Elon Musk - the Man Who Is Interviewed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIwLWfaAg-8&t=432s

Elon Musk - the man who is interviewed - runs two innovative companies:  SpaceX, Tesla; and is the chairman of SolarCity (a solar-cell company). He is considered as one of the most inspirational and heroic figures whose achievements have a sustainability to the future of mankind motivation. In the video, Elon Musk discusses his new project digging tunnels under LA, the latest from Tesla and SpaceX and his motivation for building a future on Mars in conversation with TED's Head Curator, Chris Anderson. “We’re trying to dig a hole under LA, and this is to create the beginning of what will be a 3D network of tunnels to alleviate congestion,” Musk says, describing the work of his new project, the Boring Company. Tesla is the “Apple” of the automative industry which has changed the course of electric vehicles forever while SpaceX is a private aerospace manufacturer founded with the mission 'to revolutionize space technology with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets', which has also gained worldwide attention for a series of historic milestones. He talks about the new electric car model - Tesla Model 3 with a special feature: autopilot, as well as his dream of “building a reusable rocket” for the first time in the history, which could save government a lot of money spending on space travel. Taking this perspective, I believe that Elon Musk is certainly an entrepreneur who should be considered a “Modern Hero” due to his ingenuity and drive to realize a fantastic future. His greatest contribution, I think, is that he has given people hope and renewed faith in what technology can do for mankind. Therefore, it’s interesting to get inside his head what traits are behind such a great mind.

There are some key traits that are easily observable from this man, which are his openness to experience, conscientiousness, altruism, stubbornness and boldness. His story of SpaceX launching demonstrates the very openness to experience trait aforementioned. He revisited his childhood dreams of rockets and space after becoming a millionaire to start a space company while in fact, he had zero formal rocket or aerospace training. He learned everything about rockets by reading books and keep asking questions. Another quality that Musk has is his conscientiousness. He always gets to the very end of subjects that matter to him. For him, it isn’t about making a rocket go to Mars. It’s about going to Mars and back, then reusing the rockets and repeating the process. He is stubborn and dogged. He chose to pursue his passion rather than simply continue with promising conventional careers. He even risked his own money to begin multiple businesses, many of which he was incredibly passionate about. Altruism is shown in the sense that he has a profound belief in his own capability to continue to build his visionary idea despite going bankrupt once. Boldness is the one that might differentiate him from other successful entrepreneurs. Musk dares to dream big and he is serious about it. He finds a way to make the seemingly impossible happen. That’s how he ended up with a space company and an electric car company.