Walter Isaacson’s Elon Musk is good and I recommend it. But it’s not as great as his other biographies. It’s too linear and trying too hard to report events verbatim. I guess he’s better at writing about dead people.

Walter Isaacson's new book about Elon Musk is a fine biography, but an even better business book.

Couldn’t agree more. The Musk biography is the most inspiring business book I’ve read since Semler’s Maverick in the early 2000s.

Thoroughly inspired by the business side of the @elonmusk biography. Most overused and inaccurately applied word in the book: Reckless. I find most of his business decisions snugly wrapped in *practicality*. Much of the stuff that’s branded risky actually feels like risk…

Almost done w the new Elon Musk biography and here’s my review:

- first half of the book was great, the second part not so much (more on that shortly)
- lots about his childhood, his pre-silicon valley life, his family situation etc, which are interesting
- dispels a lot of dumb rumors: no, he wasn’t already rich, the govt didn’t fund Tesla, etc
- the inside look at early spaceX and tesla we’re both interesting, before many of us were tracking the two companies
- interesting to hear about personal habits (particularly gaming), why he chooses to go hardcore and sleep in the office etc
- the way elon picks his goals are interesting - obv very obsessed with very big missions, which we could all aspire to
- you get a good look at what makes him effective, particularly working around the natural bureaucracy that seeps into companies. And connecting w young engineers and being meritocratic in promoting them

My main complaint is that the early parts of the book have, say, one chapter about PayPal. But now I’m like 5 or 6 chapters into the twitter/X saga and seems kind of undifferentiated

The author is so skeptical about how twitter/X will turn out when just a few chapters ago, he discusses how everyone was so skeptical on tesla/spaceX - and of course they were all wrong. Easy to believe when things are already working

Worth a read but maybe just the first half 😂

also, elon musk bio by isaacson