Elon Musk | SXSW Live 2013 | SXSW ON

thank you and good afternoon so we have a lot to cover you lend us a lot of things there is at the moment one of his space ships docked to the space station the dragon spaceship this is the third time that's been docked second commercial one it was launched last week many of you may have followed the launch but there was drama you know there were solar panels and all this kind of stuff we could follow it on your Twitter feed yeah what can you just tell us what it's like to be Elon Musk in the control room during a launch when something happens when there's an issue well it's it's extremely nerve-racking I mean it's but the thing about rocket launch is that all of your work is distilled into these few minutes particularly the first several seconds around the liftoff because the worst thing that can happen with a rocket in a touch word is if if if if you have an engine failure or some some huge failure right above the launch pad and the whole thing can come down with about a million pounds of TNT equivalent and destroy the whole launch pad that would be that that's what's going through my mind in case you're wondering yeah that's actually what I'm thinking about yeah so when it clears the lightning towers and it's gotten further enough away from not actually destroying launch pad they're not then it's that's one sort of go down a notch on you know the fear and anxiety and then after first stage separation that's another one and when the second stage lights up so it's sort of you going down in intensity as the rocket is going up and the the thing is that the first three rocket launches that we had failed okay and if the first one failed quite close to the launch pad almost destroyed the launch pad in fact I spent that day picking up rocket pieces off the reef which is which sucks so I think like there's a pretty powerfully ingrained fear response as a result of that because three in a row just you know and but the images those rocket failure is kind of going through my mind as I'm seeing the rocket launch so that's what's going on and then in this case you've made it through the the stage separation but then there was an issue with the solar cells um tell me a little bit how you sort of spotted the problem diagnosed it what's the team do I mean you've got there in the end but how's it work yeah so the solar panels were actually okay but and the rocket launch went went really well so that was not a problem where things kind of winter I was after spacecraft separation we try to initialize the four thruster pods so there's there's four thruster pods with a combined total of 18 engines and that the system is designed with a huge amount of redundancy so it can take all sorts of failures and still complete its mission that's that's the whole way it's been made in fact it can it can work with even if it has only two of the four thruster pods working yeah it can still complete to a mission so three-word working and that would which was a huge puzzle like what why are three not working because these things are crushed prepped so you kind of think that either maybe one wouldn't work or a crushed draft pair wouldn't work but not three it was really really strange so so we have the spacecraft just going through kind of free drift in space like we're just tumbling and and which makes it also it's also difficult to communicate with because the antennas are like pointing you know every which way you can imagine so we had what we had was was a very slight to kill a bit occasional to kill a bit link that would go in and out and and that was an omnidirectional signal beaming off the nasa tigress satellite system so in order to actually improve the the foot we first had to improve the bandwidth so we actually asked the Air Force we can have some of their long-range telemetry scanners can with what they give us access and we have this communication system they would call the mega proxy so we had to recode the mega proxy to go through the airforce long-range dishes to blaster the spacecraft with enough intensity to be able to upload new code to try to fix the problem and so we wrote some new software to essentially precious Lamb the two of the three oxidizer tanks that were refusing to pressurize and it turned out we I think we figure out foam which is that there's a there was a slight change made to a check valve that was in three of the tanks not and on the other they were able to replicate their problem in the ground later and were able to to basically have the have the system build up pressure upstream then release that pressure and slam the valve so we're trying to give it the sort of the spacecraft equivalent of the Heimlich maneuver basically and and then we got one of the pods - that looked like it was making progress and we didn't want to unfold the solar panels until we had at least two pods active so we could we could go from sort of drifting - to an active hold but then the the temperatures of the solar panels which were in these protective covers was propping and it can drop to like almost absolute zero if it's pointing in it's a dog space so it was dropping dropping dropping and we're like the vocation we better release the solar panels otherwise they could literally freeze in place and so we ran a simulation to see what what would what would happen and it's actually slightly beneficial and it's kind like when a skater you know where the skater puts her arms out it slows down pull them in it speeds up so when actually when the the arms went out when the solar arrays we're not it slowed down the rate of rotation actually slightly helped us with maintaining communication with the spacecraft and