MIND BLOWING WORK ETHIC - Elon Musk Motivational Video

No one should put this many hours into work this is not good people should not work this hard I'm not they should not do this this is very painful painful in what sense it's hurts my hurts my brain and my heart particularly if you're starting a company you need to work super heart so what what does Super heart mean um well when my brother and I were starting our First company uh in instead of getting an apartment we just rented a a small office and we slept on the couch um and we we showered at

the the YMCA and uh we're we're so hot up we had just one computer so the the the the website was up during the day uh and I was coding at night 7 days a week all the time um and I I uh so briefly had a girlriend in that period and in order to be with me she have to sleep in the office so I work hard like it I mean every waking hour that's that's the the thing I would I would say if if you particularly if you're starting a company um and I

mean if you do the simple math say like okay if somebody else is working 50 hours and you're working 100 uh you'll get twice as done as much done in the course of a year as the as uh the other company just work like hell I mean you just have to put in you know 80 hour 80 to 100 hour weeks every week And then work that all those things improve the odds of success um I mean if if if other people are putting in 40-hour work weeks and you're putting in 100h hour work weeks

then even if uh you're doing the same thing you know that in in one year you will achieve what they achieve you you will achieve in 4 months what it takes them a year to achieve what was your biggest failure and how did it change you we we almost did diet spasic actually so we I Budgeted for for three flights um I mean technically I I did have a plan where I I had had had the money from PayPal I had like about 180 million from PayPal I thought you know I I'll allocate half of

that to SpaceX and Tesla and Solar City and um that should be fine I'll have 90 million lik that's Lots you know uh but but then what happened is um things cost more and took longer than than I thought so I had a choice of either put the rest of the money in or The companies are going to die um and like so I put ended up putting all the money in and borrowing money or rent from France um 2008 was brutal um yeah 2008 we had the third consecutive failure of the Falon rocket for

SpaceX um Tesla almost went bankrupt we we closed our financing round 600 p.m. Christmas Eve 2008 it was the last hour of the last day that it was possible we Would have gone bankrupt 2 days after Christmas iwi SpaceX is alive by skin of its teeth so is Tesla um if if things just gone a little bit the other way both companies would be dead and I and I like one of the most difficult choices I've ever faced uh in life was was in 2008 um and um I think I had uh like maybe $30

million left or 30 or $40 million left in 2008 I had two choices I could put it all into one Company and then the other company would definitely die um or split it between the two companies and but if I split it between the two companies then both might die um and you when you put your Blood Sweat and Tears into creating something or building something it's like a child um and so it's like which one am I going to let one starve to death I couldn't bring myself to do it So I put I

I split the money between the two fortunately thank goodness uh they both came through Tesla really faced a sever uh th threat of death uh due to the model 3 production Ram essentially the company was bleeding money like crazy and and just if if we didn't solve these problems in a very short period of time uh we would die uh and it was extremely difficult to solve them how close to death did you come we Within single digit weeks 22 hours a day like how many I working yeah so 7 days a week sleeping in

the factory uh I worked every from the I worked in work in the Paint Shop General Assembly Body Shop you ever worry about yourself imploding like just too much absolutely I think failure is bad um I don't think it's good um but if if if something's important enough then you you do it even though the risk of failure High were you a little naive when you Thought I just I can easily build build an electric car and and a rocket I didn't think it would be easy um I like I said I thought they would

probably fail um but you know like creating a company is almost like having a child so it's sort of like how do you say your child should not have food so one once you have the company you have to feed it and nurse it and take care of it of it even if it it ruins you [Music] yeah but uh I suppose there was some tough times in uh 2008 end of 2008 how did you get through that period of Crisis yeah we just break for a second sure sure of course you want to wait

a little while and I sure up it was worth it sure up so me sure up it was worth it well there's a ton of failures along the way that's For sure like I said as as I said for for SpaceX first three launches failed and uh we're just barely able to scrape together enough parts and and money to do the the fourth launch that fourth launch had failed we would have been dead so multiple failures along the way um I I tried very hard to to get the right expertise in for for SpaceX I

tried hard to to find a great chief engineer for the rocket but it not the good Chief Engineers wouldn't join and the bad ones well there was no no point in hiring them so I ended up being chief engineer of the rocket um so if I could have found somebody better then we would have maybe had less than three failures 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 you

know there are American Heroes who don't like this idea Neil Armstrong genan cernon have both testified against commercial space flight in the way that you're developing it and I wonder what you think of that I was very sad to see that um because those guys are you know those guys are heroes of mine so it's really tough you know I I wish they would come and visit and and see the hardware that we doing here and and I think that would change their Mind they inspired you to do this didn't they yes and to see

