1 00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:04,000 If you can translate that into a product that people can experience and that they 2 00:00:04,120 --> 00:00:07,719 like and that delights them, then that's a good measure of the success of 3 00:00:07,799 --> 00:00:11,279 the product. I really like the fact that when people buy a car that 4 00:00:11,359 --> 00:00:16,839 they experience delight And for many people they've said, they've told me it's like 5 00:00:16,879 --> 00:00:19,879 the best product they've ever bought, and it made them happy. And there 6 00:00:19,960 --> 00:00:22,000 was one person who said, like, whenever they feel sad, they can 7 00:00:22,039 --> 00:00:24,239 just go to the go to their garage and look at the car and it 8 00:00:24,280 --> 00:00:27,920 makes them happy. And that's cool. That's really cool. So what actually 9 00:00:27,920 --> 00:00:31,519 made them happier? That's what they told me? The car? Yeah, 10 00:00:32,039 --> 00:00:36,039 what's your explanation behind this? Why this could make people happier? Pretty, 11 00:00:36,039 --> 00:00:39,079 it's a beautiful car. It does a few things like when you approach, 12 00:00:39,119 --> 00:00:44,079 the car senses that you're coming, and the handles extend and it prepares for 13 00:00:44,119 --> 00:00:46,719 you to come, and it's almost like a pet. But do you still 14 00:00:46,799 --> 00:00:51,119 have that kind of freshness when you use the car yourself or you have been 15 00:00:51,320 --> 00:00:54,920 used to that and lost the excitement. My case, it's a little tricky 16 00:00:54,960 --> 00:00:59,200 because I'm always looking for what's wrong in order to make the car better. 17 00:00:59,439 --> 00:01:03,159 I always have to be thinking. I actually think very critically, and so 18 00:01:03,200 --> 00:01:07,519 when I see the car, I see all the things that I think need 19 00:01:07,560 --> 00:01:11,519 to be fixed to make it better. And so it's certainly it's easy to 20 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:17,200 lose the sense of wonder or just see the flaws, because it's a difficult 21 00:01:17,200 --> 00:01:19,959 thing to reconcile, because if you want to make something better, then you 22 00:01:19,040 --> 00:01:23,319 must analyze it for the flaws. Yes, but then that kind of prevents 23 00:01:23,359 --> 00:01:27,120 the enjoyment of it. It's a difficult it's a difficult dichotomy. It seems 24 00:01:27,120 --> 00:01:30,799 that you believe in the fact that we're all going to drive electric cars, 25 00:01:32,200 --> 00:01:34,959 and maybe someday only by computers, not by human beings, you still believe 26 00:01:34,959 --> 00:01:38,920 in that. I think it's fairly clear that to me, at least, 27 00:01:38,920 --> 00:01:42,560 that all transport will go fully electric. Better for the world from an environmental 28 00:01:42,599 --> 00:01:47,640 standpoint and from an economic standpoint. If we transition to electric transport sooner, 29 00:01:47,760 --> 00:01:51,000 we'll help with pollution, global warming and all that stuff. And I do 30 00:01:51,079 --> 00:01:53,840 think we're headed towards an age of autonomous transport, where you know, you 31 00:01:53,920 --> 00:01:57,280 just summon the car with your phone or something, and then get in and 32 00:01:57,519 --> 00:02:00,480 you just tell the where you want to go and it takes you there. 33 00:02:00,560 --> 00:02:05,439 It's going to happen very quickly. I think maybe in four or five years. 