so then we're able to with with that pressure slam thing get it get it get apart active then it then then a third one and then a fourth one they've got all four working and we're able to continue the mission talk with the space station in fact dragon is currently duck with the space station right now and if all goes well we'll return to Earth and about to we pursue that sounds terrifying I don't wanna go through that again okay you are not just here in in in Austin first South by Southwest but also to meet with the Texas Legislature to talk about possibly a launch base here in Texas tell us more about that yes so right now we put two main launch locations one is Cape Canaveral in Florida and the other is a Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and so that Cape Canaveral is good for kind of eastward launches Vandenberg for southerly launches and we figure we need a third launch site that's kind of a commercial launch site you know it's not good because Cape Canaveral at Vandenberg Air Force bases which is cool and it's obviously there's an important need for Air Force space launch bases as there is for Air Force airports but then there's also a need for commercial airports and just like you wouldn't expect commercial airliners to land at an Air Force Base in a normal course of events it makes sense to have a commercial spaceport and we need to be able to launch eastward and we want to be close to the equator so that basically means the potential States or Virginia through Texas going south Hawaii and Puerto Rico because the other things when you stay on on u.s. territory is rocket technology like we're doing is considered an advanced witness technology so it's very difficult to export that if you will to other countries and anyway so those are our options right right now Texas is arguably the leading candidate but we need certain legislation passed that's supportive of Space Launch and I think it's particularly controversial there one of the things we need for example is we need to be able to close the beach when we're doing a launch and Texas has the open beaches act I was like okay you know we we can't launch if there's someone right right next to the rocket you know on the beach so that's I don't like said I don't think it's a particularly controversial thing it's pretty straightforward and and then and then we kind of need deliver protection for kind of the one in 10,000 person case who complains about the thing like we had this dude who filed a lawsuit against us for our rocket development site in in Central Texas near Waco he's like not even in the same County he's in a neighboring County and he like also thinks like the CIA is listening to his brainwaves so we need like just a little bit of protection for people like that so we don't like spending a ton of time in court because that's basically what we're asking for slightly nothing major and I think it's likely to move forward so I think you know if if things go as expected there's this it's likely that we'll have a launch site in Texas which I think it'd be really cool around when so it depends on how the environmental approvals going away but I think like well if things go well I mean notable nodal of it's in our hands so for assuming that things go as expected you know there'd be a decision this year and it would start construction next year and then and probably the first launches would take place and from there in two to three years terrific yeah so Falcon 9 with a the rocket that launched a dragon is traditional rocket which is to say it's disposable bits but you're essentially you're ultimately focused on reusable robbery's the name of that can you talk a little bit about what's why reusable what's different about reusable and I think you probably have some things to show as well yeah absolutely so reusability is extremely important if you think it's important that humanity extend beyond Earth and become multi-planet species and all that yeah I mean it's super important I thought so I think it's also incredibly obvious common sense like you can imagine watching like Star Trek and then they got a new starship after every every trip that would be pretty silly and and every motor transport that we're used to like cars planes trains automobiles horses bikes they're all reusable and but but not Rockets and if we can't make Rockets reusable the cost is just prohibitive the the like the cost of the fuel and oxygen on a Falcon 9 is 0.3 percent of the cost of the rocket Wow so it's basically it's a very tiny number it's it's very similar to to an airplane so it's how much does it cost to fuel up an airplane and how much does it cost to buy an aeroplane they're very different things so if if we're if humanity's ever to expand beyond Earth and establish a self-sustaining Basin or the planet it's critical that we solve this problem whether it's SpaceX or someone else someone has a solar problem and we can have a hundredfold reduction in the cost of spaceflight so so that's what SpaceX has been trying to do and really that's been the goal since the beginning of the company so so far I've not been very successful in that in that regard so but I think we kind of have a handle on it I think I think we've got a we've got a design that in the simulations in any CAD and so forth it it closes like it should work if we can build that thing it should work and in fact and it may be worth just rolling the reusability videos people have a sense of what I'm talking about I know where that place would find us people in the audience see that all right so what you're seeing here is that the first stage after stage separation the first stage turns around boosts back to the