
Elon Musk needs a vacation - cocoflunchy
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2015/09/29/elon-musk-needs-a-vacation/
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sharkweek
Friend worked at one of the US's biggest law firms clerking for a few years.
He was there during one of the largest patent suits of all time, so they were
billing an insane amount of hours (he was easily putting in 100 hour weeks the
six months leading up to the trial).

Anyways, case settles weeks before trial was supposed to start. Law firm gives
everyone in the office a free two weeks off to unwind from such a massive
stretch of work.

He enjoyed the time off, with only one minor detour to the office for like 2-3
hours one day during the time off and almost everyone above him was there
working. He asked his boss what was up and the guy basically said he had
nothing better to do so he just decided to work during that stretch.

I love working hard, I love being productive, but I really hope I'm never at a
point in my life where I can't take two weeks off to enjoy doing something
other than work. Of course I'm not inventing electric cars and space rockets,
so there's that.

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x5n1
Imagine in 30 years when the tech they are working on is common. Or imagine
Woz with the Apple II. Now looking back on it, did it really matter that you
put in all your waking hours into making the Apple II? Does anyone really
care?

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cec
I'm not sure if I can agree with that reasoning. Sure, no-one is impressed
with an Apple II now, but that doesn't degrade how significant it was _then_.
By that measure, did the Wright bothers really need to put in all of that time
since today we have 747s?

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sandworm101
When work is a choice, it isn't really work. This guy can take a vacation
whenever he likes. He doesn't have a boss that will fire him. He doesn't have
to worry about making rent each month. His concept of "taking a vacation" is
very different then mine, yours, or most anyone else who isn't a billionaire.

If Elon Musk is stressed, he has the option of separating himself from that
stress. He works because he wants to work. Employees suffer stress from which
they cannot separate themselves without, in short order, creating new
stresses. Elon will not be homeless next month if he stops going to work
today. A psychologist might say that his stress is therefore a product of his
ego, his daily choices, rather than of his environment. It is internal to his
personality. That's probably why he finds it so hard to separate.

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scott_s
He also doesn't have someone to give him _permission_ to take a break.
Psychologically, it changes things. In the latter part of grad school, my
advisor was no longer at my university, and I was working mostly by myself. I
worked every day. Not only was there no one to tell me, "Hey, take a day", I
also felt, sharply, that any day I took off just meant I was one day further
from my goal.

Saying "he has the option of separating himself from that stress" is true, but
I don't think it captures the mental trap that people feel they are in. I also
don't want to ascribe it to ego, because that has negative connotations. I
think of it as a combination of not having an outside party to tell you to
take some time, and working towards a goal with a single-minded focus.

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sandworm101
He does have a person. He has himself. He needs to psychologically grant
himself permission. It's all in his head. Your situation was different. Your
authority figure was absent. That's different situation than not having one.

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scott_s
My entire point is that having yourself is categorically different than having
an outsider. This is one reason why even elite athletes have coaches. Many
elite athletes will train too much, left to themselves - it's hard to avoid
the feeling of "I have not done enough". We're more receptive to a different
person, that we trust, when they say "You've done enough. More will harm.
Rest."

In my case, I'm unsure if having my advisor present would have made a
difference. At that point, my work was almost completely self-driven - but
that's rather the point of grad school. You're supposed to get to the point
that you're calling the shots; the "authority" status of your advisor is
supposed to diminish over time. But I'm also not convinced that having an
absent authority figure is any different than not having one be design; I
don't see how I would have acted any different if for some reason I had
officially no longer had an advisor.

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icehawk219
I thought the entire purpose of SpaceX was him wanting to take a vacation.

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jeron
it's also so he can be buried in Mars - a permanent vacation.

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gsibble
I can't imagine the stress he goes through. Not surprised that it gets to him
from time to time.

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jostmey
Maybe it is us who needs a change in mindset. We say he needs a vacation and
he is obviously exhausted, but he is succeeding at creating a _rocket
company_. That's right, a _rocket company_. Maybe more of us need to dream
bigger, risk everything, and be willing to work just as hard.

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xj9
This is the mindset I work for. I have dreams of varying size and scope, but I
only let myself chase the biggest and best of those. I want my life to
positively affect my friends, my family, and humanity at large.

The hardest part, in my experience, of trying to live big dreams is avoiding
becoming overwhelmed. There are _so many_ details involved and it is easy to
become discouraged when you become aware of them all.

The best coping mechanism I've come up with works a lot like scrum (which is
the best way to go for teams) and consists of writing a lot of to-do lists.
Every week or two I review all of the lists I've made and compile a new
snapshot that cuts out all of the things I now realize are unimportant or
irrelevant. I feel like this encourages a nice forward-looking mindset,
anchored in the present, but influenced by the past.

The key, I think, is working as hard as you can sustainably handle. Tools like
scrum do a good job of helping you find that sweet spot.

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iamgoat
I recommend reading the short book/guide The Underachiever's Manifesto as an
alternative view (which someone here had suggested awhile back). Decide on the
right amount of effort, place, and time to do something good instead of great.
The person who will care the most about anything you do is yourself and good
enough is good enough for most things in life. Especially when you're here for
a short amount of time and there's so much you want to do.

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declan
I suspect these kind of articles would be more useful if they were written by
or summarizing advice by former CEOs who were in a similar position (multiple
companies, lots of stress, regulatory uncertainty).

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irl_zebra
My thinking is that in these cases it depends more on the individual person
than their position and circumstances. Some CEOs probably really thrive by
being able to take a few weeks a year off to relax on the beach, but with
someone like Musk (from what I've read), I think it's likely that would not be
too relaxing or productive.

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pinkrooftop
Sometimes the best ideas about X pop up when you're doing Y

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tricolon
That's why Elon has a few companies

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nashashmi
And running one company is like a vacation from the other.

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moron4hire
There are different types of vacation. I don't like just laying on the beach,
either. But I still take a break away from my work to be able to do _other_
things. It's during these times I work on my other hobby projects. From the
outside, it looks like I'm working, but for me, it's all fun and I'm more
relaxed than I would be sitting in a hot tub somewhere.

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dankohn1
Can I give a quick plug for Neal Stephenson's new novel, Seveneves? The
character Sean Probst, an eccentric billionaire rocket entrepreneur, is very
much based on Musk, and is a lot of fun.

If you're going to potentially burn out in your job, having Iron Man and a
Stephenson character partially based on you is not a bad way to go.

(I also recommend the recent Ashlee Vance Musk biography.)

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sjclemmy
Ha ha - I just read Seveneves, the Probst character was quite funny. While
I've enjoyed Stephenson's novels in the past, I don't think Seveneves is his
best. It's a little bit formulaic, far fetched and plodding. I preferred
Reamde. It's the only thing I've ever read that gave me an insight into the
mindset of the mid-west gun loving conservative that seems to maintain the
status quo of gun law in the US.

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dave1619
I think Elon needs a stellar COO to run operations for Tesla so he can focus
on overall vision and product. I think he's forced to be involved in so many
day-to-day operation tasks that it crowds the little time he does have.

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xacaxulu
#IStandWithElon

