when you had that third failure in a row
did you think I need to pack this in why
not I don’t ever give up I mean I’d have
to be dead or completely incapacitated
it turned out that the third failure was
caused by a two-second glitch in the
timing eight weeks later must bet the
company on another flight and this time
around everything worked perfect if that
poor Florence had to work that would
have been it we would have not had the
resources to mount a fifth you couldn’t
have gone on at that point yes death
would have been I think inevitable
because we did not have the resources to
to mount a fifth launch this is a tricky
business tricky yeah yeah I wish it
wasn’t so hard
running you’re CEO of two companies
you’re chairman of Solar City talk about
time management how on earth do you do
this you get any sleep
yeah sometimes not enough so you cause
it’s really great because because if you
find if I don’t get enough sleep then
I’m I’m quite grumpy I mean obviously
having boys people that way and and and
also I can try to sort of figure out
what’s the right amount of sleep cuz I I
thought I could have though I could drop
below a certain threshold of sleep and
although I’d be awake more hours and I
could sustain it I would get less done
because my mental acuity would be
affected
so I found generally the right number
for me is around six to six and a half
hours on average per night
that’s not too bad yeah and any other
tips on average or any other tips on
just managing to run two companies
simultaneously I mean do you do you find
I mean I know you’re up here on Monday
Tuesday is it all
Tesla when you’re up in Silicon Valley
and all SpaceX Wednesday Thursday it’s
having a service as having a smartphone
is incredibly helpful because that means
you can do email during interstitial
periods like you’re in a car you’re
walking in the bathroom everywhere you
can do email practically when you’re
awake and and so that’s really helpful
to have email for SpaceX and Tesla
integrated on my phone and then and then
it’s just you have to play a lot of
hours to actual working actually working
so the way I generally do it is I’ll be
working at SpaceX on Monday and then
Monday night flied to Bay Area spent
Tuesday and Wednesday at the Baria then
that at Tesla and then fly back on
Wednesday night it’s been Thursday and
Friday at SpaceX in in the last several
months then I would fly back here on a
Saturday and either spend Saturday and
Sunday at Tesla or spend Saturday at
Tesla and Sunday at SpaceX you are
unusually fearless and willing to go in
the face of other people telling you
something that’s crazy
and I know a lot of pretty crazy people
you still stand out where does that come
from or how do you think about making a
decision when everyone tells you this is
a crazy idea where do you get the
internal strength to do that I’m office
well I’d say I actually think I feel
feel fear quite strongly so it’s not as
though I just have the absence of fear
I’ve I feel it quite strongly but there
are times when if something is important
enough you believe in it enough that
do you do it in spite of the fear so
speaking of important things like people
shouldn’t think III I should if you
should think well I feel fear about this
and therefore I shouldn’t do it it’s
normal to be to feel fair like you’d
have to definitely something mentally
wrong you shouldn’t feel fair so you
just feel it and let the importance of
it drive you to do it anyway yeah you
know actually something that can be
helpful as fatalism some degree if you
just think it’s just accept the
probabilities then that diminishes fear
so my starting SpaceX I thought the odds
of success were less than 10% and I just
accepted that actually probably I would
just lose lose everything but that maybe
would make some progress if we could
just move the ball forward even if we
died maybe some other company could pick
up the baton and we keep moving forward
so that were still do some good yeah say
with Tesla I thought your odds of a car
company succeeding were extremely low my
brother and I were studying our first
company instead of getting an apartment
we just rented us a small office and we
slept on the couch and we showered at
the YMCA and we’re so hot up we had just
one computer so the website was up
during the day and I was coding at night
seven days a week all the time
and I sort of briefly had a gofer in
that period and in order to be with me
she had to sleep in the office so I work
hard like and it mean every waking hour
that’s that’s the the thing I would I
would say if your particular if you’re
starting a company and I mean if you do
simple math to say like okay if somebody
else is working 50 hours when you’re
working 100 you’ll get twice as done as
much done in the course of a year as the
other company and those have to be
focused on the short term and money
coming in when creating a company
because otherwise the company will die
so that the
I think that a lot of times people think
like creating company is gonna be fun I
would say it’s not it’s really not that
fun I mean there are periods of fun and
there are there are periods of where
it’s worse just awful and particularly
if you CEO of the company you actually
have a distillation of all the worst
problems in the company there’s no point
in spending your time on things that are
going right so you only spend on things
on your time on things that are going
wrong and and there are things that are
going wrong that other people can’t
can’t take care of so you’re like the
worst you have a filter for the
crappiest problems in the company the
most pernicious and painful problem so I
wouldn’t say it’s it’s it I think you
have to feel quite compelled to do it
and have a fairly high pain threshold
and there’s a friend of mine who says
like starting companies like staring at
the abyss and eating glass and there’s
we’re staring into the abyss part is
that you’re going to be constantly
facing the extermination of the company
because most most startups fail that’s
like 90% ugly 99% of Starks fail so I so
you that that’s the staring into the
abyss part you can’t constantly saying
okay this if I don’t get this right the
company will die it should be quite
straightforward quite stressful and and
then the eating glass part is you’ve got
you’ve got to do you’ve got to do the
problems you’re gonna sell you’re gonna
work in the problems that the company
needs you to work on not the problems
you want to work on and so that the
that’s you and I’ve working on problems
that that you’d really wish you weren’t
working on okay so that’s the eating
glass part then that goes on for a long
time so how do you keep your focus on
the big picture when you’re constantly
faced with we could be out of business
well it’s just a very small percentage
of mental energies on the on the big
picture like you know you know you know
where you generally heading for and and
the actual path is going to be some sort
of zig zaggy thing in that direction and