launch pad and then lands propulsively with landing gear it's kind of how often should land that's that's the upper stage this is the this is the quick version of the video obviously and they sing dragon version - so dragon version 2 will land on thrusters with landing gear with the act epic as accurately as a helicopter circling anywhere on earth as with the accuracy of a helicopter one last question about space before we turn to two cars you've talked before about how you decide to get into this you were you founded you know co-founded PayPal you don't really I mean have a physics degree you know something about about you know the underlying mechanics but you didn't have any space experience right you decided I think on a train to go to Mars and decided that you could out-compete NASA or that you could get to Mars you could get to space faster cheaper better than the one of the largest the largest Space Agency in the world how did you get that confidence well I think first I should say maybe give some of a preface to what happened before starting SpaceX in fact the way I sort of got into space was introduced I was really disappointed that we had not sense anyone to Mars that would not progress beyond Apollo and I kept waiting for when we would and it just didn't happen year after year and and so afraid mine asked me about what I wanted to do after PayPal and I said well you know it was curious about space but I don't think about that there was anything I could do do in space and I went to the NASA website to just see when are we going to Mars and I couldn't find find that out I thought maybe it was there but I well hidden or something but so so that then I thought well perhaps this is a question of of will is there sufficient will to do this and in the first idea I came up with was actually to do a philanthropic mission to send a small greenhouse to the surface of Mars with seeds and dehydrated gel that would hydrate upon landing and you'd have this cool greenhouse these green plants on a red background they'll be the money shot and and and then you know people like presidents and superlatives so be the first plant first life on another planet furthest the life's ever traveled and and that would get people excited and you will learn about a lot about what to support earth lands earth plants in a greenhouse on Mars the the whole purpose of that was to get people excited about sending people to Mars and increased NASA's budget so that was my whole goal I was gonna basically torch yeah it it was not had nothing to do with competing with NASA in fact my goal was to increase their budget and and I should say that today NASA is our biggest customer we've got almost 50 launches and about a quarter of those of for NASA but 3/4 3/4 commercial but one quarter NASA and NASA has been incredibly supportive and helpful and we wouldn't be where we are today with that without the help in Asus it really got night through with competing with NASA it's really just about what do we need to do to have an exciting inspiring future in space that that's that's what I think really matters at the end of the day you didn't end up raising the fund the money to pay NASA to the mission you end up doing building your own company and and ideally to do it cheaper than government's good yeah so as able to figure out how to get the cost of the spacecraft and the greenhouse on the communication system way less than it normally would cost for such a thing I got stuck on the rocket and I went to to Russia three times to try to buy a couple of their biggest ICBMs this is about this is in 2001 late 2001 in 2002 it was definitely an interesting experience and I sort of got the feeling I could avoid the nuke - but I don't don't want to go there and then when I go back from the third trip to Russia that that's when I thought okay look even if we do even if we buy these these ICBMs from russia i-i-i i thought i'd i thought my initial supposition was wrong and so what I thought really was that we'd lost the world to explore that we'd lost the world to push the boundary and Anna and in retrospect that was actually a very foolish error because the United States is a nation of explorers the United States is a distillation of the human spirit of exploration it's ludicrous to actually in retrospect - made such an assumption but people need to believe that it's possible and that it's not going to be it's not gonna bankrupt them it's not they're not gonna have to give up something important like health care you know it's going to be a cost that isn't gonna meaningfully affect their their standard of living and I think the United States would absolutely be super super excited about sending people to Mars and people I think a lot of people really wish that that would occur anyway so that was that was what I came to conclusion of and I thought well if if we don't make a difference in the cost of the rocket of the transport system it's all it doesn't matter it's it's not like it's not a question of well it's a question of way and so that's when I came back and started SpaceX but when I started SpaceX there wasn't with the perspective of like we'll just you know take over the world and withwith awesome rockets I don't know what the I was doing I was like clueless I thought the most likely outcome was that we were failed and the first three Rockets did fails and you put all your money into it between Tesla SpaceX and SolarCity : yeah that wasn't the plan at the beginning by the way okay and Peter tail says we don't think big anymore you must have conversations with him about that well you know Peters been a big supporter actually so he's he invested in SpaceX at a very important