4 ELON'S FIRST START-UP
4 第一次创业：征服网络世界
马斯克似乎从来没有离开过办公室。他通常就在办公桌旁的睡袋里席地而睡，跟狗没什么两样。“几乎每天都这样，我7点半或者8点到办公室的时候，他还在睡袋里睡觉。”
IN THE SUMMER OF 1994, Musk and his brother, Kimbal, took their first steps toward becoming honest-to-God Americans. They set off on a road trip across the country.
1994年夏天，马斯克和弟弟金巴尔迈出了美国梦的第一步。他们开启了一场横跨美国的旅行。
Kimbal had been working as a franchisee for College Pro Painters and done well for himself, running what amounted to a small business. He sold off his part of the franchise and pooled the money with what Musk had on hand to buy a beat-up 1970s BMW 320i. The brothers began their trip near San Francisco in August, as temperatures in California soared. The first part of the drive took them down to Needles, a city in the Mojave Desert. There they experienced the sweaty thrill of 120-degree weather in a car with no air-conditioning and learned to love pit stops at Carl's Jr. burger joints, where they spent hours recuperating in the cold.
金巴尔当时是“大学专业画家”画室的承销商，而且做得还不错，算得上是一家小型企业。他卖掉了专营权的一部分，再加上马斯克手头的一些钱，买了一辆生产于20世纪70年代的宝马320i(BMW320i)。兄弟二人在8月开始了一段游历旧金山周边的旅程，那时候加利福尼亚的天气持续升温。他们第一站到了努得，这是莫哈韦沙漠旁边的一个城市。由于车里没有空调，在近120华氏度的高温天气下，他们汗流浃背，一路上不得不把Car Jr.(美国快餐连锁店)当作临时休息区，一待就是好几个小时。
The trip provided plenty of time for your typical twenty-something hijinks and raging capitalist daydreaming. The Web had just started to become accessible to the public thanks to the rise of directory sites like Yahoo! and tools like Netscape's browser. The brothers were tuned in to the Internet and thought they might like to start a company together doing something on the Web. From California to Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Illinois, they took turns driving, brainstorming, and talking shit before heading back east to get Musk to school that fall.
他们一路上嬉笑打闹，和许多20岁的年轻人没什么两样，但这次旅行让他们有足够的时间去做一场资本家的疯狂白日梦。万维网开始向公众开放，这要感谢像雅虎这样的门户网站以及像网景(Netscape)这样的工具浏览器。马斯克兄弟开始将目光转向互联网，思考如何成立一家公司在互联网上做一点事情。从加利福尼亚到科罗拉多，再到怀俄明、南达科和伊利诺伊，马斯克兄弟轮流开车，其间谈天说地，不断进行头脑风暴。他们就这样一路向东开，好让马斯克回到学校迎接秋季开学。
The best idea to arise from the journey was an online network for doctors. This wasn't meant to be something as ambitious as electronic health records but more of a system for physicians to exchange information and collaborate. “It seemed like the medical industry was one that could be disrupted,” Kimbal said. “I went to work on a business plan and the sales and marketing side of it later, but it didn't fly. We didn't love it.”
他们在旅行过程中想到的最好的点子是为医生建立一个网站。这并不是什么雄心勃勃的电子健康档案计划，而是一个供医生交换信息和协作的系统。“医疗行业似乎是一个可以被颠覆的行业，”金巴尔说，“我制订了一份商业计划书，后来还制订了销售和营销计划书，但这个项目最终没有成行。因为我们后来对这个项目没兴趣了。”
Musk had spent the earlier part of that summer in Silicon Valley, holding down a pair of internships. By day, he worked at Pinnacle Research Institute. Based in Los Gatos, Pinnacle was a much-ballyhooed start-up with a team of scientists exploring ways in which ultracapacitors could be used as a revolutionary fuel source in electric and hybrid vehicles. The work also veered—at least conceptually—into more bizarre territory. Musk could talk at length about how ultracapacitors might be used to build laser-based sidearms in the tradition of Star Wars and just about any other futuristic film. The laser guns would release rounds of enormous energy, and then the shooter would replace an ultracapacitor at the base of the gun, much like swapping out a clip of bullets, and start blasting away again. Ultracapacitors also looked promising as the power supplies for missiles. They were more resilient than batteries under the mechanical stresses of a launch and would hold a more consistent charge over long periods of time. Musk fell in love with the work at Pinnacle and began using it as the basis for some of his business plan experiments at Penn and for his industrialist fantasies.
刚刚进入暑期，马斯克便在硅谷找了几份实习生的工作。白天的时候，他在位于洛斯加托斯的品尼高研究所实习。这家创业公司被媒体大肆吹捧，它的一群科学家正在研制超级电容器，可以作为电动车和混合动力汽车的革命性燃料来源。马斯克的工作后来发生变化了——至少在概念上——转向了更加异乎寻常的领域。马斯克大谈特谈如何用超级电容器制作电影《星球大战》中的那些激光手臂，以及如何将其应用在其他的未来派电影中。这些激光枪可以释放巨大的能量波，枪手可以在枪的底部更换超级电容器，就像更换弹匣一样，然后继续发起攻击。超级电容器在未来也有望能给导弹提供能量。发射导弹时会产生机械压力，在这种情况下，超级电容器比电池更稳定，可以长时间稳定地储存电荷。马斯克爱上了在品尼高的这份工作，并开始在品尼高以超级电容器为基础展开了一系列商业试验，做着他的实业家白日梦。
In the evenings, Musk headed to Rocket Science Games, a start-up based in Palo Alto that wanted to create the most advanced video games ever made by moving them off cartridges and onto CDs that could hold more information. The CDs would in theory allow them to bring Hollywood-style storytelling and production quality to the games. A team of budding all-stars who were a mix of engineers and film people was assembled to pull off the work. Tony Fadell, who would later drive much of the development of both the iPod and iPhone at Apple, worked at Rocket Science, as did the guys who developed the QuickTime multimedia software for Apple. They also had people who worked on the original Star Wars effects at Industrial Light & Magic and some who did games at LucasArts Entertainment. Rocket Science gave Musk a flavor for what Silicon Valley had to offer both from a talent and culture perspective. There were people working at the office twenty-four hours a day, and they didn't think it at all odd that Musk would turn up around 5 P.M. every evening to start his second job. “We brought him in to write some very menial low-level code,” said Peter Barrett, an Australian engineer who helped start the company. “He was completely unflappable. After a short while, I don't think anyone was giving him any direction, and he ended up making what he wanted to make.”
