3 CANADA
3 挺进加拿大：追寻太阳的人
马斯克真正突出的地方在于，他将复杂的物理概念与商业计划相结合的能力。不仅如此，他还显示出了将一项科研成果转化为营利性企业的非凡才能。
MUSK'S GREAT ESCAPE TO CANADA WAS NOT WELL THOUGHT OUT. He knew of a great-uncle in Montreal, hopped on a flight and hoped for the best. Upon landing in June 1988, Musk found a pay phone and tried to use directory assistance to find his uncle. When that didn't work, he called his mother collect. She had bad news. Maye had sent a letter to the uncle before Musk left and received a reply while her son was in transit. The uncle had gone to Minnesota, meaning Musk had nowhere to stay. Bags in hand, Musk headed for a youth hostel.
马斯克去加拿大并没有经过深思熟虑。他在登上飞机的时候，只知道有一个远房表舅住在蒙特利尔，希望可以取得联系。1988年6月，他到达以后，找到一处公用电话，试图通过公用电话簿来找到舅舅，但未能如愿。之后他打电话给母亲，但却从她那里听到一个坏消息。在马斯克出发前，梅耶给表兄写了一封信，并且收到了回复，此时马斯克还在路上。舅舅搬去了明尼苏达州，这就意味着马斯克无家可归了。他只好提着行李去了青年旅馆。
After spending a few days in Montreal exploring the city, Musk tried to come up with a long-term plan. Maye had family scattered all across Canada, and Musk began reaching out to them. He bought a countrywide bus ticket that let him hop on and off as he pleased for one hundred dollars, and opted to head to Saskatchewan, the former home of his grandfather. After a 1,900-mile bus ride, he ended up in Swift Current, a town of fifteen thousand people. Musk called a second cousin out of the blue from the bus station and hitched a ride to his house.
过了几天时间，在熟悉了蒙特利尔之后，马斯克决定制订一个长期计划。马斯克的家族成员分散在加拿大各地，他开始联系他们。令他感到欣慰的是，他只花了100美元就买到了一张全国通用，并且可以中途上下的车票。他一开始想前往萨斯喀彻温省，祖父的故居就在那里。在大巴行驶 900英里之后，他在一个只有1.5万人口的小镇斯威夫特卡伦特(Swift Current)下了车，马斯克在车站给一个远房表兄打了一个电话，并搭便车去了他家。
Musk spent the next year working a series of odd jobs around Canada. He tended vegetables and shoveled out grain bins at a cousin's farm located in the tiny town of Waldeck.
之后的一年，马斯克一直在加拿大各地打零工。他先在另一位表兄位于小镇瓦尔德克的农场里种植蔬菜和打扫粮仓。
Musk celebrated his eighteenth birthday there, sharing a cake with the family he'd just met and a few strangers from the neighborhood. After that, he learned to cut logs with a chain saw in Vancouver, British Columbia. The hardest job Musk took came after a visit to the unemployment office. He inquired about the job with the best wage, which turned out to be a gig cleaning the boiler room of a lumber mill for eighteen dollars an hour. “You have to put on this hazmat suit and then shimmy through this little tunnel that you can barely fit in,” Musk said. “Then, you have a shovel and you take the sand and goop and other residue, which is still steaming hot, and you have to shovel it through the same hole you came through. There is no escape. Someone else on the other side has to shovel it into a wheelbarrow. If you stay in there for more than thirty minutes, you get too hot and die.” Thirty people started out at the beginning of the week. By the third day, five people were left. At the end of the week, it was just Musk and two other men doing the work.
