
Elon Musk on How to Build the Future - sama
http://www.ycombinator.com/future/elon/
======
johnloeber
I am surprised that YC would make this page so remarkably mobile-unfriendly. I
don't have the time to listen to the interview, I just want to read the
transcript. They could have just pasted it in a reader-friendly format, but
instead it's in an annoying Scribd applet. I don't want to sign up for their
service or download the app, not to mention that it's a terrible mobile reader
anyway. This was very disappointing.

~~~
sneak
Yeah, kudos to Scribd for perhaps the maximum LOC codebase for "how to make
plain text completely fucking unusable".

There's real irony there in it being an article about delivering value to
society through making useful technology.

~~~
thaumaturgy
OK, I was able to clean it up into plain text and post it to Pastebin:
[http://pastebin.com/vcEe9KWP](http://pastebin.com/vcEe9KWP)

Used the $$ selector in Chrome to find Scribd's .ff0 elements, copied them
into SublimeText, did some regex work to clean out the tags (a span element
for every line? with absolute positioning? Really Scribd?), and then exploited
the fact that paragraphs got jammed together with no whitespace between the
last punctuation and the beginning of the next paragraph to use a regex to
auto-break the paragraphs.

Not pretty, but should be readable.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
I wish somebody had created some kind of universal markup language for text,
that would let us easily share it...

~~~
jasonsync
There must be a framework for that ...

~~~
aalbertson
Need a new standard...

------
iMuzz
Question/Answer I found interesting:

Sama> How should someone figure out how they should be useful?

Elon> Whatever this thing is you are trying to create.. What would be the
utility delta compared to the current state of the art times how many people
it would affect?

~~~
Paul_S
What about all the people working in marketing, software patent lawyers, drug
dealers? You want them to quit their jobs?

\---

Let me make my point in a less obtuse way. Most people make decisions about
their careers based on opportunity and maximising profit. No one becomes a
footballer to make the world a better place. This would all be fine as long as
the capitalist market rewarded choices that make the world a better place.
Obviously it does not and it's not the fault of a footballer that we as a
civilisation choose to channel our available resources their way and not
towards frivolous play like space exploration.

If anyone ever figures out a way to make the free market choose the greater
good they will win all the Nobel prizes forever (we won't need Nobel prizes
after that).

~~~
sbuttgereit
_...make the world a better place._

Just what the hell does anyone even mean by "make the world a better place"?!

I am willing to bet that if we held a forum to settle what a "better world"
means, we'd have to adjourn it with no resolution. The questions of better
world for whom, and on what terms, by what definition, what expense and, oh
yeah, who pays the bill and why would never find one conclusion.

What you really mean to say is that Capitalist market rewarded choices does
make the world a better place according to your definition of it. But don't
lay claim to speak for the world when for many Capitalism market rewards are
making the world a better place.

~~~
gameshot911
The world is a better place when our desires are attained.

~~~
Bakary
Desires are almost bottomless though

~~~
entwife
If only there was a way, a vehicle so to speak, for liberating ourselves from
the suffering of our desires.

------
rpedela
I would be far more interested in how to build a successful business. Everyone
asks Elon about his big ideas, but how do you turn those big ideas into
reality, specifically? I have never seen anyone ask him those questions. I
thoroughly enjoyed the interview with Jessica Livingston because that was the
primary topic. A missed opportunity in my opinion. I hope the rest of the
interviews are more about the nuts and bolts of how to build a successful
business.

EDIT

Ask him about the early days at PayPal. What are the lessons he learned that
he applied to Tesla and SpaceX? What worked for PayPal but not the other
companies and why?

~~~
contingencies
The way I see it PayPal essentially helped an established incumbent monopoly
(US credit card companies) with issues at the time maintain and extend its
global relevance, lock down domination of cross-border consumer payments,
meaningfully extend US intelligence sector surveillance, and continue to fuck
the little guy. Only Europe and China are building a resistance now, 15 years
later. That you have 5 or 10 rich people coming out of that little cash-cow
who feel like publicly playing god with humanity's future or that they deserve
some kind of respect for the 'achievement' is pathetic. Any number of people
could have built that better, or with morals. If they had any sense they'd be
ashamed at what they've done, and how it has seemingly irrevocably crumbled in
to bigcorp screw-the-customer service mode. Besides, we all know the real
e-vehicle revolution has already happened, right here in China.

~~~
pkinsky
When you say resistance, you mean 'implementing a locally controlled version
of the problematic US-controlled system they're resisting', right?

~~~
contingencies
That would be the cynical (and probably realistic) interpretation, however
because both the European (most of Europe, nearby countries) and Chinese
network (nodes across much of the world, particularly Asia) are relatively
internationally distributed (and thereby subject to multiple bureaucracies)
they are somewhat less prone to centralized interference/monitoring. Further,
neither region has as bad a record as the US in using financial systems for
aggressive political gain.

------
djcooley
I have all the respect in the world for what Mr. Musk has accomplished, but it
has come at an amazing cost to the people around him.

He is worshiped from afar but reviled by many the closer you get to his inner
circle. Go read "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic
Future."

The question I always ask myself with the people who move mountains is what
cost did that progress come at? What would someone's spouse, kids, friends,
etc. say about the person?

~~~
_RPM
People that worship another person generally aren't well informed. For
example, people look at Elon Musk like he's a pop culture icon -- I see people
talking about him on my news feed all the time, yet these people aren't even
technical. It's just a way for someone to identify to some type of group. Oh
look what Elon's doing, he's so great. My reaction is, why are you sharing
press articles about this person? Does it make you feel better about yourself?

