I think the most remarkable thing that we do have today is the Internet and access to all the world's information from anywhere, So that that's having a supercomputer in your pocket is I think something people wouldn't have predicted, you know, back to the future, So that that's the that's the biggest thing, and probably what they would be most surprised at is that we haven't progressed more in space.
So the people would have expected, i think, to have a space hotel impact ots Clark and one, yeah, exactly. The twenty ten was really crazy, you know, space advancement, so it would like be going to Jupiter and that kind of thing. So that that's probably like the most
surprising thing. Like particularly if you go back even further, if you say, in sixty nine when people first landed on the Moon, if you'd ask people, if you'd asked the public, what what would the situation be in twenty fifteen, I think they would imagine that where we would have a base on the Moon, a base on Mars, and be you know, all over the Solar system by now that's probably Vegas.
What happened?
I mean, is there any pattern even sense for where our dreams are and science fiction, realities drift from reality and where they are reality is there is there some reason you think, like because we have dreams today of where that you know that we're going to have these Mars colonies in their future And yeah, well unless something jumps to mind, let me let me I have a bunch of questions by the way, from the audience as well.
Here I want to I want to move to something a little more current as we move forward in time.
Twenty years ago when we first met, you were starting your first internet company of two, the one before PayPal, zip too, And I know that in your youth.
You envisioned a variety of industries that needed to change.
When you were pursuing your first one, did you imagine you would get to the next one and the next one or no?
I mean to when in college, just thought, well, what are the things that I'd most likely to affect the future of humanity just in you know, at a macro level, And it just seemed like it would be like the Internet and sustainable energy making like multiplanetary and then genetics and AI and I thought the first three he worked on those that were like almost suddenly going to be good, and then the last two a little more dodgy.
In terms of the net benefit. Yeah, and for the double.
Edged sword, and you're not sure which edge is the worse.
Interesting, So it would it seems like begging the question, are genetics and AI the ones that are ripe for students today they be thinking about as they look.
They are.
My cousin of your younger cousin who's just finishing up sort of physics and computer science degree. Actually Berkeley, we know and and he's uh, he says, everyone there is in the computer science department is working on AI. So I mean, I think we're going to see some crazy breakthroughs in the next few years on that front.
Yeah.
I want to come back to that later as we look more to your vision of the future, as you think back though to your younger self or you know, many of the people in the audience are themselves college students and either undergrad or grad programs, and are thinking
about the world they're entering it. I'm curious this maybe an odd question, but one that I find fascinating as you think here today back to your younger self, is there any advice you wish you could have given your younger self in with hindsight given what you know now.
Well, I mean I give like a lot of advice, a bunch of things like that.
Yeah, I gotcha, But it's just in terms of how to think about a life trajectory perhaps, or how to pursue your passions.
I'm reagonally happy with how things turned out, so it's like.
Not trouble.
Yeah, that's a good point, though, I.
Don't think if there's anything, we'll let you.
If something else to mind, let me know, but let me.
I mean apart from the obvious, like just telling telling my younger self exactly how the future will unfold, which is but that that you know, wouldn't be that that's not exactly a buy or has.
Been capsulated into non correctly more being wisdom.
Yeah, yeah, exactly like wisdom. I mean, I mean there's there's there's a lot of things. I mean it's sort of I mean certainly, yeah, I mean, you know, listen, listen more to critical feedback.
M Yeah.
I mean, like a lot of things I learned in college actually were pretty helpful. I mean that, I the physics approach to thinking is very good, like the first principles.
Approach, and you applied that broadly yeah, played.
Applying the first principles approached to thinking is I think a good way to figure out a counterintuitive situations. And yeah, I thought that that was that was really a helpful thing to learn.
That's good.
Yeah, I mean.
Yeah, sorry, no, no, I feel free to jump in because I don't know how i'd answer that question.
I mean, yeah, what would you do? What would you tell your younger sel.
It'll be all right, you weren't as darky as you think. Advice like that, nothing's really too actionable, don't worry about it.
What just don't be so insecure about anything you're insecure about it. Yeah, I would probably the advice to myself, but let's move on. I'm not used to thinking about me, so you know, I may be roughly over generalizing here, but it seems to me that there's some often a trigger problem that generates in your mind a great solution
for when you come up with a new companies. So, for example, when trying to negotiate with the Russians for launch capacity, the aha that at least you just build a better rocket to solve this problem comes forth, or when you deal with the commute on the floor or fire or whatever in la, it's like, my god, what is wrong with mass transit and perhaps hyperloop?
And then you know, with.
A variety of ideas, there seems to be some trigger something that's broken in the world that and you have the idea of how to fix it.
And I guess what I'm curious about is not how.
