Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So, so you're the only other guy who's done it, and
Speaker 2: you've done it with payments probably one of the hardest
Speaker 2: industries to disrupt on the web, cars and going to space.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, so what do you do later this year?
Speaker 2: By the way, so oh yeah, but Juke hasn't as
Speaker 2: a co founder.
Speaker 4: For that one. No.
Speaker 3: Actually, they offered to have me be listed as a
Speaker 3: co founder, but I thought that although I suggested the
Speaker 3: initial idea, I did not put enough sort of sweat
Speaker 3: equity into it to be considered.
Speaker 1: So you should have been because you could have been
Speaker 1: the first guy at four.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's I think there's sort of a sudden threshold
Speaker 6: of idea contribution and you know, initial effort that's that's
Speaker 6: required for that.
Speaker 4: That's sort of.
Speaker 3: You know, I mean, sort of subjective, but I think
Speaker 3: I don't think I did enough.
Speaker 4: Right. They did offer it to me, but I said,
Speaker 4: so it.
Speaker 2: Is part of the reason you've done this that you
Speaker 2: are so crazy?
Speaker 1: Are you lucky?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: I've been thinking about that lately, and I sort of wonder,
Speaker 3: you know, I think I probably am a but crazy,
Speaker 3: but I think but maybe that's just that's sort of
Speaker 3: a healthy sign because of the point which you conclude
Speaker 3: you're not crazy at all than you probably are.
Speaker 1: So the fact that you read sort of a recursive thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a story that I've heard about you, Yes,
Speaker 2: about you. Here's the story that made me think you
Speaker 2: were crazy, and you can tell me New York Times.
Speaker 2: No Elan got me in so much trouble several years ago,
Speaker 2: and he called someone a douchebag and a liar, and
Speaker 2: I started laughing and never.
Speaker 4: To be precise, douchebag and an idiot.
Speaker 1: Actually to the liar. We cut out the liar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be liabelest.
Speaker 4: That we cut Okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I think that that made well I guess
Speaker 3: that's probably true too, but but I think it's more
Speaker 3: more of the first two.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So no, this is the story that made me
Speaker 2: think you were crazy.
Speaker 1: I heard right after you sold.
Speaker 2: PayPal, before the other two companies, you went and bought
Speaker 2: a mclareness one because one yes, sorry, that's that's the
Speaker 2: same part, right, partially because you were going to race
Speaker 2: cars with Jim Clark and Larry Ellison.
Speaker 3: No, well not really, no actually, and I never did,
Speaker 3: although that was one of the things that was sort
Speaker 3: of talked about at one point, but I never did.
Speaker 3: In fact, I've never raced anyone with McLaren. I had
Speaker 3: several years. I put eleven thousand miles on it, and
Speaker 3: I drove it from Eli to San Francisco. It was
Speaker 3: my daily driver, which is a crazy car to have
Speaker 3: his daily drive, particularly on four or five.
Speaker 2: But I understand when you got it. Yeah, you're driving
Speaker 2: down to Ady and you wrecked it.
Speaker 3: No, well, and you let me just tell the story, correct,
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, let's see the story that you tell
Speaker 3: is actually how does that how that compares to the
Speaker 3: real because the reality is pretty messed up.
Speaker 1: Better.
Speaker 2: So you wreck the car, you get out of the car,
Speaker 2: you're doubling over with laughter, listen with you said, why
Speaker 2: are you laughing that you just wrecked this car?
Speaker 1: And you said, no, you don't know the funny part
Speaker 1: it wasn't insured.
Speaker 4: Well, the punchline's correct. Yeah, So I was.
Speaker 3: Actually I was driving up sand Hill Road with with
Speaker 3: Peter teele Co found a PayPal actually driving to see
Speaker 3: Mike Moritz. This is in in two thousand and so
Speaker 3: we're driving up. I didn't really know how to drive
Speaker 3: the McLaren, and Peter says so so what can this do?
Speaker 3: And they're like, I'm probably number one on the list
Speaker 3: of famous last words. I said, watch this, so so
Speaker 3: I floored it. I floored it and did a lane
Speaker 3: change on Sandhill. And so the mccarion has no attraction
Speaker 3: control or anything. It was just its massive power to
Speaker 3: the wheels six and forty break course power and it
Speaker 3: only weighs a ton, so it has a massive power
Speaker 3: to where it can break the wheels free at eighty
Speaker 3: miles an hour. So it broke the rear end free
Speaker 3: and started spinning and I sort of, let's see, I
Speaker 3: think it was sort of. I was going straight and
Speaker 3: then turned and I remember seeing the cars coming towards
Speaker 3: me while I was going backwards. And then we hit
Speaker 3: the hit an embankment, sort of a forty five degree
Speaker 3: embankment on sand Hill, which tossed the car into the
Speaker 3: air like a discuss, and it kept rotating with about
Speaker 3: three foot of air air clearance according to witnesses, and
Speaker 3: then slammed down on the ground going the original direction,
Speaker 3: and we blew the suspension out and now it didn't
Speaker 3: actually erect the card. The core chassis and the engine
Speaker 3: were okay, but but all the glass and the wheels
Speaker 3: and everything was was shredded, and and there was massive
Speaker 3: body damage in the front and rear and yeah, did
Speaker 3: you start laughing?
Speaker 4: I don't recool laughing. I mean, I.
Speaker 3: Could have been laughing in shock, but I don't recool laughing.
Speaker 3: And and then and then Peter quote A hitched a
Speaker 3: ride to to Mike.
Speaker 4: I waited while the fire truck and the ambulance ride.
Speaker 2: Then finally the did Peter Teal literally hitched a ride to.
Speaker 4: To like yeah too, so quiet to yeah.
Speaker 3: And then and then I once, once the car was
Speaker 3: taken care of, then I hitched a ride too, And
Speaker 3: so we continued the meeting that I'm picturing.
Speaker 2: You and Peter Teal like that scene and Tommy Boy, and.
Speaker 4: You're both like oh, like yeah really wow, Yeah? Is
Speaker 4: there a pair of give you a live really?
Speaker 1: I should say so?
Speaker 2: Is there a parallel with how you build companies in
Speaker 2: that story?
Speaker 4: I hope not.
Speaker 1: Let's see what you can do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, watch this. That could be awkward with a rocket launch,
Speaker 3: you know. Yeah, it's it's one thing. If you've got
Speaker 3: a one ton car versus a million pounds of TNT equivalent,
Speaker 3: that is a.
Speaker 1: Little dice here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Now what I think is so, I mean, one
Speaker 2: of the things I find so interesting about you. The
Speaker 2: rest of the PayPal guys, they get done with PayPal,
Speaker 2: they start starting and investing in web two point zero
Speaker 2: companies at a point in time whatever and said, that's insane,
Speaker 2: that's insane. The Internet will never come back. They were
Speaker 2: considered the crazy ones. Meanwhile, you moved to La and
Speaker 2: start working on Solar City SpaceX. Tesla's a glint in
Speaker 2: your eye?
Speaker 1: Why didn't you?
Speaker 2: What you ever do an internet company again? Do you
Speaker 2: find the Internet boring?
Speaker 3: I think it's unlikely that I'll do an internet company again,
Speaker 3: because not that I find the Internet boring.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm still sort of.
Speaker 3: I think I'm relatively sort of net savvy and interested
Speaker 3: in the Internet and what's going on. You know, I
Speaker 3: don't even want to be the like like Grandpa who
Speaker 3: doesn't do email or something like that.
Speaker 4: You know, so I think.
