A one-paragraph portrait of technologist Elon Musk as a child in South Africa, from a new Smithsonian profile by Carl Hoffman:

“As a child growing up in Pretoria, South Africa, his mother thought he might have hearing problems. ‘We called Elon ‘genius boy,’ says his mother, Maye. ‘His brain was just ahead of everyone else’s and we thought he was deaf, so we took him to the doctor. But he was just in his own world.’ Musk shrugs when I tell him that story. ‘They took my adenoids out, but it didn’t change anything. It’s just when I’m concentrating on something I tune everything else out.’ He was bullied by other kids. He hated going to school. He was obsessed with facts and reading. ‘If someone said the Moon is, like, a million miles away,’ says Maye, ‘he’d say, ‘No, it’s 238,855 miles from the Earth, depending on when you view it.’ Kids would just go ‘Huh?’ He’s just curious about everything and never stops reading and remembers everything he reads. He’s not in la-la land; he just sees everything as a problem that can be fixed.'”