~~~
MPSimmons
Are you accusing Elon Musk of being the thinking man's Kim Kardashian?

~~~
AstralStorm
There were a few like him before, but none as successful or as rich.
Previously, we had: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, that president of GM. And more.

Compared to them, Musk is taking a much harder, potentially more important
cause.

------
hbt
What amazes me about Elon is the level of self control, discipline,
perseverance, resilience, willpower etc.

He's not the only one playing the game so effectively at that level but to me,
he exemplifies rational behavior.

I wish more entrepreneurs like Page or Bezos were in the public eye as much as
Musk. I believe those traits are common to achieve your goals.

~~~
Havoc
Plus he is a pretty mediocre public speaker...yet puts himself out there &
makes an impact

~~~
falsestprophet
He is a captivating public speaker. He accessibly expresses new ideas of
considerable importance and complexity. What else do you want from him?

SpaceX doesn't need Vince Offer.

~~~
MPSimmons
I've often thought that if Elon had the stage presence of Robert Downey Junior
as Tony Stark, we'd already be on Mars.

~~~
inopinatus
Perhaps not. Mr Downey's performance is not achieved by raw personal magnetism
alone, but requires a substantial crew to deliver the fully polished product.
The cost of creating Tony Stark runs at roughly $100m per hour. I doubt even
the astronomical budgets of astronautical agencies could absorb that.

As for Mr Musk's personal style, I found this interview quite captivating. All
the more so for his lack of bluster and posturing.

------
messel
This was a bunch of fun.

Notes:

Be useful, that's fine, no need to alter the world drastically.

Big Next shifts: AI & Genetic Modification (oh and a faster connection to our
minds)

High probability of failure, not a problem. Tesla, Space X. Push the ball
forward.

Democratization of AI is a best possible outcome (direct connection, we are
the AI)

~~~
daveguy
> Be useful, that's fine, no need to alter the world drastically.

More specifically: if you make a minor improvement that affects a lot of
people (improve video streaming) it is just as good as a major improvement
that drastically affects a few people (curing an extremely rare disease). It's
the area under the curve that matters. The best would obviously be a large
effect over a large number of people, but minor improvements can be very
useful.

------
etendue
How would one go about meaningfully contributing to solving problems in
genetics without having done the work leading to a MD or PhD (or both)?

~~~
Obi_Juan_Kenobi
I'm not sure you would. I mean, I'm sure you _could_ somehow, but at this
point so much of what needs to be done is basic research, and really can be
done well in that context. There aren't many things that are ready to leave
the context of a research lab and into commercialization. We've got some
notable disasters with Theranos, and even the YC funded Taxa (glowing plant -
that was a farce from the get-go, but they're doing some potentially
interesting stuff now).

As far as education, it's not something you can learn by yourself, it just
isn't. Most of the methods in a biological wet lab are very far from
standardized and need a great deal of troubleshooting. Most post-docs in a new
lab spend a couple months just trying to get basic stuff working that they've
done dozens of times before. It's _hard_. You need people around you with
experience and perspective, and doctorate programs are likely the only place
you're going to get that kind of training.

I think there are a lot of people that want to approach biology with a CS
mindset, especially the people interested in synthetic biology, but that
rarely bears fruit. It could get to that place eventually, but there's a lot
of ground to cover. In that sense I agree with Elon that, despite the huge
impact genetic engineering could have, it's not the next thing because we're
not ready yet. There's still too much that's fundamental to biological
problems that we simply don't understand, and solving things in one species
usually doesn't translate very far across taxa.

~~~
gech
>leave the context of a research lab and into commercialization. We've got
some notable disasters with Theranos

Did that spring from a research lab or from a happyhour with mba types wanting
to jump on "start-up" fortunes

------
mattbeckman
Having watched a good number of Elon Musk interviews, I wish more interviewers
would ask more direct questions. Asking Elon general questions usually results
in fairly similar responses to what you have heard before or read in his
biography.

~~~
choxi
I'm curious -- what would you ask him?

~~~
amai
I would ask him, if he is still using
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adderall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adderall)
.

~~~
drdre2001
Do you have a source of him using Adderall?

~~~
amai
Rumors, just rumors:
[https://twitter.com/swiftonsecurity/status/73836540146617958...](https://twitter.com/swiftonsecurity/status/738365401466179584)

------
ravenstine
I like the things that Elon Musk has done and tried, but what irritates me are
all the sycophants in the media who think he's a genius wizard rather than a
smart entrepreneur and don't take some of his claims with a grain of salt.

~~~
35bge57dtjku
Are any of his claims even original? It's not like needing to spread humans to
other planets is original, yet it seems like everyone's worshiping him over
such statements as though it's a new idea.

------
jernfrost
I think it was interesting his comment about how he really isn't working like
a CEO: "Yeah. I think a lot of people think I'm kind of a business person or
something, which is fine. Business is fine. But really it's like at SpaceX,
Gwynne Shotwell is Chief Operating Officer. She manages legal, finance, sales,
and general business activity. And then my time is almost entirely with the
engineering team, working on improving the Falcon 9 and our Dragon spacecraft
and developing the Mars Colonial architecture."

This seems very similar to Steve Jobs who said he became CEO so that nobody
could tell him what he could or couldn't work on. But like Elon Musk he seemed
most interested in creating things and not really running the business.

I think this is a clue to successful business. If you got leaders like that
you retain focus on good products rather than getting caught up in optimizing
financials without a strong focus on actually building quality stuff people
want or need.

------
kstenerud
It always saddens me when I see a slew of Debbie Downer comments from the HN
crowd.

"Yes, he ushered in the electric car revolution, but the production carbon
footprint is still huge!"

"Yes, he's building rockets, but he took a bunch of government money!"

"Yes, he's paving the way to Mars, but what has he done for world hunger?"

And it not just with Musk, but really with anyone who has been successful. I
would have thought that the technologists were above such petty envy. We're
here to improve humanity's lot, aren't we?

