Without denigrating his achievements, which I can recognise and respect despite my distaste for his recent politics, that's not quite true. Musk came from a fairly wealthy and very well-connected family and was able to draw on those connections to secure opportunities that most others would not have had. That really helped when it came to sourcing funding for Zip2, and later in terms of getting someone like Bill Harris to be CEO of x.com.
Errol Musk was one of several investors, and in any case the vast majority of people aren’t in a position to have their parents invest $28 000 (nearly $60 000 today) in an uncertain business venture.
> Musk was the richest man in the world when he acquired x.com. He didn't need family connections for that.
Source? Zip2’s sale only brought in $300 million. That’s not richest man in the world stuff.
You edited your comment to remove the bit about living in youth hostels and working menial jobs, this was my reply to it:
A rite of passage. It was quite common for upper middle class and wealthy South African kids to spend a year working menial jobs and living in hostels as a way to build character and find themselves.
I know, personally, people who worked in tree clearing in Canada, picking fruit in Australia, manual labour at ski resorts in New England, and living in youth hostels all before going to university to start the courses their parents were paying full tuition fees for. All of the people I mentioned are doing well in their careers, because none were actually poor despite working manual labour jobs for a year.
His biography doesn't mention any others, and did go on about how they barely had an office.
> and in any case the vast majority of people aren’t in a position to have their parents invest $28 000 (nearly $60 000 today) in an uncertain business venture.
Sorry, $28,000 is not restricted to wealthy investors. You can't buy much of a business for $28,000. Business ventures are always uncertain. The median house in 1995 was $140,000. The median salary then was $27,845.
The idea that $28,000 was some stratospheric investment in 1995 is simply not true.
Musk himself has said that he started Zip2 using money from himself, his brother Kimbal, Greg Nouri, and Silicon Valley angel investors.
Errol invested a bit later.
I didn’t say that $28 000 was a stratospheric amount, I said it’s something the vast majority of people don’t have access to, let alone the angel investors. They also don’t have access to the doors that were opened by his family’s connections.
Again, I’m not saying Musk was merely gifted his success. Clearly that’s not true, there were hundreds if not thousands of others with similar connections and opportunities who didn’t achieve anything near his success. But your assertion that he started from rock bottom and was entirely self made is far from an accurate representation of events.
Everyone is a self-made man. You’re responsible for your own shortcomings and successes. Life is a single player game, since you only have access to your own thoughts and actions.
Musk was already a very successful businessman by then - selling zip2 for $300,000,000. $22 million was his cut. Successful businessmen attract investors.
> Musk came from a fairly wealthy and very well-connected family and was able to draw on those connections to secure opportunities that most others would not have had.
What connections are these? I've heard them alluded to a couple of times but never heard specifics.
It's hard to tell, I really can't believe the guy I see on TV lately has anything to do with any of this stuff, kind of makes me wonder if he is even real.
It's a really unfortunate situation in my opinion.