You've picked the areas of interest in the solutions, but how have you decided what not to fix? In other words, there's many things that need fixing in the world, and students here probably can think of a long list, many of which you could probably imagine solutions to using the physics first principle approach. But has there been any framework or idea if you've used to filter out what you don't do, what you don't pursue.
Yeah, I mean, well if sort of followed what I did initially was you know, well, you go back to like college times.
I was working on.
Energy storage technologies for electric vehicles, and that's what I was going to pursue at Stafford actually was work on like advanced capacitors and batteries to improve the energy density for electric vehicles. And then the Internet was kind of happening. It was clear like the Internet was happening like back in like ninety four ninety five, and I wasn't sure if what I worked on in the PhD would actually be useful.
So I was like, I was really concerned that if ice why timing or what was your intuition?
Meaning I think like it could be academically useful, but not practically useful, Like I think it could result in a PhD and adding some leaf to the tree of knowledge, but then then discovering that, well, it's not really going to going to matter, Like that's you know, is it is it going to be a good enough thing to actually be used in electric vehicle?
I wasn't sure.
I mean, so it was like I was uncertain as to whether success was one of the possible outcomes, right, Like I thought maybe it was, but it wasn't sure. And and then I thought, well, if I watched the Internet get built while I'm doing this, that that that would be really frustrating.
There's a sense of that eminent timing that like that was the time for the Internet, and maybe yeah, the other stuff could wait or be on the back.
That's what we want to be your mind? Was it always there is like one day I'll get back to that or was it.
Yeah, I thought probably i'd get back to it, and it did end up doing that. But yeah, I thought sort of the the Internet was happening, it like really taking off all the most people weren't aware of it in ninety five, and and so I figured, like electric vehicle technology, energy, story of technology will there'll be some sort of natural progression in that, and I could come back to it later. But the Internet, you know, it was it was really that was the moment to really
do something. Although in ninety five it wasn't obvious that you could actually make any money on the Internet. This was like nobody until Netscape went public. I think at the end of ninety five, nobody even thought there was like you could make a valuable company on the Internet.
It wasn't as obvious as it seems now.
Yeah, like now it seems really obvious, but back then it was not at all. So it was really from the perspective of it wasn't like, oh, I want to make a bunch of money. It was actually from it's like I want to just be a part of fooling this thing that I thought was like like a nervous system. It was like previously people had communicated effectively by osmosis, and you know, you'd have like basically physically, you know, connect with somebody to really communicate. You're like a letter,
like you said, letters like that on paper. And with the Internet, anyone who had a connection anywhere in the world would have access to all the world's information, just like sort of a nervous system in a like. So humanity was effectively becoming a super organism and qualitatively different than what it had been before, and so I wanted to be part of that. And yeah, so but but initially the goal was just to make enough money to pay the rent. It wasn't, you know, to do anything beyond that.
And then it's many you know that much of that capital then got ploid back into your next businesses.
Right right exactly exactly, so then they and then the Internet. It's also helpful because it's anything to do with software is a low capital endeavor. So I didn't have any money and just had a bunch of student dad, and so there's but software you can just write like by yourself, and you don't need a lot of atoms, like you don't need a lot of tooling and equipment, and so
it's not capital intensive. So the ability to start a company if it's software related and it's the first company, is much much easier.
Right, And it seems obvious now that of course the easier place to start, and then as you gained more of a personal reputation and had more personal capitalis some marmy. And I know SpaceX was almost what was entirely funded by Elon for its first period, partially from you know, and in an era when others probably wouldn't have funded it in those arrives to days.
Well, actually, I mean with the precursor to to SpaceX was not the idea wasn't really to create a company. It was it was to try to figure out why we hadn't gone sent people to Mars. So so we went from sept to to PayPal and then and then going from paypals. So the next thing, I was sort of thinking, well, it is some way to reignite the dream of Apollo. And I thought, well, it was maybe a question of like we'd lost the will to explore it. But I actually think that that that my original premise
was wrong. We had not lost the will to explore, but people did not think there was a way, and people don't think there's away. Then they just they won't bash their head against the wall continuously. They'll you know, they'll sort of give up. So but in the beginning, I thought it was a question of will, so that if we can send a small greenhouse to the surface of Mars, and you could, and you have seeds and nutrients l and you hydrated upon landing, and then you'd
have this little greenhouse on the surface of Mars. And people tend to respond to precedence and superlatives. Nless will be the first life on Mars as far as we knew, whetherst that life's ever traveled. You have this great shot of green plants on a red background, and I thought, well that maybe that would get people excited about sending people to Mars.
So the headlines were clear in your mind. Once you had success on what that would lead to catalyzed action.
And actually the goal was to get the public excited about that and get NASA's budget increased, so that that was actually the original goal. And so I went to Russia to try to buy some ICBMs in two thousand one. It's an interesting experience.
A lot of vodg, Yeah, a lot of vodka yeah.
