Elon Musk almost went broke twice.
Before Tesla became a $1.4 trillion company, he was borrowing money from friends to pay rent.
Here's the failure timeline nobody talks about.
1995. Musk gets into Stanford's PhD program.
Drops out after 2 days. His family thinks he's insane.
He starts Zip2 with his brother. They code all night. Sleep at the office. Shower at the YMCA.
Four years later, Compaq buys it for $307 million. Musk walks away with $22 million.
Most people would retire. He puts almost all of it into his next company.
X(dot)com launches in 1999. Online banking. Everyone says it'll never work.
Then the board fires him. While he's on his honeymoon. His own company kicks him out as CEO.
X(dot)com merges with Confinity. Becomes PayPal. eBay buys it for $1.5 billion. Musk gets $180 million.
Now watch what happens next. This is where most people would play it safe.
He puts $100 million into SpaceX. $70 million into Tesla. $10 million into SolarCity.
By 2008, all three companies are about to die.
SpaceX has failed three rocket launches.
Each one exploding. $100 million literally going up in flames.
Tesla can't deliver the Roadster on time. Running out of cash. Suppliers threatening to walk.
Musk is sleeping on friends' couches. Borrowing money for rent. His marriage falls apart.
December 2008. He has enough money for one more rocket launch. If it fails, SpaceX is done.
The fourth rocket works.
NASA calls days later with a $1.6 billion contract.
He closes Tesla's funding round on Christmas Eve.
Hours before the company would've gone bankrupt.
Here's what I learned studying this:
→ He didn't have some secret advantage
→ He didn't have wealthy parents bankrolling him
→ He was weeks away from losing everything
The difference? He kept making decisions when everyone else would've frozen.
Most founders fail once and quit.
He failed publicly, repeatedly, with hundreds of millions on the line.
That's when I realized something about success.
It's not about avoiding failure. It's about how many times you can get punched in the face and still make the next move.
Musk wasn't special because he succeeded.
He was special because he refused to stop when failure was staring him down.
You don't need his money to learn this lesson.
You just need to remember it next time your thing isn't working.
Follow me for more inspiring lessons.
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