I believe yesterday will be remembered as an important day in History, and not only because Donald Trump for the first time is losing ground to be the final Republican candidate in the US elections 😛
The truly big news from yesterday was about Elon Musk’s Tesla Model 3 event, which has the potential to change the world on the same scale as Henry Ford’s Model T which popularised cars. The Model 3 is the mass-scale Electric vehicle which Elon Musk aims to revolutionise the auto industry with, bringing a top quality electric car at a $35,000 USD price tag – comparable with the average car price in the US.
Anyone who knows me well will know how much I admire Elon Musk, having read his biography written by Ashlee Vance as soon as it was released within 24 hours, starting at 9pm one day and finishing 4pm the next – with about 3/4 hours of sleep in between 😛
He’s an icon for ambitious plans to change the world, whether through electric vehicles at Tesla, solar panels at SolarCity, or most ambitiously of all, planning to colonise Mars for human life at SpaceX. It’s no surprise that he was the inspiration for the character of Tony Stark as Iron Man – and living up to his reputation of being the real life Iron Man.
Why I emphasise all this is because while he receives a tonne of attention in the tech world (and myself), he is not yet in my opinion as famous as he should be for his efforts, with many people I talk to still not knowing who he is (at least in NZ).
Meanwhile ever since Steve Jobs passed away, he’s become glorified as the superhero of all tech CEOs, when he arguably didn’t have the skill or the reach to create as much impact as Elon Musk. Steve Jobs was like Elon Musk in 2007 when he released the first iPhone – famous in the tech world, but not yet to the rest of the world. I’m sure Elon Musk will follow a similar path in popularity if his companies are to succeed, and yesterday’s Model 3 launch will be written in the history books.
Relating this back to everyday life, a lesson to learn is that it’s often easy to tell who the “up and coming’s” are far before they get there – the majority of the population tends to be slow to figure this out, which gives you an advantage in seeing trends far before the rest do which you can then make the most out of. Driverless cars, Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence (Off course I mean like Google Now, Siri and Cortana than full on iRobot though :p) are all examples of these trends which we can make the most of via investing, and so are healthcare and education which are more easily accessible to invest in too.
Finally, the old saying of “show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future” still rings truer than ever today – meaning having the insight to recognise which people will become the Elon Musk’s of tomorrow is a great skill to have. This is why I surround myself with as many ambitious, motivated people today, knowing that together we’ll push each other forward, and eventually be the ones determining the history books just like how Elon Musk did yesterday.