It's crazy, and I couldn't afford the regular rockets like the Boeing and luckhead rockets are too expensive and still are, yes, very expensive.
That's sorry, Wait me jump in here for a second.
Because the anecdote you brought up of wanting to change government policy and inspire the world to have a MARS program if you will, whether it's popular uprising or or space programs at the government level, I think it's a fascinating anecdote because in a sense what you were saying is I, as an individual, want to start an entity, business or otherwise that will catalyze change even beyond the company.
Level or the industry level. And I see apparallel in other.
Initiatives you've taken on in that if you look at the goal of Tesla under your leadership, it is to share the transition to all vehicles being electric, not just the cars that currently are produced by Tesla, and with Powerwall and Solar City, arguably the description is one of
ushering in a wholesale shift to renewable energy. Many of the solutions required wouldn't be provided by the companies you're starting, and so as I, as I deal in entrepreneurship, as a venture capitalist every day we see this incredible scope of ambition here that is breathtaking, like change the world with Steve Jobs and others talk about it in a company, maybe shifting an industry, but we're talking about shifting like the entire zeitgeist of the world in a sense, and
maybe eventually other worlds.
So my question is do you.
Start always in your mind with that as a like I said, like, where's the starting point?
Is it? Okay?
I see this arc of a story like the Mars example, or renewable energy, and then do you pull back to where's the best product to get it unstuck?
Like why isn't this happening? And like if I solve that problem then it unlocks value. How does that happen in your mind?
Sure?
So, I mean I should say, like when when we started SpaceX and Tesla, I mean I really thought the probability of success was very low. I mean it wasn't like I think, oh, we'll definitely be successful. I thought I thought we'd be like maybe ten percent likely. Well yeah, and in the case, we came very close to both companies not succeeding. In two thousand and eight, you know, we had the we'd had three failures of the SpaceX rocket,
so we're zero for three. We had the crazy financial recession, like the Great Recession, the Tesla financing round of falling apart because like pretty hard to raise money for.
The startup car company.
If GM and christ are going bankrupt, like it's partly for the upside, Yeah, it's that was a tricky one. And you know, unfortunately, at the end of two thousand and eight, the fourth launch which was that was the last launch we had money for worked for SpaceX and and then we closed the Tesla finance ground is you know, Christmas Eve two thousand and eight, last hour of the last day that it was possible.
Yeah, thanks to you for those that don't know, the most extraordinary act of entrepreneurial zeal and commitment I've ever seen where Elon personally saved Tesla in those hours, like when no one else would write a check, he spoke for it all and that flipped the mentality from fear to greed and everyone joined the bandwagon and everything changed from you know, divoting into the ground to success. But you were willing to go like net negative personally of
isn't that your net worth? And it's it's a remarkable story.
Thanks for supporting. By the way, those much appreciate it.
We were happy to fall right behind in line. But it was all him.
So I guess on this this idea though the big picture, I'm curious in the way I heard you just now describe the greenhouse and the headlines is interesting. Do the marketing headlines flash through your mind as you introduce new products that are a step to a much grander vision.
I'm curious because it seems like it has two purposes.
Like getting employees, customers, everyone really gung ho about the vision, but it also makes it larger than life in so many ways.
Well, I mean, if you're trying to convince the public to do something, you have to say, Okay, how's this going to read?
And what message are we going to try to convey? What will people respond to?
What would I respond to if I was, you know, sort of an objective member of the public, And so that's that's really you know, if if you're trying to change people's minds or get people fired up about something, then you got to think, Okay, what what's that message? What's going to get them really excited?
And that's really good advice, by the way, for all the engineering students here, as I was a one as well. I'm curious there's as an adjunct sometimes to these grand visions like making humanity a multiplanetary species, or shifting us to renewable energy, or making all the equals electric, that has a purpose driven element to it. There's a higher
calling than the quarterly bottom line. In fact, there was a Tesla quarterly report I remember famously where the opening, the literally opening line was, while profits are not a priority common you know, nevertheless.
Exactly, And I was struck by it at first, and it did occur.
To me that it's not like a miss some sort of misdirected fiduciary question. To me, it seems like, how could you lead an industry transition if your business model was worse than what's already there, Meaning like if you weren't more profitable in the long term and a better business, why would anyone shift?
Right? So it almost seems like, look, the right purpose profits.
Follow, Yeah, well, if if your makeup if the you know, if the output is more valuable than the inputs, which is really that's that's that's profit, Like the output is more valuable in the input that that says you're have a useful company. So now in a high growth scenario you have a lot more inputs for future outputs, so that you have negative cash flow and lack of profitability
and which we currently have a tesla. But in the long term, of course that has to be that that has to be fixed, that they can't be negative cashlow in long term and that there needs to be a net positive output, which is sort of profits in the long term. But in the short term when this hyprowth that doesn't it isn't the most sensible thing.