马斯克在那里度过了他的18岁生日，与几个刚结识的远房亲戚及陌生邻居分享了生日蛋糕。在那之后，马斯克在温哥华学会了使用电锯锯原木。他去失业救济办公室询问哪种工作的待遇最好，但没想到这份工作竟然是清理木材厂的锅炉房，时薪18美元。这是他做过的最辛苦的工作。“我必须穿上防护服，摇摇晃晃地穿过狭窄的通道，”马斯克说，“你要用铁锹把滚烫的沙子、黏稠物和热气腾腾的残渣铲到洞口外面。而且你必须原路返回，因为没有逃生出口。旁边会有人把这些脏东西用独轮车运走。如果待在那里超过30分钟，你会被热死。”最初一起工作的同事有30个。到了第三天，只有5个人留了下来。在那一周结束的时候，只有马斯克和另外两位男同事还在工作。
As Musk made his way around Canada, his brother, sister, and mother were figuring out how to get there as well.* When Kimbal and Elon eventually reunited in Canada, their headstrong, playful natures bloomed. Elon ended up enrolling at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, in 1989. (He picked Queen's over the University of Waterloo because he felt there were more good-looking women at Queen's.)2 Outside of his studies, Elon would read the newspaper alongside Kimbal, and the two of them would identify interesting people they would like to meet. They then took turns cold-calling these people to ask if they were available to have lunch. Among the harassed was the head of marketing for the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team, a business writer for the Globe and Mail, and a top executive at the Bank of Nova Scotia, Peter Nicholson. Nicholson remembered the boys' call well. “I was not in the habit of getting out-of-the-blue requests,” he said. “I was perfectly prepared to have lunch with a couple of kids that had that kind of gumption.” It took six months to get on Nicholson's calendar, but, sure enough, the Musk brothers made a three-hour train ride and showed up on time.
当马斯克以自己的方式游历加拿大的时候，他的弟弟、妹妹和妈妈正在想办法前往加拿大。[1]最后，他们在加拿大团聚了。当金巴尔终于和埃隆在加拿大重聚时，他们的固执和顽皮本性也重新绽放。1989年，埃隆终于进入了位于安大略省金斯顿的皇后大学。(他之所以选择皇后大学而不是滑铁卢大学，是因为他认为皇后大学的美女更多。2)学习之余，埃隆会和金巴尔一起读报纸，为的是从中找出有趣的人并和他们见面。他们会直接打电话给这些人，问他们愿不愿意一起共进午餐。在被骚扰的众多人物之中，就有新斯科舍省彼得银行的高管彼得·尼克尔森(Peter Nicholson)，此外，他还是多伦多蓝鸟棒球队的营销主管及《环球邮报》的商业专栏作家。尼克尔森至今还清楚地记得男孩儿打来的电话。“我不太习惯这种贸然邀约，”尼克尔森说，“但我还是被他们精心准备的说辞说服了，并同意跟这两个锐意进取的年轻人共进午餐。”这件事6个月后才排上尼克尔森的日程，马斯克兄弟坐了3个小时的火车，最终准时出现。
Nicholson's first exposure to the Musk brothers left him with an impression many would share. Both presented themselves well and were polite. Elon, though, clearly came off as the geekier, more awkward counterpoint to the charismatic, personable Kimbal. “I became more impressed and fascinated as I talked to them,” Nicholson said. “They were so determined.” Nicholson ended up offering Elon a summer internship at the bank and became his trusted advisor.
马斯克兄弟给尼克尔森留下了深刻印象。两个人都表现良好，举止得体。埃隆表现得更加极客(geekier)和笨拙，而金巴尔则有魅力得多。“他们越来越让我刮目相看，”尼克尔森说，“他们的意志太坚定了。”尼克尔森最后给埃隆提供了一份暑期在银行实习的工作，并成为他值得信任的导师。
Not long after their initial meeting, Elon invited Peter Nicholson's daughter Christie to his birthday party. Christie showed up at Maye's Toronto apartment with a jar of homemade lemon curd in hand and was greeted by Elon and about fifteen other people. Elon had never met Christie before, but he went right up to her and led her to a couch. “Then, I believe the second sentence out of his mouth was ‘I think a lot about electric cars,'” Christie said. “And then he turned to me and said, ‘Do you think about electric cars?'” The conversation left Christie, who is now a science writer, with the distinct impression that Musk was handsome, affable, and a tremendous nerd. “For whatever reason, I was so struck by that moment on the sofa,” she said. “You could tell that this person was very different. He captivated me in that way.”