time in 2008 before we reached over so after a third failure but before our first success so you know big credit to Peter and Luc no stick and the other guys found respond basically my my buddies from PayPal but buddies from PayPal saved my butt you know it's really really good so let's talk about cars many many in the audience may recollect the notorious New York Times review of the Model S yes exactly of the Model S earlier this year yeah and your reaction to that review and The Times reaction to your reaction and and and the effect on your share price and orders and all that sand without rehashing the review or the facts I'd like you to just a post-mortem the entire experience wait do I know can I do a post-mortem without any facts post mortem your reaction okay to the review and what you know put you on the couch and what would you do differently today having seen the way it all played out well I think I think there's one thing I didn't do and maybe still which is to post the the the rebuttal to the rebuttal cuz I I withheld that and waited for the public editor I sent that information to the public editor waited for her to do her thing and she came down kind of on the side of Tesla with respect to the fact that the article was an error but but disagreed upon the motive on the ethics yes and because you impugn both facts and ethics I did yes and and and I think it was I think it was a call it a low-grade ethics violation not like a big one I don't think he thought he was doing anything particularly terrible mm-hmm and I would call it a low grade look great violation and not part of the Jayson Blair you know crazy fabrication variety but I would call it a lower grade it was not in good faith if that that's that's that's an important point and and I probably should have posted that rebuttal to make that clear but I didn't do it that's what I regret so the only change you would make is that the very last bit the rebuttal that you wrote but has not been published you would get maybe I should you would get out there yeah see you would continue to use the same language in the same way I just think the language was inaccurate I really don't you fall you've often said that one of your management techniques one of the secrets of your success is that you listen to need negative feedback yes was the times review not didn't fall into the category of negative feedback I have no problem with negative feedback I have a problem with nor do I have a problem with critical reviews a matter of fun with critical reviews I would spend all my time battling critical reviews there have been hundreds of negative articles hundreds and yet I've only spoken out a few times I I don't have a problem with critical reviews I have a problem with false reviews all right one of the technologies that you had to you know basically develop to near perfection or at least or at least work on hardest was lithium batteries for the electric cars or run on looking batteries safety has always been an issue accidents etc recently Boeing had fires what they're looking at batteries and bees and the Dreamliner is now at a service because of that you volunteered to help the Boeing executives I guess diagnose and redesign yeah can you talk a little bit about what they did wrong what you would have done differently and and what do you think that if the future of you know Boeing and others airline batteries are gonna be sure well first of all on the very front I mean obviously even though SpaceX and Boeing compete on the space side we've no competition on the commercial airliner side and some of the comments that I made about Boeing if somehow be interpreted as an attack on Boeing when it is in fact not an attack on Boeing the the only reason I actually I mean the main reason I should say I offered to help was that there's a friend of mine Richard Branson who's whose airline is suffering as a result of this both him and I on fire and he was mentioning that he's losing hundreds of millions his boards airline is as a result of this was problem I said well I think we could probably help and then he so he said are great well let me connect you with the chief engineer for the 787 I said cool we're happy to help so you know provided some some advice and hopefully that'll be helpful and I said we're also happy to actually do the solution if you want and haven't taken us up on that offer but we were happy to help either in an advisory capacity or to do the solution whatever would result in the 787 getting back to flight sooner we're trying to be productive and helpful so I mean I think in the case of the battery boeing doesn't have a ton of in-house battery expertise so they they outsource the the battery and then you had a whole bunch of kind of nested outsourcing where the answer was the battery system and then and then that got outsourced to another company then to another company and there's a whole bunch of other companies and and you're like four layers deep before you actually got to any hardware and so that resulted and I think and a kind of a breakdown of communication I mean from an architectural standpoint the fundamental issue is that the AI is that I think is that the cells are too big the battery cells are too big and the gaps between the battery cells are not big enough hmm the problem with with a big battery cell is that the thermal pathway is is in a worst-case scenario is very long so you say well if there's a hot spot in the battery can it get its heat out and if it's deep in a cell it can't you can't do that and it's also hard to thermally condition the cells but the life of the pack will be will be dependent upon on the temperature would the average and not