How SpaceX and the Quest For Mars Almost Sunk Tesla Motors

braindrainbahrain writes: Elon Musk and his rocket company are well known to Slashdottters. This article and book excerpt tell the story of the creation of SpaceX and how it almost sank Musk's other company, Tesla Motors. Musk recalls, "I could either pick SpaceX or Tesla or split the money I had left between them. That was a tough decision. If I split the money, maybe both of them would die. If I gave the money to just one company, the probability of it surviving was greater, but then it would mean certain death for the other company." But then, at the last moment, years of work at SpaceX finally paid off: "[O]n Dec. 23, 2008, SpaceX received a wonderful shock. The company won a $1.6 billion contract for 12 NASA resupply flights to the space station. Then the Tesla deal ended up closing successfully, on Christmas Eve, hours before Tesla would have gone bankrupt. Musk had just a few hundred thousand dollars left and could not have made payroll the next day." Also, it turns out the inspiration for SpaceX was the idea of sending mice to Mars.

Comments

Luck plays a more important role than people know

[gurps_npc]

But that is not the whole story. Everyone thinks the story is:

Guy gets lucky and wins the lottery!

But this not the story - not literally or figuratively.

Instead real life works like this:

Guy gets lucky and wins the lottery and ....

1) loses it all within 5 years because he has now idea how to deal with his luck.

2) works his ass off to turn his momentary luck into something long lasting.

Musk, like Gates, Jobs, etc. etc. all got lucky and had to work their asses off to take a bit of luck and turn it into a thriving huge success.

But that hard work they did doesn't mean their success did not depend on their luck as much as it did on their work.

Mice to mars? Wtf...

[burtosis]

If musk wanted to make billions off spaceX he should have been sending cats to mars. Because paid access to video feed of cats doing low grav antics would break the internet and his bank account.

Re:The mice again!

[jfdavis668]

Five minutes later and it wouldn't have mattered so much. Shocking cock up. The mice were furious.

Re:Luck plays a more important role than people kn

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got the order of events reversed. Guy works his ass off so that he is prepared to take advantage of the opportunity when good luck strikes.

You never hear about the guys who worked their asses off but did not get lucky. There are way more of those guys than there are guys who did get lucky.

Re:Luck plays a more important role than people kn

[swillden]

But that hard work they did doesn't mean their success did not depend on their luck as much as it did on their work.

There's a great little (light, easy-to-read) book "The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives" which explains this very well in the last chapter. The truth is that randomness plays a huge role in success and failure of all sorts of endeavors. BUT, as the book points out with extensive examples, that doesn't mean we're powerless and just have to accept whatever the random dice of fate serve up for us. We can work hard to weight the dice a little, but even more important, we control how many throws of the dice we get. Successful people are those who are smart, hard-working and persistent

Had SpaceX not gotten the NASA contract, Tesla would undoubtedly have suffered, and Musk would have been scrambling to save it. I'd give him good odds of succeeding, too, either with alternative financing, or by closing the doors and starting over, or... something. And maybe he wouldn't have managed it, but I guarantee he wouldn't just have given up and said "Well, bad luck, I'm out". Because people who would do that don't get to where Musk is, no matter how lucky they are.

Re:What?

[GLMDesigns]

Are you mad? Do you know how many businesses struggle with payroll? Where owners take loans (or are late paying other bills) in order to cover payroll. This is SOOOOO fu*king common. Start a business and see how often it happens to you.

Re:Luck plays a more important role than people kn

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe I read a study a while back about luck. They found that the random 'lucky' events weren't really so random. Usually the 'lucky' people worked hard to put themselves in the position for that lucky break to happen. While something like winning the lottery does take luck, you still have to put yourself in the position to have that chance at luck.

As you point out that one lucky event is a fleeting moment, it takes work to make it last.

Re:How much did it cost him for slashdot?

[cerberusti]

It cost him enough money to live a life of luxury spent on founding companies intent on improving the condition of the human race instead of islands, yachts, and hookers.

Slashdot does not get much if any of that, but it regularly qualifies him for "news for nerds" and "stuff that matters".

Re:How much did it cost him for slashdot?

[turp182]

And it was a very good article (book excerpt actually, now I want the book). Actually worth reading...