And then there's also related things like open sourcing, patents and acts that to me relate to the purpose.
Let's let the whole lot of industry do this.
And so I'm curious, what do you see from your mantage point as the benefits of a purpose DRITN company, Meaning when you have this thing that every employee and customer knows is the purpose of the company, how do you see that flowing through to benefits for the company?
Well, I think.
I think having a purpose suddenly is going to attract the very best talent in the world, because if people can if there's something that's intrinsically enjoyable and the francial awards are good. But then also it's something that's going to genuinely change the world, then that's I think that's
a pretty powerful motivator. And but I don't think like everything needs to change the world, you know, I mean honestly, like there's lots of like useful things that people do, and I mean I think really it should be like a usefulness optimization, like just say, like, is what I'm doing as useful as it could be?
You're talking about the goal of an organization or in general.
Yeah, and you know, just even if something isn't changing the world, if it's making people's lives better, I think that's that's great. And you know, if even if something is like making only people's lives only slightly better, but it's a large number of people, think kind of like the area under the curve sure is quite good?
Is that mathematical first principles appointing utility and number exactly?
Like I mean, because one can say, is like some app really making people's life better, But if it's affecting a lot of people, even in a small way, then yeah, the sort of area is good.
Interesting, So let's shift gears a little bit, since it is future fest looking to the future, right, we started thirty years in the past, but the future keeps accelerating. So let's maybe look twenty years in the future for an equivalent leap. Arguably five years in the future, it might be equivalent to the past thirty but let's say twenty So the year twenty thirty five. What does the future look like? As far as you can tell, what would you yeah, twenty thirty five, Yeah, twenty years.
It's always really tricky to predict the future. I mean, some of it's pretty obvious, like computing power is going to be just crazy. The big change is the cost of computing power, not so much the sort of circuit density,
sort of the Moslaw thing. But if you if you look at say, what is the actual you know, dollars per you know, per instruction and that that is draw I mean that that that cost is dropping exponentially if you think about it, like like if you're making a computer, just you're rearranging silicon and copper, you know, so on a on a little chip and once the capital cost of the development and the chip plant is paid for, the act I mean, the module cost of a chip
is very very tiny. So I think we'll see massively parallel computers and computing power and storage being you know, as really as much as you want.
And it's interesting I to start with that, like if I I don't know what else to predict, but as a foundation, for sure, this seems like the safest starting you know, premise. But then what does that ripple through to and fields like genetics in an EE which you mentioned tneus driving, space related.
Topics, I mean just ubiquitous computing everywhere. I think like AI is going to be incredibly sophisticated in twenty years.
The first like, it seems to be accelerating.
And the tricky thing about predicting things when there's an exponential is that an exponential looks like it looks linear close up and and but it's actually it's not linear. So and AI appears to be accelerating for what I can see, and for.
That you look at autonomus driving and point AI is like the series like functionality as your guidepost.
Well, I had a sort of debate about someone like is AI accelerating or not? And the like he was saying, well, what's the y axis? You know, if if it's accelerating your t on the X axis, But what's what's the y axis?
Is it well thought about that?
I think you could have a recursive y axis, so that if at any point in time your predictions for AI are coming sooner or later, that that actually would help define whether it's accelerating or not.
Whatever that access was. So you mentioned cursive access like, so.
If in any given year, if you find your predictions are going further out or coming further or coming closer in that that actually, you know, is one way to think of acceleration because because otherwise, what's the what's the qualitative a qualitative measure of AI?
I was saying, if giving technology is always twenty years in the future, Yeah.
If if it's always twenty in the future, it's like more logarithmic.
So I seem like it's one of the most fastly accelerating things that you're aware of.
Yes, And I can certainly say that with with autonomous driving, where you know, three years ago I thought it was ten years away, and that two years ago I thought it was five years away. Now I think it's three years away or less than three years away.
Wow.
So when you say away like like like release to market available for consumer adoption because as opposed to prototyping.
No, I mean like the like the technology works, there's a sort of second question as to when regulators would approve it. Yeah, yeah, but but like a love with that the technology works in a technology works as a general solution, so like time was driving like based across anywhere, so.
It could be sooner for point things like highway only.
Or I mean highway only.
We're already in public data with this a Tesla, so we'll be hopefully in the next several weeks releasing two to all of the cars that happen in the autopilot hardware, which is all cars built like roughly the last twelve months.
Wow. Wow.
And so this seems like one of those things that once you've experienced it, the inevitability of it becomes more apparent, kind of like first time I sat in the electric vehicle, it's just so clear, and same with a ton vehicles.
Do you think that will help persuade public opinion?
