Did you know the 'Avengers' character - Iron Man was based on Elon Musk? It was.
Whenever you hear the name Elon Musk, ‘space’ and ‘cars’ strike your mind as fast as a lightning. Yes, the one man who invariably dreams about Mission: Mars and the man who is behind safe cars that run on solar energy, electricity.
He is known as the founder of X.com, SpaceX and
Tesla cars. He’s one among the few who have transformed their dreams into
reality. But it surely isn’t an easy journey. Here are a few paths that he
crossed to reach his current spot.
His first work
At the age of twelve, Elon Musk created a video game which
was named as “Blaster”. The game was programmed using Commodore Vic 20. These
games were very successful during the phase of last century that failed later due
to many crises.
He published his work under the name E. R. Musk in PC and
Office Technology and received $500. This made him a prodigy. He was interested
in technology from a very young age and worked on it throughout.
He was a victim of bullying as the neighborhood of South
Africa wasn’t very friendly. He once ended up in hospital as he was beaten up
pretty badly. Even though he had a rough childhood, he never stopped working
forward.
Build-Ups From Early Days
Elon Musk, his brother Kimbal and their cousins went around
the wealthy household in the South African locality to sell chocolate Easter
eggs. They sold it for around 20 times the amount they used to make it.
When Mr. Musk was fifteen, he, along with his brother, planned
on starting the business of Arcade. They were too young for starting a business
and when they asked help from their father and uncle, they asked them to shut
it down.
North American Days
Elon Musk travelled from South Africa to Canada to pursue
his college degree. But he eventually moved to North America. He and his roommate
used to own a place they called nightclub and the amount collected from there
were used to pay their rent.
Musk became a billionaire in 2002. Before that, his life was
as tough as every struggling teenager. He used to sleep in his office couch and
shower at YMCA.
Own Your Identity
Musk has always described his fondness for books. He even
mentioned he was raised by books and then by his parents. He would spend up to
10 hours in reading science fictions, comics and non-fiction in his childhood.
He has never hesitated to mention that he’s a nerd. He was a
master at ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ game. He made a cameo in ‘The Big Bang Theory’
series which has a group of nerds as the main cast.
Turning Failures To
Success
There are a large group of companies under his name now. Those
include PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla Motors, The Boring Company. All these started
with Zip2 for which Musk dropped out from his PhD. It has not been a cakewalk
but he turned every struggle into an opportunity and boomed.
His One Purpose
Mars has been the dream of Musk for so long. His wish is ‘to
die in Mars’. It is because Mars is one of the nearest planets and it has 38%
gravity. It has CO2 and nitrogen so plants can be grown on the planet.
He sees Mars as a hope for better future.
“You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great – and that’s what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It’s about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars”.
- Elon Musk
Written by – Keerthana Lakshmi
Social