Muskians - follow to Canada.

All those who know Elon Musk, also know that he does everything with a futuristic view, his plans are made thoughtfully with long term vision but if there is one thing that Elon has done hastily and lacked planning was his escape to Canada. In June 1988, when he arrived there hoping to see his uncle, he was transferred to Minnesota and now Elon had nowhere to stay. So he brought a countrywide travel ticket and began search for his relatives, and thankfully found a next cousin.

But with all odds and not much in hand, for another one year he did all sorts of jobs. He tended vegetables, shoveled out grain bins at cousin’s farm, even learned to cut the logs with a chain. So when all unexpected was coming his way, Elon turned 18 and he celebrated that birthday with his just-met cousins and acquaintances at farm. The hardest job that he took during this period was gig cleaning the boiler room of a lumber saw mill for $18 an hour. This is actually a place so hot that of you stay for more than 30 minutes; you are more likely to die.

But slowly the hard time passed and Kimbal and his rest of the family too got into Canada. So when Kimbal and Elon united then their playful original natures bloomed. They together used to call some random unknown people and ask them for a lunch outing. There is one such incident in which they called out one person he agreed and later Elon made friends with his daughter Cristie and even invited her for a party. Heading straight into their first conversation Elon started with, “You know I think about these electric cars ….” And today Cristie narrates in the book that he even said, “If there is a way that I could not eat, so I could work more I would do that". But these two really never dated although they used to have long calls and conversations about science and technology and now she is a Science writer.

In year 1989, Elon had a choice to choose between Queens University and University of Waterloo, out of which he chose Queens because he “felt” that this university has more good looking women and he could get a chance to date some.

And few days later, he met Justine Wilson. She was just as what Elon imagined Queens’s girls to be. He got so attracted to her that he faked to have bumped into her outside her dorm and found excuses to see her often. Justine kept avoiding him for she was already dating some senior that time but it was Elon who never gave up. His mom remembers that Justine was too wanted and out of league for many, but Elon did not leave the chase. When she was too cool with him, he did pursue other girls but kept returning to Justine. Justine recalls the college days and agrees that “bit by bit Elon won over me”.

Musk’s ambitions actually showed up more in college, you would find today’s competing, ambitious Elon building during his college time. He happened to meet few like-minded people and enjoyed their company. Elon’s mother was kind of relieved that he finally got friends. She remembers that out on lunch with Elon and his college friends, she was amazed to see the guys talking about all the physics stuff while she watched in wonder how Elon has transformed from an introvert to someone who leads to long endless conversations. I think Maye finally felt good, and school time fear for Elon finally iced. J

In his college he vigorously took all the activities that you see him as quality today. He studied business, competed in elocutions, displayed the brand of intensity of competitiveness. Musk then got himself transferred to University of Pennsylvania on a scholarship. He went off to pursue dual degrees in Economics and Physics, while Justine stayed at Queens carrying her dream of becoming a writer.

Musk started to be actively getting involved in his areas of interest. In Dec 1994, he wrote up a paper titled, “The importance of being Solar”. Second paper was, “Electronically scanning books” pretty much OCR kind of thing he wrote in there. And the third interesting paper was about “Ultracapacitors”. For reference let’s get in mind that “Ultracapacitors” are a new form of energy storage, something that would suit his future pursuits with cars, plans and rockets.

The quality that proved outstanding was Musk’s ability to master difficult physics concepts in the midst of actual business plans. This was the time Elon seriously began to think what he wanted to do after college. Although he thought to get into video game business as he loved it to infinity, but he did not see it as a grand enough pursuit. He very well admitted, “…how much would making a computer game affect the world. So even though I loved computer games I couldn’t bring myself to do that as a career.”

In all the interviews he faced, he made sure that people knew he had some truly big ideas and his plans to change the way technology is acting today. It was well driven in his mind that Internet, renewable energy and Space would be the three areas he would explore in his pursuit of career in order to make big impact.

He was never that eager to explain origins of his interest in these fields, pretty much not to be seen as building any story in a forceful way. And all throughout the time he was observing and making out what could be the best thing to work on, he wasn’t just driven by the idea of getting rich and that’s why he says, “I am really interested in making technologies real that are important for the future and useful in some sort of ways”.

And I think most of the part he has proved today. Beginning with his first startup and moving later to space industry, electric cars and clean energy. He has become the man who made his dreams come to reality.

.. to be continued