34 00:02:05,640 --> 00:02:09,520 Yeah, But how do you react to some the public opinions of skepticism 35 00:02:09,719 --> 00:02:14,000 because it seems a lot of people are watching you and say, let's see 36 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:17,120 how far this kit can go? I suppose the skepticism about anything new that's 37 00:02:17,159 --> 00:02:23,039 normal and not expecting that people just believe me or But I think if you 38 00:02:23,080 --> 00:02:27,840 look at generally my predictions have they are more often correct than not. Really 39 00:02:27,879 --> 00:02:32,800 just talking about five years will have affordable electric cars that go long ranges and 40 00:02:34,599 --> 00:02:39,360 there will be autonomous Please, let's the slag. How do you see that 41 00:02:39,400 --> 00:02:46,080 contradiction? How could you reconcile? Its not exactly contradiction because I always say 42 00:02:46,159 --> 00:02:50,960 it's important for civilization to be a multiplanet species. So it's not like an 43 00:02:51,080 --> 00:02:53,520 escape from Earth and then we all leave Earth and try to go to Mars 44 00:02:53,560 --> 00:02:57,599 or something like that. Why don't we come now saving the planet instead of 45 00:02:57,840 --> 00:03:00,159 having the back door open. I do think at nineteen nine percent of our 46 00:03:00,159 --> 00:03:04,879 efforts should be focused on Earth, and really ninety nine point nine percent of 47 00:03:04,879 --> 00:03:07,800 our effort is focused on Earth. But I do think it's it's worth saying, 48 00:03:07,800 --> 00:03:12,000 Okay, let's take one percent and try to establish a self sustaining city 49 00:03:12,039 --> 00:03:15,759 on Mars and make life multiplanetary. And I think there's a couple of good 50 00:03:15,800 --> 00:03:17,919 reasons for that. First of all, there's always the possibility that there could 51 00:03:17,919 --> 00:03:21,960 be some terrible thing that happens on Earth that we can't and that we maybe 52 00:03:21,960 --> 00:03:23,960 don't anticipate them. If you look at the fossil record and the fact that 53 00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:28,039 there've been five major extinction events in the last five hundred million years, and 54 00:03:28,039 --> 00:03:30,280 what happened to the dinosaurs. They used to be here, they're not around 55 00:03:30,280 --> 00:03:34,479 anymore. So that's the defensive argument. And then there's the what I called 56 00:03:34,479 --> 00:03:38,120 maybe the inspiration argument or the excitement the building a city on Mars would just 57 00:03:38,159 --> 00:03:42,680 be this incredible adventure, that there'll be things in life that are exciting and 58 00:03:42,719 --> 00:03:44,840 inspiring that when you wake up in the morning, you're like, yes, 59 00:03:44,879 --> 00:03:47,680 I'm glad to be alive. And I think having this great adventure would be 60 00:03:47,800 --> 00:03:53,120 like that. So there is a proverb in Chinese called c and yotn which 61 00:03:53,120 --> 00:03:55,840 from two thousand years ago there was a man spend the whole day worrying about 62 00:03:55,879 --> 00:04:00,240 way of the heaven falls down. So everyone laughed at him, said, 63 00:04:00,560 --> 00:04:04,479 why can't you be concerned about something more pragmatic. Basically, so you're the 64 00:04:04,520 --> 00:04:10,280 guy who is worrying about maybe another millennium's way that we need to move to 65 00:04:10,319 --> 00:04:14,039 another planet. Okay, it's not moving to another planet, it's being multiplanet. 66 00:04:14,080 --> 00:04:15,199 We're still going to be on Earth, but we'll have Mars too, 67 00:04:15,439 --> 00:04:19,160 and we want to become a space frank civilization and a multiplanet species and ultimately 68 00:04:19,199 --> 00:04:23,920 be out there exploring the stars. I think that's a much more exciting future 69 00:04:24,240 --> 00:04:27,639 than a future where we're forever confined to Earth until some eventual extinction event. 70 00:04:27,800 --> 00:04:31,040 You basically taught yourself a lot of things in a computer programming as a child, 71 00:04:31,120 --> 00:04:38,120 and after taking physics and economics in college, you taught yourself auto technologies, 72 00:04:38,199 --> 00:04:42,399 and then rocketry, battery technology, and so on and so forth. 