Success story of Elon Musk : An Innovator, Risk Taker, Billionaire

It takes 6 months for any normal person to learn computer programming, but Elon Musk had something special since childhood. He received his first computer when he was 9 years old. With the computer came a book of computer programming. This 9 year old child finished the entire book in three days without sleeping. Using this knowledge, when he was 12 years old, he designed a competitive game and sold it to a video game company. It is said that Elon Musk has  a photographic memory which means that once he looks at something, he will not forget that information.

When he was in school, he was bullied. Because of this he did not have friends in the school. Therefore he spent most of his time reading books. From the age of 7 years, he used to study 15 hours a day. In childhood, whenever he was talking to a person, he got lost in his own thoughts. Because of this, his parents thought that he was having difficulty in hearing. They got his ear operated. But even after the operation, the situation was the same. Later on they understood that his focus level is so sharp that when he is thinking something, he doesn’t listen to the outer noises.

He was innovative and business minded since childhood. Otherwise how can a 12 year old kid can even think about developing his own product and selling it to a company. At the age of 217 years, he took admission in a university and shifted to Canada. He made some friends there. They all were very fond of wild parties but could not attend them because of age restrictions. Elon with the help of his friends rented an apartment where they could arrange wild parties. They kept a $5 entry charge. He managed his pocket money and rent from this income.

In 1994, after completion of his college, he with his brother launched his first startup ‘ZIP2’. In all his startups, innovation was the primary factor. This startup was a success and after 5 years he sold this for $307 millions. His share was $22 millions. Now he was a multi millionaire. He owned a luxury apartment, a plane and luxury cars. One day he went to his bank for some work where he witnessed long queues. This gave him another idea and he started his another startup ‘X.com’ which provided bank transactions over email and later this company became what we today know as ‘PayPal’. Later on Ebay purchased PayPal for $1.5 Billions.

He always had a dream of space travel. To fulfill his dream he went to Russia to purchase a rocket. But the price of a rocket was $8 millions and he returned empty handed. But he also returned with determination and goal of developing a rocket himself. But it was not an easy journey. After reading books and experimenting, he started to build his own rocket. He also invested in an electric car company Tesla. But one of the testing of the rockets failed. The company Tesla was also at the verge of winding up because of lack of funding. Elon Musk was now at his last $40 million. Fortunately, his 4th rocket was a success and NASA signed a contract of $1.5 Billions with him. He owns many companies which primarily deal with innovation. His unique thinking, determination, creativity, innovation and hard work is what makes him the Elon Musk.