~~~
rdiddly
There are rational, non-envy-based reasons to object to all the hero-worship.
For example, all the things "he" did above were actually done by big teams of
people working together, but Elon gets all the credit. He deserves credit, but
not all of it.

And let's not forget the millions of people who worked to generate wealth that
could be transferred via, and taxed by, PayPal, accruing the fortune with
which to start all these projects in the first place. If I didn't "know
better" I'd be tempted to conclude that the luck of being in the right place
at the right time with a good idea, is the main difference between Elon and
the rest, or at least that any intrinsic differences are not as great as you
might think. Heck I'm a "visionary" too, just add one billion dollars and tons
of free time and see what I come up with! (Campaign coming soon to
Kickstarter, LOL)

Man is at once animal and rational, and sometimes the rational side reacts
against our own animalistic urge to designate an alpha ape and worship only
that one ape. Many of us got into technology as a way of breaking down this
same kind of bullshit hierarchy that you can find in so many other places &
domains of human life. Technology was supposed to be the great equalizer. In
some cases it has worked that way but in others it has only amplified the
disequilibrium. It seems we can't escape our inner ape.

Therefore is it "technologists" to whom you should be appealing here for
greater reverence? Maybe it's not your technological side, but your ape side,
that wants to be more reverent.

~~~
astazangasta
> Heck I'm a "visionary" too, just add one billion dollars and tons of free
> time and see what I come up with!

Thread winner. There is little difference between a billionaire and anyone
else except a billion dollars.

~~~
ryandrake
I agree, it's brilliant, and a great counter to the idea of how the
"entrepreneur hero" is intrinsically better than the rest of us.

~~~
PieterH
And when Jobs died, we needed a new icon to worship and show us the Future.
Musk was in the right place at the right time.

------
the_common_man
TIL that OpenAI was founded by Sam and Elon. Should get my resume polished :-)

------
aantix
Why do they discuss the speed of the line? Isn't the finalized output a much
more useful metric? (e.g. one car per hour)?

If there's a ton of work done at the various checkpoints, the pace is slow but
maybe the length of the line isn't very far?

~~~
Nanite
It seemed to me the question was asked in the context of some closing small
talk, and got a very Musk answer :) as far as I know, the Tesla assembly lines
have nowhere near the amount of robotics of the much larger volume lines of
for instance Honda, so very slow by those standards.

~~~
mikeyouse
I toured the GM Lansing Delta Township assembly plant a few years ago where
they make mid-size SUVs like the GMC Acadia, Buick Enclave, and Chevy
Traverse. At the time, with a ton of robotic welders, sleds, etc. they were
running 3 shifts and turning out 60 cars/hour.

Last year, Tesla sold 50,000 cars. It would take the Delta plant roughly a
month to make that many. GM has ~15 equivalent plants worldwide.

I love Tesla and am glad to see the NUMMI plant up and running again, but even
their most ambitious sales plans for the next 10 years pale in comparison to
business as usual for the major manufacturers.

 _edit_

Curiosity got the better of me, so I looked up the 2015 sales figures for
those 3 vehicles from that one plant. Acadia: 96,393; Traverse: 119,945;
Enclave: 62,081. So roughly 280,000 SUVs produced at the one assembly plant
last year without much fanfare.

~~~
OrwellianChild
A better comparison might have been NUMMI's production capacity in it's prime
as a joint GM/Toyota plant. They were producing about 26k vehicles/month
(312k/year) until May 2010. [1] Apples to oranges - a Carolla is not a Model X
- but interesting datum nonetheless.

[1]
[http://ww.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyI...](http://ww.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=125229157)

~~~
mikeyouse
Yeah I considered NUMMI but I thought the Delta plant would be better
comparison since it was built in the mid 2000's and NUMMI was built in the
mid-80s (although obviously upgraded multiple times).

The Delta plant employs ~4,000 employees so you get about 70
cars/employee/year.

If NUMMI was making 310k vehicles per year with 4,700 employees according to
Wiki, that would be about 66 cars/employee/year -- which is much closer than I
expected.

Last year Tesla turned out 50,000 vehicles and they currently have ~6,000
employees in Fremont -- or about 8 cars/employee/year.

Obviously an unfair comparison since Tesla is ramping production and NUMMI /
Delta are both final assembly plants and Tesla is doing a lot of stamping and
component production in Fremont but interesting nonetheless.

------
faragon
I like very much how humble and how easy and crystal clear are his responses.

------
weinzierl
Besides the part about the importance of being useful and how to be useful I
find the following answer most interesting:

> So it's not that I think that the risk is that the AI would develop a will
> of its own right off the bat. I think the concern is that someone may use it
> in a way that is bad. Or even if they weren't going to use it in a way
> that's bad but somebody could take it from them and use it in a way that's
> bad, that, I think, is quite a big danger. So I think we must have
> democratization of AI technology to make it widely available. And that's the
> reason that obviously you, me, and the rest of the team created OpenAI was
> to help spread out AI technology so it doesn't get concentrated in the hands
> of a few.

------
dpc_pw
Relevant: [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-06/how-elon-musk-
used-...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-06/how-elon-musk-used-broken-
marketplace-play-us-all)

According to this, the answer to "How to Build the Future" is "make the story
big, and get free money from government".

Note: I have not fact-checked it or anything. Just find it interesting and
relevant, so don't expect me to argue about it, and don't flag me as a troll.

