Welcome to Edition #79 of Did You Know? (DYK), the weekly newsletter by Gorick Ng, Harvard career adviser and Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author of The Unspoken Rules, where we deconstruct the untold story of how someone (or something) became successful—and what you can do to follow in their footsteps.
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Did You Know? Find your experts!
→ Read time: 6 min
Your success story this week
Did you know? None of Elon Musk's companies were started by Musk alone. They all took a dedicated team of subject matter experts.
You’ve probably heard of the name Elon Musk.
Whether you associate him with Tesla, SpaceX, OpenAI, Neuralink, or any of the 9 major companies he’s affiliated with, it’s easy to think of Musk as a mad genius who claps his own hands twice and changes the world.
But did you know that Musk never did it alone?
It’s 1999. Musk just made $22M USD. How? By selling his company “Zip2”, an online business directory and physical phone book alternative.
But Musk hadn’t built the business alone. It was co-founded by Musk, his brother Kimbal (who co-ran the company and invested his own cash), and a family friend, Greg Kouri (who was an experienced angel investor). Given that Musk only had around $2,000 in his bank account at the time of the company’s founding, it’s hard to imagine how Zip2 could have taken off had Musk worked alone.
After Zip2 was sold in 1999, Musk launched the online banking business “X.com”—again with outside help. He partnered with Harris Fricker (a financial expert formerly at Scotiabank), Christopher Payne (a technical expert formerly at Microsoft), and Ed Ho (an engineering expert formerly at Zip2). Together, the team attracted “high profile talent” like Intuit’s former chief executive Bill Harris, who joined X.com as CEO. Given that “Elon knew nothing about financial services”, it’s again hard to imagine how X.com could have taken off had Musk worked alone.
And take off it did. Within a year, X.com merged with another company to create PayPal. Another year later in 2002, PayPal sold to eBay for $1.5B, netting Elon nearly $200M.
With $200M in the bank, Musk then turned around and invested $100M in SpaceX (in 2002), $70M in Tesla (in 2003), and $10M in Solar City (in 2006).
Once again, Musk didn’t pursue any of these ventures alone. He did everything possible to “attract… and gather great people” that he believed would “determine the success of the company.”
When it came to SpaceX, Musk recruited two aerospace engineers, Chris Thompson and Tom Mueller (who, in particular, is credited with “leading the development of the engine[s] that powers the Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon spacecraft”).
When it came to Tesla, Musk invested his own money and eventually took over the business, but the groundwork had already been laid by engineers Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.
When it came to SolarCity, Musk recruited his cousins Peter and Lyndon Rive to start the company before acquiring the company ten years later and turning it into Tesla Energy.
This wasn’t all. Musk kept surrounding himself with experts into the mid-2010s and mid-2020s through 3 more companies: OpenAI (the maker of ChatGPT), Neuralink (the brain-computer interface company), and xAI (whose stated goal is "to understand the true nature of the universe").
With OpenAI, Musk was among a team of 11 co-founders (including numerous Computer Science and Deep Learning PhDs and former leaders of Y Combinator, Duolingo, Eureka Labs, and more). Musk, who does not have any doctoral degrees, later admitted that former OpenAI member and world-renowned AI expert Ilya Sutskever was “the linchpin for OpenAI being ultimately a success.”
With Neuralink, which was born in 2016, a year after OpenAI’s founding, Musk surrounded himself among 7 science and engineering veterans.
With xAI, Musk joined forces with 12 other people who are also all AI experts (like Igor Babuschkin, formerly of OpenAI and Google DeepMind).
Fast forward to today in 2024, and Musk owns 7 companies with a lifetime total (so far) of 11. Musk is still the CEO of Tesla after 16 years at the company’s helm, which he can thank for the extra $105B that his Tesla stock has brought him this year alone—putting his net worth at over $300B which makes him the richest person in the world.
What does this mean for you? The next time you find yourself wanting to achieve a goal but not knowing where to begin, remember Musk—who made his fortune not by becoming an expert in everything himself, but by finding experts and recruiting them to his team.
Your career strategy this week
Did you know? Find your experts!
What Musk shows is the power of surrounding yourself with the right people—and, in particular, people who know something you don't.
Indeed, Musk's success formula always follows the same 4 steps. He…
- Identifies people with relevant expertise
- Recruits them onto the same team to work towards a common goal
- Invests money to fund the dream
- Becomes the face of the company or initiative.
While not all of us have $100M in the bank to pay for people’s salaries and to generate hype, there is still something to be learned from Musk’s approach: When you aren’t an expert in a given area, find someone who is.
Building a team? Figure out…
(1) What you need
- E.g., knowledge, skills, connections, money, or something else
(2) What others want
- E.g., money, recognition, achievement, experience, or something else.
(3) What you have to offer
- E.g., money, mentorship, skills, knowledge, security, work experience, or something else
Then, make your pitch using this framework:
“I noticed you’re looking [to / for] ______. I’m currently [looking for / recruiting] ______ [with / who can / who are interested in] ______. Might you be interested in learning more?”
Not everyone will say yes, but someone eventually will, especially if you continue improving your pitch—and that one person might just change the trajectory of your career and life.
Gorick
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> What these sled dogs can teach us about strong teams
> What this unofficial Star Wars director can teach us about doubling down on your strengths
> What Ed Sheeran can teach us about joining forces with others
Sources:
- Musk just made $22M USD
- his brother Kimbal
- a family friend, Greg Kouri
- $2,000 in his bank account
- “X.com”
- Harris Fricker
- Christopher Payne
- Ed Ho
- “high profile talent”
- Bill Harris
- “Elon knew nothing about financial services”
- PayPal sold to eBay
- netting Elon nearly $200M
- Musk then turned around
- “attract… and gather great people [who] will determine the success of the company.”
- SpaceX
- “leading the development of the engine[s] that powers the Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon spacecraft”
- Tesla
- SolarCity
- 11 co-founders
- “the linchpin for OpenAI being ultimately a success.”
- 7 science and engineering veterans
- 12 other people
- Igor Babuschkin, formerly of OpenAI and Google DeepMind
- extra $105B
- net worth at over $300B
- the richest person in the world
