The team at Third Row Tesla Podcast recently sat down at home with Elon Musk for a revealing chat about his young adulthood and varied career before Tesla. Elon’s brother Kimbal and mum Maye also joined parts of the conversation, adding to the informal vibe and contributing some colourful anecdotes. The interview is well worth a watch.
Some of the standout points for me include:
- Elon’s only belongings going missing on his early Greyhound bus trip across Canada
- Working a dangerous job cleaning out lumber pulp boilers in Vancouver
- Getting a scholarship to attend the University of Pennsylvania to study Physics and Economics
- Living in an office squat with Kimbal and doing overnight coding to get Zip2 up and running
- Showering at the YMCA (♫You can get yourself clean … you can have a good meal♫)
- Kimbal having a yellow pages thrown at him during a Zip2 pitch
- Elon suffering from a severe case of Malaria in early January 2001
- … and much more
Whether you’re a fan of Elon Musk or not, there’s something refreshing about the CEO of a multi-billion-dollar company sitting down with a few social media fans for a long-form and totally unscripted chat, with family and friends (including Marvin the dog) dropping in. It’s just not something that the typically highly-stage-managed world of corporate PR opens itself up to.
There’ll be a part two of the chat to follow, so you may like to follow the Third Row Tesla Podcast team on their YouTube channel or any mainstream podcast platform.
