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

1.  I was surprised to learn from this book that Elon Musk has already been divorced three times. This seems to have been due to his apparently uncompassionate and "self-absorbed" nature combined with the demanding lifestyle of a billionaire entrepreneur. However, aside from his personal relationships, I admire Musk's desire to create a world of sustainability through the commercialization of clean and renewable forms of energy. I least admire his apparent arrogance and narcissistic personality, although  I do realize that this is almost entirely due to factors outside his control such as the natural personality traits that he inherited from his genetic makeup combined with the dysfunctional relationship he had with his father. Musk encountered many forms of adversity including the personal adversity he experienced because of his father as well as the near failure of his multi-billion dollar business which caused him to put his own money at risk to the point of near bankruptcy, but fortunately the company rebounded successfully. 

2.  Musk was blessed with an extremely high level of intelligence since he was a little kid. He is known to have a photographic memory that allows him to retain significant amounts of information in a short amount of time. He was especially gifted at a young age when it came to technical and analytical skills related to computers, engineering, and many other fields. 

3.  I was somewhat confused when the book went further into his venture with PayPal. It turns out that he originally created a separate company for online payments while another brilliant entrepreneur named Peter Thiel was creating a similar company. After extensive competition with each other, they finally decided to merge their companies. The part that confuses me is that Elon Musk had the largest share of the company out of everyone, but he was somehow forced to step out from an ownership position and had to take an advisory position instead. I don't fully understand the legal or personal implications that allowed that to happen in that way.

4.  Here are two questions I would like to ask Elon Musk if I were given the chance:

           - Who is one person, historically or from the present, that you admire as a thought leader?

           - If given the chance, what advice would you have given to your 25 year old self? 

5.  I believe it was made clear the Musk has extremely high standards when it comes to hard work, which probably entails an expectation of the utmost dedication to one's work. His employees at all of his companies have stated that he can be very harsh and highly demanding. This seems to be a relatively common trait among successful entrepreneurs working in businesses of this level. It is pretty understandable though since the types of goals that these companies are trying to achieve are significant on a global scale that will affect not only the current generations but many generations into future.