Speaker 3: But but I think I'm trying to allocate my efforts
Speaker 3: to that which I think would most affect the future
Speaker 3: of humanity in a positive way. And the I think
Speaker 3: there's there's lots of entrepreneur energy and fin and and
Speaker 3: and financing headed towards the Internet, whereas in certain sectors
Speaker 3: like automotive and solar and space, you don't see new entrants.
Speaker 4: You don't there's not there's not a lot.
Speaker 3: Of capital going to startups and not a lot of
Speaker 3: entrepreneurs going to that in those arenas and the and
Speaker 3: and the problem is that in the absence of some
Speaker 3: new entrants into an industry, you don't you don't have
Speaker 3: that in that forced for innovation. It's really new entrants
Speaker 3: that that drive innovation more than anything. So that that's
Speaker 3: why I have deveoted my efforts to those those industries.
Speaker 3: And there are industries that require, I said, your cap
Speaker 3: quite a bit of capital to get going. And even
Speaker 3: with SpaceX, I mean I invest, I mean my proceeds
Speaker 3: from PayPal aftertext about one hundred and eight million dollars
Speaker 3: one hundred that went into into SpaceX, seventy into Tesla
Speaker 3: and tenant sol City, and I literally had to borrow
Speaker 3: money for rent.
Speaker 4: So that was a close call. That was not the plan.
Speaker 1: What one is the plan? You thought, I'll put ten
Speaker 1: in each of these are.
Speaker 3: Well, Actually I thought the SpaceX, I thought it would
Speaker 3: be about well, I guess I was probably about double
Speaker 3: it could cost. It ended up being double in most cases.
Speaker 3: So with SpaceX, I thought it'd be fifty. With Tesla,
Speaker 3: I thought it'd be I thought it'd be putting in
Speaker 3: twenty five maybe thirty. With solar City, for well, solicity
Speaker 3: actually went really well. And that's that's the one where
Speaker 3: I wasn't the co founder. So mean, that's a good sign.
Speaker 3: I mean I should I should co found less stuff.
Speaker 4: So that's so what happened?
Speaker 2: Why did you have to put more money in the
Speaker 2: other two or did investors flake did you have Well?
Speaker 3: I didn't actually seek investor funding for the first three
Speaker 3: rounds of space X, because I mean the first thing
Speaker 3: that investors want to ask you is sort of, well,
Speaker 3: what's tell us about prior successes in this field?
Speaker 4: And you know, what can we compare this to uh
Speaker 4: and and this?
Speaker 3: You know, when when you've got kind of the doughnut
Speaker 3: in the success category and a lot of you know,
Speaker 3: a cemetery full of failures, than that they're not that
Speaker 3: keen and rockets are just pretty far out of the
Speaker 3: capital zone.
Speaker 4: Of most metro capitalists.
Speaker 3: And now we were able to get a menure funding
Speaker 3: after we've made some progress and demonstrated that we were
Speaker 3: able to.
Speaker 4: Almost get to orbit.
Speaker 3: And the credit goes to sort of to founder's fund
Speaker 3: and which is obviously some of my compatriots from from PayPal,
Speaker 3: Peter and Peter Thiel and Luke no Sick and Ken
Speaker 3: Howry and.
Speaker 4: And the other guys.
Speaker 3: So and they invested before we got to orbit, so
Speaker 3: so credit to them for that. But but I did
Speaker 3: have to show that I could actually make stuff, like
Speaker 3: I never actually made physical stuff before, you know, before SpaceX,
Speaker 3: so let alone rockets. So you started with the rocket, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean it's that's a that's a hard one, and
Speaker 3: it's that the probability of success was low. In fact,
Speaker 3: when I started SpaceX, I thought that the most likely
Speaker 3: outcome was failure. But and and I think to have
Speaker 3: any other expectation would have been irrational.
Speaker 1: So why did you want to do it?
Speaker 2: I know, for Tesla it seems more obvious, like, oh,
Speaker 2: save the planet. Big automakers aren't doing this. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think it's fairly abo, so that's good for humanity.
Speaker 2: Why did you feel like SpaceX needed.
Speaker 1: To be done?
Speaker 4: Well? I guess.
Speaker 3: If you look at the trajectory of space technology and progress,
Speaker 3: the pinnacle of that progress was around maybe nineteen sixty
Speaker 3: nine nineteen seventy with the Moon missions, and so we
Speaker 3: made incredible progress in the sixties and then we were
Speaker 3: able to clown the Moon, and then with the Space Shuttle,
Speaker 3: it can only get people to Low with all. But
Speaker 3: now the Space Shuttle is retired, and that's just a
Speaker 3: there's no trajectory of improvement.
Speaker 4: It's a trajectory to nothing.
Speaker 3: And I kept thinking that there'd be some plan to
Speaker 3: say people to Mars, because that's the obvious next step.
Speaker 3: And the actual origin of SpaceX is when I was
Speaker 3: I think it's around two thousand one or so, and
Speaker 3: I was visiting a friend of mine, Adare Oressi, who
Speaker 3: actually you may have met, but he lives in Palo Alta.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: We were college housemates, and he asked me what I
Speaker 3: was going to have PayPal, and I said, well, I've
Speaker 3: always been interested in space, but I didn't think there
Speaker 3: was anything I could do in space as an individual.
Speaker 3: So my initial plan in space was actually to send
Speaker 3: to do a small mission to Mars with a greenhouse
Speaker 3: essentially seasoned dehydrate and nutrient jail and a little greenhouse
Speaker 3: that would land and you'd hydrate the jail, and then
Speaker 3: you grow the plants and you have this great shot
Speaker 3: of green plants in the red background, and that would
Speaker 3: be the money shot, essentially. And the people tend to
Speaker 3: respond to precedents and superlatives, and this would be the
Speaker 3: furthest that LIFs ever traveled the first life on Mars
Speaker 3: as far as we know, and and that that would
Speaker 3: give you excited and I thought, well, that would result
Speaker 3: in an increased NASA budget and then we could send
Speaker 3: people to Mars, because that's you know, I think you
Speaker 3: want to have a future where you're expecting things to
Speaker 3: be better, not one where you're expecting things to be worse.
Speaker 4: So that was how things started out.
Speaker 3: And then as I learned more and I went to
Speaker 3: speaking of crazy things, went to Russia three times to
Speaker 3: negotiate a deal to buy a couple of the largest
Speaker 3: ICBMs in the Russian fleet.
Speaker 4: A strange experience.
Speaker 1: How do you even get into that negotiation?
Speaker 3: Well, you talk to people who know people, and I'm
Speaker 3: pretty soon you're talking to the Russian rocket forces, and you.
Speaker 4: Know they.
Speaker 3: It turns out Russia is quite quite a capitalist society,
Speaker 3: and so it definitely has had some some weird meetings
Speaker 3: in places like that. I swear they looked like a
Speaker 3: sanitarium or something.
Speaker 4: I don't know. It was very odd.
Speaker 1: We keep going back to the theme of crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, seriously, this place had padded walls, like winding up
Speaker 3: added walls.
Speaker 4: It was weird.
Speaker 3: And yeah, and then I had some some sort of
Speaker 3: Russian guy who was missing up front two started yelling
Speaker 3: at me because his friend, when of his front teep
Speaker 3: the was saying it was like spip flying at me
Speaker 3: in the place and patted walls like it's really bizarre.
Speaker 1: And that was what we thought. I'm gonna build my
Speaker 1: own rocket.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That was probably when I got back from that third trip,
Speaker 3: I was like, well, I realized that that the real issue,
Speaker 3: the reason we haven't advanced in space is because the
Speaker 3: cost of space transportations has become unaffordable. It's it's become
Speaker 3: more and more expensive to do to do less and
Speaker 3: less in space, and we really need to improve the
Speaker 3: technology of space transportation. So that's why I sought at SpaceX.
