In a recent interview, Google founder Larry Page (41) was asked about philanthropy. He remarked that he would rather give his fortune to Elon Musk (42) than to an ordinary charity, because he sees corporations such as Tesla as the most effective agents of change.
This statement is a message of solidarity sent from one General to another during an ongoing campaign against a common enemy. It’s a war going on all around us that is hidden in plain sight. I believe Page and Musk are the Commanders in Chief of the Gen-X Army, a cohort 80 million strong that is transforming the world right under the feet of the Boomers and pulling out the rug, if necessary.
The Mother of Invention
Gen-Xer’s are a generational cohort haunted by a semi-apocalyptic vision of a world gone awry and driven by the imperative to save it. Having grown up watching Star Trek and playing Dungeons and Dragons, Gen-Xer’s are on a collective mission to combat corruption, abuse, exploitation, greed, inequality, injustice, inefficiency and stupidity in the known and unknown universe.
Here’s an example from Elon Musk’s February 2013 interview with Alison van Diggelen on the scientific debate about climate change:
I believe in the scientific method and one should have a healthy skepticism of things in general. But that’s not the point. The point is, to look at it from the other side. To say: What’s the percentage chance that this could be catastrophic for some meaningful percentage of earth’s population? If it is even 1%, why are we running this experiment? We’re playing Russian roulette and as each year goes by we’re loading more rounds in the chamber. And what makes it super insane is that we’re going to run out of oil anyway. So why even run the experiment? It’s the world’s dumbest experiment.
Disruptive Technology
To the Boomer establishment, of course, Gen-Xer’s are “disruptors” and that assessment is objectively correct. The goal of the Gen-Xer’s is long-term systemic change. Their means are ethical, economic, media-driven and consumer-centric. Their spirit is innovative, idealistic and entrepreneurial, celebrating individual effort and risk-taking in the service of a worthy goal.
For the Gen-Xer’s it’s the effort that matters and failure is inconsequential. If one fails for a good cause, it was worth it. Moreover, as Musk puts it: “If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”
Gen-X Commanders like Page and Musk cannot achieve their goals alone, so they create tangible and compelling models of their vision and then enroll an army to realize it on a meaningful scale. Their allies (and employees) are the Millennials (Gen-Y), aged 18-33, who make up the follow-on generation of pragmatic idealists who share a sense of global citizenship and a deep desire to make the world a better place.
Marketing the Message
The change Elon Musk most wants to see is sustainable transportation. That’s the technical term, but do those words really motivate you? Probably not. You might even misunderstand them. (Cars are lasting longer, aren’t they?)
Gen-Xer’s, however, have marketing in their blood because as children they were inundated with thousands and thousands of commercial messages. We have a good example of how a Gen-X Commander markets his message in the 60 Minutes interview with Elon Musk aired this past weekend. When Musk shared his vision of sustainable transportation he described it as “driving for free, forever, on pure sunlight.”
Who could remain unmoved and uninspired by such an eloquent and magical goal? Only self-centered Boomers who have lost their way.
1000/lbs of Torque
The dynamic tension of opposites in the psyche of the Gen-X cohort is the engine that drives Elon Musk, Larry Page and others like them. We are not talking 1000 points of light, we are talking 1000/lbs of torque at the wheels at zero rpm, which is what you get in a Model S. It’s a force to be reckoned with.
Tesla Motors doesn’t sell ‘cars,’ it sells a Gen-X Assault Vehicle, a rotary vector carrying a generational imperative to realize a dream of a better future, a more rational and sustainable world that would make John Lennon proud.
Never underestimate the power of a dream when shared by an Army of Dreamers. In fact, I would invest in it.
FD: Very Long TSLA
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