try not to deviate too far from the path
that that you want to be on but you’re
gonna have to do that some degree but I
don’t want to I don’t to diminish the I
mean I think the product the profit
motive is it is a is a good one if the
rules of an industry are properly set up
so there’s something fundamentally wrong
with puppet in fact profit just means
that people are paying you more for the
that whatever you’re doing then you’re
spending to create it that’s a good
thing and if you’re not if that’s not
the case then you’ll be out of business
and rightfully so you’re not adding an
effect if you’re creating company or if
you’re joining company the most
important thing is to actually is to
attract great people so either B would
join a group that’s amazing that you’ve
really respect or if you if you’re
building a company you’ve got to gather
great people I mean all the company is
is a group of people that have gathered
together to create a product or service
and so depending upon how talented and
hardworking that group is and 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 to gather
great people if you’re creating a
company I think certainly being focused
on something that you’re confident will
have high value to someone else and just
being really rigorous in making that
assessment because people are attend
tend to natural human tendencies wishful
thinking so a challenge for
entrepreneurs is to say well what’s the
difference between really believing in
new ideals and sticking sticking to them
versus pursuing some unrealistic dream
that doesn’t actually have merit and
it’s it’s that is it that is a really
difficult thing to to tell you can you
tell the difference between those two
things I know so you need to be sort of
very rigorous in your self self analysis
I think certainly extremely tenacious
and and then just work like hell I mean
you just have to put in you know 80 hour
and then matter like that all those
things improve the odds of success okay
I mean if other people are putting in 40
hour work weeks and you’re putting in
100 hour work weeks then even if you’re
doing the same thing you know that in in
one year you will achieve what they Qi
you will achieve in four months what it
takes them a year to achieve so one of
the I think most common questions I hear
young people and bishops young people
ask is I want to be the next to Gila
musk how do I do that obviously the next
Elon Musk will work on very different
things then and you did but what have
you done or what did you do when you
were younger that you think sort of set
you up to have a big impact
well I think first of all I should say
that I do not expect to be involved in
all these things so the the the the five
things that I thought about the time in
in college quite a long time ago 25
years ago you know being you know making
life multiplanetary slowly accelerating
the transition to sustainable energy the
the Internet
broadly speaking and and then genetics
and AI I think I didn’t expect to be
involved in in all of those things I
actually at the time in college I sort
of thought helping with electrification
of a bit of cars was how we start out
and that’s that’s actually what I worked
on as an intern was advanced
ultracapacitors with to see think there
would be a breakthrough relative to
batteries for energy storage and cars
and then when i came out to go to
Stanford that’s what I was going to be
doing my grad studies on is it was
working on her best at energy storage
technologies for electric cars and I put
that on hold to start an Internet
company in 95 because
that does seem to be like a time for
particular technologies when they’re at
a steep point in the inflection code and
and I didn’t want to you know do PhD at
Stanford and then and watch it all
happen and then and I wasn’t entirely
certain that the technology I’d be
working on would actually succeed I can
get you can get a you know doctrine or
many things that ultimately are not do
not have a practical bearing on the
world and I wanted to you know just I
really was just trying to be useful
that’s the optimization it’s like what
are what can I do that would actually be
useful do you think people that want to
be useful today you should get PhDs um
mostly not someone what is the best some
yes but mostly not how should someone
figure out how they can be most useful
or whatever this thing is that you’re
trying to create what would what would
be the utility Delta compared to the
current state-of-the-art times how many
people it would affect so that’s why I
think having something that has a that
that has a mix makes a big difference
but effects a sort of small to moderate
number of people is great as is
something that makes even a small
difference but but affects a vast number
of people like the area yeah on you know
under yeah exactly the area under the
curve is would actually be roughly
similar for those two things so it’s
actually really about yeah just trying
to be useful and matter when you’re
trying to estimate probability of
success so useiess thing will be really
useful then area under the curve I guess
to use the example of SpaceX mmm-hmm
when you made the NGO decision that
you’re actually gonna do that this was
kind of a very crazy thing at the time
very crazy there shortly yeah I’m not
shy about saying that but I kind of
regret I agreed with them that it was
quite crazy crazy if if the objective
was to achieve the best risk adjusted
return starting or a company is insane
but that was not that was not my
objective really liking what you do
whatever area that you get into given
that you know even if you if you’re
the best the best there’s always a
chance of failure so I think it’s
important that you really like whatever
you’re doing if you don’t like it life
is too short if you like what you’re
doing you think about it even when
you’re not working I mean it’ll just
it’s something that your mind is drawn
to and and if you don’t like it you just
really can’t make it work I think at
first why I really taken some thought to
like how can I provide advice that would
be most helpful and I’m not sure I’ve
given enough thought to do that to give
you the best possible answer but I think
I think certainly being focused on
something that you’re confident will
have high value to someone else and just
being really rigorous in making that
assessment because people are attend
tend to natural human tendency is
wishful thinking so a challenge for
entrepreneurs is to say well what’s the
difference between really believing in
your ideals and sticking sticking to
them versus pursuing some unrealistic
dream that doesn’t actually have merit
and it’s it’s that is it that is a
really difficult thing to to tell you
can you tell the difference between
those two things I know so you need to
be sort of very rigorous in your self
self analysis I think certainly
extremely tenacious and and then just
work like hell I mean you just have to
put in you know 80-hour and you don’t
hurt our weeks every week and then