Speaker 3: But it may seem odd that I saw SpaceX with
Speaker 3: an expectation of failure, but bear in mind that my
Speaker 3: initial thing was to do essentially a philanthropic mission with
Speaker 3: a zero percent chance of success from a financial standpoint,
Speaker 3: so it would have effectively been a donation to the cause.
Speaker 4: And so anything better than that is when right right?
Speaker 2: So you know, I know people think of you as
Speaker 2: someone who's had a lot of success, but you had
Speaker 2: several failures within SpaceX before the recent launch.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit about what.
Speaker 2: It's like to put that much work into something and
Speaker 2: be doing something that really no one else is doing
Speaker 2: and at least trying something and putting that much of
Speaker 2: your own money in it that you're having to borrow
Speaker 2: money from friends to pay your rent and there are
Speaker 2: launches and it's failing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well it super sucks, I'll tell you. Yeah.
Speaker 3: That was two thousand and eight particular was was was
Speaker 3: was awful because we had the third launch failure in
Speaker 3: a row of of our Falcon one with vehicle at SpaceX,
Speaker 3: and we uh, the Tesla financing round that we were
Speaker 3: raising fell apart because the economy is going through tailspin
Speaker 3: and it's pretty hard to raise money for a startup
Speaker 3: car company. Uh, you know, late two thousand and eight,
Speaker 3: win Gym and christ a busy going bankrupt, that that was.
Speaker 3: That was tough, and then Solar City had to deal
Speaker 3: with Morgan Stanley, and Morgan Stanley had to reneg on
Speaker 3: the deal because they themselves running out of money. So
Speaker 3: looked like all three companies were going to die. And
Speaker 3: I was also going through divorce. So that was definitely
Speaker 3: a low point. And but fortunately the fourth launch worked.
Speaker 3: And and then did.
Speaker 1: You think that their launch was going to work? Was
Speaker 1: it a shock that it didn't?
Speaker 3: Well, I thought it would most like I think I
Speaker 3: thought the odds were working were better than percent.
Speaker 4: But yeah, there was just a little little change.
Speaker 3: In the thrust transient of the first stage engine that
Speaker 3: resulted in that we didn't we couldn't see it on
Speaker 3: the ground because of the thrust transient. Well it's a
Speaker 3: good slightly technical For a second, the pressure decay on
Speaker 3: the truck thrust transient dropped below sea level pressure. So
Speaker 3: when you when you look at it on the test
Speaker 3: and at with you know, at sea level, you don't
Speaker 3: see it. It doesn't that that doesn't look like there's
Speaker 3: a thrust transient. And because we changed the architecture of
Speaker 3: the engine to one that was generally cooled instead of
Speaker 3: relatively cooled, it had this little tiny transient which caused
Speaker 3: the first stage to round the upper stage and and
Speaker 3: the upper stage engine started started inside the interstage section.
Speaker 3: Like it's like sort of firing up this giant this
Speaker 3: engine indoors with with a big plasma blowback that fried
Speaker 3: fried the upper stage.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I wasn't expecting that.
Speaker 2: So, so it's two thousand and eight, You're going through
Speaker 2: a divorce, which, like some to borrow your word, douchebag
Speaker 2: bloggers are writing about to make even worse.
Speaker 4: Right, Yes, that's true.
Speaker 3: In addition to to a less stuff happening, I was
Speaker 3: getting dumped on massively in the press, right, yeah.
Speaker 2: You're you know, it looks like all three companies are
Speaker 2: going to get file.
Speaker 1: I mean, why do you keep going with all three?
Speaker 2: Like I feel like even a lot of great entrepreneurs
Speaker 2: in that situation would have been like I've already sunk
Speaker 2: everything I have in these companies and I got to
Speaker 2: pick one.
Speaker 1: But you didn't. I mean, you kept doing all three. Why.
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: That was that was a very tough pool at the
Speaker 3: end of two thousand and eight. That was that was
Speaker 3: probably the tough you know, one of the toughest goals
Speaker 3: I've had to make because I could either reserve capital
Speaker 3: for one company or the other. I mean solo, the
Speaker 3: city didn't need a ton of capitals there they were okay,
Speaker 3: But between SpaceX and and Tesla, you know, it's sort
Speaker 3: of like like you've got two kids, and what do
Speaker 3: you do? Do you spend all your money to maximize
Speaker 3: probably the success of one, or do you do you
Speaker 3: try to keep both life?
Speaker 4: Unfortunately it worked.
Speaker 1: You also had to step back in as the CEO
Speaker 1: of Tesla.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Michael was never to be the CEO of Tesla
Speaker 3: from the beginning. I mean I've had Inderson electric cars
Speaker 3: that goes back twenty years to you know, when I
Speaker 3: was in college. In fact, I used to talk to
Speaker 3: my dates about electric cars. Probably not the best strategy.
Speaker 1: Close those dates.
Speaker 3: No, no, I usually have to stop talking about that.
Speaker 3: But yeah, so I've got long standing interest in electric cars.
Speaker 3: But since I was doing SpaceX, I knew that if
Speaker 3: I did try to start an electricock company and run it,
Speaker 3: that it would be extremely painful to run two companies.
Speaker 3: So I tried, really tried my hardest not to be
Speaker 3: the CEO of Tesla. I mean any at any point
Speaker 3: from day one I could have been the CEO because
Speaker 3: I had a majority of control of the company, but I.
Speaker 4: Really tried not to.
Speaker 3: And in the end it was at the end of
Speaker 3: two thousand and eight, it's I'd commit all of my.
Speaker 4: Reserve capital to Tesla.
Speaker 3: That wasn't allocated to SpaceX, and so I felt I
Speaker 3: had to sort of steer the ship directly. But it
Speaker 3: was it was not it was not out of it
Speaker 3: was most it was really not fun, like super not fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I remember when we talked, I guess maybe the next
Speaker 2: year after that, you said, you know this is not
Speaker 2: at the fun level running these two companies.
Speaker 4: No, I mean, it's definitely gotten a lot better with SpaceX.
Speaker 4: You know, so since we've now.
Speaker 3: Had five successful lunchers in a row, and we were
Speaker 3: able to talk with the space Station and with Tesla,
Speaker 3: we're able to raise enough capital to get the company
Speaker 3: to be able to produce the model ay and do
Speaker 3: the IPO, and you know, so I've got a much strong,
Speaker 3: much stronger, a much stronger team, a lot of bench
Speaker 3: strength at both companies. So you know, I can go
Speaker 3: from essentially almost every waking hour being being spent on
Speaker 3: the companies to ninety percent which is a big difference.
Speaker 2: Actually, is the ambition still to find another CEO for
Speaker 2: one or the other?
Speaker 3: Well, I I expect to run both companies for the
Speaker 3: foreseeable future because I've I've made equipment to people at
Speaker 3: both companies to do that.
Speaker 4: Will I be running both companies forever?
Speaker 3: I think that's that's unlikely, but but certainly for the
Speaker 3: foreseeable future I will be.
Speaker 1: Is there one that has your heart more than the
Speaker 1: other one?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, they they both, They both do have
Speaker 3: my heart. But I think that they may come a point,
Speaker 3: you know, several years in the future where the the
Speaker 3: fundamental good that Tesla is trying to accomplish, which is
Speaker 3: to serve as a catalyst for the acceleration of sustainable transport,
Speaker 3: has been accomplished. In other words, I mean that's really
Speaker 3: what what what has the if looked from an historical standpoint,
Speaker 3: or what what's important here.
Speaker 4: In affecting the world.
Speaker 3: It's it's to what degree is Tesla's serving as a
Speaker 3: catalyst for the advent of electric vehicles?
