Interview with AUTO BILD
Questions on ElonsFAQ asked in this interview (3)
Transcript
0:00Interviewerthat water?
0:02Elon MuskThat is water. I mean that's tastes like water.
0:05InterviewerBut your favorite drink is diet.
0:07Elon MuskWell, I mean Diet Coke is good. There's something that they put in that stuff that is, you know, you never get sick of it for some reason, you know.
0:18InterviewerHave you counted?
0:19Elon MuskIt's some infernal ingredient.
0:20InterviewerHow many cones you. Your bottles you. You have a day?
0:24Elon MuskWell, I mean I'm trying to cut down these days. So maybe from where to where? I mean there was probably times when I had like eight a day or something ridic.
0:32Elon MuskBut I think these days it's probably one or two. So it's not too crazy.
0:36InterviewerOkay.
0:37Elon MuskAnd coffee usually two a day, not so much. I mean not really. But yeah, I used to have so much coffee and diet Coke that I'd get really wired and then I'd get over caffeinated and it wouldn't be good.
1:05Elon MuskYeah. So anyway, I'm cutting down to I think more reasonable portions these days.
1:12InterviewerI think you drink so much coffee or Diet Coke because you work so many hours every day. How many hours do you work? How looks a normal day in the Life of Elon Musk?
1:25Elon MuskLike. Well, it's really varied quite a bit over time. So these days that's probably 80, 85 hours a week. For a while it was over 100 hours a week.
1:41Elon MuskAnd that's just too. That's a very high amount of pain. So it's, you know, the difficulty in pain of work hours really increases exponentially. It's not linear. So. But when, you know, the financial crisis hit in 2008.
2:02Elon Musk2. You know, it was just every day, seven days a week, you know, morning till night and dream about work. So it was terrible.
2:15InterviewerAnd at that time there were bad dreams, I guess.
2:17Elon MuskBad dreams indeed. Yes. Yeah.
2:22InterviewerAnd at what time do you get up normally in the morning?
2:25Elon MuskFor me it's usually about seven.
2:28InterviewerSeven. Okay.
2:29Elon MuskBut I go to bed late, so usually it's I go to bed around 1am or so. 1am yeah.
2:36InterviewerAnd you day with a real breakfast or just with a coffee or with water?
2:41Elon MuskYou know that also varies a lot. I think it's probably true that having a good breakfast is a good idea, but usually I don't have time for that. So sometimes it's made for me, but probably half the time I don't have any breakfast.
2:59Elon MuskI'll have coffee or something like that
3:01Co-interviewerand a Mars bar with it.
3:03Elon MuskMars bar, sure. Well, I'm trying to cut down on sweet stuff, but I think, I mean I think I probably should have like an omelette and a coffee or something like that.
3:16Elon MuskThat seems like probably the right thing. And sometimes I do have that.
3:19InterviewerAnd for lunch. Is there lunch?
3:21Elon MuskYeah, yeah. Lunch is usually served to me during a meeting and I finish it in five minutes.
3:27Co-interviewerWhoa. Okay.
3:28Elon MuskYeah, I know, it's a bad habit.
3:31InterviewerDinner.
3:34Elon MuskDinner is where the calories really come into play because if I have dinner meetings, like dinner meetings are the worst because then, you know, eat enough for like two people in those things because you have the appetizer and the main course and all that stuff.
3:46Elon MuskSo business dinners are like the thing that really, you know, where I probably eat way too much.
3:55InterviewerBut you don't have problems with your weight?
3:59Elon MuskI certainly could be slimmer, I think.
4:05Co-interviewerDo you work out then? Do you sports?
4:08Elon MuskI work out once or twice a week. I mean, well, yeah, yeah, once or twice.
4:15Co-interviewerYou should.
4:16Elon MuskI should do it more often, for sure.
4:18InterviewerWhat are you doing?
4:19Elon MuskYou run through the forest or run through the forest? No, usually just like a little bit on the treadmill or on lifting some weights, I suppose.
4:36InterviewerLet's come to my questions. I have here, which is just 122, I guess, how much musk is in Tesla and.
