Last week we commented that if you are interested in being in the big leagues in the professional aspect that you manage, you need to get used to big ups and downs, ups and downs: mentally, emotionally, and financially. And of course you can avoid the ups and downs, but you will not go beyond class A, as is handled in professional baseball. And it’s okay, not everyone has the capacity to face risks.
ELON MUSK CASE.
Let’s look at the situation of Elon Musk, the famous businessman, in 2008. Let’s start with his Space X Company, which has already had three failed attempts to put a rocket into orbit. Resources are running out, and Musk decides to make another fourth attempt. This finally manages to be successful, and thanks to this, shortly after, it achieves a contract with NASA for the launch of rockets for the Interplanetary station. The contract is for 1.6 billion dollars. A big break for Space X.
TESLA CASE.
The Tesla thing is more impressive: in August 2008 Musk realizes that the flow is running out, and that by December he will not have enough to cover the plant payroll. A serious error they made was the failure to consider costs that they had not detected and was eroding profits in a very burdensome way.
Musk then decides to ask for support from family and acquaintances, logically combined with his own resources. Kimbal Musk, Elon’s brother, has some Apple shares valued at $300,000, and Musk asks him to sell them. Kimbal, not very convinced, does so and lends him the money.
Musk also goes to the investment funds and asks them for another round of financing, and with great difficulty he manages to convince them and arrives alive with the flow in 2009. Later in 2010, Tesla enters the stock market in New York, being the first manufacturer of automobile to enter after more than 50 years. It raised financing of an additional $266 million, and since then it has been one of the most admired companies in the United States and the world.
CONCLUSION.
Life is very hard sometimes, and I think what it does is challenge us if we really want to do what we are interested in achieving. And as we see in the Musk case, with perseverance and a lot of work he manages to get ahead. Lee Iacocca, the legendary director of Ford and Chrysler, said it well: there are no free lunches in life. And you, dear reader, what are you interested in, big leagues, or class A?…Happy Sunday!
*- The author is a partner of the Ballesteros Advisory Firm.
2023-10-22 16:42:01
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