Elon Musk's Speech in California Institute of Technology - Telsa, SpaceX
All right. All right. I'd like to thank you for leaving crazy person out of the description uh so i i thought i tried to think what what is the most useful thing that i could what can i say that could actually be helpful or useful to you in the future um and i thought perhaps tell the story of um how i how i sort of came to be here how did some of these things happen and and maybe there's some lessons there um because i often find myself wondering how did this happen um so when i was young i i i didn't really know what i was going to do when i got older people kept asking me and and um but but then eventually i thought that the idea of inventing things would be would be really cool and the reason i thought that was because um i i read a quote from author c clock which said that a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic and and that's really true if you think if you go back say 300 years the things that we take for granted today uh would be you'd be burned at the stake for you know being able to fly um that's crazy uh being able to see over long distances being able to communicate having um effectively uh with the internet a a group mind of sorts and having access to all the world's information instantly from almost anywhere in the earth this is this is stuff that that really would be magic it would be considered magic in times past in fact i think it actually goes beyond that because there are many things that we take for granted today that weren't even imagined in times past they weren't even in the realm of magic so that it actually goes goes beyond that so i thought well you know if if i can do some of those things basically if i can advance technology then that that's like magic and that would be really cool um and the the i always had sort of a slight existential crisis because i was trying to figure out what does it all mean like what's the purpose of things and i came to the conclusion that if if we can advance the the the knowledge of the world if we can do things that expand the scope and and scale of consciousness then we're better able to ask the right questions and become more enlightened and and that's really the only way forward so uh so so i i studied the physics and business because i figured in order to do a lot of these things you need to know how the universe works and you need to know how how the economy works and you also need to be able to bring a lot of people together to work with you to create something because it's very difficult to do something as as an individual if it's if it's a significant technology so i i originally came out to to california to try to figure out how to improve the energy density of of of electric vehicles basically to try to figure out if there was an advanced capacitor that that could serve as an alternative to batteries and um that was in 95 and uh that's also when the internet started to happen and and i i thought well i can either uh pursue this tech this technology where success maybe may not be one of the possible outcomes which is always tricky um or uh participate in the internet and and be part of it so i decided to to drop out um obviously you unfortunately we were past graduation so i can't be accused of recommending that to you and um so so did some internet stuff um you know there did a few things here and there um what one of which was paypal um and i think maybe it's helpful to say one of the things that was important then in the creation of paypal was uh was kind of how it started because initially the initial thought was for with paypal was to create an agglomeration of financial services so to have one place where all your financial services needs would be seamlessly integrated and um and and work smoothly and then we had like a little feature which was to do email payments and whenever we'd show show the system off to someone we'd show the hard part which was the um the agglomeration of financial services which was quite difficult to put together nobody was interested then we'd show people email payments which was actually quite easy and everybody was interested um so this is uh i think it's important to to take feedback from your environment you know it's it you want to be as closed loop as possible um and uh so we focus on email payments and really try to make that work and and that's what really got things to take off um but but if we hadn't if we hadn't responded to what people said then we probably would not have been successful so it's important to look for things like that and and focus on them when when you when you see them and you correct your prior assumptions and then let's get to it going from paypal i thought it will what what are some of the the other problems that are likely to most affect the future of humanity it really wasn't from the perspective of what what's the rank ordered best way to to make money um which which is which is okay but um it was really what i think is going to most affect the future humanity so the i think the biggest terrestrial problem we've got is uh sustainable energy but the production and consumption of energy in a sustainable manner if we don't solve that this the sensory is the century we're we're in deep trouble um and then the the other one being the extension of life beyond earth to make life multi-planetary um so uh that's that's that's the basis for the latter is the basis for for spacex and the former is the basis for tesla and solar city um and when i started spacex i it actually initially i thought that well there's no way one could possibly start a rocket company i i wasn't that crazy um but but then uh i thought well what is a way to um increase nasa's budget that was actually my initial goal so i i thought well if we can do a low-cost mission to mars something called mars oasis which would land seeds with with dehydrate wood with seasoned dehydrated nutrient gel and you hydrate them upon landing and then you'd have this great sort of money shot of green plants on a red background and the the public tends to respond to um precedents and superlatives and this would be the first life on mars the furthest that life's ever traveled as far as we know and and i thought well that that would get people really excited and and and therefore increase at nasa's budget so so obviously the financial outcome from such a mission would probably be zero um so anything better than that was on the upside um so i actually went to i went to russia three times to look at buying um a refurbished icbm that that was the best deal and uh i can tell you it was very weird going there in in 2000 late 2001 2002 going to the russian rocket forces and saying i'd like to buy two of your biggest rockets but you can keep the nuke that's a lot more um and that was ten years ago i guess so they they they they thought i was crazy but but i did have money so that was that was okay uh um and after making several trips to to russia i came to conclusion that that actually uh my initial impression was was wrong about uh because my initial thought was well that there's not enough will to explore and expand beyond earth and have a mars base and that kind of thing but i can't conclusion that that was wrong um in fact there's plenty of will particularly in the united states uh because the united states is a nation of explorers the people who came here from from other parts of the world i think the united states is really a distillation of the spirit of human exploration so um but but if people think it's impossible then or it's