the average temperature but the worst temperature at any point in any cell so you want to really even that temperature that's why Tesla is a fan of having lots of small cells and then actively cooling each cell to keep the temperature even and make sure that if hot spots of this develop that's a very short pathway to the cooling system and again and it could you know take care of it and you also want to make sure that it's I'm again quite technical here sorry it's it's passive propagation proof so so if you even if you're active cooling system fails and you get them or run away in a cell that then we run event can't cascade into a neighboring cell so and you get the thermal double domino effect right I mean it's not super complicated so so it just if if you have big cells what big gaps and ideal you what you don't want big cells if you do you want big gaps small cells small gaps I mean so I mean this is this is really important because because I'm the whole thing about this new generation of airplanes that they're light they use composites they use electronics rather than mechanical systems and so electricity drives the whole thing so basically my understanding is that you need lithium batteries in the sky it just doesn't work any other way and your point is it can be done Oh Tony can be done yeah like the themes getting a bit of a bad name here the theme is obviously the way to go maybe people have lithium-ion batteries in their cell phones and their laptops I mean I don't think anyone's panicking here with the fact that they're gonna look in mind battery you know next to a sensitive region of probably of their body you know got it once of just staying on on on power for one last set of questions before we before I return to you your life which seems insane it is the same you're also a chairman of Solar City which I believe is America's largest solar installer you know so space transportation energy picking off the big ones there now you know solar got a bad name over the last few years because of the Solyndra meltdown etc but yeah in my sense the people different are not differentiating between the making of solar cells and using a solar cell right and and the Chinese competition and the glutton of the market on the supply side is what Solyndra what gots Linda in trouble they couldn't compete with the falling prices but you're a consumer of solar cells right so how do you see you know Chinese Chinese competition and sort of the glut of solar solar cells on the market what's that give you I mean I think what China's doing in the solar panel arena is awesome because they're lowering the cost their solar power for the world and they have these huge Giga factories that they created outlet in the Chinese desert and with with a ton of funding from the Chinese government so it's like a giant donation from the tiny Chinese government like thanks that's awesome you know and you know people sort of complain about a Solyndra but I mean obviously anyone who's been involved in the venture world knows that you don't bet a thousand there's some companies that die the only reason we know about cilinders because it became a political football right and I mean there are other solar panel manufacturers are still doing reasonably well but but but it is tough when you're competing I mean I think good rule of thumb was don't is don't compete with China and with a commodity product you know you're really asking for for trouble if you can that in that scenario and and it's really super easy to make fifteen percent efficient or standard efficiency solar panels it's super easy it's like these are the making freakin drywall at this point so it's like does anybody think we should be competing with China in drywall manufacturing okay probably not so so that's the thing so and that the the hard part of Seoul power is not the panel it's actually the whole system it's basically designing something that's gonna fit on particular rooftop because all you have all these heterogeneous rooftops you've got a you've got to mount the system you've got to wire it up to get it connected the inverter is connected to the grid I'm gonna do all the permitting I mean it's a bunch of like thorny unglamorous stupid problems but if somebody doesn't optimize them they're still gonna cost a ton of money and and a lot of them are really not they're not fun problems today they're not you know exciting promise to optimize but but they are the problems that actually matter in the cost of of solar power so it's really more like you know like like a Roofing Contractor than it is I mean what you're doing is you're putting a second roof on a building yeah okay so and you got to do it at scale and then you've got to manage all these systems because there's still some I mean even though the after-sales service is small when you've got like hundreds of thousands of systems best low-light to manage and and so what solar city really is is a giant distributed utility and it's working in partnership with the house in business and in competition with the the big sort of monopoly utility I mean I think it's like literally power to the people okay it's like literally I think it's really awesome because utility just never had any competition before yeah and and now they're like deaf to actually think about the cost of power and they're got better ways to do it and that kind of thing I think it's really great and the credit there is really due to Lyn and Peter I've co-founders I mean I've thrown a few ideas every now and then but mostly it's just about showing up at the board meeting to hear the good news those guys are just doing session or some job so you are CEO and CTO of SpaceX so not