73 00:04:42,879 --> 00:04:46,879 What's the motivation behind all this? I just I find that I basically learn 74 00:04:46,959 --> 00:04:50,839 whatever I need to learn to accomplish an objective. And I think actually most 75 00:04:50,879 --> 00:04:55,839 people could do this, but they often self limit pure are capable of more 76 00:04:55,879 --> 00:04:59,279 than they think. But what I found is if you simply read a lot 77 00:04:59,279 --> 00:05:01,079 of books and talk to people. You can learn almost anything. But was 78 00:05:01,160 --> 00:05:05,120 reading also an escape or rescue to you? As a boy in school? 79 00:05:05,120 --> 00:05:10,639 I learned that you're the youngest in the class and bull it sometime, so 80 00:05:10,680 --> 00:05:13,480 what I was reading to you at that time? This is, of course, 81 00:05:13,519 --> 00:05:15,720 back in the days before there were video games, and TV wasn't very 82 00:05:15,759 --> 00:05:20,120 good either, And I was actually for quite a while the youngest and the 83 00:05:20,199 --> 00:05:25,480 smallest in the class. And my parents moved a lot, so I went 84 00:05:25,519 --> 00:05:28,959 through six different schools, so it's difficult to make friends. And then one 85 00:05:29,040 --> 00:05:31,199 year and then you've been in your school. The next books certainly were something 86 00:05:31,279 --> 00:05:34,480 that I found comforting, and I would read all the time, just all 87 00:05:34,519 --> 00:05:39,920 the time morning tonight though, the philosophers and religious texts and that kind of 88 00:05:39,920 --> 00:05:44,759 thing, and a lot of nonfiction as well, read the encyclopedia. And 89 00:05:44,800 --> 00:05:46,839 in fact, I remember when I was just in an elementary school, I 90 00:05:46,920 --> 00:05:49,879 was reading about ion engines and I thought they were super cool. And now 91 00:05:49,879 --> 00:05:55,160 we're launching satellites with ion engines. But how about real figures in history, 92 00:05:55,319 --> 00:05:59,439 Zach Newton or Einstein, so and so forth. Did you make up your 93 00:05:59,480 --> 00:06:03,480 mind to be someone great, someone who can leave a legacy in history for 94 00:06:03,639 --> 00:06:08,600 all humanity. No, I never thought there were no. Actually, when 95 00:06:08,600 --> 00:06:11,079 I was a kid, I didn't know what I would do when I grew 96 00:06:11,160 --> 00:06:14,879 up. I just wanted to be involved in things that were on the cutting 97 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:16,639 edge, on things that were affecting the future of the world. But I 98 00:06:16,639 --> 00:06:21,240 didn't think anything great would happen at all. Were you certain about what you 99 00:06:21,279 --> 00:06:27,720 would achieve or Oh no? Was there also most like in your future? 100 00:06:28,000 --> 00:06:30,639 No? Inpact, I expected to fail. I expected to fail it still 101 00:06:30,720 --> 00:06:34,920 went ahead and do it. The reason I expected to fail was because most 102 00:06:34,920 --> 00:06:40,560 companies fail. So if ninety percent plus the companies fail and I have no 103 00:06:40,800 --> 00:06:45,759 track record of making companies work, then basically the most likely outcomings failure. 104 00:06:45,800 --> 00:06:48,720 But I didn't think it was super risky because I talked to my professor and 105 00:06:48,920 --> 00:06:53,680 said that I was going to try to start an internet company and that it 106 00:06:53,720 --> 00:06:57,839 would probably not work, and would you mind if I came back to class 107 00:06:57,920 --> 00:07:00,959 if it didn't work. He said, sure, no problem. And where 108 00:07:00,959 --> 00:07:04,120 did the original investment come from? The own pocket money will finance by our 109 00:07:04,160 --> 00:07:10,480 mother? Well, yeah, I had about three thousand dollars and a computer. 