Elon Musk at StartmeupHK Venture Forum
Questions on ElonsFAQ asked in this interview (5)
Transcript
0:00Moderatorgood morning, everyone. I think our next guest really doesn't need an introduction. We are going to be hearing from the serial entrepreneur behind a range of companies. PayPal, Tesla Motors, SolarCity, SpaceX.
0:15ModeratorHe is a titan of industry who has disrupted and transformed entire industries. We're talking about automotive, aerospace, energy, Internet, finance, and these are sectors that are really tough to operate in as a startup.
0:32ModeratorIn the next 40 minutes, we are going to hear from Elon Musk and we're going to learn more about Tesla Motors in Hong Kong, in China. We're going to hear about sustainable energy solutions, we're going to talk about Mars, and we're also going to touch on the fate and future of humankind.
0:47ModeratorPretty big stuff. So on this icy cold day here in Hong Kong, let's give a very warm welcome to Elon Mus.
1:06ModeratorOkay, you can pick any mic on the table. There's so many to choose from.
1:10Elon MuskOkay. Invest hk.
1:13ModeratorAll right, Elon Musk, welcome to Hong Kong. I talked to your people at Tesla here in Hong Kong and you know, Tesla opened up here in 2010. The Model S has been selling pretty well.
1:23ModeratorGood buildup. First general question. How's the business doing here in Hong Kong?
1:28Elon MuskActually, I mean, at Tesla, we're super appreciative of, of Hong Kong. It's the city with the, I believe, at this point, the most number of Teslas per capita.
1:42ModeratorYeah.
1:49Elon MuskAnd I think it's sort of, it's a very exciting, I think, model in Hong Kong because I think Hong Kong will have, over time, the highest percentage of electric vehicles of any city in the world and can therefore serve as a model for how other high density cities around the world can transform to a sustainable transport future.
2:11Elon MuskSo I think that's very exciting. So we plan to work closely with the Hong Kong government and to take lessons learned and see what we can do to then propagate that to cities around the world.
2:23Elon MuskSo we're very excited about the partnership
2:26Moderatorwith Hong Kong because Hong Kong is such a densely packed city. There's no range anxiety in Hong Kong. But that's not the only factor behind the popularity of the Tesla.
2:35ModeratorWhat are the other factors?
2:36Elon MuskSure. Well, certainly the range not being an issue is one factor, although that is counterbalanced by challenges with charging.
2:47AudienceYeah.
2:48Elon MuskSo one of the things that we need to work through, and this is a challenge that any other dense city in the world has, is as you have more and more electric vehicles on the roads, you have to find some place to charge them.
3:05Elon MuskAnd the ideal place to charge the car is at your home or office, essentially the same place that you charge your phone. But this is challenging because a lot of apartment buildings, or most apartment buildings, didn't anticipate having that level of power in the garage.
3:25Elon MuskAnd sometimes the parking spots float around. They're not consistent. So it's going to be quite important to get the power to the buildings that need it and then figure out a good and convenient way for people to charge at home.
3:41Elon MuskWe are deploying a lot of superchargers, and of course that's going to be important. But those are really meant for when you have an unusually long trip, you've been away from your home or office for a while, or you need to top up and you're out and about.
3:58Elon MuskBut by far the most convenient is home or office charging. And that's the thing that we're really working closely with Hong Kong government on.
4:05ModeratorYeah, we were talking about this earlier about the impact of falling oil prices, because high oil prices was a major selling point for getting into hybrids or electric vehicles.
4:16ModeratorNow that oil prices are in free fall, what does that mean for the industry?
4:21Elon MuskWell, it definitely makes the transition to sustainable energy more difficult. I think, no doubt that that is going to dampen interest in electric vehicles in general. With, with our cars.
4:34Elon MuskWhat, what we aspire to do is to make the car so compelling that even with low gasoline prices, it's still the car you want to buy. Yeah, that's. I mean, the only thing I can think of that's the only sort of what else we could do.
4:49ModeratorYou have to make it compelling. So, and this is really at the key of Tesla, is to create an electric car that's not worthy. It's going to help the environment, but it is a car that you will covet, that you want to drive that happens to be very good for the climate change or very, very good for the environment.
