Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

by Ashlee Vance

star4.5

Vance conducted dozens of interviews with Musk, his family, and colleagues to trace his arc from South African childhood through Zip2, PayPal, SpaceX, and Tesla. Vance argues Musk is a composite of Edison, Ford, Hughes, and Jobs who pushes his teams past conventional limits to pursue civilizational-scale goals.

Published:
Pages:
400
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In the Conversation

In this collection, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future references 3 other books and is cited by 3 other books.

It draws on Steve Jobs, The Everything Store and Einstein.

It’s picked up by Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber, The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley and Wisdom Takes Work.

Scroll down to read the exact passages where other authors reference this book and what they say about it.

What This Book Draws On

3

The books Vance references and why each one mattered to the argument.

Vance repeatedly benchmarks Musk's management style and product obsession against Isaacson's portrait of Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

References

Steve Jobs

by Walter Isaacson

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Vance draws comparisons between Musk's demanding culture and the Bezos leadership approach documented in Brad Stone's The Everything Store

The Everything Store

References

The Everything Store

by Brad Stone

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Vance references the Einstein archetype Isaacson established to describe Musk's first-principles physics thinking

Einstein

References

Einstein

by Walter Isaacson

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What Other Authors Say About It

3

The exact passages where other authors bring up “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future” and what they take from it.

Vance's Elon Musk biography is cited as the precedent for the founder-as-force-of-nature narrative that Kalanick cultivated at Uber

Ashlee Vance's Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future is used as a secondary source alongside Isaacson for the Musk profile chapters.

The Storm Within Us

Wisdom Takes Work

Cited in

Wisdom Takes Work

by Ryan Holiday

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Intellectual Lineage

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Wisdom Takes WorkSteve JobsThe Everything Store

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