Elon Musk

The man who decides something is possible, then builds the way to it.

The kid who learned to code

Born in Pretoria in 1971, he taught himself programming as a child. At 12 he built a space-shooter game called Blastar and sold the code for around $500.

At 17 he left South Africa for Canada, then moved on to the United States.

12his age when he sold his first piece of software

Three rockets exploded. He built a fourth.

He founded SpaceX in 2002 to make spaceflight cheaper. The first three Falcon 1 launches failed, and the company was close to running out of money.

In September 2008 the fourth launch reached orbit. A few months later NASA awarded SpaceX a major cargo contract.

4launches it took Falcon 1 to reach orbit

A rocket that lands itself

Rockets were thrown away after one flight. In December 2015 a Falcon 9 first stage returned and landed upright, proving that a rocket could be reused.

Meanwhile, Tesla, where he became CEO in 2008, turned electric cars into a mainstream product.

2015the first landing of an orbital-class rocket booster

What we can take from him

Not his fame. His habits.

Think big

Pick a goal that sounds unrealistic, then break it into solvable problems.

Fail, then try again

Three failures did not end SpaceX. The fourth launch changed its future.

Return to first principles

Ask what a thing is really made of, not just how it has always been done.