[Person] Let's learn about the real protagonist of Iron Man, Elon Musk.
[Person] Let's learn about the real protagonist of Iron Man, Elon Musk.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk's extraordinary ideas and unstoppable challenges
Elon Musk, who learned computer programming at the age of 12 and made games on his own, was a strong inventor from an early age. His extraordinary ideas and relentless attempts are leading beyond electronic payments to electric vehicles and the space industry.
How is Elon Musk, known as an icon of electric vehicle innovation in Korea, implementing innovation?
Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa. His father Errol Musk was an electrical and mechanical engineer, and his mother May was a nutrition consultant and fashion model. Musk was materially wealthy. This allowed him to read many books as a child, and often traveled abroad with his brothers.
Musk had an entrepreneurial spirit from an early age, was savvy with the latest technology, and had a keen interest in computers. He got into programming naturally and created a space video game called Blastar while in high school. The game, which seemed to be a mix of popular games at the time, was sold by Musk to a computer magazine for $500. Then he invested the money in a pharmaceutical company and later sold it for a big profit.
Musk grew up in South Africa, but wanted to go to the United States, a good place to do business. His Canadian mother gave him a Canadian residence permit. Elon Musk went to Canada to attend Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, and then to the University of Pennsylvania in the United States in 1992. He entered Stanford University when he was 23, but dropped out of school and started his own business before taking his first class at school to join the internet-enabled startup band.
Entrepreneurship, success
The first company, ZIP2 (ZIP2), was an Internet-based local information service. At that time, companies were just beginning to open their eyes to the world of the Internet, so they knew the need for online access, but did not know how to do it. Zip To was a program that provided online guidance after displaying information on a map based on phone book information by industry. Users could use the program to find out exactly where local businesses were located on a map.
Musk met renowned venture capitalist Steve Jervetson to create investment collaborations, collaborate with more diverse businesses, and run more than 180 online city guide sites. In the early 2000s, media companies competed to buy smaller content providers to secure online content.
Zip2 was no exception. After being acquired by AltaVista, a search engine owned by American computer company Compaq, Elon Musk made $22 million but didn't change the world, so he started the next business without delay.
Elon Musk, who started the online financial services business next, made a feat of acquiring a competitor within a year of its establishment. This included PayPal, an email payment service. He changed the company name to PayPal and upgraded the online payment service. And three years later, online shopping mall eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion. All of this happened in just 10 years. Market Flow Anyone could easily foresee the possibility of online trading, which would be called e-commerce, but there were some obstacles at the time. Some of the obstacles were real and some were imaginary. And one of the virtual obstacles was that there was no convenient way to send and receive money over the Internet. There were already credit cards, a payment method that were fully utilized online, but those credit cards also had their limitations.
In order for credit card payments to be accepted, merchants needed a credit card merchant account. Although it is not a big deal for large companies or mid-sized companies to open a credit card merchant account, it was expensive and complicated for small businesses and individuals. Another issue was online safety. This is because buyers are reluctant to disclose their credit card numbers and other personal information through websites.
PayPal's predecessor, X.com, solved both problems. Merchants will be able to accept credit cards without creating a credit card merchant account, and buyers will be able to send money to anyone at their email address using their credit card or bank account, for example, without revealing their credit card number or other personal information. there will be PayPal soon became one of the most important elements of the Internet, driving the explosion of e-commerce.
Based on this, X.com and Confinity merged, and in February 2001, the company name was changed to 'Paypal'. At the time, PayPal had already had 4 million customers and had become a powerful online payment institution, capable of handling 50 percent of auctions on eBay, an online auction house.
A new way, not a way I know
Although he succeeded in business successively at a young age and made a lot of money, Elon Musk did not settle there. Rather, he used the money he earned as capital to start a new business. He identified three very different areas of focus for the future: the Internet, clean energy and the space industry. In an area where one is difficult to do well, Elon Musk has grown all three areas in very different categories.
In particular, Tesla Motors, which makes electric vehicles, and Solar City, a solar energy company, are connected with his other goal of 'clean energy'. Tesla's electric vehicle is not a hybrid vehicle that uses some gasoline, but a 100% electric vehicle that runs only with an electric motor. Elon Musk overturned all the perceptions and methods adhered to in the existing automobile market when Tesla released an electric vehicle. First of all, Tesla achieved the luxury of electric vehicles by making sports cars and sedans, unlike existing electric vehicles that were made small and light. In addition, Solar City provides a service that supplies electricity so that Tesla's electric vehicles can operate smoothly.