just running the company Bergersen chief technology officer as well yeah you are CEO and chief product designer for Tesla so not just running the company but designing the cars yeah and you're chairman of Solar City right what is your life like it's it's very busy and I'd actually like to take it down just to Scrooge honestly because they're all they're always I mean these things that the last few years have been really really great but then there were a number of years that suck horribly and I'd like to just not have it be so extreme and like last year was a year of great achievement but honestly I didn't have that much fun it sucked I didn't have that much fun um when year's resolution was to have a little bit more fun this year so hey I'm it's off myself with ya and you have five children dude they're awesome kids are awesome by the way you guys should all have kids kids are great how much do you see them III didn't see them enough actually but but I what I find is that I'm able to be with them and still be on email because they don't need like constant interaction except when we're talking directly so I find I can be with them and still be you know working at the same time but I are you think you can do email while you're with your children yeah absolutely sure Wow we got all the time but a lot of the time that's why I tend to have a phone you can sort of you do email in in interstitial moments in the absence of that I would not be able to get my job done well that's impressive we are I have five children I can't do email while I'm with my children it's not the children and it's really not good for the email I do have to have a nanny there otherwise they'll kill each other so yeah um we are going to turn to audience questions at this point just a reminder that if you tweet your questions to hashtag ask musk there's a team in the back that will be selecting the other ones that we have already covered and it seemed interesting and I get them in front maybe you can see them as well so us the first one from David solace yes when it comes to researching analyzing entrepreneurial opportunity how do you go about qualifying or legitimizing presumably the idea well I'm not sure I'm the best guide here because things that I've chosen have not been up to I've not been trying to optimize on a risk-adjusted return basis so there are like I would not say that I went into the rocket business the car business or the solo business thinking that it's a it's a great opportunity I just thought that that something needed to be done in in these industries in order to make a difference and that's why I did it so but in general I do think it's worth thinking about like what you whether what you're doing is gonna result in disruptive change or not if it's just incremental it's unlikely to to be something major it's got to be something that's substantially better than than what's gone on before that Q's up our next question really well this is from a Craig look Legree's space automotive finance energy you've disrupted major industries what would you do if you had a free rein over education well I think that the way that we currently do education is is wrong and we're when you see something like the Khan Academy and so I think that's probably going in the right direction I mean generally you want education to be like as close to a video game as possible like a good video game like you do not need to tell your kid to play video games they will play video games on autopilot all day so if you can make it interactive and engaging then then you can make education far more compelling and far easier to do so I think that's how it should be and it shouldn't be that you got like these grades where people move in lockstep and so everyone goes through you know goes like normally you will go through English math science and so forth from like fifth grade to sixth grade to seventh grade like it's an assembly line but but people are not objects on an assembly line that's a ridiculous notion people learn and are interested in different things at different paces so you really want to disconnect the whole grade level three of the thing from the subjects allow people to progress at the fastest pace that they can or interested in in each subject it seems like a really obvious thing I mean I think like most teaching today is a lot like vaudeville where and it's and as a result just not that compelling it's like somebody's standing up there and lecturing to you and they've done the same lecture several years in a row they're not necessarily all that engaged or in doing it and you compare that to say Batman The Dark Knight okay and they but like the world's best special effects you've got the world's best director screenwriter multiple cuts amazing you know editing and and and and and and that's amazing but but I imagine if instead you had like the local town aspiring actor do the one-person play version of that that would not be compelling yeah do you agree with Peter Thiel about the unnecessary nests of university higher education I don't actively I do agree with Peters a point that a university education is often unnecessary that's not to say it's unnecessary for all people but I think you've probably learn about as much but the vast majority what you're gonna learn there in the first two years and most of it is from your classmates because you can always buy the textbooks and just read them like nobody stopping you from doing that or go online oh go online so now for a lot of companies they do want to see the completion of the degree because they're looking for someone who's going to persevere and see it through to the end and that's actually what's important to