And like, like, the regulatory question is an interesting one because a technology continues to accelerate, human nature doesn't, and acceptance of change. I'm just not sure if there's like as we look out in the future, should we assume that no matter how fast something like more as Long accelerates, there's always the counterbalancing force of human nature and habit.
Yeah, I mean that's yeah. I think, yeah, there's always going to be the sort of there's always going to be human nature, and it's difficult to predict. And I think, what what what that will how that will affect things? But I mean, I'm not sure if I fully answer your question. So in terms of what I think, twenty so for sure, EU Biker's computing AI that's beyond anything like the public appreciates today.
I think we'll have.
Most of the new vehicles being produced being electric, and we'll be probably have the super majority of energy being produced being.
Sustainable.
So I think I think we're on headed solar primarily in your mirimarily solar.
Yeah, And so I think those I think that those are sort of some good things. Like I think we'll be hopefully in a good path for sustainable energy. Sooner is always better, But I think by twenty thirty five, I think we'll be substantially like most of transport, most of new energy being produced will be sustainable. Broadband everywhere, broadband everywhere. Yeah, Mars colony and hopefully hopefully a small
base on Mars, a small city on Mars in twenty years. Yeah, well okay by in town, village, hamlets.
I mean that's exciting. I mean that could get people fired up about the future.
Yeah, I do. I agree exactly. I think that.
The idea of being Mullifana species and getting out there and exploring the stars is one of those really inspiring exciting things. I mean, just as Apollo was incredibly inspiring to everyone around the world, and even those I mean only a very tiny number of people went there, but I mean vicariously, we all went there. And I think that's true of if we have a Mars space as well.
And it's very important that we have things that are exciting and inspiring in the future, because otherwise wipe it up in the morning, you know, it was just about one sort of sad problem after another.
It's like life, Life's not worth living.
Are there any other things that excites you a lot about the future beyond the multiplanetary species? Perhaps, AI hope that may scare you as well as excite you. The autonomous vehicles. Are there any other planks that you think looking forward twenty years, like this is what I really get excited that.
Well.
I mean so for sure, for sure Mars and sustainable transport, like those items I think that are really any sustainable energy, Those are I think really cool things. And I mean in terms of getting excited about it, I mean it's I think we'll probably start seeing like more like truly Cybork activity like human brain inter like like with brain for viewer interfaces.
Like that.
There's a longside the ais that are purely Yeah, I think so it's the only way we can relate to I think, you know, and they have a conversation.
I mean, there are amazing things happen like happening these days like this. They've been able to figure out how to do an artificial hippocampus in rats and monkeys and and now they're looking at doing that.
To solve severe epilepsy.
About half of severe epilepsy cases originate in the hippocampus, and by having sort of an artificially augmented hippocampus, they can actually solve I believe, the severe epilepsy cases. So it's like like wow, and you can you can read and write information back to the chip from your brain at the individual neuron level, like today, pretty exciting.
The whole field of biology and things inspired by biology and the information systems biology fascinate me personally as a as a computer science oriented person.
Before I go to the student questions, which I'm about to do, there was.
One last story I wanted to share that we experienced together and ask your thoughts about it.
We were in Hawthorne, Texas when the grasshopper vehicle occur.
Happened to me, Yeah, spectacular explosion right in front of.
Us and right, and I like, I brought the SpaceX board out to take a look at one of our political takeover and lighting tests, and of course that's the one that blows up.
Whoa, I mean the repercussions and walking.
Out a rud It's a rapid on schedule disassembly, that's.
Right, right, Yes, rapid unscheduled to the same when anyone in the rockets are like a hobbyist or professionally knows what that one is. Every component part is just sprewn strewn across. And as we walked, one of the other board members asked, and maybe they cheering up kind of method with some quoting Bill Gates or somebody that said, you know, if you haven't failed, then you're not learning,
or some paraphrase of the quote. And I remember your reply and I have it written as a quote because I want to put it on a placard.
Given the options, I prefer to learn from success, which I think is a great comeback.
And so I guess I was curious, in general, what do you think of the Silicon Valley mantra fail fast, fail often, or as Esterradison says, always make new mistakes, as if failure is the crucible of learning. Curious if you had any further thoughts on that, and that maybe off the tough comment you made out there.
Well, I mean, there are there are many that sort of I mean, I think it's sort of there's like some entropic basis for this, like there are many more ways to fail than just exceed.
So you, I mean you have to explore.
I mean, particularly for a rocket, there's like a thousand ways that think can fail and like one way it can work, so you could you could have a lot of rocket failures to explore all the ways in which you could fail. So but I do think that one great thing about Silicon Valley is that failure is not a not a big stigma. So it's like if you if you try hard and it doesn't work out, that's okay, Like you can learn from that and you do another
company and it's not a big deal. And I think that's that's really one of the great things about Silicon Valley.
