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okay
all right all right
i'd like to thank you for leaving crazy
person out of the description
uh so i i thought i tried to think what
what is
the most useful thing that i could what
can i say that could actually be helpful
or useful to you in the future
um and uh i thought perhaps
tell the story of um how i how i sort of
came to be here how did some of these
things happen
and and maybe there's some lessons there
um because i often find myself wondering
how did this happen
um so when i was
young i i i didn't really know what i
was going to do
when i got older people kept asking me
and and um
but but then eventually i thought that
the idea of inventing things
would be would be really cool and
the reason i thought that was because i
i read a quote from
author c clock which said that a um
efficiently
advanced technology is indistinguishable
from magic
and and that's really true if you think
if you go back
say 300 years the things that we take
for granted today
would be you'd be burned at the stake
for
you know being able to fly um that's
crazy
being able to see over long distances
being able to communicate
having um effectively uh
with with the internet a a a group
mind of sorts and having access to all
the world's information
instantly from almost anywhere in the
earth this is
this is stuff that that really would be
magic it would be considered magic
um in times past in fact i think it
actually goes beyond that because there
are many things that we take for granted
today
that weren't even imagined in times past
they weren't even in the realm of magic
so that it actually goes goes beyond
that so i thought well
you know if if i can do some of those
things basically if
if i can advance technology then that
that's like magic and that would be
really cool
um and the the
i also had sort of a slight existential
crisis because i was trying to figure
out
what does it all mean like what's the
purpose of things and
um i came to the conclusion that if if
we can advance
the this the knowledge of the world if
we can do things that
expand the scope and and scale of
consciousness
then we're better able to ask the right
questions
and become more enlightened and and
that's really the only way forward
so uh so
i i studied physics and business because
i figured
in order to do a lot of these things you
need to
know how the universe works and you need
to know how
how the economy works and you also need
to be able to bring a lot of people
together to work with you to create
something because it's very difficult to
do something as
as an individual if it's if it's a
significant technology
so i uh i originally came out to to
california to
uh try to figure out how to improve
the energy density of of
of electric vehicles basically to try to
figure out if there was an advanced
capacitor that that could serve as
an alternative to batteries and that was
in 95
and that's also when the internet
started to happen and and
i i thought well i can either uh
pursue this tech this technology where
success maybe
may not be one of the possible outcomes
which is always tricky
um or uh participate in the internet
and and be part of it so i decided to to
drop out
um obviously unfortunately we're we're
past graduation so i can't be accused of
recommending that to you
and um so so
did some internet stuff um
you know did a few things here and there
um what one of which was paypal um and
and
i think maybe it's helpful to say one of
the things that
was important then in the creation of
paypal was uh was kind of how it started
because
initially the initial thought was with
paypal was to create an agglomeration of
financial services so you have one place
where
all of your financial services needs
would be seamlessly integrated
and and work smoothly and then we had
like a little feature which was to do
email payments
um and whenever we show show the system
off to someone
uh we'd show the hard part which was the
um the agglomeration of financial
services which was quite difficult to
put together
nobody was interested then we'd show
people email payments which was actually
quite easy
and everybody was interested um so
this is uh i think it's important to to
take feedback from your environment
um you know it's it you want to be as
closed loop as possible
and it's so we focus on email payments
and really try to make that work
and and that's what really got things to
take off um
but but if we hadn't if we hadn't
responded to what people said then we
probably would not have been successful
so it's important to look for things
like that
and and focus on them when when you when
you see them and you correct
your prior assumptions and then let's
get to it
um the going from paypal
i thought it will what what are some of
the
the other problems that are likely to
most affect the future of humanity
um it really wasn't from the perspective
of
what's the rancor best way to to make
money
um which which is which is okay but um
it was really what i think is going to
most affect the future humanity so
the i think the the biggest terrestrial
problem we've got
is uh sustainable energy but the
production
and consumption of energy in a
sustainable manner if we don't solve
that this
the sensory is the century we're we're
in deep trouble
um and then the the other one being the
extension of life beyond earth to make
life multi-planetary
um so uh that's that's that's the basis
for
that the latter is the basis for for
spacex and the former is the basis for
tesla and solar city um
and when i started spacex i it actually
initially i thought that well
there's no way one could possibly start
a rocket company i wasn't that crazy
but but then i thought well what is a
way to
increase nasa's budget that was actually
my initial goal
so i i thought well if we can do a
low-cost mission tomorrow something
called mars oasis
which would land seeds with uh with
dehydrate wood with seasoned dehydrated
nutrient gel
and you hydrate them upon landing and
then you'd have this great
sort of money shot of green plants on a
red background
and the the
the public tends to respond to um
precedents and superlatives and this
would be the first life on mars the
furthest that life's ever traveled as
far as we know
and and i thought well that that would
get people really excited and and
and therefore increase at nasa's budget
so so obviously
the financial outcome from such a
mission would probably be zero um
so anything better than that was on the
upside um
so i actually went to i went to russia
three times to look at buying
um a refurbished icbm
because that was the best deal um
and uh i can tell you it was very weird
going there in in 2000
late 2001 2002 going to the russian
rocket forces and saying i'd like to buy
two of your biggest rockets but you can
keep the nuke
that's a lot more and
i missed that was 10 years ago i guess