到了晚上，马斯克就来到位于帕洛阿尔托的火箭科学游戏公司(Rocket Science Games)。这是一家创业公司，致力于打造世界上最先进的视频游戏，并用光盘代替卡带，这样便可以存储更多信息。从理论上来说，如果采用光盘，他们可以在游戏中保留好莱坞式的叙事方式，并能保证产品的品质。而且他们的全明星团队由一群工程师和电影人组成，并且已经崭露头角。托尼·法德尔当时就在火箭科学游戏公司工作。在苹果公司任职期间，他推动了iPod和iPhone的研发工作。这支团队中的某些成员日后帮助苹果开发了多媒体软件QuickTime(一款具有强大的多媒体技术的内置媒体播放器)。他们还招来了工业光魔公司(Industri Lig & Magic)为电影《星球大战》制作特效的那群人，以及在卢卡斯娱乐公 Luc Ar Entertainment)开发游戏的一批人。在火箭科学游戏公司的实习经历，让马斯克从人才和文化的角度闻到了硅谷的真实气息。这里一天24小时都有人在工作，而且马斯克每天下午5点钟才到公司，开始他的第二份暑期工作，在其他人看来，这一点也不奇怪。“我们雇他是为了让他写一些无足轻重的基础代码，”公司早期的工程师彼得·巴雷特(Pet Barrett)说道，“他的思维很清晰，没过多久，我发现他已经不再需要别人的指导，最后他开始独立做他想做的任何项目。”
Specifically, Musk had been asked to write the drivers that would let joysticks and mice communicate with various computers and games. Drivers are the same types of annoying files that you have to install to get a printer or camera working with a home computer—true grunt work. A self-taught programmer, Musk fancied himself quite good at coding and assigned himself to more ambitious jobs. “I was basically trying to figure out how you could multitask stuff, so you could read video from a CD, while running a game at the same time,” Musk said. “At the time, you could do one or the other. It was this complicated bit of assembly programming.” Complicated indeed. Musk had to issue commands that spoke directly to a computer's main microprocessor and fiddled with the most basic functions that made the machine work. Bruce Leak, the former lead engineer behind Apple's QuickTime, had overseen the hiring of Musk and marveled at his ability to pull all-nighters. “He had boundless energy,” Leak said. “Kids these days have no idea about hardware or how stuff works, but he had a PC hacker background and was not afraid to just go figure things out.”
具体来说，他们要求马斯克写一些驱动程序，使手柄和鼠标适用于各种计算机及游戏。与那些将打印机或照相机和家用计算机连接起来的恼人程序一样，编写驱动程序是一项非常繁重的工作。作为一个自学成才的程序员，马斯克陶醉于自己优秀的编程能力，于是公司分配给他一些难度更大的工作。“我试图找到执行多重任务的方法，你可以从光盘读取视频资料，同时还可以运行游戏，”马斯克说，“在同一时间，你需要在做这个或者做那个之间做出选择，这就是程序设计的复杂之处。”马斯克必须直接向计算机的主微处理器发出指令，调试那些最基本的功能，以便让机器运行。苹果公司QuickTime项目的前首席工程师布鲁斯·里克(Bruce Leak)曾经负责招聘马斯克，他惊叹于马斯克通宵工作的能力。“他精力充沛，”里克说，“那时候的孩子不懂硬件是如何运作的，但他有着个人计算机黑客背景，从来不畏惧解决问题。”
Musk found in Silicon Valley a wealth of the opportunity he'd been seeking and a place equal to his ambitions. He would return two summers in a row and then bolt west permanently after graduating with dual degrees from Penn. He initially intended to pursue a doctorate in materials science and physics at Stanford and to advance the work he'd done at Pinnacle on ultracapacitors. As the story goes, Musk dropped out of Stanford after two days, finding the Internet's call irresistible. He talked Kimbal into moving to Silicon Valley as well, so they could conquer the Web together.
马斯克发现，硅谷就是他一直在寻找的乐土，这里遍地都是机会，能够实现他的野心。他连续两年都在夏天回到这里，在宾夕法尼亚大学拿到双学位后，便一路向西来到这里并永久定居下来。他最初打算在斯坦福大学攻读材料科学和物理学博士学位，希望能够推进他在品尼高从事的关于超级电容器的工作。但随着故事的发展，马斯克在斯坦福大学待了两天就退学了，因为他无法抗拒互联网的诱惑。他劝说金巴尔也搬到硅谷，这样他们就可以一起征服网络世界。
The first inklings of a viable Internet business had come to Musk during his internships. A salesperson from the Yellow Pages had come into one of the start-up offices. He tried to sell the idea of an online listing to complement the regular listing a company would have in the big, fat Yellow Pages book. The salesman struggled with his pitch and clearly had little grasp of what the Internet actually was or how someone would find a business on it. The flimsy pitch got Musk thinking, and he reached out to Kimbal, talking up the idea of helping businesses get online for the first time.
马斯克第一个可行的互联网项目其实在实习阶段就已经有了头绪。有一次，一个黄页推销员来到创业者的办公室，他试图向人们推销网络分类的点子，并说这是厚重的传统黄页的补充。这个推销员的说法很难打动人，并且对于互联网本质以及人们如何利用互联网从事商业活动的表述也不得要领。但这些站不住脚的说辞却引发了马斯克思考，他找到金巴尔，第一次和他谈起了帮助企业上网的想法。
“Elon said, ‘These guys don't know what they are talking about. Maybe this is something we can do,'” Kimbal said. This was 1995, and the brothers were about to form Global Link Information Network, a start-up that would eventually be renamed Zip2. (For details on the controversy surrounding Zip2's founding and Musk's academic record, see Appendix 1.)
“埃隆说，‘这些家伙并不知道自己在说什么，也许这就是我们可以做的。’”金巴尔说。此时正值1995年，兄弟俩正着手建立名为Global Link的信息网站，这家创业公司最终更名为Zip2。(有关围绕Zip2展开的争论以及马斯克的学习成绩等细节见附录1。)
The Zip2 idea was ingenious. Few small businesses in 1995 understood the ramifications of the Internet. They had little idea how to get on it and didn't really see the value in creating a website for their business or even in having a Yellow Pages–like listing online.
Zip2这个点子有点异想天开。1995年，了解互联网的小企业非常少。他们完全不知道如何登录互联网，并且也不知道互联网可以为他们的企业创造价值，甚至连像黄页一样把信息上传到互联网的想法都没有。
Musk and his brother hoped to convince restaurants, clothing shops, hairdressers, and the like that the time had come for them to make their presence known to the Web-surfing public. Zip2 would create a searchable directory of businesses and tie this into maps. Musk often explained the concept through pizza, saying that everyone deserved the right to know the location of their closest pizza parlor and the turn-by-turn directions to get there. This may seem obvious today—think Yelp meets Google Maps—but back then, not even stoners had dreamed up such a service.
马斯克和弟弟希望说服餐馆、服装店和理发店之类的小企业将自己的业务信息展示在互联网上，让公众通过互联网知道他们的存在。Zip2网站会给这些企业创建一个可搜索的目录，并生成相应的地图。马斯克用比萨店来解释这个概念，他说每个人都应该知道离自己最近的比萨店的位置，并且应该能够获取到达那里的详细信息。这在今天看起来可能很平常——比如Yelp(点评网站)和Google Map(谷歌地图)的结合——但是在当时，甚至连吸了毒品的人都想象不出这种服务。
The Musk brothers brought Zip2 to life at 430 Sherman Avenue in Palo Alto. They rented a studio-apartment-sized office—twenty feet by thirty feet—and acquired some basic furniture. The three-story building had its quirks. There were no elevators, and the toilets often backed up. “It was literally a shitty place to work,” said an early employee. To get a fast Internet connection, Musk struck a deal with Ray Girouard, an entrepreneur who ran an Internet service provider operation from the floor below the Zip2 offices. According to Girouard, Musk drilled a hole in the drywall near the Zip2 door and then strung an Ethernet cable down the stairwell to the ISP. “They were slow to pay a couple of times but never stiffed me on the bill,” Girouard said.