4:45Elon MuskAnd hyperloop is 100% you or of course, definitely not. I mean, I certainly have a strong influence, but I mean, there are many people at the companies. So SpaceX has 4,000 people now.
5:01Elon MuskTesla, we just passed 10,000 people today. So there's a lot of people that have had a huge influence on building company or companies. More of an influence than anyone else.
5:14Elon MuskBut it is a big team effort from a lot of talented people.
5:18InterviewerYes, you look for a CEO in former times for Tesla and for SpaceX
5:24Elon Muskalso not for SpaceX, but no. The plan I had when we created Tesla was I thought I would allocate maybe 20 or 30% of my time to Tesla. And then for SolarCity, I figured 5%, 10% of my time, that kind of thing.
5:45Elon MuskSolarCity turned out to be true. In fact, even better than that. Probably takes me less than 5% of my time on Silver City. Tesla ended up being much more.
5:55Elon MuskAnd unfortunately the first CEO didn't work out. And then I got sort of a temporary. I mean, I really tried pretty hard not to be the CEO. Like I could have been the CEO from day one.
6:10Elon MuskPeople maybe sometimes don't realize that, but I just wasn't able to find the right person. And in the case of SolarCity, there's like a great team that runs it, but it's really hard to find Someone who can grow a company.
6:32Elon MuskRunning a company in steady state is much easier than growing a company.
6:41Elon MuskAnd then with Tesla, as people joined the team and investors would. People joining the team and investors would asked me, okay, well how long am I going to be CEO?
6:55Elon MuskAnd so I said, well, I'm committed to be CEO through the high volume production vehicle.
7:01InterviewerSo two more years at least.
7:04Elon MuskProbably three or four. Three or four years, yeah. But at that point I would then have to consider what makes sense and I would, I mean I will never leave Tesla ever.
7:19Elon MuskBut I, you know, may, may not be CEO forever. I mean nobody should.
7:25InterviewerDo you have somebody in mind who could do the job already?
7:28Elon MuskNo, Worldwide, there's no plans or anything like that right now. Our plan is just to for sure a VCO through the Model 3 volume production of the Model 3 and the Gigafactory and then evaluate.
7:48InterviewerYes. And Model 3 is still the price you want to have. $30,000.
7:53Elon MuskThat's the challenge. 30, $35,000.
7:58InterviewerAnd the same in euro, I guess for the European market.
8:01Elon MuskWell, it might be less if. Yeah, depends on what the exchange rate is, of course. So it's always a bit tricky. Like in the US the prices are quoted before sales tax and of course in Europe it's with VAT and there's a 20% VAT and all that stuff.
8:18Elon MuskSo probably would be more like €30,000 or a little bit less than that. And it should be on the market
8:26Interviewerin two years time.
8:28Elon MuskI'd say. Three.
8:29InterviewerTwo, three from now.
8:30Elon MuskYeah. Okay. Yeah.
8:34Co-interviewerComing back to you, looking for a CEO, apart from CEOs, when you hire people, what kind of skills do you want them to have? Are there any, do you look at a list and people, how do you decide that?
8:50Elon MuskWell, I mean when I interview somebody, I really just ask them to tell me the story of their career and what, what are some of the tougher problems that they dealt with, how they dealt with those and how they made decisions at key transition points.
9:13Elon MuskAnd usually that's enough for me to get a very good gut feel about someone. And what I'm really looking for is evidence of exceptional ability. So did they face really difficult problems and overcome them?
9:32Elon MuskAnd then of course you want to make sure that if there was some significant accomplishment, were they really responsible or was somebody else more responsible? And usually the person who's had to struggle with the problem, they really understand it and they don't forget if it was very difficult.
9:48Elon MuskSo you can ask them detailed, very detailed questions about it and they'll know the answer. Whereas the person who was not truly responsible for that accomplishment will not know the details.
10:00Co-interviewerWhich college or which university?
10:04Elon MuskIt's not. There's no need even to have a college degree at all, or even high school. I mean, if somebody graduated from a great university, that may be an indication that they will be capable of great things, but it's not necessarily the case.
10:23Elon MuskYou know, if you look at, say, people like Bill Gates or Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, these guys didn't graduate from college, but if you had a chance to hire them, of course that would be a good idea.
