In 1984, bullies kicked a twelve-year-old boy down a flight of concrete stairs.

1984年，一群霸凌者把一个十二岁的男孩从水泥台阶上踢了下去。

They beat him until he blacked out.

他们把他打得昏了过去。

The boy spent two weeks in a hospital in South Africa.

男孩在南非的一家医院里住了两个星期。

The boy's name was Elon Musk.

这个男孩的名字叫埃隆·马斯克。

Elon later said, "I was raised by books. Books, and then my parents."

埃隆后来说：“是书把我养大的。先是书，然后才是父母。”

By age nine, he had read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica.

九岁时，他就已经读完了整套大英百科全书。

At ten, he bought a small computer with only five kilobytes of memory.

十岁时，他买了一台内存只有五千字节的小电脑。

At twelve, he wrote a space game called Blastar and sold it.

十二岁时，他写了一款叫Blastar的太空游戏，并把它卖了出去。

A computer magazine paid him five hundred dollars for the code.

一家电脑杂志为这段代码付了他五百美元。

In 1989, at seventeen, Elon decided to leave for Canada alone.

1989年，十七岁的埃隆决定独自前往加拿大。

His father told him, "You'll never be successful."

父亲对他说：“你永远不会成功。”

He got on the plane anyway.

他还是上了飞机。