After Elon Musk’s Tesla Powerwall keynote sent ripples across the tech world, I was reminded of a point made by Silicon Valley billionaire (and Musk’s former Paypal cofounder) Peter Thiel a couple years ago.
Back in 2013, Thiel sat at the World Affairs Council, and said:
People are entrepreneurs because they want to solve problems, not because they want to be entrepreneurs.
Powerful.
When you look at Elon Musk, you see a CEO who’s obsessed with solving problems.
I’d argue that Thiel’s point goes beyond entrepreneurship. Too many people fall in love with sexy job titles like “entrepreneur” or “movie director” – when really those titles are the result of curiosity and tinkering with specific problems.
It’ll be tough. But hopefully, we’ll get there sooner rather than later…