在初次见面后不久，埃隆便邀请彼得·尼克尔森的女儿克里斯蒂参加他的生日聚会。克里斯蒂手捧着自制的柠檬酱来到梅耶位于多伦多的公寓，埃隆和其他15位客人向她表示欢迎。埃隆之前从未见过克里斯蒂，但他径直走过去，把她带到沙发边坐下。“我从他嘴里听到的第二句话是，‘我想了很多关于电动车的事情’，”克里斯蒂说，“然后他对我说，‘你会思考关于电动车的事情吗？’”这段对话给克里斯蒂留下的直接印象是，马斯克是一个帅气、和蔼又魁梧的书呆子。不知道为什么，坐在沙发上的那一刻，我非常震惊，”她说，“这个人如此与众不同，这令我十分着迷。”
With her angular features and blond hair, Christie fit Musk's type, and the two stayed in touch during Musk's time in Canada. They never really dated, but Christie found Musk interesting enough to have lengthy conversations with him on the phone. “One night he told me, ‘If there was a way that I could not eat, so I could work more, I would not eat. I wish there was a way to get nutrients without sitting down for a meal.' The enormity of his work ethic at that age and his intensity jumped out. It seemed like one of the more unusual things I had ever heard.”
克里斯蒂有着苗条的身材和金色的长发，是马斯克喜欢的类型，所以马斯克在加拿大的时候，两人一直保持联系。虽然两人从未正式交往过，但克里斯蒂觉得马斯克非常有趣，经常和他在电话里聊很长时间。“有一天晚上他告诉我，‘如果有一种方法让我即使不用吃饭也可以工作较长时间，那我宁愿不吃饭。我希望找到不用吃饭就可以直接摄取营养的方法！’他在那个年纪表现出来的工作狂性格显而易见。这是我听到过的最不可思议的事情。”
A deeper relationship during this stint in Canada arose between Musk and Justine Wilson, a fellow student at Queen's. Leggy with long, brown hair, Wilson radiated romance and sexual energy. Justine had already fallen in love with an older man and then ditched him to go to college. Her next conquest was meant to wear a leather jacket and be a damaged, James Dean sort. As fortune would have it, however, the clean-cut, posh-sounding Musk spotted Wilson on campus and went right to work trying to date her. “She looked pretty great,” Musk said. “She was also smart and this intellectual with sort of an edge. She had a black belt in tae kwon do and was semi-bohemian and, you know, like the hot chick on campus.” He made his first move just outside of her dorm, where he pretended to have bumped into her by accident and then reminded her that they had met previously at a party. Justine, only one week into school, agreed to Musk's proposal of an ice cream date. When he arrived to pick up Wilson, Musk found a note on the dorm room door, notifying him that he'd been stood up. “It said that she had to go study for an exam and couldn't make it and that she was sorry,” Musk said. Musk then hunted down Justine's best friend and did some research, asking where Justine usually studied and what her favorite flavor of ice cream was. Later, as Justine hid in the student center studying Spanish, Musk appeared behind her with a couple of melting chocolate chip ice cream cones in hand.
在加拿大的那段时光，马斯克和贾斯汀·威尔逊之间产生了另一段更加深厚的情缘。她是马斯克在皇后大学的同学。威尔逊有着修长的双腿和一头棕色的秀发，散发着浪漫而性感的气质。威尔逊之前爱上过一个老男人，后来抛弃他去上了大学。她的下一个征服目标，应该是詹姆斯·迪恩那种穿着皮夹克、身经百战的男人。然而，干练的马斯克看上了威尔逊，并迅速对她展开攻势。“她看起来太迷人了，”马斯克说，“她还非常聪明博学，有点波西米亚气质，她还获得了跆拳道黑带资格。你懂的，她就是那种校园里抢手的辣妹。”马斯克采取的第一步行动是直接去她的宿舍外面，假装碰巧遇到她，然后说他们之前在某次排队时见过。贾斯汀当时刚刚入学一个星期，便答应了马斯克的邀约，和他一起去吃冰激凌。当马斯克来到宿舍接威尔逊时，发现宿舍门上贴着一张纸条，他意识到贾斯汀爽约了。马斯克说，“纸条上面写着她必须去参加一个考试，没有办法去约会了，她表示很遗憾。”马斯克于是追着贾斯汀最好的朋友，询问贾斯汀通常在哪里学习，以及她最喜欢什么口味的冰激凌。有一次，贾斯汀正在学生中心学习西班牙语，突然发现马斯克出现在她的身后，手里还拿着两个已经融化了的巧克力冰激凌。
Wilson had dreamed of having a torrid romance with a writer. “I wanted to be Sylvia and Ted,” she said. What she fell for instead was a relentless, ambitious geek. The pair attended the same abnormal-psychology class and compared their grades following an exam. Justine notched a 97, Musk a 98. “He went back to the professor, and talked his way into the two points he lost and got a hundred,” Justine said. “It felt like we were always competing.” Musk had a romantic side as well. One time he sent Wilson a dozen roses, each with its own note, and he also gifted Wilson a copy of The Prophet filled with handwritten romantic musings. “He can sweep you off your feet,” Justine said.