10:37Elon MuskSo, you know, just looking just for evidence of exceptional ability, and if there's a track record of exceptional achievement, then it's likely that that will continue into the future.
10:50InterviewerWhat does people like you and Steve Jobs have in common, or Bill Gates or people like that? What is it you have in common with them?
11:00Elon MuskWell, I mean, those are pretty different personalities, you know, between Gates and Jobs and Ellison. I think all three of those were technologists, but with different types of skills.
11:16Elon MuskJobs was obviously very good with aesthetics, and he answered technology, of course, and he really answered what people wanted, even when they didn't know themselves. And he was not afraid to break boundaries.
11:35Elon MuskBut say Gates would probably be better at. At sort of raw engineering and technology than Jobs, but not as good on aesthetics. But I mean, for all these guys, they're obviously very driven and they're very talented and, yeah, and they're able to attract great people to build a company.
12:03Elon MuskBut the ability to attract and motivate great people is critical to the success of a company, because a company is just. That's a group of people that are assembled to create a product or service, that's the purpose of a company.
12:19Elon MuskPeople sometimes forget this elementary truth. And so if, you know, if you're able to get great people to join the company, work together towards a common goal, and sort of have a relentless sense of perfection about that goal, then you will end up with a great product.
12:41Elon MuskAnd if you have a great product, lots of people will buy it, and then the company will be successful. Really, it's pretty straightforward, really. I mean, yeah, that's the reason for it.
12:52InterviewerYou have a lot of talents. Is there any talent you would like to have you don't have singing, dancing, music? I don't know what you.
13:01Elon MuskWell,
13:08Elon MuskI mean, I suppose I'd like to play a musical instrument. That'd be cool. I can whistle.
13:14InterviewerYou can whistle?
13:15Elon MuskI can whistle.
13:17InterviewerWhat is your favorite song to whistle?
13:23Elon MuskI kind of have, like a whole bunch of Songs that kind of randomly. I just whistle randomly. Please don't ask me to whistle because that's like, you know, I mean, I can whistle, but like, it's.
13:33Elon MuskThis is like, yeah, maybe not the coolest instrument to play. Yeah, I can whistle Pachelbel's cannon, which is a tricky one.
13:47InterviewerReally.
13:48Elon MuskYeah. I'm not going to whistle for you now because that would be too embarrassing. Okay, well, it's good to know.
13:57InterviewerMaybe we plan something for Berlin.
14:00Elon MuskOh, man.
14:01InterviewerNo, no, no, don't worry, don't worry. We want to move on to. How would you describe yourself? What are the main attributes you have from your.
14:14Elon MuskHow I describe myself.
14:21Elon MuskWell, I mean, I seem to have a high innate drive and that's been true even since I was a little kid, you know, really had a very strong drive.
14:42Elon MuskDid all sorts of risky things when I was a kid that I like. Why did I do those things? They're crazy. But. So I think that's very helpful. And.
14:58Elon MuskI care a lot about the truth of things and trying to understand the truth of things. So I think that's important. If you're going to come up with some solution, then the truth is really, really important, I think.
15:18Elon MuskAnd yeah,
15:30Elon MuskI try to think of. I mean, it's difficult to obviously come up with, like, things that are praised for oneself, you know, or like. And there's bad and good here.
15:39Co-interviewerBut.
15:50Elon MuskI think sometimes they're just like the things that seem quite clear and obvious to me and I don't understand why they aren't so obvious to everyone.
16:08Co-interviewerSo would you describe yourself as fearless? I mean, are there areas when you seek people for advice and you do people who you ask for?
16:18Elon MuskI wouldn't say I'm fearless. In fact, I think I feel fear quite strongly. But if what we're doing is. If what I'm doing, I think is important enough, then I just override the fear.
16:34Elon MuskBut it's not as though I feel more strongly than I would like.
16:39Co-interviewerAnd in which areas will you never go full risk if you still are feared? Full?
16:46Elon MuskWell, it really depends on the stakes. If the stakes are high, if it's really important, then one should. Then we'll overcome the fear and just do it anyway. Essentially.