matter like that but all those things
improve the odds of success okay
I mean if other people are putting in
40-hour work weeks and you’re putting in
100 hour work weeks then even if you’re
doing the same thing you know that in
one year you will achieve what that you
you you will achieve in four months what
it takes them a year to achieve when
you’re building something new there’s
going to be mistakes and it’s important
to to recognize those mistakes
acknowledge them and take corrective
action yeah and the success of a company
is very much more about how quick are
you to fix the mistakes not will you
make mistakes
or admit mistakes absolutely yeah and if
you see the difference between a startup
that is successful in one that is not
and it’s because the successful one they
both made mistakes but the successful
one recognized the mistakes fix them
very quickly and the the unsuccessful
one tries to deny that the mistakes
exist you know extremely smart people
are sometimes quite arrogant because
they believe in what they believe in
right and so when they face criticism
it’s less likely to admit you know they
can make mistakes was that in your case
I learnt it when I was doing when I was
studying physics the the you know in
physics you’re taught to always question
yourself you’re taught to always assume
that you’re wrong not to seem that
you’re right and you have to prove
yourself not not wrong and so I think
that that that physics framework is
really where where I learnt it and it’s
very effective for wonderful learning
counterintuitive things that aren’t
obvious mmm-hmm so you are very famous
in saying that failure is actually an
option and if you’re not failing but
that means you’re not you know they do
it yeah it’s not like I like failure
when you’re like smellier was terrible
but if you only do things that are
certain to succeed then you’re only
going to be doing very obvious things
when interview someone to work at the
companies would be to ask me tell me
about the problems that they worked on
and how they sold them and if someone
was really the person that solved it
they’ll be able to answer multiple
levels they’ll be able to go down to the
brass tacks and if they would they’ll
get stuck and then you can say oh this
person was not really the person who
solved it because anyone who struggled
hard with a problem you never forget how
do you spend your days now
like what do you mmm allocate most of
your time to my time is mostly split was
between SpaceX and Tesla and of course I
try to spend it’s a part of every week
at open e I so I spend most I spend
basically half a day at opening I in
most weeks and then and then I have some
open and stuff that happens during the
week but other than that it’s really
intersects our Tesla like what is your
time look like there yeah so it’s a good
question I think a lot of people think
ice
I must spend a lot of time with media or
on business see things but actually
almost almost all my time like 80% of it
is spent on engineering design in
engineering and design so it’s
developing the next generation product
at that’s 80% of it you probably
remember this a very long time ago many
many years you took me on a tour of
SpaceX and the most impressive thing was
that you knew every detail of the rocket
and every piece of engineering that went
into it and I don’t think many people
get that about you yeah I think a lot of
people think I’m kind of a business
person or something it just fine like
business is fine but that guy it really
eats you know it was like it SpaceX
Gwynne Shotwell is chief operating
officer she kind of manages legal
finance sales and kind of general
business activity and then my time is
almost entirely with the engineering
team working on improving like that the
Falcon 9 and the Dragon spacecraft and
developing the most colonial
architecture I mean that Tesla it’s
working on the model 3 and yes I mean
the design studio took very happy day a
week dealing with the aesthetics and and
look and feel things and and then most
of our week is just going through
engineering of the car itself as well as
engineering of the factory made some
money from the sale of PayPal you
decided to build a space company why on
earth would someone do that
got that question a lot that’s true
three people – did you hear the joke
about the guy who made a small fortune
in the space industry you know obviously
started with a large one is the
punchline and and so I tell people was
trying to figure out the fastest way to
turn a large fortune into a small one
and they looked at me like I was he
serious so it it was a close call me and
things almost didn’t work out because we
came very close to failure but we
managed to get through that point in
2008 the the goal of SpaceX is to try to
advance rocket technology and in
particular to try to crack a problem
that I think is vital for Humanity to
become a spacefaring civilization which
is to have it rapidly and fully reusable
rocket would humanity become a
spacefaring civilization so that was a
dream of yours and a way from a young
age or like you’ve dreamed of Mars and
Beyond I made I did build rockets when I
was a kid but I didn’t think I’d be
involved in this it was really more from
or from the standpoint of what are the
things that need to happen in order for
the future to be an exciting and
inspiring one and I really I don’t think
there’s a fundamental difference if you
sort of look into the future between
humanity that is what a spacefaring
civilization that’s out there exploring
the Stars on multiple planets and I
think that’s really exciting and
compared with with one where we have
forever confined to earth it focus on on
signal over noise a lot of companies get
gift confused they they spend money on
things that don’t actually make the
product better for example at Tesla
we’ve we’ve never spent any money on
advertising we put all the money into
R&D and manufacturing and design to try
to make the car as good as possible and
I think that’s that’s the way to go if
we’re for any given company just keep
thinking about are these efforts that
people are expending are they resulting
in a better product or service and if
they’re not stopped
what Tesla your goal has been to make a
better car and you’ve done that with an
electric vehicle that people covet that
has caught a cult following
that’s upgradable but you also want to
achieve and your Turner phrase is very
nice or try to achieve this Platonic
ideal of a car right to reach perfection
so what does the perfect car look like
well I’m gonna do I do use that phrase
with our engineering design team that
aspirationally we’re in pursuit of the
Platonic ideal of the perfect car and
here’s what that looks like actually but
it’s I want to try to make every element
of the car as as flawless as possible
they’ll always be you know some degree
of imperfection but try to minimize that
and create a car that is just a line
fill in every way and I think if you do
that then the rest kind of takes care of
