Readers fascinated by the hype of Tesla history will find a gold mine of facts and foibles in this immersive analysis.
A Wall Street Journal tech and auto reporter probes the evolution and histrionics of Tesla and its eccentric billionaire leader.
Higgins begins with the inception of Tesla Motors in 2003 by American engineer Martin Eberhard and his longtime friend, tech entrepreneur Marc Tarpenning, who both wanted to manufacture fuel-efficient sports cars. An early investor in the endeavor, Elon Musk soon joined the company ranks as CEO and fostered multiple rounds of investments from entrepreneurs eager to cash in on his goal to create affordable electric vehicles. With Musk consistently commanding center stage, Higgins chronicles Tesla’s prototype-to-production line, from the Roadster to its Model S, X, and 3 series. Each vehicle embodied intrinsic challenges involving battery production, transmission functionality, and funding—not to mention Musk’s nano-management style and wild Twitter storms, which had been highly criticized since he was ousted from PayPal. Boastful, stubborn, and ego-driven, Musk persevered despite the precarious state of Tesla’s financial health. The company burned through hundreds of millions of dollars each year and often faced dire bankruptcy projections despite a surge of preorders and Musk’s promises to deliver the Model 3. Higgins shows that while these financial and innovation issues seemed fatal to the company’s market longevity, a series of sudden, mostly monetized interventions changed the odds in their favor in what became a “defining feature of the Tesla narrative.” While Musk’s slick tech wizardry and visionary “startup gumption” butted heads with Tesla’s more grounded core of engineers, the company’s success was evident as the Model 3 became the defining product in its line. The author effectively combines his well-honed journalistic skills with revealing perspectives from industry observers, frustrated Tesla staff, futuristic engineers, and Musk himself, creating a spirited report on a company consistently embroiled in a swirl of melodrama and controversy. For an even fuller picture of the Musk aura, pair this one with Eric Berger’s Liftoff.
Readers fascinated by the hype of Tesla history will find a gold mine of facts and foibles in this immersive analysis.Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-385-54545-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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