The Happiest Interview of Elon Musk.

Right.

So, so you're the only other guy who's done it, and you've done it with payments probably one of the hardest industries to disrupt on the web, cars and going to space.

Right, yeah, so what do you do later this year?

By the way, so oh yeah, but Juke hasn't as a co founder.

For that one. No.

Actually, they offered to have me be listed as a co founder, but I thought that although I suggested the initial idea, I did not put enough sort of sweat equity into it to be considered.

So you should have been because you could have been the first guy at four.

Uh.

Yeah, it's I think there's sort of a sudden threshold of idea contribution and you know, initial effort that's that's required for that.

That's sort of.

You know, I mean, sort of subjective, but I think I don't think I did enough.

Right. They did offer it to me, but I said, so it.

Is part of the reason you've done this that you are so crazy?

Are you lucky?

You know?

I've been thinking about that lately, and I sort of wonder, you know, I think I probably am a but crazy, but I think but maybe that's just that's sort of a healthy sign because of the point which you conclude you're not crazy at all than you probably are.

So the fact that you read sort of a recursive thing.

Yeah, there's a story that I've heard about you, Yes, about you. Here's the story that made me think you were crazy, and you can tell me New York Times. No Elan got me in so much trouble several years ago, and he called someone a douchebag and a liar, and I started laughing and never.

To be precise, douchebag and an idiot.

Actually to the liar. We cut out the liar. Yeah, it would be liabelest.

That we cut Okay.

Yeah, well I think that that made well I guess that's probably true too, but but I think it's more more of the first two.

Yeah.

Yeah, So no, this is the story that made me think you were crazy.

I heard right after you sold.

PayPal, before the other two companies, you went and bought a mclareness one because one yes, sorry, that's that's the same part, right, partially because you were going to race cars with Jim Clark and Larry Ellison.

No, well not really, no actually, and I never did, although that was one of the things that was sort of talked about at one point, but I never did. In fact, I've never raced anyone with McLaren. I had several years. I put eleven thousand miles on it, and I drove it from Eli to San Francisco. It was my daily driver, which is a crazy car to have his daily drive, particularly on four or five.

But I understand when you got it. Yeah, you're driving down to Ady and you wrecked it.

No, well, and you let me just tell the story, correct, I mean, yeah, let's see the story that you tell is actually how does that how that compares to the real because the reality is pretty messed up.

Better.

So you wreck the car, you get out of the car, you're doubling over with laughter, listen with you said, why are you laughing that you just wrecked this car?

And you said, no, you don't know the funny part it wasn't insured.

Well, the punchline's correct. Yeah, So I was.

Actually I was driving up sand Hill Road with with Peter teele Co found a PayPal actually driving to see Mike Moritz. This is in in two thousand and so we're driving up. I didn't really know how to drive the McLaren, and Peter says so so what can this do? And they're like, I'm probably number one on the list of famous last words. I said, watch this, so so I floored it. I floored it and did a lane change on Sandhill. And so the mccarion has no attraction

I don't recool laughing. I mean, I.

Could have been laughing in shock, but I don't recool laughing. And and then and then Peter quote A hitched a ride to to Mike.

I waited while the fire truck and the ambulance ride.

Then finally the did Peter Teal literally hitched a ride to.

To like yeah too, so quiet to yeah.

And then and then I once, once the car was taken care of, then I hitched a ride too, And so we continued the meeting that I'm picturing.

You and Peter Teal like that scene and Tommy Boy, and.

You're both like oh, like yeah really wow, Yeah? Is there a pair of give you a live really?

I should say so?

Is there a parallel with how you build companies in that story?

I hope not.

Let's see what you can do.

Yeah, watch this. That could be awkward with a rocket launch, you know. Yeah, it's it's one thing. If you've got a one ton car versus a million pounds of TNT equivalent, that is a.

Little dice here.

Yeah, Now what I think is so, I mean, one of the things I find so interesting about you. The rest of the PayPal guys, they get done with PayPal, they start starting and investing in web two point zero companies at a point in time whatever and said, that's insane, that's insane. The Internet will never come back. They were considered the crazy ones. Meanwhile, you moved to La and start working on Solar City SpaceX. Tesla's a glint in your eye?

Why didn't you?

What you ever do an internet company again? Do you find the Internet boring?

I think it's unlikely that I'll do an internet company again, because not that I find the Internet boring.

I mean, I'm still sort of.