110 00:07:10,720 --> 00:07:13,920 And then my brother came and joined and he had about I think five 111 00:07:13,959 --> 00:07:17,439 thousand dollars, and then another friend of ours came he had six thousand dollars, 112 00:07:17,759 --> 00:07:20,319 so we really, this is not a lot. And in the beginning 113 00:07:20,480 --> 00:07:25,360 we were just we didn't have enough money to rent an apartment and an office, 114 00:07:25,879 --> 00:07:29,839 so the office was actually cheaper. We slept in the office, and 115 00:07:29,920 --> 00:07:31,920 we thought maybe it was more impressive to have an office. Can't have people 116 00:07:31,959 --> 00:07:35,360 come to an apartment. But at night we would just sleep on the couch 117 00:07:35,519 --> 00:07:39,040 in the office, and then we would go to the YMCA to shower. 118 00:07:39,160 --> 00:07:43,000 And in the very beginning, we only had one computer, so the website 119 00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:46,759 only worked during the day because at night I was programming software. We were 120 00:07:46,839 --> 00:07:49,959 brother and a friend joined you, but you were ready to fail. How 121 00:07:50,000 --> 00:07:53,800 did you convince them to join you? Oh, they thought it would fail 122 00:07:53,839 --> 00:07:56,480 too. How did that work out? It worked out pretty well. In 123 00:07:56,480 --> 00:07:58,879 the end. We ended up we ended up growing the business, and it 124 00:07:58,959 --> 00:08:01,560 ended up getting sold from three hundred million dollars. So when a young man 125 00:08:01,839 --> 00:08:07,800 someday god ten some millions and then a billion, we were blown away for 126 00:08:07,839 --> 00:08:11,240 a while. At least, Yeah, you bet, absolutely what did you 127 00:08:11,360 --> 00:08:13,720 do with that money? Yeah? For what was it? Like check like 128 00:08:13,759 --> 00:08:16,680 that? Yeah, that was awesome, right. Yeah. In fact, 129 00:08:16,920 --> 00:08:20,519 they mailed a check in. There's not a check in the mail, which 130 00:08:20,560 --> 00:08:24,560 is crazy. It was like this giant check in the mail. Yeah, 131 00:08:24,680 --> 00:08:26,560 that was one of the craziest things you did. Yeah, that was Yeah. 132 00:08:26,600 --> 00:08:30,720 I was with Peter Tiele, one of the co founders of PayPal. 133 00:08:30,920 --> 00:08:33,960 We were actually just driving up Sandy Hill Road. We're going to visit Mike 134 00:08:33,039 --> 00:08:37,080 Moritz at Square Capital, and Peter was asked me, so what can this 135 00:08:37,120 --> 00:08:41,360 car do? And then famous last words, I said, watch this, 136 00:08:41,639 --> 00:08:43,799 and I flowed it and did a lane change and the black wheels broke loose 137 00:08:43,919 --> 00:08:48,759 and the car spun around and then we hit the embankment and knocked the car 138 00:08:48,840 --> 00:08:52,480 into the air, which continued spinning like a discus, like three feet in 139 00:08:52,480 --> 00:08:54,720 the air. Bam landed going the original direction. It was like in a 140 00:08:54,759 --> 00:08:58,960 movie and blew out the suspension and I drove to the side of the road 141 00:08:58,000 --> 00:09:01,679 and I was like, Holy caw, that was crazy. After that, 142 00:09:01,720 --> 00:09:05,399 I took driving lessons on the McLaren because it's like a difficult car to drive. 143 00:09:05,639 --> 00:09:09,440 Are you a very prudent driver. Nowadays, I think I'm not a 144 00:09:09,600 --> 00:09:11,720 I think I'm a fairly prudent driver. I had a tough choice there because 145 00:09:11,759 --> 00:09:16,799 I could either provide all of the money for SpaceX or all of the money 146 00:09:16,799 --> 00:09:20,720 for Tesla and then increase the chance that one of them would survive, or 147 00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:22,320 I have to split the money. But if I split the money, then 148 00:09:22,399 --> 00:09:26,320 maybe both will die. You can imagine. It's almost like if you had 149 00:09:26,559 --> 00:09:28,600 two children and you have only so much food, what do you do? 150 00:09:28,759 --> 00:09:33,159 So what was the choice? I split it? At those closest moment of 151 00:09:33,240 --> 00:09:37,279 a failure, What did you say to yourself? Can I survive