Boredom Leads to Great Things 49
The divorce between his parents may have increased
Elon’s ability to handle chaos, stress, and uncertainty. The
Stanford professor, Steve Blank, argued that a dispropor-
tionate number of entrepreneurs grew up in dysfunctional
families.^112 Starting a company is a chaotic and stressful
process. “Starting a company is like eating glass and staring
into the abyss of death,” is a quote often used by Elon, but
the quote originates from his friend Bill Lee. “Staring into
the abyss of death” means the entrepreneur is constantly
facing the company’s extermination because 90 percent
of all new companies fail. “Eating glass” means the en-
trepreneur has to work with the problems benefiting the
company most – not the most fun problems.^353
Most white people in South Africa had maids and
servants. But the Musk family didn’t because Errol made
the family play a game called “America.” When they played
it, the children had to do every chore Errol thought an
American child did, including cleaning the house and
mowing the lawn. “My father was very strict,” Tosca said.
“I guess I was a bit of an autocratic father - do this, do that,”
Errol replied. “I was a single parent, and they simply had
to help out.”
When they didn’t play America, Errol brought the
children on annual trips around the country. Once, Elon
got to fly with him in his twin-prop plane to an emerald
mine in Zambia in which Errol owned a share. They filled
the plane with chocolate bars intended as a bribe for the
customs agents.278,450
At age eleven, Elon wanted to move to the US. He had