~~~
lutorm
I literally have no idea what they're talking about.

SpaceX is providing the US government with cargo supply services at a fraction
of the cost of previous alternatives and that's "free money from the
government"?

Read all about it: [http://www.nasa.gov/content/nasa-releases-cots-final-
report](http://www.nasa.gov/content/nasa-releases-cots-final-report)

------
kelvin0
Great interview, I'm always really interested in hearing what entrepreneurs
like Musk have to say. However, none of the interviews ever seem to delve into
the personal aspects of his life. I would love to have Elon go through a
typical day and explain how achieves some balance in his life and what that
looks like for him. Being a husband, a father and a friend must be quite
challenging and I would love to hear more about how he views his life in
general.

~~~
weinzierl
He gives us a glimpse into his life in the interview:

At Tesla his time is spent "almost entirely with the engineering team, working
on improving the Falcon 9 and our Dragon spacecraft and developing the Mars
Colonial architecture."

At Tesla he is "in the design studio, take up a half a day a week, dealing
with aesthetics and look-and-feel things. And then most of the rest of the
week is just going through engineering of the car itself as well as
engineering of the factory."

He spends "basically half a day at OpenAI most weeks"

------
cinquemb
"But we're extremely bandwidth-constrained in that interface between the
cortex and that tertiary digital form of yourself. And helping solve that
bandwidth constraint would be, I think, very important in the future as well.
Yeah."

After working and consulting with labs while building/hacking
software/hardware for neural interfaces and seeing where the field is now, I
have very little hope. Too much bureaucracy, and too much (darpa) money going
after red queens races (lets not even get started at all the private/nih money
flowing into some labs funding even more technologically incompetent PI's) at
least in neuroimaging, and companies lining up to get MIT postdocs to peddle
their latest and greatest toys.

I even had to find someone willing to write my grant and go through the
submission process for an abstract (not even the full proposal) for DARPA-
BAA-16-33, because despite calling for "BTO seeks unconventional approaches
that are outside the mainstream, challenge assumptions, and have the potential
to radically change established practice, lead to extraordinary outcomes, and
create entirely new fields.", apparently an email submission is just not ok
despite having co authored in this area and currently designing BCI related
hardware and software in the open in my free time compared to a lot of newly
minted assoc. profs struggling to get their matlab scripts (that someone else
probably wrote years ago) to run on cluster their uni just spend 10's of
millions on again this year expanding, forget understanding how any of the
machines from which data is collected (and can barely analyze themselves)
actually work…

Yeah… semonga berhasil ;)

~~~
kbenson
> apparently an email submission is just not ok despite having co authored in
> this area and currently designing BCI related hardware and software in the
> open in my free time

I'm not sure of the specifics, but this comes across as very entitled and
narcissistic, but I assume that's most likely a case of misinterpretation of
your point . That said, if they have a submission process, expect to go
through it. It's entirely possibly they get a ton of useless submissions and
inquiries through email, and part of their process is to ignore those. If an
applicant can't be bothered to go through the initial steps to get onto the
short list for consideration, why should they think that's a good candidate to
be throwing money at, regardless of their resume?

~~~
cinquemb
> _If an applicant can 't be bothered to go through the initial steps to get
> onto the short list for consideration, why should they think that's a good
> candidate to be throwing money at, regardless of their resume?_

That's a fair question. I'd like to ask a question in response: if an
applicant has worked under/helped/seen those who could be bothered the jump
through the hoops to get on the short of consideration and then funded, walked
away because someone threw money at them to work on financial/trading software
(thus enabling and "freed" to pursued related research work in more detail in
their spare time), why shouldn't they throw money at such candidate despite
considering how far throwing more of the same into neuroimaging research has
gotten us thus far?

Personally, jumping through arbitrary/superficial hoops is not a game I want
to play (plenty of others are good at that, and I wish them all the best,
darpa's latest and greatest ways at dealing with signal 2 noise issue is their
problem, and anyone should feel free to point that out), I'm having much more
fun playing my own game from my fancy apt all the away across the world, while
still working with those don't want to waste my time (and mine there's).
Luckly for others and folks like me, darpa aren't the only folks interested,
and money isn't the only "limited" resource of consideration.

~~~
kbenson
> I'd like to ask a question in response ... why shouldn't they throw money at
> such candidate

Because they don't see that candidate. Your indication that your email was
sufficient implies a few underlying assumptions which may or may not be true:
a) They have enough staff to actively monitor this mailbox for submissions, b)
there aren't too many useless submissions that make it unlikely the staff will
be able to find the useful ones, c) that even if the staff exists, it doesn't
require some bureaucratic hurdle to be met so it can be allocated to this use,
d) that the staff assigned to monitoring this source is capable of assessing
your accomplishments and how they relate to the grant in question.

Since there is a grant process, I think it's likely that whatever resources
they do have are allocated towards assessing entries that come in through that
process. There's probably more than enough work to be done in that department,
such that monitoring mailboxes for the odd useful non-conformant applicant is
not a priority. Even so, I assume if the stars aligned and someone happened to
see the email, and knew the applicant was uniquely qualified or had time to
research the person, then it's likely it might be followed up on (depending on
how much interest that person had in this particular grant or field).

