Elon Musk. James Bond or Dr Evil?

The public tends to respond to precedents and superlatives. ~Elon Musk

Given his cool professorial demeanour, hunky cyborg looks and high-stakes life, it's easy to drift into superlative dichotomies when trying to describe Elon Musk. Is he a super hero or a super villain? Only Stephen Colbert would have the nerve to ask Musk that question to his face in what has to be the cheekiest CEO interview of the year (or any year).

Never before in CEO history has a man been so lauded, so idolized and so celebrated, yet the same people who exalt Elon Musk today would likely have made fun of his name or tried to stuff him into a locker as a kid. Elon's biographer, Ashlee Vance, traveled to South Africa to talk to the people who knew him as a child. Nobody thought he would be successful. Not a single person. Musk's childhood was "nonstop horrible" with family dysfunction at home and no respite at school where gangs of boys bullied him for several years. In high school, he was pushed down a flight of concrete stairs and beaten so badly that he was hospitalized for a week.  

Elon found comfort in books, especially science fiction and fantasy, and would read from morning until night. Like most children of his era, he read the encyclopedia, but unlike most children he read the whole thing. By age twelve he was in the throes of an existential crisis abetted by philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer who whispered to him...

Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see. 

Elon Musk is a hero for striving to make sustainable energy mainstream, for making Mars a topic of late-night conversation and for suggesting that a thirty-minute hyperloop trip from LA to San Francisco may be possible. Like a true James Bond, he totalled a McLaren, let a knife thrower toss sharp objects in the vicinity of his genitals and tried to buy ICBM missiles from the Russians. He's a villain because of his tendency to bully, to drive his employees to the breaking point, to hurt them and make them cry.

What's the difference between Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk? If Jack Dorsey fires you, you both cry. If Elon Musk fires you, only one of you is crying.

 None were hurt more grievously than his longtime assistant Mary Beth Brown who ran afoul of Musk when she asked him for more money. Elon asked her to take a couple of weeks off and fired her when she returned after determining over those two weeks that he didn't really need her.

If you ask whether Elon Musk is a James Bond for trying to save humanity from itself or a Dr Evil for the way he treats the individuals within humanity, you're falling into the trap of superlatives and precedents, asking the wrong question. In Elon's world there is only one question worth asking. 

What is the meaning of life?

This is the ultimate question, the question that every other meaningful question leads to. It is the question that consumes Musk, one that he attempts to answer by expanding human knowledge, knowing that he's dancing on the edge of an existential abyss.

Elon Musk is not obsessed. I'm obsessed with elves on shelves. Obsession a word that doesn't do him justice. Elon is torqued, a twisted force of nature tethered to a relentless focus. If you want to be like Elon you can't, but here are a few ways you can get a little bit closer.

1. You can teach yourself almost anything by reading and talking to people. Jack Dorsey taught himself programming and financial services, Elon Musk taught himself missiles, cars and battery technology. They learned what they needed to learn, not because they wanted to, but because they needed to learn to accomplish an objective. Most people are self limiting, says Musk. 

2. Fail quickly. According to Musk, most startups fail because: a) they don't realize when they've made a mistake or b) they recognize the mistake but don't fix it quickly enough.

If you're not failing, it's because you're doing something obvious and kinda boring.

It wasn't as though in creating these companies I thought we'd be successful. I thought that the most likely outcome was failure, but it was still worth doing.

3. Wash the dishes. Do the boring stuff as well as the enjoyable stuff. If you don't do your "chores" bad things will happen. Work on the problems that need to be worked on, not the problems you want to work on.

4. That's just wrong. Musk was trained as a physicist, taught to constantly question himself, to assume that he was wrong and try to prove himself right. He can't look at a Tesla without seeing all the flaws he'd like to fix. Musk knows that to make something better, to see what everyone else is missing, you must focus on the flaws.

5.  A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

You are only limited by your imagination. Go out there and create some magic.

The final word on Elon Musk comes from one of his favourite books of all time, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

"Tell us!"

"All right" said Deep Thought [after pondering the question for 7.5 million years]. "The answer to the Great Question…"

"Yes!"

"The meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything"

"Yes..!"

"Is…"

"Yes…!!!"

"Forty-two" said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

About the Author. Lynne Everatt and Elon Musk have one thing in common. A fascination with Monty Python.When Space-X did the first test flight of the Dragon spacecraft, they needed something wacky to transport, so Musk selected a large wheel of stinky Gruyere cheese inspired by The Cheese Shop sketch from Monty Python...

What do you think about Elon? Is he your CEO of the Year? Cast your vote in the comment section for Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk, Marissa Mayer (post coming December 15), Steve Easterbrook (December 18) and Mark Zuckerberg (December 21). When you cast your vote in the comment section along with your rationale, you'll be entered in a draw to win the best CEO book of 2015, Ashlee Vance's Elon Musk: Tesla, Space-X and the Quest for a Fantastic Future.