Speaker 1: Yeah, and I heard a wonderful story of when you
Speaker 1: were six years old and you started breaking the rules
Speaker 1: even then. So you were six years old and you
Speaker 1: were invited by your cousin to a birthday party, but
Speaker 1: there was only there were two problems with that. One
Speaker 1: you were grounded, and two it was on the other
Speaker 1: side of town. So can you explain, tell, tell the
Speaker 1: audience how you got there?
Speaker 2: All right, Well, I mean this was when I was six,
Speaker 2: so the memory is a little fuzzy at this point.
Speaker 2: But as I recall, yeah, I was grounded for some reason.
Speaker 2: I don't know why, but I think I felt that
Speaker 2: was unjust and and I really wanted to go to
Speaker 2: this party. My cousin's party, who was five, you know,
Speaker 2: is a kid's party. So I at first I was
Speaker 2: going to take my bike. But then and I told
Speaker 2: my mom this, which is a mistake, and she's she
Speaker 2: told me some story about how you needed a license
Speaker 2: for a bike and the police would stop me. So
Speaker 2: I wasn't harmstead sure if she was that was true
Speaker 2: or not, but I thought i'd better walk just in case.
Speaker 2: So yeah, just I sort of thought I knew the way,
Speaker 2: but it was clear across town. So I don't know
Speaker 2: it was ten or twelve miles away. It's really really
Speaker 2: quite far further than I realized, actually, And so I
Speaker 2: just started walking to my cousin's house and he took
Speaker 2: me about four hours. And just as my mom was
Speaker 2: leaving that party with my brother and sister, she saw
Speaker 2: me walking down the road and freaked out. And then
Speaker 2: I saw I saw she saw me. So I then
Speaker 2: sprint into my cousin's house and I was just about
Speaker 2: two blocks away, and then climbed a tree and refused
Speaker 2: to come down.
Speaker 1: So the first of many rule briefing adventurest mask. So
Speaker 1: by the time you were twelve, you're already an entrepreneur
Speaker 1: and making a profit. I understand you earned five hundred
Speaker 1: dollars equivalent and rand for creating a video game. Can
Speaker 1: you tell us about that and what the inspiration wash?
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, So I when I was about ten, I
Speaker 2: walked into a computer store in South Africa and saw
Speaker 2: an actual computer. I previously had some some early sort
Speaker 2: of precursors to to the Atari system, and then I
Speaker 2: got the Atari system, which I'm sure a lot of
Speaker 2: people here have played. And and but then so you
Speaker 2: can actually have a computer where you can make your
Speaker 2: own games. And it was a Commodore VIC twenty. So
Speaker 2: I was the first computer I bought, and I got
Speaker 2: some books on how to teach yourself programming, and.
Speaker 3: This was like the coolest thing I'd ever seen.
Speaker 2: So I was just like, this is super awesome, and
Speaker 2: uh so start programming games and and then selling games
Speaker 2: in order to actually buy more games. So a bit
Speaker 2: a bit of a circular thing. So and more games
Speaker 2: and better computers and that kind of thing.
Speaker 4: Right, So the money wasn't the end goal for you.
Speaker 4: It was more a means to an end.
Speaker 2: Yeah, basically I'd spend money on yeah, better, better computers
Speaker 2: and dungeons and Dragons, modules and things like that, nerd
Speaker 2: Master three thousand, basically.
Speaker 1: So I understand at that time you were heavily into comics.
Speaker 4: I'm curious to know. Did you love iron Man, the
Speaker 4: comic Iron iron Man?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Did you ever imagine that you would be the inspiration
Speaker 1: for the movie version?
Speaker 3: I did not? That was that was that was pretty
Speaker 3: That was pretty much. I would say Zerups, I would
Speaker 3: have said, zerups, and.
Speaker 4: Chance, what kind of kid? Were you? Kid?
Speaker 1: You can you look back and see yourself where you
Speaker 1: Were you a bit of a lunar kid bookie?
Speaker 3: I certainly I wasn't that much of a loaner, at
Speaker 3: least not willingly so.
Speaker 2: But but I certainly was quite I was very very bookish.
Speaker 2: I was reading all the time. So I was either reading,
Speaker 2: working on my computer, reading comics, playing Dungeon Dragons, that
Speaker 2: kind of thing.
Speaker 4: I understand.
Speaker 1: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, that wonderful book by Douglas Adams.
Speaker 4: That was a that was a key book for you.
Speaker 4: What was it about that book that that fired your imagination?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So I guess when I was in the around twelve
Speaker 2: or thirteen, a head company existential crisis, and I was
Speaker 2: reading various books on trying to figure out the meaning
Speaker 2: of life and or like what does it all mean?
Speaker 2: Because it's seeming quite meaningless.
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 2: We haven't have like some books by Nietzs and Schopenhauer
Speaker 2: in the house, which you should not read at age
Speaker 2: fourteen is bad, it's really negative. So so, but but
Speaker 2: then I read the Hitchhack's Guy the Galaxy, which was
Speaker 2: like quite positive, I think, and and it sort of
Speaker 2: highlighted the an important point, which is that a lot
Speaker 2: of times the question is harder than the answer, and
Speaker 2: if you can properly phrase the question, then the answer
Speaker 2: is the easy part.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 2: The if to the agree that we can better understand
Speaker 2: the universe, then we better know what questions to ask.
Speaker 2: And then whatever the question is that most approx approximates,
Speaker 2: what's the meaning of life? You know that that's that's
Speaker 2: the question we could ultimately get closer to understanding. And
Speaker 2: so I thought, well, to the agree that we can
Speaker 2: expand the scope and scale of consciousness and knowledge human knowledge,
Speaker 2: then that would be a good thing.
Speaker 4: Wow, So you're having these deep thoughts of what age
Speaker 4: ten fourteen?
Speaker 2: Yeah, sort of in the puberty, I guess there's right,
Speaker 2: thirteen thirteen through fifteen probably the most traumatic years.
Speaker 1: And so by the time you were seventeen, were you
Speaker 1: were ready? You were actually left right? I assume you
Speaker 1: hatched the plan earlier when you were around fifty fourteen fifteen.
Speaker 2: I didn't hatch the plan earlier. Actually I tried to
Speaker 2: hatch several plans which they did not hatch.
Speaker 1: But by seventeen you were on a plane from South Africa.
Speaker 1: You had enough of South Africa, you were ready to
Speaker 1: seek new pastures.
Speaker 4: Now, why was.
Speaker 1: It the United States was your destination? Why not Europe
Speaker 1: or somewhere else in the world.
Speaker 2: Well, just whenever I'd read about cool technology, you would
Speaker 2: tend to be in the United States, you know, or
Speaker 2: more broadly North America or including Canada. So I kind
Speaker 2: of wanted to be where the cutting edge of technic
Speaker 2: algi was.
Speaker 3: And of course within the.
Speaker 2: United States, Silicon Valley is is the it is where
Speaker 2: the heart of things is. So although the time I
Speaker 2: didn't know where to looking value wise, it sounded like
Speaker 2: some mythical place. So yes, I wanted to come to
Speaker 2: the to the US. I try to convince my my
Speaker 2: mother or father, who were divorced, if either one of
Speaker 2: them would move.
Speaker 3: To the United States, then I could then I could
Speaker 3: get there.
Speaker 2: At one point I convinced my father, but then he
Speaker 2: renegged unfortunately, but you.
Speaker 4: Had him convinced and then he changed.
Speaker 3: You did say yes, and then and then he changed
Speaker 3: his mind. Why, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I guess he was sort of he was fairly established.
Speaker 2: He's an engineer, and he's sort of established in South Africa.
Speaker 2: Didn't want to have to go through that again in
Speaker 2: another country, right, So you got.
Speaker 4: On that plane all by yourself at seventeen.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, so I actually got My mother was born
Speaker 2: in Canada, and actually her father was a American, but
Speaker 2: unfortunately she didn't get her American citizenship, so then that
Speaker 2: broke the link and I couldn't get my American citizenship.
Speaker 2: But she was born in Canada, so I could get
Speaker 2: I actually pulled up the forms for her and got
Speaker 2: her Canadian passport and me too. And then as soon
Speaker 2: as within three weeks of my getting my Canadian passport,
Speaker 2: I was in Canada, right.
Speaker 1: And then you ended up at University of Pennsylvania. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was in physics and business.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I was in Canada for a few years
Speaker 2: at Queen's University, got a scholarship to go down to
Speaker 2: University of Pennsylvania because one of the downsides of coming
Speaker 2: to University of North America was that my parents said
Speaker 2: they would not pay for college if it was or
Speaker 2: my father said he would not pay for college unless
Speaker 2: it was in South Africa. So it was either so
Speaker 2: I could have free college in Sotoca or find some
Speaker 2: way to pay it here. And fortunately I got a
Speaker 2: scholarship at Yupan and and so did did he business
Speaker 2: underdual undergraduate business and at Upaen Wharton, And it.