The important thing to consider in this is that none of these scenarios have
anything to do with how qualified the applicant is. Taking issue with them not
persuing you in this process when I think it's likely your application may
have never even seen human eyes seems an odd response to me. The little
information I have to go on makes it sound like you did the equivalent of
applying for an engineering position at Apple by walking into the nearest
Apple store and dropping off your resume. I'd expect about the same level of
success with that. Sure, the store manager _might_ pass it on, or know someone
who is interested, but really, that's not their job or responsibility.

~~~
cinquemb
> _Because they don 't see that candidate._

> _The important thing to consider in this is that none of these scenarios
> have anything to do with how qualified the applicant is._

I know this, which is why I kinda of have no faith in these kinds of
initiatives (the kinds Elon is inadvertently/or not parading over) since most
of effort involved goes into being seen, the people behind the "process" could
care less of after such funds have been allocated as to what becomes of them.
I've seen enough people do work behinds the scenes (and how far south/delayed
projects go after they leave), actually making things happen for those who do
go through the "process" in labs/orgs to not really care too deeply about
getting through this hurdle that's ultimately meaningless in the scope of the
work.

Things are moving forward overall, just a bit slowly than they have to
(although I've made more related useful for stuff for others in less time
after not working in labs directly anymore).

> _The little information I have to go on makes it sound like you did the
> equivalent of applying for an engineering position at Apple by walking into
> the nearest Apple store and dropping off your resume._

I've talked about similar issues before on HN (with others also in similar
positions with their work in research <-> industry) in more depth with more
links and such, so its not really worth going into here.

~~~
kbenson
Fair enough. You obviously have more experience in this area than I do.

------
edmundhuber
Paradromics ([https://paradromics.com](https://paradromics.com)) is working on
full-bandwidth neural interfaces.

------
sama
Some HN commenters never cease to amaze with their negativity...

~~~
forgetsusername
This site is overwhelmingly supportive of Mr. Musk and his enterprises. Does
everyone have to be?

~~~
chc
Are you sure you're thinking of HN? The top comment on any article about Tesla
here is usually someone saying "Whatever this article is about is old news and
also a bad idea and also doesn't work, and BTW Tesla is losing money hand-
over-fist."

~~~
thomaskcr
Any company can build an electric car and lose money while doing it. The
question isn't whether he can build a cool electric car, he clearly can. I
really question the position he has put himself in financially.

\- He used Tesla stock to secure loans he used to purchase his stake in Solar
City, the decision to purchase Solar City is at least in part driven by the
fact that Elon Musk IS Tesla, without him at the helm it would be a problem
and if he got margin called it would affect Tesla since he would lose a
significant amount of his shares. There is no Tesla boardmember/major
shareholder that doesn't have a conflict of interest for this issue.

\- His companies buy each other's bonds, they're basically just moving money
around and building a larger house of cards - if one company goes down at this
point I really don't see how it wouldn't have significant reprecussions for
the others. This is especially problematic when it comes to Space X which is
privately owned and its deep connection to his public companies.

\- It seems that if I took a big pile of money in my yard and lit it on fire,
Elon would probably want to compete there (and do it better than me). All of
his companies are very capital intensive and he is very leveraged at this
point and has a lot of people tied to his fate - him not being focused on any
one business makes this a bigger problem.

And here's my biggest Elon problem:

\- He is a walking PR campaign. Why do we barely know any of the higher level
engineers at Space X or Tesla? He is splitting his time between multiple
companies, I find it impossible to believe he is involved in every engineering
breakthrough at all of these companies and yet I have honestly never once
heard him give credit to any of his management or engineering team.

That last one is the worst for me. I don't think he's a great person and it's
annoying seeing everyone fawning over him like he's Elon Kardashian for tech
people. The fact an almost universal complaint at his companies is that people
are undercompensated and overworked further reinforces my personal opinion he
doesn't value the work of other people.

~~~
gist
> He is a walking PR campaign. Why do we barely know any of the higher level
> engineers at Space X or Tesla?

Remind me a great deal of what existed with Steve Jobs. Another example is
Jeff Bezos with Amazon. Not saying that in tech circles some of their execs
and/or engineers are not well known but certainly not people that your Aunt
would have heard about. Also I guess Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook (although
Sheryl Sandberg is fairly well known). Another is the "Google Guys" but you
don't hear much about them lately probably because the PR has been tamped
down. But early on it was every magazine cover and apparently from what I
heard later Sergey wasn't even anywhere near as important as Larry was.

This happens also with VC firms. One partner (in a small firm like AVC) is the
big cheese, the others you barely hear about.

That said this is not unusual in business or for that matter team sports or
even entertainment. For many reason including some people simply want to be
behind the scenes.

~~~
thomaskcr
I have literally never heard Elon mention another person who already worked at
the company. I can find plenty of times he was announcing a key hire, like
when they brought in Peter Hochholdinger. Every new feature, product, etc is
announced by Musk. Which like you said is similar to Apple. I think similar to
Jobs, Elon is at least significantly involved in a lot of details - and I
think similar to Jobs he feels that since he was involved it wouldn't have
happened without him.

Google isn't a good example in my opinion though, generally people besides the
CEO announce their products, i.e. Google Maps was announced by Bret Taylor.
Look at the history of Google and Microsoft and you will see tons of "xxx
announces/introduces yyy". Tesla's entire history is "Elon Musk announces ..."
(after teasing on Twitter for 5 months to keep the stock price up).

I don't think everything is bad about him. I think the thing he is amazing at
is setting the vision for his companies - which is really valuable. It really
seems like everyone understands the mission and where things are going and
he's very clear about it. So I think he has good qualities, I just think he's
also narcissistic, financially impulsive and unfocused.

