From what I gather, Musk had aspirations to make advancements in renewable energy and space travel from has early as his time in college, but obviously those in

From what I gather, Musk had aspirations to make advancements in renewable energy and space travel from has early as his time in college, but obviously those industries have rather large barriers to entry. So I believe Zip2 and Paypal were acting as stepping stones so he could build up capital/experience before he could move onto his true passion. Virtual reality has a low enough barrier to entry that the kickstarter and existing investments had already solved that problem. And as far as I'm aware, VR are some of the highest aspirations held by the Oculus team, take this recent quote from Palmer Luckey for example: > "I’m obsessed with VR. I spend every day pushing further, and every night dreaming of where we are going. Even in my wildest dreams, I never imagined we’d come so far so fast." So I personally see the comparison with SpaceX/Tesla as a fairer comparison than Musk's first two businesses.