itself you know I was wondering like I’d
like to get involved in space but I just
didn’t think there was anything I could
do as an individual and but I was
curious as to when we when we NASA would
be sending a team to Mars because that
was always gonna be the thing to do
after the moon I figured that there’d be
some plan and I just go websites and I
then Mars
oh yeah it’s like okay 2017 good okay
but actually there wasn’t anything on on
the website and or at least I thought
like am I can and I’ll find it like
what’s gonna under here and it’s a
secret I don’t know I so but it turned
out that that NASA had done a study on
what it would cost us and did to do a
manned Mars mission and I this was under
Bush the first and I suppose he asked
for a 90-day study short laughed at
taking office and NASA came back with a
500 billion dollar price tag and he said
okay maybe not bill you’re not be that’s
been five hundred billion dollars with
serious money
here for the government so I so then
that got totally shelf and it was like
you were not allowed to talk about any
kind of crude mission to Mars at NASA
anyway so I but I thought well if I can
do something that word galvanize public
interest that and and then that public
interest would translate to additional
appropriations for NASA increased their
budget then then maybe they could do it
so the foot so actually what I sort of
thinking I would do is send us a small
greenhouse the surface of Mars
versed’s and dehydrated gel and then
upon landing hydrate the jelly roll ants
and the public to respond to precedents
and superlatives so this would be the
farthest that life’s ever traveled the
first life on Mars I tried to try to
figure out how to do this with the
proceeds that I had from from PayPal and
I was able to figure out how to get the
cost of the spacecraft down and the
communications and the little of
greenhouse everything but the one thing
I couldn’t compress was the cost launch
it was there only a few options and the
us options are way too expensive and I
ended up going to Russia three times to
try to buy the biggest ICBM and the
Russian nuclear fleet
that’s where I’d start yeah yeah go baby
yeah I mean okay but they it was so
there were some strange trips that’s for
sure but you know it’s like virtually
like you can buy any it’s a very
capitalist society in some ways so I
actually didn’t ago she had a deal to
but I can’t think inclusion app that
third trip that it wouldn’t really
matter like you actually came conclusion
that my initial premise was was was
wrong because I actually think there’s
there’s tremendous amount of will in the
American population particularly to to
explore the United States
you know maybe more than any other
country is a distillation of the human
spirit of exploration and it’s really
fundamental to psyche so if people think
there’s a way I think it actually get a
lot of support you know but but then it
can’t be just banging your head against
the wall I gotta believe that this can
be done without breaking the federal
budget so that’s when I said okay well
is there some way to affect the cost of
space transport and and is it and so I
got together with a group of people of
her series of Saturday’s just to just
try it outside is there something super
expand ‘mentally super expensive about
rockets or can the cost be substantially
improved and act had we had a bunch of
those kind of brainstorming sessions and
I couldn’t see I couldn’t say any
fundamental obstacle to improving the
cost of rockets so that’s when I started
SpaceX it’s like I’ll just build it
myself yeah and then but I said it at
that point I would say the probability
of success was definitely less than 50
percent I thought it would most likely
not succeed
but we’re try and now is the time to
take risk you don’t have kids as you get
older your obligations increase so your
and once you have a family you start
taking risks not just before yourself
but for your family as well it gets much
harder to do things that might not work
out so now is the time to do that before
you before you have those obligations so
I would encourage you to take risks now
to do something bold you won’t regret it
CEO SpaceX and you’ve said that your
ultimate goal is to get humankind to
Mars
I’ve heard your response to the question
but these guys need to hear it why is
Mars important why does mars matter sure
well I think the it’s really a
fundamental surgeon we need to make as a
civilization you know what kind of
future do we want do we want a future
where we have forever confined to one
planet until some eventual extinction
event however far in the future that
might occur or do we want to become a
multi-planet species and and then
ultimately be out there among the stars
me among many planets many star systems
and I think the latter is a far more
exciting and inspiring future than the
former and and Mars is the next natural
step in fact it’s the only planet we
really have a shot at at establishing a
self-sustaining city on and and I think
once we do establish such a city there
will be a strong forcing function for
the improvement of spaceflight
technology that will then enable us to
establish colonies elsewhere in the
solar system and ultimately extend
beyond the beyond our solar system and
and so there’s the defensive reason of
protecting the future of humanity
ensuring that the light of consciousness
is not extinguished should some calamity
before Earth but also and that’s the
defensive reason but personally I find
the more the word what it gets me more
excited is is the fact that this would
be an incredible adventure maybe like
the greatest adventure ever hmm and it
will be exciting and inspiring and they
need to be things that excite and
inspire people yeah you have to be you
know reasons why you get up in the
morning it can’t just be solving
problems it’s got to be yeah something
something great is gonna happen in the
future yeah we talked about this at
length yesterday it’s it’s not an exit
strategy or a back-up plan for humankind
or it fails right it’s also to inspire
people on earth right and to transcend
and to think to go beyond our mental
limits of what we think we can achieve
right I mean I think it’s sort of how
incredible the Apollo program was and
just I mean if if you ask anyone and to
name name some of humanity’s greatest
achievements in 20th century
the Apollo program landing on the moon
would wouldn’t it in many of my most
places be number one to definitely
advise people we’re starting company to
expect a long period of quite high
difficulty yeah but I mean song is
people’s take super focused on creating
an absolute best product or service that
really delights their end customer like
if they stay focused on that then it
should basically if you get a such that
your customers want you to succeed then
then you probably will all right you
have to focus on the customer delivering
for them yeah make sure if your
customers W you will your odds of success are dramatically higher