马斯克兄弟在帕洛阿尔托的谢尔曼街430号成立了Zip2公司。他们租了一间公寓大小的办公室—20英尺长、30英尺宽，并购置了一些简单的家具。这座三层小楼有些缺点。没有电梯，马桶经常坏掉。“这是一个令人恶心的工作场所，”一名早期员工说。为了能够接入高速的互联网，马斯克和互联网服务供应商雷·吉鲁阿尔(Ray Girouard)达成了一项协议。吉鲁阿尔是一名创业者，他就在Zip2楼下运营着一家互联网服务公司。据吉鲁阿尔回忆，马斯克在Zip2公司门旁边的石膏板上钻了一个洞，然后沿着楼梯将电缆接到网络服务供应商那里。
Musk did all of the original coding behind the service himself, while the more amiable Kimbal looked to ramp up the door-to-door sales operation. Musk had acquired a cheap license to a database of business listings in the Bay Area that would give a business's name and its address. He then contacted Navteq, a company that had spent hundreds of millions of dollars to create digital maps and directions that could be used in early GPS navigation-style devices, and struck a masterful bargain. “We called them up, and they gave us the technology for free,” said Kimbal. Musk merged the two databases together to get a rudimentary system up and running.
“虽然他们有几次迟交了账单，但从来没有赖账。”吉鲁阿尔说。马斯克独立完成了后台的所有原始代码，而更有亲和力的金巴尔则负责挨家挨户推销。马斯克以低廉的价格获得了一个湾区企业数据库的访问许可证，这个数据库提供了企业的名称和地址。然后，他打电话给综合电子地图信息供应商NAVTEQ，这家公司花了几百万美元打造数字地图和导航服务，可用于早期类似于GPS(全球定位系统)的设备。马斯克和他们达成了一项重要协议。“我们打电话给他们，他们愿意免费把技术给我们使用。”金巴尔说。马斯克把两个数据库合并在一起，一个原始的系统就这样启动并运行起来了。
Over time, Zip2's engineers had to augment this initial data haul with more maps to cover areas outside of major metropolitan areas and to build custom turn-by-turn directions that would look good and work well on a home computer.
随着时间的推移，Zip2的工程师们必须扩大原始数据库，将更多的地图纳入其中，覆盖了主要城市群以外的地区，提供自定义的导航服务，并能在家用计算机上运行良好。
Errol Musk gave his sons $28,000 to help them through this period, but they were more or less broke after getting the office space, licensing software, and buying some equipment. For the first three months of Zip2's life, Musk and his brother lived at the office. They had a small closet where they kept their clothes and would shower at the YMCA. “Sometimes we ate four meals a day at Jack in the Box,” Kimbal said. “It was open twenty-four hours, which suited our work schedule. I got a smoothie one time, and there was something in it. I just pulled it out and kept drinking. I haven't been able to eat there since, but I can still recite their menu.”
埃罗尔·马斯克资助了他的两个儿子28 000美元，帮助他们度过创业初期，在租用办公室、获得软件许可以及购买设备之后，他们手中的钱已经所剩无几了。在Zip2成立后的前三个月，马斯克和弟弟住在办公室里。他们有一个小衣柜可以存放换洗的衣物，然后到基督教青年会洗澡。“有时候，我们一日四餐都在Ja t Box(美国连锁快餐店)吃，”金巴尔说，“快餐店24小时营业，适合我们的作息时间。有一次，我点了一杯冰沙，发现里面有脏东西。但我把脏东西取了出来并继续把冰沙喝完。从那时候起，我再也不敢去那里用餐了，但是我仍然能背出它的菜单。”
Next, the brothers rented a two-bedroom apartment. They didn't have the money or the inclination to get furniture. So there were just a couple of mattresses on the floor. Musk somehow managed to convince a young South Korean engineer to come work at Zip2 as an intern in exchange for room and board. “This poor kid thought he was coming over for a job at a big company,” Kimbal said. “He ended up living with us and had no idea what he was getting into.” One day, the intern drove the Musks' battered BMW 320i to work, and a wheel came off en route. The axle dug into the street at the intersection of Page Mill Road and El Camino Real, and the groove it carved out remained visible for years.
接下来，兄弟俩租了一套两居室的公寓。他们没有钱或者不打算去购买家具。所以在地板上放了两张床垫。马斯克承诺提供免费住宿，总算说服了一个年轻的韩国工程师来Zip2做实习生。“这个可怜的孩子还以为他在一家大公司找到了一份工作，”金巴尔说，“他最后和我们住在一起，对于发生了什么全然不知。”有一天，这个实习生开着马斯克破旧的宝马320i去上班，一个车轮在行驶途中掉了出来，车轴在Pa Mill路和 Cami Real路交叉口的路面划出一道凹槽，那个凹槽几年后仍然清晰可见。
Zip2 may have been a go-go Internet enterprise aimed at the Information Age, but getting it off the ground required old-fashioned door-to-door salesmanship. Businesses needed to be persuaded of the Web's benefits and charmed into paying for the unknown. In late 1995, the Musk brothers began making their first hires and assembling a motley sales team. Jeff Heilman, a free-spirited twenty-year-old trying to figure out what to do with his life, arrived as one of Zip2's first recruits. He'd been watching TV late one night with his dad and seen a Web address printed at the bottom of the screen during a commercial. “It was for something dot-com,” Heilman said. “I remember sitting there and asking my dad what we were looking at. He said he didn't know, either. That's when I realized I had to go find me some Internet.” Heilman spent a couple of weeks trying to chat up people who could explain the Internet to him and then stumbled on a two-by-two-inch Zip2 job listing in the San Jose Mercury News.
Zip2是一家瞄准了信息时代的互联网公司，但它也需要接地气、传统的挨家挨户上门式推销。推销员需要向企业宣传网络的优势，并劝说企业付费购买那些对他们而言很陌生的服务。1995年年末，马斯克兄弟开始进行第一次招聘，组建了一支杂牌的销售团队。二十多岁的杰夫·海尔曼(Jeff Heilman)是一个自由奔放的年轻人，当时正在试图弄清楚人生的意义。他成为Zip2第一批员工中的一员。一天深夜，他和爸爸一起看电视，他看见在屏幕上广告的底部有一行网址。“那是一个.com之类的东西，”海尔曼说，“我记得我坐在那儿，问父亲这是什么，他说他也不知道。这时候我意识到我必须去了解一下互联网了。”海尔曼花了好几周的时间与人聊天，想让他们解释一下什么是互联网。之后，他就在《圣何塞水星报》(San Jose Mercury News)上看到了一则占有2英寸×2英寸版面的招聘广告。
“Internet Sales Apply Here!” it read, and Heilman got the gig. A handful of other salespeople joined him and worked for commissions.