Speaker 4: And at some point, you.
Speaker 3: Know, when when uh say, most cars being manufactured are electric,
Speaker 3: then that will have been accomplished and.
Speaker 4: Or the catalytic value.
Speaker 3: Of Tesla will will have been realized, and the diminishing
Speaker 3: returns in our garden. I think at that point I
Speaker 3: would not need to run the company.
Speaker 2: Can we talk a little bit about across the companies
Speaker 2: your experience with venture capitalists, because it's been pretty varied, right, Yes,
Speaker 2: so you've had good experiences and you've had not so
Speaker 2: good experiences.
Speaker 4: A wide wide range.
Speaker 2: Yes, what have you What would you advise entrepreneurs watching
Speaker 2: this or in the audience to make sure they don't
Speaker 2: they don't live through what.
Speaker 1: You did in the bad experiences? And can you tell
Speaker 1: us about the bad experience?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 3: I think I think one thing that's important is if
Speaker 3: if you have a choice of a lower evaluation with
Speaker 3: someone you really like or a higher evaluation with someone
Speaker 3: you have a question walk about take the lower valuation.
Speaker 4: It's better to have a higher.
Speaker 3: Quality uh bench capitalist who you think is would be
Speaker 3: great to work with, than to you know, get get
Speaker 3: a higher evaluation with someone where there's even a question
Speaker 3: walk really, you know, I think that's that's important. That's
Speaker 3: sort of like getting married. You know, I don't know, Well,
Speaker 3: maybe I haven't been.
Speaker 4: That good at that, but probably ten years. Okay, I mean,
Speaker 4: it's too bad.
Speaker 1: Did you do that wrong? Did you maximize for evaluation?
Speaker 4: The I suppose in the case of the Tesla series C.
Speaker 3: I mean, at some point I think I'll tell the
Speaker 3: full story, but not tonight.
Speaker 4: But not tonight.
Speaker 1: The they did wait an hour.
Speaker 3: Right, No, I know, Well, I'll tell part I'll tell
Speaker 3: I'll tell part of the story. So the there was
Speaker 3: there were there were two multiple competing bits. But there
Speaker 3: were two competing bits. One was from uh Klana Perkins,
Speaker 3: the other one was from vantish Point. Klaner offered a
Speaker 3: fifty million dollar pre money Fintah Point offered seventy. I
Speaker 3: actually said to John Dura that if John joins the board,
Speaker 3: we'll do it at fifty. But John felt that there
Speaker 3: was that he had too many obligations and that there
Speaker 3: was another partner at Klanner who who really wanted the deal,
Speaker 3: and so he could not supplant that person. And I thought, well,
Speaker 3: we could do I would be okay if John ur
Speaker 3: were joined the I mean there's a forty percent different
Speaker 3: That difference has pretty significant.
Speaker 4: I thought if John would would.
Speaker 3: Be willing to join the board, then we could do that,
Speaker 3: but not if it was somebody else.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was probably a mistake.
Speaker 1: And so then they did Fisker instead, which.
Speaker 4: And that was their mistake.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, but I hope they live past the election.
Speaker 2: Fiscer and A one two three are both having a
Speaker 2: lot of issues.
Speaker 1: What has Tesla done that it hasn't fallen in that bucket?
Speaker 1: What was I mean.
Speaker 2: Looking back, was there a crossroads where you made a
Speaker 2: right choice that has put you guys so far? I
Speaker 2: mean you're not profitable yet, but in a different category.
Speaker 3: Uh well, Tesla is a really different company to to Fisker.
Speaker 3: I mean we're Tesla is a hardcore technology company and
Speaker 3: we we do really serious engineering. And I think you
Speaker 3: only boilth value in a company if you if you're
Speaker 3: doing hard work to solve tough problems. That that's that's
Speaker 3: why companies are valuable. That's why they should be valuable,
Speaker 3: and largely is why they're valuable. So and and we
Speaker 3: do we do aren't We do real manufacturing as well?
Speaker 3: I mean that the model as coils of aluminum and
Speaker 3: plastic pelts come in and cars come out. I mean
Speaker 3: we're we do real podcore manufacturing, quite vertically integrated, and
Speaker 3: we did all the vehicle engineering, all the power train engineering,
Speaker 3: all the software and whereas uh. And also we also
Speaker 3: of course do the styling and design of the car.
Speaker 3: We've got a great design shoot. Our head of design
Speaker 3: fronts when wholeshouse and is awesome.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: In the case of Fisker, it's it's headed by was
Speaker 3: headed by you know, Henry Fisker, and UH. And he's
Speaker 3: he's a designer, so he's he's good at sort of
Speaker 3: the styling of the cars. But he thinks it's all
Speaker 3: about styling and and and it's not, you know, it's
Speaker 3: it's really this is you know, the reason we don't
Speaker 3: have electric cars is not for lack of styling.
Speaker 2: Right at the time when you were getting started with Tesla,
Speaker 2: the Valley was trying to take a turn back towards
Speaker 2: science and towards saving the world. You had Kleiner Perkins,
Speaker 2: Coastal Adventures, a lot of these big firms really getting
Speaker 2: aggressive about clean tech and saying that was going to
Speaker 2: be the next Internet.
Speaker 1: That has not been the case. Why did clean tech
Speaker 1: not work for the Valley?
Speaker 3: Well, I think the jury's out on clean tech. I
Speaker 3: think as far as Tesla and Tesla and Solar City
Speaker 3: have certainly clean tech or it's say, I think of
Speaker 3: more like sustainable energy stuff. I think sustainable energy is
Speaker 3: a better it's more of a mouthful, but it's more
Speaker 3: accurate than than than than clean tech. And uh, I
Speaker 3: mean I think the I think, I think Tesla is
Speaker 3: going to be an extremely valuable company in the long term.
Speaker 2: And what have you done differently because a lot of
Speaker 2: ACS said, well, the problem with clean tech is you
Speaker 2: have to rely on subsidies, and if you have to
Speaker 2: rely on subsidies.
Speaker 1: It's never going to work.
Speaker 2: I mean, people buying a Tesla in park get a subsidy,
Speaker 2: it takes down the price I assume.
Speaker 1: With solar City. So it's like like that hasn't.
Speaker 2: Been a knock against you guys, Like why have these
Speaker 2: two companies worked when when so many other ones haven't.
Speaker 3: I think it's you know, in any industry, there are
Speaker 3: only a few companies that that kind of get big
Speaker 3: and succeed.
Speaker 4: And I don't know, I think it just seems that.
Speaker 3: In the in the case of Tesla, we were focused
Speaker 3: on making great products, uh and and doing solving hard
Speaker 3: engineering problems. I mean, as evidence in Tesla for the
Speaker 3: fact that we solve hard heart engineering problems is the
Speaker 3: fact that Toyota and Daimler and Mercedes, you know, buy
Speaker 3: electric power trains from US. I mean they if this
Speaker 3: was easy, they would just do it. So so we
Speaker 3: focused on solving really hard engineering problems at at Tesla,
Speaker 3: Like I said, that contrasts with Fiscer some degree. And
Speaker 3: and then at Solar City, the solo city does everything
Speaker 3: except the panel. So what what a lot of people
Speaker 3: don't realize is that the solar panel, if it's just
Speaker 3: and efficiency solar panel, the difficulty of manufacturing that is
Speaker 3: about as hard as manufacturing drywall.
Speaker 4: It's really easy.
Speaker 3: And so I mean, it seemed to me pretty obvious
Speaker 3: that in the long term we'd see.
Speaker 4: Cutthroat competition between.
Speaker 3: Silicon PB manufacturers in China, Japan, Germany and other places.
