because of diversity.

However, elon musk is undoubtedly a unique life, and it is worth our while to see a person and a group of people living so vigorously in their exhausted or shaky lives. It is also a very comforting thing.

As for whether everyone can get energy from it that can’t be obtained elsewhere, it depends on everyone’s fate.

Narrator: Liang Ning, this article is taken from Biography of elon musk, by walter isaacson, and published by CITIC Publishing House.