
I am writing an Elon Musk biography - SuperChihuahua
http://leanpub.com/theengineer
======
jonnathanson
Scanning through the comments, I'm noticing a bit of skepticism over the
"legitimacy" of this work. To a large extent, that's probably fair: people
have every right to be skeptical of anything calling itself a biography. The
rigor of scholarship, access, and sourcing involved in writing a competent
biography is a high hurdle to clear.

That said, the idea of Leanpub is to let authors write lean. Writing lean
isn't an excuse for half-baked scholarship, but it _is_ an opportunity to
publish an "MVP" book and iterate from there. To me, that's what the author is
trying to do here, and he should be applauded for that effort and gumption.

This is a huge undertaking, and for that reason alone, I'm intrigued. I wish
the minimum price weren't as high as it is (probably another big blip on the
skepticism radar), but I would love to check it out.

~~~
nonchalance
Going into a biography, most of us have a basic understanding of core life
events. We read biographies because we are interested in unique insights that
(hopefully) biographers can provide.

The only real way to do that is by interviewing people and drawing out
interesting details that haven't been published yet (for a dead person, you
might draw from a recently-discovered journal) In this case, the author did
neither. Which is not to say this biography is bad, but the price should
reflect that

~~~
vertr07
Since when did the market price for books reflect the effort put in by the
author?

~~~
scott_s
He's not arguing that the value is reflected by the effort put in by the
author, but the insight gained by the reader.

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jaynos
Did you have any access to Musk and/or family/friends or is it mainly compiled
from already available sources? Either way, it looks like a good read.

~~~
SuperChihuahua
No I haven't. I have cleaned Internet and books on information, so it has 407
sources.

~~~
twodim
Did you attempt reaching them?

~~~
swamp40
You should at least _ask_. Maybe you are destined to be a modern day Napoleon
Hill?

~~~
SuperChihuahua
The only question I have unanswered is what the name of the game was that Elon
Musk sold when he was 12. I had to include Blastar, Blast Star, and Blaster. I
tried to ask that question on Twitter, but it got lost in the spam...

@alanctgardner2 I meant questions that will improve the material I have. You
can always ask more questions, but I didn't want the book to be too long
either. Well, I wrote it because he's an engineer and it's hard to find
engineers that are role models, and I wrote it because he cares about peak oil
and not so many others do.

~~~
someperson
There's a clip on YouTube ;) It has a title screen

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqrqU_wTPAw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqrqU_wTPAw)

~~~
SuperChihuahua
That's another game released in 1993 by Core Design. Elon's game was released
in 1983. I've written in the biography that the two games shouldn't be
confused.

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mbesto
Slightly meta - Just a recommendation on your "pitch". When you are trying to
get someone to buy something using the word "try" makes you sound less
serious. I understand you're trying to be humble, but confidence in your work
will get you more book sales. Be confident and people will take you more
seriously.

That being said...the book looks interesting! Grattis for shipping.

~~~
jonnathanson
Good advice, though when sharing with the HN audience, humility is probably a
decent strategy. In fact, I might have suggested "I am _writing_..." rather
than the past-tense "I wrote" or "I tried to write." This would imply that the
writing is an ongoing process, of which sharing on HN is the first major
feedback stage.

~~~
michaelbuddy
no, when I read "try" I thought the book isn't finished. And of course Elon is
what 40 years old. He's not really cooked well enough for a true bio yet. So
I'm also not ready to buy the book yet.

------
daviddavis
One thing that sticks out to me is the price. Where did you choose $24.99
from? Recently I read Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (which is a more reputable
book) for $13.60. I'm not saying that you're book isn't worth it but I don't
see anything on this page to justify the cost.

~~~
SuperChihuahua
That's the recommended price. But the Steve Jobs book is older, and when it
was new, it was like $34,99.

~~~
nonchalance
It was also written by a noted biographer
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Isaacson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Isaacson))
and was based on many primary sources:

> The book was based on over forty interviews with Jobs over a two-year period
> right up until shortly before his death. Isaacson also drew on conversations
> with friends, family members, and business rivals of the entrepreneur whose
> vision revolutionized computing, music, phones, animated films, and
> publishing

It also was published shortly after his death (AFAICT Musk is still alive)

------
moocowduckquack
" _Maybe the best comparable person is Christopher Columbus "_

Columbus was a religious extremist who thought the world was egg shaped and
that he had landed in India rather than the Bahamas, even after it became
increasingly clear that he hadn't, and who thought that his own travels were
to do with the bringing about of the end times according to Christian
prophecy. I am not sure he is necessarily the best person to use as a
comparison.

~~~
InclinedPlane
All of that is eccentricity compared to Columbus' very real crimes against
humanity that he committed during his voyages. He enslaved huge numbers of
people and put them to work in forced labor under brutal conditions. It was so
egregious that the Spanish had to remove him from his governorship. He should
rightly be one of the most controversial figures in history. Comparing him to
anyone in modern history (except maybe Stalin or Hitler) is at best an insult.

There are plenty of other people who are comparable to Musk, obviously not the
same in every way, but similar in certain respects. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates
come to mind, Jobs more than Gates. Henry Ford. Andrew Carnegie. In an odd
way, Ray Jardine. Nikola Tesla.

~~~
SuperChihuahua
Thanks for the input. I didn't know that it was wrong to compare Elon with
Columbus. Others have complained about it as well, so I will probably find a
another explorer.