Speaker 1: Was there that you came up with this idea of
Speaker 1: three main areas that you felt were most important to humanity.
Speaker 1: Can you describe how you came upon them? Was it
Speaker 1: just one day or the flash of inspiration? These are
Speaker 1: the three areas that are important and I want to
Speaker 1: concentrate on or how did that? How did that inspiration
Speaker 1: come to you?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: I think I was thinking about it for a couple
Speaker 2: of years, and during sort of freshman and sophomore year
Speaker 2: at Queens and then also at Yupan, and I was
Speaker 2: trying to think what would most influence the future?
Speaker 3: Uh, you know, were the problems that that we have
Speaker 3: to solve?
Speaker 2: And and I actually talked a lot to friends and
Speaker 2: my housemates and that kind of thing, and dates, which
Speaker 2: is not maybe not the best thing. Yeah, I actually
Speaker 2: met met a woman at I dated briefly in college
Speaker 2: even now it works at Scientific American as a writer.
Speaker 2: And uh and and she she related that anecdote that
Speaker 2: uh we were on a date.
Speaker 3: I was all I was talking about was electric cars.
Speaker 3: That was not a bit a winning conversation.
Speaker 4: So it was a bit of a monologue.
Speaker 3: Was it? Yeah, she said, she said.
Speaker 2: The first question I asked her was do you ever
Speaker 2: think about electric cars?
Speaker 4: So you'll learn from that. That wasn't the best shot
Speaker 4: out life.
Speaker 3: It wasn't wasn't great. It has recently it's been more effective.
Speaker 1: There you go, that's wonderful. Well, we'll get on to
Speaker 1: Tesla soon, but I want to I want to go
Speaker 1: from from University of Pennsylvania. You ended up in Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley and you've described Silicon Valley as Darwinian.
Speaker 4: Can you talk about what it.
Speaker 3: Was the most positive sense? Really?
Speaker 1: Can you elaborate on what that means and why it
Speaker 1: had to be Silicon Valley? What what drew you to
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley?
Speaker 2: Well, uh, well, I was at I was at penn
Speaker 2: and there was a professor who who was chairman of
Speaker 2: a company in Silicon Valley that was working on advanced
Speaker 2: capacitors for use in electric cars, potentially for use in
Speaker 2: electric cars. As it turns out there they're way too expensive.
Speaker 2: But I thought, well, this is this is really awesome.
Speaker 2: Because then I asked if I could get a summer
Speaker 2: job because it was in Silicon Valley and working on
Speaker 2: technology for electric cars. I thought well, that's that's pretty
Speaker 2: much as good as it gets. So I got a
Speaker 2: summer job here was in Los Gatos, actually at Pinnacle
Speaker 2: Research doing electrolytic electric pastors, which were but they had
Speaker 2: the problem was that they used a ruthenium tanglum marks
Speaker 2: side and there was I think only a few tons
Speaker 2: of ruthenium mind in the world, so not very scalable,
Speaker 2: and that you know, they'd sell it to you by
Speaker 2: the sort of millogram, so you know that's you know,
Speaker 2: there's a problem.
Speaker 3: But I had a pretty high energy density.
Speaker 2: It's sort of roughly equivalent to a lad Asto battery,
Speaker 2: which for a capacitor is huge.
Speaker 4: But you ended up then after that at Stanford.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So then I thought, well, Stanford is in Silicon Valley,
Speaker 2: sort of epicenter, and so that's where I wanted to
Speaker 2: come to Stanford, Berkeley and Stanford sort of Sunnier.
Speaker 3: So I like to that's going.
Speaker 1: I knew, I understand you were at Stanford University for
Speaker 1: a whole two days before you decided, no, it's time
Speaker 1: I'm going to do my first startup.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I figured, well, so this is a summer of ninety
Speaker 2: five and and I've been working on some Internet software.
Speaker 2: So because the three things I though would depict the
Speaker 2: world with internet, sustainable energy, and uh space exploration, making
Speaker 2: life multiplanetary so the but but on the Internet thing,
Speaker 2: I just couldn't figure out how to make enough money
Speaker 2: to feed myself, you know, because like if I didn't
Speaker 2: make make money, then I would like run out of
Speaker 2: food and eye. So that was that was not good.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, literally, So whereas you know, if I was
Speaker 2: a student, then I could be teaching assistant and do
Speaker 2: do various things and and and do research on electricicle
Speaker 2: tech technologies.
Speaker 3: That that was my default plan.
Speaker 2: But but then I also thought that if I if
Speaker 2: I did a PhD a Stanford, then I could I
Speaker 2: would spend several years watching the Internet go through this
Speaker 2: incredibly rapid growth base, and that would be really difficult
Speaker 2: to handle. Like it's like you really wanted to be
Speaker 2: doing something.
Speaker 3: Growing.
Speaker 2: It sort of really seemed like things were going to
Speaker 2: take off. Although nobody had made any money on the
Speaker 2: Internet at the time. In ninety five, there was really
Speaker 2: nobody was making any money on the Internet, and in fact,
Speaker 2: even on sand Hill Road, people like watch the Internet.
Speaker 3: They were amazingly.
Speaker 2: When we try to get funding for a company, and
Speaker 2: I think it was November or something of ninety five
Speaker 2: there about October November. More than half of the bench
Speaker 2: capitalists we met with did not know what the internet.
Speaker 3: Was and had not used it.
Speaker 4: That's amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, literally, it's like, isn't that They're literally asking, isn't
Speaker 2: that something that the government and universities used?
Speaker 3: Like uh for now you know. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But then then Netscape went public in late ninety five
Speaker 2: I think it was. And then after that, even though
Speaker 2: a lot of bench capitals still didn't understand it and
Speaker 2: still hadn't used it, they somebody had made money on it.
Speaker 4: So now that it was on the radar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so when we went to get funding the second
Speaker 2: time we try to get funding, everyone was interested.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So this company was zip two, that's.
Speaker 3: Right, and terrible name.
Speaker 4: Yeah. What what was the reason for that name?
Speaker 2: Well, we were just incredibly stupid at the time. I
Speaker 2: think that's the main reason for that name. And because
Speaker 2: we got some ad agency because we thought, well, we
Speaker 2: don't know anything about names, so we'll get some ad
Speaker 2: agencies to suggest a bunch of options, and then Zip
Speaker 2: too seemed.
Speaker 3: Kind of speedy. I don't know, what the hell, Why
Speaker 3: the hell we chose that stupid name and it has
Speaker 3: a digit, It's like, why would you pick it? Because
Speaker 3: it could be zip t O, could be a zip
Speaker 3: t w O, it could be zip t o O.
Speaker 2: So like people like literally spelled the name every variation,
Speaker 2: which is bad if you go to U r L
Speaker 2: and you don't have the other ones. So so ZIP
Speaker 2: two started off as basically, like I said, we're trying
Speaker 2: to figure out how to how to make enough money
Speaker 2: to exist as a company. And so since there wasn't
Speaker 2: really any advertising money being made, we thought we could
Speaker 2: help existing companies get online bring their stuff online. So
Speaker 2: we developed software that helped bring love the newspapers and
Speaker 2: media companies online because a lot of them just didn't
Speaker 2: They also didn't know what the Internet was customers, and
Speaker 2: even the ones that were aware of the Internet didn't
Speaker 2: have a software team. So they were very good at
Speaker 2: developing functionality. And so we had as investors and customers
Speaker 2: the New York Times company night Ritter or Hearst, and
Speaker 2: so we were able to get them to pay us
Speaker 2: to develop software for them to bring them online, so
Speaker 2: online publishing stuff, and we did maps and directions and
Speaker 2: yellow pages and white pages and various other things, and
Speaker 2: were developed quite sophisticated technology actually, but it wasn't actually
Speaker 2: being employed super well by the media companies, Like we
Speaker 2: would suggest ways to use it and then it would
Speaker 2: not be used as effectively as it could be.
Speaker 3: It was very frustrating, right, Whether you.
Speaker 1: Did sell that company successfully to Compac, yeah, right, and
Speaker 1: that allowed you to go on and create egg dot com.
Speaker 3: That's right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So the Compact had had ulta vista, so I thought,
Speaker 2: was combined Altivist and a bunch of other technology companies
Speaker 2: and see if that would if that would work, which
Speaker 2: it did not, but but nonetheless they they they were
Speaker 2: pretty nice guys and bought the company and and that
Speaker 2: gave me the capital to to do another company. And
Speaker 2: I want, I want to do another company and the Internet,
Speaker 2: because I thought we don't really reached the potential that
Speaker 2: we could have with with zip too, because we had
Speaker 2: really sophisticated software. I mean, our software was sort of
Speaker 2: at least comparable to what Yahoo or Excite or others had.
