Business
Elon Musk : undaunted visionary character shaping our future
If you’ve ever dreamt of going to Mars and drinking a cool coffee looking at the Martian sunset or to have space ride around the Earth or a long thrilling drive around the Moon then it is very important to know about this man, Elon Musk. He’s the one who can fulfill your all your such dreams.
Visionary entrepreneur Elon Musk, currently the CEO of space giant company SpaceX and leading electric vehicle company Tesla, founder of The Boring Company, Hyperloop and co-founder of OpenAI, Neuralink, SolarCity. It seems like there’s nothing Elon Musk can’t do. His astounding success has given rise to compares him with the best inventors in the world.
But it hasn’t always been smooth flight for Elon. There were lots of turbulence and obstacles throughout the path. Musk was born and brought up in Pretoria, South Africa. He had terrible upbringing. He was loner throughout grade school and suffered for years at hands of bullies. From very young ages he seemed to have book in his his hand all times. At the age of 12, he wrote game code for his video game Blaster. Musk’s early inclination towards computer and technology had fostered an interest in Silicon Valley and very soon he realised that South Africa was like a prison for him and America was the place to get things done. At 17, he left South Africa for Canada. Attended to Queens university and then transferred to University of Pennsylvania two years later, where he received bachelor’s degree in Physics and Economics. He moved to California for his PhD but after attending for a day he realized that this place is not made for him and decided to pursue business career instead of enrolling.
He talked to his brother moving into Silicon Valley so they could conquer the Web together. He co-founded a software company Zip2 with his brother Kimbal Musk. The idea behind was to make a website for businesses which include their locations, details, Menu cards etc. Just like Google map does today. After Zip2 acquired by Compaq for $340 millions in 1999, he then came with the online banking idea in the year 2000 and founded breakthrough company X.com which later merged and rebranded with Peter Thiel’s PayPal with Musk as largest share holder. In 2002, eBay offered $1.5 billion for PayPal and Musk and rest of the board accepted the deal. Musk netted about $250 millions from sale to eBay or $180 millions after taxes. Enough for his very wild dream possible.
He could have stated there and lived a comfortable life but he’s Elon. He is unstoppable being. What he did was, invested this whole amount in two companies SpaceX and funded in Tesla without keeping a single penny in the pocket. In 2002, he founded SpaceX, aerospace manufacture and space transport service company, to make space flight cheaper and joined CEO of Tesla in the year 2004.
The real struggle started from year 2002. It wasn’t to be an easy ride after setting of SpaceX. He was having back to back failure and consequently running out of him. In 2008, when Tesla was at major crisis and for SpaceX, after having 3 consecutive rocket failures, they can only afford one final launch and if they were unsuccessful then it would have been worst nightmare. But they made that possible and successfully sent the payload in the low Earth orbit. NASA then came forward and contracted with SpaceX for $1.5 billions and from then Elon has never looked back and kept lifting his dreams up. SpaceX is now the top private aerospace company in the world.
Musk’s long term goal behind the SpaceX is to built a habitual colony on the Mars. He think one day human has to leave this planet and make human as multi planetary species. He’s aim is as optimistic as him. If you strive for Mars you could end up to Moon and he’s almost closer to bring us to the Moon(search for Dear moon project) and surely in a decade or two this man will definitely takes us to Mars. He even tried sending his own Tesla car to Mars but unfortunately it missed the trajectory. He once quoted “Failure is an option here. If things are not failing you are not innovating.” shows how optimistic he is.
If you closely look up at companies he founded, they all are futuristic which bring change in entire human being. He’s highly inclined towards Artificial Intelligence. He even started couple of companies for research in AI. All of his companies have well implemented AI technology whether it’s in aerospace or Tesla or the boring company or hyperloop or Neuralink, never ending loop. Ever driven to ensure a bright future for humanity. Take a bow Elon.
Amid these things, Musk developed a relentless work ethics. He is widely known to work as many as 80 to 100 hours per week. He’s even served as an inspiration for Marvel’s movie IronMan. Basically a real life Tony Stark. He even had cameo in “Iron Man 2”
Whatever skeptics have said can’t be done, Elon has gone out and made it real. It’s a paradox that Elon is working to improve our planet at the same time he’s building spacecraft to help us leave it!! But true vision is binocular- and Elon is clearly a man who see many things at once.
