Elon Musk’s superpower is chutzpah, although Walter Isaacson doesn’t put it that way (in his biography of Elon):
When Kimbal moved to Canada and joined Elon as a student at Queen’s, the brothers developed a routine. They would read the newspaper and pick out the person they found most interesting. Elon was not one of those eager-beaver types who liked to attract and charm mentors, so the more gregarious Kimbal took the lead in cold-calling the person. “If we were able to get through on the phone, they usually would have lunch with us,” he
One they picked was Peter Nicholson, the executive in charge of strategic planning at Scotiabank. Nicholson was an engineer with a master’s degree in physics and a PhD in math. When Kimbal got through to him, he agreed to have lunch with the boys. Their mother took them shopping at Eaton’s department store, where the purchase of a $99 suit got you a free shirt and tie. At lunch they discussed philosophy and physics and the nature of the universe. Nicholson offered them summer jobs, inviting Elon to work directly with him on his three-person strategic planning team.
Nicholson, then forty-nine, and Elon had fun together solving math puzzles and weird equations. “I was interested in the philosophical side of physics and how it related to reality,” Nicholson says. “I didn’t have a lot of other people to talk to about these things.”
Elon researched Latin American debt for Nicholson, but the bank wouldn’t fund his “sure thing”:
“He came away with an impression that the bank was a lot dumber than in fact it was,” Nicholson says. “But that was a good thing, because it gave him a healthy disrespect for the financial industry and the audacity to eventually start what became PayPal.”
Musk also drew another lesson from his time at Scotiabank: he did not like, nor was he good at, working for other people. It was not in his nature to be deferential or to assume that others might know more than he did.
”…he did not like, nor was he good at, working for other people. It was not in his nature to be deferential or to assume that others might know more than he did…”
I wonder about this. At some point, it seems Musk carries an acknowledgement that he is working for a market; or a gov’t agency that funnels him money. At some point he defers to Mother Nature; he assumes she knows more than him; he’s gotta follow her rules. Otherwise, he’s just another criminal/layabout.