Interesting do you also I'm curious to either on the well, it seems to me that on the system design side, you can accommodate a likely failure of subcomponents and and so much of the elegance of let's say a Falcon nine or a fucking nine heavy as an ultimate incarnation of this vision of how the rocket should be built to say, hey, parts will fail thing, but here's how the system can succeed.
And I'm curious if.
There's any other thoughts along that how to how to accommodate anticipated failure. And then also maybe inn like managerially, is there ways that you motivate the team either in advance of failure to coach them on how this is going to happen, or in the aftermath of failure to get them fired up to solve it and move forward when it might be dark times, and like for them when you notions like failure to launch, uh, you know,
exploding on the path. You know, there's all these it's a very visual, it's public spectacle when you have a setback in the rocket industry, and I'm curious how you manage a round failure.
I mean it's I think it's it's quite quite painful and difficult, honestly, and that it feels terrible. But yeah, I mean, the the company is sort of looking to you know, me too, you know, rally them, and so I do. But I honestly feel super bad.
It's like a punch in the gut. Yeah, yeah, I remember. It's almost like a time like the stages of grief.
I remember in Texas is kind of like sort of denial and then this alally hits us at dinners.
Oh my god, what's just happened?
Yeah, I mean it's just I mean, it's particularly with rockets, it's it's just a really like rockets are rockets. Space is hard, and rockets tend to fail, unfortunately, and even when you've got like a lot of really smart people working super hard to minimize the pobolity of failure, it's still still there and it's and it's you know, it's it's quite significant, and you know, people have asked me like, well,
why why are rockets, you know, especially hard? And and the you know part of it is like everything has to work the first time, Like there's there's no you can't do a recall, you can't patch it, it's got it's like nine minutes to orbit or it's over.
And and then the.
You know, you can't you can never test the rocket completely in the environment that it's actually going to experience. You can't fully recreate something that's moving super fast in a vacuum on of Earth, like you can only really recreate that in space.
So the limit of the simulation tools. Is that a limit of the simulation tools today? Or is yeah?
Absolutely?
If there's any error between the simulation and reality, and there's always some amount of error, then that.
That can result in the failure. So it's a really really tricky one. It's like.
In the software analogy, it would be like if you had to write a whole bunch of software modules and you can never run them together, and you can run them on the target computer, like like when you're testing them, you don't have to test them individually and not in the actual computer that they're going to run on. Then you put them, put all the modules together, run it for the first time in a completely different or very different computer, and it has to run with no bugs.
That is difficult.
The software analogies to rocket design are deep, the modular reuse. I mean there's many of these, Like there's a little soren' pamire. It's not like this is an aerospace engineer by traditional training coming, but.
He is in fact radically changing the industry.
I think applying a CS perspective to industry after industry, I'm like, how would how would you know computer scientist or a physicist approach the problem, which oftentimes the solutions very unlike the industry incumbents. There's there's a certain elegance to it, at least from the outside. After I observer like myself.
Let me switch, if I may, to some student questions which will be completely in a different direction.
The first one comes from Nick zoo in an architectural design coach or so to be switching more to the other side of our brain for a moment, what do you look for in design?
And related?
If you'd like, what do you look for in art? Design? Might be more immediately elevent that's where he's coming from.
Sure, I mean I think there's I mean, you want to make something beautiful. I mean that you want to trigger what whatever fundamental aesthetic algorithms or like like in your brain. There's you have I think some intrinsic uh, elements that that represent beauty and and that that trigger the the emotion of appreciation of beauty in you in your in your mind. And I think that these are
these are actually relatively consistent among people. I mean not not completely some people, like not everyone likes the same thing, but there are there's a lot of commonality and and and and they're yeah, and they're they're but but I think it is important to combine aesthetic design with functionality. Like the thing that's like, if you say, like what was really hard about say the Model S or the Model X was to combine aesthetics and utility, so to
to balance the two. You can make a car look very good by giving it sort of certain proportions, like making it sort of low and slim and and and uh. But but if you if you do that, the utility is significantly affected. So the big challenge with the say the Model S, was trying to figure out how do we get five adults plus two kids, because I want to have through sevens here.
It seems like the Dragon and every teslazed room for seven seven five children.
I can see. Yeah, it might be in important to sign for.
I definitely don't think we should take the whole family on the spacecraft. But but but that like the big challenge with the like with with the S was having a car that had a high utility and look good.
And the same with the X.
So like it's like with the to make a sports car look it is relatively easy, but to make a sedan look good or uns you look good is quite difficult. And and I think another principle is you want to have it feel bigger on the inside then it looks on the outside, and that's also a really hard thing to do. And then really pay attention to the little details, the nuances of design and shape and form function, and that you know, just the way it looks in different lights and.
When something is off the little thing, how do you experience that?
It drives me bananas?
