there weren't tough times in uh 2008
end of 2008. how did you get through
that
period of crisis yeah
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we just break for a second
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2008 was brutal um
yeah 2008 we had the third consecutive
failure
of the falcon rocket for SpaceX tesla
almost went bankrupt we closed our
financing round
6 pm Christmas eve 2008. we would have
gone bankrupt two days after Christmas
and I got divorced that was like rough
man
women's scar tissue their SpaceX is alive
by the skin of its teeth so is tesla
if things have just gone a little bit
the other way both companies will be
dead
you know when you put your blood sweat
and tears into creating something
you're building something it's like a
a child when you had that third failure in
a row
did you think I need to pack this in
never
why not I don't ever give up
I mean I'd have to be dead or completely
incapacitated
musk bet the company on another flight
we have liftoff and this time around
everything worked
perfect if that fourth launch hadn't
worked that would have been it
we would have not had the resources to
mount a fifth whatever
the area that you get into um given that you
know even if you're
if you're the best there's
always a chance of failure
so I think it's important that you
I really like whatever you're doing
if you don't like its life is too short
if you like what you're doing
you think about it even when you're not
working it's something that your mind is
drawn to
and if you don't like it you just
really can't make it work I think
being focused on something that you're
confidence will have high value to
someone else
and just being really rigorous in making
that assessment
because people attend tend to a
natural human tendency is wishful
thinking
um so a challenge for entrepreneurs is
to say well what's the difference
between
really believing in your ideals and
sticking to them
versus pursuing some unrealistic dream
that doesn't actually have merit
so you need to be sort of very rigorous
in your self-analysis
and then just work like hell I mean you
just have to put in
you know 80 hours 80 to 100-hour weeks
every week
if other people are putting in 40-hour
workweeks and you're putting in
100 hour work weeks then even if you're
doing the same thing
you will achieve in four months what it
takes them
a year to achieve my brother and I were
starting our first company
instead of getting an apartment we just
rented a small office
and we slept on the couch and we
showered at the YMCA
and uh we're so hot up we had just one
computer so
the website was up to during the day and i
was coding at night
seven days a week all the time um
and I sort of briefly had a girlfriend
in that period and to
be with me she had to sleep in the
office work hard like
every waking hour that's the
the thing I would say
if you particularly if you're starting a
company
like first of all I'd say starting a
business is not for everyone generally
starting a business I'd say number one
is have a high paying threshold
there's a friend of mine who's got a
good saying which is that starting a
company is like eating glass and staring
into the abyss
okay that's um that's generally what
happens
when you first start a company there's
lots of optimism and things that things
are great and then
so happiness at first is high then you
encounter all sorts of issues
uh and happiness will steadily decline
and then you'll go through a whole world
of hurt
and then eventually you'll if you
succeed and
in most cases, you will not succeed
and tesla almost didn't succeed came
very close to failure
um then if you succeed then
after a long time, you will finally get
back to happiness
I think two is you've got to make sure
that
that you that whatever you're doing is a
great product or service it has to be
really great
if you're a new company I mean unless
it's like some new
industry or new market that if it's an
untapped market
the standard is lower for your product
service but if you're entering anything
where there's
an existing marketplace against large
entrenched competitors
then your product or service needs to be
much better
then that it can't be a little bit
better because then you put yourself in
the shoes of the consumer
and they say why would you buy it as a
the consumer you're always going to buy the
trusted brand unless there's a big
difference
number three I'd say is constantly seek
criticism
a well thought out critique of whatever
you're doing is
as valuable as gold and you should seek
that from
everyone you can but particularly your
friends
usually, your friends know what's wrong
but they don't want to tell you because
they don't want to hurt you
it doesn't mean your friends are right
but very often
they are right and you at least want to
listen very carefully to what they say
and to everyone basically, you should
take the approach
that you the entrepreneur are wrong your
the goal is to be less wrong
if you're creating a company or if
you're joining a company
the most important thing is to attract
is to
attract great people so either you would
join a group that's amazing that you
really respect
or if you're building a company
you've got to gather great people I mean
all the company is a group of people
that have gathered together to create a
product or service and so depending upon
how talented and hard-working that group
is and the degree to which they are focused
cohesively in a good direction that will
determine the success of the company
so do everything you can to gather
great people
if you're creating a company
don't just follow the trend it's good to
think in terms of
the physics approach for first
principles which are
rather than reasoning by analogy you
boil things down to
the most fundamental truths you can
imagine and you reason up from there
and this is a good way to figure out if
something really
makes sense or if it's just what
everybody else is doing
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it's hard to think that way you can't
think think that way about everything
takes a lot of effort
uh but if you're trying to do something
new it's the best way to think
um and that framework was developed by
by physicists
to figure out counterintuitive things um
like quantum mechanics so it's really a
powerful
powerful method if somebody is
doing something useful to the
rest of society I think that's a good
thing like it doesn't have to change the
world like
you know um if you're doing something
that has high value
to people um and frankly even if it's
something
if it's like um just a little game um
or some improvement in photo sharing or
something if it has a small amount of
good uh for a large number of people
I mean I think that's fine like
stuff doesn't need to be changed the
world just
to be good but you know in terms of
things that I think
are most likely to affect the future
of humanity, I think
um ai is probably the single biggest
item in the near term that's likely to
affect
uh humanity really is not able
to
think of existential threats in general
we're involved to think about things
that is very
close to us near to him to to be upset
with other humans
and not to really to think about
things that could destroy humanity as a
whole
but then just really in the last century
we had nuclear bombs which
are could potentially destroy
civilization obviously
I would have ai which could destroy
civilization uh we have global warming
which could destroy civilization or at
least severely disrupt
civilization um excuse me how could ai
destroy civilization you know it would
be something
the same way that humans destroyed the
habitat of
primates I mean it wouldn't necessarily
be destroyed but
it might be relegated to a small corner
of the world when homo sapiens
became much smarter than other primates
I pushed
all the other ones into small habitats
they're just in the way
we must have the
advent of ai
in a good way because it is something
that could go wrong
we really need to make sure it goes
right
what's next in technology the most
the near-term impact from a technology
standpoint is
autonomous cars like fully self-driving
cars
that's going to happen much faster than
people realize movement towards
electric vehicles sustainable transport
so that's probably something that
happens over 30 or 40 years
we'll see artificial intelligence
advance tremendously
the demand for electricity will increase
dramatically
there will be fewer and fewer jobs that
a robot cannot do better
with automation, they will come to an abundance
Over time I think we will probably see
a closer merger of biological
intelligence and digital intelligence
I think we should try to take a set of
actions that would most likely make the
future good for humanity I'm pro
I'm pro-human being a multi-planet
species and being out there among the
stars are important for
the long-term survival of humanity
and it creates a sense of adventure
and it makes people excited about the
future
if you consider two futures one where we
are forever
confined to earth until eventually
something
terrible happens or another future where
we are out there
mars and maybe beyond mars the moons of
Jupiter
traveling frequently throughout the
solar system I think all of this is
possible within 50 years
and I think it'll be very exciting to do
that
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