
Elon Musk entrepreneurship lecture. - Nevaeh
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=389
======
bearwithclaws
In 150 words (the transcript):

"I think successful entrepreneurs probably come in all sizes, shapes and
flavors. I'm not sure there's any one particular thing. For me, some of the
things I've described already I think are very important. I think really an
obsessive nature with respect to the quality of the product is very important
and so being an obsessive compulsive is a good thing in this context. Really
liking what you do, whatever area that you get into, even if you're the best
of the best, there's always a chance of failure so I think it's important that
you really like whatever you're doing. If you don't like it, life is too
short. I'd say also, if you like what you're doing, you think about it even
when you're not working. It's something that your mind is drawn to and if you
don't like it, you just really can't make it work I think."

~~~
mceachen
I was expecting a laundry list of absolutes. The deference voiced by all his
"I think"s shows _remarkable_ humility from this guy.

~~~
Eliezer
Not criticism of Musk, just a general observation: "I think" humility is super
cheap, it takes 0.3 seconds or 8 keypresses to add it like table salt. Stating
concrete exceptions to your generalizations is a much stronger indicator of
non-absoluteness. I've often or even mostly seen "I think" as a defense
against objections; "Oh, that's just what I think." Meanwhile the real message
is the same.

~~~
badclient
Could not disagree more.

The inclusion of "I think" (a) makes it clear that this is one person's
view(which itself may change) and not some world order (b) gives the audience
permission at some level to form their own view.

~~~
waterlesscloud
I ask this as a genuine question- Do you need to hear this from people when
they speak? Why?

I confess it's always seemed redundant to me. Of course what I say is just my
viewpoint, and what you say is your viewpoint. And of course you have
permission to form your own viewpoint.

I guess I'm really asking, do people feel they need to have permission to form
their own view? I can't recall ever feeling that I didn't have that freedom,
no matter how definitive the person's view sounded. I literally never even
consider that possibility.

~~~
nooneelse
Need? No. This isn't about the receivers in this situation. Other people
aren't waiting for your permissions, and they don't need to be told that your
opinion is your opinion. This is about the way the sender communicates their
own internal understanding of their belief/knowledge states.

If other people never hear someone linguistically marking their belief states
with reliability indicators (even when their statements clearly need them by
common phrasing norms), then the listeners will have much less reason to
believe the speaker uses any reliability metrics internally, and that is just
sloppy thinking. This is, I believe, the reasoning behind listeners believing
that speakers who never use something like "I think" are "know it all's" who
take their own opinions as gospel. If you want people to know your internal
knowledge representations carry proper markers of fallibility, communicate
that part of the representations in your words. That is the common norm, and
other people aren't mind readers to know you mean different.

Also, listeners can make good use of reliability markers from speakers, and so
would like them. Such markers can communicate helpful information (close or
distant source, checked validity or not, fits well with other knowns or not,
reasoning from one person or checked over by many), so why leave them out?
Inclusion costs so little, and omission risks unnecessary confusion.

This is basic communication practice; if you don't mean to communicate to
others that you consider yourself very certain on some matter, then you
shouldn't send the type of messages to others that you know they will
interpret as you saying you are very certain on some matter.

------
benackles
Elon Musk is the next Steve Jobs. What Jobs did for computing, Musk is doing
for Space exploration. In this video he displays many of the same signs of a
"reality distortion field". He describes quite candidly what the general
public thinks is crazy and unachievable (especially in 2002). In some ways I
think his way of thinking is much more contrarian than Jobs. This year seems
to be a tipping point for how we (the average person) see the future of space.

From all who care to dream, Thank you Elon Musk!