17:01Elon MuskI mean, drive overrides fear, but I feel the fear. It's kind of annoying. I wish I felt it less. So, yeah, all these introspective questions are interesting. I don't get asked these very often and then I'm trying to think what is an accurate reply.
17:29Elon MuskSome of these. It's hard to evaluate yourself on these things.
17:34InterviewerWhich company you founded was the most risky at the start?
17:40Elon MuskWell, probably SpaceX, I thought, had the lowest chance of success. I mean, I thought both Tesla and SpaceX would fail at the beginning.
17:50InterviewerYou saw it?
17:51Elon MuskYeah, sure.
17:52InterviewerReally?
17:53Elon MuskOf course.
17:53InterviewerBut nevertheless, you put all your money in that.
17:56Elon MuskI expected to lose it. Well, technically, basically what I thought was, well, I'll take half the money from PayPal and if I lose half of it, that's okay. But then, of course, the companies encounter difficulties and then I have a choice of either let the company die or put all the money into the companies.
18:19Elon MuskAnd so I really didn't want the companies to die, so I put all the money in the companies and then had to borrow money from friends to pay living expenses.
18:29Elon MuskYes.
18:30InterviewerAnd what went through your mind at the end of 2008 when the last force and the last rocket started, were your thoughts?
18:40Elon MuskIt was a terrible time. Yeah. Everything was going wrong at once. Three rocket failures in a row in the beginning. And the Tesla financing round was falling apart, or fell apart.
18:55Elon MuskThe Solar City was having difficulties getting divorced. It was really terrible. So I was very sad.
19:06InterviewerBut then everything was perfect when it was in space.
19:12Elon MuskYeah. At the end of 2008, the fourth launch worked, which is. That was all the money we had, but nothing more. In fact, originally I budgeted, I thought, okay, we can do three survive three failures.
19:27Elon MuskSo take like, we just barely barely scraped together enough to do a fourth launch. And then at the end of 2008, we got a big NASA contract, literally in December 23rd, I think it was.
19:43Elon MuskYeah. So it went from, like, really terrible to. I remember that Sunday before Christmas in 2008, thinking like that, this is the closest I've ever come to a nervous breakdown.
19:59Elon MuskI never thought I would ever be someone who could have a nervous breakdown. And I didn't. I mean, but it was like I could see it. Like, I could.
20:07Elon MuskI was within sight of it. It's like, this sucks. This is terrible. And then the next morning, NASA called and said that we'd won this one and a half billion dollar.
20:19InterviewerThe next morning.
20:20Elon MuskYeah, the next morning. Literally, I was at home and I thought they'd all gone home for the holidays. I didn't think I would have said there was no chance of a call a few days before Christmas.
20:35Elon MuskI thought people would be on vacation and that kind of thing. Yeah.
20:40Co-interviewerSo what went through your mind when I called you? How do you feel?
20:43Elon MuskThat was awesome. I was like, I actually said to the NASA guys that I love You. I don't think they've gotten that response before. So that was the Monday morning and then I think it was the Tuesday night or the Wednesday night was when we closed the financing round for Tesla and that was like 6pm on Christmas Eve.
21:11Elon MuskIt was the last hour of the last day when it was possible. And we would have gone bankrupt a few hours after, a few days after Christmas if that round had not closed.
21:22InterviewerYou flew for the NASA and for other.
21:26Elon MuskYeah, we've launched satellites for commercial operators, so SES in Europe and.
21:38Elon MuskSorry, Ofcom in the US and a number of other companies. Maybe we've got a alarm.
21:44Co-interviewerYeah.
21:47InterviewerStolen the car. Maybe they stole our Dodge.
21:52Co-interviewerHopefully not.
21:53InterviewerHopefully. Okay, what was your best idea ever?
21:59Elon MuskMy best idea ever?
22:00Co-interviewerYeah.
22:07Elon MuskThis is tricky. I suppose coming to North America was my best idea because I think these things would not have been accomplished almost anywhere else. It's really hard to start a company, but particularly California.
22:28Elon MuskSilicon Valley is very conducive to startup companies and yeah, so yeah, whenever I'd read books in South Africa, it would seem like the cutting edge of technology was in Silicon Valley.