Yeah, I mean it's the problem is like, if you you can train yourself to pay attention to the tiny details, I think almost anyone can, although this is a very much double edged sword because then you see all the
little details and then little things drive you crazy. So but like most people don't they don't see they don't consciously see the small details, but they they do subconsciously see them, like you sort of your mind takes in your result of the overall you know, an overall impression, and you know if something is appealing or not, even though you may not be able to win out exactly why.
And it's it's the summation of these many small details.
So most of us experience it as a oh, I think that's ugly, or I think that's beautiful, or like wow, that's elegant.
But yeah, you can't break it down. You mentioned something in passing like you can train yourself in this though.
Yeah, you can train yourself.
I think you can make yourself pay attention to to why you're essentially bring the subconscious awareness into conscious awareness.
I wish I could do that. How do you do that?
Just Just pay really close attention, almost like a meditation on the object, trying to find the details, like why do I not like this?
Is that? What?
Yeah? Just look look closely and carefully.
And yeah, for any give an object, it's that it's geometry.
It's uh.
I've heard someone with for Steve Jobs, and that thought occurred to me as well. I worked briefly with him, and I could only experience as a visceral agitation with imperfection, and like that's just wrong, like that to be fixed.
I have to turn it off otherwise that I can't go through life. It's just yeah, it's yeah, it's the.
World around you or even in yeah, yeah.
Yeah if you because there's there's always something wrong somewhere all the time, and so it's you really have to turn it off otherwise, you know, God, you just get the like the list of the mental list of things that are wrong just drives you crazy.
I just wish this way you could just like record it for everyone else to go fix. Just running tally right.
Oh my god.
So let me go to one other question. I found that one interesting. I had no idea where that was going to go. So I really appreciate that question, Nick, Thank you. Let's see what's one of these doing it.
There's some combination of questions. Let me mention both. You can pick which one you like more, because they both relate to colonizing Mars.
One comes from Henning rote Ol, a PhD candidate and Civil Environmental Engineering, which just asks elon giving your plan to bring a million colonists to Mars, what are the pressing future technologies that need to be developed in order to support a robust and thriving surface colony, So technology for I guess survival, And then maybe related from the Stanford Space Initiative students, how do you envision humans governing a separate planet?
Unlessure if you're sure. I had to think about that yet.
I thought a little bit about those things.
I mean, obviously the first challenge is just getting there at all, and like that's you know, so SpaceX is working super hard on figure out just how to get large numbers of people and cargo to Mars. And I think we've got something that I think works at a sort of fundamental physics and economics level. So it's a question of figuring out the detailed design, which we're working on. We're only spending like half an hour a week on it because like pressing near term priorities. But I'm kind
of excited about how it's coming together. So to getting just getting that transport thing solved, I think we'll then open up a tremendous number of opportunities for people on Mars. You know, just like you know, having the Union Pacific Railroad to California and the you know, and look at what what you know resulted after that.
Other companies figured it out. It's like, what are you going to get there?
Then you get then that the opportunities for entrepreneurs are a tremendous that ranges everything from you know, everything you can imagine like starting the you know, like the first Italian restaurant or something on Mars. You know, it's like somebody you've got to do it, and it'll be kind of cool, you know, like a iron an iron refinery, you know, like resourceing boundary, you know, the like the the entire basic industry, and and then there'll probably be
things like that are just unique to Mars. But but we we gotta we got to get that, you know, effectively, that Union Pacific Railroad there in order to get get the entrepreneurs there that and and and then create a fertile environment for them to create companies. So that that's that's m HM. So so once you're there, it's it's it's going to be I think a lot of exciting
things that can be done. And in the beginning, you know, people would live in kind of glass domes, but but over time it would terrior for Mars and make it like Earth. And so so I think it's just been a lot of super exciting things that are hard to predict. Just like when they're building you in Pacific, they would hard Nobody would have predicted Silicon Valley and Hollywood, right, you know that that's would have been like an urbanization
in general. Yeah, you know, well the California would be like the most popular state in the country.
Like they're like that sounds crazy.
For them.
Goal is discovered, right yeah, so.
And so the yeah, I think like it's it's really in coming on SpaceX or you know, maybe other organizations to figure out how to get there. Well otherwise nothing else mats and then once you get there, there's a lot of sort of yeah, a lot that can be done. From a governance standpoint, I mean, obviously, ultimately the governance of Arts will be up to the Martians, but.
The we have a name from them. We become a Martian when each other.
But but I think if you said, like, how would you do adopt a democracy two point zero, you know, or like some a new new version. I think we would probably have more of a direct democracy than a representative democracy. And you know, when the when the United States was formed, it was really it was impossible to have a direct democracy, like like you're even sending a letter two weeks, so there was no way that people
could like vote directly on issues. You had to have representatives. Interesting, so I think I think probably there would be more direct democracy.
And is this thing about the latency of communication from others.