Speaker 3: As much as you see this competition in the d
Speaker 3: RAM market, I think the PBM market in the dram
Speaker 3: market very similar, And so that that cost would be
Speaker 3: driven down to very low number, approaching the raw material
Speaker 3: cost really and that that's that's pretty much what happened.
Speaker 3: And and so the real the real cost of solar
Speaker 3: and real challenge with solar is what's called balanced system
Speaker 3: it's everything except the panel, and and so the cost
Speaker 3: per installed what for a residential system might be around
Speaker 3: four dollars now, which is a big drop from where
Speaker 3: it was a few years ago used Topeak sort of
Speaker 3: seven eight dollars.
Speaker 4: Now it's it's sort of kind of have that.
Speaker 3: But the optimization really has to be at the everything
Speaker 3: except the panel, because the panels are dropping now to
Speaker 3: like ninety cents a wide. So you know, over three,
Speaker 3: you know, three dollars of the four dollars is balance
Speaker 3: the system, which which includes the you know, it includes
Speaker 3: the custom ownership experience that designing the system, particular to
Speaker 3: particular rooftop, installing it, the wiring the inverter, after sales service,
Speaker 3: figuring out the financing system, the found financing of it all.
Speaker 3: You know, it's in the same way that say, say Dell.
Speaker 3: Dell doesn't make the CPU or the hard drive of
Speaker 3: the RAM or anything, but they kind of designed the
Speaker 3: system and they.
Speaker 4: Manage the customer experience.
Speaker 3: And that's that's kind of how solar City is. So
Speaker 3: when I looked at the problem of solar power, that
Speaker 3: that that's what it looked.
Speaker 4: Like to me.
Speaker 3: So that's why solar City is working the problems that
Speaker 3: it is working on, and it's doing super well with
Speaker 3: you know, the credit credit due to Lennon and Peter
Speaker 3: Ryve and the rest of the team at Social.
Speaker 2: You've said, I think this is the first time I've
Speaker 2: interviewed you and you haven't said it that being an
Speaker 2: entrepreneur is like standing on the edge of a bit,
Speaker 2: looking into abyss and chewing broken glass.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Actually that's a phrase from a friend of mine, Billy,
Speaker 3: who is early internet entrepreneur, has done done a number
Speaker 3: of things since and and he the the phrase that
Speaker 3: he uses is like starting companies, like it's like chewing
Speaker 3: glass and starring into the abyss. Right, so I've flipped it, yeah,
Speaker 3: just so it's it's I mean, there's a point which
Speaker 3: obviously it's.
Speaker 4: Not that not that way.
Speaker 1: Do you still feel like that or now?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: The stirring the abus part is just you know, are
Speaker 3: you are you facing him and a death? And we
Speaker 3: certainly were at SpaceX and Tesla and socially for a
Speaker 3: long time. I think we're no longer staring into the abyss,
Speaker 3: which is great.
Speaker 4: There's always gonna be some amount of glass that's got.
Speaker 3: To be chewed it's never zero, but it's less and
Speaker 3: less as time.
Speaker 1: Resspard less glass and no more abyss.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the best is kind of there in the distance,
Speaker 3: but I'm not staring my peripheral vision.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, you know, you guys did PayPal, which
Speaker 5: was you know, obviously started at a time when there
Speaker 5: was a lot of money and there were advantages, but
Speaker 5: you know, compared to other dot COM's, was a very
Speaker 5: hard company to build, and then you go on to the.
Speaker 4: Company to keep alive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, as you point out, I mean, PayPal got
Speaker 3: started in like late ninety nine, late ninety eight to
Speaker 3: early ninety nine, and it was a sort of merger
Speaker 3: of two companies x X dot com that I started
Speaker 3: and Confinity that Maxi Peter started, and we started to
Speaker 3: sort of pull our resources and tackle problem together. And
Speaker 3: we went from starting the company to less than eighteen
Speaker 3: months later, maybe fourteen months later or something, having a
Speaker 3: valuation of five hundred million dollars. And you know, these days,
Speaker 3: you know and have to see some of the you know,
Speaker 3: things like the recent position by Facebook, think oh, well,
Speaker 3: maybe that's not that great, but but at the time
Speaker 3: it was certainly was like this is this is completely ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Did you feel that way though, because I know there
Speaker 2: were some people inside the company who thought, why we
Speaker 2: are why are we only worth five hundred million?
Speaker 3: I thought it was completely ridiculous. But the Nasdak peaked
Speaker 3: I think in March or thereabouts of two thousand and
Speaker 3: that's around when we when we did the valuation for
Speaker 3: five million dollars.
Speaker 4: The challenge was really keeping the company.
Speaker 3: Alive for the next two years roughly until well until
Speaker 3: we're sold to eBay.
Speaker 2: What what is you and Peter's relationship like and what
Speaker 2: was it like?
Speaker 3: Then?
Speaker 2: There's there's a lot of stories that the two of
Speaker 2: you guys did not get along in that merger.
Speaker 3: You know, we've we've had out disagreements, but we are friends.
Speaker 3: And I would say for of our the time we've
Speaker 3: known each other, we've been friends.
Speaker 1: I met that was rough though knowing both it was a.
Speaker 3: Little it was a little yeah, I thinks a little
Speaker 3: bumpy at one point, and I think.
Speaker 4: I'm I'm not I have more tolerance for risk than Peter.
Speaker 3: It is, so I was sort of maybe more kind
Speaker 3: of pedal to the metal, and Peter.
Speaker 4: Was like, well, let's a little let's be a little
Speaker 4: cautious here.
Speaker 2: He may have been right actually, so which just ironic
Speaker 2: since he encouraged you to gun your car that made
Speaker 2: you guy.
Speaker 3: I don't think that was what he had in mind,
Speaker 3: but yeah, he uh. I'm probably slightly more risk tolerant
Speaker 3: than Peter is.
Speaker 4: But I think.
Speaker 3: Between all of us we managed to make PayPal work,
Speaker 3: which is what that was the important thing.
Speaker 2: But back to the abyss and the broken glass. I mean,
Speaker 2: do you only enjoy this if you're just the odds
Speaker 2: are failure?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: No, I'm liking life more and more actually, as there's
Speaker 3: less staring into the abyss and less glastering, I'm finding
Speaker 3: that to be a good thing. So I hope never
Speaker 3: to return to the experiences I had in two thousand
Speaker 3: and eight and two thousand nine.
Speaker 2: So I know, back in I think it was two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight, you talked about if you were to
Speaker 2: start other companies. One that you had an idea for
Speaker 2: was an electric plane that could take off and land vertically.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Does that seem are you now like, fuck, No, I
Speaker 2: am not starting another company.
Speaker 1: Are you still thinking of that?
Speaker 4: That's how I feel?
Speaker 3: That is, yeah, I've actually I mean, there are three
Speaker 3: things that I think, well, arguably, for that I think
Speaker 3: could be done. I think I could probably do it.
Speaker 3: Maybe you know, have a better than even chance of success.
Speaker 4: One is the.
Speaker 3: An electric jet sort of this would be kind of
Speaker 3: something cool because one of the things that I guess
Speaker 3: where the idea where these things tend to come from,
Speaker 3: is like I'll read something that seems like a sad
Speaker 3: thing in technology, and they're like, well, how could we
Speaker 3: make it not a sad thing? So when I read
Speaker 3: about the concord being retired, and I was like, oh, geez,
Speaker 3: you know, we don't even have supersonic transport.
Speaker 4: That's terrible.
Speaker 3: And I actually didn't have a chance to find the concord,
Speaker 3: so you.
Speaker 4: Know, that just seemed like terrible things.
