Is Elon Musk calculated or crazed? Walter Isaacson on his new book
GeekWire
GeekWire
4.4 • 116 Ratings
🗓️ 14 September 2023
⏱️ 33 minutes
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Summary
Our guest on this special episode is journalist and biographer Walter Isaacson, whose new book about Elon Musk, the SpaceX and Tesla founder and X (Twitter) owner, was published this week. Isaacson addresses the question of whether Musk is "calculated or crazed," as one anecdote in the book puts it; discusses Musk's role in some of the world's most vital infrastructure, including SpaceX's Starlink satellites; compares Musk's approach and style to Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos; addresses Musk's outlook on artificial intelligence and space travel; and outlines the key issues that could determine Musk's legacy.
With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop. Edited and produced by Curt Milton.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I think there'll be three or four things that'll determine his legacy. |
| 0:06.0 | Getting Starship not only launched in the space, but eventually on a mission that takes at least cargo and perhaps humans to Mars. |
| 0:17.6 | He thinks it'll be in 10 years, I suspect, much longer than that. |
| 0:21.7 | Elon Musk has a talent for turning the impossible into the merely much later than he thought it would be. Welcome to GeekWire, I'm GeekWire, co-founder Todd Bishop. |
| 0:40.0 | Our guest on this special episode is journalist and biographer Walter |
| 0:43.7 | Isakson, whose new book about SpaceX and Tesla founder and Twitter owner or |
| 0:49.6 | ex-owner, Elon Musk was published this week. |
| 0:53.3 | Walter Isaacson, thank you for joining us. |
| 0:55.7 | It's great to be back with you. |
| 0:57.4 | Early in your book about Elon Musk, you paraphrase the technology executive Max Levchin, asking what seems to be the defining question of Elon Musk's career and life. |
| 1:09.0 | Were his bouts of maniacal intensity punctuated by goofball humor and game playing calculated or crazed. |
| 1:18.7 | What can you say to that after spending two years with Elon Musk and writing more than 600 pages about him. |
| 1:24.0 | I think the answer is that he's actually crazed. |
| 1:27.0 | He's one of the crazy ones, as Steve Jobs would say, |
| 1:30.0 | crazy enough to think he can change the world. |
| 1:32.0 | He's got so many personalities too. |
| 1:34.0 | He can switch from being a goofball, |
| 1:37.2 | sophomore humor laughing at fart jokes, |
| 1:40.4 | and then go dark and just be pretty maniacal and I don't think it's calculated in fact at times I don't think he can help himself his father |
| 1:50.3 | Errol said that about himself about Errol, which is at times I'd just go dark and you cannot help |
| 1:56.8 | yourself from going into one of these moods like Jekyll and Hyde. |
| 2:00.9 | So Elon Musk is calculated about a lot of things but not about his mood swings. |
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