Do You Drink More Coffee Than Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Other Creative Leaders?

The 1993 book Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants explored the oft-stated theory that the real catalyst behind the industrial revolution was caffeine — specifically the kind you get from guzzling coffee. Author Wolfgang Schivelbusch’s premise is that when 18th-century families ditched cold brews (yes back then it was a beverage for the whole clan, regardless of age or heavy machinery usage) for [used to eat], western civilization went into hyper-productive mode.

A billion tall, non-fat, half-caff, caramel drizzle lattes later, we took a jittery-eyed look at several highly-effective entrepreneurs’ java ingestion. How does yours match up?

Elon Musk, two cups of coffee a day

The insanely busy Tesla and SpaceX founder drinks just two cups per day. But Elon Musk’s mocha moderation wasn’t always so. The CEO has said that his caffeine intake included an unhealthy amount of Diet Coke back in the day, but nowadays he’s canned the Diet Coke cans altogether.

David Lynch, seven cups a day (when brainstorming)

The awesomely odd auteur’s caffeinated characters who populate his fictionalized town of Twin Peaks made a “damn good cup of coffee” cool way before Starbucks became STARBUCKS™.

Said the celluloid scientist of his secret sauce in a past interview, “I [used to eat] at Bob’s Big Boy. I would go at 2:30, after the lunch rush. I ate a chocolate shake and four, five, six, seven cups of coffee — with lots of sugar. And there’s lots of sugar in that chocolate shake. It’s a thick shake. In a silver goblet. I would get a rush from all this sugar, and I would get so many ideas! I would write them on these napkins. It was like I had a desk with paper. All I had to do was remember to bring my pen, but a waitress would give me one if I remembered to return it at the end of my stay. I got a lot of ideas at Bob’s.”

Peaks Freaks can take what they will from the fact that Lynch wrote at a restaurant called “Bob’s.”

Richard Branson, 20 cups (of tea)

When you routinely wake up at 5:30 a.m. to go kiteboarding, you need a little something to get you through the day. And according to Virgin.com, Sir Richard Branson’s “little something” is upwards of 20 cups of tea, white with no sugar.

Ludwig van Beethoven, exactly 60 beans per cup

Ludwig van Beethoven may have hard of hearing, but he was never hard up when it came to his favorite upper. The greatest composer of all time was as precise with his coffee beans per cup (60) as he was with his numerically titled symphonies (9).

Not to be outdone, Ludwig’s (kinda) contemporary, Johann Sebastian Bach, turned a popular poem making fun of the Vienna coffeehouse scene into one of the German genius’s lesser-known jams titled “The Coffee Cantata” in 1732. (That was, like, NWA-level rebellious back then!)

Theodore Roosevelt, one gallon per day

TR’s son once said that the 26th president’s coffee cup was “more in the nature of a bathtub,” and that he coupled his reported “gallon” of coffee a day with five lumps of sugar. We’re not saying this explains the mustachioed maniac’s ability to finish an hour-plus-long speech after getting shot by would-be assassin John Schrank in 1912, but were not not saying it either.

Mark Zuckerberg, zero

While the Facebook founder has never confronted our hard-hitting premise directly, in 2010 he did reply to the owner of a highly caffeinated gum’s offer of a sample with the following diss: “Sorry I don’t like caffeine.” Get it? “Like”? Good one, Zuck.

So the million dollar question is “Do You Drink More Coffee Than These Highly-Effective Entrepreneurs?”

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