Speaker 3: So initially I thought, well, I started reading up about it,
Speaker 3: and I read that that the concord it was really
Speaker 3: designed in the sixties and so eric now have improved
Speaker 3: a great deal with competential fluid dynamics, engine efficiencies improved massively,
Speaker 3: and even if you just changed the engines on the concord,
Speaker 3: you could double the range.
Speaker 4: Or thereabouts.
Speaker 3: And so I thought, well, okay, what if what if
Speaker 3: you were figured out a really efficient design that could
Speaker 3: make it economically competitive to have a supersonic aircraft, and
Speaker 3: and and then I started looking at it more and more,
Speaker 3: and then I started doing the math on all of it.
Speaker 3: It seemed like, well, you just really want to go
Speaker 3: higher and higher. You know, the lower you're in the atmosphere,
Speaker 3: the more drag you have. Atmospheric density decays exponentially, So
Speaker 3: as you go up, your air density just drops drops dramatically.
Speaker 3: And it's it's really easy to go fast. And I
Speaker 3: mean and your speed is just a force balance. It's
Speaker 3: whatever your the output thrust of the engine is real,
Speaker 3: you know, balanced against.
Speaker 4: The drag that you're expect. So as you go higher,
Speaker 4: you just go faster for the same course.
Speaker 3: And and and then there's a slight outward acceleration you experienced,
Speaker 3: which is also slightly helpful.
Speaker 4: Like a satellite.
Speaker 3: You know, when satellite is going mark twenty five, it
Speaker 3: just goes on forever once it's south the atmosphere. So anyway,
Speaker 3: this may be slightly worriast, but the electric fan gets better,
Speaker 3: the electric aircraft gets better at the higher you go,
Speaker 3: whereas a combustion aircraft does not.
Speaker 4: You have you start starving it, starving it from from from.
Speaker 3: Oxygen and and only you know, but the area is
Speaker 3: mostly nitrogen. So when you as you're going through the air,
Speaker 3: you're you're sort of sucking in all this all this
Speaker 3: nitrogen which is kind of slowing you down, and you're
Speaker 3: trying to combust the oxygen. Anyway, So with with aircraft,
Speaker 3: with combustion aircraft, you hit an optimal altitude that's in
Speaker 3: the sort of thirty five to maybe fifty five macs altitude,
Speaker 3: whereas an electric aircraft you could you'd want to go
Speaker 3: like maybe eighty thousand feet And anyway, it's a long
Speaker 3: long way of saying you can get super efficient and
Speaker 3: super fast with electric aircraft, and the vertical takeoff lining
Speaker 3: works well with being super sonic and anyway, so I
Speaker 3: think I think you could you can make a really
Speaker 3: breakthrough aircraft that's several generations beyond what currently exists.
Speaker 1: But are you going to do that?
Speaker 4: Not anytime soon.
Speaker 3: It's possible that I may do it at some point
Speaker 3: in the future because between SpaceX and Tesla, I kind
Speaker 3: of have the ingredients, so.
Speaker 4: Very tempting easy after this, Yeah, but the.
Speaker 3: I think maybe it's worth something worth considering in a
Speaker 3: few years that's so that's one idea. Then this, I
Speaker 3: think we could really improve transport by having a prefabricated
Speaker 3: kind of double decker or actually, what war would really
Speaker 3: make sense is a steel box beam over the center
Speaker 3: divider with a lane on the inside and lane on
Speaker 3: top that's made in prefabricated sections and stalled down the
Speaker 3: center divider, and you can get two lanes, and you
Speaker 3: can have the traffic you know, all onery or all
Speaker 3: the other and massively improve life in places like Los Angeles,
Speaker 3: where I was just stuck in traffic going to me
Speaker 3: an hour ago, three miles. So I don't know who's
Speaker 3: in charge of the Dam four or five construction, but
Speaker 3: they're a bloody idiot and I hate them. It is
Speaker 3: the worst construction product I've ever witnessed in my life.
Speaker 4: It cursed them daily.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's two. What are the other two?
Speaker 4: You would do? Well?
Speaker 3: The other one, well one of the third one would
Speaker 3: be I think you could make fusion work, and I mean,
Speaker 3: and I mean by that, I mean magnetic confinement fusion,
Speaker 3: your relatively standard.
Speaker 4: Fusion, if you will. And and then the fourth one.
Speaker 1: Photo sharing out subscription commerce in a box.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, the fourth one I'm considering just open sourcing basically
Speaker 3: just describing the idea, saying that this is what will
Speaker 3: be done, and if somebody wants to do it, then
Speaker 3: then they can do it. But I'm thinking like maybe
Speaker 3: I should patent it and then offer an open source
Speaker 3: the pattern to anyone that can make a credible case
Speaker 3: that they could actually do it, some sort of debating it.
Speaker 3: But it would be for for a fifth mode of transport.
Speaker 3: So right now we've got of terrestial transport. We've got planes, trains, automobiles,
Speaker 3: and boats for getting around Earth.
Speaker 4: And but what if there was a fifth mode?
Speaker 3: And I have a name for it, name for it
Speaker 3: which is called the hyper loop.
Speaker 4: The hyper loop hyper loop.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is it like a Jetson's tunnel.
Speaker 4: It's something like that. Yeah, like you just get.
Speaker 1: In at whisks you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, and I'll tell you the characteristic. So this
Speaker 3: is partly prompted by the California train thing. Like we
Speaker 3: know we've got like a bullet train that that's like,
Speaker 3: it's the has the dubious distinction of being the slowest
Speaker 3: bullet train and the most expensive.
Speaker 4: Promile calcul We got some bulletins there.
Speaker 3: So we're setting records at both you know, both ends
Speaker 3: of the wrong the wrong ends of the of the spectrum.
Speaker 3: And you know, apparently it's gonna be like sixty billion
Speaker 3: dollars or something to go from San Francsco.
Speaker 4: To LA.
Speaker 3: And if it's if they're saying sixty now, it's going to.
Speaker 4: Be more later. And as furse, it's really slow to try.
Speaker 2: To put this in perspective. One hundred million got you
Speaker 2: into space.
Speaker 3: Well, it got me started. I mean it got it
Speaker 3: got me to yeah, Siddly got me.
Speaker 4: To space, and quite get me. It's all bit very close. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 4: something like that. Yeah.
Speaker 3: In terms of cap of a venture capital investment, it's
Speaker 3: been a couple hundred million in total including outside investors.
Speaker 4: So and it's basically has been profitable for the last
Speaker 4: few years.
Speaker 3: So I think we can do something that's probably ten
Speaker 3: percent of the cost. And and and I try to
Speaker 3: think of what are the attributes that you'd want in
Speaker 3: a new motor transport. In fact, what is the theoretically
Speaker 3: fastest way that you could get from LA to San
Speaker 3: Francisco And and so so the system I have in mind,
Speaker 3: which is you've you're sort of you're guessing in the
Speaker 3: right direction sort of.
Speaker 4: How do you like something that can.
Speaker 3: Never crash, it is immune to weather, It goes three
Speaker 3: or four times faster than the sort of bullet train
Speaker 3: that's being built. Well, it goes about let's say an
Speaker 3: average speed of twice what.
Speaker 4: What what an aircraft would would do.
Speaker 3: So you go from downtown l A to downtown San
Speaker 3: Francisco in under thirty minutes, and it would cost you
Speaker 3: much less than an air ticket or cart, much less
Speaker 3: than any of the mode transports. Is the fundamental energy
Speaker 3: cost is so much lower. And I think we could
Speaker 3: actually make it self power, self powering if.
Speaker 4: You just if you put solar panels on.
Speaker 3: It, you generate back of the envelop this you generate
Speaker 3: more power than you than you would consume in the system.