If you want to know him more deeply I would suggest to read his autobiography written by Ashlee Vance named “Elon Musk”. I’m putting down the link for your convenience if you want to purchase. If not reading, there’s lots of interviews available on You Tube.
Adar Poonawala biography
Adar Poonawalla (born 14 January 1981) is the chief executive officer (CEO) and executive director of Serum Institute of India. Founded in 1966 by his father, Dr. Cyrus Poonawalla, it is the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by number of doses produced.Adar is an alma mater of the prestigious Cathedral & John Connon School of Mumbai as well as the University of Westminster.He resides at a 50+ acre home in Koregaon Park, Pune
Aadhar Poonawalla joined Serum Institute in 2001 after graduating from the University of Westminster in London. Then exporting its products to 35 countries, Poonawalla concentrated on the company’s international market and getting new products licensed and pre-qualified by the World Health Organization for supply to United Nations Agencies including UNICEF and PAHO. As of 2015, the company exports its products to over 140 countries; 85 percent of its revenues are from overseas.
In 2011, he became the CEO of Serum Institute of India with full control of day-to-day operations of the company. In 2012 he played a major role in the acquisition of Bilthoven Biologicals a Netherlands-based government vaccine manufacturing company. Poonawalla is a board member of the GAVI Alliance, the global Vaccine Alliance.
He initiated and launched in 2014 Serum Institute’s oral polio vaccine, which went on to become a bestseller for the company and every year plans to launch a new vaccines for public health starting from 2017. In 2014, it was reported that he planned to expand the product portfolio to include vaccines for dengue, flu and cervical cancer.
In 2013 he hosted Charles, Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall during a private visit to Serum Institute’s manufacturing facility in India.
In 2016, he was selected by Economic Times as business leader under the age of 40.
He was also listed by GQ magazine as one of the 50 most influential young Indians and was awarded philanthropist of the year 2016.
On 7 January 2016 he launched www.adarpcleancity.com, a city-wide initiative where he committed and spent 20 million dollars to clean up the city of Pune using hundreds of trucks, Glutton machines and bins across the city under his personal management and dedicated team.
With the rising number of cases due to COVID-19 the Indian Economy has been on a rollercoaster ride.
According to a UN report India’s growth rate projected to slow to 1.2% in 2020. Our Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently released a statement saying that our economy is in the right direction. All the international rating agencies like Moodies, Goldman Sachs have reduced India’s growth rate forecast. But our government says that
they have fine tuned everything. Unemployment is on all time high.
As per CMIE’s data, the monthly unemployment rate in April
stood at 23.52%, up from March’s 8.74%.Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan has been saying it time and
again that government needs to pay attention to the Indian
economy. But has the India government done enough?
The economic impact of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic in India has been largely disruptive. India’s growth in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year 2020 went down to 3.1% according to the Ministry of Statistics. The Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India said that this drop is mainly due to the coronavirus pandemic
effect on the Indian economy. Notably India had also been witnessing a pre-pandemic slowdown, and according to the World Bank, the current pandemic has “magnified pre-existing risks to India’s economic outlook”Unemployment rose from 6.7% on 15 March to 26% on 19 April and then back down to pre-lockdown levels by mid-June.
During the lockdown, an estimated
14 crore (140 million) people lost employment while salaries were cut for many others.More than 45% of
households across the nation have reported an income drop as compared to the previous year.
The Indian economy was expected to lose over ₹32,000
crore(US$4.5 billion) every day during the first 21-days of
complete lockdown, which was declared following the
coronavirus outbreak. Under complete lockdown, less than a quarter of India’s $2.8 trillion economic movement
was functional. Up to 53% of businesses in the country
were projected to be significantly affected.
Supply chains have been put under stress with the lockdown restrictions
in place; initially, there was a lack of clarity in streamlining what an “essential” is and what is not.
Those in the informal sectors and daily wage groups have been at the most risk.[10]
A large number of farmers around the country who grow perishables also faced uncertainty.
The facts are right in front of us. All we need to see is what do we really develop ? Do we need false sense of hope and false promises or do we need concrete results. Every citizen should be aware of the economy and the growth a country is looking forward to.
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