Latest / Motivation study / Elon Musk_s Ultimate Advice for Students _ College Grads - HOW TO SUCCEED IN LIFE

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Elon Musk_s Ultimate Advice for Students _ College Grads - HOW TO SUCCEED IN LIFE · Motivation study

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: So what advice do I have for college graduates?
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Certainly, I'd invite you to apply for a job at
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: SolarCity or Tesla or SpaceX. And if not, then if
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: that doesn't work for whatever reason, then apply to jobs
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: at other companies in that arena or try starting a company.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: If you study engineering and you figure out how to
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: design new things, then it's relatively easy to start a company.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: You just need to get a few like-minded people with you.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: I have to say that the space business is quite
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: hard to start a company in the space business because
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: it's such a capital-intensive business. So it may be better
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: to do something in solar power, or if you're going
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: to do it in cars, do it as kind of
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: a component supplier for cars or something like that.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: Musk has college degrees in business and physics, but SpaceX
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: is his first venture in aerospace.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: How did you.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: Get the expertise to be the chief technology officer of
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: a rocket ship company? Well, I do have a physics background.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: That's helpful as a foundation. And then I read a
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: lot of books and talked to a lot of smart people.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Don't just follow the trend.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: You may have heard me say that it's good to
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: think in terms of the physics approach, the first principles,
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: which is... rather than reasoning by analogy, you boil things
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: down to the most fundamental truths you can imagine and
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: you reason up from there. And this is a good
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: way to figure out if something really makes sense or
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: if it's just what everybody else is doing. It's hard
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: to think that way. You can't think that way about everything.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: It takes a lot of effort. But if you're trying
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: to do something new, it's the best way to think.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: And that framework was developed by physicists to figure out
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: counterintuitive things like quantum mechanics.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: So it's really a powerful, powerful method.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: And I want to know, what is the one thing
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: that has surprised you about your life?
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Well, I certainly, I'm surprised by the whole thing, honestly.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: I certainly didn't expect to be, to be, uh, for
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: any of these things to happen, honestly. Um, yeah, I just,
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: you know, I knew I wanted to be involved in technology, um,
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: And in fact, the only reason I started a company
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: back in 95, an internet company, was because there were
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: only a few internet companies and I couldn't get a
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: job at any of them. I tried to get a
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: job at Netscape and sent my resume in and tried
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: hanging out in the lobby, but I was too shy
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: to talk to anyone. And then I was like, okay, well,
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: I guess I'll have to start a company because I
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: can't get a job anywhere. Thank you.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't say I'm fearless. In fact, I think I fear,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: I feel fear quite strongly.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: But I, if what I'm doing is important enough, then
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: I just override the fear.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: But it's not as though I don't fear, I feel
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: more strongly than I would like.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: I think also people tend to over-weight risk on a
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: personal level. It's one thing if you've got you know,
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: a mortgage to pay and kids to support, and that
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: if you were to deviate from your job, that, well,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: how are you going to feed your family and pay
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: the rent?
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's understandable.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: But let's say you're young and you're just coming out
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: of college or coming out of high school or whatever,
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: what do you risk? You know, you're not going to starve.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's... It's really certainly not in any kind
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: of modern economy. It's so easy to earn enough money
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: just to live somewhere and eat food. I don't know,
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: what are the people afraid of? They're mostly afraid of failure,
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: I think. People should be less risk averse when there's not.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Much at risk. What is education?
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: You're basically downloading data and algorithms into your brain. And
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: it's actually amazingly bad in conventional education. It shouldn't be
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: this huge chore. The more you can gamify the process.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Of learning, the better.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: I was at sort of a slight existential crisis because
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: I was trying to figure out what does it all mean?
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Like, what's the purpose of things?
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: And I came to the conclusion that if we can
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: advance the knowledge of the world, if we can do
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: things that expand the scope and scale of consciousness, then
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: we're better able to ask the right questions and become
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: more enlightened. And that's really the only way forward.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: What drives you?
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: What is it that when you wake up in the morning,
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: do you see a problem and you want to solve it?
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: The thing that drives me is that I want to
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: be able to think about the future and feel good
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: about that. So that we're doing what we can to
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: have the future be as good as possible. to be
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: inspired by what is likely to happen.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: And to look forward to the next day.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: So that's what really drives me, is trying to figure
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: out how to make sure that things are great and
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: going to be so. That's the underlying principle behind Tesla
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: and SpaceX, is that... I think it's pretty important that
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: we accelerate the transition to sustainable generation and consumption of energy.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: It's inevitable, but it matters if it happens sooner or later.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: And then SpaceX is about helping make life multi-planetary. and
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: doing what we can to continue the dream of Apollo
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: and ultimately make a contribution to life becoming multi-planetary.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Let's talk a little more about that.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: I think everyone is very interested in that when you
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: say making life multi-planetary.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: That's exciting. It is exciting. So what's your vision there?
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: I think particularly for Americans, think about America is a
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: nation of explorers. People came here from other parts of
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: the world that chose to give up the known in
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: favor of the unknown. So I think exploration, I think
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: the United States is a distillation of the human spirit
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: of exploration. And so that's why it appeals to Americans
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: so much. You can see this when, say there was
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: a shuttle tragedy And seven people died and that's that's terrible,
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: but you know a lot of people die all the
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: time But why do we care so much because it
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: was the dream of exploration that.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Was dying along with those people That's why I mean,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: I thought both Tesla and SpaceX would fail at the
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: beginning You saw it?
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sure. Really?
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Of course. But nevertheless you put all your money in that.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: I expected to lose it.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Well technically What I thought was, well, I'll take half
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: the money from PayPal and if I lose half of it,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: that's okay. But then, of course, the companies encounter difficulties
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: and then have a choice of either let the company
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: die or put all the money into the companies.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: And so I.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Really didn't want the companies to die, so I put
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: all the money in the companies. And then I had
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: to borrow money from friends to pay living expenses. You know,
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: it's just looking just for evidence of exceptional ability. And
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: if there's a track record of exceptional achievement, then it's
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: likely that that will continue into the future. Well, it
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: really depends on the stakes. If the stakes are high,
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: if it's really important, then I will overcome the fear
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: and just do it anyway. But essentially, I mean, it's
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: drive overrides fear.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: But I feel the fear. It's kind of annoying. I
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: wish I felt it less. Thanks for watching!