5:06Elon MuskYeah, exactly. I think this is sort of general, you know, advice I'd give to people starting companies, Entrepreneurs in general is really focus on making a product that your customers love.
5:19Elon MuskIt's so rare that you can buy a product and you love the product when you bought it. This is, this is. There are very few things that fit into that category.
5:28Elon MuskAnd if you can come up with something like that, your business will be successful for sure.
5:33ModeratorLet's talk about China. China is the world's largest auto market. China is also. It's a growing electric vehicle market too. It's soon to be the world's largest there, world's largest carbon emitter.
5:45ModeratorWe've seen the return of the so called apocalypse and crazy bad air days in places like Shenyang and Beijing, especially during the wintertime. China needs your technology. Is China really aware of that?
5:57ModeratorDo you get that sense? And if you don't mind, if you could hold the mic a little bit.
6:01Elon MuskThat's right, yeah, absolutely. I see. It's very high gain. Okay. Yes, China is definitely aware of Tesla. I've had a number of high level meetings with the Chinese government and in fact, the Minister of Finance recently mentioned Tesla in a speech that he gave.
6:24ModeratorOh, wow.
6:25Elon MuskAs a good example, actually. So he likes what we're doing,
6:33Moderatorwhich is a good thing.
6:33Elon MuskYeah, yeah, absolutely. And then last year we, in an effort to help the rest of industry and just sort of be a good neighbor, we open sourced all of our patents.
6:46Elon MuskSo any company in China or elsewhere can use our patents to create electric vehicles.
6:50ModeratorOh, wow.
6:58ModeratorWhat you're doing there just really underscores a theme that emerged at the latest climate change conference in Paris. The debate on whether developed countries should be doing more to help developing countries when the goal is, is a general shared goal.
7:13ModeratorAnd you're saying a company from a developed country should be doing that little bit more in a market like China.
7:20Elon MuskI agree. Although quite frankly, I think China is quite, quite well developed. I mean, you know, let me tell you, China has better highways and definitely better trains than the United States.
7:30Elon MuskYeah, by far. Okay. So in fact, I had a great experience taking the bullet train from Beijing to Xi' an to see the Terracotta Warriors.
7:41ModeratorYeah.
7:42Elon MuskOh, that was, it was a great experience.
7:43AudienceYeah, yeah.
7:45Elon MuskSo, yeah, so I think there's a lot of opportunity there. I think the challenge for Tesla is that in China we need to establish sort of a local partnership.
8:01ModeratorYeah.
8:02Elon MuskAnd so we're going to kind of figure that out.
8:06ModeratorThere is the issue of pollution in China, the need for sustainable energy solutions in China. Gridlock is a huge issue in places like Beijing. I don't know if you've been stuck in Beijing traffic.
8:18ModeratorI've been stuck in Beijing. Yeah. We've all, everyone here who's traveled to China, you're stuck. And it's pretty crazy. Can Tesla Autopilot provide some sort of a solution to that?
8:28Elon MuskWell, I think, I think Autopilot can certainly take the edge off because
8:38Audienceour
8:38Elon MuskAutopilot capability right now is really good in two scenarios. Either we're on a highway where there's no traffic and the lines are quite clear, or in heavy traffic. So it's super good in heavy traffic.
8:54Elon MuskNot that I'd recommend it, but you can read a book or do email is what I found. I've heard people say,
9:08Elon MuskSo you can really take the edge off the traffic, but I'm actually quite a big fan of tunnels. Tunnels are so underappreciated.
9:18ModeratorPlease elaborate.
9:21Elon MuskWell, the fundamental problem with cities is that we build cities in 3D.
9:26ModeratorYeah.
9:26Elon MuskI mean, you see, you've got these tall buildings with lots of people on each floor, but then you've got roads which are 2D, so that obviously just doesn't work.
9:36Elon MuskYou're guaranteed to have gridlock. But you can go 3D if you have tunnels, and you can have many tunnels crisscrossing each other with maybe a few meters vertical distance between them and completely get rid of traffic problems.
9:50Elon MuskAnd it's my understanding that actually Hong Kong is in the process of building some tunnels and I was very pleased to hear that. But that really is the solution for solving traffic in major cities.
10:04ModeratorYeah. You can also go 3D with flying cars.
10:06Elon MuskYou can,
10:09Moderatorbut that's not going to happen for a long time.