I think I'm relatively sort of net savvy and interested in the Internet and what's going on. You know, I don't even want to be the like like Grandpa who doesn't do email or something like that.

You know, so I think.

But but I think I'm trying to allocate my efforts to that which I think would most affect the future of humanity in a positive way. And the I think there's there's lots of entrepreneur energy and fin and and and financing headed towards the Internet, whereas in certain sectors like automotive and solar and space, you don't see new entrants.

You don't there's not there's not a lot.

Of capital going to startups and not a lot of entrepreneurs going to that in those arenas and the and and the problem is that in the absence of some new entrants into an industry, you don't you don't have that in that forced for innovation. It's really new entrants that that drive innovation more than anything. So that that's why I have deveoted my efforts to those those industries. And there are industries that require, I said, your cap

So that was a close call. That was not the plan.

What one is the plan? You thought, I'll put ten in each of these are.

Well, Actually I thought the SpaceX, I thought it would be about well, I guess I was probably about double it could cost. It ended up being double in most cases. So with SpaceX, I thought it'd be fifty. With Tesla, I thought it'd be I thought it'd be putting in twenty five maybe thirty. With solar City, for well, solicity actually went really well. And that's that's the one where I wasn't the co founder. So mean, that's a good sign. I mean I should I should co found less stuff.

So that's so what happened?

Why did you have to put more money in the other two or did investors flake did you have Well?

I didn't actually seek investor funding for the first three rounds of space X, because I mean the first thing that investors want to ask you is sort of, well, what's tell us about prior successes in this field?

And you know, what can we compare this to uh and and this?

You know, when when you've got kind of the doughnut in the success category and a lot of you know, a cemetery full of failures, than that they're not that keen and rockets are just pretty far out of the capital zone.

Of most metro capitalists.

And now we were able to get a menure funding after we've made some progress and demonstrated that we were able to.

Almost get to orbit.

And the credit goes to sort of to founder's fund and which is obviously some of my compatriots from from PayPal, Peter and Peter Thiel and Luke no Sick and Ken Howry and.

And the other guys.

So and they invested before we got to orbit, so so credit to them for that. But but I did have to show that I could actually make stuff, like I never actually made physical stuff before, you know, before SpaceX, so let alone rockets. So you started with the rocket, Yeah, I mean it's that's a that's a hard one, and it's that the probability of success was low. In fact, when I started SpaceX, I thought that the most likely

So why did you want to do it?

I know, for Tesla it seems more obvious, like, oh, save the planet. Big automakers aren't doing this. I mean, I think it's fairly abo, so that's good for humanity. Why did you feel like SpaceX needed.

To be done?

Well? I guess.

If you look at the trajectory of space technology and progress, the pinnacle of that progress was around maybe nineteen sixty nine nineteen seventy with the Moon missions, and so we made incredible progress in the sixties and then we were able to clown the Moon, and then with the Space Shuttle, it can only get people to Low with all. But now the Space Shuttle is retired, and that's just a there's no trajectory of improvement.

It's a trajectory to nothing.

And I kept thinking that there'd be some plan to say people to Mars, because that's the obvious next step. And the actual origin of SpaceX is when I was I think it's around two thousand one or so, and I was visiting a friend of mine, Adare Oressi, who actually you may have met, but he lives in Palo Alta.

Now.

We were college housemates, and he asked me what I was going to have PayPal, and I said, well, I've always been interested in space, but I didn't think there was anything I could do in space as an individual.

So that was how things started out.

And then as I learned more and I went to speaking of crazy things, went to Russia three times to negotiate a deal to buy a couple of the largest ICBMs in the Russian fleet.

A strange experience.

How do you even get into that negotiation?

Well, you talk to people who know people, and I'm pretty soon you're talking to the Russian rocket forces, and you.

Know they.

It turns out Russia is quite quite a capitalist society, and so it definitely has had some some weird meetings in places like that. I swear they looked like a sanitarium or something.

I don't know. It was very odd.

We keep going back to the theme of crazy.

Yeah, seriously, this place had padded walls, like winding up added walls.

It was weird.

And yeah, and then I had some some sort of Russian guy who was missing up front two started yelling at me because his friend, when of his front teep the was saying it was like spip flying at me in the place and patted walls like it's really bizarre.

And that was what we thought. I'm gonna build my own rocket.

Yeah.

That was probably when I got back from that third trip, I was like, well, I realized that that the real issue, the reason we haven't advanced in space is because the cost of space transportations has become unaffordable. It's it's become more and more expensive to do to do less and less in space, and we really need to improve the technology of space transportation. So that's why I sought at SpaceX.

