With the death of Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL ) Steve Jobs, there is a huge void in
the tech world. So now there is talk of who might emerge to achieve comparable
success as a business leader and innovator. Some obvious candidates come to most
peoples minds, including Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon 's (NASDAQ:
AMZN ) Jeff Bezos. They certainly are giants in their markets and have made a
huge impact on the lives of millions of people worldwide. Yet they still lack
some key Jobsian qualities. For example, Zuckerberg and Bezos lead only one
company apiece, whereas for a time Jobs ran both Apple and computer-animation
studio Pixar. What's more, neither Zuckerberg nor Bezos has pulled a
miraculous comeback from the brink of disaster like Jobs did after he returned
to Apple in 1997. There is one person, however, who hasn't gotten much media
attention but actually has these qualities: Elon Musk. Musk and Jobs actually
demonstrated their talent for innovation at an early age. Musk got his first
computer when he was 10 years old and wasted little time learning programming.
He sold his first software for $500 when he turned 12. It was a space game. It
was not until the mid-1990s, however, that Musk made his fortune. He started
Zip2, a content publisher, which was sold for more than $300 million. Musk then
followed this up with PayPal, which he co-founded. At first, the company
struggled. PayPal had to change its business model six times until Musk found
the winning angle providing online payment services.
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