10:11Elon MuskWell, I mean, flying cars sound cool, but then they do make a lot of wind and they're kind of noisy.
10:21ModeratorYou've thought this out.
10:22Elon MuskThe probability of something falling on your head is much higher.
10:24ModeratorYeah,
10:27Audiencegotcha.
10:28ModeratorWe talked about charging stations in the Challenge for rolling out more charging stations in Hong Kong. The challenge is exponentially greater in China, especially in the rural areas, to connect the big cities.
10:41ModeratorWhat are your plans on that?
10:43Elon MuskSo we actually have a supercharging network throughout China. You can go at this point almost anywhere in China using the Tesla supercharger network. And then we've got. There's a whole bunch of third party affiliate destination chargers.
11:00Elon MuskAnd we've actually had people drive all the way from Beijing to Tibet.
11:05ModeratorYeah.
11:06Elon MuskSo it's.
11:06ModeratorWow.
11:07Elon MuskYeah. In a Model S. Wow.
11:08ModeratorThat's incredible.
11:09Elon MuskYeah.
11:10ModeratorHave you driven a Tesla in rural China?
11:14Elon MuskNo, no. Other people have.
11:22ModeratorThe Model 3. What can you tell us about the Model 3, what it's going to look like? And I know that you've mentioned to me about.
11:30Elon MuskSorry, no, no, sorry. I can't tell you what it's going to look like.
11:35ModeratorOkay, okay.
11:36Elon MuskBut I mean, I can tell you just generally some characteristics about it, which is it's meant to be a slightly smaller version, sort of a smaller version of the Model S, and it won't have quite as many bells and whistles, but it'll be at a much lower price point.
11:52Elon MuskSo the intent is to roughly get the Cut the price in half for a smaller vehicle. And, and, and I think really that's going to be probably the most profound, profound car that we make because that'll, that'll be, I think, a very compelling car at an affordable price.
12:12ModeratorYeah. This is. With the Model 3, the electric vehicle could go fully mainstream. Other car manufacturers, we have GM in mind with the Bolt doing the same thing. And you welcome your rivals doing this, right?
12:25Elon MuskYeah. The goal of Tesla from the beginning has been to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. So we actually did some partnerships. We did one with Mercedes and one with Toyota and, you know, open source IP and everything.
12:42Elon MuskSo the whole purpose of it was really to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. So it's always great to hear when other car companies are making electric cars,
12:53Moderatorincluding car companies inside China.
12:55Elon MuskYeah.
12:56ModeratorAre there any Chinese electric car vehicle makers that are capturing your attention?
13:03Elon MuskWell, we don't think too much about what competitors are doing just because I think it's important to be just focused on making the best possible products. You know, sort of maybe analogous to what they say about, you know, if you're in a, if you're in a race, don't worry about what the other runners are doing, just run.
13:27ModeratorYeah, but, you know, to push that metaphor even more, are you afraid that whoever's hosting the race could tilt the race in favor of the Chinese racer?
13:57Elon MuskI'm trying to figure out if there's any way to answer that question and not lose.
14:05ModeratorYou get one pass during this interview. If you'd like to take the pass, you could take that pass.
14:11AudienceOkay.
14:20ModeratorWe've talked about innovation in China and I thought your answer was really interesting. It'd be cool to share it with the audience here. What is the example of Made in China innovation that you thought, wow, that's pretty cool?
14:34Elon MuskWell, I think actually a lot of the social media services in China, you know, Weibo, WeChat, pretty impressive. I think better than what is available in the U.S. yeah.
14:45ModeratorAre you on WeChat?
14:46Elon MuskI am, actually.
14:47ModeratorOh, really?
14:48Elon MuskYeah.
14:48ModeratorDo you know I only use WeChat when I'm in mainland China. In business, do you use WeChat in LA and Silicon Valley?
14:54Elon MuskOccasionally to correspond with people in China.
14:57ModeratorOkay. Yeah, that's it. Yeah.
14:59Elon MuskBut it's pretty good. Which Alibaba is pretty impressive.
15:04ModeratorAlibaba is pretty close. Do you use Alibaba?
15:06Elon MuskHave you used. Okay, I've heard impressive things about it.
15:10AudienceYeah.