22:46Elon MuskAnd so that's what I wanted to come and I wanted to move to the Smithical place.
22:51Co-interviewerOkay, and are there things you regret having done or for not having done so far?
22:59Elon MuskWell, there's lots of things that, you know, life is short and there's lots of things that could be done that one can't necessarily do.
23:13Elon MuskAnd these really are introspective questions,
23:20Elon MuskI think. No, I mean, overall I think I'm pretty happy with where things are. It's hard not to be. Honestly, I'd be. Yeah, things are in a good place right now and I mean, I'd like to looking ahead, I'd like to see humanity go beyond Earth and have people on Mars.
23:48Elon MuskThat would be really great and to see widespread adoption of electric vehicles and renewable energy. These are great things and yeah, I think that would be really, really cool.
24:06Co-interviewerBut is there like a business decision which you regret? Like what you should have never done?
24:15Elon MuskIn retrospect, I should have bitten the bullet and been CEO of Tesla from the beginning. Then that would have been, you know, that would have been the smart move,
24:36Elon MuskYou know, because we ended up having to essentially recapitalize the company, you know, and we went through a lot of grief. So that would have been wise move.
24:56Elon MuskI mean some things are better with here. With hindsight, of course you can say this decision or that decision. Tesla was essentially built on two false ideas or started on two false ideas.
25:11Elon MuskOne of which was that we would be able to use the Lotus Lease chassis to minimize the cost of creating an electric vehicle. And the other was that we used the technology from AC Propulsion, a small company in California, for the electric powertrain.
25:30InterviewerSo you won't do the same mistake again. So you start from zero with this topic.
25:36Elon MuskWell, we're. I mean, we actually use a lot of components from other companies. So it's like the, you know, Bosch is a supplier of the ultra long range, ultrasonics and the radar and then the whole camera assembly and everything.
25:53Elon MuskWe do the camera assembly, but we use a mobile light chip and. But all of the software for integrating that we do at Tesla.
26:01InterviewerOkay.
26:02Co-interviewerWe met each other last year for the interview. And then you told me that you wanted to die on Mars. Not while entering Mars, but after landing there.
26:10Elon MuskI mean, well, it's not as though I'm dying to die on Mars, but it's like, if you're going to die somewhere, why not on Mars? I mean, you know, choice A, choice B.
26:23Co-interviewerWhat should happen to your ashes then? Like, what do you do with your ashes?
26:29Elon MuskI. With my ashes? I don't know. Actually. I'm gone. I don't care. They can do anything. Yeah, I mean, I guess maybe scatter the ashes on Mars. That would be cool, you know.
26:46Elon MuskSure. But I mean, the. The whole sort of retired Mars thing, it was like a reporter asked me that question six years ago or something. It's like, where do you want to retire?
26:57Elon MuskAnd I actually said, well, I'm not sure I'll ever retire completely, but if I were to retire somewhere, then Mars would be a good way to go. I mean, in ideal circumstance, I'd make one trip to Mars, come back to Earth,
27:14Elon MuskAnd then when it's time to, you know, when you get really old, then like, yeah, I go back to Mars when I'm like 75 or something, and then, you know, die there and, you know, seems like, yeah, if you're going to die anywhere, why not die on Mars?
27:30Co-interviewerYeah, right.
27:33InterviewerHave you gone to space already?
27:35Elon MuskNo, no.
27:36InterviewerDo you want to? Sure.
27:37Elon MuskI mean, I'll probably go there in. Yeah, like maybe three or four years.
27:40InterviewerYes.
27:41Elon MuskYeah, you will.
27:42InterviewerTested.
27:43Elon MuskYeah.
27:43InterviewerOkay. What will happen first? The tube from San Francisco to la. The hyperloop or the first man on Mars?
27:51Elon MuskI think the hyperloop is more likely to happen for. Well, you know, it's a good question. Well, if you say that particular route, I'm not sure because there are all sorts of constraints in getting permits to build A big thing.
28:04Elon MuskBut I think I would be. I think there's going to be. Be some company or group that creates a hyperloop, but it may be a different route. And I know there's one company that's looking closely at the Los Angeles to Las Vegas because that's quite a popular trip.