And so anything better than that is when right right?

So you know, I know people think of you as someone who's had a lot of success, but you had several failures within SpaceX before the recent launch.

Can you tell us a little bit about what.

It's like to put that much work into something and be doing something that really no one else is doing and at least trying something and putting that much of your own money in it that you're having to borrow money from friends to pay your rent and there are launches and it's failing.

Yeah, well it super sucks, I'll tell you. Yeah.

That was two thousand and eight particular was was was was awful because we had the third launch failure in a row of of our Falcon one with vehicle at SpaceX, and we uh, the Tesla financing round that we were raising fell apart because the economy is going through tailspin and it's pretty hard to raise money for a startup car company. Uh, you know, late two thousand and eight, win Gym and christ a busy going bankrupt, that that was.

You think that their launch was going to work? Was it a shock that it didn't?

Well, I thought it would most like I think I thought the odds were working were better than percent.

But yeah, there was just a little little change.

In the thrust transient of the first stage engine that resulted in that we didn't we couldn't see it on the ground because of the thrust transient. Well it's a good slightly technical For a second, the pressure decay on the truck thrust transient dropped below sea level pressure. So when you when you look at it on the test and at with you know, at sea level, you don't see it. It doesn't that that doesn't look like there's

Wow.

Yeah, I wasn't expecting that.

So, so it's two thousand and eight, You're going through a divorce, which, like some to borrow your word, douchebag bloggers are writing about to make even worse.

Right, Yes, that's true.

In addition to to a less stuff happening, I was getting dumped on massively in the press, right, yeah.

You're you know, it looks like all three companies are going to get file.

I mean, why do you keep going with all three?

Like I feel like even a lot of great entrepreneurs in that situation would have been like I've already sunk everything I have in these companies and I got to pick one.

But you didn't. I mean, you kept doing all three. Why.

Yeah?

That was that was a very tough pool at the end of two thousand and eight. That was that was probably the tough you know, one of the toughest goals I've had to make because I could either reserve capital for one company or the other. I mean solo, the city didn't need a ton of capitals there they were okay, But between SpaceX and and Tesla, you know, it's sort of like like you've got two kids, and what do

Unfortunately it worked.

You also had to step back in as the CEO of Tesla.

Yeah, Michael was never to be the CEO of Tesla from the beginning. I mean I've had Inderson electric cars that goes back twenty years to you know, when I was in college. In fact, I used to talk to my dates about electric cars. Probably not the best strategy.

Close those dates.

No, no, I usually have to stop talking about that. But yeah, so I've got long standing interest in electric cars. But since I was doing SpaceX, I knew that if I did try to start an electricock company and run it, that it would be extremely painful to run two companies. So I tried, really tried my hardest not to be the CEO of Tesla. I mean any at any point from day one I could have been the CEO because I had a majority of control of the company, but I.

Really tried not to.

And in the end it was at the end of two thousand and eight, it's I'd commit all of my.

Reserve capital to Tesla.

That wasn't allocated to SpaceX, and so I felt I had to sort of steer the ship directly. But it was it was not it was not out of it was most it was really not fun, like super not fun.

Yeah.

I remember when we talked, I guess maybe the next year after that, you said, you know this is not at the fun level running these two companies.

No, I mean, it's definitely gotten a lot better with SpaceX. You know, so since we've now.

Had five successful lunchers in a row, and we were able to talk with the space Station and with Tesla, we're able to raise enough capital to get the company to be able to produce the model ay and do the IPO, and you know, so I've got a much strong, much stronger, a much stronger team, a lot of bench strength at both companies. So you know, I can go from essentially almost every waking hour being being spent on the companies to ninety percent which is a big difference.

Actually, is the ambition still to find another CEO for one or the other?

Well, I I expect to run both companies for the foreseeable future because I've I've made equipment to people at both companies to do that.

Will I be running both companies forever?

I think that's that's unlikely, but but certainly for the foreseeable future I will be.

Is there one that has your heart more than the other one?

Well, you know, they they both, They both do have my heart. But I think that they may come a point, you know, several years in the future where the the fundamental good that Tesla is trying to accomplish, which is to serve as a catalyst for the acceleration of sustainable transport, has been accomplished. In other words, I mean that's really what what what has the if looked from an historical standpoint, or what what's important here.

In affecting the world.

