Zip2
Strategic Concepts & Mechanics
Primary Evidence
"To Musk, this “nervous system” fused science fiction with hard science—a cocktail of Adams and Feynman—and he spoke of it with unselfconscious amazement. “Previously we could only communicate by osmosis. One person would physically have to go to another person. For a letter, someone has to carry the letter,” he observed. “And now, you could be in the middle of the Amazon jungle, and if you had just one satellite signal to the internet, you’d have access to all the world’s information. That’s unreal.” Unreal—yet being made real all around him. Musk craved the chance to do more. He wanted to be responsible, as he put it, for constructing the internet’s “building blocks.” Zip2 was now behind him. More than a little cash lay before him. It was time for his next venture."
"The company’s success stemmed from other sources. One was a relentless focus on the product itself—not just on the technology that underpinned it. “We were really very focused on building the best product we possibly could... We were incredibly obsessive about how do we evoke something that is really going to have the best possible customer experience,” Musk said of his work on both Zip2 and PayPal. “That was a far more effective selling tool than having a giant sales force or marketing gimmicks or twelve-step processes or whatever.”"
"To Musk, this “nervous system” fused science fiction with hard science—a cocktail of Adams and Feynman—and he spoke of it with unselfconscious amazement. “Previously we could only communicate by osmosis. One person would physically have to go to another person. For a letter, someone has to carry the letter,” he observed. “And now, you could be in the middle of the Amazon jungle, and if you had just one satellite signal to the internet, you’d have access to all the world’s information. That’s unreal.” Unreal—yet being made real all around him. Musk craved the chance to do more. He wanted to be responsible, as he put it, for constructing the internet’s “building blocks.” Zip2 was now behind him. More than a little cash lay before him. It was time for his next venture."
"The company’s success stemmed from other sources. One was a relentless focus on the product itself—not just on the technology that underpinned it. “We were really very focused on building the best product we possibly could… We were incredibly obsessive about how do we evoke something that is really going to have the best possible customer experience,” Musk said of his work on both Zip2 and PayPal. “That was a far more…"