~~~
sheer_horror
In most all Tesla product unveilings, Elon will make a directed thank-you to
the 'Tesla Team'.

The blog posts are mostly made by the Tesla Team.

In the gigafactory unveiling, some speeches in Norway and the Netherlands, and
other press events, a top engineer JT speaks alongside him. He brought his
chief designer on stage at the gigafactory unveiling, as well as another
engineer aside from JT.

Companies like this _need_ a BDFL. It's crucial that Elon stays in complete
control to _ensure_ focus, not to flounder it.

------
keyle
"Most of my time is spent designing things".

Woah that hit home. I wish I could run a business without businessy things.
How do you find the right people?! I'm a really good tech guy and designer. I
can whip up anything, I've just never found the right person to sell it and
deal with other humans.

------
arca_vorago
Give the people with ideas funding and the future will happen. Instead what
has been happening is the uber-elite have been hoarding their money and not
putting it back into the economy. This is how to delay the future.

To me the future is welcomed with a guarded mentality, in that for all the
benifits purported to follow it, but the reality is that as we progress
technologically we are going to create a new wealth schism in the people of
the world the blowback of that will come back one day and bite us. If we can
push the future and lessen income inequality and increase the wealth, not of
investors, but average people, that is the way forward.

~~~
merpnderp
From the buzz, I thought VC's were funding every 18 year old with a wild idea.
Is it really hard to get serious work funded due to a lack of available
capital?

~~~
dwaltrip
They are funding every easily digestible, consumer friendly app that has a
trendy design. This is a small subset of all interesting and worthwhile ideas.

------
Ericson2314
Planet diversification and renewable energy are good priorities, and that not
doing them narrows future options dramatically, but the other things on this
list are pure sci-fi fandom. Cyborgs and whatnot will probably come around
eventually bit I see no reason to hasten them. I'd like to fix our current
problems before these things make them more intractable:

\- inequality

\- workaholism of upper classes skewing culture

\- degredidation of biodiversity worldwide

If we move to Mars let's make this planet a temple. 50% earth surface no
humans or something.

~~~
djokkataja
Cyborgs are desirable because they solve the "control problem" of AGI.
Essentially, if you create a superintelligent AI, how do you make sure it
doesn't outwit you and all other humans in order to do terrible things? There
aren't any plausible methods that I'm aware of to accomplish that goal. So you
sidestep it by not making any AI that's more intelligent than humans.
Unfortunately there also aren't good ways to make sure that no one makes AI
that's more intelligent than humans (plus arguably superintelligent AI could
be an extremely good thing if it doesn't turn into Skynet). So the remaining
obvious option is increasing human intelligence at the same time as we improve
AI -- or even better, merge humans and AI together.

~~~
Ericson2314
So, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em :)

------
ReedJessen
"Humans are so slow... exactly..."\- Elon Musk

Pretty sure Elon is a creature from outside of our simulation who has injected
himself into our reality to teach us how to play the game better.

~~~
taneq
That would explain how he works 27 hours a day. The game's paused when he's
not logged in. :P

------
codecamper
Elon says we must be careful to get AI right.

However, the value of his company is already based on the premise of self
driving cars.

Self driving cars will cause a pretty massive shift in the world. I'm all for
it & really think that most people suck at driving. However...

I have a hard time following his advice of getting AI right while is plan is
to profit immensely from AI.

Maybe his moral compass is telling him that AI will cause problems, but better
to have a seat at the table once the oncoming deluge hits.

~~~
rhaps0dy
The term AI has two somewhat separate meanings and you're equivocating. Which
is unsurprising, given that Musk himself is not saying anything to separate
them.

Anyways. The AI we must be careful with is "strong AI", that is, human level
in all or most intellectual endeavours.

The AI he will profit with is "weak AI", or the current and foreseeable AI
technology. We don't need to be careful with that one, but not as much. It is
industrial-equipment level of careful.

Strong AI needs nuclear ICBM levels of careful, maybe even more.

~~~
mcv
Strong AI is fantasy AI in my opinion. We're not interested in creating
artificial well-rounded humans, we're interested in automating specific,
complicated tasks. Like driving a car. And in some ways, AI is already better
than us at driving cars; less accidents, always perfect attention, etc.

But AI without a real purpose but that can think and feel the way we do? I see
no reason why anyone would put that in charge of ICBMs.

------
feralmoan
This was a lot less insightful than I was hoping for. I understand he's naval
gazing on the 'human condition' from a billion dollar vantage and trying to
rationalize investment in his personal academic fetishes... but really? The
world is burning and he's pontificating an ego expression of 1950's atomic
age. No 1% left behind. Ridiculous.

------
adamzerner
If you're somewhat familiar with Elon's thoughts and ideas, this interview
probably won't teach you anything new.

------
huuu
Lately I'm very concerned about my posture. Now I'm watching two people who
both have a bad posture like me (hunchback, forward head). And I'm sure this
is becoming a problem in the 'read from a screen all day' age.

So the future of better interfaces (with your brain) Elon is talking about
might be also much better for our health.

------
Herodotus38
Apologies if this has already been answered but I couldn't find it in the
comments below: does anyone know the date of this interview?

EDIT: Figured it out. Probably June or July as he mentions OpenAI was 6 months
old and it was founded in December 2015.

------
aantix
Why does Elon continuously talk about AI as if it's taking over the world? At
this point, Siri can barely understand me saying the word 'salad'.

Slow down Elon... slow down..