It's it's to what degree is Tesla's serving as a catalyst for the advent of electric vehicles?

And at some point, you.

Know, when when uh say, most cars being manufactured are electric, then that will have been accomplished and.

Or the catalytic value.

Of Tesla will will have been realized, and the diminishing returns in our garden. I think at that point I would not need to run the company.

Can we talk a little bit about across the companies your experience with venture capitalists, because it's been pretty varied, right, Yes, so you've had good experiences and you've had not so good experiences.

A wide wide range.

Yes, what have you What would you advise entrepreneurs watching this or in the audience to make sure they don't they don't live through what.

You did in the bad experiences? And can you tell us about the bad experience?

Well?

I think I think one thing that's important is if if you have a choice of a lower evaluation with someone you really like or a higher evaluation with someone you have a question walk about take the lower valuation.

It's better to have a higher.

Quality uh bench capitalist who you think is would be great to work with, than to you know, get get a higher evaluation with someone where there's even a question walk really, you know, I think that's that's important. That's sort of like getting married. You know, I don't know, Well, maybe I haven't been.

That good at that, but probably ten years. Okay, I mean, it's too bad.

Did you do that wrong? Did you maximize for evaluation?

The I suppose in the case of the Tesla series C.

I mean, at some point I think I'll tell the full story, but not tonight.

But not tonight.

The they did wait an hour.

Right, No, I know, Well, I'll tell part I'll tell I'll tell part of the story. So the there was there were there were two multiple competing bits. But there were two competing bits. One was from uh Klana Perkins, the other one was from vantish Point. Klaner offered a fifty million dollar pre money Fintah Point offered seventy. I actually said to John Dura that if John joins the board,

I thought if John would would.

Be willing to join the board, then we could do that, but not if it was somebody else.

Yeah, that was probably a mistake.

And so then they did Fisker instead, which.

And that was their mistake.

Yeah, yes, but I hope they live past the election.

Fiscer and A one two three are both having a lot of issues.

What has Tesla done that it hasn't fallen in that bucket? What was I mean.

Looking back, was there a crossroads where you made a right choice that has put you guys so far? I mean you're not profitable yet, but in a different category.

Uh well, Tesla is a really different company to to Fisker. I mean we're Tesla is a hardcore technology company and we we do really serious engineering. And I think you only boilth value in a company if you if you're doing hard work to solve tough problems. That that's that's why companies are valuable. That's why they should be valuable, and largely is why they're valuable. So and and we do we do aren't We do real manufacturing as well? I mean that the model as coils of aluminum and

Uh.

In the case of Fisker, it's it's headed by was headed by you know, Henry Fisker, and UH. And he's he's a designer, so he's he's good at sort of the styling of the cars. But he thinks it's all about styling and and and it's not, you know, it's it's really this is you know, the reason we don't have electric cars is not for lack of styling.

Right at the time when you were getting started with Tesla, the Valley was trying to take a turn back towards science and towards saving the world. You had Kleiner Perkins, Coastal Adventures, a lot of these big firms really getting aggressive about clean tech and saying that was going to be the next Internet.

That has not been the case. Why did clean tech not work for the Valley?

Well, I think the jury's out on clean tech. I think as far as Tesla and Tesla and Solar City have certainly clean tech or it's say, I think of more like sustainable energy stuff. I think sustainable energy is a better it's more of a mouthful, but it's more accurate than than than than clean tech. And uh, I mean I think the I think, I think Tesla is going to be an extremely valuable company in the long term.

And what have you done differently because a lot of ACS said, well, the problem with clean tech is you have to rely on subsidies, and if you have to rely on subsidies.

It's never going to work.

I mean, people buying a Tesla in park get a subsidy, it takes down the price I assume.

With solar City. So it's like like that hasn't.

Been a knock against you guys, Like why have these two companies worked when when so many other ones haven't.

I think it's you know, in any industry, there are only a few companies that that kind of get big and succeed.

And I don't know, I think it just seems that.

In the in the case of Tesla, we were focused on making great products, uh and and doing solving hard engineering problems. I mean, as evidence in Tesla for the fact that we solve hard heart engineering problems is the fact that Toyota and Daimler and Mercedes, you know, buy electric power trains from US. I mean they if this was easy, they would just do it. So so we focused on solving really hard engineering problems at at Tesla,

It's really easy.

And so I mean, it seemed to me pretty obvious that in the long term we'd see.

Cutthroat competition between.