this? 152 00:09:37,840 --> 00:09:41,720 No? You didn't question yourself. No, No, it's more it was 153 00:09:41,799 --> 00:09:46,480 just the difficulty is that in those situations, there's so much responsibility that you 154 00:09:46,519 --> 00:09:50,039 have to the employees and to the investors who have come along. So it 155 00:09:50,080 --> 00:09:54,080 would have been extremely I would have been really disappointed if I had not been 156 00:09:54,120 --> 00:09:58,440 able to keep my responsibility to have the company survive. You said you almost 157 00:09:58,519 --> 00:10:05,639 had to nervous breakdown. Where did the tenacity or the resilience come from? 158 00:10:05,720 --> 00:10:09,120 But I remember the closest I ever came to a nervous breakdown I never and 159 00:10:09,159 --> 00:10:13,000 I never thought I was someone who I thought nervous breakdowns. That's ridiculous, 160 00:10:13,200 --> 00:10:16,360 who could Why would people have such a thing. But I remember waking up 161 00:10:16,360 --> 00:10:20,440 on the Sunday before Christmas in two thousand and eight and thinking, damn, 162 00:10:20,639 --> 00:10:22,679 this is the closest I've ever gotten, you know, And it was looking 163 00:10:22,720 --> 00:10:26,919 pretty grown because at that point we even though the fourth launch of SpaceX had 164 00:10:26,960 --> 00:10:31,000 succeeded, we were still running out of money because we had three failures and 165 00:10:31,080 --> 00:10:35,639 only one success, still not enough. And then the financing round for Tesla 166 00:10:35,840 --> 00:10:39,399 had not closed, and we had only two days maybe three, I think 167 00:10:39,799 --> 00:10:43,639 it was like two or three days maybe to close it before Christmas. I 168 00:10:43,679 --> 00:10:46,519 was like, man, this is this could be a really bad end of 169 00:10:46,519 --> 00:10:52,080 the year. Maybe both companies will fail screen. I didn't cry apartments, 170 00:10:52,360 --> 00:10:58,240 no, no, I had. My sleep was difficult. I wasn't expecting 171 00:10:58,360 --> 00:11:00,679 to call. I actually thought they were on the case because it was so 172 00:11:00,720 --> 00:11:03,039 close to Christmas. I thought it was less than only a few days before 173 00:11:03,120 --> 00:11:05,399 Christmas, so I thought, there's no way they're going to call them. 174 00:11:05,480 --> 00:11:07,639 They must have gone home for the year. What they called them, They 175 00:11:07,639 --> 00:11:11,679 said that SpaceX had won this one point four billion dollar contract. What was 176 00:11:11,679 --> 00:11:16,159 your reaction to that piece of news. I said, I love you, 177 00:11:16,240 --> 00:11:20,960 which I don't think is normal response for NASA contracting officers. That was good. 178 00:11:20,960 --> 00:11:24,240 And then a few days later we closed the Tesla financing round on the 179 00:11:24,320 --> 00:11:28,240 last hour of the last day when it was possible, which was six pm 180 00:11:28,480 --> 00:11:33,039 Christmas Eve, two thousand and eight. So failure said not the most terrible 181 00:11:33,080 --> 00:11:35,080 things. Whether you have to learn from it and react to it. Yeah, 182 00:11:35,320 --> 00:11:39,440 exactly. When you're building something new, there's going to be mistakes, 183 00:11:39,879 --> 00:11:45,120 and it's important to recognize those mistakes, acknowledge them, and take corrective action. 184 00:11:45,759 --> 00:11:48,840 And the success of the company is very much more about how quick are 185 00:11:48,879 --> 00:11:52,279 you to fix the mistakes, not will you make mistakes or admit mistakes. 