did you think I need to pack this in why
not I don’t ever give up I mean I’d have
to be dead or completely incapacitated
it turned out that the third failure was
caused by a two-second glitch in the
timing eight weeks later must bet the
company on another flight and this time
around everything worked perfect if that
poor Florence had to work that would
have been it we would have not had the
resources to mount a fifth you couldn’t
have gone on at that point yes death
would have been I think inevitable
because we did not have the resources to
to mount a fifth launch this is a tricky
business tricky yeah yeah I wish it
wasn’t so hard
running you’re CEO of two companies
you’re chairman of Solar City talk about
time management how on earth do you do
this you get any sleep
yeah sometimes not enough so you cause
it’s really great because because if you
find if I don’t get enough sleep then
I’m I’m quite grumpy I mean obviously
having boys people that way and and and
also I can try to sort of figure out
what’s the right amount of sleep cuz I I
thought I could have though I could drop
below a certain threshold of sleep and
although I’d be awake more hours and I
could sustain it I would get less done
because my mental acuity would be
affected
so I found generally the right number
for me is around six to six and a half
hours on average per night
that’s not too bad yeah and any other
tips on average or any other tips on
just managing to run two companies
simultaneously I mean do you do you find
I mean I know you’re up here on Monday
Tuesday is it all
Tesla when you’re up in Silicon Valley
and all SpaceX Wednesday Thursday it’s
having a service as having a smartphone
is incredibly helpful because that means
you can do email during interstitial
periods like you’re in a car you’re
walking in the bathroom everywhere you
can do email practically when you’re
awake and and so that’s really helpful
to have email for SpaceX and Tesla
integrated on my phone and then and then
it’s just you have to play a lot of
hours to actual working actually working
so the way I generally do it is I’ll be
working at SpaceX on Monday and then
Monday night flied to Bay Area spent
Tuesday and Wednesday at the Baria then
that at Tesla and then fly back on
Wednesday night it’s been Thursday and
Friday at SpaceX in in the last several
months then I would fly back here on a
Saturday and either spend Saturday and
Sunday at Tesla or spend Saturday at
Tesla and Sunday at SpaceX you are
unusually fearless and willing to go in
the face of other people telling you
something that’s crazy
and I know a lot of pretty crazy people
you still stand out where does that come
from or how do you think about making a
decision when everyone tells you this is
a crazy idea where do you get the
internal strength to do that I’m office
well I’d say I actually think I feel
feel fear quite strongly so it’s not as
though I just have the absence of fear
I’ve I feel it quite strongly but there
are times when if something is important
enough you believe in it enough that
do you do it in spite of the fear so
speaking of important things like people
shouldn’t think III I should if you
should think well I feel fear about this
and therefore I shouldn’t do it it’s
normal to be to feel fair like you’d
have to definitely something mentally
wrong you shouldn’t feel fair so you
just feel it and let the importance of
it drive you to do it anyway yeah you
know actually something that can be
helpful as fatalism some degree if you
just think it’s just accept the
probabilities then that diminishes fear
so my starting SpaceX I thought the odds
of success were less than 10% and I just
accepted that actually probably I would
just lose lose everything but that maybe
would make some progress if we could
just move the ball forward even if we
died maybe some other company could pick
up the baton and we keep moving forward
so that were still do some good yeah say
with Tesla I thought your odds of a car
company succeeding were extremely low my
brother and I were studying our first
company instead of getting an apartment
we just rented us a small office and we
slept on the couch and we showered at
the YMCA and we’re so hot up we had just
one computer so the website was up
during the day and I was coding at night
seven days a week all the time
and I sort of briefly had a gofer in
that period and in order to be with me
she had to sleep in the office so I work
hard like and it mean every waking hour
that’s that’s the the thing I would I
would say if your particular if you’re
starting a company and I mean if you do
simple math to say like okay if somebody
else is working 50 hours when you’re
working 100 you’ll get twice as done as
much done in the course of a year as the
other company and those have to be
focused on the short term and money
coming in when creating a company
because otherwise the company will die
so that the
I think that a lot of times people think
like creating company is gonna be fun I
would say it’s not it’s really not that
fun I mean there are periods of fun and
there are there are periods of where
it’s worse just awful and particularly
if you CEO of the company you actually
have a distillation of all the worst
problems in the company there’s no point
in spending your time on things that are
going right so you only spend on things
on your time on things that are going
wrong and and there are things that are
going wrong that other people can’t
can’t take care of so you’re like the
worst you have a filter for the
crappiest problems in the company the
most pernicious and painful problem so I
wouldn’t say it’s it’s it I think you
have to feel quite compelled to do it
and have a fairly high pain threshold
and there’s a friend of mine who says
like starting companies like staring at
the abyss and eating glass and there’s
we’re staring into the abyss part is
that you’re going to be constantly
facing the extermination of the company
because most most startups fail that’s
like 90% ugly 99% of Starks fail so I so
you that that’s the staring into the
abyss part you can’t constantly saying
okay this if I don’t get this right the
company will die it should be quite
straightforward quite stressful and and
then the eating glass part is you’ve got
you’ve got to do you’ve got to do the
problems you’re gonna sell you’re gonna
work in the problems that the company
needs you to work on not the problems
you want to work on and so that the
that’s you and I’ve working on problems
that that you’d really wish you weren’t
working on okay so that’s the eating
glass part then that goes on for a long
time so how do you keep your focus on
the big picture when you’re constantly
faced with we could be out of business
well it’s just a very small percentage
of mental energies on the on the big
picture like you know you know you know
where you generally heading for and and
the actual path is going to be some sort
of zig zaggy thing in that direction and
try not to deviate too far from the path