so
they they they thought i was crazy but
but i did have money so that was
that was okay uh um
and after making several trips to to
russia
i came to conclusion that that actually
uh
my initial impression was was wrong
about
uh because my initial thought was well
that that there's not enough will to
explore and expand beyond
earth and have a mars base and that kind
of thing but i can't conclusion that
that was wrong
in fact there's plenty of will
particularly in the united states
uh because the united states is a nation
of explorers of people who came here
from
from other parts of the world i think
the united states really
a distillation of the spirit of human
exploration
so um but but if people think it's
impossible
then or it's going to completely break
the federal budget then they're not
going to do it
so after my third trip i said okay
what we really need to do here is try to
solve the space transport problem
and uh and started spacex um
and this was against the advice of
pretty much everyone
i talked to my one friend made me sit
down and watch a bunch of videos of
rockets blowing up
let me tell you he wasn't far wrong
i think it was it was tough going there
in the beginning because
i'd never built anything physical i mean
i built like little model rockets as a
kid and that kind of thing but
um i never had a company that built
anything physical so
i figured out how to how to do all these
things and and bring together the right
team of people
and um and and so we
we did all that and and then failed
three times um
it was tough tough going um
because thing about a rocket is that the
the passing grade is 100
and uh you don't get to
actually test the rocket in the real
environment that it's going to be in
so i think so the best analogy for for
rocket engineering is it's like if you
want to create
a really complicated bit of software
um you could you can't run the software
as an integrated hole and you can't run
it on the computer it's intended to run
on
but the first time you put it all
together and write it on that computer
it must run with no bugs
that's that's basically the essence of
it um
so so we missed the mark there um that
the first launch
i was picking up bits of rocket near the
launch site was a bit sad
and uh but we we learned with with each
success of flight
and uh and were able to with uh
eventually with the fourth flight
in 2008 uh reached orbit um
and that was also with the last bit of
money that we had
so um thank goodness uh that that
happened
um i think the saying is fourth time's
the charm
um so that's we got the falcon one tool
but
and then i began to scale that up to
to the falcon 9 which is about an order
of magnitude more
a thrust it's around a million pounds of
thrust
we managed to get that to orbit and then
uh developed dragon spacecraft
which um recently was able to dock and
return to earth from the space station
um that was uh
thanks that was a white-knuckled event
um uh yeah it's a it's a huge relief
i still can't quite believe it actually
happened um
but but there's a lot more that that
that must happen beyond this
in order for humanity to be to become a
space-faring civilization
ultimately um a multi-planet species
um and that's something i think it's
it's it's vitally important and
and i hope um that that some of you will
will participate
in in that either at spacex or at other
companies because it's just really one
of the
the most important things for the
preservation and extension of
consciousness
i mean it's worth noting as i'm sure
people are aware that
the earth has been around for four
billion years
and uh civilization at least in terms of
having
um writing has been around for 10 000
years
and that's been generous um so
it's it's really uh somewhat of a
tenuous existence
that that civilization and and
consciousness as we know it has been on
earth and i think
um i'm actually i'm actually fairly
optimistic about
the future of earth so i don't want to i
don't want to sort of people to have the
wrong impression that i think we're all
about to die
um i think i think we'll i think things
will most likely be okay for a lo for a
long time on earth
but not not for sure but most likely um
um but but even if it's if it's sort of
99
likely one a one percent chance it's
still it's still worth
spending a fair bit of effort to ensure
that we have um we've backed up the
biosphere
you know planetary redundancy if you
will um
and uh and so i think i think it's
really really quite important
um and in order to do that there's a
breakthrough that needs to occur which
is to create a rapidly and completely
reusable um transport system to mars
um which which is one of those things
that's right on the borderline of of
of of of impossible
but that that's sort of the the thing
that we're we're going to try to achieve
there with
with with spacex
and then on the on the tesla front uh
the goal with tesla was really to try to
show that what electric cars
can do because people had the wrong
impression we had to
change people's perception of an
electric vehicle because they
used to think of it as something that
was slow and
ugly and had low range kind of like a
golf cart
and and so that's why we created the
tesla roadster to show that you can be
fast
attractive and long range
and it's amazing how even though you can
show that something works on paper
you know and the calculations are very
clear until you actually have the
physical object and they can
they can drive it it doesn't really sink
in for people
um and so that that i think is is
something worth noting if you're going
to create a company the first thing you
should try to do is create a working
prototype
um you know everything everything looks
great on powerpoint
you can you can make anything work on
powerpoint but if you have
if you have an actual demonstration
article even if it's in primitive form
that's much much more effective for
convincing people
so um so we made the tesla roadster
and now we're coming out soon with the
model s which is a four-door sedan
because after we made the tesla roadster
people said oh sure sure we always knew
you could make a car like that it's an
expensive
car uh and it's low volume and it's
small and all that but you can make a
real car
like okay fine i gotta make that too
so that that's coming out soon um and
um yeah so that that's that's that's the
i think the the the where things are and
and and hopefully that there are some
lessons to be to be drawn there
um but um i i think
the the overarching point i want to make
is that um
you guys are the magicians of the 21st
century
you know um don't let anything hold you
back
imagination is is the limit and
go out there and create some magic thank
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you
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so
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you