them casting stones in your direction it's difficult did you expect them to cheer you on so they hope they would something that can be helpful is fatalism uh some degree um if you just if you just accept the probabilities um then that diminishes fear uh so um in starting SpaceX I thought the odds of success were less than 10% um and I just accepted that actually probably I would just lose lose everything um but that maybe we would make some progress if we could just move the ball forward even if we died Maybe some other

company could pick up the vuon and move and keep moving it Forward um so that would still do some good um yeah same with Tesla I thought the odds of a car company succeeding Were extremely low in creating these companies we thought that we would be successful um I thought that the most likely outcome was failure um but but it was still worth doing even though the the odds of success were low in fact even for for for SpaceX the originally what I started doing was was not creating a rocket company but but actually was

going to do um a small mission to M which was just a philanthropic mission where you would Send a a small Greenhouse with seeds and dehydrated gel and would um upon Landing hydrate the gel and you'd have this cool picture of green plants on a red background and the public tends to respond to precedents and superlative so this will be the first lap on Mars furthest of Life have traveled um and you'd have this great money shot of green plants on the red background so um yeah I thought that would that would get people's attention

so um but but the Expectation for that was was no return so the expect I thought we wouldn't get any uh you know just spend the money on that and it wouldn't wouldn't happen if if you're creating a company or if you're joining a company uh the most important thing is to uh is to attract great people so either be would join a group that's amazing that you really respect or if you if you 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 the gree to which they are focused uh cohesively in in a good direction that will determine the success of the company so do everything you can to to gather great people uh if if you're creating a company um then i' say focus on on signal over noise um a lot of companies get get confused they they spend money On things that don't actually make the product better so for example at at Tesla we've we've never spent

any money on Advertising um we we put all of the money into R&D and and Manufacturing and design to try to make the car as good as possible um and uh I think that's that's that's the way to go so for any given company just keep thinking about are these efforts that people are expanding are they resulting in a better product or service and if They're not stop those efforts starting a business I'd say number one is have a high pain threshold that's um 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 because um when you first start a company there's lots of optimism and things 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 that's and then eventually you if you succeed and in most cases you will not succeed um and and Tesla almost didn't succeed came very close to failure um then if if

you succeed then after a long time you will finally get back to happiness you got to make sure that that you that whatever you're doing is a great product or service it it has To be really great and I go back to what I was saying earlier where um if you're a new company I mean unless it's like some new industry or or New Market that if it's an untapped Market or then then uh you have more ability to this there's the standard is lower for your product and 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 than theirs 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 consumer you're always going to buy the trusted brand unless there's a big difference so a lot of times uh you know entrepreneur will come up with something which is only slightly better um and it's it's not can't just be slightly better it's got to be a lot better a wellth

thought out critique of whatever you're doing is As valuable as gold um and you should seek that from everyone you can but particularly your friends um usually your friends know what's wrong but they don't want to tell you cuz they don't want to hurt you it doesn't mean your friends are right uh but very often they are right um and you at least want listen very carefully to what they say and to everyone if you're looking for basically You should take the approach that that you're wrong um you know that that that you the entrepreneur

are wrong your goal is to be less wrong advice I'd give to people starting company to entrepreneurs in general is um really focus on making a product that your customers love um and it it's so rare that you can buy a product and and you love the product when you when you bought it the this is this is there are very few uh things that fit into that Category and if you if you can come up with something like that your your business will be successful for sure I think uh really um and an obsessive

uh nature with respect to the quality of the product um is very important uh so you know being obsessive compulsive is is a good thing in this context um uh really really liking what you do what whatever area that you get into um given that you know even if you're 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 um if if you don't like it life is too short um you know I I'd say if and and also if you if

you like what you're doing you think about it even when you're not working I mean it'll just it it's it's something that your mind is drawn to um and and if you don't like it you just really can't make it work I think when I was young I I uh I didn't Really know what I was going to do uh when when I got older um people kept asking me and and um but but then eventually I thought that the idea of inventing things would be would be really cool and the reason I thought that

was because um I I I read a quote from arth C Clark which said that a um sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic and and that's really true um if you think if you go back say 300 years the things That we take a um efficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic and and that's really true uh being able to see over long distances being able to communicate uh being able to see over long distances being able to communicate having um effectively uh with with the internet uh a a um in in times past

