Published via Inbox: 2013-06-06 21:13:41
In an earlier interview at the 2010 Founder's Showcase, Sarah Lacy sits down with Elon (her follow-on story is here). Elon reveals that he invested $170M of his own money -- $100M for SpaceX and $70M for Tesla. Sarah asks about him having a lot of skin in the game and his response is: "All the skin I had."
My Two Cents
In this HuffPo story by Dave Parker, he lifts from a Sarah Lacy interview and article with Elon Musk about having "skin" in the game. Elon Musk's answer is unique beyond measure in one respect and all too common in another respect. The unique aspect of Elon Musk is that once Elon earned his fortune totaling in excess of $200 million, he pushed all of his chips back to the middle of the table on SpaceX and Tesla (and had to ask friend for a loan for living expenses). How many people on this planet would push all of their hard earned chips to the middle after earning 9 figures? Not that many. Most of us would set aside a good portion for safekeeping. But Elon Musk did. That's Big Time!
The second half of his answer is incredibly common: almost every entrepreneur, including myself, have put "all the skin I had and more" in the game. Most of us just don't have 9 figures to risk like Elon. Hearing his story about how 2007-2009 were BAD years for him is not what I want to hear from anyone, let alone one of the greatest entrepreneurs on the planet (ever), but it is nice to know that all of us (in some way) will come out on the other side of what are "our bad years." The sun will shine and in Elon Musk's case, he is an astonishing success as an entrepreneur.
