“There was a lot of schadenfreude at the time, and it was bad on so many levels. Justine was torturing me in the press. There were always all these negative articles about Tesla, and the stories about SpaceX’s third failure. It hurt really bad. You have these huge doubts that your life is not working, your car is not working, you’re going through a divorce and all of those things. I felt like a pile of shit. I didn’t think we would overcome it. I thought things were probably fucking doomed.”

schadenfreude: a feeling of pleasure or satisfaction when something bad happens to someone else 幸灾乐祸 Elon用了这么一个词来形容自己2008的个人危机。不管是妻子的控诉，报纸上各种不怀好意，不明真相地讽刺和挖苦，以及最痛心的SpaceX和Tesla的发展危机，财务问题，都在无时无刻地torture着Elon，他不是自大到可以忽视所有的这些苦难，“永远不要相信苦难是值得的，苦难就是苦难，苦难不会带来成功。苦难不值得追求，磨练意志是因为苦难无法躲开”。Elon也会在睡梦中尖叫，恐惧，他也会因为担心第四次发射的结果而陪孩子在迪斯尼乐园待到最后来到控制室。他在这一年中的所有的经历，真的是非常人能够挺过去。

“Most people who are under that sort of pressure fray,” Gracias said. “Their decisions go bad. Elon gets hyperrational. He’s still able to make very clear, long-term decisions. The harder it gets, the better he gets. Anyone who saw what he went through firsthand came away with more respect for the guy. I’ve just never seen anything like his ability to take pain.”

fray: if someone's temper or nerves fray, or if something frays them, they became annoyed.

Elon的挚友说，环境越艰难，Elon能够做得越好，他始终坚持做长久的打算，不仅仅是挣钱，在两个公司只能有一个存活的时候，他还在倾尽所有，绞尽脑汁，八方化缘，四方救济地要挺过这一阶段，不想把Tesla卖给别人，因为这会使得之前的努力付水东流，也是对自己梦想的坚定。临到最后签合同时，还有人中途变卦，企图从中得利，Elon在事后提到时，用到了fuckhead，但是他完全不买帐，一些列的操作和运营就是要把死马医活了。你不得不尊重他，即使他有种种毛病，你就是要佩服他，说他最后的突围是凤凰涅槃也不过分。

“He has the ability to work harder and endure more stress than anyone I’ve ever met,” Gracias said. “What he went through in 2008 would have broken anyone else. He didn’t just survive. He kept working and stayed focused.”

“要怎样努力，才能成为很厉害的人？”

“如果你注定要成为厉害的人，那问题的答案就深藏在你的血脉里；如果你注定不是厉害的人，那你便只需要做好你自己。”

Elon到底有多厉害，就看看有多少人在2008年金融危机中放弃一切或者自杀，他真的是神一般的抗打压。

最后注意到了一个小细节：

“Riley began to see Musk’s life as a Shakespearean tragedy.”

Riley在Elon的最艰难最悲惨的时候，一直陪在他身边，她的父母帮着供房，而她自己每天都在为Elon的忧愁而担忧，渐渐地，她把他看作是一种莎士比亚式的悲剧主人公。看到这里感觉Riley真是白雪公主到人间呀，好温暖，好有爱，而且对Elon是打心眼里的认同吧～

“Riley spied on Musk while he read e-mail and watched him grimace as the bad news poured in.”

“grimace”

to twist your face in an ugly way because you do not like something, because you are feeling pain, or because you are trying to be funny

[例句] She grimaced at her reflection in the mirrior.

[造句] He grimaced as he could't bear the stomach eventually.

“Two SpaceX marketing executives spent twenty minutes before the launch going through all the technical ins and outs of the launch. ”

“ins and outs”

All the exact details of a complicated situation, problem, system etc

Ins and outs of

eg. I don’t really know all the ins and outs of the matter.

[造句] The analyst of the ins and outs of the issues is the key process to solve it.

“With the fourth launch, the demands and anticipation had ratcheted to the point that people started making silly mistakes.”

“ratcheted ”

ratchet up: to increase something by a small amount, especially after a series of increases, or to increase in this way

eg. Raising the minimum wage would ratchet up real incomes in general.