them so it really depends on what somebody's goal is if the goal is to start a company I would say no point in finishing college in my case I had to otherwise I'd get kicked out of the country yeah so that was important but although you went on and got a master's degree as well right I I came out to Silicon Valley to do a PhD at Stanford in Applied Physics and material science to work on ultra capacitors for used in electric cars and that's what I was going to do and then I started put that on hold to start a company but since I already had my under undergrad I could then get an h-1b visa and I can I think so h-1b visa requires a degree but other than that I would have if that wasn't the case I probably would have just stopped education sooner did you not go to Wharton for yeah yeah the dual undergraduate physics and business at Wharton I say yeah but it was undergrad but not masters understood another question from the audience to Dan Griffiths fill on the blank you will be disappointed if blank does not happen in your lifetime well probably the most thing I've disappointed us if if humanity doesn't land on Mars in my lifetime I'd be really disappointed that would be you know that probably my biggest disappointment and yeah I think I think that's the thing I'm most concerned about because because we're at this or obviously that's what SpaceX is working on so I'm not trying to be self-serving here but it's just I kind of worry that we've hit this if I don't know whether our technology level will keep going or subside and for the first time in four and a half billion years the technology level is at the point where we can extend life to another planet make life multiplanetary and I I think it's too easy to take for granted that it's going to stay above that level and if it doesn't and it falls below that will it return who knows you know the Sun is gradually expanding and in about you know roughly 500 million years maybe a billion years at the outside the oceans will boil and and then we know no meaningful life on Earth I mean might be like some you know chemo trove sort with or ultra-high temperature bacteria or something but nothing that can make a spaceship and and that's it like if you think it's like maybe it's the five million time frame that's only a ten percent increase in the life of lifespan of Earth so if if if humanity had taken an extra ten percent longer to get here it wouldn't have gotten here at all yeah and so far we haven't seen any signs of life from other worlds that we have we haven't detected anything I hope yeah hopefully we do and hopefully it's not a warship coming towards us but I just think that that's the thing that really concerns me we need to get this done and then that is the best thing we can do to ensure the continued existence of humanity so that's why I would say that's the most important thing do you personally do you personally want to step foot on Mars I do personally want to step foot on Mars but honestly I would be doing this even if there was no even if I knew there was no chance of me going to Mars because I think blech said it I think it's just important that we are in a path to getting there so I would like to go at some point I'll go if I'm certain that SpaceX will be fine without me and that that path will continue that may have heard me some people may have heard the joke I made before which is like you know I I wouldn't have to be I would like to die on Mars just not on impact not the question from the audience that we just we just lost lost that one there was like I don't remember who would ask this question but the question was which when I mean which do you think is going to have more impact on the world SpaceX or Tesla well I think if we look back or with historians if I would look back on the impact of Tesla in many years from now I think it would be that Tesla hopefully the Tesla advanced the advent of sustainable transport by something like a decade maybe maybe two decades but I do think electric cars are inevitable in fact I think all modes of transport will go fully electric with the ironic exception of rockets and so that's that's what I think and then for Solar City perhaps something similar on the energy production side sustainable energy production then for SpaceX hopefully SpaceX to both develops the technology necessary to transport large numbers of people and cargo to Mars and I mean I think that's you know a bigger impact but or other the what so city and and tears are about are solving what I think is the most pressing terrestrial concern which is this sustainable production and consumption of energy for helping solve it I mean they have many people solving it and then what SpaceX is about is helping solve the biggest non-terrestrial problem which is the extension of life beyond Earth so that those are how I see it we have two related questions one that's no longer on the screen but and another one that is that the first was what was the best advice you ever got and the second and you've maybe can join them in your answer is you mentioned working with your friends Peter Thiel and Richard Branson who influences and inspires you sure well I I'm inspired by a lot of historical figures like one of my favorite guys is Ben Franklin you know I think he's you know he's a really good guy I mean he was a scientist and he also I mean it worked in obviously publishing and the political sphere but it kind of like he's just thought about like what are the problems that need to get solved and worked on those names justic seemed like a good guy all around sorry I like him and and I like just historical figures like in science and literature and I'm gonna huge fan of