Ashlee Vance

Last updated
Ashlee Vance
Ashlee Vance.gk.jpg
Ashlee Vance at a signing for his book, Elon Musk
Born1977 (age 4647)
South Africa
Education Pomona College
SubjectsTechnology, business
Notable work Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
Website
www.ashleevance.com

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.

Contents

Early life and education

Vance was born in 1977 in South Africa. He attended Pomona College, graduating in 2000. [1]

Career

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] A documentary inspired by the book, Wild Wild Space was released in July 2024, by HBO. [16] [17]

Vance is currently working on a TV series based on his Elon Musk book for HBO. [18]

He lives in California with his wife Melinda and their two children. [19] Vance calls himself an atheist. [7]

Works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elon Musk</span> South African-born businessman (born 1971)

Elon Reeve Musk is a businessman, investor and public servant known for his key roles in the space company SpaceX and the automotive company Tesla, Inc. Other involvements include ownership of X Corp., the company that operates the social media platform X, and his role in the founding of the Boring Company, xAI, Neuralink, and OpenAI. Following the 2024 U.S. presidential election, he is to become the co-commissioner of the United States Department of Government Efficiency. He is the wealthiest individual in the world; as of November 2024 Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$304 billion.

<i>The Know-It-All</i> 2004 book by A. J. Jacobs

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kara Swisher</span> American technology business journalist

Kara Anne Swisher is an American journalist. She has covered the business of the internet since 1994. As of 2023, Swisher was a contributing editor at New York Magazine, the host of the podcast On with Kara Swisher, and the co-host of the podcast Pivot.

X.com was an American online bank founded by Ed Ho, Harris Fricker, Elon Musk, and Christopher Payne in 1999 in Palo Alto, California. In 2000, it merged with competitor Confinity and in 2001, the merged company changed its name to PayPal. Starting in 2023, the x.com internet domain name began to be used for Twitter which was acquired by Musk in 2022 and subsequently rebranded to X.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tesla, Inc.</span> American electric vehicle and clean energy company

Tesla, Inc. is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, it designs, manufactures and sells battery electric vehicles (BEVs), stationary battery energy storage devices from home to grid-scale, solar panels and solar shingles, and related products and services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kimbal Musk</span> South African entrepreneur (born 1972)

Kimbal James Musk is a South African businessman and restaurateur. He owns The Kitchen Restaurant Group, a collection of restaurants in Colorado and Chicago. He is the co-founder and chairman of Big Green, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has built hundreds of outdoor classrooms called Learning Gardens in schoolyards across the United States. Musk is also the co-founder and chairman of Square Roots, an urban farming company growing food in hydroponic, indoor, climate controlled shipping containers. Musk currently sits on the boards of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX; his brother Elon is the current CEO of both companies. He was on the board of Chipotle Mexican Grill from 2013 to 2019. He is the brother of Elon Musk, Tosca Musk, son of Errol and Maye Musk, and a major shareholder in Tesla.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan E. Salzman</span> American venture capitalist

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Chang (journalist)</span> American journalist (born 1980)

Emily Chang is an American journalist, television host, executive producer, and author. In 2023, she launched a new show with Bloomberg Originals called The Circuit where she interviews influencers in technology, business, entertainment and culture. In addition to a premium show, extended interviews are released in The Circuit podcast. Chang was the anchor and executive producer of Bloomberg Technology for over a decade, a daily TV show focused on global technology, and Studio 1.0, where she regularly spoke with top executives, investors, and entrepreneurs. Chang is the author of Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys' Club of Silicon Valley, which explores gender inequality in the tech industry.

<i>Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future</i> 2015 book by Ashlee Vance

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Boring Company</span> American infrastructure and tunneling company

The Boring Company (TBC) is an American infrastructure, tunnel construction services, and equipment company founded by Elon Musk. TBC was founded as a subsidiary of SpaceX in 2017, and was spun off as a separate corporation in 2018. TBC has completed one tunneling project that is open to the public, as well as multiple test tunnels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Supermicro</span> American supplier of servers and other information technology products

Super Micro Computer, Inc., dba Supermicro, is an American information technology company based in San Jose, California. The company is one of the largest producers of high-performance and high-efficiency servers, while also providing server management software, and storage systems for various markets, including enterprise data centers, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, 5G and edge computing. Supermicro was founded on November 1, 1993, and has manufacturing operations in Silicon Valley, the Netherlands, and in Taiwan at its Science and Technology Park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">How to Make a Spaceship</span> Non-fiction book by Julian Guthrie

How to Make a Spaceship: A Band of Renegades, an Epic Race, and the Birth of Private Spaceflight is a 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TSLAQ</span> Group of people who criticize Tesla, Inc.