in fact I think it actually goes beyond that because there are many things that we take for granted today that weren't even imagined In in times past they weren't even in the realm of magic so it actually goes goes beyond that so I thought well you know if if I can do some of those things basically if I can advance technology then that that's like magic and that would be really cool um and the the I was had sort of a slight existential crisis cuz I was trying to figure out what does it all mean

like what's the purpose of things and um I came to the conclusion that if if we can Advance the this this the knowledge of the world if we can do things that expand the scope and and and scale of Consciousness then we're better able to ask the right questions and become more enlightened and and that's really the only way forward so uh so so I I I I studied U physics and business because I figured in order to do a lot of these things you need to know how the universe works and you need to

know how how how the economy Works um And you also need to be able to bring a lot of people together to work with you to create something because it's very difficult to do something as as an individual if it's if it's a significant technology so I uh I I originally came out to to California to uh try to figure out how to improve the energy density of of um of of electric vehicles basically to try to figure out if there was an advanced capacitor that that that could serve as an alternative to batteries and

That was in '95 and uh that's also when the internet started to happen and and I I I thought well I can either uh pursue this Tech this technology where success maybe may not be one of the possible outcomes which is always tricky um or uh participate in the internet and and be be part of it and and I think maybe it's helpful to say one of the things that was important there in the creation of PayPal was uh was was kind of how it Started because initially the initial I thought was with PayPal was

to create an glomeration of financial services so you have one place where all of your financial services needs would be seamlessly integrated and um and and work smoothly and then we had like a little feature which was to do email payments um and whenever we'd show show the system off to someone uh we'd show the hard part which was the um the glomeration of financial services which Was quite difficult to put together nobody was interested um then we'd show people email payments which was actually quite easy and everybody was interested so we focused on email

payments and really try to make that work and and that's what really got things to take off um but but if we hadn't if we hadn't responded to what people said then we we we probably would not have been successful so it's it's important to look for things like that and and focus On them when when you when you see them and correct your your prior assumtions going from PayPal I thought well what are some of the the other problems that are likely to most affect the the future of humanity um it really wasn't from

the perspective of what what's the ran horded best way to to make money um which which is which is okay but um it was really what I think is going to most affect the future Humanity so the I I think the biggest terrestrial problem We've got is uh sustainable energy but the production and consumption of energy in a sustainable manner if we don't solve that this this Century this Century we're we're in deep trouble um and then the the other one being the extension of life beyond Earth to make life multiplanetary when I started SpaceX

um I it actually initially I thought that well there there's no way one could possibly start a rocket company I I Wasn't that crazy um but but then uh I thought well what is a way to um increase NASA's budget that was actually my initial goal so so obviously the the financial outcome from such a mission would probably be zero um so anything better than that was on the upside so I actually went to I went to Russia three times to to look at buying um a refurbished icvm and uh I can tell you it

was very weird going there in in 2000 late 20012 2002 going to the Russian rocket forces and I'd like to buy two of your biggest Rockets uh but you can keep the nuke and after making several trips to to Russia I came to the conclusion that that actually my initial impression was was wrong about uh because my inial thought was well that that there's not enough will to explore and expand beyond Earth and have a Ms base and that kind of thing but I came conclusion that that that was wrong um in fact there's plenty

Of will particularly in the United States uh because the United States is a nation of explorers of people who came here from from other parts of the world I think the United States is really a dist distillation of the spirit of human exploration so after my third trip I said okay what we really need to do here is try to solve the the space transport problem and uh and started SpaceX um and this this was against the advice of pretty much everyone I talk Too um my one friend made me sit down and watch a

bunch of videos of rockets blowing up let me tell you he wasn't far wrong it was tough going there in the beginning um because I'd never built anything physical I mean I'd built like little model rockets as a kid and that kind of thing but um I'd never had a company that built anything physical so I to kind of figure out how to how to do all these things and and bring together the right team of people we did all that And and then failed three times um it it was tough tough going um because

thing about a rocket is that the the passing grade is 100% you don't get to actually test the rocket in the real environment that it's going to be in so I think so the best analogy for for Rocket engineering is is like if you want to create a really comp complicated bit of software um you you can't run the software as an integrated hole and you can't run it on the computer it's Intended to run on but the first time you put it all together and write it on that computer it must run with no

bugs at the first launch I was picking up bits of Rocket near the in the launch site it was a bit sad but we we we learned with with each successive flight and uh and we're able to with uh eventually with the fourth flight in 2008 uh reach orbit and that was also with the last bit of money that we had so that so we got the Falcon one To orbit and then uh began to scale that up to to the Falcon 9 which is um about an order of magnitude more thrust it's a around