“诚征互联网销售人员！”当海尔曼读这里时，他知道机会来了。他和其他几个销售人员一起加入了这家公司，以赚取佣金。
Musk never seemed to leave the office. He slept, not unlike a dog, on a beanbag next to his desk. “Almost every day, I'd come in at seven thirty or eight A.M., and he'd be asleep right there on that bag,” Heilman said. “Maybe he showered on the weekends. I don't know.” Musk asked those first employees of Zip2 to give him a kick when they arrived, and he'd wake up and get back to work. While Musk did his possessed coder thing, Kimbal became the rah-rah sales leader. “Kimbal was the eternal optimist, and he was very, very uplifting,” Heilman said. “I had never met anyone quite like him.” Kimbal sent Heilman to the high-end Stanford shopping mall and to University Avenue, the main drag in Palo Alto, to coax retailers into signing up with Zip2, explaining that a sponsored listing would send a company to the top of search results. The big problem, of course, was that no one was buying. Week after week, Heilman knocked on doors and returned to the office with very little to report in the way of good news. The nicest responses came from the people who told Heilman that advertising on the Internet sounded like the dumbest thing they had ever heard of. Most often, the shop owners just told Heilman to leave and stop bothering them. When lunchtime came around, the Musks would reach into a cigar box where they kept some cash, take Heilman out, and get the depressing status reports on the sales.
马斯克似乎从来没有离开过办公室。他通常就在办公桌旁的睡袋里席地而睡，跟狗没什么两样。“几乎每天都这样，我7点半或者8点到办公室的时候，他还在睡袋里睡觉，”海尔曼说，“或许他在周末的时候洗了澡吧，我不知道。”马斯克向Zip的第一批员工提出了一个要求：谁到了公司就把他踢醒，然后他再继续工作。当马斯克中邪似的写代码的时候，金巴尔成了销售团队的领头羊。“金巴尔一直是个乐天派，非常能鼓舞人心，”海尔曼说，“我从没见过像他那样的人。”金巴尔把海尔曼派到高档的斯坦福购物中心和大学路——这里是帕洛阿尔托人流聚集的地方，去劝说零售商们和Zip2合作，向他们解释说这样可以让公司名字出现在搜索结果的前列。最大的问题，当然是没有人吃这一套。一周接一周，海尔曼上门拜访，然后回到办公室，几乎没有好消息带回来。海尔曼得到的最好的回答是，人们对他说，互联网广告是他们听过的最傻的事情。最常见的情况是，店主直接让海尔曼离开，不要再打扰他们。午餐时间到了，马斯克兄弟就打开一个雪茄盒，拿出一些现金，带着海尔曼出门吃饭，听取令人郁闷的销售报告。
Craig Mohr, another early employee, gave up his job selling real estate to hawk Zip2's service. He decided to court auto dealerships because they usually spent lots of money on advertising. He told them about Zip2's main website—www.totalinfo.com—and tried to convince them that demand was high to get a listing like www.totalinfo.com/toyotaofsiliconvalley. The service did not always work when Mohr demonstrated it or it would load very slowly, as was common back then. This forced him to talk the customers into imagining Zip2's potential. “One day I came back with about nine hundred dollars in checks,” Mohr said. “I walked into the office and asked the guys what they wanted me to do with the money. Elon stopped pounding his keyboard, leaned out from behind his monitor, and said, ‘No way, you've got money.'”
克雷格·莫尔(Craig Mohr)是另一名早期员工，他放弃了房地产销售的工作，全力推广Zip2服务。他决定寻求汽车经销商的支持，因为他们总是会花很多钱做广告。他向这些汽车经销商谈及Zip2的官方网站——www.totalinfo.com，并试图使他们确信诸如www.totalinfo.com/toyotaofsiliconvalley这类线上商户目录的需求会很大。但这一招儿并不是总是奏效，因为网站加载速度常常很慢，这令莫尔不得不说服客户展望一下Zip2的前景和潜力。“有一天，我带着一张900美元的支票回来，”莫尔说道，“我走进办公室，问他们这笔钱该怎么处理。埃隆敲击键盘的手停了下来，从显示器后面探出身子说道，‘你竟然赚到钱了！这不可能。’”
What kept the employees' spirits up were the continuous improvements Musk made with the Zip2 software. The service had morphed from a proof-of-concept to an actual product that could be used and demoed. Ever marketing savvy, the Musk brothers tried to make their Web service seem more important by giving it an imposing physical body. Musk built a huge case around a standard PC and lugged the unit onto a base with wheels. When prospective investors would come by, Musk would put on a show and roll this massive machine out so that it appeared like Zip2 ran inside of a mini-supercomputer. “The investors thought that was impressive,” Kimbal said. Heilman also noticed that the investors bought into Musk's slavish devotion to the company. “Even then, as essentially a college kid with zits, Elon had this drive that this thing—whatever it was—had to get done and that if he didn't do it, he'd miss his shot,” Heilman said. “I think that's what the VCs saw—that he was willing to stake his existence on building out this platform.” Musk actually said as much to one venture capitalist, informing him, “My mentality is that of a samurai. I would rather commit seppuku than fail.”
马斯克对于Zip2软件的持续改进令员工士气高涨。这项服务已经从概念发展成可以用来演示的真实产品。相比于精明的营销策略，马斯克兄弟更加看重的是，赋予他们的产品一个物质实体，使其网络服务显得更具价值。马斯克做了一个普通个人计算机大小的箱子，把它扣在软件上，还在箱子下面安装了轮子。当潜在投资人造访时，马斯克会为他们演示，把庞大的机器外壳打开，露出产品本身，就好像Zip2在一台微型超级计算机里面运行一样。金巴尔说，“投资人对此印象深刻。”海尔曼也注意到，投资人对于马斯克的无私奉献精神表示认同。“当他还是一个满脸长着青春痘的大学生时，埃隆就已热情满满——就好像任何事情他都要全力以赴，如果没有全力以赴，就会错失良机，”海尔曼说，“我认为风险投资人都看在眼里——他愿意赌上身家性命去建立这个平台。”实际上，马斯克对一个风险投资人说过类似的话，他说，“我具有武士精神。我宁愿切腹，也不要失败。”
Early on in the Zip2 venture, Musk acquired an important confidant, who tempered some of these more dramatic impulses. Greg Kouri, a Canadian businessman in his mid-thirties, had met the Musks in Toronto and bought into the early Zip2 brainstorming. The boys had showed up at his door one morning to inform Kouri that they intended to head to California to give the business a shot. Still in his red bathrobe, Kouri went back into the house, dug around for a couple of minutes, and came back with a wad of $6,000. In early 1996, he moved to California and joined Zip2 as a cofounder.
在Zip2创业早期，马斯克收获了一位重要的盟友，他的加盟更具戏剧性。35岁的格雷格·科里(Greg Kouri)是一位加拿大商人，与马斯克兄弟相识于多伦多，并参加了Zip2早期的头脑风暴。一天早晨，两个男孩儿出现在他家门口，然后说他们要前往加州，给这个行业重重一击。科里当时穿着一件红色浴袍，他听完后回到屋里，翻箱倒柜了几分钟，出来的时候手里握着一叠总6 000美元的钞票。1996年年初，他搬到加州，成为Zip2的联合创始人。
Kouri, who had done a number of real estate deals in the past and had actual business experience and skills at reading people, served as the adult supervision at Zip2. The Canadian had a knack for calming Musk and ended up becoming something of a mentor. “Really smart people sometimes don't understand that not everyone can keep up with them or go as fast,” said Derek Proudian, a venture capitalist who would become Zip2's chief executive officer. “Greg is one of the few people that Elon would listen to and had a way of putting things in context for him.” Kouri also used to referee fistfights between Elon and Kimbal, in the middle of the office.