Speaker 2: In fact, I mean I thought in some ways it
Speaker 2: was better, so but it wasn't because it was all
Speaker 2: for through these partners. It wasn't getting properly used. So
Speaker 2: I thought, well, I want to do something that could
Speaker 2: be more more significant contributor contribution to the Internet. And
Speaker 2: so the initial thought was with financial services.
Speaker 3: Because money is digital, it's low bandwidth.
Speaker 2: At the time, there was you know, most people were
Speaker 2: on modems, still on modems.
Speaker 3: And because this was late ninety eight early ninety nine,
Speaker 3: So this was x.
Speaker 1: Dot Com was a precursor to PayPal. Basically you merged
Speaker 1: with Confinity and it became PayPal, major success.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it worked out better than we expected.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, Confinity. So initially Confinity and x com
Speaker 2: started out from slightly different directions and it converged to
Speaker 2: the same point with With x the thought was to
Speaker 2: create integrated seat of financial services, so you could go
Speaker 2: to one place into all of your financial anything.
Speaker 3: And and then as.
Speaker 2: A feature, we had the ability to transfer money or
Speaker 2: securities or anything simply by entering unique identifier, so like
Speaker 2: a you.
Speaker 3: Know, email address or phone number or something like that.
Speaker 2: And when we were demo the system, the hard stuff,
Speaker 2: which was the integration of all the financial services, people
Speaker 2: would not be interested in, but they'd be really interested
Speaker 2: in it. In being able to transfer money using an
Speaker 2: email address. You know, that was actually quite easy, and
Speaker 2: so we focused our energy on that.
Speaker 3: And although it's.
Speaker 2: Easy in principle, what gets really hard is adding security
Speaker 2: whiles still keeping it easy to use. That so because
Speaker 2: you know, it's like the Willie Loman quote, like why
Speaker 2: do people why do you rob banks? Because that's where
Speaker 2: the money is, So why do people rob PayPal for
Speaker 2: the same reason?
Speaker 3: And and so you can, you can dial.
Speaker 2: Up the security to a really high level, but then
Speaker 2: you're going to make it very hard to use. And
Speaker 2: and so the that that was that was one of
Speaker 2: the toughest things we wrestled with. And then Confinity originally
Speaker 2: started as kind of software for Palm pilots and then
Speaker 2: they had a demonstration application with stability to beam money
Speaker 2: from one pomp pilot to another using the infrared port.
Speaker 2: Yeah people remember that one. Yes, that was big at
Speaker 2: one point. And then they had a website sort of
Speaker 2: parallel to that were you because once you'd beamed the
Speaker 2: infrared tokens, you had to slow then synchronize your pomp
Speaker 2: pilot and do the transfer via the website. So but
Speaker 2: then people went that interested in the pomp pilot stuff,
Speaker 2: but they were interested in the website, so we kind
Speaker 2: of converged to the same point and we're quite close together.
Speaker 2: So we started to merge the companies and in I
Speaker 2: think January or so two thousand, it was very turbulent
Speaker 2: period and if the the growth in the company was
Speaker 2: was pretty pretty crazy. When we had at the end
Speaker 2: of the first sort of four or five weeks, we
Speaker 2: had one hundred thousand customers.
Speaker 1: It's incredible. Did you anticipate that when you started that?
Speaker 3: Definitely did not. And it wasn't all good because.
Speaker 2: We had some bugs in the software, and you know,
Speaker 2: even if the bug only occurs one in a thousand times,
Speaker 2: still I never heard one hundred.
Speaker 3: Very angry customers like where my money?
Speaker 2: That would be you know, reasonable and reasonable concern that
Speaker 2: people that have. And then we had customer service on
Speaker 2: University and Avenue in Palo Alto. There were five people,
Speaker 2: so when something went wrong customer service phones would basically explode,
Speaker 2: and so we had many challenges. And then the various
Speaker 2: financial regulatory agencies were trying to shut us down. VI's
Speaker 2: in Massacot trying to shut us down. EBA was trying
Speaker 2: to shut us down. FTC was trying to shut us down.
Speaker 2: There were a lot of battles there.
Speaker 1: Wow, it is quite incredible with all that adversity you
Speaker 1: conquered and you came out with Yeah, that was one
Speaker 1: hundred million, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a close call. We definitely, I mean,
Speaker 3: came very close to dying there in two and two
Speaker 3: thousand and one.
Speaker 1: And what was the reason for that success? What would
Speaker 1: you put it down to in that case? How did
Speaker 1: you overcome?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think we had a really talented
Speaker 2: group of people at PayPal, and a lot of those
Speaker 2: people have actually gone on to start many other companies. Yes, know, YouTube, LinkedIn, Yelp, yammer.
Speaker 2: It's like quite a long list actually.
Speaker 1: So for you personally, there you were with several hundred million.
Speaker 1: Were you not tempted just to go on by an island?
Speaker 1: What was it the drul of you when I'm getting
Speaker 1: at because I know you didn't. Sure what I'm getting
Speaker 1: at is, why were you so driven to jump into
Speaker 1: the next thing? Well, I was Did you take any
Speaker 1: time off?
Speaker 2: I did take a bit of time off because after
Speaker 2: a PayPal I did reasonably welcome PayPal. It was largest
Speaker 2: sholder in the company. So and we were required for
Speaker 2: about a billion and a half in stock, and then
Speaker 2: the stock doubled, so.
Speaker 3: So you know, it did reasonably reason well.
Speaker 2: But the idea of like lying on the beach as
Speaker 2: my main thing, it just sounds like the worst. That
Speaker 2: sounds horrible to me because I would go bonkers. I
Speaker 2: would have you know, I would have to be on
Speaker 2: serious drugs. I mean, right exactly. I mean it's just
Speaker 2: I'd be super duper bored.
Speaker 3: So that I mean I like, I like high intensity.
Speaker 2: I mean I like going to beach for a short
Speaker 2: period of time, but not much longer than like, you know,
Speaker 2: a few days or something like that.
Speaker 4: Right, So let's talk about the scenes of SpaceX.
Speaker 1: I understand it started not as the idea of it,
Speaker 1: let's let's start a rocket ship company.
Speaker 4: You had a philanthropic idea.
Speaker 1: You were really surprised when you find out that NASA
Speaker 1: didn't have any plans to go to Mars, and you
Speaker 1: came up with this idea of let's put a greenhouse
Speaker 1: on Mars. So can you explain how that whole idea
Speaker 1: came into being for SpaceX?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 2: Well, so when I was thinking of like what I
Speaker 2: thought would would affect the world, as a student. It
Speaker 2: wasn't really from the standpoint of those are the things
Speaker 2: I'll get involved in.
Speaker 3: It was kind of more in the abstract, these are the.
Speaker 2: Things I think will happen that will affect the world,
Speaker 2: but but not that I will be involved in them.
Speaker 3: As it turns out I have.
Speaker 2: But uh, I always thought that we would make much
Speaker 2: more progress than space and it just it just didn't happen.
Speaker 2: It was it was really disappointing. So, uh yeah, I was.
Speaker 2: I was was really quite bothered by it. So you know,
Speaker 2: when when we went to the Moon, we were supposed
Speaker 2: to have a base on the Moon, We're supposed to
Speaker 2: send people to Mars and that stuff just it just
Speaker 2: didn't happen. We went backwards, we got the Space Shuttle,
Speaker 2: but the Space Shuttle could only go to low with orbit,
Speaker 2: where Saturn five could go to the Moon. Now Space
Speaker 2: Shuttle is gone, and so that just seemed like a
Speaker 2: really bad thing.
Speaker 3: So I thought, well, maybe it was a question of
Speaker 3: of they're not being enough attention or will to do this.
Speaker 3: But this, this was was this was a wrong assumption.
Speaker 3: So I.
Speaker 2: So, but that's that's the reason for the greenhouse idea.
Speaker 2: It was the thought was if, if, if it could
Speaker 2: be sort of a small philanthropic mission to Mars. You know,
Speaker 2: so I wasn't I was expecting to lose all all the.
Speaker 3: Money that I invested in that. But if we could
Speaker 3: send a small greenhouse to the surface of Mars with
Speaker 3: with seeds and India hydrated nutrient jail and you hydrated
Speaker 3: upon landing, and you'd have this great shot of you know,
Speaker 3: little greenhouse with with little green plants with on on
Speaker 3: a red background. I thought that would get people excited.
Speaker 4: You literally imagined a photograph inspiring.
Speaker 3: And you got to sort of imagine the money shot,
Speaker 3: if you will.
Speaker 2: So so yeah, I think I think, you know, green
Speaker 2: plants and the red background would be bad. And and
Speaker 2: people tend to get interested and excited about precedents and superlatives.