~~~
byebyetech
I guess Kurzweil and Elon spend some time on WhatsApp. But since Elon thinks
in terms of first principles. He probably has this reasoning:

1\. Are the any laws of physics that stop us from creating AI ? Answer is No.
Nature already built it so its possible.

2\. Is it possible to improve AI significantly ? Yes, because if we can build
AI, AI can build better AI.

3\. How soon can it happen? Since the trend is exponential. It can happen
within 100 years.

4\. Is it good idea to start worrying about it now? Sure why not.

~~~
marcosdumay
I guess the entire cognitive dissonance com from this line:

> How soon can it happen? Since the trend is exponential. It can happen within
> 100 years.

Some people think "well, it's likely to happen within 100 years -> it's up to
us to be prepared".

Other people think "well, it's unlikely to happen within 10 years -> it's not
worth it to begin to prepare".

I don't even know if one of those is wrong!

~~~
tim333
Not a boy scout then. Always be prepared!

------
hristov
Great now I have a mental image of Usain Bolt sprinting next to a Tesla
production line with a wrench in hand trying to tighten a bolt.

------
ksashikumar
Anybody know why the first approach to Mars is 20 light minutes? Musk
mentioned that the fastest approach to Mars is 4 light minutes!

~~~
djokkataja
Earth is 8 light minutes from the sun, Mars is 12 light minutes from the sun.
So when Earth and Mars are closest to each other, they're 4 light minutes away
from each other, and when they're farthest from each other (on opposite sides
of the sun), they're 20 light minutes away from each other.

------
spectrum1234
Is this the Tesla factory in the background?

~~~
Etheryte
Yes, but it's not the new large one.

------
joe563323
Its sad that Elon does not have confidence on immortality. He is even thing
about dying.

------
chipz
is it just me or this interview is kinda unprepared? the questions that sama
asks, the way that musk answer & the way that interview stop. But overall, I
enjoy this series, kudos!

------
d_burfoot
Gads, what a terrible background for an interview.

------
vmk7
can the thought of delta times the number of people be applied in the area of
food ?

------
unboxed_type
Thanks alot for sharing this!

------
kkotak
I don't know what you guys will do without Elon Musk. He's truly a gift to you
all.

------
zxcvvcxz
Some choice quotes:

"Do you think people who want to be useful should get a PhD?" "Umm... Mostly
not."

"Sometimes it [technology] gets worse... In '69 we were able to go to the
moon.. Then the space shuttle could only take people to LEO, then the space
shuttle retired... That trends to zero. People think technology automatically
gets better every year but it actually doesn't, it gets better if smart people
work like crazy to make it better... By itself if people don't work on it
technology will decline. We look at Rome and how they were able to build these
incredible roadways and aqueducts and indoor plumbing, and they forgot how to
do all of those things.

Entropy is not on your side."

"I know a lot of people think I must spend a lot of time doing media and
business-y things... But 80% of my time is spent on engineering and design."

"A very long time ago you took me on a tour of SpaceX. And the most impressive
thing was that you knew every detail of the rocket and every pieces of
engineering that went into it and I don't think many people get that about
you."

"What really matters is the machine that builds the machine, the factory. That
is at least 2 orders of magnitude harder than the vehicle itself."

~~~
gregpilling
That was the statement that was most impactful to me.

"What really matters is the machine that builds the machine, the factory. That
is at least 2 orders of magnitude harder than the vehicle itself."

------
idlewords
I am very happy that there's a transcript. But I just spent two minutes trying
to figure out how to cut and paste it into a textfile (Scribd won't let me
download it without signing up).

My request to YC is to publish transcripts like this as text.

~~~
sandslash
Hi there. That certainly is inconvenient!

Here's a link to the transcript in RTF, and we will definitely note it for
future posts: [https://goo.gl/kaMMwv](https://goo.gl/kaMMwv)

~~~
idlewords
Heh, now it's asking me to sign up to Dropbox.

Thanks for noting my request, and consider just including the text in the body
of the page. It will blow people's minds.

~~~
doneallison
I didn't notice it at first, but there was a link at the bottom of the popup
for me that said "No thanks, continue to download." Clicking it triggered the
download.

~~~
DavidWanjiru
How do you get transcripts done? In house,outsourced to a transcription
service,voice recognition software?

------
nojvek
I wonder why the transcript is linked from scribd. It makes me download their
app and doesn't even open the document.

Why can't this just be good old HTML than a scribd walled garden? A horrible
interface with ads shoved on your face.

~~~
endgame
I think YC funded scribed at some point, and I can't for the life of me work
out why.

------
pikachu_is_cool
This interview was pretty dry to me. It almost seemed rehearsed, as if Elon
requested the questions go like this. They only scratched the surface of a
bunch of general "big picture" subjects that anyone whose paying attention
right now would already know about.

------
mrfusion
Umm so there's no way to read the full transcript?

~~~
drivers99
I was able to scroll through the full transcript (7 pages) within the scribd
frame, below the youtube and soundcloud frames.

~~~
mrfusion
It seemed to insist I install an app to go past the third page.