Silicon PB manufacturers in China, Japan, Germany and other places. As much as you see this competition in the d RAM market, I think the PBM market in the dram market very similar, And so that that cost would be driven down to very low number, approaching the raw material cost really and that that's that's pretty much what happened.

Now it's it's sort of kind of have that.

But the optimization really has to be at the everything except the panel, because the panels are dropping now to like ninety cents a wide. So you know, over three, you know, three dollars of the four dollars is balance the system, which which includes the you know, it includes the custom ownership experience that designing the system, particular to particular rooftop, installing it, the wiring the inverter, after sales service, figuring out the financing system, the found financing of it all.

Manage the customer experience.

And that's that's kind of how solar City is. So when I looked at the problem of solar power, that that that's what it looked.

Like to me.

So that's why solar City is working the problems that it is working on, and it's doing super well with you know, the credit credit due to Lennon and Peter Ryve and the rest of the team at Social.

You've said, I think this is the first time I've interviewed you and you haven't said it that being an entrepreneur is like standing on the edge of a bit, looking into abyss and chewing broken glass.

Yeah.

Actually that's a phrase from a friend of mine, Billy, who is early internet entrepreneur, has done done a number of things since and and he the the phrase that he uses is like starting companies, like it's like chewing glass and starring into the abyss. Right, so I've flipped it, yeah, just so it's it's I mean, there's a point which obviously it's.

Not that not that way.

Do you still feel like that or now?

You know?

The stirring the abus part is just you know, are you are you facing him and a death? And we certainly were at SpaceX and Tesla and socially for a long time. I think we're no longer staring into the abyss, which is great.

There's always gonna be some amount of glass that's got.

To be chewed it's never zero, but it's less and less as time.

Resspard less glass and no more abyss.

Yeah, the best is kind of there in the distance, but I'm not staring my peripheral vision.

Yeah, I mean, you know, you guys did PayPal, which was you know, obviously started at a time when there was a lot of money and there were advantages, but you know, compared to other dot COM's, was a very hard company to build, and then you go on to the.

Company to keep alive.

Yeah, right, as you point out, I mean, PayPal got started in like late ninety nine, late ninety eight to early ninety nine, and it was a sort of merger of two companies x X dot com that I started and Confinity that Maxi Peter started, and we started to sort of pull our resources and tackle problem together. And we went from starting the company to less than eighteen months later, maybe fourteen months later or something, having a

Did you feel that way though, because I know there were some people inside the company who thought, why we are why are we only worth five hundred million?

I thought it was completely ridiculous. But the Nasdak peaked I think in March or thereabouts of two thousand and that's around when we when we did the valuation for five million dollars.

The challenge was really keeping the company.

Alive for the next two years roughly until well until we're sold to eBay.

What what is you and Peter's relationship like and what was it like?

Then?

There's there's a lot of stories that the two of you guys did not get along in that merger.

You know, we've we've had out disagreements, but we are friends. And I would say for of our the time we've known each other, we've been friends.

I met that was rough though knowing both it was a.

Little it was a little yeah, I thinks a little bumpy at one point, and I think.

I'm I'm not I have more tolerance for risk than Peter.

It is, so I was sort of maybe more kind of pedal to the metal, and Peter.

Was like, well, let's a little let's be a little cautious here.

He may have been right actually, so which just ironic since he encouraged you to gun your car that made you guy.

I don't think that was what he had in mind, but yeah, he uh. I'm probably slightly more risk tolerant than Peter is.

But I think.

Between all of us we managed to make PayPal work, which is what that was the important thing.

But back to the abyss and the broken glass. I mean, do you only enjoy this if you're just the odds are failure?

No?

No, I'm liking life more and more actually, as there's less staring into the abyss and less glastering, I'm finding that to be a good thing. So I hope never to return to the experiences I had in two thousand and eight and two thousand nine.

So I know, back in I think it was two thousand and eight, you talked about if you were to start other companies. One that you had an idea for was an electric plane that could take off and land vertically.

Yeah.

Does that seem are you now like, fuck, No, I am not starting another company.

Are you still thinking of that?

That's how I feel?

That is, yeah, I've actually I mean, there are three things that I think, well, arguably, for that I think could be done. I think I could probably do it. Maybe you know, have a better than even chance of success.

One is the.

An electric jet sort of this would be kind of something cool because one of the things that I guess where the idea where these things tend to come from, is like I'll read something that seems like a sad thing in technology, and they're like, well, how could we make it not a sad thing? So when I read about the concord being retired, and I was like, oh, geez, you know, we don't even have supersonic transport.

