Ashlee Vance | |
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 Ashlee Vance at a signing for his book, Elon Musk | |
| Born | 1977 (age 46–47) South Africa |
| Education | Pomona College |
| Subjects | Technology, business |
| Notable work | Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future |
| Website | |
| www | |
Ashlee Vance (born 1977) is an American reporter, writer and filmmaker. He wrote a biography of Elon Musk, titled Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future , that was released on May 19, 2015.
Vance was born in 1977 in South Africa. He attended Pomona College, graduating in 2000. [1]
Vance wrote for The Register from March 2003 [2] to August 2008. [3] He moved to The New York Times in September 2008 [4] and then to Bloomberg Businessweek in January 2011. [5]
During his time at The Register, Vance covered companies such as IBM, HP, Intel, and Dell, and also wrote about a wide range of technology topics, including robots, Segway scooters, and the R programming language. [6] [7] In 2007, Vance wrote a book, called Geek Silicon Valley, on the history of Silicon Valley. [8] His writing often also appeared in such publications as The Economist , Chicago Tribune , CNN.com, The Globe and Mail , the International Herald Tribune , and CNET.
Vance hosted an audio podcast called Semi-Coherent Computing from 2007–2008, [9] in which he discussed enterprise computing topics such as data center cooling and blade servers, and interviewed guests including chip pioneer David Ditzel of Transmeta, Sun Microsystems, and Bell Labs. [10]
In 2015, Vance started writing, producing and hosting the "Hello World" video series for Bloomberg, focusing on the tech scene in various countries. [11] [12] The show was nominated for an Emmy in 2016. [13] In 2015, Vance published his biography about Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and other tech companies. The book became an immediate best-seller. [14] Vance says that Musk "really hated some of the things in the book, so we didn't talk for three years." [7]
In May of 2023, Vance published When the Heavens Went on Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space within Reach about the rise of commercial space. The book focused on Planet Labs, Rocket Lab, Astra Space and Firefly Aerospace. It also became an immediate best-seller. [15]
Vance is currently working on a TV series based on his Elon Musk book for HBO [16] and a documentary for HBO based on his latest book. [17]
He lives in California with his wife Melinda and their two children. [17] Vance calls himself an atheist. [7]
Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launch service provider, defense contractor and satellite communications company headquartered in Hawthorne, California. The company was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs and ultimately developing a sustainable colony on Mars. The company currently operates the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets along with the Dragon and Starship spacecraft.
Elon Reeve Musk is a businessman and investor. He is the founder, chairman, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO, product architect, and former chairman of Tesla, Inc.; owner, executive chairman, and CTO of X Corp.; founder of the Boring Company and xAI; co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI; and president of the Musk Foundation. He is one of the wealthiest people in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$190 billion as of March 2024, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and $195 billion according to Forbes, primarily from his ownership stakes in Tesla and SpaceX.
The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World is a book by Esquire editor A. J. Jacobs, published in 2004.
X.com was an American online bank founded by Elon Musk, Harris Fricker, Christopher Payne, and Ed Ho in 1999 in Palo Alto, California. In 2000, it merged with competitor Confinity and in 2001, the merged company changed its name to PayPal.
Tesla, Inc. is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company headquartered in Austin, Texas, which designs, manufactures and sells electric vehicles, stationary battery energy storage devices from home to grid-scale, solar panels and solar shingles, and related products and services.
Mary Louise "Missy" Cummings is an American academic who is a professor at Duke University and director of Duke's Humans and Autonomy Laboratory. She was one of the United States Navy's first female fighter pilots. In November 2021, Dr. Cummings joined the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). She currently teaches at George Mason University.
Alan E. Salzman is an American venture capitalist and managing partner. He is the co-founder, CEO and Managing Partner of VantagePoint Capital Partners, a venture capital firm in the U.S. and an investor in clean technology companies.
The Tesla Fremont Factory is an automobile manufacturing plant in Fremont, California, United States, operated by Tesla, Inc. The factory originally opened as General Motors' Fremont Assembly in 1962, and then was operated by New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. (NUMMI), a joint venture of GM and Toyota from 1984. The joint venture ended when GM entered bankruptcy in 2009. In 2010, Toyota agreed to sell the plant to Tesla at a significant discount. The plant is the only production site for the Model S and Model X and also produces the Model 3, and Model Y.
Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency created by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, who decided to create a payment system as a joke, making fun of the wild speculation in cryptocurrencies at the time. It is considered both the first "meme coin", and more specifically the first "dog coin". Despite its satirical nature, some consider it a legitimate investment prospect. Dogecoin features the face of the Shiba Inu dog from the "doge" meme as its logo and namesake. It was introduced on December 6, 2013, and quickly developed its own online community, reaching a peak market capitalization of over US$85 billion on May 5, 2021. As of 2021, it is the sleeve sponsor of Watford Football Club.
Adeo Ressi is an American entrepreneur and investor, who is founder and CEO of Decile Group, the parent company of VC Lab, and Executive Chairman of The Founder Institute. He has been a fixture in the Silicon Valley since creating TheFunded in 2007. His previous business ventures include methodfive, Game Trust, and Total New York. He has also sat on the board of the X Prize Foundation.
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future is Ashlee Vance's biography of Elon Musk, published in 2015. The book traces Elon Musk's life from his childhood up to the time he spent at Zip2 and PayPal, and then onto SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. In the book, Vance interviews Musk, those close to him, and those who were with him at the most important points of his life; Musk had no control over the biography's contents.
Zip2 Corp. was a company that provided and licensed online city guide software to newspapers. The company was founded in Palo Alto, California as Global Link Information Network, Inc. on November 9, 1995, by Greg Kouri and brothers Elon and Kimbal Musk. Initially, Global Link provided local businesses with an Internet presence, but later began to assist newspapers in designing online city guides before being purchased by Compaq Computer in 2000.
How to Make a Spaceship: A Band of Renegades, An Epic Race, And the Birth of Private Spaceflight is a bestselling award-winning 2016 non-fiction book by journalist Julian Guthrie about the origins of the X Prize Foundation and Peter Diamandis, the first X Prize, the Ansari X Prize and Anousheh Ansari, the entrants into that suborbital spaceflight competition, and the winning team, Mojave Aerospace Ventures of Vulcan Inc., Paul G. Allen, Scaled Composites, Burt Rutan, and their platform of Tier One of SpaceShipOne and WhiteKnightOne.
TSLAQ is a loose, international collective of largely anonymous short-sellers, skeptics, and researchers who openly criticize Tesla, Inc. and its CEO Elon Musk. The group primarily organizes on Twitter, often using the $TSLAQ cashtag, and Reddit to coordinate efforts and share news, opinions, and analysis about the company and its stock. Edward Niedermeyer, in his book Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors (2019), establishes the catalyst for the formation of TSLAQ in July 2018 to be the doxxing by a Twitter user of Lawrence Fossi, a Seeking Alpha writer and Tesla short seller who uses the pseudonym Montana Skeptic.
Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors is Edward Niedermeyer's non-fiction book about Tesla, Inc., published in 2019. The book traces Tesla's inception along with episodes and controversies from the first fifteen years of the company under the leadership of Elon Musk. In it, Niedermeyer uses original research, anonymous insider accounts, and industry analysis to explore "Tesla's attempt to merge Silicon Valley arrogance with automotive industry standards". The Wall Street Journal noted that the book's sources have "refused to be quoted out of fear of Mr. Musk". The book devotes a significant portion of its contents to a cultural account of the ongoing "confrontation" between Tesla's fans and its skeptics.
Elon Musk is the CEO or owner of multiple companies including Tesla, SpaceX, and X Corp, and has expressed many views on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from politics to science.
Tesla, Inc. has been criticized for its cars, workplace culture, business practices, and occupational safety. Many of the criticisms are also directed toward Elon Musk, the company's CEO and Product Architect. Critics have also accused Tesla of deceptive marketing, unfulfilled promises, and fraud. The company is currently facing criminal and civil investigations into its self-driving claims. Critics have highlighted Tesla's downplaying of issues, and Tesla's alleged retaliation against several whistleblowers.
The Musk family is a wealthy family of South African origin that is largely active in the United States and Canada. The Musks are of English, Anglo-Canadian, Pennsylvania Dutch, and Swiss descent. The family is known for its entrepreneurial endeavours. Elon Musk was formerly the wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$232 billion as of December 2023, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
X Corp. is an American technology company established by Elon Musk in 2023 as the successor to Twitter, Inc. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of X Holdings Corp., which is itself owned by Musk. The company owns the social networking service X and has announced plans to use it as a base for other offerings.
Elon Musk is a business magnet and investor.
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