Speaker 2: So this would be the furthest that life's ever traveled,
Speaker 2: the first life on Mars as far as we know.
Speaker 3: And and I thought, well, maybe that would result in
Speaker 3: in a bigger budget for NASA, and and and then
Speaker 3: we could sort of resume the journey. That was the
Speaker 3: basic idea.
Speaker 2: And I spent several months on this actually and went
Speaker 2: to Russia three times because I was able to figure
Speaker 2: out how to get the cost of the spacecraft low
Speaker 2: and the communications and the the greenhouse and all that
Speaker 2: to a reasonable number, reasonable meaning several million dollars.
Speaker 4: And you have did you actually physically draw the greenhouse
Speaker 4: of how you manage that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Actually, I hope we've got that somewhere.
Speaker 4: That'd be amazing to see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I'm sure it looks pretty goofy in retrospect,
Speaker 2: but but that's the that's the idea that we had,
Speaker 2: and it's so and I spent several hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 2: just kind of getting the design worked out and engaging
Speaker 2: some companies to come up with the design specifications for
Speaker 2: the subsystems. And then but it then came to buying
Speaker 2: the rocket, and the problem was that the cost of
Speaker 2: rockets is really high. And the lowest cost rocket in
Speaker 2: the US at the time was the Delta too, Bowing's Delta.
Speaker 3: Two, and that would have.
Speaker 2: Been about fifty million dollars. Yeah, and then you still
Speaker 2: need to have it like an upper stage from WHI
Speaker 2: so probably sixty million all in. And that was and
Speaker 2: I wanted to do two of these missions because I
Speaker 2: thought if but it just did just one and it
Speaker 2: didn't work, then that could have it like the opposite
Speaker 2: of effect, Like, look how dumb it is to.
Speaker 3: Do to drite?
Speaker 4: Did all this money down the drill or an idiot?
Speaker 2: So so I wanted to do too, and I just
Speaker 2: didn't have enough money to do two complete missions.
Speaker 4: So you had a budget of about one hundred million
Speaker 4: something like that.
Speaker 2: Well, I was hoping it would be less than that,
Speaker 2: but but not more than I mean not more than that.
Speaker 2: But then, yeah, I guess roughly on that order was
Speaker 2: about most of be I mean I couldn't I couldn't
Speaker 2: spend much more than that.
Speaker 4: So the Russians didn't help you out.
Speaker 3: Had three three quite interesting trips to Russia to try
Speaker 3: to negotiate purchase of to Russian ICBMs.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and did they think you would evil intent?
Speaker 3: No, they just thought I was crazy.
Speaker 2: But I mean that's not good either if you're buying ICBMs,
Speaker 2: but minus the nuke, I mean I think that would
Speaker 2: have been a lot more.
Speaker 3: So you didn't talk, Luke, No, I mean I didn't.
Speaker 3: I got slightly got the feeling that that was on
Speaker 3: the table if which which was a very alarming.
Speaker 2: But but yeah, that was that was those are very
Speaker 2: weird meetings with the Russian military and whatnot. I mean
Speaker 2: I think that they thought I was a bit crazy,
Speaker 2: but then they thought that they read about paypals.
Speaker 3: Okay, it was crazy.
Speaker 4: He's got money, he did something right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well and more importantly I could pay him right. Yes,
Speaker 2: So that's that's really I mean there. Yeah, it was
Speaker 2: remarkably capitalist. Was was my impression of the Russians.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, I have heard that before.
Speaker 1: So tell me how what was the turning point from
Speaker 1: you know, talking with the Russians and then deciding, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do this, I'm going to set up
Speaker 1: a company.
Speaker 4: What was that turning point for you?
Speaker 3: Well, I guess I.
Speaker 2: Had I came conclusion that my initial premise was was wrong,
Speaker 2: that in fact, the there's there's a great deal of
Speaker 2: will uh you know that there there's there's not such
Speaker 2: a shortage, but people don't think there's a way, and
Speaker 2: and that if people thought there was there was a way,
Speaker 2: or at least something that wouldn't break the federal budget,
Speaker 2: then that then people would support it, which in retrospect
Speaker 2: I think is actually kind of obvious. Because the United
Speaker 2: States is a distillation of.
Speaker 3: The human spirit of exploration. People came here from other places.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's you know, there's no nation, there's no
Speaker 2: I mean, there's no nation that that's more a nation.
Speaker 3: Of explorers in the United United States. But but people
Speaker 3: need to believe that it's possible. And it's that it's
Speaker 3: not you know, it's they're not to give up like
Speaker 3: healthcare or something important. You know, it's just it's gonna
Speaker 3: be that that that's that's important.
Speaker 2: So so I thought, okay, well, then it's not a
Speaker 2: question of will, it's it's a question of showing that
Speaker 2: there's a way. And and the and I started reading
Speaker 2: quite a bit about rockets to try to understand why
Speaker 2: they're so so freaking expensive. You know, it's just something
Speaker 2: you know, where does the sixty million dollars go for
Speaker 2: the delta too? And that's subsequently, now delta two I
Speaker 2: think is one hundred, one hundred million dollars or something
Speaker 2: even some crazy number. And delta two is I mean,
Speaker 2: if that's a relatively small rocket. So if you go
Speaker 2: to like a really you know, one of the bigger rockets,
Speaker 2: it's anywhere from two hundred to four million dollars anyway,
Speaker 2: So so I came conclusion that there wasn't really a
Speaker 2: good reason for rockets to be so expensive, and and
Speaker 2: and that there could be a lot less and even
Speaker 2: in inexpendable format, they could be less and uh and
Speaker 2: and that in if one could make them reusable like airplanes,
Speaker 2: then the cost of rocketree would would drop dramatically. Costs
Speaker 2: of space travel wuld drop dramatically because the the cost
Speaker 2: of the fuel was maybe anywhere from point to two
Speaker 2: point five percent of the cost of the rocket. You know,
Speaker 2: it's kind of like a plane. I mean, how much
Speaker 2: is the cost of the fuel and the plane versus
Speaker 2: the plane itself. It's at least a too or of
Speaker 2: mag two difference. But nobody had really been able to
Speaker 2: make a.
Speaker 3: Reasonable rocket work so that that But so I thought,
Speaker 3: okay that if we can do that, then that would
Speaker 3: that would really be the key breakthrough for space travel, right,
Speaker 3: But you also said that therefore we have not succeeded
Speaker 3: point You've.
Speaker 1: Also said that failure was the most likely I would come.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about failure in that sense and in
Speaker 1: a broader sense of being an entrepreneur and innovator? Why
Speaker 1: is failure so important?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I think I think failure is bad.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's good.
Speaker 2: But if if something is important enough, then you you
Speaker 2: do it even though the risk of failure is high.
Speaker 2: And and so I think my advice if somebody once
Speaker 2: you start a company is they should bearn that the
Speaker 2: most likely outcome is is that it's not going to work,
Speaker 2: and they should reconcile themselves to that strong possibility.
Speaker 3: And they should only do it if they feel that
Speaker 3: they're they're they're really compelled to do it, you know,
Speaker 3: because it's it's it's gonna The way starting company works
Speaker 3: is like usually the beginning, it's the very beginning, it's
Speaker 3: kind of fun, and then it's really hellish for for
Speaker 3: a number of years.
Speaker 4: You're talked about chewing glass.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's there's a friend of mine who's successful entrepreneur
Speaker 2: and started actually his career around the same time as
Speaker 2: I did. And he has a good, good, good phrase.
Speaker 2: Name is Billy. He said, yeah, you're starting a company
Speaker 2: is like eating glass and staring into the abyss. And
Speaker 2: and you agree with that generally true, Yeah, and and
Speaker 2: and and if you don't eat the glass, you're not
Speaker 2: going to be successful.
Speaker 4: That's tough medicine. Medicine. So let's move along.
Speaker 1: We're going to get down into innovation and motivation shortly,
Speaker 1: but I want to just go through your whole business
Speaker 1: career first. So shortly after funding SpaceX, you then got
Speaker 1: interested in electric vehicles. And I understand you watched the
Speaker 1: vigils for the death of the EV one when they
Speaker 1: were all smashed. Talk about that and why you felt,
Speaker 1: even after founding SpaceX, I have to get involved with Tesla.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I said, like myntioned electric vehicles goes back
Speaker 2: a long time too, you know, goes back twenty scene.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: And in fact, the original reason I came to Silking
Speaker 2: Value was to work on electric vehicle energy storage technology.
Speaker 2: And I thought that that the big car companies would
Speaker 2: developed electric cars because.
Speaker 3: Obviously the right move and and and and I thought.
