PART 1 Summary
Chapter Elon's First Start-up centered on Elon Musk's prime time in his early period during which he established Zip 2, turned it into a success and eventually backed out of it.
The story was traced back to the summer of 1994. In that summer, Elon and his brother Kimbal held down a pair of internships in Silicon Valley. Elon fed on the omnipresent opportunities there and decided to quit schooling and settle down.
Inspired by the idea of Yellow Pages-like online listing from a salesperson, the Musk brothers founded Global Link Information Network from scratch which was later renamed Zip 2. After going through the initial sluggish period, the start-up began to blossom by making potential investors buy into their ideas and venture into it. In the meanwhile, Elon made continuous improvements to the Zip2 software.
Then came the turning point in early 1996. The venture capital firm Mohr Davidow Ventures brought in a large influx of the cash but Elon was forced to move down a notch on the totem pole. Rich Sorkin took up the mantle as the company's CEO while Elon worked as Chief Technology Officer. It was also in this stint that the company officially changed its name to Zip 2. Zip 2 was a remarkable success from then on until it busted the merging deal with its main competitor CitySearch. Zip 2 was losing money and worse still, divergence arose between Elon and the other members on the board with regard to Zip 2's business route and Elon's reinstatement as CEO. Zip 2 wound up being sold to the PC maker Compaq Computer in February 1999.
Reflecting on that episode of his life, Elon came to realize that his alpha-male nature and confrontational style did him more harm than good.
Anyway, Elon's first start-up was a success on the whole which left Elon with a big fortune and paved way for his future start-ups.
PART 2 Expressions
Science gave Musk a flavor for what Silicon Valley had to offer both from a talent and culture perspective.
an idea of what the typical qualities of something are
Marston's book gives you a flavor of life in the 16th century.
其他含义：a quality or feature that makes something have a particular style or character
The stories have a strong regional flavor.
Critics claim the building would destroy the flavor of the neighborhood.
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.
and the like/ and such like: and similar things
Soldiers, policeman, and the like were all called in to help with the emergency.
They believe that the government does not spend enough money on health, education and such like.
"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."
allow for sb/ sth: to consider the possible facts, problems, costs etc involved in something when making a plan, calculation, or judgment
Allowing for inflation, the cost of the project will be $ 2 million.
You should always allow for the possibility that it might rain.
allow of: formal. to make it possible for something to happen or be accepted
The facts allow of only one interpretation.
He decided to court auto dealerships because they usually spent lots of money on advertising.
Zip 2 had remarkable success courting newspapers.
1. old-fashioned if a man courts a woman, he spends time being nice to her because he hope to marry her
2. to try hard to please sb, especially because you want something from them = pay court to sb = pay court to sb
His campaign team have assiduously courted the media.
3. court danger/ death etc formal to behave in a way that makes danger etc more likely
To have admitted this would have courted political disaster.
"Our attorneys got a letter from SGI saying that we were cherry-picking the very best guys," Ambras said.
cherry-pick: (v.) to choose the best things or people you want from a group before anyone else has the chance to take them
another/ a second bite at the cherry: British English a second chance to do sth
PART 3 Thoughts
From that point on, Musk would fight to maintain control of his companies and stay CEO. "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."
记得马云曾在一段演讲里说过下辈子要开一个小公司，因为小公司可以实践理念和理想，公司大了，就无法成为一个“好”公司了。个人认为，一个科技类的或实业类的公司的最高管理里一定要有对科技或产品本身了解的专业人士在，而不应该全部是职业管理层。一则，职业管理者大多是学金融、管理等出身，对利益的追求远大于对企业理念和长远发展的追求，另一方面，公司里的技术人员往往对职业管理者的决策很难真正认同，缺少向心力。