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 social media, often using the $TSLAQ cashtag, and on 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), pinpoints the July 2018 doxxing of Twitter user Lawrence Fossi, a Seeking Alpha writer and Tesla short seller operating under the pseudonym Montana Skeptic, as the catalyst for the formation of TSLAQ.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criticism of Tesla, Inc.</span> Systemic criticism of Tesla, Inc. and its products and leadership

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">X Corp.</span> American technology company

X Corp. is an American technology company headquartered in Bastrop, Texas. 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 mostly owned by Musk. The company owns the social networking service X, and has announced plans to use it as a base for other offerings. While the official name of the company and social network is now X, many users and media outlets continue to refer to it as Twitter.

Elon Musk is a South African-born businessman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wealth of Elon Musk</span> Overview of the wealth of Elon Musk

Elon Musk is one of the wealthiest people in the world, with an estimated net worth of US $314 billion as of November 2024, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and $300.3 billion according to Forbes, primarily from his ownership stakes in Tesla, Inc. and SpaceX. In November 2021, he became the first person in the world to have a net worth above $300 billion.

The personal and business legal affairs of Elon Musk encompass the legal cases involving businessman Elon Musk as the plaintiff, defendant, or concerning his companies.

References

  1. Abraham, Sneha (3 August 2016). "The Full Elon". Pomona College Magazine . Pomona College. Retrieved 31 July 2020.
  2. Vance, Ashlee (2003-03-24). "Sun adopts Write Once, Revise Anywhere license". The Register .
  3. Vance, Ashlee (2008-08-21). "Reg server and chip hack molested by Gray Lady". The Register.
  4. "Ashlee Vance - Bits - The New York Times". bits.blogs.nytimes.com. 8 December 2010. Retrieved 2016-04-10.
  5. "Ashlee Vance and Brendan Greeley Join Bloomberg Businessweek". Press Release. Bloomberg. 2011-01-05. Retrieved 8 April 2011.
  6. "Data Analysts Captivated by R's Power". The New York Times . 2009-01-08. Retrieved 2013-09-13.
  7. 1 2 3 "Interview with Ashlee Vance". Interviews with Max Raskin. Retrieved 2024-02-01.
  8. Vance, Ashlee (2007-11-01). Geek Silicon Valley . Globe Pequot Press. ISBN   978-0-7627-4239-4.
  9. "Semi-Coherent Computing". The Register. Archived from the original on 2008-07-14.
  10. "David R. Ditzel". The Third Culture. Edge Foundation, Inc.
  11. "Goodbye, Silicon Valley. Hello World". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2016-04-10.
  12. "Ashlee Vance AMA on reddit". reddit . 23 March 2016. Retrieved 2016-04-10.
  13. "Nominations for the 38th Annual News and Documentary. Emmy® Awards" (PDF). newenglandemmy.org.
  14. "Hardcover Nonfiction Books - Best Sellers - Books - June 7, 2015 - The New York Times". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2023-06-20.
  15. "Hardcover Nonfiction Books - Best Sellers - Books - May 28, 2023 - The New York Times". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2023-06-20.
  16. Carey, Matthew (July 16, 2024). "'Wild Wild Space' Blasts Off Wednesday; Entertaining HBO Film Documents Visionaries Battling For Primacy Above Our Heads". Deadline Hollywood . Retrieved July 17, 2024.
  17. "HBO Original Documentary WILD WILD SPACE Debuts July 17". Warner Bros. Discovery . July 8, 2024. Retrieved July 17, 2024.
  18. Otterson, Joe (2020-10-12). "HBO to Develop Scripted Series About Elon Musk's SpaceX". Variety . Retrieved 2023-06-20.
  19. "About". Ashlee Vance. Retrieved 2023-06-20.