Before Tesla became a $1.3 trillion juggernaut, JB Straubel, a then-27-year-old Stanford engineer, first pitched Elon Musk on an unmanned, hydrogen-powered airplane during a lunch in 2003, but Musk had absolutely no interest. Straubel then pivoted to his hobby of building an electric sports car powered by lithium-ion cells found in laptop computers, and Musk immediately wrote a check. Within weeks, the two were sketching plans for a high-performance electric sports car, and Musk soon led Tesla’s first major funding round. Straubel joined the company in 2004 as its fifth employee and chief technology officer, developing the battery pack for Tesla’s first vehicle, the Roadster, bundling nearly 7,000 battery cells that delivered 244 miles of range. After a 2009 legal settlement, Straubel was officially recognized as a cofounder alongside Musk, Martin Eberhard, Marc Tarpenning, and Ian Wright.