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Elon Musk on 2030: The Future No One Is Ready For · Motivation Mindset Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: You know, those who work in science probably understand your trajectory.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: But there are those who are watching who would think
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: if I made that money, I'd sit on a beach,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I'd drink beer, and I would just watch the sunset,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: kind of like a Corona beer commercial. Have you ever
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: thought about that as a career option.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: You know, I find that really pretty boring, So that
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: would be torture. If I had to do that every day,
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: that would really be pretty awful for me.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: Not only did you, well, you rose PayPal came up
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: to one point five billion you got out of that?
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: Only did you investigat we investigate twice. Not only that,
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: would you chose probably two of the most risky, capital
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: intensive industries to go with rocket technology, which is basically
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: a bomb directed up and then cars, which are you know,
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: we know what's happening in Detroit. So what is it
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: that motivates there to do that? To go through the
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: crucible again two times again?
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: It's much less fun than it may appear. I mean
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: the case of what I thought of I would do
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: was start and run SpaceX then and then create an
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: electricot company with a few other people worked just but
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: just like applied twenty percent of my time and work
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: on the product design because I'm like, my main thing
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: is engineering and design. So yeah, that was an illusion.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: So I don't really have any choice but to apply
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: a ton of time to Tesla or the company would
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: be you know, definitely dead.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: So but the other way to do it, you could
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: have stayed in the Silicon Valley, started another few internet companies,
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: made a zillion dollars, and then you could have bought
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: Chrysler and probably bought NASA too, and you wouldn't have
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: to start from scratch.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: One is not to sort of own a car company,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: it's but rather to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: You know, say, I don't think everyone needs to go,
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: you know, try to solve like some big, big world
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: changing problem. I mean I think that I really think
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: like we should just think like always doing something that's
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: useful to the world. Like if you're doing something useful,
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: that's great, Like you sort of a usefulness optimization is
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: like that's like a really good thing. You know, if
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: you if you've done something that's useful to your feeling
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: human beings, that's you've done a really good thing and
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: people should feel proud of doing that.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Is there something about startup businesses that that that really
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: fuels your desire to work?
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: I really need to be preoccupied with something. Uh, And
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: if if I'm just sort of sitting there relaxing, I
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: can only do that for a very short period of time,
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: and then it becomes unbearable. If you want to do
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: something really innovative, you have to apply a sort of
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: first principles analysis not and don't. Don't reason by analogy.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Analogies are referencing the past. So the first principles means
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: you look at the most fundamental truths in a particular
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: arena and the things that really are almost indisputably correct,
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: and you reason up from there to a conclusion. And
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: if you if you see that that conclusion that is
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: at odds with with what people generally believe, then you
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: have an opportunity. Now, you can't operate like that on
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: all things because it takes too much mental horsepower. So
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: mostly life you have to operate by reasoning by analogy.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: But if you really want to invate, you must reason
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: for first principles to identify the problem. Our target. Actually,
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: so we've got a pet snail called Gary. This is
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: from Gary. The snail from SpongeBob SquarePants. So, so Gary
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: is is capable of currently, he's capable of going fourteen
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: times faster than a tunnel boring machine. You want to
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: be Gary. We want to beat Gary. He's not a
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: patient little fellow, and we want to That will be victory.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Victory is beating the snail. But a lot of people imagining,
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: dreaming about future cities, they imagine that actually the solution
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: is is sort of flying cars, drones, et cetera. You
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: take you go above ground. Why isn't that a better
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: solution You save all that tunneling cost. Right, I'm in
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: favor of flying things, and obviously I do rockets, so
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: I like things that fly. This is not some inherent
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: bias against flying things. But there is a challenge of
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: flying cars in that will be quite noisy, the wind
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: force generated will be very high. Let's just say that
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: if something's flying over your head, there are a whole
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: bunch of flying cars going all over the place. That
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: is not an exciety and an anxiety reducing uh a situation, Well,
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, think about a company. A company is a
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: group of people that are organized to create a product
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: or service that's a sort of company. Is So in
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: order to create such a thing, you have to convince
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: others to join you in your effort. And and and
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: so they have to be convinced that that that it's
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: a sensible thing, that it's like that there's at least
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: some some good, some reasonable chance of success.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: And if if there is success, that the reward will
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: be commensorate with the effort involved. And you know so,
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: so I think that's getting people to believe in what
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: you're doing, uh, and in in you is is important.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: So in the beginning there will be there will be
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: a few people who do who believe in you or
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: in what you're doing. And uh. But then over time,
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: as you may progress that the evidence will build and
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: more and more people will believe in what you're doing.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: We are all of us already are sydewalks. So you
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: have a machine extension of yourself in the form of
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: your phone and your computer and all your applications. You
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: are already superhuman by far. You have more powerful capability
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: than President of the United States had, you know, thirty years ago.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: If you have an Internet link, you have an article
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: of wisdom you can communicate to millions of people. We
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: can communicate to the rest of our earth instantly. I mean,
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: these are magical powers that didn't exist not that long ago,
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: so everyone is already superhuman and a cybewalk. The limitation
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: is one of bandwidth, so we're bandwidth constraint, particularly on output,
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: so our input is much better, but our output is
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: extremely slow. The point of a company is to create
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: useful products and services. You know, companies not should not
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: exist in and of itself. It exists. It's a it's
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: a group of people gathered together to make products and services.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: And if those products and services are great, it's a
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: valuable and useful company. And if they're not, it's they's not.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: And so really, to understand a company, you must use
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: its products. And if you think the products are great,
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: then it's well the company is great. That's it. That
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: That's how it is. I think sometimes people fret a
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: bit too much about short term things that which are
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: clearly just you know, just bumps in the road type
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: of thing where there might be a supplier shortage or
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: you know, some shut down in some part of the world.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: But really those things are you know, are clearly just
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: kind of wonder off items that don't really matter for
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: the long term, so you know. So I guess sometimes
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: people fread a little bit too much about this quarter
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: or that quarter. But you know, if you're a shareholder,
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: a company is really like the net present value of
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: future cash flows, and so what is it? You know,
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: one quarter is not really a big deal. I think
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: if you see people panicking, then instead of you're saying,
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: oh man, my stock's gone down, there's a buying opportunity.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: I think it's a good idea when creating a company
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: to create a tablet demonstration or you know, if it's
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: a product, to have like a good markup, or if
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: it even if it's if software, to have good demo ware,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: or to be able to sketch something so people can
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: really envision what it's about like that. That's try to
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: get to that point as soon as possible and then
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: iterate to make it as real as possible as fast
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: as possible.
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: Could we expand so much energy running around on the
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: surface of the planet that we don't have enough to
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: eventually get off it to another planet if we want to,
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: And if so, how long might we have to that point?
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I actually think as long as the sun is
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: shining will be fine, if humanity had to get all
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: of its energy from from the sun, it could it
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: could do. So it's really this and a truly astounding
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: amount of energy that comes at us from from the sun.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's interesting that if you took the land
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: area of used by by by nuclear plants, including the
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: stayout zones and everything, and said, okay, what generates more
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: power the nuclear power plant or or just covering it
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: with solar panels. In most cases it's solar panels. Just
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: the area used by the nuclear power plant in solar
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: panels to generate more energy, because you actually have to
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: have a big stay out zone. You can't. You can't
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: just put a nuclear power plant in in out in
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: the suburbs and with the one people around it to
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: I've done this big clear and clear zone and so
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: they use a lot of area. And but just to
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: give you just a sense of how much power it
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: can come from the sun, this is literally true. At
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: what what I just in