a million pounds of thrust and we managed to get that to orbit and then uh developed Dragon spacecraft uh which um recently was able to dark and return to Earth from the space station so it's a huge relief still can't quite believe it actually happened um but but there's a lot more that that that that must happen Beyond this in order for Humanity to Become a space fairing civilization and ultimately um a multi-planet species um and that's something I think it's it's it's vitally important and and I hope um that that some of you will

will particip in in that either at SpaceX or or at other companies because it's just really one of the the most important things for the preservation and extension of Consciousness um I it's worth noting as I'm sure people are aware the the Earth has been around for 4 billion years and Uh civilization at least in terms of having um writing has been around for 10,000 years and that's being generous um so uh it's it's really uh somewhat of a tenuous existence that that um civilization and and Consciousness as as we know it has has been

on Earth and I think um I'm actually I'm actually fairly optimistic about the future of Earth so I don't want to I don't want to sort of people have the wrong impression that I think We're all about to die um I I think I think we'll I think things will most likely be okay for a for a long time on Earth but not not for sure but most likely um um but but even if it's if it's sort of 99% likely one a 1% chance is still it's still worth uh spending a fair bit of

effort to ensure that we have um we' backed up the biosphere you have planetary redundancy if you will um and uh and so I think I think it's really Really quite important um and in order to do that there's a breakthrough that needs to occur which is to create a rapidly and completely reusable um transport system to Mars um which which is one of those things that's right on the borderline of of of of of of impossible um but that that's sort of the the thing that we're we're going to try to achieve that with

with with SpaceX when when I was a kid I was wondering kind of what's the meaning of Life like why are we here what's it all about and um I came to the conclusion that uh what what really matters is trying to understand the right questions to ask and the more that we can increase the scope and scale of uh human consciousness the better we are able to ask these questions so so I think that there's certain things that are necessary to ensure that the future is good um and some of those things are in

the long Term having long-term sustainable transport and sustainable energy generation um and uh to be a space bearing civilization and for Humanity to be out there among the stars and be a multiplanetary uh species um I mean I think being a multiplet species and being out there Among the Stars is important for uh the long-term survival of humanity and uh that's one reason kind of like life Insurance for Life collectively Life as we know it um but then the part that I find personally most motivating is that it creates a sense of adventure and it

makes people excited about the future um and if you consider two Futures one where uh we are forever confined to Earth until eventually something terrible happens or another future where we are out there on many planets maybe even going beyond the Solar system um I think that second version is incredibly exciting and inspiring and there need to be reasons to to get up in the morning you know life can't just be about solving problems otherwise what's the point there got to be things that people find inspiring um and make life worth living you're 47 what

is the likelihood that you personally will go to Mars 70% we've recently made a number of breakthroughs that I that I'm just Really fired up about and when does that happen in our lifetimes yeah yeah I'm talking about moving there so it's like get the price per ticket maybe around a couple hundred, this could be an escape hatch for rich people no your probability of dying on Mars is much higher than Earth really the afca and Mars would be like shackleton's after going to the Antarctic it's going to be hard there's a good chance of

death going in a little can through deep Space you might land successfully once you land successfully there will be a m you'll be working non-stop to build the base uh not much time for leisure and uh once you get there even after doing all this uh this is very harsh environment you's a good chance you die there um we think you can come back but we're not sure now does that sound like an escape patch for rich people and yet you would unhesitatingly go you know there's lot of people like climb mountains you know Why

they climb mountains because people die on on ever s time they're like doing it for the challenge I I think that the probable probable outcome for civilization is on Earth is is quite quite good for a long time um but I still think that we should uh try to extend stand life beyond Earth and have a and the thing to do is to establish a base on Mars and ultim and try to make that a self- sustaining base as soon as possible um so uh I don't expect that SpaceX is going to do that sort

of single-handedly but I think we're we're going to try to advance the technology of space travel to the point where um we can at least send some number of people to Mars which is not currently possible on the Tesla front uh the goal with Tesla was really to try to to show that what what electric cars can do cuz people had the wrong impression we had to um change people's perception of an electric vehicle because they used to Think of it as something that was slow and ugly and had low range kind of like a

golf cart um and and so that's why we created the Tesla Road St to show that you can be fast um attractive and and long range um and it's amazing how um even though you can show that something works on paper you know and the calculations are very clear until you actually have the physical object and they can they can drive it it doesn't really sink in for people um and so that That I think is is something worth noting if if you're going to create a company the first thing you should try to do