威尔逊曾经幻想和一名作家发生一段浪漫情缘。“我想成为西尔维亚和特德。”她说。但她爱上的却是一个冷酷无情且雄心勃勃的怪胎。两人同时修读了变态心理学的课程，考试成绩出来后，贾斯汀得了97分，而马斯克得了98分。“他找到教授，与教授争辩丢掉的这2分，然后教授就给了他100分，”贾斯汀说，“好像我们总是在相互竞争。”马斯克也有浪漫的一面。有一次，他送给威尔逊一打玫瑰花，每朵花上面都附有一张纸条。他也送过一本诗集《先知》(The Prophet)给她，里面满是他亲手写的情话。贾斯汀说，“他赢得了我的芳心。”
During their university years, the two youngsters were off and on, with Musk having to work hard to keep the relationship going. “She was hip and dated the coolest guys and wasn't interested in Elon at all,” Maye said. “So that was hard on him.” Musk pursued a couple of other girls, but kept returning to Justine. Any time she acted cool toward him, Musk responded with his usual show of force. “He would call very insistently,” she said. “You always knew it was Elon because the phone would never stop ringing. The man does not take no for an answer. You can't blow him off. I do think of him as the Terminator. He locks his gaze on to something and says, ‘It shall be mine.' Bit by bit, he won me over.”
在大学的那几年，两个年轻人分分合合，马斯克努力地维系着这段恋情。“她的追求者众多，而且总是和那些最酷的男人约会，对埃隆毫无兴趣，”梅耶说，“所以他很难过。”马斯克也追求过其他几个女孩儿，但最后总是回到贾斯汀身边。无论何时，只要她的态度冷淡，马斯克的一贯回应就是施加压力。“电话总是响个不停，肯定是埃隆打来的。这个男人不喜欢被人拒绝。你赶不走他。我的确把他当作‘终结者’。他把目光锁定在某个物体上，然后说，‘这应该是我的。’一点一滴的，我就被他征服了。”
College suited Musk. He worked on being less of a know-it-all, while also finding a group of people who respected his intellectual abilities. The university students were less inclined to laugh off or deride his opinionated takes on energy, space, and whatever else was captivating him at the moment. Musk had found people who responded to his ambition rather than mocking it, and he fed on this environment.
大学很适合马斯克。他不再像以前一样表现得无所不知，并且找到了一群尊重他学识的同道中人。大学同学更不会嘲笑他在能源、太空和其他感兴趣领域的独到见解。马斯克发现，这里的人们对于他的雄心壮志会给出积极的回应，而不是讥讽。他在这种环境中如鱼得水。
Navaid Farooq, a Canadian who grew up in Geneva, ended up in Musk's freshman-year dormitory in the fall of 1990. Both men were placed in the international section where a Canadian student would get paired with a student from overseas. Musk sort of broke the system, since he technically counted as a Canadian but knew almost nothing about his surroundings. “I had a roommate from Hong Kong, and he was a really nice guy,” Musk said. “He religiously attended every lecture, which was helpful, since I went to the least number of classes possible.” For a time, Musk sold computer parts and full PCs in the dorm to make some extra cash. “I could build something to suit their needs like a tricked-out gaming machine or a simple word processor that cost less than what they could get in a store,” Musk said. “Or if their computer didn't boot properly or had a virus, I'd fix it. I could pretty much solve any problem.”
