Stephen Malina

Unfortunately, I’m still quite uncertain about what set of factors and interactions turn someone into an energetic alien. My initial investigations have pushed me in the direction of thinking that certain predispositions increase the likelihood of certain people fitting the alien criteria but that doing so also depends on controllable things like d

Elon Musk’s transcendent brilliance is often exaggerated – people seem to think he literally invented rocket science himself – but he does have an extraordinary ability to focus deeply and work hard for long periods of time.

Based on his own interviews, it’s clear that Church qualifies as an “energetic alien”. After finishing his undergrad in 2 years, George Church  worked 100 hour weeks  in the lab during grad school, famously getting kicked out due to not attending classes because he was just so absorbed in his research. This level of focus seems to be som

Balzac was also exceptionally productive, averaging 4 books per year, enabled by a grueling writing routine. As described by  Daily Rituals , Balzac wrote for 15-16 hours a day, punctuated only by occasional breaks, sleep, and endless coffee.

However, many have big visions of the future of humanity. What seems to differentiate Musk is the degree to which this desire influences his actual behavior. The speculative hypothesis I find most interesting here is that a component of Musk and other’s persistence comes from experiencing desire more acutely than others.

Coming back to the final typ

Even more than speed, Napoleon was remarkable for his  energy . A man does not fight 43 battles in 19 years by sitting on his ass. It’s almost hard to wrap your head around how much this guy did. He wasn’t just a prolific general, or politician, or emperor, or diplomat, or lawgiver, or aesthetician, he was all of these things  at the same

I define an energetic alien as someone who mostly satisfies the first three criteria and possibly the fourth:

1. Able to indefinitely sustain focus on cognitive tasks for more than the well-documented 4-6 hours a day without burning out or starting to make tons of mistakes.


2. Often described as full of energy or having an abundance of energy.


3. Obsessed with

Alexander Grothendieck, who I also discussed in my  review of The Art of Learning , was one of the most productive, generative, and eccentric mathematicians of the 20th century. Grothendieck was also an energetic alien. According to multiple sources, he went through a ten-year period during which he invented (I suspect he would say discovered

Instead, the other thing the biography highlights well is Musk’s relentless, literal do-or-die attitude towards success. This attitude enables Musk to work hard while enduring tremendous stress and pressure. The best example of this comes from a period during which Tesla and SpaceX were struggling in 2008.