15:11ModeratorYeah, it is very, very impressive. Yeah. WeChat, how do you use it? Which messaging functions do you like? To use on it.
15:17Elon MuskWell, I wouldn't call myself sort of a WeChat expert. I basically just message people.
15:23ModeratorYeah.
15:26Elon MuskSend pictures. Pictures and text.
15:29AudienceGot it.
15:30Elon MuskCan you do other things
15:33Moderatornow? Recently I did a panel discussion in Beijing with a group of technologists and the subject came up, or I brought up the question, can there be an Elon Musk in China?
15:46ModeratorAnd the answer was no. And it was because of, and this is according to Kai Fu Lee, former head of Google China who started Microsoft research in Beijing. And he said it's because of the education system in China.
16:00ModeratorIt emphasizes too much rote learning. You are Elon Musk. What do you make of that? I mean, do you, do you agree with that?
16:11Elon MuskWell, actually, I mean, obviously are a number of very successful entrepreneurs in China.
16:17ModeratorJack Ma. Pony Ma.
16:18Elon MuskThat's right, exactly. So I think, I'm not sure I'd entirely agree with that. But it is generally true that innovation comes from questioning the way things have been done before.
16:31Elon MuskAnd if in the education system you're taught not to do that, that will inhibit entrepreneurship.
16:37ModeratorBeing able to question what you're being taught, Being able to.
16:41Elon MuskYeah, I mean, just saying. Well, is there a better way, you know, to ask that question?
16:46ModeratorYeah, let's talk about innovation at Tesla. Few more questions there. So we talked about Tesla Autopilot. There's also Tesla Summon, and I love that name, Summon, where you summon the Tesla with your mobile phone.
16:59ModeratorAnd you know, we did talk about this earlier. I know that there's a big gap between those two programs and self driving cars, but is Tesla on its way to a driverless model?
17:14Elon MuskYeah, I mean, I think the whole industry ultimately will be producing autonomous cars. And if you went, if you fast forward, let's say 10 or certainly not more than 15 years, I think almost all cars produced will be autonomous.
17:28ModeratorAll cars produced will be autonomous.
17:30Elon MuskAll new cars, yes. But that's not the same as all cars on the road because there's roughly 2 billion cars and trucks on the road and just under 100 million produced every year.
17:41Elon MuskSo the production rate is only 5% of the fleet size. But if you say of new cars produced, I'd be surprised if a majority of them are not self driving in let's say 10 to 15 years.
17:56ModeratorAnd of all those new self driving cars out on the road, how many of them will have, you know, it's like a, will have a steering wheel versus not having a steering wheel.
18:08ModeratorIt's like the, you know, just a remnant of the past.
18:13AudienceRight,
18:15Elon Muskthe steering wheel thing. I'M not sure. I mean there may be some perhaps auxiliary steering wheel that only pops out when you know when you need to take manual control for whatever reason.
18:28Elon MuskBut probably if you go long, long term, my guess is there isn't a steering wheel in most cars. It would be something that you would have to special order or something like that.
18:37Elon MuskWow. In most cars. Not all cars. And I do want to be clear, predictions are not endorsements. I'm not saying that this would be a good or a bad thing.
18:51Elon MuskI'm just saying that this is probably what will occur.
18:53ModeratorThis is pattern recognition and anticipating what's going to happen next.
18:57Elon MuskI mean, I think it's sort of like elevators used to have a manual elevator operator and you'd have somebody would be sort of moving the lever and be able to do fine tune adjustments with the elevator for each floor.
19:09Elon MuskNow there's no manual controller for elevators. Yeah, I think it's going to seem the same way for cars.
19:16ModeratorYeah. And how about the way consumers interact with driverless cars? How many consumers will choose to own their own car versus signing into a network fleet of driverless cars?
19:30Elon MuskI think probably still most people will own their own car, but there will be, it's hard to predict the exact percentage but I mean I think probably roughly 60, 70% of people will probably want to own their cars and, or call it 2/3 own, 1 third share.
19:51Elon MuskThis is a complete, you know, shooting in the dark guess. But yeah, I think still most people will want to own their own car.
20:01ModeratorYeah.
20:02Elon MuskBut they also may choose to add it to the shared fleet and then take it out of the shared fleet at will.