内瓦得·法鲁克是一个在日内瓦长大的加拿大人，1990年秋天，在马斯克读大学一年级的时候，两人成了室友。两人都被安排在国际部的学生宿舍，在那里每个加拿大学生都会搭配一个海外学生室友。马斯克是个特例，因为从理论上来说他是加拿大人，但他对周围的环境一无所知。“我有一个来自香港的室友，他是一个真正的好人，”马斯克说，“他近乎虔诚地上完了每一堂课，这帮了我大忙，因为我总是尽量少去上课。”有一段时间，马斯克在宿舍里卖电脑配件和电脑整机，从中赚一些外快。“我可以根据人们的不同需求组装一些机器，比如专门用来玩游戏的，或者进行简单的文字处理的，这会比商店里便宜很多，”马斯克说，“如果他们的电脑不能正常启动或者中了病毒，我可以修好它们。我几乎可以解决任何问题。”
Farooq and Musk bonded over their backgrounds living abroad and a shared interest in strategy board games. “I don't think he makes friends easily, but he is very loyal to those he has,” Farooq said. When the video game Civilization was released, the college chums spent hours building their empire, much to the dismay of Farooq's girlfriend, who was forgotten in another room. “Elon could lose himself for hours on end,” Farooq said. The students also relished their loner lifestyles. “We are the kinds of people that can be by ourselves at a party and not feel awkward,” Farooq said. “We can think to ourselves and not feel socially weird about it.”
法鲁克和马斯克都有海外生活的经历，并且都喜欢战略棋盘游戏。“我认为他不太善于交朋友，但他对已有的朋友很忠诚。”法鲁克说。当视频游戏《文明》刚刚问世的时候，这两个大学死党会花大把的时间来打造自己的帝国，而法鲁克的女朋友则沮丧地独自待在另一个房间。“埃隆可以连续好几个小时沉浸在游戏当中。”法鲁克说。他们还对自己独来独往的生活方式津津乐道。“我们都是那种即使在派对上孤身一人，也不会感到局促不安的人，”法鲁克说，“我们对自己的社交障碍感到心安理得。”
Musk was more ambitious in college than he'd been in high school. He studied business, competed in public speaking contests, and began to display the brand of intensity and competitiveness that marks his behavior today. After one economics exam, Musk, Farooq, and some other students in class came back to the dorms and began comparing notes to try to ascertain how well they did on the test. It soon became clear that Musk had a firmer grasp on the material than anyone else. “This was a group of fairly high achievers, and Elon stood way outside of the bell curve,” Farooq said. Musk's intensity has continued to be a constant in their long relationship. “When Elon gets into something, he develops just this different level of interest in it than other people. That is what differentiates Elon from the rest of humanity.”
比起高中时代，马斯克在大学时代更加雄心勃勃。他学习商业课程，参加演讲比赛，他标志性的专注和竞争力也始于那个时候，并一直延续至今。一次经济学考试之后，马斯克、法鲁克和其他几个同学回到宿舍，拿出笔记翻看，想知道谁在考试中表现得更好。结果很快明朗，马斯克对于知识的掌握比其他人更扎实。在很长一段时间里，马斯克保持了一如既往的专注。“这是一群卓越之人，但显然埃隆远超其他人，在钟形曲线之外，”法鲁克说，“一旦埃隆想了解某个事物，他会投入比别人多得多的精力。这是埃隆和其他人的不同之处。”
In 1992, having spent two years at Queen's, Musk transferred to the University of Pennsylvania on a scholarship. Musk saw the Ivy League school as possibly opening some additional doors and went off in pursuit of dual degrees—first an economics degree from the Wharton School and then a bachelor's degree in physics. Justine stayed at Queen's, pursuing her dream of becoming a writer, and maintained a long-distance relationship with Musk. Now and again, she would visit him, and the two would sometimes head off to New York for a romantic weekend.
1992年，在皇后大学待了两年之后，马斯克获得奖学金后便转学到了宾夕法尼亚大学。马斯克希望这所常青藤名校可以帮他打开更多的机会之门，于是主修了双学位——首先是沃顿商学院的经济学学位，然后是物理学学士学位。而贾斯汀则待在皇后大学，追寻着她的作家梦想，并跟马斯克展开了异地恋。有时候她会去探望马斯克，两人会在纽约度过一个浪漫的周末。
Musk blossomed even more at Penn, and really started to feel comfortable while hanging out with his fellow physics students. “At Penn, he met people that thought like him,” Maye said. “There were some nerds there. He so enjoyed them. I remember going for lunch with them, and they were talking physics things. They were saying, ‘A plus B equals pi squared' or whatever. They would laugh out loud. It was cool to see him so happy.” Once again, however, Musk did not make many friends among the broader school body. It's difficult to find former students who remember him being there at all. But he did make one very close friend named Adeo Ressi, who would go on to be a Silicon Valley entrepreneur in his own right and is to this day as tight with Elon as anyone.