is create a working prototype um you know everything everything looks great on PowerPoint you you can make anything work on PowerPoint um but if you have if you have an actual demonstration article even if it's in primitive foam that's much much more effective for convincing people now is the time to overrule this Administration's pledge to mediocrity listen Tesla a sell cell cell you don't want to own this stock you shouldn't even rent the darn thing why because beyond the hype there's just not much going on here Tesla still has yet to turn a profit that'll

be a $ 1.5 billion company with no profit it's most recent quarter actually lost more money than it did the year before $1.5 billion losing more money than year before this is a company with limited visibility you Put $90 billion M like 50 years worth of breaks into into solar and wind to to cylindra and Fisker and Tesla and ner1 I mean I had a friend who said you don't just pick the winners and losers you pick the losers private Enterprise will not ever lead a space Frontier not cuz I don't want them to but

my read of history history tells me they can't it's not possible one of the biggest mistakes people generally make and I'm guilty of it too is wishful thinking you know like You want something to be true even if it isn't true um and so you ignore the things that uh you you ignore the real truth because of what you want to be true um this is a very difficult trap to avoid um and like I said certainly one that I find myself in having problems with but if you just take that approach of you're always

to some degree wrong and your goal is to be less wrong and and solicit critical feedback Particularly from friends like friends partic friends if somebody loves you they want the best for you they don't want to tell you the bad things um so you have to ask them care you know and said really I really do want to know um if you were 22 today what would the five problems that you would think about working on B um well first of all I think um if somebody is doing something that is 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 to people um and frankly even if it's something if it's like um just a little game um or you know the some improvement in photo sharing or something if it if if it has a small amount of of good for a large number of people um that's I mean I think that's that's fine like stuff doesn't need to be change the world just to be good Um uh

but you know in terms of things that I think are most likely to affect the 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 so it's very important that we have the Advent of AI uh in a good way that that uh is something that um if you if you could look into the crystal B and and see the future you would like you would like that outcome um because it is something that could go Um could go wrong um as

we've talked about many times um and so we really need to make sure it goes right um that's that's I think AI work working on AI and making sure it's great future that's that's the most important thing I think right now um the most pressing item SEC uh then um obviously anything to do with with genetics um if you can actually solve um genetic diseases um if you can um prevent demen um or Alzheimer's or something like that That um with genetic reprogramming that would be wonderful so I think this genetics it might be the

sort of second most important item I I think um having a high bandwidth interface to the brain like um we're currently bandwidth limited we we have a digital tertiary self uh in the form of our email capabilities on computers phones applications uh we're effectively superhuman um but we are extremely bad With constraint in that interface between the cortex and your sort of that that tertiary digital form of yourself and um helping solve that bandwidth constraint uh would would be I think very important for the future as well 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 five things that I I thought about the time in in college still quite a long time ago uh 25 years ago um you know being you know making life multiplanetary um Accel accelerating the transition to sustainable energy um the the internet broadly speaking um and and then genetics and AI I think um I didn't

expect to be involved in in in all of those things I actually at the time in college I I sort of thought um helping with electrification of of cars was was How would start out and that's uh that's actually what I worked on as an intern was um Advanced uh Ultra capacitors with to see if they if there would be a breakthrough relative to batteries for energy storage in in cars and then when I came out to go to Stanford um that's what I was going to be doing my grad studies on is um is

was working on Advanced uh U energy storage uh Technologies for electric cars and then I put that on hold to start an interet Company in ' 95 because um there does seem to be like a time for particular Technologies um when they're at a steep point in the inflection curve and um and I didn't want to you know do a PhD at Stanford and then and watched it all happen um and then and I wasn't entirely certain that the technology I'd be working on would actually succeed um like you can get you can get a

you know doctorate on many things that ultimately are not do Not have a practical bearing on the we um 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 how should someone figure out how they can be most useful whatever this thing is that you're trying to create what would what would be the um utility Delta compared to the current State ofthe art times how many people it would affect so that's why I think um

having Something that has a that's that has a makes makes a big difference but affects 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 when you're trying to estimate probability of success so you say this thing will be really useful good area under the curve uh I guess to use the example of SpaceX mhm when you made the go decision that you were actually going to do that this Was kind of a very crazy thing at the

time very crazy very crazy yeah I'm not TR about saying that um but I kind of agree I agreed with them that it was quite crazy crazy if um if if the objective was um to achieve the um best risk adjusted return um starting a rock company is insane um but that was not that was not my objective I I I simply come to the conclusion um that if something didn't happen to improve rocket technology we would be Stuck on Earth forever um and um and the big aerospace companies had just had no interest in