科里过去从事房地产交易，在做生意方面有实际经验，并且具有阅人的能力。他在Zip2的职位相当于“家长督导”。这个加拿大人具有娴熟的技巧，可以让马斯克平静下来，后来渐渐扮演起了他的导师角色。“有时候，真正的智者并不能理解为什么不是所有人都能跟上他们的思维和脚步，”德里克·普罗蒂昂(Derek Proudian)说，他是一名风险投资人，后来成为Zip2的CEO，“格雷格是马斯克愿意倾听并委以重任的少数人之一。”科里还曾经在马斯克和金巴尔打架时充当调解员，当时他们就在办公室的中央挥拳相向。
“I don't get in fights with anyone else, but Elon and I don't have the ability to reconcile a vision other than our own,” Kimbal said. During a particularly nasty scrap over a business decision, Elon ripped some skin off his fist and had to go get a tetanus shot. Kouri put an end to the fights after that. (Kouri died of a heart attack in 2012 at the age of fifty-one, having made a fortune investing in Musk's companies. Musk attended his funeral. “We owe him a lot,” said Kimbal.)
“我从来不跟别人打架，但是埃隆和我都不具备说服对方接受自己观点的能力。”金巴尔说。有一次，两人在做商业决定的时候大打出手，马斯克的拳头甚至擦破皮了，不得不去打破伤风针。最后还是科里出来收拾了残局。(科里因为投资马斯克的公司发了财。2012年，科里死于心脏病，享年51岁。马斯克出席了他的葬礼。“我们对他深表感谢。”金巴尔说。)
In early 1996, Zip2 underwent a massive change. The venture capital firm Mohr Davidow Ventures had caught wind of a couple of South African boys trying to make a Yellow Pages for the Internet and met with the brothers. Musk, while raw in his presentation skills, pitched the company well enough, and the investors came away impressed with his energy. Mohr Davidow invested $3 million into the company.* With these funds in hand, the company officially changed its name from Global Link to Zip2—the idea being zip to here, zip to there—moved to a larger office at 390 Cambridge Avenue in Palo Alto, and began hiring talented engineers. Zip2 also shifted its business strategy. At the time, the company had built one of the best direction systems on the Web. Zip2 would advance this technology and take it from focusing just on the Bay Area to having a national scope. The company's main focus, however, would be an altogether new play. Instead of selling its service door-to-door, Zip2 would create a software package that could be sold to newspapers, which would in turn build their own directories for real estate, auto dealers, and classifieds. The newspapers were late understanding how the Internet would impact their businesses, and Zip2's software would give them a quick way of getting online without needing to develop all their own technology from scratch. For its part, Zip2 could chase bigger prey and get a cut of a nationwide network of listings.
1996年年初，Zip2经历了一场巨变。风险投资公司莫尔达维多夫(Mohr Davidow)伺机而动，看准了这两个南非男孩儿打算做互联网黄页的野心，便约见了兄弟俩。马斯克尽管在演讲技巧上还有些生疏，但已经足够打动这家公司，投资人对于马斯克展现出来的干劲儿印象深刻。莫尔达维多夫最后给这家公司投资了300万美元。[1]拿到投资后，公司正式从Glob Link更名为Zip2，快速移动到这里、快速移动到那里的意思。接下来他们搬到了位于帕洛阿尔托剑桥路390号的一个大办公室，并且开始招募有才华的工程师。Zip2还转变了商业策略。在当时，公司已经开发了互联网上最好的商户目录系统之一。Zip2团队打算升级技术，把只集中于硅谷的服务扩展到全美。但公司未来将走出一条全新的发展之路，相比于之前挨家挨户地推销，Zip2团队开发了一个软件包，将其出售给报业公司，报业公司可以反过来创建自己的房地产商、汽车经销商和各种分类广告目录。那些报业公司虽然后知后觉，但已经开始意识到互联网如何影响他们的业务，而Zip2公司的软件可以让他们不必自己开发技术，即可迅速将业务接入互联网。在这个领域，Zip2可以追捕更大的猎物，并在覆盖全球的分类网络业务中分得一杯羹。
This transition of the business model and the company's makeup would be a seminal moment in Musk's life. The venture capitalists pushed Musk into the role of chief technology officer and hired Rich Sorkin as the company's CEO. Sorkin had worked at Creative Labs, a maker of audio equipment, and run the business development group at the company, where he steered a number of investments in Internet start-ups. Zip2's investors saw him as experienced and clued in to the Web. While Musk agreed to the arrangement, he came to resent giving up control of Zip2. “Probably the biggest regret the whole time I worked with him was that he had made a deal with the devil with Mohr Davidow,” said Jim Ambras, the vice president of engineering at Zip2. “Elon didn't have any operational responsibilities, and he wanted to be CEO.”
商业模式和公司结构发生转变之际，是马斯克人生当中一个开创性的时刻。风险投资人逼迫马斯克担任首席技术官这一角色，并雇用理查·索尔金(Rich Sorkin)担任公司的CEO。索尔金曾供职于创新实验室(Creative Labs)。这是一家音响设备制造商，他在公司里领导业务拓展团队，掌管面向互联网初创企业的诸多投资项目。Zip2的投资人认为索尔金经验丰富并且了解互联网。尽管马斯克与投资人就这个安排达成了共识，但他对于自己放弃了对Zip2的控制权感到有些懊悔。“我与他共事那段时期最遗憾的事情也许就是，他和莫尔达维多夫达成了这项魔鬼交易，”Zip2时任工程副总裁吉姆·阿布拉斯(Jim Ambras)说，“埃隆没有任何运营职务，但他想当CEO。”
Ambras had worked at Hewlett-Packard Labs and Silicon Graphics Inc. and exemplified the high-caliber talent Zip2 brought on after the first wave of money arrived. Silicon Graphics, a maker of high-end computers beloved by Hollywood, was the flashiest company of its day and had hoarded the elite geeks of Silicon Valley. And yet Ambras used the promise of Internet riches to poach a team of SGI's smartest engineers over to Zip2. “Our attorneys got a letter from SGI saying that we were cherry-picking the very best guys,” Ambras said. “Elon thought that was fantastic.”
阿布拉斯曾任职于惠普实验室和硅图公司(Silicon Graphics Inc.)，他也是第一轮投资到位后Zip2引进的高素质人才典范。硅图公司是好莱坞钟爱的高端计算机制造商，作为当时最耀眼的明星公司，它在当时拥有一大批硅谷精英极客。然而，阿布拉斯却以互联网财富为诱饵，从硅图为Zip2挖来了一批才华横溢的工程师。“我们的律师收到一封来自硅图公司的信，说我们是最会采摘樱桃的家伙，”阿布拉斯说，“埃隆觉得这实在太棒了。”
While Musk had exceled as a self-taught coder, his skills weren't nearly as polished as those of the new hires. They took one look at Zip2's code and began rewriting the vast majority of the software. Musk bristled at some of their changes, but the computer scientists needed just a fraction of the lines of code that Musk used to get their jobs done. They had a knack for dividing software projects into chunks that could be altered and refined whereas Musk fell into the classic self-taught coder trap of writing what developers call hairballs—big, monolithic hunks of code that could go berserk for mysterious reasons. The engineers also brought a more refined working structure and realistic deadlines to the engineering group. This was a welcome change from Musk's approach, which had been to set overly optimistic deadlines and then try to get engineers to work nonstop for days on end to meet the goals. “If you asked Elon how long it would take to do something, there was never anything in his mind that would take more than an hour,” Ambras said. “We came to interpret an hour as really taking a day or two and if Elon ever did say something would take a day, we allowed for a week or two weeks.”