186 00:11:52,519 --> 00:11:56,679 Absolutely, and if you see the difference between a startup that is successful and 187 00:11:56,720 --> 00:12:01,440 one that is not, and it's because the successful one they both made mistakes, 188 00:12:01,720 --> 00:12:05,519 but the successful one recognize the mistakes fix them very quickly, and the 189 00:12:07,080 --> 00:12:11,879 unsuccessful one tries to deny that the mistakes exist. Extremely smart people are sometimes 190 00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:16,000 quite arrogant because they believe in what they believe in right, and so when 191 00:12:16,000 --> 00:12:20,720 they face criticism less likely to admit they can make mistakes? Was that in 192 00:12:20,799 --> 00:12:24,120 your case? I learned it when I was doing when I was studying physics. 193 00:12:24,159 --> 00:12:26,720 In physics, you're taught to always question yourself. You're taught to always 194 00:12:26,759 --> 00:12:30,679 assume that you're wrong, not assume that you're right, and you have to 195 00:12:30,720 --> 00:12:33,559 prove yourself not wrong. And so I think that physics framework is really where 196 00:12:33,600 --> 00:12:39,200 I lent it, and it's very effective for uncounterintuitive things that aren't obvious. 197 00:12:39,480 --> 00:12:43,120 So you are very famous in saying that failure is actually an option, and 198 00:12:43,240 --> 00:12:46,080 if you're not failing, that means you're not innovative in that. Yeah, 199 00:12:46,120 --> 00:12:48,639 it's not like I like failure. Who likes failure? Is terrible? But 200 00:12:48,960 --> 00:12:52,919 if you only do things that are certain to succeed, then you're only going 201 00:12:52,960 --> 00:12:54,519 to be doing very obvious things. I know, Matacle, you can tell 202 00:12:54,559 --> 00:13:05,600 where elect always tells you don't are touching up You're being innovative can be very 203 00:13:05,600 --> 00:13:11,279 exciting life, but doing business sometimes persistence sometimes could be very boring. Do 204 00:13:11,320 --> 00:13:16,879 you have the same fun from innovation as from business running a business rather to 205 00:13:16,960 --> 00:13:22,399 be just an innovator, engineer instead of a business owner or runner. I'd 206 00:13:22,399 --> 00:13:26,000 love to just do innovation and just do engineering. But you raise a good 207 00:13:26,000 --> 00:13:28,320 point because a lot of life in general, in any job there is you 208 00:13:28,360 --> 00:13:33,519 have to do your chores. There's nobody else can do that for you. 209 00:13:33,840 --> 00:13:37,679 Yeah, I think to be successful almost anything, you can't. You have 210 00:13:37,759 --> 00:13:41,559 to do the tough stuff and as well as the enjoyable stuff. You have 211 00:13:41,600 --> 00:13:43,759 to do the boring stuff as well as the non boring stuff. And if 212 00:13:43,759 --> 00:13:46,799 you don't do your chores, then bad things will happen. But if they 213 00:13:46,840 --> 00:13:50,080 don't do the things that they don't like to do, then the company will 214 00:13:50,080 --> 00:13:54,000 be in trouble. You have to you Basically, it's more fun to cook 215 00:13:54,039 --> 00:13:56,240 the meal than to clean the dishes. Okay, but you need to clean 216 00:13:56,279 --> 00:13:58,360 the dishes. You need to do both. Yes, you need to do 217 00:13:58,399 --> 00:14:03,600 both exactly. So what are some of the ideas that excites you today? 218 00:14:03,919 --> 00:14:09,559 Because there are so many brilliant ideas around the world, How could you keep 219 00:14:09,639 --> 00:14:13,879 focused on the things you're doing instead of being distracted by so many other good 220 00:14:13,879 --> 00:14:18,919 ideas. There's not a lot of opportunity and electrification of cars, of aircraft 221 00:14:18,000 --> 00:14:22,840 and of boats, And I think there's a particular opportunity for a supersonic vertical 222 00:14:22,879 --> 00:14:26,000 takeover and landing electric jet. That's something I'd love to do at some point 223 00:14:26,039 --> 00:14:31,080 in the future if might time allows. Were you certain about what you would 224 00:14:31,120 --> 00:14:33,399 achieve? Oh? No, I thought it was most likely. And also, 225 00:14:33,480 --> 00:14:37,759 even machines are taking a lot of functions away from us, there are 226 00:14:37,799 --> 00:14:43,320 still functions that we have to deliver ourselves. For example, fatherhood. So 227 00:14:43,360 --> 00:14:46,759 how would you educate your five boys? Actually I created a little school. 