The subject of Isaacson's last book The Code Breaker, Jennifer Doudna, the coinventor of the CRISPR gene-editing method, served as a reasonable representative of how much women have contributed to the life sciences in recent decades. But Isaacson's strong suit is unreasonable men, such as Musk, Jobs, and Doudna's mentor James D. Watson, who wound up dominating The Code Breaker from his supporting role.

Of these three big men, Musk might be the most exhaustingly energetic.

He made his first two fortunes with conventional Internet Bubble software start-ups, the city guide Zip2 and the online financial services firm X.com. (Musk is obsessed with the letter "X." He also bestowed it upon his rocket ship company, SpaceX, plus his favorite of his nearly countless sons, X Musk; and he has recently renamed his 2022 acquisition Twitter as X.)