that that you want to be on but you’re
gonna have to do that some degree but I
don’t want to I don’t to diminish the I
mean I think the product the profit
motive is it is a is a good one if the
rules of an industry are properly set up
so there’s something fundamentally wrong
with puppet in fact profit just means
that people are paying you more for the
that whatever you’re doing then you’re
spending to create it that’s a good
thing and if you’re not if that’s not
the case then you’ll be out of business
and rightfully so you’re not adding an
effect if you’re creating company or if
you’re joining company the most
important thing is to actually is to
attract great people so either B would
join a group that’s amazing that you’ve
really respect or if you if you’re
building a company you’ve got to gather
great people I mean all the company is
is a group of people that have gathered
together to create a product or service
and so depending upon how talented and
hardworking that group is and 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 to gather
great people if you’re creating a
company I think certainly being focused
on something that you’re confident will
have high value to someone else and just
being really rigorous in making that
assessment because people are attend
tend to natural human tendencies wishful
thinking so a challenge for
entrepreneurs is to say well what’s the
difference between really believing in
new ideals and sticking sticking to them
versus pursuing some unrealistic dream
that doesn’t actually have merit and
it’s it’s that is it that is a really
difficult thing to to tell you can you
tell the difference between those two
things I know so you need to be sort of
very rigorous in your self self analysis
I think certainly extremely tenacious
and and then just work like hell I mean
you just have to put in you know 80 hour
and then matter like that all those
things improve the odds of success okay
I mean if other people are putting in 40
hour work weeks and you’re putting in
100 hour work weeks then even if you’re
doing the same thing you know that in in
one year you will achieve what they Qi
you will achieve in four months what it
takes them a year to achieve so one of
the I think most common questions I hear
young people and bishops young people
ask is I want to be the next to Gila
musk how do I do that obviously the next
Elon Musk will work on very different
things then and you did but what have
you done or what did you do when you
were younger that you think sort of set
you up to have a big impact
well I think first of all I should say
that I do not expect to be involved in
all these things so the the the the five
things that I thought about the time in
in college quite a long time ago 25
years ago you know being you know making
life multiplanetary slowly accelerating
the transition to sustainable energy the
the Internet
broadly speaking and and then genetics
and AI I think I didn’t expect to be
involved in in all of those things I
actually at the time in college I sort
of thought helping with electrification
of a bit of cars was how we start out
and that’s that’s actually what I worked
on as an intern was advanced
ultracapacitors with to see think there
would be a breakthrough relative to
batteries for energy storage and cars
and then when i came out to go to
Stanford that’s what I was going to be
doing my grad studies on is it was
working on her best at energy storage
technologies for electric cars and I put
that on hold to start an Internet
company in 95 because
that does seem to be like a time for
particular technologies when they’re at
a steep point in the inflection code and
and I didn’t want to you know do PhD at
Stanford and then and watch it all
happen and then and I wasn’t entirely
certain that the technology I’d be
working on would actually succeed I can
get you can get a you know doctrine or
many things that ultimately are not do
not have a practical bearing on the
world and I wanted to you know just I
really was just trying to be useful
that’s the optimization it’s like what
are what can I do that would actually be
useful do you think people that want to
be useful today you should get PhDs um
mostly not someone what is the best some
yes but mostly not how should someone
figure out how they can be most useful
or whatever this thing is that you’re
trying to create what would what would
be the utility Delta compared to the
current state-of-the-art times how many
people it would affect so that’s why I
think having something that has a that
that has a mix makes a big difference
but effects a sort of small to moderate
number of people is great as is
something that makes even a small
difference but but affects a vast number
of people like the area yeah on you know
under yeah exactly the area under the
curve is would actually be roughly
similar for those two things so it’s
actually really about yeah just trying
to be useful and matter when you’re
trying to estimate probability of
success so useiess thing will be really
useful then area under the curve I guess
to use the example of SpaceX mmm-hmm
when you made the NGO decision that
you’re actually gonna do that this was
kind of a very crazy thing at the time
very crazy there shortly yeah I’m not
shy about saying that but I kind of
regret I agreed with them that it was
quite crazy crazy if if the objective
was to achieve the best risk adjusted
return starting or a company is insane
but that was not that was not my
objective really liking what you do
whatever area that you get into given
that you know even if you if you’re
the best the best there’s always a
chance of failure so I think it’s
important that you really like whatever
you’re doing if you don’t like it life
is too short if you like what you’re
doing you think about it even when
you’re not working I mean it’ll just
it’s something that your mind is drawn
to and and if you don’t like it you just
really can’t make it work I think at
first why I really taken some thought to
like how can I provide advice that would
be most helpful and I’m not sure I’ve
given enough thought to do that to give
you the best possible answer but I think
I think certainly being focused on
something that you’re confident will
have high value to someone else and just
being really rigorous in making that
assessment because people are attend
tend to natural human tendency is
wishful thinking so a challenge for
entrepreneurs is to say well what’s the
difference between really believing in
your ideals and sticking sticking to
them versus pursuing some unrealistic
dream that doesn’t actually have merit
and it’s it’s that is it that is a
really difficult thing to to tell you
can you tell the difference between
those two things I know so you need to
be sort of very rigorous in your self
self analysis I think certainly
extremely tenacious and and then just
work like hell I mean you just have to
put in you know 80-hour and you don’t
hurt our weeks every week and then
matter like that but all those things