虽然马斯克是一名自学成才的天才程序员，但是他的技术远没有这些新员工熟练。他们看了一眼Zip2的代码，就决定重新改写软件的大部分内容。马斯克对其中一些改动恼怒不已，但这些计算机科学家只需要一小部分代码便可完成目标，远远少于马斯克的。他们习惯于把软件项目划分成模块，从而可以对各个部分进行修改和细化。而马斯克则陷入了自学成才型程序员的经典陷阱，写了很多被开发者称为“毛球”(hairballs)的代码——这些代码庞杂繁复且乱作一团，很容易导致程序因为某些神秘原因而崩溃。这些工程师的到来，也改善了工程团队的工作结构，设定了切实可行的最后期限。马斯克认为这是一个可喜的变化，因为之前他设定的最后期限总是过于乐观，导致工程师们必须不分昼夜地赶工才能实现目标。“如果你问埃隆做某件事情要多久，在他看来，没有任何一件事情会超过一个小时，”阿布拉斯说，“我们的解读是，在他看来需要一小时完成的事情，实际上需要一两天的时间；而如果埃隆说某件事要用一天的时间，那么我们通常会留出一到两周的时间。”
Starting Zip2 and watching it grow imbued Musk with self-confidence. Terence Beney, one of Musk's high school friends, came to California for a visit and noticed the change in Musk's character right away. He watched Musk confront a nasty landlord who had been giving his mother, who was renting an apartment in town, a hard time. “He said, ‘If you're going to bully someone, bully me.' It was startling to see him take over the situation. The last time I had seen him he was this geeky, awkward kid who would sometimes lose his temper. He was the kid you would pick on to get a response. Now he was confident and in control.” Musk also began consciously trying to manage his criticism of others. “Elon is not someone who would say, ‘I feel you. I see your point of view,'” said Justine. “Because he doesn't have that ‘I feel you' dimension there were things that seemed obvious to other people that weren't that obvious to him. He had to learn that a twenty-something-year-old shouldn't really shoot down the plans of older, senior people and point out everything wrong with them. He learned to modify his behavior in certain ways. I just think he comes at the world through strategy and intellect.” The personality tweaks worked with varying degrees of success. Musk still tended to drive the young engineers mad with his work demands and blunt criticism. “I remember being in a meeting once brainstorming about a new product—a new-car site,” said Doris Downes, the creative director at Zip2. “Someone complained about a technical change that we wanted being impossible. Elon turned and said, ‘I don't really give a damn what you think,' and walked out of the meeting. For Elon, the word no does not exist, and he expects that attitude from everyone around him.” Periodically, Musk let loose on the more senior executives as well. “You would see people come out of the meetings with this disgusted look on their face,” Mohr, the salesman, said. “You don't get to where Elon is now by always being a nice guy, and he was just so driven and sure of himself.”
马斯克创立了Zip2并看着它一步步成长起来，这让他变得自信了。高中时的朋友特伦斯·本勒(Terence Beney)来加州探望他，马上就注意到马斯克的性格变了。他看到了马斯克如何对付一个令人讨厌的房东。当时马斯克的母亲在城里租了一间公寓，而那个房东却故意找麻烦。“他说，‘如果你一定要找麻烦，就冲我来。’从那时起，他渐渐具备了掌控全局的能力。我们上次见面的时候，他还是一个书呆子气十足、易怒且笨拙的男孩儿，总是对于答案过分挑剔。而他现在非常自信，而且能够掌控局面。”马斯克也开始有意识地控制自己，避免批评别人。“埃隆不是那种会说‘我理解你，我明白你的想法’这种话的人，”贾斯汀说，“因为他在这方面有所欠缺，对于别人来说再明显不过的事情，他却搞不清楚。他必须学着理解为何一个二十多岁的人不应该对年长者指手画脚。他学会了在某些方面改变自己的行为。我觉得他一直是靠战略和智力在这个世界闯荡的。”这种个性偏差带来了不同程度的效果。马斯克仍然会严格要求且直言不讳地鞭策年轻的工程师们疯狂工作。“我记得有一次头脑风暴，大家讨论一个新产品——一个新的汽车网站，”Zip2创意总监多丽丝·唐斯(Doris Downs)说，“有人抱怨说我们无法实现这项技术变革。埃隆拍案而起，说‘我不想听你说这些废话’，然后径直离开了会议室。对于埃隆而言，没有什么是不可能的，而他也期望身边的每一个人都抱持相同的态度。”马斯克也会时不时地对更高一级的管理人员发火。“你会看到有人从会议室出来后面露不悦，”销售人员莫尔说，“如果你一直当好人，就永远也无法取得埃隆现在这样的成就，他对于成功的决心和自信就是这么强烈。”
As Musk tried to come to terms with the changes the investors had inflicted on Zip2, he did enjoy some of the perks of having big-money backing. The financiers helped the Musk brothers with their visas. They also gave them $30,000 each to buy cars. Musk and Kimbal had traded in their dilapidated BMW for a dilapidated sedan that they spray-painted with polka dots. Kimbal upgraded from that to a BMW 3 Series, and Musk bought a Jaguar E-Type. “It kept breaking down, and would arrive at the office on a flatbed,” Kimbal said. “But Elon always thought big.”*
马斯克试着向投资人提出的一些要求妥协的时候，他也的确享受到了大量投资带来的额外收益。投资人帮助马斯克兄弟解决了签证问题，并且给他们每人3万美元用于购买新车。那时马斯克和金巴尔已经把他们那辆破旧的宝马车换成了另一辆同样破旧的轿车，并喷上了波尔卡圆点来点缀车身。金巴尔买了一辆宝马3系轿车，而马斯克则买了一辆捷豹E型。“我的车经常抛锚，并且需要用一辆平板卡车把它运到办公室门口，”金巴尔说，“但埃隆总是能从大局着眼。”[2]
As a bonding exercise one weekend, Musk, Ambras, a few other employees and friends took off for a bike ride through the Saratoga Gap trail in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Most of the riders had been training and were accustomed to strenuous sessions and the summer's heat. They set up the mountains at a furious pace. After an hour, Russ Rive, Musk's cousin, reached the top and proceeded to vomit. Right behind him were the rest of the cyclists. Then, fifteen minutes later, Musk became visible to the group. His face had turned purple, and sweat poured out of him, and he made it to the top. “I always think back to that ride. He wasn't close to being in the condition needed for it,” Ambras said. “Anyone else would have quit or walked up their bike. As I watched him climb that final hundred feet with suffering all over his face, I thought, That's Elon. Do or die but don't give up.”
