Hint: It’s been described as a cross between a Concord transatlantic airplane, a bullet train, and an air hockey table; and it can propel things at the speed of sound. Know what it is?
Another hint: It is proposed to be a solar-powered, earthquake-resistant, pod-based transportation system for humans. Any idea?

It’s the dream of Tesla chief executive, Elon Musk (top-rated electric car manufacturer), a transportation system that could whisk passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 30 minutes. Price tag … $6 billion … and 10 years to build. Musk calls it the “Hyperloop”; and the transportation pods would be run on the induction motors now powering the Tesla Motors’ Model S electric car.

This Elon Musk fellow knows something about disruptive technologies, seeing how he has the following notches in his technology implementation belt:

PayPal
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX-space launch vehicles)
Tesla Motors
SolarCity; and now
Hyperloop

Is this Hyperloop concept controversial? You bet. Does it deter Innovators like Musk? Not at all. These “icon smashers” follow in the footsteps of great disruptive innovators like Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs and Henry Ford, to name a few. People who are not afraid to think big and change the basic paradigms of whole industries, and create new ones; people who exemplify thinking outside-the-box….people who probably never even knew there was a box in the first place. What characterizes these great disruptors is their entrepreneurial drive to bring new inventions to market-to make them real, and to make money. Edison said it right, “I invent so I can make money and keep on inventing.”

Editor’s Deep Dive