improve the odds of success okay
I mean if other people are putting in
40-hour work weeks and you’re putting in
100 hour work weeks then even if you’re
doing the same thing you know that in
one year you will achieve what that you
you you will achieve in four months what
it takes them a year to achieve when
you’re building something new there’s
going to be mistakes and it’s important
to to recognize those mistakes
acknowledge them and take corrective
action yeah and the success of a company
is very much more about how quick are
you to fix the mistakes not will you
make mistakes
or admit mistakes absolutely yeah and if
you see the difference between a startup
that is successful in one that is not
and it’s because the successful one they
both made mistakes but the successful
one recognized the mistakes fix them
very quickly and the the unsuccessful
one tries to deny that the mistakes
exist you know extremely smart people
are sometimes quite arrogant because
they believe in what they believe in
right and so when they face criticism
it’s less likely to admit you know they
can make mistakes was that in your case
I learnt it when I was doing when I was
studying physics the the you know in
physics you’re taught to always question
yourself you’re taught to always assume
that you’re wrong not to seem that
you’re right and you have to prove
yourself not not wrong and so I think
that that that physics framework is
really where where I learnt it and it’s
very effective for wonderful learning
counterintuitive things that aren’t
obvious mmm-hmm so you are very famous
in saying that failure is actually an
option and if you’re not failing but
that means you’re not you know they do
it yeah it’s not like I like failure
when you’re like smellier was terrible
but if you only do things that are
certain to succeed then you’re only
going to be doing very obvious things
when interview someone to work at the
companies would be to ask me tell me
about the problems that they worked on
and how they sold them and if someone
was really the person that solved it
they’ll be able to answer multiple
levels they’ll be able to go down to the
brass tacks and if they would they’ll
get stuck and then you can say oh this
person was not really the person who
solved it because anyone who struggled
hard with a problem you never forget how
do you spend your days now
like what do you mmm allocate most of
your time to my time is mostly split was
between SpaceX and Tesla and of course I
try to spend it’s a part of every week
at open e I so I spend most I spend
basically half a day at opening I in
most weeks and then and then I have some
open and stuff that happens during the
week but other than that it’s really
intersects our Tesla like what is your
time look like there yeah so it’s a good
question I think a lot of people think
ice
I must spend a lot of time with media or
on business see things but actually
almost almost all my time like 80% of it
is spent on engineering design in
engineering and design so it’s
developing the next generation product
at that’s 80% of it you probably
remember this a very long time ago many
many years you took me on a tour of
SpaceX and the most impressive thing was
that you knew every detail of the rocket
and every piece of engineering that went
into it and I don’t think many people
get that about you yeah I think a lot of
people think I’m kind of a business
person or something it just fine like
business is fine but that guy it really
eats you know it was like it SpaceX
Gwynne Shotwell is chief operating
officer she kind of manages legal
finance sales and kind of general
business activity and then my time is
almost entirely with the engineering
team working on improving like that the
Falcon 9 and the Dragon spacecraft and
developing the most colonial
architecture I mean that Tesla it’s
working on the model 3 and yes I mean
the design studio took very happy day a
week dealing with the aesthetics and and
look and feel things and and then most
of our week is just going through
engineering of the car itself as well as
engineering of the factory made some
money from the sale of PayPal you
decided to build a space company why on
earth would someone do that
got that question a lot that’s true
three people – did you hear the joke
about the guy who made a small fortune
in the space industry you know obviously
started with a large one is the
punchline and and so I tell people was
trying to figure out the fastest way to
turn a large fortune into a small one
and they looked at me like I was he
serious so it it was a close call me and
things almost didn’t work out because we
came very close to failure but we
managed to get through that point in
2008 the the goal of SpaceX is to try to
advance rocket technology and in
particular to try to crack a problem
that I think is vital for Humanity to
become a spacefaring civilization which
is to have it rapidly and fully reusable
rocket would humanity become a
spacefaring civilization so that was a
dream of yours and a way from a young
age or like you’ve dreamed of Mars and
Beyond I made I did build rockets when I
was a kid but I didn’t think I’d be
involved in this it was really more from
or from the standpoint of what are the
things that need to happen in order for
the future to be an exciting and
inspiring one and I really I don’t think
there’s a fundamental difference if you
sort of look into the future between
humanity that is what a spacefaring
civilization that’s out there exploring
the Stars on multiple planets and I
think that’s really exciting and
compared with with one where we have
forever confined to earth it focus on on
signal over noise a lot of companies get
gift confused they they spend money on
things that don’t actually make the
product better for example at Tesla
we’ve we’ve never spent any money on
advertising we put all the money into
R&D and manufacturing and design to try
to make the car as good as possible and
I think that’s that’s the way to go if
we’re for any given company just keep
thinking about are these efforts that
people are expending are they resulting
in a better product or service and if
they’re not stopped
what Tesla your goal has been to make a
better car and you’ve done that with an
electric vehicle that people covet that
has caught a cult following
that’s upgradable but you also want to
achieve and your Turner phrase is very
nice or try to achieve this Platonic
ideal of a car right to reach perfection
so what does the perfect car look like
well I’m gonna do I do use that phrase
with our engineering design team that
aspirationally we’re in pursuit of the
Platonic ideal of the perfect car and
here’s what that looks like actually but
it’s I want to try to make every element
of the car as as flawless as possible
they’ll always be you know some degree
of imperfection but try to minimize that
and create a car that is just a line
fill in every way and I think if you do
that then the rest kind of takes care of
itself you know I was wondering like I’d