228 00:14:46,960 --> 00:14:50,000 Yeah, what kind of school could you describe to us? Sure, it's 229 00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:54,159 small, it's only got fourteen kids now and it'll have twenty kids in September. 230 00:14:54,639 --> 00:14:56,639 It's called ad Astra, which means to the stars. That's maybe a 231 00:14:56,679 --> 00:15:01,320 bit different from most other schools is that there aren't any grades. There's no 232 00:15:01,480 --> 00:15:03,440 like grade one, grade two, grade three type of thing, and making 233 00:15:03,480 --> 00:15:07,480 all the children go in the same grade at the same time like an assembly 234 00:15:07,519 --> 00:15:11,639 line. I know. Because some people love English or languages, some people 235 00:15:11,679 --> 00:15:16,200 love math, some people love music and different abilities at different times, it 236 00:15:16,240 --> 00:15:22,960 makes more sense to cater the education to match their aptitudes and abilities like That's 237 00:15:22,960 --> 00:15:28,440 one principle. Another is that it's important to teach teach problem solving or teach 238 00:15:28,480 --> 00:15:31,000 to the problem, not to the tools. So this would be like, 239 00:15:31,159 --> 00:15:35,679 let's say you're trying to teach people about how engines work, or you could 240 00:15:35,720 --> 00:15:37,679 start by a more traditional approach would be to say, we're going to teach 241 00:15:37,679 --> 00:15:41,879 you all about screwdrivers and wrenchers, and you're going to have a course on 242 00:15:41,919 --> 00:15:46,360 screwdrivers, a course on wrenches and all these things, and it's a very 243 00:15:46,360 --> 00:15:48,159 difficult. A much better way would be like, here's the engine. Now 244 00:15:48,240 --> 00:15:50,320 let's take it apart. How are we going to take it apart? Oh, 245 00:15:50,360 --> 00:15:52,840 you need a screwdriver. That's what the screw driver's for. You need 246 00:15:52,879 --> 00:15:56,799 a wrench, That's what the wrench is for. And then a very important 247 00:15:56,799 --> 00:16:00,720 thing happens, which is that the relevance of the tools becomes a aren't so 248 00:16:00,919 --> 00:16:04,960 your five boys are in that school and two when this is from school, 249 00:16:07,120 --> 00:16:11,039 they like it. They like it? Yeah, and you want to keep 250 00:16:11,039 --> 00:16:15,200 them away from regular schools. No, I just didn't see that the regular 251 00:16:15,240 --> 00:16:18,960 schools. They weren't doing the things that I thought should be done those two 252 00:16:18,960 --> 00:16:22,960 principles. They weren't adhering to those principles. I thought, let's see what 253 00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:26,279 we can do, maybe creating a school will be better, and actually hired 254 00:16:26,320 --> 00:16:30,720 a teacher from the school they were at who also agreed with me that there 255 00:16:30,759 --> 00:16:33,519 was a better way to do it. Have they surprised you in a way 256 00:16:33,559 --> 00:16:37,480 of their innovative thinking. Yeah, it seems to be going pretty well. 257 00:16:37,559 --> 00:16:40,200 The kids really loved going to school. I think that's a good sign. 258 00:16:40,480 --> 00:16:42,600 I hated going to school when Isaac kid it was torture. The fact that 259 00:16:42,639 --> 00:16:47,559 they actually think vacations are too long. They want to go back to school. 