Elon Musk is one of the world's most influential programmers.

Saturday, October 21, 2023 | Chimniii Desk

It would be practically difficult to name every coder who has altered the world in the last few decades in a single article. It was challenging to select a world-changing coder to spotlight in this article because there were so many worthy candidates.While the names of Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Linus Torvalds (Linux), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Sergey Brin (Google), and many more may come to mind almost once, there are thousands of lesser-known coders who have also had a significant impact. Tim Berners-Lee, the man who actually invented the internet, and Lars and Jens Eilstrup Rasmussen, the Danish brothers who developed the programme that later became Google Maps, are two individuals you may not have heard of but who have significantly impacted all of our lives in ways that we now take for granted.

Advertisement

Elon Musk is the first topic in our series, Coders Who Changed The World, even though he may not have been the best or even the most influential programmer of all time. As a person who made his first billion by programming computer games and web apps, then went on to develop the world's most innovative electric vehicles, solar energy systems, and, uh, space ships... Elon might be the pinnacle of the "Coder Who Changed The World" movement. Or perhaps it's just that he reminds us of Tony Stark in real life, which is why we like him. In any case, Elon Musk is actively working to lead our species into the world of the future while also indisputably revolutionising the world of today.

Elon Musk was born in 1971 to a working-class household in South Africa. He purchased his first computer at the age of ten and began teaching himself to code. At the age of 12, he sold "Blastar," his first video game, for about $500. One of the greatest coder-preneurs in history was created at that precise moment.

Advertisement

Elon and his brother Kimbal started Zip2 in 1995 with $28,000 of their dad' money, encouraged by their early success. By 1999, they had sold the business to Compaq for nearly $300,000,000, of which Elon received roughly $22,000,000. Elon, though, didn't stop there. Elon again went all-in, investing $10,000,000 to launch X.com, which ultimately developed into the incredibly practical service we now know as "PayPal," instead of retiring on a beach someplace in Thailand.

While Blastar and Zip2 may have changed a few people's lives and brought Elon a few million dollars, PayPal would go on to truly, significantly alter the course of the planet. The way people pay money to one another has been fundamentally transformed by PayPal. In the past, customers would send cheques through the mail or wire money through a bank. With the help of PayPal, people can now instantly send money to friends, family, and business partners who are on the other side of the globe with only a few touches on their smartphone. When eBay quickly saw how significantly PayPal was altering the world, it decided to buy the business in 2002 for approximately $1.5 billion USD. Musk received a whopping $165,000,000.

Advertisement

Then you may retire now, right? Nope, not for Elon Musk. Instead, Elon risked it all once more and invested $100 million to found SpaceX, a space exploration business, with the aim of transporting people to Mars, preserving human consciousness even in the event of the destruction of the Earth, and transforming humanity into a "real spacefaring civilization." Crazy? Maybe. However, SpaceX has already made history by, among other amazing achievements, being the first private company to use a liquid-fueled vehicle to launch a satellite into Earth orbit, the first private company to launch and dock a vehicle at the International Space Station, and the company to replace NASA's Space Shuttle with much more advanced "Falcon 9" and "Dragon" spacecraft.

In the interim, Elon has also founded one of the most innovative electric car companies in the world (Tesla Motors), one of the most successful solar energy companies in the world (SolarCity), and is presently working on building a HyperLoop between Los Angeles and San Francisco that could completely transform high-speed transportation. Musk has truly evolved into a modern-day Tony Stark.

Elon Musk might not be the world's best programmer, but he might be the most significant. Elon Musk is advancing our entire species into the future, saving the planet, and working to ensure the survival of the human race for the next few billion years, while many other coders have revolutionised the way we communicate, find mates, find shelter, shop, eat, get around, and a whole host of other crucial human activities. None of Musk's achievements would have been possible if he hadn't first sat down, as a 10-year-old South African lad, and learnt to code. However, many of his achievements needed far more than just sitting down at a laptop and writing some code.

Advertisement