Speaker 3: And there's a way to store the power so that
Speaker 3: it would run twenty four to seven mm without using batteries.
Speaker 3: So there's a different you can you know, different ways
Speaker 3: to store energy.
Speaker 4: Anyway.
Speaker 1: So that's do you think this is possible?
Speaker 4: This is not just yes? Absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 2: Wow, serve over time you retire your five children, you
Speaker 2: ever just want to hang out with the kids, Yes.
Speaker 4: I do.
Speaker 3: I do want to hang with the kids. I don't
Speaker 3: want to retire, but I do want to have with kids.
Speaker 3: My goal is to retire right for forcenility.
Speaker 4: It's a tough you know it.
Speaker 3: You know, it's like, yeah, it's like getting hypoxia. You
Speaker 3: don't like, you don't realize your your decisions suck until
Speaker 3: you're dead. So so I don't intend to retire, maybe
Speaker 3: like at eighty or something. And uh, it would be
Speaker 3: cool to be born on Earth and die Mars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you've said before you want to retire on Mars.
Speaker 1: This is more or less feasible.
Speaker 3: Well, actually I was asked do I It's more like
Speaker 3: if I were to retire. It's not like I want
Speaker 3: to retire, But if I were to retire on the
Speaker 3: vote of sability, I'd like it to be Onlas.
Speaker 4: That would be cool.
Speaker 2: It's funny because you're saying earlier that you're slightly more
Speaker 2: risk taking than Peter. Peter wants to be on a
Speaker 2: boat that's like an island out somewhere that has no laws.
Speaker 1: You want to be on Mars. It is the slightly
Speaker 1: risky or crazy version.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Peter entertains a lot of interesting ideas.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure he necessarily wants to be on an
Speaker 3: island off shore. I mean, last time I saw him
Speaker 3: he was in San Francisco. So but I think he
Speaker 3: likes to He sort of entertains interesting ideas, and he's
Speaker 3: not bound by convention.
Speaker 1: Certainly, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: All Right, we want to get some questions from the audience,
Speaker 2: So we've got a couple of microphones if anyone wants
Speaker 2: to line up while we're waiting on people.
Speaker 1: You're an investor in Stripe.
Speaker 3: And very tiny investor, very tiny in vester, and I
Speaker 3: have no idea what they're doing.
Speaker 1: This is the only subject where I know more than you.
Speaker 1: I talked to them the other day. But would lead
Speaker 1: me to the question, do you think PayPal is finally screwed?
Speaker 4: Well, if PayPal doesn't do something, it will be screwed.
Speaker 1: Yes, there has not been a lot of innovation.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: In fact, if you look at the product plan that
Speaker 3: I wrote in two thousand, there's hardly any difference.
Speaker 4: In fact, it's slightly worse than that.
Speaker 1: I've gone backwards.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I payfal should be where all the money is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's not.
Speaker 4: It's definitely not all right, go ahead.
Speaker 7: I first wanted to thank you, Sarah for believing in LA.
Speaker 7: I was actually up at one of the events in
Speaker 7: San Francisco, and I think we have two to three
Speaker 7: times as many people here.
Speaker 4: So thank you.
Speaker 1: It is the same.
Speaker 2: It's actually one hundred people fewer than we fit in
Speaker 2: our San Francisco venue, but it's sold out the fastest.
Speaker 1: So Ben Horwit sold out in about four hours and
Speaker 1: you sold out in three.
Speaker 7: All right, and you have a writer here, Michael, so
Speaker 7: thank you for believing in LA.
Speaker 1: I think we are the only blog with a full
Speaker 1: time writer.
Speaker 4: My question is for you Alon.
Speaker 7: First of all, thank you for doing these big things to,
Speaker 7: you know, improve humanity. I work for Space Adventures when
Speaker 7: I was in college, and I really believe in the
Speaker 7: Space Frontier, the abyss, so to speak, the good abyss indeed,
Speaker 7: But just thinking about LA for a moment, what do
Speaker 7: you think we can do to improve the ecosystem here
Speaker 7: in l A.
Speaker 3: Well, I think better freeways would be huge. Honestly, I
Speaker 3: wish there was Like, who do I complain to.
Speaker 4: About the freeways? Yeah, somebody's got responsible for it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: don't do that.
Speaker 1: Rather than build jets and hyperloops, than be the mayor
Speaker 1: of l A.
Speaker 3: But I think if somebody could seriously, it's like improving
Speaker 3: the transport system. That's going to be for anyway, who
Speaker 3: lives in LA. What's going to be the number one cribe?
Speaker 3: It's the damn highways.
Speaker 7: Sort it up to do that, but no one would
Speaker 7: fund me. Yeah, any gridlock dot Org.
Speaker 3: I'm open to finding someone if they if they want
Speaker 3: to do the box being thing over the center divider,
Speaker 3: which would be I mean a regulatory challenge, but I
Speaker 3: mean I think people you could get people to vote
Speaker 3: for it. I vote for it in like three seconds,
Speaker 3: and it's just you got to do it in a
Speaker 3: way that it doesn't impede the existing traffic flow. And
Speaker 3: so it's got to be prefabricated sections that just get
Speaker 3: dropped in place like Lago.
Speaker 1: Why did you move to LA Because.
Speaker 3: The southern California has the biggest concentration of airspace engineers
Speaker 3: in the world. Oh, and it was a choice. I
Speaker 3: mean I lived in the Baria for ten years and
Speaker 3: lived in Palo Alto. I lived like three blocks away
Speaker 3: from the PayPal office. That's why PayPal's on University Avenue.
Speaker 3: Because I lived on Forest. This is really convenient. So
Speaker 3: I moved down to la just because the odds of
Speaker 3: success with the rocket company were pretty low to begin with.
Speaker 3: And if I insisted that experienced airspace engineers moved from
Speaker 3: southern California to the Bay Area and kind of leave
Speaker 3: their job and buy a house in the area, which
Speaker 3: is really expensive, and then the odds of success would
Speaker 3: would go what would be decreased even further. So that
Speaker 3: that that's why I moved to LA is all right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to try to get through as many
Speaker 2: of these questions as possible. But because we did not
Speaker 2: have Eline for much longer, so let's ask him real
Speaker 2: quick and answer real quick.
Speaker 8: Okay, all right, okay, A young huge fan of yours,
Speaker 8: so thank you so much for inspiring young entrepreneurs all
Speaker 8: over in the world.
Speaker 4: Quick question.
Speaker 8: One of the area of innovation is in the area
Speaker 8: of education, right, so I'd love to hear your thoughts
Speaker 8: on what are some of the ways that we can
Speaker 8: disrupt or to an area of education.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Well, what Sebastian Thron is doing and Selma con I
Speaker 3: mean I think that's really that stuff is really disruptive. Sorry,
Speaker 3: and so so what Sebastian Thron and and and Connor
Speaker 3: doing is that that's great stuff sort of online learning,
Speaker 3: and I think there's a to agree that you can
Speaker 3: gamify learning. I think that's really helpful. Most you want
Speaker 3: to make learning not a chore. If if people are
Speaker 3: drawn to it like they're drawn to video.
Speaker 4: Games, then then I think that would really help.
Speaker 2: What do you think about Peter's whole getting people to
Speaker 2: drop out of college?
Speaker 3: Then yeah, I think I think going to college is,
Speaker 3: you know, entirely optional. I mean, it's if you've got to,
Speaker 3: if you've got a good idea, I'd say drop out
Speaker 3: and try it out. You know, you always go back
Speaker 3: to college.
Speaker 1: Nobody's always there, all right, HANDA Mercedes have both sort
Speaker 1: of said to me very clearly they feel hydrogen feel
Speaker 1: sales in the future. But I believe strongly in batteries.