260 00:16:48,039 --> 00:16:52,159 Yeah, exactly. There are so many young people, the millennium generation 261 00:16:52,600 --> 00:16:59,279 who wants to start up their own company with all these accessibility of the internet 262 00:16:59,480 --> 00:17:03,079 and such a big market. What's your advice for them, because sometimes they 263 00:17:03,160 --> 00:17:07,359 may easily go to the day dreaming part or the wish for thinking part. 264 00:17:07,519 --> 00:17:11,359 What's the balance between imagination and pragmatism? Basically, I do think that in 265 00:17:11,480 --> 00:17:15,759 terms of creating a company, what Edison said, which was like, it's 266 00:17:15,759 --> 00:17:18,839 one percent inspiration nineteen nine percent perspiration, is true. A lot of it 267 00:17:18,920 --> 00:17:23,079 in creating a company is execution. You start off with an idea, and 268 00:17:23,119 --> 00:17:27,680 that idea is mostly wrong, and then you adapt that idea and keep refining 269 00:17:27,680 --> 00:17:33,359 it, and you listen to criticism. Some criticism you discard, you try 270 00:17:33,359 --> 00:17:37,039 to discard the wrong criticism, try to listen to the correct criticism, and 271 00:17:37,079 --> 00:17:41,559 then engage in for self improvement and constantly refining it and making it better. 272 00:17:41,880 --> 00:17:45,519 And you have to work super hard, and that's very important. And then 273 00:17:45,599 --> 00:17:49,400 just keep making keep iterating on a loop which says, am I doing something 274 00:17:49,480 --> 00:17:52,400 useful for other people? Because that's what a company is supposed to do. 275 00:17:52,559 --> 00:17:57,200 A company is just a group of people gathered together to produce a product or 276 00:17:57,240 --> 00:18:02,319 service, and a company should only exist if that product or service is truly 277 00:18:02,400 --> 00:18:11,759 useful to customers. Al Masaco, we should you come way show, But 278 00:18:11,880 --> 00:18:17,319 you're not going to be running Tesla all the time, or what's the next 279 00:18:17,319 --> 00:18:21,279 step for you? I certainly I'll be running Tesla and SpaceX into the foreseeable 280 00:18:21,319 --> 00:18:25,680 future. And a key goal with space with, a key go with Tesla 281 00:18:25,960 --> 00:18:30,640 is to be able to make an affordable, great electric car, a sort 282 00:18:30,640 --> 00:18:33,240 of third generation car, because you can only change the world for electric cars 283 00:18:33,279 --> 00:18:37,839 if people can afford to buy a great electric car. The affordable electric cars 284 00:18:37,880 --> 00:18:41,279 are not great, and the great electric cars not affordable. We need them 285 00:18:41,359 --> 00:18:44,799 great electric cars that are affordable. So that's the goal with SpaceX with Tesla. 286 00:18:44,880 --> 00:18:47,599 Now with SpaceX, that's a bit of a longer term goal because we 287 00:18:47,640 --> 00:18:52,759 need to make reusability work with rockets. That's fundamental to improving the cost of 288 00:18:52,799 --> 00:18:56,240 spaceflight by a factor of one hundred. And then we need to make the 289 00:18:56,319 --> 00:19:02,440 rockets really big and be able to send large amounts of people in cargo to 290 00:19:02,880 --> 00:19:06,200 Mars. And right now nobody's been to Mars. This is a very tall 291 00:19:06,240 --> 00:19:08,160 Hilty client. Do you want to be one of those to try the trip? 292 00:19:08,599 --> 00:19:11,680 I'd like to. I'll go as long as I think SpaceX will be 293 00:19:11,680 --> 00:19:15,680 okay without me, then I'll go to Mars. So do you feel there 294 00:19:15,759 --> 00:19:19,519 is a kind of destiny for you? No, I feel, but I 295 00:19:19,559 --> 00:19:25,119 don't know if there's any merit to that feeling. What are the rules that 296 00:19:25,200 --> 00:19:29,119 you want to live by? Because it seems that you have broken many rules, 297 00:19:29,160 --> 00:19:30,680 But what are some of the rules that you would buy by. I 298 00:19:30,680 --> 00:19:34,200 want to be useful and I want to be able to look back and say 299 00:19:34,200 --> 00:19:37,440 that my actions had a good effect on the world. Wonderful. Thank you 300 00:19:37,480 --> 00:19:40,799 so much for a time. Yeah, thanks for having me. I really 301 00:19:40,839 --> 00:19:41,759 enjoyed the conversation