Speaker 2: That was indicated when General Motives and uh TO announced
Speaker 2: their General Motives doing the e V one, the electric
Speaker 2: vehicle one Turner did the Electric GRABH for the original one,
Speaker 2: and they made those announcements and then and they prot
Speaker 2: those to market, and I thought, okay, well, this is
Speaker 2: this is great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're gonna have electric cars.
Speaker 2: GM is gonna obviously do the EV two and three,
Speaker 2: and then you know, they just get keep.
Speaker 3: Getting better and everything would be cool and uh.
Speaker 2: And then when when California relaxed its regulations on electric cars,
Speaker 2: GM recalled all of the e V one'es uh and
Speaker 2: crushed them into little cubes, you know, which is seem
Speaker 2: kind of nutty. So in fact, uh, the people didn't
Speaker 2: want their ev ones recalled, and in fact they tried,
Speaker 2: if they tried court orders to stop the cars from
Speaker 2: being recalled, they held a candle lit vigil.
Speaker 3: Okay, at the yard where the cars were crushed. I did,
Speaker 3: I did not.
Speaker 2: I did not, Well, certainly, I mean it's it's crazy
Speaker 2: if I mean, when is the last time you heard
Speaker 2: about any company customers holding a candle lit vigil for
Speaker 2: the demise of that that.
Speaker 3: Product, particularly a GM product.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, what bigger wake up call do
Speaker 2: you need? It's like, it's like, hello, the customers are
Speaker 2: really upset about this.
Speaker 3: They were really preferred if it didn't get recalled, so
Speaker 3: so that that that kind of blew my mind. So
Speaker 3: it was like wow, okay.
Speaker 2: And then and then we had the advent of lit
Speaker 2: them on batteries, which really helped helps the It makes
Speaker 2: you know, that's that's one of the key things for
Speaker 2: making electric cars.
Speaker 3: It's still nothing. And so.
Speaker 2: In two thousand and three actually had lunch with one
Speaker 2: of the other co founders of the company, JB. Strabel,
Speaker 2: who was actually working I think on like a hydrogen
Speaker 2: aeroplane or something, and he mentioned to me the T
Speaker 2: zero car that was done by AC propulsion. A propulsion
Speaker 2: I think consisted of guys, some of whom had actually
Speaker 2: been on the EV one program, and they took a
Speaker 2: gasoline sports car kind of a kit car, and outfitted
Speaker 2: it with with lithiumon batteries considered consumer grade cells, and
Speaker 2: they created a car which is which is essentially the
Speaker 2: pre coursor of the roadster. And and in fact it
Speaker 2: had very similar specifications, so sub zero a sub four
Speaker 2: second sero to sixty miles an hour turn, fifty mile
Speaker 2: range and also two seater sort of sports car. But
Speaker 2: it had but it was quite primitive. It didn't have
Speaker 2: a roof one thing at all. And in fact, I
Speaker 2: don't know if it had doors, but it didn't have
Speaker 2: any safety systems, no airbags, It wasn't home alligated, so
Speaker 2: you couldn't sell it.
Speaker 3: So in order to sell a car.
Speaker 2: In order to create a commercial version of the car,
Speaker 2: something that a manufacturer could produce and sell people, there
Speaker 2: was a.
Speaker 3: Favoit of work that was required.
Speaker 2: But anyway, I kept trying to get AC Propulsion to
Speaker 2: commercialize the T zero and I said, look, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: I'll fund the whole effort. You know, you really need
Speaker 2: to do this, and they just they just sort of
Speaker 2: refused to do it.
Speaker 3: They didn't want to do it. They wanted to make.
Speaker 2: A I think the it's what's that they want to
Speaker 2: make like an electric sign, which in principle sounds good,
Speaker 2: except that would cost seventy five thousand dollars and nobody
Speaker 2: wants to buy seventy five thousand dollars on, and and
Speaker 2: the technology just was not ready that there was just
Speaker 2: no way to.
Speaker 3: Make a good value for money proposition.
Speaker 1: What was it that compelled you to say I have
Speaker 1: to be CEO here and lead this company? Why not say,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll help you JB get this get this ruling?
Speaker 2: Well, I really didn't want to be CEO of two
Speaker 2: companies if I tried really hard not to be actually,
Speaker 2: And yeah, so anyway, so ACR Repulsion finally said Okay.
Speaker 2: I actually told ac Repulsion, look, if you're not going
Speaker 2: to do this, I'm going to create a company to
Speaker 2: do this. And they said, well, there's some other guys
Speaker 2: who are also interested in doing that, and you guys
Speaker 2: should combine efforts and and create a company. And that's
Speaker 2: basically how Tails came together. And uh and then we
Speaker 2: had like a lot of drama and uh but I
Speaker 2: mean I had since I was the you know, I
Speaker 2: provided like ninety five percent of the money, so I
Speaker 2: could have been the CEO of from day one. But
Speaker 2: I really you know, that CEO of two startups at
Speaker 2: the same time was not appealing and.
Speaker 3: Shouldn't be a feling.
Speaker 2: By the way, if anyone's thinking that's a good idea,
Speaker 2: it's really terrible idea.
Speaker 1: But then again, you know, going back to your trajectory here,
Speaker 1: not only did you take ON two, you took on three.
Speaker 1: You had an epiphany at Burning Man, I understand, and decided.
Speaker 3: Not necessarily what you should pursue, and you came up
Speaker 3: with the idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's uh, well, you know, the solar is kind
Speaker 2: of part of the whole sustainable energy thing. So sustainable
Speaker 2: energy you have to have sustainable means of producing and
Speaker 2: consuming energy. And so even if you have electric cars,
Speaker 2: you have to have the other side of the equation, say,
Speaker 2: how do you produce energy in a sustainable way? And
Speaker 2: I think solar is the obvious primary means of sustainable
Speaker 2: energy generation.
Speaker 3: In fact, the Earth is almost entirely sole power today.
Speaker 2: That the only reason we're not a frozen ice bowl
Speaker 2: at three degrees Calvin is because of the Sun. And
Speaker 2: the Sun is responsible for all precipitation, It's responsible for
Speaker 2: the vast majority of the ecosystem.
Speaker 3: Apart from sort of chemotrophs the bond of the ocean.
Speaker 2: So there's just a tiny amount of energy that people
Speaker 2: that people.
Speaker 3: Consume to power civilization.
Speaker 2: It's actually a very tiny amount of energy relative to
Speaker 2: the amount of nage that the Sun sends in our
Speaker 2: general direction. And so in order to deal with that,
Speaker 2: we couldn't in fact, how the entire world was still
Speaker 2: of power quite easily.
Speaker 3: This is maybe not super obvious to people, but so was.
Speaker 4: That the epiphany you had at Burning Man? Was it?
Speaker 3: I knew that long and long. I knew that in college,
Speaker 3: But what what.
Speaker 1: Was the key vision that came to you at Burning Man?
Speaker 1: We all want to imagine.
Speaker 4: There vision that.
Speaker 3: Uh no, it was it was more the the.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say it was a particular perphony. It was
Speaker 2: more that I was at Burning Man with with with.
Speaker 3: My cousins or to my cousins.
Speaker 2: Uh, Peter, he are awesome guys, and they and they
Speaker 2: were sort of trying to think what should they do
Speaker 2: after there.
Speaker 3: After their first startup.
Speaker 2: So they did company called ever Dream, which did large
Speaker 2: scale management of computers. So if you've got like sixty
Speaker 2: thousand computers, it's kind of hard to manage them. So
Speaker 2: they wrote they created software that enables companies to do that,
Speaker 2: and that company actually got sold to Dell.
Speaker 4: So they were looking for a new venture, looking for
Speaker 4: your ideas.
Speaker 2: Well, I wouldn't say the initially looking for my ideas,
Speaker 2: but I actually was trying to convince them that they
Speaker 2: should do solou and.
Speaker 3: Because I just thought I just thought it was an.
Speaker 2: Area that needed people like them here, really good got entrepreneurs.
Speaker 2: So and since I was like somewhat over committed, I thought, yeah,
Speaker 2: I thought well, and I said like, look, if if
Speaker 2: you guys will do a solo company, I'll find you
Speaker 2: fight all the funny and you know whatever, guidance, I can,
Speaker 2: I will help, I can provide, I do that. And
Speaker 2: that's and I thought it was really important that there'd
Speaker 2: be you know, good entrepreneurs like them in in sol
Speaker 2: solar because it just wasn't wasn't doing very well as
Speaker 2: an industry. So and I thought people were kind of
Speaker 2: focusing on not the they weren't focusing on the right problem.
Speaker 2: The I already sort of thought that the the panel
Speaker 2: was the problem, but actually it's it's not. It's it's
Speaker 2: a problem, but it's not. It's not the it's not
Speaker 2: the most important problem. It's the and and the panel
Speaker 2: is somewhat commoditized at this point, so it's you know,
Speaker 2: making standard efficiency solar panels is about as hard as
Speaker 2: making drywall. It's really easy. In fact, that's the drivewall
Speaker 2: is probably harder and bit But what what is a
Speaker 2: thorny problem is trying to figure out how to get
Speaker 2: solar on tens of thousands, eventually hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 2: roof tops.
