I am reading this book by Ashlee Vance, which is on Elon Musk (I already wrote a blog on this https://sangeetakale.blog/2020/07/15/blog-12-cutting-the-cult-of-beautiful-people/). Simultaneously, we got to hear news on the suicide of popular Bollywood Actor, Sushant Singh Rajput and the controversial interview given by Ms. Kangana Ranaut, a popular and successful Bollywood actress, to Arnab Goswami (Republic TV News Anchor and Journalist). She spoke about Nepotism in Bollywood and people falling prey to this so-called Bollywood Mafia; with Sushant being the victim of this. Now you may think, what has these two reads got to do with each other?
Well, let me talk mostly on the experts of the contents of the book by Ashlee Vance. We will connect the dots of above paragraph automatically..!
Solar City is one of the Enterprise of Elon Musk, which deals with Solar Energy. This is in addition to his ventures such as Space X and Tesla Motors. Solar City manufactures solar panels for green power generation. It has more than 6 Billion US Dollar business in the country. Each of Elon Musk’s enterprise is interconnected:
1. Tesla Motors makes Battery Packs. Solar City sells them to the companies and customers.
2. Solar City sells Charging Stations with Solar Panels to Tesla Motors to provide free recharging to Tesla cars, all over the country.
3. Owners of Model “S” of Tesla Motors are keen to invest on domestic solar panels from Solar City, to follow the “Musk Lifestyle”!!
4. Tesla Motors and Space X help each-other with their know-how in materials and manufacturing; for example materials like alloys, welding-free composites, and light-weight materials and so on.
5. Solar City, Tesla Motors and Space X are unified verticals to develop technologies in Solar, Automobiles and Aerospace Industry.
Now just see the following facts:
1. Elon Musk has entered as an Entrepreneur, in the most bureaucratic sectors in the world – Energy, Automobile and Aerospace.
2. Companies like Intel, Walgreens, Wall Mart, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Mercedes Benz, Toyota were in direct competition with a tiny company like that of Elon. These companies have deep pockets and strong political connections which can easily dismiss such small enterprise. They must have ridiculed Elon Musk several times and seen him as an annoying and a pretty foolish person.
3. It is very easy to realise that these huge companies can make life of a young, South-African entrepreneur really miserable and we all would agree that they would be very good at this..!!
It was more than 12 years of toiling work, that in 2012, Elon Musk emerged to be a real threat to all his competitors. Not only he had huge technological breakthroughs, he also has huge star-power which washed over all the bureaucracy of majority of big companies in the United States.
courtesy: 669a306016bc130875d5e55bdf788073
Today, he has a Space X factory in Los Angeles, Rocket Testing facility in Central Texas, Space Board setups in South Texas. He has factories in California and Florida, with Tesla Factory in Silicon Valley. For Solar City’s Battery Factory, there was bidding among various states of USA, which was finally won by Nevada by giving Solar City an incentive of 1.4 Billion Dollars!!! He earned all this and is now a super celebrity of the world, and still as a “Entrepreneur”.
I am sure; all of you must have guessed why I wrote all this and mentioned Sushant Singh Rajput or Kangana Ranaut at the start. These actors entered Bollywood from remote villages and cities in India and tried to do their best in this industry. Nepotism is everywhere. It is a part of every profession and each and every new-comer will face it. Ofcourse, if you are a son/daughter of “biggies” it is going to be different (well.. mostly), but it does exist. Therefore, one has two choices:
1. We blame the system and the flaws, favoritism, nepotism, bureaucracy and so on, and brood over it. Express it and get ourselves anxious, angry, and depressed and end our life or affect our career, which eventually will ruin you as an individual. The loss of your creativity is also a loss to the society.
2. OR you face it, persistently focus on the aim and work towards it, become extremely self-reliant, confident and a successful personality; which nobody can ignore. The way in which multiple Elon enterprises work together, in the same way, a herd of like-minded people can help and grow together.
The choice is ours.
There are other similar stories of how United States stood up in the Telecom Market when Steve Jobs brought the iPhone in the US market, which was completely dominated earlier by Chinese, Korean and Japanese telecom market. There would be many such stories.
Suicides and blame-games are never a solution to anything. The suicide stories are indeed sad, but finally, no one, except the victim, is at the loss. Standing up on your own merit and making a statement for yourself is the best solution. Actors like Akshay Kumar, Tapasee Pannu are good examples. In academics, everybody cannot be in Harvard or MIT or Cambridge… or work at IITs in India. But somebody’s work can make his/her own Institution as proud as Harvard or Cambridge..!! Someone can become an Institution by him/herself!!!! And when it is in the mind, it can become a reality..!!!
(The thoughts expressed here are of my own. I do not mean to harm the sentiments of any person / organisation)
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