28:23Elon MuskAnd it's much easier to make that trip, make that route work.
28:28Co-interviewerWhat makes you happy?
28:31Elon MuskWell, I think if things are going well with family and things going well at work, then I'm happy. If either one of them is not going well, then I'm.
28:40Elon MuskWell, either half unhappy or completely unhappy. But that's like. I mean, I think that's generally true. You know, if things are going well on personal life and work life, then one is happy.
28:56Co-interviewerOkay. Talk about happiness. How did you like Burning Man?
28:59Elon MuskIt was good. Yeah. I mean, it's my 14th time, so it was. Yeah, it's always good. I encourage people to come and check it out.
29:09Co-interviewerSo I've been there this year.
29:10Elon MuskOh, you did go. Okay, great. What do you think? Yeah, it's crazy. It's like life changing. Life changing, exactly. See?
29:22Co-interviewerHave you ever thought about building an art car or have you built one?
29:24Elon MuskYeah, yeah, sure.
29:25Co-interviewerHave you built one already?
29:27Elon MuskI've done three art cars. Cars. One was actually built on, this is probably 10 years ago, was built on an Oldsmobile. An old Oldsmobile with a big wraparound couch over the hood until you're sitting on top of the engine driving backwards.
29:51Elon MuskAnd so it was kind of a fun outcrop. Broke down a lot, of course, also broke down a lot.
29:59Co-interviewerIs your James Bond car, Submarine transformation car to the Burning Man?
30:06Elon MuskNo, the James Bond car, the Lotus Esprit submarine is. It's in the Tesla design studio.
30:13Co-interviewerOkay. And still being worked on?
30:18Elon MuskNo, it's just. It's currently just sitting there. The. What I'm hopefully going to do at some point is we're going to create a sort of a replica, but not quite because, like, if you look at the James Pond car, it's not technically possible to make that a submarine because a transformative thing because the fins are right where the wheels are.
30:41Elon MuskSo, like it doesn't fit. Like it's not physically possible to do the transmission. But if you make the car about. If you scale it up by about 10% and you move the fins just a little bit more towards the outer edges so they're not like sitting right in front of the wheels, then you can make it work.
31:01Elon MuskAnd plus, it's probably good to preserve the original Movie art essentially of the original car. So yeah, talk to a few of my guys and we think we can make it work.
31:14Elon MuskWork as a transformation car. With those constraints, it actually looked very similar. You'd have to look closely to see if it's different. But yeah, I think it'd be fun to be able to drive up on the beach in that submarine car.
31:30InterviewerDo you own other old cars?
31:36Elon MuskYou know, I'll tell you the. So there's two gasoline cars that I own and not that many people know about these, but One is Series 167 E type Jaguar Roadster.
31:55Elon MuskAnd that was the first car I bought when I actually had any money. In fact, when my first company received an investment, the venture capitalist gave us a $40,000, me and my brother, a $40,000 bonus.
32:11Elon MuskAnd I spent $35,000 on this car. And it broke down on the way, on the way back. It was very sad, like, damn it, I didn't even make it home.
32:27Elon MuskBut that was a car. When I was about 17, I was given four my birthday, a book of classic convertibles. And I thought, well, you know, if I could ever afford a car, one of these cars in the book, there were two that I liked the most.
32:46Elon MuskOne was the Gullwing Mercedes, but there's no way I could, you know, that was like millions of dollars. And then the other was the series, the E type Jaguar Series 1.
32:56Elon MuskYeah.
32:57InterviewerAnd now you could afford the Mercedes and that you haven't bought it yet.
33:03Elon MuskI haven't. I think it's a great design, really great. And you know, and you know, it partly inspires the Model X, so the, that might be a good one to buy it's point.
33:27Elon MuskBut the other car that I got is a Model T that a friend of mine Boughton gave me. Those things are hard to drive though. Have you ever tried to drive a Model T?
33:38Elon MuskIt's like not easy. It really works.
33:42InterviewerSeems to be really worked.
33:43Elon MuskThe controls are all totally different too.
33:45InterviewerYes.
33:49Elon MuskThe, there's no gas pedal. It's like there's a gas, I mean to change the throttle, it's a stick on the steering wheel.