In the early days of electric vehicle development, Elon Musk had little profit to continue developing it at his own expense. In 2014, the patent was released for free, even declaring that “it doesn’t matter if you make a fake Tesla.” It was an attempt that came from the judgment that the electric vehicle market had to expand further in order to compete with existing internal combustion engine vehicles.
In fact, Tesla's electric car is playing the role of a digital device while being a car. Unlike internal combustion engine cars, which are kept in the best condition right after purchase, Tesla's electric vehicles continue to receive the latest features through software updates. Marketing doesn't follow traditional car advertising techniques either. Instead of advertising, the image of Tesla is imprinted on the public through continuous media exposure, and word-of-mouth publicity is being achieved through word of mouth. In fact, Tesla electric vehicle users are working as great marketing evangelists to promote Tesla's strengths.
A dream shot into space
Space X: Elon Musk's reason for starting Space X is as follows.
“We could be destroyed by asteroids or giant volcanoes, but we could also be wiped out by unknown technologies such as genetically engineered viruses, nuclear war, and dangerous micro-black holes. We are surrounded by more risk factors than in the past. Sooner or later, we humans will have to extend our lives beyond this tiny little blue planet. Otherwise, they will become extinct.”
Can humans leave Earth and migrate to Mars? If an ordinary person made such a claim, he must have been called 'crazy'. However, on May 31, 2020, SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, launched the world's first manned spacecraft 'Crew Dragon'. Crew Dragon also succeeded in docking with the International Space Station (ISS).
In 2002, when Elon Musk sold PayPal, an electronic payment company, and founded SpaceX, people were skeptical. His declaration of “making a cheap rocket that can travel into space” was regarded as vain. It is also because the first rocket, 'Falcon 1', was launched in 2006, but a fire broke out. Fortunately, on September 28, 2008, the Felcon 1 was successfully launched. SpaceX was selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as the transport operator to send cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). Currently, SpaceX is the only private company operating a space cargo ship.
The costly space industry is a difficult field for private companies to access. In the early days of Elon Musk's involvement in the space industry, he was ridiculed as a vain challenge. However, he successfully led the launch of the fourth rocket and achieved stabilization in the space industry. Elon Musk's space program isn't just about making a profit as a business. In a 2004 media interview, he said, “The goal is to build a lunar base and build a Mars base,” and he even has a plan to build a Mars colony with a population of 80,000. In May, it also announced a specific goal of launching an unmanned spacecraft to Mars by 2022 and sending a manned spacecraft by 2024. Scenes that appeared in science fiction novels are being made into reality, not imagination.
Solar City
To change the world, Elon Musk came up with the concept of SolarCity, a residential solar power provider, and in July 2006 Peter Reeve and Lyndon Reeve founded a company called SolarCity. Elon Musk became the company's largest shareholder and chairman of the board. In the case of this company, the already proven Elon Musk formula has been surprisingly successful. In 2013, SolarCity became the largest retail solar energy supplier in the United States, supplying a whopping 26 percent of residential solar power.
SolarCity did not develop new technologies and did not manufacture solar panels. Elon Musk saw that the biggest obstacle to the spread of solar power was not the technology problem, but the money problem. At least in sunny areas, individual homeowners and businesses know that installing solar cells saves money. But why not install solar cells? This is because the initial installation cost is high. Homeowners can't afford to pay, and businesses are unwilling to make such investments because it is more profitable to invest their available capital in their core businesses.
Elon Musk caught this point and installed solar cells with little or no upfront cost burden on homeowners, essentially sharing the energy savings.
Possibilities arise only when you try
Although the three industries Elon Musk entered were different from each other, they had one thing in common: the odds of success were extremely low. However, if he hadn't taken on a different challenge, 100% electric cars and ordinary people's space travel would have remained only one scene in a science fiction novel. In this sense, Elon Musk's companies are companies that sell dreams, not products. In fact, Tesla's stock price continues to rise, focusing on future growth potential rather than sales performance.
In a lecture, Elon Musk said, "Technology requires the effort of a lot of people to develop." On the other hand, he emphasized, "If you think something is important, do it even if the possibilities are not met."
Of course, not everyone is a genius like Elon Musk. But if you don't do it like that, you won't get any results. Elon Musk would not have remained the genius of the century if he had not continued to challenge himself.