Speaker 4: The logistics part.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's kind of like you've got to re
Speaker 2: roof millions of buildings, right, and then figure out how
Speaker 2: the great interconnects work and then manage all those systems. Like,
Speaker 2: so if you've got hundreds of thousands or maybe millions
Speaker 2: of systems, eventually you've got to manage all these distributed systems.
Speaker 2: You have this really complex distributed utility effectively, which I
Speaker 2: think actually plays to to their strengths in creating their
Speaker 2: price strength in creating really scalable software for managing you know,
Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands of computers in a distributed.
Speaker 3: Fashion ice right, And that's that's kind of what they did.
Speaker 3: And then it's an awesome job.
Speaker 2: It was just like I basically would show up at
Speaker 2: the board meetings to hear, what's the good.
Speaker 3: News this time? You know, it's like, really, you know,
Speaker 3: we had like.
Speaker 2: Maybe a couple of bad news board meetings, well late
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight, there were some bad news board
Speaker 2: board meetings, but for the most part, apart from a
Speaker 2: few a few times when the macroeconomic conditions were really terrible,
Speaker 2: they just did an amazing job with you know, almost
Speaker 2: no help for me.
Speaker 4: So you've been able to leave in their good hands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that is the vast majority of the credit
Speaker 2: for for success in that company.
Speaker 4: Awesome.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to move on to innovation and motivation.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of talk lately about the fact
Speaker 1: that innovation is leveling off. We're not making the dramatic
Speaker 1: increases or improvements and innovation like we did when the
Speaker 1: plane was invented.
Speaker 4: You do you agree with that?
Speaker 2: And No, I don't agree with that. I don't think
Speaker 2: that's true. I think we've we've seen well, and I'm
Speaker 2: not sure what time period that is exactly, but we've
Speaker 2: seen huge improvements in the Internet and new new things.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, in recent years, Twitter and Facebook
Speaker 2: being being pretty huge when people kind of thought the
Speaker 2: Internet was done. And you know, I think that there
Speaker 2: are some of the things that we're doing, like like
Speaker 2: you know, electric cars or a new thing.
Speaker 3: And I do think this is pretty significant breakthroughs.
Speaker 2: I mean, in genomics, we're getting better and better at
Speaker 2: decoding genomes and and being able to write genetics. I
Speaker 2: think that's going to be a huge, huge area. I
Speaker 2: think there's likely going to be some breakthroughs in artificial intelligence.
Speaker 2: And I suspect we will even see the flying car.
Speaker 1: All right, Is that is that going to be an
Speaker 1: ill and Musk production. No, you're gonna let someone else
Speaker 1: do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, I think someone else. I think someone else
Speaker 3: is doing that, all right, Okay.
Speaker 1: That's another conversation. Do you feel the government is standing
Speaker 1: in the way of innovation at all?
Speaker 3: Well, sometimes the government.
Speaker 2: I don't think the government tends to stand the way
Speaker 2: of innovation, but sometimes it can overregulate industries to the
Speaker 2: point where innovation becomes very difficult, right, I mean in
Speaker 2: the the order industry used to be a great hotbed
Speaker 2: of innovation at the beginning of the twentieth century, but
Speaker 2: but now there's so many regulations that are intended to
Speaker 2: protect consumers. I mean, the body of regulation for cars
Speaker 2: could like full you know this room. It's just crazy
Speaker 2: how much regulation there is that down to like what
Speaker 2: the headlamps are supposed to be like, and the they
Speaker 2: even specify the use some of the elements of the
Speaker 2: user in her face on the dashboard, which and some
Speaker 2: of these are completely anachronistic because they're they're relating back
Speaker 2: to the days when you had like a little light
Speaker 2: that would illuminate an image, so like we have to
Speaker 2: reserve space on the instrument panel of the models for
Speaker 2: where all of the.
Speaker 3: The indicators like that a car would have. You know,
Speaker 3: you've got like these little lights like.
Speaker 4: Or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like all these little little things, there's like a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of them, and we can't have anything else
Speaker 2: in that space, like a, well, how would if we
Speaker 2: have one space and render a different graphic.
Speaker 3: Oh no, because people are expecting to see him that space.
Speaker 3: Like nobody is expecting to see him that space.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you feel you can argue with these regulations,
Speaker 4: you just have to Well you.
Speaker 3: Can argue with them, but not with great success, and
Speaker 3: you can't actually get these things changed. But it takes ages.
Speaker 3: Like one of the things we're trying.
Speaker 2: To get is like like why should you have side
Speaker 2: mirrors if you can have say little video cameras, tiny
Speaker 2: video cameras and have them display an image inside the car,
Speaker 2: But there are all these regulations saying you have to
Speaker 2: have side mers And I went and met with the
Speaker 2: Secretary of Transport, like can you change this regulation? Still
Speaker 2: nothing has happened. That was like two years ago, you know.
Speaker 4: So you're banging your head against a wall here in
Speaker 4: a little bit.
Speaker 3: It's not easy to get these regulations changed.
Speaker 4: So talking to.
Speaker 1: Government, President Obama is obviously trying to do what he can.
Speaker 1: If you had five minutes with President Obama, what would
Speaker 1: you advise him for one, stimulating the economy and entrepreneurship
Speaker 1: and creating jobs. Is there one thing that if you
Speaker 1: could successfully get through that would be a big stimulus
Speaker 1: to think?
Speaker 3: Well, I think actually, I think the reality of being
Speaker 3: president is that you're actually like the captain of a
Speaker 3: very huge ship and have a small rudder because because obviously,
Speaker 3: if I mean, if there was a button that a
Speaker 3: president could push that said economic prosperity, you'd be like,
Speaker 3: they're hitting that button real fast.
Speaker 2: Imagine the speed of light by how fast they mentioned
Speaker 2: they press that button, because that would be that's called it,
Speaker 2: like the reelection button. So so so I'm not sure
Speaker 2: how much president can really do. But but I think
Speaker 2: I think, you know, I'm generally a fan of like
Speaker 2: minimal government interference in the economy, Like the government should
Speaker 2: be kind of a like the referee but not the player,
Speaker 2: and there should be too many referees.
Speaker 3: But but but.
Speaker 2: There is an exception, which is when there's uh an
Speaker 2: unpriced externality, such as the CO two capacity of the
Speaker 2: oceans and atmosphere. So when you have an unpriced externality,
Speaker 2: then the normal market mechanisms do not work, and then
Speaker 2: govern is government's role to to intervene in a way
Speaker 2: that's sensible. And the best word intervene is to is
Speaker 2: to put it is to assign a proper price to
Speaker 2: whatever the common good is that's being consumed.
Speaker 4: And then I know you're saying there should be a
Speaker 4: tax on gas.
Speaker 3: They should be attack on carbon.
Speaker 2: You know, if if the bad thing is carbon accumulation
Speaker 2: in the atmosphere, then there needs to be at taxed
Speaker 2: on on that, and then we can that will and
Speaker 2: then you can get rid of all subsidies and all
Speaker 2: everything else. And it seems like logical that you should
Speaker 2: tax things that are most likely to be bad rather
Speaker 2: than you know, like that's why we tax cigarettes and
Speaker 2: alcohol because those those are probably bad for you. Certainly
Speaker 2: cigarettes are and so so yeah, so you want to
Speaker 2: err on the side of taxing things that are probably
Speaker 2: bad and and not tax things that are that are good.
Speaker 2: And so I think, given that there is a need
Speaker 2: to gather tax for the you know, to pay for
Speaker 2: the federal government, we should shift the tax burden too too.
Speaker 3: Bad things, and then adjust that that tax of that bad.
Speaker 2: Thing according to whatever's going to result in the behavior
Speaker 2: that we think is beneficial for the future. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think currently that you know what we're doing right now,
Speaker 2: which is mining and burning trillions of tons of hydrocarbons
Speaker 2: that that used to be buried very deep underground, and
Speaker 2: now we're seeking them in the atmosphere and running this
Speaker 2: crazy chemical experiment on the atmosphere.
Speaker 3: And then you've got the oil and gas companies.
Speaker 2: Which have ungodly amounts of money, and you can't expect
Speaker 2: them to just roll over and die like.
Speaker 3: They don't do that. So actually what they're much preferred to.
Speaker 2: Do is spend you know, enormous amounts of money lobbying
Speaker 2: and running focused ad campaigns and that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: To preserve their situation. You know, it's a lot. It's
Speaker 3: a lot like tobacco companies in the old days. I mean,
Speaker 3: they used to run these.