马斯克在宾夕法尼亚大学更加入鱼得水，并且和那些学物理的同学相处甚欢。“在宾州，他能够遇到跟他想法相似的人，”梅耶说，“那里有一些书呆子。他很享受与他们相处的时光。我还记得有一次跟他们去吃午餐，他们讨论一个物理问题，A加B等于圆周率的平方之类的。他们会开怀大笑。看见他如此开心，这简直太棒了。”但同样，马斯克并没有跟其他专业的学生交上朋友。很难找到当年对他有印象的学生。但是他的确结交了一个很亲密的朋友阿德·雷西(Adeo Ressi)。雷西后来成为一名硅谷创业者，并且一直与埃隆保持着密切的关系。
Ressi is a lanky guy well over six feet tall and possesses an eccentric air. He was the artistic, colorful foil to the studious, more buttoned-up Musk. Both of the young men were transfer students and ended up being placed in the funky freshman dorm. The lackluster social scene did not live up to Ressi's expectations, and he talked Musk into renting a large house off campus. They got the ten-bedroom home relatively cheap, since it was a frat house that had gone unrented. During the week, Musk and Ressi would study, but as the weekend approached, Ressi, in particular, would transform the house into a nightclub. He covered the windows with trash bags to make it pitch black inside and decorated the walls with bright paints and whatever objects he could find. “It was a full-out, unlicensed speakeasy,” Ressi said. “We would have as many as five hundred people. We would charge five dollars, and it would be pretty much all you could drink—beer and Jell-O shots and other things.”
雷西的身高超过6英尺，是一个瘦瘦高高的家伙，有着精灵古怪的气质。相比马斯克的勤奋和脚踏实地，他更加色彩斑斓并富有艺术气息。两个年轻人都是转学生，并且最后都被安排在脏兮兮的新生宿舍里。这种黯淡的社交品质没有达到雷西的期望，于是他跟马斯克商量去校外租一间大房子。他们最后用相对低廉的价格租下了一套有10个房间的大房子，这之前是兄弟会没有被租用的房子。马斯克和雷西平时学习功课，但到周末快来临的时候，雷西就会把房间布置成夜总会。他用垃圾袋将窗户挡住，以便让屋内变黑，并用亮色的颜料和其他能找到的任何物件来装饰墙面。“这绝对是一个无照经营的夜总会，”雷西说，“会有500个人光顾，每个人只需要交5美元，就可以在这里任意享用酒水——啤酒、果冻酒以及其他类型的酒水。”
Come Friday night, the ground around the house would shake from the intensity of the bass being pumped out by Ressi's speakers. Maye visited one of the parties and discovered that Ressi had hammered objects into the walls and lacquered them with glow-in-the-dark paint. She ended up working the door as the coat check/money taker and grabbed a pair of scissors for protection as the cash piled up in a shoe box.
每到周五晚上，房子里就会回荡着从雷西超重低音音响里传出的音乐，连地面都随之颤抖。梅耶到访过其中一次派对，发现雷西正在往墙上钉东西，然后在上面刷上在黑暗中会闪闪发亮的涂料。后来，她在门口负责保管衣物和收取门票，并且抓住一把剪刀用来防身，因为用来装钱的鞋盒里面已经堆满了钞票。
A second house had fourteen rooms. Musk, Ressi, and one other person lived there. They fashioned tables by laying plywood on top of used kegs and came up with other makeshift furniture ideas. Musk returned home one day to find that Ressi had nailed his desk to the wall and then painted it in Day-Glo colors. Musk retaliated by pulling his desk down, painting it black, and studying. “I'm like, ‘Dude, that's installation art in our party house,'” said Ressi. Remind Musk of this incident and he'll respond matter-of-factly, “It was a desk.”
第二幢房子里有14间客房。马斯克、雷西和另外一个人住在那里。他们将胶合板放在旧桶上做成桌子，还有其他一些临时装修点子。有一天，马斯克回家后发现雷西把他的桌子钉在了墙上，并且涂上了荧光粉。他不动声色地把桌子取下来，漆回黑色，然后继续用来学习。雷西说，“我当时的反应是，‘老兄，这是我们俱乐部的装饰品’。”当我向马斯克提起这件事时，他实事求是地说：“那是一张桌子。”
Musk will have the occasional vodka and Diet Coke, but he's not a big drinker and does not really care for the taste of alcohol. “Somebody had to stay sober during these parties,” Musk said. “I was paying my own way through college and could make an entire month's rent in one night. Adeo was in charge of doing cool shit around the house, and I would run the party.” As Ressi put it, “Elon was the most straight-laced dude you have ever met. He never drank. He never did anything. Zero. Literally nothing.” The only time Ressi had to step in and moderate Musk's behavior came during video game binges that could go on for days.