为了增强团队凝聚力，马斯克、阿布拉斯，以及其他几个同事和朋友在某个周末骑自行车穿越位于圣克鲁斯山的萨拉托加峡谷。大部分骑手都接受过专业的培训并适应了恶劣地形条件和炎热的天气。他们上山的速度非常快。一个小时后，马斯克的表弟拉斯·莱夫(Russ Rive)到达了山顶，随即便开始呕吐，其他骑手紧随其后。15分钟后，大部队发现了马斯克，他脸色发紫，汗流浃背，但最终还是成功登顶。“我总是回想起那次骑行，他根本不需要累成这样，”阿布拉斯说，“换作别人早就放弃了，或者会推着自行车走上来。在距离终点还有100英尺时，我看到了他脸上那痛苦的表情，我心里想，‘这就是埃隆，不成功，便成仁，绝不放弃。’”
Musk continued to be a ball of energy around the office as well. Ahead of visits by venture capitalists and other investors, Musk would rally the troops and instruct them all to get on the phone to create a buzzy atmosphere. He also formed a video-game team to participate in competitions around Quake, a first-person-shooter game. “We competed in one of the first nationwide tournaments,” Musk said. “We came in second, and we would have come in first, but one of our top players' machine crashed because he had pushed his graphics card too hard. We won a few thousand dollars.”
马斯克在办公室里仍然像能量球一样精力充沛。当有风投或者其他投资人到访时，马斯克会把团队成员召集在一起，让他们都忙着打电话，营造一种忙碌的气氛。他还组队参加第一人称射击游戏“雷神之锤”(Quake)的比赛。“我们参加的是第一届全美锦标赛，”马斯克说，“我们获得了第二名，但差点就拿了冠军。我们当中一位顶级选手的电脑崩溃了，因为他插显卡的时候太用力了。我们获得了几千美元的奖金。”
Zip2 had remarkable success courting newspapers. The New York Times, Knight Ridder, Hearst Corporation, and other media properties signed up to its service. Some of these companies contributed $50 million in additional funding for Zip2. Services like Craigslist with its free online classifieds had just started to appear, and the newspapers needed some course of action. “The newspapers knew they were in trouble with the Internet, and the idea was to sign up as many of them as possible,” Ambras said. “They wanted classifieds and listings for real estate, automotive, and entertainment and could use us as a platform for all these online services.” Zip2 acquired a trademark for its “We Power the Press” slogan and the influx of cash kept Zip2 growing fast. Company headquarters were soon so crowded that one desk ended up directly in front of the women's bathroom. In 1997, Zip2 moved into flashier, more spacious digs at 444 Castro Street in Mountain View.
在索尔金的领导下，Zip2在新闻领域取得了巨大成功，并与纽约时报集团、奈特里德报业集团(Knight-Ridder)、赫斯特报业集团以及其他一些媒体就相关服务签署了协议。其中一些公司为Zip2提供了5 000万美元的额外资金。类似Craigslist(克雷格清单)这样的在线分类广告服务刚一出现，报业公司便意识到需要采取行动了。“报业公司知道即将面临互联网带来的挑战，他们的策略是尽可能多地与互联网公司签约，”阿布拉斯说，“他们需要为房地产、汽车和娱乐信息提供分类列表，并可以通过我们的平台提供所有这些服务。”Zip2为“我们助力媒体”这句广告语注册了商标，伴随着资金的大量涌入，Zip2得以迅速成长。公司总部开始变得异常拥挤，甚至有一张办公桌都被挤到了女卫生间的门口。1997年，Zip2公司搬进了位于山景城卡斯特罗大街444号一处更华丽、更宽敞的办公区。
It irritated Musk that Zip2 had become a behind-the-scenes player to the newspapers. He believed the company could offer interesting services directly to consumers and encouraged the purchase of the domain name city.com with the hopes of turning it into a consumer destination. But the lure of the media companies' money kept Sorkin and the board on a conservative path, and they decided to worry about a consumer push down the road.
但是Zip2最终成为报纸行业的幕后玩家这件事却让马斯克懊恼不已。他认为公司可以直接向消费者提供有趣的服务，并鼓励购买域名city.com，希望把它变成一个面向消费者的目标市场。但是媒体公司的资金诱惑让索尔金和董事会变得保守，同时也担心马斯克将来会采取以消费者为导向的商业策略。
In April 1998, Zip2 announced a blockbuster move to double down on its strategy. It would merge with its main competitor CitySearch in a deal valued at around $300 million. The new company would retain the CitySearch name, while Sorkin would head up the venture. On paper, the union looked very much like a merger of equals. CitySearch had built up an extensive set of directories for cities around the country. It also appeared to have strong sales and marketing teams that would complement the talented engineers at Zip2. The merger had been announced in the press and seemed inevitable.
1998年4月，Zip2宣布了一项重磅交易信息，这令其战略赌注加倍。它将斥资3亿美元兼并其主要竞争对手“城市搜索”(CitySearch，美国本地搜索服务商)，新公司将保留CitySearch这个名字，并由索尔金主持工作。从纸面上看，这场兼并似乎是一次平等的强强联合。CitySearch已经建立了一套覆盖美国各城市的广泛分类目录。它也有一支非常强大的销售和营销团队，与Zip2的天才工程师们相得益彰。消息已经在媒体上公布，这场兼并似乎已成定局。
The opinions on what happened next vary greatly. The logistics of the situation required the two companies to go over each other's books and to figure out which employees would be fired to avoid a duplication of roles. This process raised some questions about how frank CitySearch had been with its financials and rankled some executives at Zip2 who could see their positions being diminished or erased altogether at the new company. One faction inside Zip2 argued that the deal should be abandoned, while Sorkin demanded that it go through. Musk, who had been an early advocate of the deal, turned against it. In May 1998, the two companies canceled the merger, and the press pounced, making a big deal of the chaotic bust-up. Musk urged Zip2's board to oust Sorkin and reinstate him as CEO of Zip2. The board declined. Instead, Musk lost his chairman title, and Sorkin was replaced by Derek Proudian, a venture capitalist with Mohr Davidow. Sorkin considered Musk's behavior through the whole affair atrocious and later pointed to the board's reaction and Musk's demotion as evidence that they felt the same way. “There was a lot of backlash and finger-pointing,” Proudian said. “Elon wanted to be CEO, but I said, ‘This is your first company. Let's find an acquirer and make some money, so you can do your second, third, and fourth company.'”