~~~
moocowduckquack
Not being funny, but if you are writing a book about someone and intend on
comparing them to historical characters, you probably should go through
history a bit more generally and find people who genuinely reflects the person
you are describing, rather than go and decide that you just want an explorer
and then seek one to wedge in.

------
stuartjmoore
Typos on page 2: “At one interview, he had to _hung_ up the phone because the
journalist couldn’t understand the difficult topics involved … If he _don’t_
get it, will he be sad about it?”

Regardless, awesome idea. I plan on reading it through.

~~~
SuperChihuahua
Thank You. I am Swedish, so I might have made some silly errors. That's why I
released it through Leanpub, so don't be afraid of complaining. Or as Musk
himself said: "Don't tell me what you like, tell me what you don't like."

~~~
swamp40
Great job on this. I can vouch that a _lot_ of people are interested in Mr.
Musk these days.

I _do_ wish the pdf contained a few more anecdotes about Mr. Musk himself,
instead of so much about his ancestors.

I think the sample might actually do better if you snipped out the "Lost
Cities" chapter, even if you didn't replace it with anything else.

Just my opinion - I'm certainly no expert in book writing or book selling.
Again, congratulations on this!

------
scheff
This is what I have been asking for - the Elon Musk biography.

However, the one thing that I'm after, and the only thing I would be willing
to buy it for, is answer to the question - "How did surmount his challenges?"
He must have faced a thousand naysayers, both at the business level and at the
technical level. People who he had to convince to make his successes happen.
What is it that he has that enables him to overcome these challenges and
succeed? It's probably not any one thing, but whatever it is, he has it in
spades.

I would like to know if/how this book addresses that. Thanks.

~~~
SuperChihuahua
I've for example included how he convinced experts to join a new rocket
company. In the beginning, no one wanted to join SpaceX because so many other
rocket companies had failed. So what he did was to pay the experts to
participate in a series of meetings so they could convince themselves.

One paragraph from the book:

After the meetings ended, the conclusion was that it would be possible to
build better rockets than had been made before. The experts were now convinced
that SpaceX was different and wouldn't be yet another failed rocket company.
"I essentially led them to a conclusion that they created," Elon said. "It was
sort of a Socratic dialogue on a technical level. The essence of a Socratic
dialogue is that people wind up convincing themselves. People are much more
willing to change their opinion if you're not forcing it."

------
shiven
Apologies from the get go for my negative-sounding questions, but the skeptic
in me wonders:

 _1._ Is this biography in any way vetted by Elon Musk or anyone who has
first-hand knowledge of events described here?

 _2._ If not, then how is this anything more than anec-data, wikipedia and
googling thrown together in a fantasy narrative?

 _3._ If it is not vouchsafed by the principal, real, living person about whom
this book claims to be about, then perhaps a disclaimer about it being a work
of fiction should be on the cover itself...

~~~
smacktoward
People write unauthorized biographies all the time. There's no reason to
assume that just because a biography isn't authorized by its subject that it's
inherently less reliable. They can even be _more_ reliable; the subject may
require the biographer to agree to respect certain no-go zones in their life
in order to gain authorization, or the biographer may come to unduly identify
with the subject after spending lots of time with them and write a book with a
sympathetic slant. Another biographer writing from outside the subject's
personal bubble can avoid these risks and restrictions.

Which is not to say that all unauthorized biographies are automatically great,
just that you should evaluate them based on the quality of the author's
research rather than just on whether or not they've been authorized by the
subject.

------
biography
so you tried and did or did not succeed? is it a legit biography?

~~~
SuperChihuahua
It succeed if people like it after they've read it, but those who have read it
said it was "good shit"

~~~
biography
"good shit" sounds pretty good :)

~~~
someperson
Yes, just to clarify for non-native speakers, this is a positive (but very
colloquial) expression in English. The person who said it was giving a
complement.

------
uladzislau
"The Engineer - unauthorized biography of Elon Musk" looks much better for the
title of HN submission.

------
hk__2
Original picture: [http://unsplash.s3.amazonaws.com/batch%204/jet-
sky.jpg](http://unsplash.s3.amazonaws.com/batch%204/jet-sky.jpg)

~~~
SuperChihuahua
Downloaded from here: [http://unsplash.com/](http://unsplash.com/) as in "Free
(do whatever you want) hi-resolution photos." :)

~~~
hk__2
Yes, that was for the people that would be interested.

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kirk21
Reading the sample and it is interesting so far. Elon is awesome!

Can you disclose how many people bought the book or what price they
picked(median price)?

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shuma
If you are big musk fan, you should read the book like I did. Its good shit!

------
lifeformed
I can't wait to watch the inevitable biopic about Elon Musk.

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monsterix
Very interesting. I have been following Musk/Spacex closely since the 2007.
Even wrote a small inspirational coverage on him back then (Searching though,
to post it here!). At the time they were going through challenging times as
third and rather _defining_ flight of Falcon was round the corner.

Will definitely read this biography.

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cremnob
Anything about his divorce in here?

~~~
SuperChihuahua
Yes in chapter "Trouble in Paradise" It's actually divorces since he divorced
both Justine Musk and Talulah Riley

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omarforgotpwd
Looks like a shit on a plate

~~~
SuperChihuahua
Don't judge a book by its cover :)

