Tesla Built a Gigafactory in the Heart of BMW and Mercedes Territory
Elon Musk

Tesla Built a Gigafactory in the Heart of BMW and Mercedes Territory

In November 2019, Elon Musk announced Tesla would build its first European factory near Berlin -- right in the homeland of Audi, BMW, and...

The Idiot Index: How Elon Musk Judges Every Part SpaceX Builds
Elon Musk

The Idiot Index: How Elon Musk Judges Every Part SpaceX Builds

Elon Musk compares the cost of a finished part to the raw materials that went into it. If the ratio is high, something is wrong. He calls...

First-Principles Thinking: How Elon Musk Reasons from the Ground Up
Elon Musk

First-Principles Thinking: How Elon Musk Reasons from the Ground Up

Most people reason by analogy — doing what has been done before. Elon Musk reasons from first principles, breaking problems down to their...

Eugene Kleiner: From the Traitorous Eight to Kleiner Perkins and the Birth of Modern Venture Capital
Silicon Valley

Eugene Kleiner: From the Traitorous Eight to Kleiner Perkins and the Birth of Modern Venture Capital

Eugene Kleiner was one of the Traitorous Eight who left Shockley Semiconductor to found Fairchild. A decade later, he co-founded Kleiner ...

How Steve Jobs Convinced Apple to Bet Everything on a Phone and Changed the World
Silicon Valley

How Steve Jobs Convinced Apple to Bet Everything on a Phone and Changed the World

In January 2007, Steve Jobs walked onto a stage in San Francisco and introduced a device that combined a phone, an iPod, and an internet ...

Mark Zuckerberg Built Facebook in a Harvard Dorm Room and Changed How Humans Connect
Founders

Mark Zuckerberg Built Facebook in a Harvard Dorm Room and Changed How Humans Connect

In February 2004, a 19-year-old Harvard sophomore launched a website called TheFacebook from his dorm room in Kirkland House. Within two ...

Funding Secured: The Tweet That Cost Elon Musk $40 Million and His Chairman Title
Elon Musk

Funding Secured: The Tweet That Cost Elon Musk $40 Million and His Chairman Title

On August 7, 2018, Elon Musk tweeted nine words about taking Tesla private. He did not have a finalized deal. The SEC sued him, and the f...

Andy Bechtolsheim: The Man Who Wrote Google a $100,000 Check Before It Even Existed
Founders

Andy Bechtolsheim: The Man Who Wrote Google a $100,000 Check Before It Even Existed

Andy Bechtolsheim co-founded Sun Microsystems, then wrote the check that got Google started — before the company was even incorporated. H...