The other founders of Tesla

Telsa is more than Elon Musk.

Here are few guys who made it happen, in a way.

Tesla Motors is one of the startup which is solving a hard problem : self-driving electric cars. And somehow, it seems Musk is equal to Tesla. It’s kind-of Yin-Yen of tech industry. Somehow Musk has become an indispensable face of tesla, self driving and electric car. We know that only as true as marketing goes. He, like everyone else, is standing over the shoulders of other giants.

The problem with such portrayals is not merely that they are inaccurate and unfair to the many contributors to new technologies. By warping the popular understanding of how technologies develop, great-man myths threaten to undermine the structure that is actually necessary for future innovations. —  Amanda Schaffer

If you say, ‘this is how great men should be’, that indirectly implies that if you are not like them, you ain’t gonna be any better.. This leaves zero incentive to try out something else.

On Great Man myth, a good read:

Putting Elon Musk and Steve Jobs on a Pedestal Misrepresents How Innovation Happens | MIT…
_Since Steve Jobs’s death, in 2011, Elon Musk has emerged as the leading celebrity of Silicon Valley. Musk is the CEO of…_www.technologyreview.com[](http://www.technologyreview.com/review/539861/techs-enduring-great-man-myth/)

Elon Musk is a revolutionary guy, no doubt (at all). He is one of the pioneer in Silicon Valley (the Paypal guy).

Newton once said, ‘ If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants**’. T**here are many giants out there who probably played equal, less or sometimes more important role in making Tesla Motor happen. And ironically, hardly anybody outside the SV or Venture Capitalist circle knows about them.

This post is about the others. In no particular order.

JB Straubel

**Role **— CTO, Telsa

**Education **— Standford University

**Previous **— CTO/Co-founder of Volacom, Propulsion engineer at Rosen Motors

Why in Tesla — Personal passion. Built an Electric Porsche 944. Custom Electric Bicycle. Hybrid Trailer System designed while in college

**What else **— Pilot, teacher, Board of Director at SolarCity.

Martin Eberhard

**Role **— Co-founded Tesla, Ex-CEO

**Education **— University of Illinois

Previous — Founder at NuvoMedia.

**Why Tesla **— Passionate about sports-cars. Moral dilemma regarding dependence on oil imports. Also concerned about global warming

What else — Working with Volkswagen. No further details.

Marc Tarpenning

**Role **— Co-founded Tesla

**Education **— UC Berkeley

Previous — CFO NuvoMedia

**Why Tesla **— Passion is foremost. His interest is in energy storage. Started Tesla with Eberhard. Sees electric as a way of sustainable future

What else — Interested in public schools, starting startup (:)). Currently advisor at Skydeck.

Ian Wright

Role — Started Tesla, left in a year.

Previous — Director, CISCO. CTO Altamar Network

Why Tesla — Neighbor to Martin. Wanted to start Optical subsystem subsystem. Got interested in Tesla. Joined.

What else — Founder at Wrightspeed. Electrifying commercial trucks.

References: _All data taken for either Wikipedia and or LinkedIn. Ironically, few of them don’t have ‘enough’ information about them on the web.