radical Innovation um all they wanted to do was try to make their old technology slightly better every year and in fact um sometimes it would actually get worse um and particularly in Rockets it's pretty bad like the in in ' 69 we were able to go to the Moon um with a Saturn 5 and then the space shuttle could only take people to lowth orbit and then the Space shuttle retired and that that trend is basically Trends to zero um people think technology just automatically gets better every year but it actually doesn't it only gets

better if smart people work work like crazy to make it better that's how any technology actually gets better and by itself technology if if people don't work on it actually will decline um you can look at look at the history of civilizations many civilizations and Look at say um ancient Egypt where they able to build these incredible pyramids and then they they basically forgot how to build pyramids um and um and then even hieroglyphics they' forgot how to read H hieroglyphics so we look at Rome and how they're able to to build these incredible roadways

and aqueducts and indor plumbing and they forgot how to do all of those things and um there are many such examples in in history um so I I think um should always bear in mind uh That you know entropy is not on your side you may have heard me say to that it's good to think in terms of the physics approach of first principles uh which is 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 if if something really makes sense or if it's just what everybody else is Doing um it it's 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 how do you think about making a decision when everyone tells you this is a crazy idea or where do

you get the internal Strength to do that well first of all I'd say I I actually think I I I think I fear feel fear quite strongly um so it's not as though I just have the absence of fear I feel it quite strongly um but there there are just times when something is important enough you've Le in it enough that you you do it in spite of the fear people should think well I feel fear about this and therefore I shouldn't do it um it's normal to be to feel fear like you'd have to

there have To be something mentally wrong if you didn't feel fair if you have an advice to them young people globally want to be like Elon Musk what's your advice to them I think that probably they shouldn't want to be you it it's I think it sounds better than it is okay yeah yeah it's uh not as much fun being me as you'd think I don't know you don't think so there's definitely it could be worse for sure but it's Um I I'm not sure I would I'm not sure I want to be me so

when everybody leaves it's just Elon sitting at home brushing his teeth just bunch of ideas bouncing around your head when did you realize that that's not the case with most people I think when I was I don't know five or six or something I thought I was in saying it was just strange because it was clear that other People do not would their mind wasn't exploding with ideas I was like hm I'm strange I don't think I don't think you'd necessarily want to be me people would like it that much it's very hard to turn

it off it's like a never- ending explosion all the time what do you think the odds of the Mars colony are at this point Today well um oddly enough I actually think they're pretty good at this point I am certain there is a way I'm certain that success is one of the possible outcomes for establishing a self-sustaining Moss colony in fact a growing Moss Colony I'm certain that that is possible um whereas until maybe a few years ago I was not sure that success was even one of the possible outcomes it's a meaningful number of

people going To m i I think this is potentially something that can be accomplished in about 10 years um maybe sooner maybe 9 years um I need to make sure that SpaceX doesn't die between now and then and that I don't die or if I do die that someone takes over who will continue that you shouldn't go on the first launch yeah exactly the best of the available Alternatives that I can come up with and maybe somebody else can come up with a Better approach or better outcome is that uh we achieve democratization of AI

technology meaning that uh no one company or uh small set of individuals has control over Advanced AI technology I think that that's very dangerous um it could also get stolen by somebody bad you know like some evil dictator of a country could send their intelligence agency to go steal it and Gain Control it just becomes a very unstable situation I think if you've got any um Any incredibly powerful AI um you just don't know who's who's going to control that so it's not as though I think that the risk is that the AI would develop

a will of its own right off the bat I think it's more that's the consumers that some someone um may use it in a way that is bad um or or and even if they weren't going to use it in a way that's bad that somebody could take it from them and use it in a way that's bad that that I think is quite a big danger so I Think we must have democratization of AI technology and make it widely available um and that's you know the reason that obviously uh the rest of the team

uh you know created open AI um was to help uh with the democra help help spread out um AI technology so it doesn't get concentrated in the hands of a few um and but then of course that needs to be um combined with uh solving the high bandwidth interface to the cortex um humans are so slow humans are So slow yes exactly but you know we already have a situation in our brain where we've got the cortex and lyic system and the lyic system is is kind of the I mean that's that's the Primitive brain

it's kind of like the your your instincts and um whatnot and then the cortex is the thinking upper part of the brain those two seem to work together quite well um um occasionally your cortex and lmic system May disagree generally works Pretty well and it's like rare to find someone who I I've not found someone who wishes to either get rid of their cortex or get rid of their livic system so I think if if we can effectively uh um merge with uh AI by um improving that uh the the the neural link between your