Speaker 2: I know, why do you think there's so much Why
Speaker 2: do you think they're so committed to hydrogen is like
Speaker 2: the next step, whereas batteries, I really feel like we
Speaker 2: can make this happen.
Speaker 3: I don't really know, because the math is so super
Speaker 3: obviously in favor of bad trees that it's like it's
Speaker 3: like staring facts in the face and saying they're uture
Speaker 3: if you take the best case scenario for fuel cell
Speaker 3: and you say, you know, forget about it. It's like,
Speaker 3: assume it's fully optimized. So you're you're you can you
Speaker 3: can envelope it from a physics standpoint and say and
Speaker 3: give it the best case situation.
Speaker 4: How does that compare to state of.
Speaker 3: The utlithium ion or current current lithium on in production
Speaker 3: and it loses. So so it's like success is not
Speaker 3: one of the possible outcomes. Why embark upon that? It's crazy.
Speaker 3: I think part of it is like that there's they
Speaker 3: felt for a long time that there was this need
Speaker 3: to be doing something, and since fuel sales were ten
Speaker 3: years in the future and always would be, then they
Speaker 3: could always say they're working on fuel sales and that
Speaker 3: and that would satisfy people.
Speaker 1: Deliver.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it test called it. Full cells.
Speaker 1: Are great, Goo ahead.
Speaker 4: Tay there. My name is Richard Cooper Seen.
Speaker 9: I was an early executive at Facebook, where I headed
Speaker 9: up all of the international business development, corporate development, and strategy,
Speaker 9: and so you know, thinking big was something that you know,
Speaker 9: has been a part of my DNA from those days
Speaker 9: and before, and so as I look at all the
Speaker 9: things that you've been building obviously it resonates very much.
Speaker 9: So in order to build the things that you're building,
Speaker 9: obviously you need sources of capital and you have, you know,
Speaker 9: a sort of network of people around you. I recently
Speaker 9: partnered with a group called liquid net and they think
Speaker 9: about providing liquidity on a nine figure and up kind
Speaker 9: of basis. And they've created this really dynamic platform where
Speaker 9: they have seven hundred partners who all have an average
Speaker 9: of twenty billion dollars under management, which equals about fourteen
Speaker 9: trillion dollars. And what they're trying to do is identify
Speaker 9: really tremendous technology companies, biotech farm and that kind of thing,
Speaker 9: and space being sort of the next frontier. My question
Speaker 9: to you is where do you think, you know, the
Speaker 9: next big buckets of efficiency are for you in your
Speaker 9: capital formation efforts visa v you know, really finding that
Speaker 9: way to Mars and finding that way to kind of
Speaker 9: create the next the next wave of humanity out in
Speaker 9: the in the in the wider universe. And you know,
Speaker 9: we have a platform that provides for that. My question
Speaker 9: is where do you find, you know, efficient sources of
Speaker 9: capital or is a platform like what we have something
Speaker 9: that would serve your needs well.
Speaker 3: In my case, I find the public markets to be
Speaker 3: a pretty effective source of capital. It's it's worked out
Speaker 3: well for for Tasla, and Solar City will probably go
Speaker 3: public later this year, and so generally you know, so
Speaker 3: so and and and SpaceX could go public at any point.
Speaker 3: It's doesn't need space has been capsual a positive for
Speaker 3: a few years, so it doesn't really need doesn't really
Speaker 3: need additional capital. It's actually, as far as I'm concerned,
Speaker 3: I at this point, I do not feel myself to
Speaker 3: be capital constrained.
Speaker 4: But going public is.
Speaker 9: More efficient for you than then sort of staying private.
Speaker 9: You know, thinking about what's been happening in the in
Speaker 9: the public markets and sort of the gyrations and the
Speaker 9: need for public closure and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 9: you think that's more efficient.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I actually don't find it too much of a
Speaker 3: problem to be to be a public company. And I'm
Speaker 3: gonna kind of run the private companies like their public
Speaker 3: companies in terms of you know, having the uh, you know,
Speaker 3: the appropriate controls in place and mechanisms for effective governance.
Speaker 3: I don't I don't think it's actually that bad to
Speaker 3: be a public company. And unless if, if, unless you're
Speaker 3: gonna sort of get really concerned about the day to
Speaker 3: day fluctuations and the stock price. So as long as
Speaker 3: you just say, look, it's the stock price, you can
Speaker 3: fluctuate day to day and I don't care, then.
Speaker 4: You know that that's the only time it's an issue.
Speaker 3: Just you just shouldn't worry about the day to day
Speaker 3: fluctuations too much.
Speaker 2: What do you think about the trend of the dual
Speaker 2: class shares and this whole idea like being pushed by
Speaker 2: a recent Horwitz and others have basically you need a
Speaker 2: fortress to go public.
Speaker 3: I think they came somewhere to a dual class. I mean,
Speaker 3: Tesla has a single class, and and there's there's summer
Speaker 3: to a dual class. I think it can be taken
Speaker 3: to a bit of an extreme in some cases where
Speaker 3: it's a dual class to one class basically doesn't count.
Speaker 3: I think that's that's probably a bit unreasonable. We we
Speaker 3: we you know, you need there needs to be some
Speaker 3: path towards ultimately I think having a single class because
Speaker 3: you just get the succession problem, and it's just it's
Speaker 3: just rare that say somebody's successor, particularly if that's their kid,
Speaker 3: is is the right person.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 3: It does happen, but it's unusual and so, but I
Speaker 3: mean there are cases where it's been well managed, to say,
Speaker 3: like with with Ford, like Ford was the only company
Speaker 3: not to go not to go bankrupt, and what could
Speaker 3: argue that the Ford family was a stabilizing influence on
Speaker 3: the company and had more long term thinking and and so,
Speaker 3: like I said, I think there's merits to having a
Speaker 3: dual class of ownership as long as it's not taken
Speaker 3: to an extreme right.
Speaker 1: I'm getting a sign that we can only take one
Speaker 1: more question.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I apologe.
Speaker 3: I'm actually supposed to be at a screening for a
Speaker 3: film at about Haiti, and that's actually where I inadvertently
Speaker 3: went first and.
Speaker 4: Why I was so late. But I absolutely have to
Speaker 4: show up there because so.
Speaker 2: I apologize you guys, but you're getting the last one,
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 10: So I work in the space industry out here as well,
Speaker 10: so I appreciate the things you're doing with SpaceX. You
Speaker 10: tweeted yesterday that you thought we're going to be at
Speaker 10: Mars and forty years and we haven't been to the
Speaker 10: moon in forty years, so I was wondering what SpaceX's
Speaker 10: plan is for that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Actually I was saying that I thought we could
Speaker 3: conceletedly be Admas around twelve to fifteen years from now, and.
Speaker 4: SpaceX is continuing to develop the.
Speaker 3: Technology beyond Falcon nine and heavy and on, you know,
Speaker 3: on paper at least, I think we've got a system
Speaker 3: that could achieve.
Speaker 4: Mas colonization.
Speaker 3: There's a long way from having such a system on
Speaker 3: paper or electronically, really really have it on paper, uh.
Speaker 4: And actually making it real.
Speaker 3: But it was only maybe a year or two ago,
Speaker 3: that less than two years ago, that that I concluded
Speaker 3: that it was possible to have to.
Speaker 4: Create a self sustaining civilization on Mars. That's yes.
Speaker 2: So I read earlier a quote from you that said
Speaker 2: that that Mars was just this side of impossible.
Speaker 1: Is it further than this side of impossible?
Speaker 4: I believe it's possible, just extremely difficult.