Everyone in this room is inspired by you,
who are you inspired by? Well Kanye West obviously... The boost stage, which is about
70% of the cost of rocket, so that would..... What cost is that, how much is that? Uhm, well, I mean
it's sort of on the order of ... 30 to 35 million dollars? Right. So you want to
save that. Yeah, I mean it's like I try to tell my team, it's like imagine there was
a pallet of cash that was falling through the atmosphere and it was gonna
burn up and smash into tiny pieces, would you try to save it?
Right, right, right. Probably yes! Yes, okay Yeah, that sounds like a good idea! We need some volunteers to be colonists, do we have any colonists volunteers here, for Mars? I'm...Actually not many hands raised, by the way... We saw the movie.. we saw what happened.He got back!
Yeah...yeah so I actually enjoyed the movie Uhm so...
Do you think he could have
gotten back like that, was that plausible? I thought there was some...the
connection, it was most... It was most, it was like 80% scientifically correct. They did connect a series of improbable events
Such as? Well, I mean I don't
think you can sort of just take off from Oz on an unguided rocket really and, and
then prick your finger on the spacesuit and navigate to a to a spaceship...right? Not impossible just extremely unlikely... Do you think there is other intelligent life outside there? It seems probable but
I think this is one of the great questions in physics and philosophy is
"Where are the aliens?" Maybe they're among us, I don't know. Some people think I'm an
alien.
Not true! Not true... But maybe we are alien!
Of course I'd say that, wouldn't I?
But maybe we are alien! What is this, the largest
rocket, the largest building, I mean .... Well I mean I think this it's not scale
for scales sake, it's just like if you say "well, we want to accomplish these
goals", then you kind of have to be/ make a big thing.
Okay! Should (we) tax things
that are most likely to be bad rather than... you know, like that's why we tax cigarettes and alcohol..Uhm 'Cause those are probably bad for you. Certainly cigarettes are....Yeah ...like more should really have great bars,
uhm, the Mars bar...
Sorry! ..easy car to have a stereo drive, particular on the 405...
So, but I understand when you got it..
Yeah... you're driving down to 80, and you wrecked it.
No. Uhm, well... and you... let me just
tell the story and then you can correct it.
Ok, alright.
Cause the story is great and i think it's true. Let's see if the story that you tell is actually... how does that, how that compares to the reality,
because the reality is pretty messed up! So the reality is better!
So, you wreck the car, you get out of the car, you're doubling over with laughter,
Really? and the person 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 is correct. How do you plan a business
when you know the rocket business, you know some of these things are gonna blow up on the launch pad? How does the business plan work? I don't really have a business plan! The plane thing is not a good idea in my view
the... so the
plane, and the reason I guess like,... intuitively it seems like a plane should
work but actually if you consider that really every mode of transport has
a design that is appropriate to its medium, and if you're in space wings are
not very useful, because there's no air Uhm... and then if you want to go
somewhere other than Earth there's also no runways uh-huh!
So this is, these are important considerations Going back to Mars, what kind of government do you envision for the first martian colony? ...and what's your title?
Yeah, yeah, exactly! "Emperor" or "God Emperor", I don't know it might be too much, I don't know... ... after you watch my jokes here,
not everyone gets irony, you know... Remember, must remember! What would be your mediocre superpower? Now this is absurd to ask you, because Tony Stark partially modeled that for you, so you actually are, sort of have real... Tony doesn't technically
have a superpower, he, I guess, except, like inventing technology, or something.
Right. so I'm sort of asking you to downgrade from that.
So an example of a mediocre superpower
would be one of the best things you've ever gotten, is this guy who wished
temporarily detach his arm while spooning with a girl. That's what he wants to do
with a girl? That's awesome! ..But how do, I mean on a regular day for you
or are you sleeping, you're not sleeping a lot, right? Whoa, Jeez, do I look that bad? Yeah, I actually met a better woman I dated briefly in
college, who now works at Scientific American as a writer and she related the anecdote
that we were on a date, I was, all I was talking about was electric cars,
that was not a big... a winning conversation So it was a bit of a monologue was it?Yeah, she said the first question I asked her was "Do you ever think about
electric cars?"
No, she never does. So, you've learned from that, that wasn't the best chat outline.
Yeah, it wasn't great. But recently it's been more effective. There you go! I love your smile! ...when we talked, I remember
when you first told me that you were thinking about tunnels and...
When did I first tell you about that?
Years ago. Ok, it's like a long time ago. I thought you were joking
Yeah it was, I was joking, but... Young people globally want to be
like Elon Musk. What's your advice for them? I think that probably they shouldn't want to be...
You? I think it sounds better than it
is...
Okay. Yeah, it's not as much fun being me as you'd think, I don't know ....
You don't think so?
Nope. This definitely... it could be worse for
sure, but it's I...I'm not sure I would... I'm not sure I want to be me.
Okay. ...Silicon Valley: accurate or not accurate?
The show?
Yeah. Uhm, the... it starts to get very accurate around episode four. So it took a few episodes to kind of, get grounded.
The first few episodes struck me as Hollywood making fun of Hollywood's idea of Silicon Valley, which is like, not...you know, not on point, but then by about the fourth or fifth episode season one it really starts to get good and then by
season two it's amazing. In fact reality, the truth, is
stranger than fiction. All the crazy stuff you see in that show, "Silicon Valley", the reality is way crazier than that. (song) Won't you stay a while? Is there a parallel with how you build
companies in that story?
I hope not! Let's see what this thing can do?
Yeah that would be... Uhm...yeah, what's this?
That could be awkward with a
rocket launch. ...and we were funding the company from merchandise sales, so thank
you for anyone who's bought a flamethrower! You will not be sorry, or
maybe you will! It won't be boring! (song) Come with me where moonbirds hits the sky and he's a designer so he's good at some of the styling of the cars, But he thinks it's all about styling.
And it ...and it's not. You know it's really... this is... you know, the reason we don't have electric cars is not for lack of styling. Right We were first talking about the concept,
you know tunnels feel like a resolutely old-school solution to approach...
That I invented tunnels... Are you now like "Fuck no, I am not starting another
company"? or are you still thinking that? Yes, that's how I feel...that is That picture at the end is a picture
of one of the circuit boards inside the Roadster, right?
Yeah... We tried to confused
the aliens as much as possible (song) ...moonbeams meet the sky, and you and I will walk the by on by, by on by... Well this is really winning!
There is already part two but this is good also :)