Speaker 2: Ads with doctors, like a guy with a doctor, you know,
Speaker 2: whether the pretending he's a doctor, you know, essentially applying
Speaker 2: that smoking is good for you, and like having pregnant
Speaker 2: mothers on ads smoking.
Speaker 1: You have a message for the climate change skeptics and
Speaker 1: and the big oil people.
Speaker 3: Well supports climate change skeptic. I mean, like I'm you know,
Speaker 3: I like to.
Speaker 2: I believe in the scientific method, and one should be
Speaker 2: one should have a healthy skepticism of things in general.
Speaker 2: And you know, if you're first things from a scientific standpoint,
Speaker 2: you always look at things probabilistically, not definitively. And so
Speaker 2: I think a lot of times if somebody is a
Speaker 2: skeptic in the science community, what they're really saying is
Speaker 2: that they're not sure that it's one hundred percent certain
Speaker 2: that that this is the case. But that's that's that's
Speaker 2: not the point. The point is that is looking from
Speaker 2: the other side, So what do you think the percentage
Speaker 2: chance is of this being catastrophic for some meaningful percentage
Speaker 2: of those population?
Speaker 3: Is it greater than one percent? Is it even one percent?
Speaker 3: If it is even one percent, why are we running
Speaker 3: this experiment?
Speaker 4: Called it a Russian roulette. We're playing Russian roulette with
Speaker 4: the atmosphere.
Speaker 2: We're playing Russian roulette. And then and and as each
Speaker 2: year goes by, we're learning more rounds in the chamber.
Speaker 3: It's not it's not wise.
Speaker 2: So so that's and and what makes it super insane
Speaker 2: is that we're going to run out of oil anyway.
Speaker 2: Like It's not like there's some infinite oil supply, We're
Speaker 2: going to run out of it, so we know we
Speaker 2: have to get to a sustainable means of of transportation
Speaker 2: no matter what, So why even run the experiment?
Speaker 3: So Will's dumbest experiment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so let's move on.
Speaker 1: To focus on Silicon Valley. Steve Jobs is it wasn't?
Speaker 1: Is a wonderful Silicon Valley icon. Is he someone that
Speaker 1: you've admired and what have you learned from Steve's life
Speaker 1: and work?
Speaker 2: Well, certainly someone I've admired. Well, I did try to
Speaker 2: talk to him once at a party, and it was
Speaker 2: super rude to me. But I don't think it was me.
Speaker 4: I think it's you know, I think you weren't the first, the.
Speaker 2: First, no, but but yeah, and I was actually there
Speaker 2: with like Larry Page's an old friend of them. I've
Speaker 2: known Larry since before he got venture funding for Google.
Speaker 2: And Larry was the guy that introduced me to Steve Jobs.
Speaker 2: So it's not as like I'm going like entugging on
Speaker 2: his coat, like, you know, please talk to me. But
Speaker 2: it was introduced by Larry Page. Is not bad, but
Speaker 2: I mean he obviously he was an incredible guy and
Speaker 2: made fantastic products. That that, you know, and I know
Speaker 2: there was like a certain the guy had a certain
Speaker 2: magic about him, you know, just sort of that was
Speaker 2: kind of that was really inspiring. So I mean, I
Speaker 2: think that's that's really great.
Speaker 4: Is there is there that magic that you try and emulate?
Speaker 3: Uh No, I think Steve Jobs is way cooler than
Speaker 3: than I am.
Speaker 4: So okay, So.
Speaker 1: I'd like to get inside your head a little bit
Speaker 1: about you know, when you come up with an idea,
Speaker 1: do you doodle it, you know, in a pad of
Speaker 1: paper or do you get your iPad out and and
Speaker 1: take notes? I mean, when you come up with something new,
Speaker 1: you know, and new rocket design or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: how does that manifest itself?
Speaker 4: Could we see you being creative?
Speaker 2: I mean it's more cliche, but it's happens a lot
Speaker 2: in the shower. I don't know what it is about showers.
Speaker 3: Exactly. Get the camera like, no, I'm just I do
Speaker 3: I just kind of stand there in the shower.
Speaker 4: Do you have long showers?
Speaker 3: Sounds wrong, but yeah I do. There's no running men
Speaker 3: epiphanies if that those are those are huge. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I think that's yeah.
Speaker 2: And and and then there there are sometimes like late
Speaker 2: at nights if I've been thinking about something, then I
Speaker 2: can't sleep and I'll be.
Speaker 3: Up for you know, for several hours.
Speaker 2: I think about sort of sitting around the house and
Speaker 2: thinking about things, and occasionally I'll sketch something or send
Speaker 2: myself an email or something like that.
Speaker 3: Right, so we have a.
Speaker 4: Question from the audience. Who inspires you or do you
Speaker 4: have a mentor?
Speaker 3: Well, I don't have a mentor per se, although I
Speaker 3: try to.
Speaker 2: I try to get feedback from as many people as possible,
Speaker 2: and so I have I have like friends, and I
Speaker 2: asked them to you know, what they think of this,
Speaker 2: that and the other thing. And you know, as mentioned,
Speaker 2: you know, Larry's a good Larry Page is a good
Speaker 2: friend of mine, value his advice a lot, and have
Speaker 2: many other good friends. And so so I think it's
Speaker 2: good to solicit feedback, and particularly negative feedback actually because
Speaker 2: you know, obviously people aren't don't love the idea of
Speaker 2: giving you negative feedback.
Speaker 3: Let's listen. It's like some you know, on on on
Speaker 3: flogs they do that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Hi, do you deal with negative feedback?
Speaker 1: Because you've got some tough criticism, especially with SpaceX, you
Speaker 1: had incumbents like Neil Armstrong even speaking out and saying
Speaker 1: this is wrong. We don't want you know, commercial companies
Speaker 1: in space. It's not a place for commerce.
Speaker 3: So how did you deal with that?
Speaker 4: And how do you deal with me there in general?
Speaker 4: Because you've had a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was kind of troubling because you know, growing up,
Speaker 2: Neil Laanstow is kind of a hero, so it's like
Speaker 2: this kind of sucks too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the back, that's a bit of a blow. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean I think in his case, he
Speaker 2: was somewhat manipulated, you know, by other interests. I don't
Speaker 2: think he caught White knew what he was saying in
Speaker 2: those in those congressional hearings.
Speaker 3: So yeah, okay, and.
Speaker 1: Talk about you know, it's one thing to have these
Speaker 1: wonderful ideas in the shower of burning Man, but there's
Speaker 1: another thing to build, motivate and retain a team of
Speaker 1: excellent people. Can you talk about some tips and some
Speaker 1: things you've learned that obviously.
Speaker 4: Work for you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, I mean, think about a company. A company
Speaker 2: is a group of people that are organized to create
Speaker 2: a product or service. That's a sort of company is
Speaker 2: So in order to create such a thing, you have
Speaker 2: to convince others to join you in your effort, and
Speaker 2: and and so they have to be convinced that that
Speaker 2: that it's a sensible thing, that it's like that there's
Speaker 2: at least some some good, some reasonable chance of success,
Speaker 2: and if there is success, that the reward will be
Speaker 2: commensurate with the effort involved.
Speaker 3: And you know.
Speaker 2: So, So I think that's getting people to believe in
Speaker 2: what you're doing, uh, and in in you is is important.
Speaker 2: So in the beginning there will be there will be
Speaker 2: a few people who do who believe in you or
Speaker 2: what you're doing. And but then over time, as you
Speaker 2: may progress, that the evidence will build and more and
Speaker 2: more people will believe in what you're doing. So I
Speaker 2: think it's a good idea when creating a company too,
Speaker 2: to create a tab a demonstration or you know, if
Speaker 2: it's a product, to have like a good mackup, or
Speaker 2: if it's even if it's if it's software, to have
Speaker 2: good demo ware or to be able to sketch something
Speaker 2: so people can really envision what it's about. Like that,
Speaker 2: that's try to get to that point as soon as
Speaker 2: possible and then iterate to make it as as real
Speaker 2: as possible as fast as possible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if that makes sense. Good.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you're running your CEO of two companies, your
Speaker 1: chairman of Solar City, talk about time management.
Speaker 4: How on earth do you do this?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 4: Do you get any sleep?
Speaker 3: Sometimes?
Speaker 2: Not enough sleep is really great because because if I
Speaker 2: find if I don't get enough sleep.
Speaker 3: Then I'm quite grumpy. I mean, obviously I think most
Speaker 3: people that way.
Speaker 2: And and also like I try to sort of figure
Speaker 2: out what's the right amount of sleep because I found
Speaker 2: I could have I could drop at a certain threshold
Speaker 2: a sleep and although I'd be awake more hours and
Speaker 2: I could sustain it, I would get less done because.
