"You Get The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly" Featuring Walter Isaacson, Author of "Elon Musk"
We were honored this past week to welcome back renowned author Walter Isaacson for a Special Edition COBT episode. Walter is a Professor of History at Tulane University and a Distinguished Fellow at the Aspen Institute. He is also a good friend and someone with whom we are always thrilled to visit. In his wide-ranging career, Walter has served as the Editor of TIME magazine, Chairman and CEO at CNN, and CEO of the Aspen Institute. As you may know, Walter has previously written on other fascinating people including Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs and Henry Kissinger. Most recently, he has published his latest work entitled "Elon Musk." Mike Bradley, Todd Scruggs and I were so excited to visit with Walter and hear his unique insights on his time spent with Elon, discuss the overall process of researching and writing the book, and dig in to unique anecdotes about Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter (X). We three read the book in preparation for the discussion and can absolutely recommend it. We learned a ton! Walter begins our conversation by sharing his personal interest in writing Elon’s biography as the next feature in his series of books highlighting individuals ushering in a new era. Walter shares the course of events that sparked the book, starting with a two-hour phone call followed by a tweet from Elon that confirmed his appointment as his biographer. Elon’s tweet put Walter on the roller coaster of being by Elon’s side for two years, witnessing everything from business meetings and interactions with his family to rocket launches and late night factory line visits. We discuss the internal purpose and sense of mission that drives Elon, the urgency he expects from everyone around him, and his unique appetite for risk. Walter and the book take us on a journey from Elon’s childhood days in South Africa to emigrating to Penn to PayPal to SpaceX and up to and including his experience buying Twitter. With a lot of stops along the way! Walter shares the risks Elon took with building and launching the first at-scale private rocket company and the complicated situation he found himself in with Starlink satellites, especially in Ukraine. For those of you who are interested, we previously had the opportunity to visit with Trey Mendez, Mayor of Brownsville and tour SpaceX and found the SpaceX stories particularly interesting (episode linked here). When we weren’t talking SpaceX and everything that came with it, we of course discussed Tesla, Elon’s plunge into AI, what Elon refers to as "the algorithm," and many other aspects of one of the world’s most impactful people. We want to thank Walter profusely for sharing his time and thoughts with us. He clearly had a fascinating firsthand experience pulling together what is an absolutely gripping read. For those of you in Houston, Brazos Bookstore in partnership with Halliburton Labs and Veriten is hosting a live open-to-the-public discussion with Walter on Sunday, November 12th the Ballroom at Bayou Place at 5:00 PM CT. Tickets must be purchased in advance and are available linked here. We look forward to seeing Walter in Houston and hope you enjoy the book and discussion as much as we did! Our best to you all.