USC Commencement (2014)
Questions on ElonsFAQ asked in this interview (3)
Transcript
0:01AnnouncerLet me take this second to introduce our commencement speaker.
0:12AnnouncerIt truly is a privilege to have Elon Musk join us today.
0:21AnnouncerHe doesn't need much of an introduction, but let me tell you a little bit about him. He grew up in South Africa, got his degrees from Wharton, came to California, started a company, merged into a company, sold a company called PayPal.
0:39AnnouncerSome of you might use it. He then has gone on to become the CEO of Tesla Motors and the CEO of SpaceX. And in his mind, he has lots of brilliant ideas.
0:55AnnouncerI know it's truly an honor and a privilege to have him join us today. Mr. Elon Musk.
1:17Elon MuskAll right, thank you. So I've. I've got about apparently five or six minutes to say the most useful things I can think of. I'm going to do my best.
1:25Elon MuskThe. And it was suggested that I distill things down to three. Three items. I think I'll go with four. And I'll try. I think, I think these are pretty important ones.
1:38Elon MuskSome of them are going to sound like, well, you've heard it before, but are worth re emphasizing. I think the first is you need to work. Depending upon how well you want to do and particularly if you're starting a company, you need to work super hard.
1:51Elon MuskSo what does super hard mean? Well, when my brother and I were starting our first company, instead of getting an apartment, we just rented a small office and we slept on the couch and we showered at the ymca.
2:06Elon MuskAnd we're so hot up, we had just one computer, so the website was up during the day and I was coding at night. Seven days a week, all the time.
2:18Elon MuskAnd I sort of briefly had a girlfriend in that period and in order to be with me, she had to sleep in the office. So work hard. Like, I mean, every waking hour.
2:32Elon MuskThat's the thing I would say if, if you, particularly if you're starting a company and I mean, if you do simple math, say like, okay, if somebody else is working 50 hours and you're working 100, you'll get twice as done as much done in the course of a year as the other company.
2:49Elon MuskThe other thing I'd say is that if you're creating a company or if you're joining a company, the most important thing is to, is to attract great people. So either be with, join a group that's amazing that you really respect, or if you're building a company, you've got to gather great people.
3:08Elon MuskI mean, all a company is, is a group of people that have gathered together to create a product or service. And so, depending upon how talented and hard working that group is, and degree to which they are focused cohesively in a good direction, that will determine the success of the company.
3:24Elon MuskSo do everything you can to gather great people. If you're creating a company, then I'd say focus on signal over noise. A lot of companies get confused. They spend money on things that don't actually make the product better.
3:43Elon MuskSo for example, at Tesla, we've never spent any money on advertising. We put all of the money into R and D and manufacturing and design to try to make the car as good as possible.
3:58Elon MuskAnd I think that's the way to go. So for any given company, just keep thinking about, are these efforts that people are expanding, are they resulting in a better product or service?
4:13Elon MuskAnd if they're not, stop those efforts. And then the final thing is, is to sort of don't just follow the trend. So you may have heard me say that it's good to think in terms of the physics approach of first principles, which is rather than reasoning by analogy, you boil things down to the most fundamental truths you can imagine and you reason up from there.
4:39Elon MuskAnd this is a good way to figure out if something really makes. Makes sense or if it's just what everybody else is doing. It's hard to think that way.
4:51Elon MuskYou can't think that way about everything. It takes a lot of effort. But if you're trying to do something new, it's the best way to think. And that framework was developed by physicists to figure out counterintuitive things like quantum mechanics.
5:07Elon MuskSo it's really a powerful, powerful method. And anyway, so that's. And then I think that the final thing I would encourage you to do is now is the time to take risk.
5:21Elon MuskYou don't have. Yeah, you don't. You don't have. You don't have kids. You're oblig. Well, sorry, Probably not kids. The. But as you get older, your obligations increase, and once you have a family, you start taking risk, not just for yourself, but for your family as well.
5:47Elon MuskIt gets much harder to do things that might not work out. So now is the time to do that before you have those obligations. So I would encourage you to take risks now.
5:59Elon MuskDo something bold. You won't regret it. Thank you.