That's terrible.

And I actually didn't have a chance to find the concord, so you.

Know, that just seemed like terrible things.

So initially I thought, well, I started reading up about it, and I read that that the concord it was really designed in the sixties and so eric now have improved a great deal with competential fluid dynamics, engine efficiencies improved massively, and even if you just changed the engines on the concord, you could double the range.

Or thereabouts.

And so I thought, well, okay, what if what if you were figured out a really efficient design that could make it economically competitive to have a supersonic aircraft, and and and then I started looking at it more and more, and then I started doing the math on all of it. It seemed like, well, you just really want to go higher and higher. You know, the lower you're in the atmosphere,

The drag that you're expect. So as you go higher, you just go faster for the same course.

And and and then there's a slight outward acceleration you experienced, which is also slightly helpful.

Like a satellite.

You know, when satellite is going mark twenty five, it just goes on forever once it's south the atmosphere. So anyway, this may be slightly worriast, but the electric fan gets better, the electric aircraft gets better at the higher you go, whereas a combustion aircraft does not.

You have you start starving it, starving it from from from.

Oxygen and and only you know, but the area is mostly nitrogen. So when you as you're going through the air, you're you're sort of sucking in all this all this nitrogen which is kind of slowing you down, and you're

But are you going to do that?

Not anytime soon.

It's possible that I may do it at some point in the future because between SpaceX and Tesla, I kind of have the ingredients, so.

Very tempting easy after this, Yeah, but the.

I think maybe it's worth something worth considering in a

It cursed them daily.

Okay, so that's two. What are the other two?

You would do? Well?

The other one, well one of the third one would be I think you could make fusion work, and I mean, and I mean by that, I mean magnetic confinement fusion, your relatively standard.

Fusion, if you will. And and then the fourth one.

Photo sharing out subscription commerce in a box.

Absolutely, the fourth one I'm considering just open sourcing basically just describing the idea, saying that this is what will be done, and if somebody wants to do it, then then they can do it. But I'm thinking like maybe I should patent it and then offer an open source the pattern to anyone that can make a credible case that they could actually do it, some sort of debating it. But it would be for for a fifth mode of transport.

And but what if there was a fifth mode?

And I have a name for it, name for it which is called the hyper loop.

The hyper loop hyper loop.

Yeah, is it like a Jetson's tunnel.

It's something like that. Yeah, like you just get.

In at whisks you.

Yeah, Well, and I'll tell you the characteristic. So this is partly prompted by the California train thing. Like we know we've got like a bullet train that that's like, it's the has the dubious distinction of being the slowest bullet train and the most expensive.

Promile calcul We got some bulletins there.

So we're setting records at both you know, both ends of the wrong the wrong ends of the of the spectrum. And you know, apparently it's gonna be like sixty billion dollars or something to go from San Francsco.

To LA.

And if it's if they're saying sixty now, it's going to.

Be more later. And as furse, it's really slow to try.

To put this in perspective. One hundred million got you into space.

Well, it got me started. I mean it got it got me to yeah, Siddly got me.

To space, and quite get me. It's all bit very close. Yes, yeah, something like that. Yeah.

In terms of cap of a venture capital investment, it's been a couple hundred million in total including outside investors.

So and it's basically has been profitable for the last few years.

So I think we can do something that's probably ten percent of the cost. And and and I try to think of what are the attributes that you'd want in a new motor transport. In fact, what is the theoretically fastest way that you could get from LA to San Francisco And and so so the system I have in mind, which is you've you're sort of you're guessing in the right direction sort of.

How do you like something that can.

Never crash, it is immune to weather, It goes three or four times faster than the sort of bullet train that's being built. Well, it goes about let's say an average speed of twice what.

What what an aircraft would would do.

So you go from downtown l A to downtown San Francisco in under thirty minutes, and it would cost you much less than an air ticket or cart, much less than any of the mode transports. Is the fundamental energy cost is so much lower. And I think we could actually make it self power, self powering if.

You just if you put solar panels on.

It, you generate back of the envelop this you generate more power than you than you would consume in the system. And there's a way to store the power so that it would run twenty four to seven mm without using batteries. So there's a different you can you know, different ways to store energy.

Anyway.

So that's do you think this is possible?

This is not just yes? Absolutely absolutely.

Wow, serve over time you retire your five children, you ever just want to hang out with the kids, Yes.