20:09ModeratorYeah. And you don't see that as a threat to your business model?
20:13Elon MuskNo, I think just long as we make great autonomous cars and it's just
20:18Moderatoradditional options for the consumer.
20:19Elon MuskYeah, it's just adding functionality that I think people will consider quite important in a car in the future. I mean I've said this before, but I think in the long term owning a car that does not have autonomous capability will be like a bit like owning a horse.
20:35Elon MuskI mean you sort of own a horse for sentimental reasons, but not, but you know, but not, not, not for actual transport.
20:42ModeratorYeah.
20:43AudienceYeah.
20:45ModeratorLet's talk about the futuristic looking Model X and a question that many Hong Kongers have is can I park this thing in my parking garage because of those Falcon Wing doors?
20:56ModeratorWhat's your answer to that?
20:58Elon MuskYeah, actually the Falcon wing doors are double hinged, so we should call them Falcon Wing instead of Gull Wing because they have A dual acting hinge. So they're actually, they can open.
21:08Elon MuskOpen in a tighter space than almost any door and certainly more than a conventional. Tighter space than a conventional door. If you can physically fit between your car and a Model X, then you'll be able to get in the Falcon door.
21:19AudienceYeah.
21:19ModeratorAnd it looks beautiful. And I love the. I mentioned this again when we talk yesterday. I love the Back to the Future series. Reminds me of the DeLorean, which I know I should not compare Tesla to.
21:32ModeratorYou know, it looks sci fi, it looks cool, but it also, this is important. It serves a design purpose. What is that purpose?
21:41Elon MuskYes. So the Falcon Wing door is designed to improve accessibility of the third row. I mean, typically in a three row car, in an suv, it's quite difficult to access the third row directly.
21:55Elon MuskYou have to fold up the second row seats and you really somehow have to move the seat back of the second row, which, if you've got sort of a child or child seat in the second row, can make it really inconvenient to access the third row.
22:09Elon MuskSo by having the Falcon Wing door, we have a much bigger opening that allows you to directly step to the third row quite conveniently, even if there are baby seats in the second row.
22:21Elon MuskAnd then if you're a mother, putting your child in the child seat in the second row is very easy because you have such a big opening and you can step into the car and put the child into the child seat instead of cantilevering your child over sort of through a hole over the baby's seat, sort of armrests.
22:43Elon MuskSo it's meant to improve accessibility. And there are really only two ways to achieve that level of accessibility. One is the sliding door of a minivan, and the other is to have something like a Falcon Wing door.
22:58Elon MuskAnd the reason we didn't go for a sliding door for like a minivan is that it fundamentally constrains the aesthetics of the exterior of the car. And you have to have three support rails, which also negatively affect the aesthetics.
23:11Elon MuskThat's why all minivans pretty much look the same. So we want to have something that had that level of accessibility and actually has greater accessibility than a minivan door, but also looks good.
23:24ModeratorThis is classic user centered design. And can I just say thank you for designing for moms and thank you for designing for parents.
23:31Elon MuskYeah, that's pretty cool.
23:37Elon MuskYeah, I think parents will really, really enjoy the Model X. Yeah. And we're also taking good feedback from customers. And for example, one of the things that was asked of some of our Hong Kong customers that have ordered the Model X is to have a partial open function of the Falcon Wing door.
23:58Elon MuskSo if it's really heavy rain.
24:00ModeratorOh, yes. It's like an umbrella or.
24:03Elon MuskYeah. So you'd want sort of a maybe a 50, 60% open level so you have a good shield from the rain. And I think people are pleased to know that it actually is already in the works.
24:13ModeratorOh, very good. Very cool. Just a software update and something that is also potentially in the works, but only for a select few. A submersible Tesla.
24:23Elon MuskYeah, that'll be. Not anytime soon, but yeah, that's just to be a fun side project to have a submersible Tesla. But I think the market for submarine cars is quite small.
24:39ModeratorBut you don't have to use the Cross Harbor Tunnel in Hong Kong. You could just go through the Victoria Harbor.
24:46Elon MuskYeah, that's true.
24:47ModeratorThat'd be pretty epic.
24:48Elon MuskJust drive right off the. Right off the edge of the.
24:51AudienceThat's right.
24:52ModeratorBe James Bond every day on your commute.