Speaker 3: Mental acuity would be affected.
Speaker 2: So I found generally the right number for me is
Speaker 2: around six to six and a half hours on average
Speaker 2: for night.
Speaker 4: That's not too bad. And any other tips on average?
Speaker 1: Any other tips on just managing to run two companies simultaneously.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you do you find I mean, I
Speaker 1: know you're up here on Monday Tuesday? Is it all
Speaker 1: Tesla when you're up in Silicon Valley and all SpaceX
Speaker 1: Wednesday Thursday.
Speaker 3: Having a sort of.
Speaker 2: Having a smartphone is incredibly helpful because that means you
Speaker 2: can do email during inter social periods like if you're.
Speaker 3: In a car, you're walking in the bathroom, everywhere.
Speaker 2: You can do email practically when you're awake, and so
Speaker 2: that's really helpful to have email for SpaceX and Tesla
Speaker 2: integrated on my phone.
Speaker 3: And then and then interest, you have to apply a
Speaker 3: lot of hours to actual working, actually working. So the
Speaker 3: way I generally do it is I'll be.
Speaker 2: Working at SpaceX on Monday and then Monday night, flight
Speaker 2: to the area, spend Tuesday and Wednesday at the Barrier,
Speaker 2: then at Tesla, and then fly back on Wednesday night, spend.
Speaker 3: Thursday and Friday at SpaceX.
Speaker 2: In the last several months, then I would fly back
Speaker 2: here on a Saturday and either spend Saturday and Sunday
Speaker 2: at Tesla or spend Saturday at Tesla and Sunday at SpaceX.
Speaker 4: And where and where do the boys fit in? You
Speaker 4: have five sons?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: What did they tag along with dad on some of these?
Speaker 3: They? I do drag them along in a lot of things.
Speaker 3: Actually they're remarkably unimpressed by.
Speaker 2: I wish they would be sort of more interested, But
Speaker 2: I mean they're only the twins are eight in the
Speaker 2: triplets for six, so maybe they'll get more more interested later.
Speaker 1: But do you see one day grooming one of them
Speaker 1: or several of them to take over your companies?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I think if if they're inclined to,
Speaker 2: I mean, if they're really interested in working at Tesla
Speaker 2: or SpaceX.
Speaker 3: Then I, you know, help them do that.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure i'd want to necessarily try to insert
Speaker 2: them into the CEO role at some point.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like if if if the rest of
Speaker 2: the team and the board kind of felt that they
Speaker 2: were the right person, then that would be that would
Speaker 2: be fine. But I wouldn't want people to feel like
Speaker 2: I kind of, you know, installed you know, my kid there,
Speaker 2: And I don't think that would be good for either
Speaker 2: the companies or the kid, really, but I have I
Speaker 2: was actually at more point of a school thought that,
Speaker 2: you know, it's best to give away kind of ninety
Speaker 2: nine percent or more of one's assets, kind of like
Speaker 2: the Buffet school of thought.
Speaker 3: And I'm still mostly of that incline in that direction.
Speaker 2: But after seeing what happened with Ford and GM and Chrysler,
Speaker 2: where GM and Chrysler went went bankrupt but Ford did not,
Speaker 2: and Ford seemed to make better long term choices than
Speaker 2: the other two companies, and that's in part because of
Speaker 2: the influence of the Ford family. And I thought, well, okay,
Speaker 2: there may be some merit in having some longer term
Speaker 2: family ownership, at least at least a portion of it.
Speaker 2: So it's it acts as a positive influence. Uh, I mean,
Speaker 2: this is still something I'm thinking about, but acting as
Speaker 2: a positive influence in the long terms that the company
Speaker 2: kind of does.
Speaker 3: There's proper long term things. And like I'm you know,
Speaker 3: look at what happened also in Silicon Valley with with
Speaker 3: HP and I think it's quite quite quite sad, and
Speaker 3: and that that that to some degrees because there was.
Speaker 2: Much diminished, uh, influenced by the Hewlett and Packard families.
Speaker 2: I think they should have prevailed in in their you
Speaker 2: know where they were opposed to the merger that took
Speaker 2: place at one point, and I think they were right.
Speaker 4: Actually, I'm keeping and looking to the future for SpaceX.
Speaker 4: Is there an I P O plan for this year?
Speaker 3: No, there's no idea of plan. Let's say, running a
Speaker 3: public company does does have a strong so you're not
Speaker 3: in a hurry.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, in the case of Tesla and SpaceX,
Speaker 2: we had to raise capital, and and we had kind
Speaker 2: of complex equity structure that needed to be resolved by
Speaker 2: by going public, and and so so I thought we
Speaker 2: kind of needed to do that in those two cases.
Speaker 2: We don't have to do that in SpaceX. I think
Speaker 2: there's a good chance well, at some point in the future.
Speaker 2: But but SpaceX's objectives are super long term, and the
Speaker 2: market is is not. So I'm a bit worried that
Speaker 2: if we did go public, certainly if we're in public
Speaker 2: too soon, that that market pressure would force us to
Speaker 2: do a short term things and abandoned kind of long
Speaker 2: term projects.
Speaker 3: Right, very long term.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's an important one. So you do have other
Speaker 1: projects on the back burner. You've talked about the hyper loop,
Speaker 1: a way of getting people from downtown LA to downtown
Speaker 1: San Francisco on under half an hour, and the electric
Speaker 1: supersonic airplane. Yeah, which of those two are bubbling up
Speaker 1: that we might hear more about in their future.
Speaker 3: Well, I did promise that I'd.
Speaker 2: Do some paper on the on the hyperloop idea, and
Speaker 2: things got a little a little hectic towards the end
Speaker 2: last year because it had I had these I committed
Speaker 2: to to make these milestones at Tesla to to the
Speaker 2: public markets, and I had to stay true to that obligation,
Speaker 2: which required just just an insane level of work and attention.
Speaker 3: And uh.
Speaker 2: And then we also had the Solar City i PO,
Speaker 2: which was a very difficult i PO to get done.
Speaker 2: And that IPIO occurred just by the skin of its teeth,
Speaker 2: and there was so so such a tough one.
Speaker 4: We you just determined it had to be in December.
Speaker 2: Well, if it wasn't in December, it would mean pushing
Speaker 2: it out, you know, quite a bit. And and the
Speaker 2: problem is that we'd already pushed it out quite a bit.
Speaker 2: So if we didn't go public, we'd have to do
Speaker 2: a private.
Speaker 3: Round and then and it just the whole thing wouldn't
Speaker 3: feel right. You know. It's like you're sitting at the
Speaker 3: it's like your spirit, you know, at the at the altar,
Speaker 3: and you don't do the do the wedding.
Speaker 2: It's like it's a bit awkward, to say the least.
Speaker 2: So we really needed, we really needed to do it.
Speaker 2: And and and I think if we hadn't done if
Speaker 2: you would have looked at it as a failure, and
Speaker 2: it would have been good because there's just been too
Speaker 2: many failures in the solar or too many not enough
Speaker 2: success let's say in the solar arena.
Speaker 3: They needed to be sort of, we need to choke
Speaker 3: up with success and.
Speaker 4: A rare piece of sunshine for the solar ironically, for.
Speaker 3: A solar industry does not have a lot of that.
Speaker 1: Yes, so is time on for only for the last question.
Speaker 1: You've come a long way since you were that six
Speaker 1: year old little boy breaking the rules. You turn forty
Speaker 1: two this year, right, what is on the cards? Or
Speaker 1: do you where do you see yourself in ten years time,
Speaker 1: twenty years time, forty years time? Because you famously said
Speaker 1: you want to die on Mars just not unimpact.
Speaker 3: Right exactly?
Speaker 4: Tell us about that dream?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I actually ask by journalists do you want
Speaker 2: to die on Wis and I said yes, but wait,
Speaker 2: no impact just too clear.
Speaker 3: This is that's one of the possibilities. So yeah, so, uh,
Speaker 3: I guess.
Speaker 2: I mean I'd like to be able to go to
Speaker 2: Mars while I'm so able to manage the journey regionally.
Speaker 3: Well, so I think, like, I don't have to be
Speaker 3: like seventy five and go to Mas.
Speaker 4: You don't take your zimmer frame with you, right, you know, it.
Speaker 2: Could be, at least in the beginning, could be, you know,
Speaker 2: mildly arduous. So I wanted to, I'd like to, I'd
Speaker 2: like to get there.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean, ideally in my fifties that
Speaker 3: would be. That'll be kind of cool.
Speaker 4: So you see that happening, and then well.
Speaker 2: I mean, I aspire to make that happen. And I
Speaker 2: can see the potential for that happening. And I'm not
Speaker 2: saying it will happen, but I think it can happen.
Speaker 2: I'll try to make it happen, right, ladies and gentlemen,