cortex and the the the digital extension of yourself which already like I said already exists just has a bandwidth issue um and then then effectively um you Become an AI human symbiote um and and if that then is widespread with anyone who wants it can have it uh then we solve the control problem as well um we don't have to worry about um some sort of evil dictator AI um because kind of we are the AI um collectively that seems like the best outcome I can think of I think we've got a really talented Group

whatever yeah really really talented team and they're working hard um open a is structured as Uh see a 51 C3 nonprofit um but you know many nonprofits uh do not have a sense of urgency it's fine they don't have to have a sense of urgency um but opening eye it does um is I think people really believe in the mission I think it's important um and it's it's about minimizing um the risk of existential harm um in the future and uh so I think it's going well I'm pretty impressed with what people are doing in

the T Talent level and Obviously we're always looking for um great people to join when I interview somebody I really just asked them to tell me the story of their career and what they you know what are some of the tougher problems that they dealt with how they dealt with those and um how they made decisions at Key transition points and usually that's enough for me to get a very good gut feel about someone and um and and what I'm really looking for is evidence of exceptional Ability MH so um did they face really difficult

problems and overcome them um and and then of course you want to make sure that that if if there was some significant accomplishment were they really responsible or was somebody else more responsible and uh usually the person who's had to struggle with the problem they really understand it you know they and they don't forget you know it was very difficult so um you can ask them detailed very detailed questions About it and they will they'll know the answer whereas the person who was not truly responsible for um that accomplishment uh will not know the details

there's no need even to have a college degree at all or even high school I mean if somebody graduated from a great University that may be an IND that may be an indication that will be capable of great things but it's not necessarily the case um you know if you look at um say people like uh bull Gates Valari Ellison Steve Jobs these guys didn't graduate from college but if you had a chance to hire them of course that would be a good idea so you know just looking just for evidence of exceptional ability um

and if there's a track record of exceptional achievement then it's likely that that will continue into the future what sort of things do you look for in people or in processes that make the workforce better well I think the massive thing that can be done is to Make sure your incentive structure is such that uh Innovation is rewarded and lack of innovation is punished they got to be a carrot and a stick so uh if somebody is innovating um and doing making good good progress then they should be promoted sooner uh and if somebody is

completely failing to innovate um not every role requires Innovation but uh if they're in a role where Innovation is should be happening and it's not Happening then they should either not be promoted or exited and let me tell you you'll get promote you'll get you you'll get Innovation real fast does that carrot and stick approach help uh do you think people be more risk averse or less risk Traverse when trying different things you got to have some acceptance of failure failure must be an option if failure is not an option it's going to result in

extremely conservative choices and you may not may get something even Worse than lack of innovation things may go backwards what you really want is you want reward and Punishment to be to be proportionate to the actions that you seek so if uh if what you're seeking is innovation then you should reward success and Innovation um and only there should be minor consequences for lack of minor consequences for for trying and failing there should be minor um with a significant rewards for trying and Succeeding minor consequences for trying and not succeeding um and big and and

and major negative consequences for not trying if you have that incentive structure you will get Innovation like you can't believe the purpose of neuralink like what do we what's our goal our goal is to solve important spine and brain problems with a seamlessly seamlessly impant implanted device so you want to have a device that you can basically uh put in your head um And feel and look totally normal uh but it solves uh some some important problem um in your brain or spine so uh going into the neuralink architecture what we've done over the past

year is dramatically simplify the device so we we we about a year ago we had a device which uh had multiple Parts including a piece that had to sort of sit behind your ear um and it was it was it was complex and you and you wouldn't still look totally normal you'd have a thing Behind your ear so um we've simplified this to Simply something that is uh about the size of a large coin um and it it goes uh in your skull replaces a piece of skull um and the wires uh then then connect

uh within a few centimeters or about an inch away from the device um and this is sort of what it looks like this is our little device I mean frankly to to sort of simplify this uh what what we I mean it's more complicated than this but it's in a lot Of ways it's kind of like a Fitbit in your skull with tiny wires current prototype version 0.9 has about 1,000 channels uh so that's about 100 times better than the the next best um uh consumer device that's available and it's a 23 mm x 8

mm it actually uh fits quite nicely in your skull because your your skull is about 10 mm thick so uh it fits it's it Gres flush with your skull it's invisible and all you can see afterwards is a tiny scar and if it's Under your hair you can't see it at all in fact I could have it neur link right now and you wouldn't know it's also inductively charged so um it's charged in the same way that you Char you charge a smartwatch or phone um and so you can use it all day uh charge