24:54Elon MuskAbsolutely, yeah.
24:55ModeratorA Tesla truck. Could that ever happen?
24:58Elon MuskYeah, I think it's quite likely we'll do a truck in the future.
25:00ModeratorYeah, yeah. Any more details on that?
25:03Elon MuskNo, no, I think it's sort of a logical thing for us to do in the future.
25:07ModeratorOkay. Now, with Tesla, your goal has been to make a better car. And you've done that with an electric vehicle that people covet, that has quite a cult following, that's upgradable, but you also want to achieve, and your turn of phrase is very nice, or try to achieve this platonic ideal of a car.
25:28ModeratorRight. To reach perfection. So what does the perfect car look like?
25:34Elon MuskWell, I do use that phrase with our engineering design team that aspirationally we're in pursuit of the platonic ideal of the perfect car. And who knows what that looks like actually.
25:47Elon MuskBut you want to try to make every element of the car as flawless as possible. And there will always be some degree of imperfection, but try to minimize that and create a car that is just delightful in every way.
26:06Elon MuskAnd I think if you do that, then the rest kind of takes care of itself.
26:10ModeratorOkay. You're also the chairman of SolarCity, building out a network of solar panels and solar systems. And I can see why solar can make sense in a place like California, where it's sunny all the time, homes are big, a lot of roof space, you can lay out all the solar panels.
26:27ModeratorBut in a place like Hong Kong, densely packed vertical cities, how can solar make sense here?
26:35Elon MuskYeah, I think it's True that in dense cities, rooftop solar is, is not going to solve the energy need. But what you can do is have ground mount solar power, let's say near Hong Kong, tapping into the existing power lines that are coming in.
26:56Elon MuskAnd so you can supply Hong Kong with solar power. We just need to be coming from a land area that's not too far away. And I mean, it's worth noting, certainly China has actually an enormous land area, much of which is hardly occupied at all given that the Chinese population is so concentrated along the coast.
27:18Elon MuskOnce you go inland, the population in some cases is remarkably tiny. So you could easily power all of China with solar.
27:28ModeratorAll of China with solar.
27:30Elon MuskEasily. Yeah, yeah. No, no, easy.
27:34ModeratorThe world's most populous country.
27:36Elon MuskYep, definitely. Wow. Yeah.
27:46ModeratorOkay, let's, let's go even more way out there and talk about SpaceX. You're the CEO of SpaceX and you've said that your ultimate goal is to get humankind to Mars.
27:57ModeratorI've heard your response to the question, but these guys need to hear it. Why is Mars important? Why does Mars matter?
28:04Elon MuskSure. Well, I think it's really a fundamental decision we need to make as a civilization. What kind of future do we want? Do we want a future where we are forever confined to one planet until some eventual extinction event, however far in the future that might occur?
28:19Elon MuskOr do we want to become a multi planet species and then ultimately be out there among the stars, among many planets, many star systems? And I think the latter is a far more exciting and inspiring future than the former.
28:34Elon MuskAnd Mars is the next natural step. In fact, it's the only planet we really have a shot at establishing a self sustaining city on. And I think once we do establish such a city, there will be a strong forcing function for the improvement of spaceflight technology that will then enable us to establish colonies elsewhere in the solar system and ultimately extend beyond our solar system.
29:00Elon MuskAnd so there's the defensive reason of protecting the future of humanity, ensuring that the light of consciousness is not extinguished should some calamity befall earth. But also, and that's the defensive reason.
29:13Elon MuskBut personally I find what gets me more excited is the fact that this would be an incredible adventure. I mean, it'd be like the greatest adventure ever. And it would be exciting and inspiring.
29:26Elon MuskAnd there need to be things that excite and inspire people. You have to be reasons why you get up in the morning. It can't just be solving problems, it's got to be, yeah, something great is going to happen in the future.
29:37ModeratorYeah, we talked about this at length yesterday. It's not an exit strategy or a backup plan for humankind when Earth fails. It's also to inspire people on Earth. Right.
29:48ModeratorAnd to transcend and to go beyond our mental limits of what we think we can achieve.
29:56Elon MuskRight. I mean, you think sort of how incredible the Apollo program was and just, I mean, if you ask anyone and say, name some of humanity's greatest achievements of the 20th century, the Apollo program landing on the moon would in many, if not most places be number one.