马斯克偶尔会喝伏特加兑健怡可乐，但他的酒量并不大，也不太喜欢酒的味道。“在派对上必须有人保持清醒的头脑，”马斯克说，“我在大学里一直都是自力更生，一个晚上就可以赚回一个月的房租。阿德负责把房间装饰得酷炫一点，而我则负责让派对继续下去。”当谈到这一点时，雷西说道，“埃隆是自制力极强的家伙。他从来不会把自己灌醉，从来不会，这种情况从未发生过。”只有当马斯克不分昼夜地玩电脑游戏的时候，雷西才不得不制止他的行为。
Musk's longtime interest in solar power and in finding other new ways to harness energy expanded at Penn. In December 1994, he had to come up with a business plan for one of his classes and ended up writing a paper titled “The Importance of Being Solar.” The document started with a bit of Musk's wry sense of humor. At the top of the page, he wrote: “The sun will come out tomorrow. . . .”—Little Orphan Annie on the subject of renewable energy. The paper went on to predict a rise in solar power technology based on materials improvements and the construction of large-scale solar plants. Musk delved deeply into how solar cells work and the various compounds that can make them more efficient. He concluded the paper with a drawing of the “power station of the future.” It depicted a pair of giant solar arrays in space—each four kilometers in width—sending their juice down to Earth via microwave beams to a receiving antenna with a seven-kilometer diameter. Musk received a 98 on what his professor deemed a “very interesting and well written paper.”
马斯克对于太阳能领域的长期兴趣和在利用新能源领域的探索始于宾夕法尼亚大学。1994年12月，他要为一门功课撰写一份商业计划书，题为“太阳能的重要性”。论文的开头体现了马斯克略带讽刺的幽默感。在页面的顶部，他写道“太阳明天会升起……——小孤儿安妮论可再生能源”。接下来，这篇论文基于材料的改进和大型太阳能发电站的建设，预测太阳能技术将蓬勃发展。马斯克深入研究了太阳能电池的工作原理和各个部分的有效利用。在论文的结论部分，他描绘了“能源站的未来”。他画了一对巨大的太阳能电池板漂浮在太空——每个4 000米长——通过微波源源不断地向地球发射能量，而用来接收能量的天线直径7 000米。马斯克的论文获得了98分，他的教授认为这是一篇“非常有趣、写得很不错的论文”。
A second paper talked about taking research documents and books and electronically scanning them, performing optical character recognition, and putting all of the information in a single database—much like a mix between today's Google Books and Google Scholar. And a third paper dwelled on another of Musk's favorite topics—ultracapacitors. In the forty-four-page document, Musk is plainly jubilant over the idea of a new form of energy storage that would suit his future pursuits with cars, planes, and rockets. Pointing to the latest research coming out of a lab in Silicon Valley, he wrote: “The end result represents the first new means of storing significant amounts of electrical energy since the development of the battery and fuel cell. Furthermore, because the Ultracapacitor retains the basic properties of a capacitor, it can deliver its energy over one hundred times faster than a battery of equivalent weight, and be recharged just as quickly.” Musk received a 97 for this effort and praise for “a very thorough analysis” with “excellent financials!”
他在第二篇论文中讨论了文献和书籍的电子扫描方法，首先进行光学数据识别，然后把所有信息存入一个单一的数据库——就像今天的谷歌图书(Google Books)和谷歌学术(Google Scholar)的结合体；他的第三篇论文又涉足了马斯克最喜欢的主题——超级电容器。在这份44页的文件里，马斯克对于能源存储的新型方式感到欢欣鼓舞，他认为这些技术未来可以应用到汽车、飞机和火箭上。他的论文中提到了硅谷一家实验室的最新研究，他指出：“最新研究结果表明，这是自电池和燃料电池问世以来，又一种存储大量电能的新方法。此外，因为超级电容器保持了电容器的基本特性，它传送电能的速度可以比同等重量的电池快数百倍，但是充电速度一样快。”马斯克的这篇论文获得了97分，并获誉“分析得非常透彻”且具有“出色的财务知识”。
The remarks from the professor were spot-on. Musk's clear, concise writing is the work of a logician, moving from one point to the next with precision. What truly stood out, though, was Musk's ability to master difficult physics concepts in the midst of actual business plans. Even then, he showed an unusual knack for being able to perceive a path from a scientific advance to a for-profit enterprise.
