There are several examples where new technologies have improved the world. During the Cold War, Vice President George Bush encouraged Apple to get computers into Russia to “foment revolution from below.”3 Several of the world’s 70 space endeavors aim to improve communications, mapping, and weather observations with the help of satellites. India is a poor country, but India has a space program. In 1999, a cyclone hit India’s east coast and killed more than 10 000 people. But because of satellites, a recent cyclone killed only a few people. Indian weather satellites had helped to predict where and when the storm would hit.414
Yet another reason why we need a space program is less visible. Before NASA launched a Saturn V rocket, Ralph Abernathy arrived to the launch site. After the assassination of Martin Luther King, Abernathy became the new leader of the Poor People’s Campaign, which was an effort to gain economic justice for poor people in the US. Together with hundreds of people, he protested against what they thought was a waste of money. “We are protesting America’s inability to choose the proper priorities,” Abernathy said. “It’s really not about the capability to do this, it’s this money that’s going to the Moon, this money’s going to be on the Moon, and it should be being spent on these people down here on Earth.”15
Before the countdown to launch hit zero, NASA invited Abernathy to watch the launch from the VIP area. “If it were possible for us not to push the button tomorrow and solve the problems with which you are concerned, we would not push the button,” a NASA employee told the group when they entered the area.15
Miles away from the launch platform, everyone in the VIP area could feel the vibrations as the Saturn V launched and roared away from Earth. “I succumbed to the awe-inspiring launch. I was one of the proudest Americans as I stood on this soil,” Abernathy said after the launch. “This is really holy ground. And it will be more holy once we feed the hungry, care for the sick, and provide for those who do not have houses.”28 What had happened was that the vision of the space program had inspired Abernathy. For just two minutes, he had forgotten there were citizens too poor to afford food.
Inspiration is often a forgotten result of an endeavor. Elon thought a new space program could inspire people. “I think we’re at the dawn of a new era and I think it’s going to be very exciting,” he said. “What we’re hoping to do is to push the envelope and provide a reason for people to be excited and inspired to be human. Literally over a billion people saw that mission [the Moon landing]. People walked hundreds of miles to the only television set available in one village.”308,365
The Outsider
Elon Musk wasn’t sure if he could work within the three areas that in the future will most affect the future of humanity. No matter what Elon is working with, he believes he can affect the world in a positive way by working with it, and he believes that’s the most important factor when founding a new company. But he added that it wouldn’t hurt if he also could make money from his endeavors.
While studying, Elon became interested in electric vehicles because they can save the world from its dependency on oil. Now when he had graduated he wanted to create a new battery for these vehicles. To create this new battery, he needed to use the laboratories at the Stanford University, California. So in 1995, Elon began a PhD graduate program in materials science & applied physics. His thesis idea was to use advanced chip making equipment to create a solid state capacitor with enough energy density for use in electric cars. “High-energy physics is where some major technical revolutions are going to come from,” Elon said. “By getting down to the quantum plane, it’s going to make much more power available more cheaply and with less pollution.”265
The PhD degree itself wasn’t important to Elon. What he wanted was the results of the research. His goal was to replace a traditional battery with a new super-battery that can charge in a matter of seconds. Such a battery would fit perfectly inside of electric vehicles. The large drawback with them is that it takes a long time to charge the battery compared with the time it takes to fill up the tank in a gasoline car.
At the same time as when Elon decided to save the world from its dependency on oil, Internet had begun to grow. His choices now were to either remain at Stanford and just watch as the Internet changed the world or leave Stanford and come back later. He thought the probability to succeed was much higher if he pursued the Internet compared with the research he made, so after 48 hours, Elon said goodbye to Stanford. “I thought that if I spend five to six years working on a PhD at Stanford and then came up with the idea that this wasn’t possible. That would really be terrible,” Elon said.233 In hindsight, he thought that failure would have been the most likely outcome of the PhD studies – the technology wouldn’t have worked as expected.350
Elon decided not to quit the graduate program, but to get a deferment to give the Internet a chance for six months. If this Internet turned out to be a flaw, or if his ideas failed, he could always return and pursue the graduate program. “It was a tough decision,” Elon said. “I’m not a born risk taker. I also had a scholarship and financial aid, which I’d lose. Being young helped. So did the fact that the field was literally brand-new, with no experts. But I’m a realist, so I hedged it and took a deferred admission from September to January.”265
When Elon told the chairman of the department at Stanford he wanted to start a career within Internet, the chairman thought Elon would fail. “Well, give it a shot, but I’ll bet we’ll see you in three months,” the chairman said. On the other hand, his professor at Stanford thought he would never return.265
Now Elon set out to find a job related to the Internet. “It was hard not to try and see if I could push it [Internet] forward,” he said.265 In the early years of the Internet Age, it was almost impossible to find a company in the industry that at the same time wanted to recruit inexperienced employees like Elon.
A popular web browser in the 1990s was Netscape Navigator with a market share of 90 percent. Years later, Netscape Navigator would lose its market share to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. “Microsoft should not be allowed to own the browser market,” Elon said. “If they do, they will own the gateway to the Internet for every consumer and it’s almost certainly likely to result in a less valuable experience for the consumer.”264
Netscape needed to recruit new employees, so Elon tried to get a job there. But he failed for unknown reasons because he received no reply on his application. He became desperate and decided to visit the Netscape office with his resume. As he was shy, he dared not speak to anyone, so he just hung around in the lobby before he went home again.
Elon knew he always wanted to work within an area where he could invent a sufficiently advanced technology that’s indistinguishable from magic – like in his favorite quote by Arthur C. Clark. But he was never sure if he wanted to do that in an existing company, or if he had to create his own company.324 Because he didn’t get a job at any of the few Internet companies, he realized he had to create his own job.
In the same year as eBay was founded, 1995, Elon founded Zip2 during the summer months. “I was very naive and much stupider than I am now,” Elon said. “I wish I could go back and give myself a slap on my face. I was working crazy hours. I would literally sleep under my desk to avoid going home because that’d just take time. I was trying to make up for my mistakes by working really, really hard.”431