it at night and have full functionality so you would really um you it would be it would be completely seamless uh and uh yeah no wires uh in terms of getting a link so That um you need to have the device uh a great device and you also need to have a great r robot that U puts in the uh the electrodes and does the surgery so you want the surgery to be as as automated uh and as possible and the only way you can achieve the level of precision that's needed is with an advanced

robot uh the link procedure the the installation of a link done in under an hour um so you can basically go in in the morning and leave the hospital in The afternoon and it can be done without general anesthesia so this is our surgical robot and we actually want this robot to do uh essentially the entire surgery uh so and in everything from from incision uh removing the the skull inserting the electrodes placing the device um and then um closing things up and having you ready to to leave so we want to have a fully

automated system how do you spend your days now like what what do you Allocate most of your time to my time is mostly split uh well split between SpaceX and and Tesla and of of course I I try to spend um uh a part of every week at open AI um so I spend most I spend basically half a day at open AI most weeks um and then and then I have some open AI stuff that happens during the week I think a lot of people think I I must spend a lot of time with

media or or on business e things but actually almost almost all my time like 80% of it Is spent on engineering design engineering and design so it's um developing Next Generation product at that's 80% of it I think a lot of people think I'm kind of of a business person or something which is fine like business is fine but um like I uh but really it's you know it's like it's facex uh gwin Shotwell is Chief Operating Officer she kind of manages um uh legal Finance um sales um and kind of General business activity and

then my time is almost Entirely with the uh engineering team working on improving the falcon9 and the dragon spacecraft and developing the M Colonial architecture um and then at Tesla it's working on the model 3 and the you sing The Design Studio typically um half a day a week um dealing with Aesthetics and and uh look and feel things and and then most of the rest of week is just going through engineering of of of the car itself as well as engineering of the The factory um because the biggest Epiphany I've had is that uh

what really matters is the is the machine that builds the machine the factory um and this that is at least towards magnitude hotter than the vehicle itself what are the scenarios that scare you most Humanity really is not evolved to think of a existential threats in general we're involved to think about things that are very close to us near to them to to be upset with other humans and and Not not really to think about things that could destroy Humanity as a whole um but then in recent decades recent just really in the last century

we had nuclear bombs which are could potentially destroy civilization obviously uh we have ai which could destroy civilization uh we have global warming which could destroy civilization or or at least severely disrupt civilization um and excuse me how could AI mhm destroy civilization You know it would be something in the same way that humans destroyed the habitat of primates I mean it's it wouldn't necessarily be destroyed but we 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

could an AI even in this moment just with the technology that we have before us be used in some fairly destructive way you can make a swarm of Assassin drones for very little money by just taking the the the face ID chip that's used in cellones and uh having a small explosive charge and and a standard drone and have them just do a grid sweep of the building until they find the person they're looking for Ram into them and and explode you can do that right now no extra no new technolog is needed right now

people just think this stuff is of of sci-fi novels and movies and it's so far away but every Time I hear you speak it's like well no this stuff is sitting it's right here probably a bigger risk than than being hunted down by a a drone is that uh AI would be used to make incredibly effective propaganda uh that would not seem like propaganda so these are deep FS yeah influence the direction of society influence elections artificial intelligence just hones the message hones the message check looks at the Feed looks at the feedback makes this

message slightly better within milliseconds it could it can um adapt its message and and shift and react to news and and there's so many uh social media accounts out there that are not people like how how do you know it's person not a person people look like they have a much better life than they really do people are posting pictures of when they're really happy they're modifying those pictures to be Better looking um even if they're not modifying the pictures they're at least selecting the pictures for the best lighting the best angle so people basically

seem a they're way better looking than they basically really are um and they're way happier seeming than they really are so if you look at everyone on Instagram you might think man they're all these happy beautiful people and I'm not that good looking and I'm not happy so I'm a suck you know and and that's going to make feel sad when in fact those people you think are super happy actually not that happy some of them are really depressed they're very sad some of the happiest seeming people actually some of the saddest people in reality

so I think I think things like that can make people quite sad this may sound corny but love is the answer wouldn't hurt to have more love In the world I think you know I think think people should be nicer to each other and give people and give give more credit to others and don't assume that they're mean until you know they're actually mean you know just it's easy to demonize people you're usually wrong about it people are nicer than you think give people more credit there's going to be some amount of failure but you

you want your net output Net useful output to maximized failure is essentially irrelevant unless it is catastrophic the final thing I would encourage you to do is now is the time to take risk as you get older your obligations increase so you the and once you have a family you start taking risk not just for yourself but for your family as well it gets much harder to uh do things that might not work out um so now is the time to do that uh before you before you have those obligations so Would I would encourage

you to take risks now do something bold um you won't regret it