------
metamet
I'm just here for the free energy drinks and VMware backpacks.

~~~
sctb
We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12509079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12509079)
and marked it off-topic.

------
chorkpop
He also exploits people because he's "building the future." He is an evil
capitalist with a cult of personality and doesn't deserve the worship he gets.

~~~
clydethefrog
The problem with Musk is that he's managed to garner a cult of personality for
being a perfect representation of an issue that has been plaguing the high
tech industry for years. For decades the public has been contributing (through
taxes) to the creation of the entire research and development/high tech
industry, an industry that wouldn't have been created otherwise since it
creates long-term profit at the expense of short-term profit (which isn't
expedient to capital), an industry that requires immense collaboration among
society, a society which has been contributing its social intelligence since
the beginning of society itself, yet what do the people get for all this?
Nothing. The public work is looted and privatized, then we are forced to buy
back the products we created so a few capitalists can profit. Again, the
production is collective yet its product is appropriated privately.

~~~
jomamaxx
"yet what do the people get for all this"

Nothing?

They get massive consumer surpluses.

They get cars, fridges, air travel, tv, entertainment, healthcare - better,
faster, cheaper (except the later).

Anyone who is able to hold a job and have an income in the Western World sees
their material lives improve radically.

It is a lie to say 'the capitalists win'. Consumers get far more of the
surpluses than any other group.

------
LordHumungous
>I think a lot of people think I must spend a lot of time with media or on
businessy things. But actually almost all my time, like 80% of it, is spent on
engineering and design.

Uh... that's not really a CEO's job though.

~~~
rantanplan
We're just used to CEOs having only a decorative role, who can be replaced in
an instant. So much so that when we see a CEO actually working/engaging with
the actual product/service, they seem like a peculiar and rare specimen.

~~~
LordHumungous
No... sorry but it sounds like you have no idea what a CEO's actual role is.

~~~
nojvek
CEO - Chief EXECUTION officer. Isn't building and designing the "big piece" of
execution. If he's involved in the actual execution then that means is a
company laser focused on "executing" its vision.

I just wish more middle management at my company knew how the product worked.

~~~
corin_
It's 'executive' not 'execution'

------
misterbishop
How to build the future: Take $5B in public subsidy for boondoggle
technologies, and then tell everyone you're fiscally conservative.

[http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-
subsidies-2015...](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-
subsidies-20150531-story.html)

~~~
Applejinx
You see, you've already lost me because nearly everything worthwhile has been
funded by public sector money, notably space and the Internet. To my mind,
claiming to be 'fiscally conservative' may be a good tactical claim as a CEO
of rapidly expanding publically held companies, but in practical terms it's a
terrible idea. If Elon is turning public money into technology, I'm
enthusiastic about that. I'm sure there are ways to nationalize his industry
if it proves necessary.

Better that, than privatizing things: that's a recipe for bad answers and a
untimely demise due to market forces. Maybe I don't want AI, electric cars,
and space travel to die because some hedge fund needed immediate profits the
very next quarter.

~~~
misterbishop
Two points for your consideration:

#1: We clearly have the resources to publicly invest in innovative
technologies like electric cars, AI and space travel. So why must these
investments go directly into the hands of a few individuals to make all the
final decisions (and who have bad habits of not paying their workers btw)? Why
can't we make these investments through democratically accountable teams,
perhaps via some academic mechanism?

#2: When you make a risky investment as an individual in a startup, you expect
to get a commensurate return on that investment if the startup becomes
successful in the marketplace. Why don't the collective investments of the
public in Musk's ventures come back to citizens in a kind of public dividend?

~~~
Applejinx
#1: It's seed money with which Elon is raising mind-boggling amounts of
investor money, using his celebrity as a lever. I consider it a hack, but it's
an effective one. Also, being the public face of a decision isn't the same
thing as making the decision. So far, I like the results being produced.

#2: Got me there with colonizing Mars: that will be rich-only. However,
proliferation of electric cars combined with breakthroughs in energy storage
combined with local solar power can end up as a VERY big public dividend:
effectively, it becomes possible to invest in technology that drastically
reduces the self-sustaining costs and carbon footprint of the individual.
Combine that with growing your own food and you're your own little generation
ship: it's a drastic change from traditional labor/capital society, because
you can set up your little 'life capsule' and then spend your days doing
whatever, perhaps working on OpenAI :)

And if it's good enough for Elon it's good enough for everybody else: imagine
if not just megacorporations but ordinary citizens were subsidized to convert
to this battery-pack-based, solar-powered energy consumption model. We could
use plain human self-interest to drive widespread adoption of tech that would
reduce the catastrophic swerve into a far more chaotic and destructive global
climate.

I'd call that a public dividend, worldwide.

------
dolguldur
If I would pray I'd pray for Elon. He's been such a source of inspiration to
me. He's so brave in carrying his burden. May the fruits of his work prosper
soon. Then he can take a break.

------
TbobbyZ
He's gained weight, look at his gut. Also, does he sleep? Look at his eyes. I
would bet money he works 60+ hours a week.

------
tehchromic
What's interesting about a savant is how they can end up defined by what they
don't see. I have nothing but respect for Elon, however I think he is working
on the wrong problems. That's not his fault and he is most definitely making
his best effort. However he's the paragon of a paradigm of a European culture
which is as unsustainable as it is powerful.

~~~
hx87
So what are the right problems to work on, and what paradigms are more
sustainable than European culture?

~~~
Plough_Jogger
Also, worth noting that he was born in South Africa.

~~~
tehchromic
A perfect example of unsustainable European cultural paradigm!