30:14ModeratorWhen will there be a manned SpaceX mission? And when will you go to Mars?
30:22Elon MuskWell, we're pretty close to sending crew up to the space station that's currently scheduled for the end of next year.
30:30ModeratorYeah.
30:31Elon MuskSo that'll be, that'll be exciting with Dragon 2 spacecraft and then we'll have a next generation rocket and spacecraft beyond the Falcon Dragon series. And I'm hoping to describe the, that, that architecture later this year at the International Astronautical Congress, which is like the big international space event every year.
31:02Elon MuskSo I think that'll be quite exciting.
31:04ModeratorYeah.
31:05Elon MuskAnd in terms of me going, I don't know, maybe four or five years from now, maybe going to the space station would be nice.
31:12ModeratorOh, wow.
31:14Elon MuskAnd in terms of the first flights to Mars and we're hoping to do that in around 2025.
31:23ModeratorI'm sorry, in 2020? The year 2025.
31:26Elon MuskNine years from now, thereabouts.
31:27ModeratorOh my goodness, that's just around the corner.
31:30Elon MuskWell, nine years.
31:32ModeratorAre you
31:35Elon Muskso like a long time to me.
31:36ModeratorAre you doing zero gravity training?
31:40Elon MuskI've done the parabolic flights. Okay, those are quite fun.
31:44ModeratorBut you must be reading up and doing the physical testing to, to get ready for this, the ultimate flight of your life.
31:53Elon MuskI don't think it's that hard, honestly. I mean, float around, it's not that hard to fly around.
32:00ModeratorBut I know you've seen the Martian, we've talked about the Martian, and it looks like the hardest thing anyone could ever do is there's getting there and also surviving and trying to anticipate everything that could go wrong and make sure it doesn't happen.
32:13ModeratorYou can tell I'm not going to be signing up for your manned space flights when they take place.
32:18Elon MuskWell, I do think, I mean, going to Mars is definitely going to be, it's going to be hard and dangerous and difficult every way you can imagine, but. So it certainly wouldn't be.
32:32Elon MuskIf you care about sort of being safe and comfortable, going to Mars would be a terrible choice.
32:37AudienceYeah.
32:38ModeratorAnd this is at the heart of who you are because you, to quote Pink Floyd, you do not like to live a comfortably numb life. You know, you take on incredible risk to take on entrenched, big established industries and to shake and rattle them up and to introduce something new.
32:56ModeratorAnd it's so cool to watch. And I think that's why everybody here signed up to come here and to listen to you, just to hear more about that. People want to be more like you, really, so.
33:12ModeratorAnd, you know, for the fate of humankind, I think it would be great to have more Elon Musk's. So what do we need to do to become more like Elon?
33:23Elon MuskI don't know if it's, I think maybe sounds better than it is.
33:32Elon MuskYeah, I, you know, I mean, honestly, like, there's a friend of mine who's got a great saying about creating a company which is trying to build a company and have it succeed is like eating glass and staring into the abyss.
33:50Elon MuskSo what tends to happen is it's sort of quite exciting for the first several months of starting a company and then reality sets in. Things don't go as well as planned.
34:00Elon MuskCustomers aren't signing up, the technology or the product isn't working as well as you thought, and then that can sometimes be compounded by a recession and it can be very, very painful for several years.
34:16Elon MuskSo I think frankly, starting a company, I would advise people to have a high pain tolerance.
34:24ModeratorYeah, yeah. And thanks for reminding us of the harsh, very harsh and brutal reality of launching a startup. There is that Elon Musk, Tony Stark mystique. You know, people think, you know, you are.
34:38ModeratorRobert Downey Jr. Modeled his character, Tony Stark Iron man on you. It's easy, it's fun. You're a superhero, titan of industry. But it's really hard. It's really difficult. And it's something that requires perseverance and grit.
34:54ModeratorDo you fear that maybe in this generation or the younger generation that they don't have that perseverance and grit to take on these really tough challenges?
35:05Elon MuskI think some people do and, but I think it is definitely true that, I mean, maybe there are occasionally companies that get created where there's not an extended period of extreme pain.
35:20Elon MuskBut I'm not aware of very many of such instances.