教授的评价非常中肯。马斯克可以像逻辑学家那样清晰简洁地表达，同时非常准确地从一个要点转移到下一个要点。但马斯克真正突出的地方在于，他将复杂的物理概念与商业计划相结合的能力。不仅如此，他还显示出了将一项科研成果转化为营利性企业的非凡才能。
As Musk began to think more seriously about what he would do after college, he briefly considered getting into the videogame business. He'd been obsessed with video games since his childhood and had held a gaming internship. But he came to see them as not quite grand enough a pursuit. “I really like computer games, but then if I made really great computer games, how much effect would that have on the world,” he said. “It wouldn't have a big effect. Even though I have an intrinsic love of video games, I couldn't bring myself to do that as a career.”
马斯克开始认真思考大学毕业后的选择，他曾考虑过进入视频游戏行业。从童年时代起，他就非常迷恋游戏，并有游戏行业的实习经历。但是，他又觉得这个追求不够宏大。“我真的很喜欢电脑游戏，但即使我做出了非常出色的电脑游戏，这又会给世界带来多大影响呢？”他说，“这不会对世界产生很大的影响，虽然我发自内心地热爱游戏，但我不会把它当作我的职业。”
In interviews, Musk often makes sure that people know he had some truly big ideas on his mind during this period of his life. As he tells it, he would daydream at Queen's and Penn and usually end up with the same conclusion: he viewed the Internet, renewable energy, and space as the three areas that would undergo significant change in the years to come and as the markets where he could make a big impact. He vowed to pursue projects in all three. “I told all my ex-girlfriends and my ex-wife about these ideas,” he said. “It probably sounded like super-crazy talk.”
在接受采访的过程中，马斯克往往要让人们意识到，在他的人生中，有一些真正伟大的想法一直根植在脑海中。正如他所说的，他在皇后大学和宾夕法尼亚大学经常思考未来世界的可能性，最后得出下面这个结论：他认为互联网、可再生能源和太空探索这三个领域正在发生巨变，并且自己可以在这些领域有所作为。他郑重其事地说要同时进军这些领域。“我把这些想法告诉了我的前女友和前妻，”他说，“这听起来就像疯子在胡言乱语。”
Musk's insistence on explaining the early origins of his passion for electric cars, solar energy, and rockets can come off as insecure. It feels as if Musk is trying to shape his life story in a forced way. But for Musk, the distinction between stumbling into something and having intent is important. Musk has long wanted the world to know that he's different from the run-of-the-mill entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. He wasn't just sniffing out trends, and he wasn't consumed by the idea of getting rich. He's been in pursuit of a master plan all along. “I really was thinking about this stuff in college,” he said. “It is not some invented story after the fact. I don't want to seem like a Johnny-come-lately or that I'm chasing a fad or just being opportunistic. I'm not an investor. I like to make technologies real that I think are important for the future and useful in some sort of way.”
马斯克坚持宣扬他的早期理想——关于电动汽车、太阳能和火箭，但很难令人信服。这让人感觉他似乎在以一种强制的方式来塑造自己的人生故事。但是，对于马斯克来说，跌跌撞撞地闯进某个领域和有意为之是有明显区别的。长期以来，他一直想让世界知道，他和硅谷那些作坊式的创业者是不一样的。他并不是在顺应潮流，也不是为了发财，他是在追求一个整体的计划。“我的确在大学期间就开始思考这些事情，”他说，“这不是事后编造出来的故事。我不想被看作一个新手，我不喜欢跟风和投机。我不是投资者。我喜欢把那些对于未来真正重要和有价值的技术，以某些方式变成现实。
[1]当梅耶前往加拿大去寻找住所的时候，14岁的托斯卡趁机把南非的家族房产卖掉了。“她还卖了我的车，并准备把我们的家具也卖掉，”梅耶说，“当我回来问她为什么这么做时，她说，‘别再迟疑了，我们现在就离开这个地方。’”