

Hacker Monthly #26 (featuring Elon Musk) is out - bearwithclaws
http://hackermonthly.com/issue-26.html

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Nevaeh
It's amazing that something I submitted to hackernews went on to become the
cover story of Hacker Monthly. All I wanted was to understand what made Elon
Musk tick.

The only drawback is that the stanford lectures were done in 2003, incredibly
outdated. Elon was just starting out back then with SpaceX and Tesla, and
haven’t dealt with the 2008 economic crash that forced him to invest all of
his capital in order to keep his companies alive, and this happened during a
difficult divorce. Elon had to borrow money from a few friends, a majority of
which was used to pay the legal fees. Elon said that he almost had a mental
breakdown and he probably burned out a few of his mental circuits.

Nowadays Elon repeatedly quotes his friend, _“Starting a company is like
eating glass and staring into the abyss of death.“_

If you truly want to delve into Elon's entrepreneurial spirit, I would suggest
reading or watching these links below.

 _On the verge of nervous breakdown:[34:42]_ \-
[http://www.bloomberg.com/video/73460184-elon-musk-
profiled-b...](http://www.bloomberg.com/video/73460184-elon-musk-profiled-
bloomberg-risk-takers.html)

 _Riskmaster:_ <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNnauxvhJUw>

_Elon Musk’s Risky Business:_ [http://archive.mensjournal.com/elon-
musk%E2%80%99s-risky-bus...](http://archive.mensjournal.com/elon-
musk%E2%80%99s-risky-business)

Elon rejected eBay's 400 million offer in 2001. Then $800 million, with $100
million at risk. When eBay offered $1.5 billion, Elon still argued against the
deal. Elon has obviously learned from the previous Zip2 mistake of selling out
to Compaq for $307 million. Elon said it could've been 10 times greater with
Zip2, and have a more meaningful impact on the internet. But with Paypal there
was a long term risk that eBay could one day prevail with their own payment
system. So Elon gave in.

This incredibly high risk tolerance characteristic is displayed at a much
larger magnitude with SpaceX & Tesla. To manage two such companies and be
successful, is unprecedented.

 _Accurate self analysis, critical thinking & risk tolerance:_
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nMQ0-1jqFs&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nMQ0-1jqFs&feature=related#t=5m55s)
_Note:_ Elon once lived under $1 a day as an experiment, he knows what it’s
like to be truly hungry. Back in Canada, Elon has worked jobs such as cleaning
out boilers at a lumber mill; log cutting with a chainsaw; and working on a
wheat farm cleaning out grain bins, shooting gophers, etc.

 _Really high intrinsic drive:_
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hedxehSr-I&feature=relmf...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hedxehSr-I&feature=relmfu)

 _Elon Musk talks about his drive and where it comes from, and the meaning of
life_
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRZrnxOQaDU&feature=relmf...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRZrnxOQaDU&feature=relmfu)

 _Work twice as hard as others:_ [http://vator.tv/news/2010-12-23-elon-musk-
work-twice-as-hard...](http://vator.tv/news/2010-12-23-elon-musk-work-twice-
as-hard-as-others)

 _Getting the job done:_ <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOPgM7Sc2VQ>

_Influence of his father Errol Musk, mechanical & electrical engineer in South
Africa:_
[http://www.oninnovation.com/videos/detail.aspx?video=1259...](http://www.oninnovation.com/videos/detail.aspx?video=1259&title=Inspirations)

 _Near-Death experience as the ultimate motivator:_
<https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/152394000857448448>

_"He also revealed that he almost died of cerebral malaria on a holiday to a
South African game reserve in about 2000 and that the “near-miss” had given
him renewed focus and energy.

“Man, that experience was no fun at all, but it does tend to sharpen your
goal-setting,”_ he said. Source: [http://mg.co.za/article/2012-05-04-space-
oddity-elon-musk-an...](http://mg.co.za/article/2012-05-04-space-oddity-elon-
musk-and-his-mission-to-mars/)

 _"Elon Musk's leadership, his ability to inspire and motivate the people who
work for him, derives completely, and only, from his knowledge."_ Source:
[http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/200901/elon-
musk-...](http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/200901/elon-musk-paypal-
solar-power-electric-cars-space-travel#ixzz1zW7WzBnE)

I could go on and on.. but that's not really relevant towards
entrepreneurship. There's so much more out there, like his charity efforts.
<http://i.imgur.com/Mnk7U.jpg> Dr.Evil reference.
<http://i.imgur.com/MgdDr.jpg> I'll stop there. :)

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dmvaldman
I'm honored to be one of the elite few to be published in both the Biophysics
Journal, and Hacker Monthly (the latter being way cooler).

Check out "The Psychology of Tackling Hard Problems"

The production value of this magazine is excellent. Kudos to Lim
(bearwithclaws).

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zackzackzack
Let me just say, I love Hacker Monthly. I got two subscriptions to it because
my dad, a senior vp for sales of a brick and mortar company, enjoyed reading
some of the articles so much that he would take all of my magazines. An issue
was just lying around one time and he read it cover to cover. He didn't
understand anything about NoSQL or python, but he got the business ideas and
loved all the shop talk about Amazon and internet retailers.

I highly recommend a subscription. It's the smartest magazine I have ever had
the pleasure of reading.

~~~
thebooktocome
How do you feel about the typography and design of the magazine? I looked at a
few of their sample pages and was a bit perturbed, but maybe they're just bad
at picking sample pages.

~~~
zackzackzack
Pretty good, all things considered. They are taking blog articles and what not
and transforming them into a magazine. They are switching the mediums that the
writing is displayed in. So, everything doesn't line up perfectly, blog
authors don't write for 8x11 paper.

Otherwise, the design gives much more gravity to each article then comes with
the original. It makes you want to sit down and read it cover to cover.

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damian2000
Hacker Monthly is just a great way to enjoy some of the best stories on HN.
The feature story with Elon Musk is very inspirational. Humbled to be included
in such company (I put together the compilation article 'Coding tricks of game
developers').

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bobbles
If I subscribe to this can I get all the magazines on my iphone somehow? (I'm
not sure what formats are required for iBooks or if you can add custom links
to the app?

~~~
hynek
You get ePub, PDF, mobi and iPad-optimized PDF. I usually read the latter, it
just looks gourgeous.

