A NOTE FROM FORTUNE

This week, the big one dropped. Walter Isaacson, the former Time editor turned documenter of genius brains from Leonardo da Vinci to Albert Einstein to Steve Jobs, dropped his much anticipated all-access biography of Elon Musk on Tuesday. Clearly, it sets up the Tesla CEO and X/Twitter chairman and owner as the next great mind in Isaacson’s series of them.

So does he make the case? If you know where to look. The book is so dense with stories of Musk’s outlandish and eccentric behavior that the focus often strays from his undoubted engineering genius to unpacking just why he acts the way he does.

The pivotal point of the book combines the best of both when it covers 2017–18—what Musk called “the time of the most concentrated pain I’ve ever had…18 months of unrelenting insanity. It was mind-bogglingly painful.” During it, Musk began musing aloud about whether he might be bipolar, he had a stormy romance with Amber Heard, and at one point was found by his Tesla C-suite nearly comatose, lying on the floor in a conference room with all the lights turned off. They had to spend nearly 30 minutes getting him on his feet and ready for a call with analysts. Tesla was missing its targets, losing money, and getting swarmed by short sellers, too.

We all know what happened next, as Musk triumphed at Tesla en route to being crowned the richest man in the world. Isaacson reveals how he did it: by personally visiting the factory floor himself and redesigning the manufacturing process. Along the way, he created what he calls “the algorithm” for manufacturing: Question every requirement, delete any part of the process you can, simplify and optimize, accelerate the cycle time, automate. It’s good advice far beyond manufacturing electric vehicles.

It isn’t Musk’s only formula for living, either. Isaacson reveals that Musk developed a set of “life lessons” from playing his favorite video game, The Battle of Polytopia. (The first lesson was “empathy is not an asset.”) Beyond Musk’s philosophy of living, there are countless stories of his explosive temper, his tendency to bully, his troubled upbringing, his favorite science fiction authors, and what Peter Thiel calls an “addiction” to taking risk. Read the full write-up below.

SUCCESS

Why ‘I quit’ comes soon after ‘you’re promoted’—and companies keep bungling the career advancement process

Three out of 10 workers who climbed the corporate ladder or took on more responsibility wound up leaving within a month.

Thanks to AI, workers are struggling with “FOBO”—fear of being obsolete

The fear of artificial intelligence taking their job is unfounded—for most workers.

GEN Z

Gen Z’s latest tech craze is tracking each other’s exact whereabouts: ‘It’s exploded into a cool thing to do’

Location-tracking apps are giving younger generations a sense of safety when dating.

The Gen Z glossary for Gen X managers: Here’s what your workers mean by ‘menty B’ and ‘cozzie livs’

It’s giving cheugy.

PERSONAL FINANCE

‘I’m already saving for my daughter’s maternity leave—she’s only 2.’ Parental leave in the U.S. is so bad families are planning generations in advance

How much money should you save for grandchildren for their maternity and paternity leave?

FINANCE

Jamie Dimon isn’t ready to feel good about the economy yet: ‘We’ve been spending money like drunken sailors’

Jamie Dimon said that cracks in the economy could appear within 12 to 18 months.

LEADERSHIP

The workers that Fortune 500s most need to solve the burnout crisis are the most at risk of quitting themselves

The burnout epidemic is leading to higher turnover and staffing shortages across America.

CEO of freight giant Flexport rescinds dozens of job offers just days before the new hires’ start date: ‘I hope you will forgive us someday’

The decision was announced days after Amazon veteran and Flexport’s previous CEO, Dave Clark, left the company.

13 civil rights groups just formed a coalition to defend workplaces against the ‘anti-woke’ movement: ‘We cannot sit back’

The collective’s creation was partly inspired by a lawsuit brought against Fearless Fund, a Black women-led VC group.

EUROPE

$90 Barbie dress helps drive Zara growth in the inflation-hit fashion industry

Items in the Barbie-inspired capsule wardrobe helped the parent company’s stock rise by 35% this year.

Get the full dataset behind the Global 500 – the ultimate benchmark of worldwide business success.

Download now.