35:28Elon MuskBut I do think that new great entrepreneurs are born every day and we'll continue to see amazing companies get built. So. Yeah. But I would definitely advise people who are starting a company to expect a long period of quite high difficulty.
35:55Elon MuskBut as long as people stay super focused on creating absolute best product or service that really delights their end customer. If they stay focused on that, then basically, if you get it such that your customers want you to succeed, then you probably will.
36:15ModeratorYou have to focus on the customer and delivering for them.
36:18Elon MuskYeah. If your customers love you, your odds of success are dramatically higher.
36:23ModeratorAll the entrepreneurs in this room, they're listening to that message, and we're running out of time. So this is the final question. This is for the budding entrepreneurs in the room who could take an Elon Musk idea and run with it.
36:35ModeratorI mean, quite famously, hyperloop was the idea that you had to give away because you just don't have enough time to deal with it. What are the other ideas that you have that you would love to see another entrepreneur just take on and go,
36:49Elon MuskWell, I think there's a lot of opportunity in general in electrification of transport, so electric aircraft. I think there's. There's a lot of opportunity there. I think in. In genetics, although it's.
37:04Elon MuskThat's sort of a thorny area, but I think that's in terms of solving some of the more intransigent diseases. Genetics are really key to. To solving those. Something that I think people may be only beginning to look at is establishing some kind of brain computer interface.
37:25Elon MuskSo.
37:26ModeratorA brain computer interface?
37:27Elon MuskYeah, at the neuron level. So this is sort of intelligent augmentation as opposed to artificial intelligence. And I think that that has a lot of potential.
37:42ModeratorYou mentioned this to me yesterday. I really had kind of no idea what you were talking about. And then I looked up Iain Banks neural lace. That's right. And so it's this concept of wiring the brain.
37:55ModeratorSo it's either there could be a brain Internet, and it could also mean that we can upload our thoughts to the cloud.
38:06Elon MuskYou would never forget anything, and you wouldn't need to take photographs.
38:11ModeratorYeah, I know. It was incredible. I mean, you would never forget anything. You would expand your ability to process information, to remember information. Right. But then when the denial of service
38:28Elon Muskattack happens, you gotta watch out for hacking. That could really be awkward.
38:32ModeratorWatch out for that. But also, then I read it could also be used to fight degenerative diseases like Parkinson's too.
38:38Elon MuskYeah, absolutely.
38:39AudienceYeah.
38:40ModeratorYeah.
38:40Elon MuskAnd I think it actually would be quite. Quite an equalizer as well, because I think the delta between, you know, like, it would sort of even things out.
38:50ModeratorI think you mean humankind, people would be. There would be no education disadvantage. Everyone would be starting at the same level. So there would be no meritocracy. No, there would be new meritocracy.
39:03Elon MuskThere would be, but it would be like the differences would be smaller. The delta would be smaller, probably.
39:09ModeratorWow. And you really welcome that kind of world.
39:13Elon MuskWelcome. You asked for predictions.
39:14ModeratorOkay.
39:16Elon MuskBut predictions are not the same as preferences. So, I mean, do I think something like that is likely to occur? I think probably.
39:25ModeratorWow.
39:26Elon MuskYeah.
39:26AudienceWow.
39:26ModeratorThat's incredible. We could go on and on. Unfortunately, we have to wrap and leave it at that. Let's give it up for Elon Musk. That was really awesome. Thank you so much.
39:34Elon MuskThank you.
39:38AudienceThank you. Thank you. Christy from CNN and the de facto game changer, Elon Musk. If I can invite you to both stay on stage for a moment, we're going to do a group photo.
39:54AudienceI'd like to please invite to join us on stage Mr. Greg so, Hong Kong's Secretary for the Commerce and Economic Development, along with all our distinguished speakers and our vertical champions, as well as our venue partner for the Start Me Up HK Festival.
40:07AudienceCome on up on stage. We're going to take a group photo together. I believe we're going to move the furniture briefly. Can I also please just make sure that we include these individuals?
40:18AudienceMatt Dooley, Renu Bhatia, Anson Bailey, Irene Chu, Andy Liu, Steve Monahan, Angie Ng and the Brink team, Mickey, Christina and Manav. We'll have to get in nice and close with each other.