接下来双方的意见却产生了很大的分歧。受当时的形势所迫，两家公司需要互相检查对方的人员配置情况，并确定需要辞退的员工，以避免岗位重复。这一过程让一些问题浮出水面，可以看出CitySearch的财务状况已经恶化，而Zip2的一些高管则心生怨恨，因为他们在新公司的职位明显被降级了，甚至被裁撤。Zip2内部有一派人认为应该放弃兼并，而索尔金却坚持推进这项工作。马斯克最初支持兼并，但最后也站到反对派这一边。1998年5月，两家公司取消了兼并计划。此时媒体火上浇油，开始小题大做。马斯克敦促董事会罢黜索尔金，并且想要官复原职，重新担任Zip2的CEO。董事会拒绝了他的要求，而且剥夺了他的董事会主席职位，索尔金的职位则由莫尔达维多夫投资公司的风险投资家德里克·普罗蒂昂(Derek Proudian)取而代之。索尔金认为马斯克在整个事件中的表现糟糕透顶，并指出董事会的态度和马斯克被降职的事实，以此证明董事会也看到了这一点。“在这个过程中，各方产生了强烈的抵触情绪并且相互指责，”普罗蒂昂说，“马斯克想当CEO，但是我说，‘这是你组建的第一家公司，我们可以找到一个买家，赚一些钱，这样你就可以创建你的第二、第三和第四家公司。’”
With the deal busted, Zip2 found itself in a predicament. It was losing money. Musk still wanted to go the consumer route, but Proudian feared that would take too much capital. Microsoft had mounted a charge into the same market, and start-ups with mapping, real estate, and automotive ideas multiplied. The Zip2 engineers were deflated and worried that they might not be able to outrun the competition. Then, in February 1999, the PC maker Compaq Computer suddenly offered to pay $307 million in cash for Zip2. “It was like pennies from heaven,” said Ed Ho, a former Zip2 executive. Zip2's board accepted the offer, and the company rented out a restaurant in Palo Alto and threw a huge party. Mohr Davidow had made back twenty times its original investment, and Musk and Kimbal had come away with $22 million and $15 million, respectively. Musk never entertained the idea of sticking around at Compaq. “As soon as it was clear the company would be sold, Elon was on to his next project,” Proudian said. From that point on, Musk would fight to maintain control of his companies and stay CEO.
随着兼并计划前功尽弃，Zip2也陷入困境，公司处于亏损状态。马斯克坚持走消费者的路线，但普罗蒂昂担心这种策略会占用过多的资金。微软已经开始大举进入这个市场，而且在测绘、房地产和汽车领域有想法的创业公司成倍增加。Zip2的工程师们有些气馁，担心他们无法在这场竞争中获胜。1999年2月，个人计算机制造商康柏(Compaq)突然表示愿意出资3.07亿美元现金收购Zip2。“这简直是从天上掉馅饼的好事。”Zip2的前高管何艾迪(Ed Ho)说道。Zip2的董事会接受了这次收购要约，然后租下帕洛阿尔托的一家餐馆，举办了一场盛大派对。莫尔达维多夫获得了20倍于原始投资的回报，马斯克和金巴尔分别获得2 200万美元1 500万美元。马斯克从未想过继续供职于康柏旗下的这家公司。“当他得知公司被收购已成定局时，就已经把心思放在下一个项目上了。”普罗蒂昂说。这次事件后，马斯克学会了一定要为公司控制权和CEO的职位而战。
“We were overwhelmed and just thought these guys must know what they're doing,” Kimbal said. “But they' didn't. There was no vision once they took over. They were investors, and we got on well with them, but the vision had just disappeared from the company.”
“我们不知所措，只是觉得这些家伙肯定知道自己在做什么，”金巴尔说，“但他们不知道。他们接管公司后就变得鼠目寸光。他们是投资人，我们相处得很愉快，而公司的远景却从此消失了。”
Years later, after he had time to reflect on the Zip2 situation, Musk realized that he could have handled some of the situations with employees better. “I had never really run a team of any sort before,” Musk said. “I'd never been a sports captain or a captain of anything or managed a single person. I had to think, Okay, what are the things that affect how a team functions. The first obvious assumption would be that other people will behave like you. But that's not true. Even if they would like to behave like you, they don't necessarily have all the assumptions or information that you have in your mind. So, if I know a certain set of things, and I talk to a replica of myself but only communicate half the information, you can't expect that the replica would come to the same conclusion. You have to put yourself in a position where you say, ‘Well, how would this sound to them, knowing what they know?'”
几年后，当有时间反思Zip2当时的状况时，马斯克认识到他本可以用更好的方式来处理与员工之间的一些事情。“我从来没有真正管理过一个团队，”马斯克说，“我从来没有担任过运动队或者其他任何团队的队长之类的职务，甚至手下连一个人都没有。我必须思考影响团队运作的因素是什么。第一个假设是，其他人的行为举止会表现得像你一样。但事实并非如此，即使他们想表现得像你一样，他们也缺乏你大脑中的认知和信息。所以，如果我知道一些特定的事情，然后告诉我的替代者，但只与他沟通一半的信息，就不要指望替代者会得出同样的结论。你必须把你自己放在另一个位置，‘好吧，如果我处在这个位置，基于他们的认知：他们会怎么想？’”
Employees at Zip2 would go home at night, come back, and find that Musk had changed their work without talking to them, and Musk's confrontational style did more harm than good. “Yeah, we had some very good software engineers at Zip2, but I mean, I could code way better than them. And I'd just go in and fix their fucking code,” Musk said. “I would be frustrated waiting for their stuff, so I'm going to go and fix your code and now it runs five times faster, you idiot. There was one guy who wrote a quantum mechanics equation, a quantum probability on the board, and he got it wrong. I'm like, ‘How can you write that?' Then I corrected it for him. He hated me after that. Eventually, I realized, Okay, I might have fixed that thing but now I've made the person unproductive. It just wasn't a good way to go about things.”
Zip2的员工们晚上回家，第二天回到办公室时发现马斯克修改了他们的工作成果却没有告诉他们，马斯克这种强硬的做事方式弊大于利。“Zip2的确有一些非常优秀的工程师，但我的意思是，在写代码这件事上，我比他们更擅长。所以我会亲自修改那些代码，”马斯克说，“等待他们写代码会令我很沮丧，所以忍不住亲自动手去修改那些代码，我写的代码运行起来会比他们的快5倍，你这个白痴。还有一个家伙在黑板上写了一个量子力学方程和量子概率，但他写错了。于是我说，‘你写错了’，然后就帮他改过来了。他之后开始怨恨我。最后我意识到，‘好吧，我也许可以修改这些代码，但是我会让这个人失去工作的动力和积极性。’这的确不是一个处理问题的好办法。”
Musk, the dot-com striver, had been both lucky and good. He had a decent idea, turned it into a real service, and came out of the dot-com tumult with cash in his pockets, which was better than what many of his compatriots could say. The process had been painful. Musk had yearned to be a leader, but the people around him struggled to see how Musk as the CEO could work. As far as Musk was concerned, they were all wrong, and he set out to prove his point with what would end up being even more dramatic results.
作为互联网的弄潮儿，马斯克已经足够优秀和幸运。他把创想变成现实，并摆脱了互联网行业的骚动，赚得盆满钵满，这已经比他的很多同行好多了。但这个过程是痛苦的。马斯克曾经渴望成为一名领袖，但周围的人却认为他无法胜任CEO这一职位。对于马斯克而言，他们都错了，他不仅证明了自己，并且最终带来了更戏剧化的成果。
[1]从这个方面来看，马斯克兄弟并不是最激进的商人。“我还记得他们商业计划书的内容，他们原本只想获得1万美元的投资，占股25%，”风险投资家史蒂夫·尤尔韦松(Steve Jurvetson)说，“这笔交易太划算了！当我听到投资变成300万美元的时候，我甚至怀疑莫尔达维多夫是否认真读过他们的商业计划。无论如何，兄弟俩最终获得了一轮正常的融资。”
[2]马斯克也会向母亲梅耶和贾斯汀炫耀自己的新办公室。梅耶有时候会列席公司会议并提出在Zip2地图上设置一个“反方向”按钮，以便人们可以在地图上旋转查看旅游路线。这个按键最终成为所有地图服务里最受欢迎的一个功能。