An Elon Musk Review by Ali Hashim
AFTER reading Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance published on 2015, I was sceptical about the facts mentioned and doubted that it might incline to exaggeration.
So, I decided to read a second book titled Insane Mode: How Elon Musk’s Tesla Sparked an Electric Revolution to End the Age of Oil by Hamish McKenzie, which is a journalistic exploratory effort about the quest for electrical cars published in 2018.
I cannot deny that when I finished reading both books, I felt doomed and threatened with the approaching future.
The Middle East, up to date, relies heavily on oil despite efforts to diversify sources of income.
In my simple and humble opinion, the ramifications of the uprising technologies are immense, drastic and shall erode its geopolitical significance.
In fact it can go far to jeopardise its economic stability and social welfare enjoyed recently.
Elon Musk, the hero of both books, is a special breed of entrepreneur.
He flourished at Silicon valley after a long struggle with being bullied during childhood in South Africa, then later moving to Canada working in cleaning chimneys to cover university studying costs.
Ultimately moving to the US and finding his way in a start-up world.
The uniqueness with the likes of Musk is the genuine and authentic passion to achieve the impossible.
His real motto is to simply turn his visionary future dreams into reality. In his own words, Elon says his daily mission is to push the boundaries of human consciousness by exploring and better understanding the universe.
The previous statement might seem more of a philosophical endeavour far from reality, but in Elon’s daily struggle his companies are working on finding solutions and alternative answers to the pressing global issues such as climate change, sustainability and energy management.
You might shrug with laughter when you hear Elon’s vision for humans to become a multi-planetary species, starting with the conquest of Mars, but soon you shall surrender when he reveals the details of such audacious ambitions using logic and pure science.
The special breed we speak about are entrepreneurs who manage to surpass the intrinsic want of money, greed and materialism, but are ready to fall into risks of loosing all their money and jump into circles of agony, stress and failure, just for the sake of achieving their ultimate goals.
People with such spirit are true disruptors and are a live demonstration of the continuous march towards improvement and challenge in humans’ quest to perfection.
Personally, I can conclude that it makes complete sense the serious intentions of the Saudi authorities to turn the state-owned company Saudi Aramco into a public company via an international IPO.
This view exhibits a proactive step towards the declining role of oil and gas in our life.
As a Bahraini who cares deeply for his country and fellow regional countries, I believe we need to move really fast to reform our education, rethink our business strategies and realign our mindsets towards the new realities.