Latency saying just like communication errors and communication latency when you have letters that that take weeks to get anywhere, what would have made.
Governance almost impossible?
I think if if it hadn't been a representative of democracy, you had a lot of people that couldn't even read.
Or or right, you know.
So that's fascinating.
I was just wondering if if you were to start over with a clean sheet of paper on governance is did you think a framework that could be envisioned that encompasses other scenting beings to come, meaning the AIS and others who might clamor for their rights on one side.
Right, Yes, it's a difficult predict but I can say I think probably we would would aim for a more direct democracy. And then in talking to Larry Page about this, and he had like a good suggestion, like we should limit the number of words in the law because like we have these like thousand page laws like a pasts and like nobody's read them.
Twitter equivalent of personal money.
Yeah, like I don't know a thousand word letter count or something like that. Like if you can't, if you can't write the law in a thousand words, then probably it shouldn't be there. And you know, just which we shouldn't have, you know, a single law passed that's like the size of Lord of the Rings, that's right, and like literally not a single person in Congress has read.
The whole thing.
It's like the tax good, it's unscrewtable.
It's exactly so that. So there's that. And then I think.
Laws also have an infinite lifespan unless they're given some sort of you know, sunset periods are probably biggerd to default laws to have a sunset period, like and if it's not i it's not good enough to be renewed, then it goes away. And maybe some hysteresis in that in making it easier to remove a law than to put one in place. It can just imagine because like over time, like the body of law just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
So like you like, how do you avoid that?
And you have in inertia associated with the laws, and so maybe you know it would take sixty percent to create a law, but only forty percent to remove a law.
Oh interesting, fascinating, Yeah, something like that.
Those are, like the rules of a constitutional democracy have such a profound impact and to have a new playground would be fantastic.
There's something better than what you.
Said a moment ago on a highlight, on a transition to perhaps a closing question heard in passing. You know, I think about some of these things about a half hour a week, if I heard you right. And this is I think a profound thing to dwell on is that you know, He's changed in the world, and so many areas and many entrepreneurs I see get and myself included, enamored with all of the possibilities of a future Mars base, of the terrorforming, of the every aspect of it that
might need to come into being. And I find myself often distracted by those future questions that are a little less relevant today. What you just heard was we got to solve the railway first, Like, let me put ninety percent, ninety five percent on my effort into that and not get distracted by all the other interesting questions.
That need to come later.
And I remember a few years ago, maybe three or four years ago, trying to get you to brainstorm with Craig Venter about you know, doing a sample return from Mars and sending a genetic sequencer there to help understand life there that might exist, et cetera. And I remember profoundly the response was, that is a really interesting topic, but I got to get these rockets to work first
before that's going to be relevant to me. And let me hunker down on what's important here and that ability to prioritize it on the stepping stones to a huge vision.
It's it's this interesting.
Dichotomy, like not just pure visionary scattered across many things alone, clear sense of where we're heading, chaining back to the present and making sure we're taking the right steps in a fumbled future, if you will, I think I wish we could all do that in the way we try to implement change.
So let me move. If I made a one last question, which could be broad or not, which is there's a lot.
Of people here from all kinds of parts of the world, and I think everyone who hears your story, you know, an immigrant from South Africa through Canada to the US taking on four or five different industries with great a plumb and success is inspiring. But it's not just that you've had business success or technology success. It's that you really are changing the world for the better in these areas.
And so I guess maybe if as a closing question, again, looking from the present to the future, what do you see as the sort of the biggest pressing problems that need to be addressed?
So this may in fact require to pull that filter off for a moment on the things of the world that are broken.
And if everyone here in the audience could be a change agent themselves in their area of passion, what would you hope to catalyze today? If you say, high school, solve this big, heavy problem and figure out why it's broken.
You know, I don't think everyone needs to go, you know, try to solve like some big, big world changing problem. I mean I think that like, if I really think like we should just think like always doing something that's useful.
To the world. Like, if you're doing something useful, that's great.
Imagine it. I really think some things are more useful, sure, sure, but but maybe personal.
Like I just think that like you sort of a usefulness optimization is like that's like a really good thing. You know, if you if you've done something that's useful to your feeling human beings, that's you've done a really good thing, and people should feel proud of doing that.
You know.
It doesn't doesn't always have to be something that's going to change the world. I mean, sometimes the world just keep going in a particular direction. The world, yeah, it might be might be going in the right direction. And I mean in a lot of ways that the wealth is and we are in great shape in that if you look at say, violent crimes per capita in the world,
it's at ant like old time low. We're actually quite prosperous and you know, compared to his history, and you know, I think there's a lot of things to feel good about in terms of how the world is today. Access to information is incredible. I mean, uh, yeah, anyone with you like a one hundred device could has access to basically all the world's information, which is an incredible thing.