Churchill and and obviously like Tesla we named Tesla after Nikola Tesla better than most murders you know and I actually haven't named any product or company after myself but but that maybe gives a sense of like I've I think like Tesla is someone who deserves a lot of recognition and sorry what was their well they're all dead I don't any yeah I mean I think there's a friend of mine a Larry Page I think what Larry's doing and Sergey at Google I'm really admire what they've done I think most he's recently dead but Steve Jobs Peters or in Maya Steve Jobs I think Jeff business is doing some great things among others competing with you yes but that's a good thing in fact every time I see Jeff is list I say why aren't you doing more in space yeah yeah yeah the other half the question was the best advice you've ever got best advice I ever got well I think the you know the physics training is a very good training where it's a good framework for reasoning we you're trained to think about first principles and reason from there and that means boiling things down to the most fundamental truths and then connecting those truths in a way to try to understand how reality is because you know physics has this problem where they're trying to figure out things that are totally counterintuitive and so they had to have a framework for forgetting they're like quantum mechanics is incredibly counterintuitive but it's true and so you had so the physics developed a framework for figuring out things that aren't obvious and that's why I think it's it's it's a lot of advice but it's it's it's the right framework and then just in general critical thinking is good you know examining whether you have the correct axioms are the most applicable axioms does the logic necessarily connect and then what are the what are the range of probable outcomes outcomes are usually not deterministic they're they're they're a range and so you want to figure out what those probabilities are and make sure ideally that you're the house you know it's fine to take it's fine to it's fine to gamble as long as you're the house and you know and the so that is is to listen to critical feedback which we alluded to earlier voice oolitic solicit critical feedback particularly from friends because generally they will be thinking it but they won't tell you the question here from a Giles of songs any news or development on your Hyperloop idea and you might explain what your Hyperloop idea is haha well what I've said is that I'm putting the Hyperloop stuff on hold until I get Tesla to profitability because I think if I was an investor in Tesla and they heard me sort of spouting off about the Hyperloop before I got the company profitable they were like hey you know go go do it go do your job so that's what I'm doing I think once Tesla isn't it you know has been profitable maybe for at least for a quarter maybe two quarters then I'll I'll talk about the Hyperloop I think it could be an interesting way to I mean it would be interesting way to travel really quickly from one city to the next quickly explain just in one sense what a Hyperloop is huh well it would be something that would be let's say twice as fast as a plane at least in terms of total transit time maybe a little faster it would be immune to weather incapable of crashing pretty much unless there's like a terrorist attack and the ticket price would be like I would say half that of a plane so it'd be better in every way train of some sort though it's kind of it's it's not exactly a train it would be a different it would be a new mode of transportation that doesn't currently exist terrestrial terrestrial yeah okay underground above-ground could go either a kind of subway perhaps I think it's I think it's the capital cost to be less if it's mostly about ground but you can go underground to all right maybe last question what's the biggest mistake you've ever made and this is from Alexi Hill was the biggest mistake you've ever made and how did you move forward looking back was it really that big a deal biggest mistake I've made lots of mistakes some of them were pretty big I mean it's hard to say because things have worked out pretty well in the end so how how big of a mistake could it have been as the question is really really asking you know I did lots of dumb things in my first company and at PayPal and you know I think I think sometimes yeah I don't know there's so many I like God I'm hard pressed to say this is this is the biggest one you know this one or two okay first okay sure so they're the biggest mistake in general that I've made I'm trying to correct for that is to put too much of a weighting on somebody's talent and not enough on their personality and I've made that mistake several times in fact then I would say like gee I mean I'm not gonna make that mistake in then it would make it a game and and I think it actually matters whether somebody has a good heart it really does and I've made them I've made the mistake of thinking that sometimes it's just about the brain on that heartfelt note we're done thank please join me in thanking you you

Channel: SXSW

Views: 63,013

Rating: 4.9110212 out of 5

Keywords: Sxsw, “South By Southwest”, South, By, West, Southby, Southwest, Fest, Festival, Austin, Texas, Conference, Lineup, Keynote, Speaker, Panel, Interview, Music, Film, Movie, Interactive, EDU, Tech, Technology, Gaming, Video Games, Media, Entertainment, News, Business, Training, Creative, Entrepreneur, Development, ACL, CES, TED, Talk, Comic Con, Red Carpet, Live, Performance, Showcase, Concert, TV, Television, 2018, 2019

Id: LeQMWdOMa-A

Length: 54min 43sec (3283 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 10 2015