~~~
philwelch
There's no "next Steve Jobs". I think Elon Musk is just Elon Musk, and that's
fine.

~~~
jamesflorentino
I think he meant that in terms of changing how the world sees and uses
something.

Jobs wanted computers to be accessible for families and the general public and
he was quite successful (iPhone alone is a huge success). Elon is trying to do
the same but in the field of clean energy (tesla motors, solar city) and space
travel.

But on another note, Elon musk is a whole different level. Because he knows
the design and engineering aspect of his field and knows how to market it
while still have the genuine intention of pushing humanity forward.

I think Elon Musk is a great role model for kids and future generation. As the
old Internet saying goes "I think Elon is a pretty cool guy. He does rocket
science and doesn't afraid of anything."

------
polyfractal
Unrelated to this particular lecture, but the Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought
Leader Seminar is a really excellent source of interesting interviews. I
always get excited when I see a new podcast sitting on my phone, waiting to be
listened to.

The whole series is really high quality...definitely recommend.

~~~
Nevaeh
Assuming that you have seen a decent amount of interviews, how does Elon
Musk's lecture compare to them? I thought that Elon's advice was simple but
powerful, when you consider the list of his accomplishments.

He gives the same sort of advice on other interviews like these: Getting
things done: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOPgM7Sc2VQ> Work hard:
[http://vator.tv/news/2010-12-23-elon-musk-work-twice-as-
hard...](http://vator.tv/news/2010-12-23-elon-musk-work-twice-as-hard-as-
others) Critical Thinking:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nMQ0-1jqFs&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nMQ0-1jqFs&feature=related#t=5m55s)

~~~
polyfractal
I honestly don't remember this particular interview. I listen to them as they
come out each semester, so I probably listened to this interview some time
last year.

There are only a handful of interviews from Stanford's ETS that I've skipped
or stopped halfway, so I'd take a guess and say it was pretty good :)

------
nl
It maybe worth noting this lecture is from 2003.

It took me a while to work out why it wasn't showing up in my Stanford eCorner
iTunes subscription.

------
nabilt
Interesting to watch him talk about SpaceX only days after their successful
mission. In this clip
(<http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=382>) he says based
on historical data it is unlikely the mission will stay within the 15 billion
dollar development cost and 2012 timeline. Not sure about the budget, but they
made their deadline. Makes their recent success even more impressive.

~~~
Nevaeh
Elon once said: "I always knew that there was a chance of failure in all my
endeavors. But I felt that they were important enough that I had to try, even
if I thought the probability of success was less than 50%."

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjuvIlskUf4#t=7m20s> Just look at Elon's
excitement at the 9:36 mark of this video as well as all of SpaceX employee's
enthusiasm. This was truly a huge success despite the challenging odds.

It's an amusing contrast of how Elon was like "Yeah that's pretty cool I
guess." when director Jon Favreau based Iron Man on him and donated an Iron
Man statue to SpaceX headquarters signed by the whole cast.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CECAda_XCDU>

~~~
reneherse
Thanks for that first link! The first few minutes of the video after the cue
are nearly as inspiring as the site of the launch and docking itself. THAT is
one radiant group of human beings!

~~~
Nevaeh
You're most welcome. It's such a refreshing sight as just 2 months ago, Elon
was visibly quite disappointed in this video:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJnW7vtqaf4&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJnW7vtqaf4&feature=related#t=11m40s)

I hope Apollo astronauts Neil Armstrong and Eugene Cernan will show their
support for Elon now that the mission was a success, partly due to
collaboration with NASA. This is also NASA's victory, really, since they can
save millions in the future by contracting with an American company instead of
relying on the Russians.

~~~
jwdunne
Yeah, wow. He looks like he's about to cry. It really shows how much he wants
this to succeed. I'm really rooting for the guy now, even though I don't know
much about him and the SpaceX project. It makes me even happier to know that
there was success.

He must feel on top of the world turning around a successful mission in the
face of being rejected by his heroes. I know I want to feel like that.

------
softbuilder
I'm enjoying the talk, but if you rely on the captioning, know that it is
wrong in many places.

------
jstanley
I think "lecture" is stretching it a bit. This video is 1 minute 12 seconds
long.

~~~
_gbc
Use this link to watch them all:
<http://ecorner.stanford.edu/playerPopup.html?groupId=11>