I do.

I do want to hang with the kids. I don't want to retire, but I do want to have with kids. My goal is to retire right for forcenility.

It's a tough you know it.

You know, it's like, yeah, it's like getting hypoxia. You don't like, you don't realize your your decisions suck until you're dead. So so I don't intend to retire, maybe like at eighty or something. And uh, it would be cool to be born on Earth and die Mars.

Yeah, you've said before you want to retire on Mars.

This is more or less feasible.

Well, actually I was asked do I It's more like if I were to retire. It's not like I want to retire, But if I were to retire on the vote of sability, I'd like it to be Onlas.

That would be cool.

It's funny because you're saying earlier that you're slightly more risk taking than Peter. Peter wants to be on a boat that's like an island out somewhere that has no laws.

You want to be on Mars. It is the slightly risky or crazy version.

Yeah, I think Peter entertains a lot of interesting ideas. I'm not sure he necessarily wants to be on an island off shore. I mean, last time I saw him he was in San Francisco. So but I think he likes to He sort of entertains interesting ideas, and he's not bound by convention.

Certainly, that's for sure.

All Right, we want to get some questions from the audience, So we've got a couple of microphones if anyone wants to line up while we're waiting on people.

You're an investor in Stripe.

And very tiny investor, very tiny in vester, and I have no idea what they're doing.

This is the only subject where I know more than you. I talked to them the other day. But would lead me to the question, do you think PayPal is finally screwed?

Well, if PayPal doesn't do something, it will be screwed.

Yes, there has not been a lot of innovation.

No.

In fact, if you look at the product plan that I wrote in two thousand, there's hardly any difference.

In fact, it's slightly worse than that.

I've gone backwards.

Yeah, I payfal should be where all the money is.

Yeah, and it's not.

It's definitely not all right, go ahead.

I first wanted to thank you, Sarah for believing in LA. I was actually up at one of the events in San Francisco, and I think we have two to three times as many people here.

So thank you.

It is the same.

It's actually one hundred people fewer than we fit in our San Francisco venue, but it's sold out the fastest.

So Ben Horwit sold out in about four hours and you sold out in three.

All right, and you have a writer here, Michael, so thank you for believing in LA.

I think we are the only blog with a full time writer.

My question is for you Alon.

First of all, thank you for doing these big things to, you know, improve humanity. I work for Space Adventures when I was in college, and I really believe in the Space Frontier, the abyss, so to speak, the good abyss indeed, But just thinking about LA for a moment, what do you think we can do to improve the ecosystem here in l A.

Well, I think better freeways would be huge. Honestly, I wish there was Like, who do I complain to.

About the freeways? Yeah, somebody's got responsible for it. Yeah, don't do that.

Rather than build jets and hyperloops, than be the mayor of l A.

But I think if somebody could seriously, it's like improving the transport system. That's going to be for anyway, who lives in LA. What's going to be the number one cribe? It's the damn highways.

Sort it up to do that, but no one would fund me. Yeah, any gridlock dot Org.

I'm open to finding someone if they if they want to do the box being thing over the center divider, which would be I mean a regulatory challenge, but I mean I think people you could get people to vote for it. I vote for it in like three seconds, and it's just you got to do it in a way that it doesn't impede the existing traffic flow. And so it's got to be prefabricated sections that just get dropped in place like Lago.

Why did you move to LA Because.

The southern California has the biggest concentration of airspace engineers in the world. Oh, and it was a choice. I mean I lived in the Baria for ten years and lived in Palo Alto. I lived like three blocks away from the PayPal office. That's why PayPal's on University Avenue. Because I lived on Forest. This is really convenient. So I moved down to la just because the odds of success with the rocket company were pretty low to begin with.

Yeah, I want to try to get through as many of these questions as possible. But because we did not have Eline for much longer, so let's ask him real quick and answer real quick.

Okay, all right, okay, A young huge fan of yours, so thank you so much for inspiring young entrepreneurs all over in the world.

Quick question.

One of the area of innovation is in the area of education, right, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on what are some of the ways that we can disrupt or to an area of education.

Right.

Well, what Sebastian Thron is doing and Selma con I mean I think that's really that stuff is really disruptive. Sorry, and so so what Sebastian Thron and and and Connor doing is that that's great stuff sort of online learning, and I think there's a to agree that you can gamify learning. I think that's really helpful. Most you want to make learning not a chore. If if people are drawn to it like they're drawn to video.

Games, then then I think that would really help.