like to get involved in space but I just
didn’t think there was anything I could
do as an individual and but I was
curious as to when we when we NASA would
be sending a team to Mars because that
was always gonna be the thing to do
after the moon I figured that there’d be
some plan and I just go websites and I
then Mars
oh yeah it’s like okay 2017 good okay
but actually there wasn’t anything on on
the website and or at least I thought
like am I can and I’ll find it like
what’s gonna under here and it’s a
secret I don’t know I so but it turned
out that that NASA had done a study on
what it would cost us and did to do a
manned Mars mission and I this was under
Bush the first and I suppose he asked
for a 90-day study short laughed at
taking office and NASA came back with a
500 billion dollar price tag and he said
okay maybe not bill you’re not be that’s
been five hundred billion dollars with
serious money
here for the government so I so then
that got totally shelf and it was like
you were not allowed to talk about any
kind of crude mission to Mars at NASA
anyway so I but I thought well if I can
do something that word galvanize public
interest that and and then that public
interest would translate to additional
appropriations for NASA increased their
budget then then maybe they could do it
so the foot so actually what I sort of
thinking I would do is send us a small
greenhouse the surface of Mars
versed’s and dehydrated gel and then
upon landing hydrate the jelly roll ants
and the public to respond to precedents
and superlatives so this would be the
farthest that life’s ever traveled the
first life on Mars I tried to try to
figure out how to do this with the
proceeds that I had from from PayPal and
I was able to figure out how to get the
cost of the spacecraft down and the
communications and the little of
greenhouse everything but the one thing
I couldn’t compress was the cost launch
it was there only a few options and the
us options are way too expensive and I
ended up going to Russia three times to
try to buy the biggest ICBM and the
Russian nuclear fleet
that’s where I’d start yeah yeah go baby
yeah I mean okay but they it was so
there were some strange trips that’s for
sure but you know it’s like virtually
like you can buy any it’s a very
capitalist society in some ways so I
actually didn’t ago she had a deal to
but I can’t think inclusion app that
third trip that it wouldn’t really
matter like you actually came conclusion
that my initial premise was was was
wrong because I actually think there’s
there’s tremendous amount of will in the
American population particularly to to
explore the United States
you know maybe more than any other
country is a distillation of the human
spirit of exploration and it’s really
fundamental to psyche so if people think
there’s a way I think it actually get a
lot of support you know but but then it
can’t be just banging your head against
the wall I gotta believe that this can
be done without breaking the federal
budget so that’s when I said okay well
is there some way to affect the cost of
space transport and and is it and so I
got together with a group of people of
her series of Saturday’s just to just
try it outside is there something super
expand ‘mentally super expensive about
rockets or can the cost be substantially
improved and act had we had a bunch of
those kind of brainstorming sessions and
I couldn’t see I couldn’t say any
fundamental obstacle to improving the
cost of rockets so that’s when I started
SpaceX it’s like I’ll just build it
myself yeah and then but I said it at
that point I would say the probability
of success was definitely less than 50
percent I thought it would most likely
not succeed
but we’re try and now is the time to
take risk you don’t have kids as you get
older your obligations increase so your
and once you have a family you start
taking risks not just before yourself
but for your family as well it gets much
harder to do things that might not work
out so now is the time to do that before
you before you have those obligations so
I would encourage you to take risks now
to do something bold you won’t regret it
CEO SpaceX and you’ve said that your
ultimate goal is to get humankind to
Mars
I’ve heard your response to the question
but these guys need to hear it why is
Mars important why does mars matter sure
well I think the it’s really a
fundamental surgeon we need to make as a
civilization you know what kind of
future do we want do we want a future
where we have forever confined to one
planet until some eventual extinction
event however far in the future that
might occur or do we want to become a
multi-planet species and and then
ultimately be out there among the stars
me among many planets many star systems
and I think the latter is a far more
exciting and inspiring future than the
former and and Mars is the next natural
step in fact it’s the only planet we
really have a shot at at establishing a
self-sustaining city on and and I think
once we do establish such a city there
will be a strong forcing function for
the improvement of spaceflight
technology that will then enable us to
establish colonies elsewhere in the
solar system and ultimately extend
beyond the beyond our solar system and
and so there’s the defensive reason of
protecting the future of humanity
ensuring that the light of consciousness
is not extinguished should some calamity
before Earth but also and that’s the
defensive reason but personally I find
the more the word what it gets me more
excited is is the fact that this would
be an incredible adventure maybe like
the greatest adventure ever hmm and it
will be exciting and inspiring and they
need to be things that excite and
inspire people yeah you have to be you
know reasons why you get up in the
morning it can’t just be solving
problems it’s got to be yeah something
something great is gonna happen in the
future yeah we talked about this at
length yesterday it’s it’s not an exit
strategy or a back-up plan for humankind
or it fails right it’s also to inspire
people on earth right and to transcend
and to think to go beyond our mental
limits of what we think we can achieve
right I mean I think it’s sort of how
incredible the Apollo program was and
just I mean if if you ask anyone and to
name name some of humanity’s greatest
achievements in 20th century
the Apollo program landing on the moon
would wouldn’t it in many of my most
places be number one to definitely
advise people we’re starting company to
expect a long period of quite high
difficulty yeah but I mean song is
people’s take super focused on creating
an absolute best product or service that
really delights their end customer like
if they stay focused on that then it
should basically if you get a such that
your customers want you to succeed then
then you probably will all right you
have to focus on the customer delivering
for them yeah make sure if your
customers W you will your odds of success are dramatically higher
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