13A – Reading Reflection No. 1

1) You read about an entrepreneur:

• What surprised you the most?

Elon Musk is mostly known for Tesla and SpaceX but most people don't know the journey of entrepreneurship ventures that it took for him to get there. He first created a company with his brother Called Zip2 which he founded when he was quite young. After this he created PayPal which was on oof the first ways for people to complete transactions through the web. He then sold PayPal to eBay which up until this time, eBay was one of his biggest competitors because they had a similar functionality on their website. Shortly after he created SpaceX and Tesla which are growing rapidly with huge plans for the future. Lastly what most people don't know is he also started a solar panel company known as Solarcity. Solarcity is one of the largest solar panel companies in the world.

• What about the entrepreneur did you most admire? What about the entrepreneur did you least admire? Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it?

One of the things that I admire most about Elon Musk is his work ethic and his creativity. These are both great factors to have especially in business but what makes Elon so powerful is how he is always thinking about how he envisions the future and when he gets a great idea, he does everything in his power to make it a reality. For example, SpaceX almost went out of business multiple times because they couldn't successfully put a rocket into orbit but Elon musk used his own capital to fund them out of bankruptcy multiple times until they finally put a rocket into orbit. When Elon faced failure in this situation he did not let it cause him to stop but instead he allowed this to drive him forward and eventually reach success.

2) What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited? 

Musk exhibited many competencies such as being a successful self taught entrepreneur. HE created multiple company's by teaching himself what he needs tom know to develop and grow his company. For example, when Elon created PayPal he actually typed the code all by himself and learned how to code. In addition, Elon was exceptional at reading so he spent the majority of his time learning about new things. This ultimately is what makes Elon so unique is his desire to learn and change the world.

3) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

The most confusing part of the reading was really how Elon managed multiple company's at once which thrive to such a high level.

4) If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why?

- What is the most important trait to have to be a successful entrepreneur?

- Did your entrepreneurship ventures help or hurt your relationship with your brother?

5) For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?

Elon makes it very clear that hard work is the key to being successful in addition to having a vision. Elon is always thinking about how he can change the world and he is never not working to do that successfully. I am a big believer in hard work. I know that if an individual sets his or her mind to something, the possibilities are endless of what he or she can achieve.