What do you think about Peter's whole getting people to drop out of college?

Then yeah, I think I think going to college is, you know, entirely optional. I mean, it's if you've got to, if you've got a good idea, I'd say drop out and try it out. You know, you always go back to college.

Nobody's always there, all right, HANDA Mercedes have both sort of said to me very clearly they feel hydrogen feel sales in the future. But I believe strongly in batteries.

I know, why do you think there's so much Why do you think they're so committed to hydrogen is like the next step, whereas batteries, I really feel like we can make this happen.

I don't really know, because the math is so super obviously in favor of bad trees that it's like it's like staring facts in the face and saying they're uture if you take the best case scenario for fuel cell and you say, you know, forget about it. It's like, assume it's fully optimized. So you're you're you can you can envelope it from a physics standpoint and say and give it the best case situation.

How does that compare to state of.

The utlithium ion or current current lithium on in production and it loses. So so it's like success is not one of the possible outcomes. Why embark upon that? It's crazy. I think part of it is like that there's they felt for a long time that there was this need to be doing something, and since fuel sales were ten years in the future and always would be, then they could always say they're working on fuel sales and that and that would satisfy people.

Deliver.

Yeah, it test called it. Full cells.

Are great, Goo ahead.

Tay there. My name is Richard Cooper Seen.

I was an early executive at Facebook, where I headed up all of the international business development, corporate development, and strategy, and so you know, thinking big was something that you know, has been a part of my DNA from those days and before, and so as I look at all the things that you've been building obviously it resonates very much. So in order to build the things that you're building, obviously you need sources of capital and you have, you know,

In my case, I find the public markets to be a pretty effective source of capital. It's it's worked out well for for Tasla, and Solar City will probably go public later this year, and so generally you know, so so and and and SpaceX could go public at any point. It's doesn't need space has been capsual a positive for a few years, so it doesn't really need doesn't really need additional capital. It's actually, as far as I'm concerned, I at this point, I do not feel myself to be capital constrained.

But going public is.

More efficient for you than then sort of staying private. You know, thinking about what's been happening in the in the public markets and sort of the gyrations and the need for public closure and all that kind of stuff, you think that's more efficient.

Yeah, I actually don't find it too much of a problem to be to be a public company. And I'm gonna kind of run the private companies like their public companies in terms of you know, having the uh, you know, the appropriate controls in place and mechanisms for effective governance. I don't I don't think it's actually that bad to be a public company. And unless if, if, unless you're gonna sort of get really concerned about the day to

You know that that's the only time it's an issue.

Just you just shouldn't worry about the day to day fluctuations too much.

What do you think about the trend of the dual class shares and this whole idea like being pushed by a recent Horwitz and others have basically you need a fortress to go public.

I think they came somewhere to a dual class. I mean, Tesla has a single class, and and there's there's summer to a dual class. I think it can be taken to a bit of an extreme in some cases where it's a dual class to one class basically doesn't count.

It is.

It does happen, but it's unusual and so, but I mean there are cases where it's been well managed, to say, like with with Ford, like Ford was the only company not to go not to go bankrupt, and what could argue that the Ford family was a stabilizing influence on the company and had more long term thinking and and so, like I said, I think there's merits to having a dual class of ownership as long as it's not taken to an extreme right.

I'm getting a sign that we can only take one more question.

Yeah, I apologe.

I'm actually supposed to be at a screening for a film at about Haiti, and that's actually where I inadvertently went first and.

Why I was so late. But I absolutely have to show up there because so.

I apologize you guys, but you're getting the last one, all right.

So I work in the space industry out here as well, so I appreciate the things you're doing with SpaceX. You tweeted yesterday that you thought we're going to be at Mars and forty years and we haven't been to the moon in forty years, so I was wondering what SpaceX's plan is for that.

Yeah, Actually I was saying that I thought we could conceletedly be Admas around twelve to fifteen years from now, and.

SpaceX is continuing to develop the.

Technology beyond Falcon nine and heavy and on, you know, on paper at least, I think we've got a system that could achieve.

Mas colonization.

There's a long way from having such a system on paper or electronically, really really have it on paper, uh.

And actually making it real.

But it was only maybe a year or two ago, that less than two years ago, that that I concluded that it was possible to have to.

Create a self sustaining civilization on Mars. That's yes.

So I read earlier a quote from you that said that that Mars was just this side of impossible.

Is it further than this side of impossible?

I believe it's possible, just extremely difficult.