going to completely break the federal budget then they're not going to do it so after after my third trip i said okay what we really need to do here is try to solve the space transport problem and uh and started spacex and this was against the advice of pretty much everyone i talked to my one friend made me sit down and watch a bunch of videos of rockets blowing up let me tell you he wasn't far wrong uh i think it was it was tough going there in the beginning because i'd never built anything physical i mean i built like little model rockets as a kid and that kind of thing but um i never had a company that brought anything physical so i'd figure out how to how to do all these things and and bring together the right team of people and um and and so we we did all that and and then failed three times it was tough tough going um because thing about a rocket is that the the passing grade is 100 uh and uh you don't get to actually test the rocket in the real environment that it's going to be in so i think so the best analogy for for rocket engineering is it's like if you want to create a really complicated bit of software um you could you can't run the software as an integrated hole and you can't run it on the computer it's intended to run on but the first time you put it all together and write it on that computer it must run with no bugs that's that's basically the essence of it um so so we missed the mark there um that the first launch i was picking up bits of rocket near the launch site was a bit sad um and uh but we we learned with with each successive flight and uh and were able to with uh eventually with the fourth flight in 2008 uh reached orbit and that was also with the last bit of money that we had so um thank goodness uh that that happened um i think the saying is fourth time's the charm so that's we got the falcon one two orbit and then i began to scale that up to to the falcon 9 which is um about an order of magnitude more a thrust it's around a million pounds of thrust and we managed to get that to orbit and then uh developed dragon spacecraft which recently was able to dock and return to earth from the space station that was thanks that was a white-knuckled event um so yeah it's a huge relief i still can't quite believe it actually happened um but but there's a lot more that that that must happen beyond this in order for humanity to be to become a space faring civilization ultimately a multi-planet species um and that's something i think it's it's it's vitally important and and i hope um that that some of you will will participate in in that either at spacex or at other companies because it's just really one of the the most important things for the preservation and extension of consciousness um i mean it's worth noting as i'm sure people are aware that the earth has been around for four billion years and uh written civilization at least in terms of having writing has been around for ten thousand years and that's being generous so uh it's it's really uh somewhat of a tenuous existence that that um civilization and and consciousness as we know it has has been on earth and i think um i'm actually i'm actually fairly optimistic about the future of earth so i don't want to i don't want to sort of people to have the wrong impression that i think we're all about to die i think i think we'll i think things will most likely be okay for a lot for a long time on earth but not not for sure but most likely but but even if it's if it's sort of 99 likely one a one percent chance is still it's still worth uh spending a fair bit of effort to ensure that we have um we've backed up the biosphere you know planetary redundancy if you will um and uh and so i think i think it's really really quite important um and in order to do that there's a breakthrough that needs to occur which is to create a rapidly and completely reusable um transport system to mars um which which is one of those things that's right on the borderline of of of of of impossible um but that that's sort of the the thing that we're we're going to try to achieve there with with with spacex um and then on the on the on the tesla front uh the goal with tesla was really to try to show that what electric cars can do because people had the wrong impression we had to um change people's perception of an electric vehicle because they used to think of it as something that was slow and ugly and had low range kind of like a golf cart and and so that's why we created the tesla roadster to show that you can be fast attractive and long range and it's amazing how even though you can show that something works on paper you know and the calculations are very clear until you actually have the physical object and they can they can drive it it doesn't really sink in for people and so that that i think is is something worth noting if you're going to create a company the first thing you should try to do is create a working prototype um you know everything everything looks great on powerpoint you can make anything work on powerpoint but if you have if you have an actual demonstration article even if it's in primitive form that's much much more effective for convincing people so um so we made the tesla roadster and now we're coming out soon with the model s which is a four-door sedan uh because after we made the tesla roadster people said oh sure sure we always knew you could make a car like that it's an expensive car uh and it's low volume and it's small and all that but you couldn't make a real car like okay fine i gotta make that too um so that's coming out soon um and um yeah so that that's that's that's the i think the the the where things are and and and hopefully that there are some lessons to be to be drawn there um but um i i think the the the overarching point i want to make is that um you guys are the magicians of the 21st century you know don't let anything hold you back imagination is the limit and go out there and create some magic thank you i'd like to thank you for leaving crazy person out of the description uh so i i thought i tried to think what what is the most useful thing that i could what could i say that could actually be helpful or useful to you in the future um and i thought perhaps tell the story of um how i sort of came to be here how did some of these things happen and maybe there's some lessons there um because i often find myself wondering how did this happen um so when i was young i i i didn't really know what i was going to do when i got older people kept asking me and and um but but then eventually i thought that the idea of inventing things would be would be really cool and the reason i thought that was because um i i read a quote from author c clock which said that a um efficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic and and that's really true uh if you think if you go back say 300 years the things that we take for granted today uh would be you'd be burned at the stake for um you know being able to fly um that's crazy being able to see over long distances being able to communicate having um effectively uh with the internet a a group mind of sorts and having access to all the world's information instantly from almost anywhere in the earth this is this is stuff that that really would be magic it would be considered magic in times past in fact i think it actually goes beyond that because there are many things that we take for granted today that won't even imagined in times past they weren't even in the realm of magic so that it actually goes goes beyond that so i thought well you know if if i can do some of those things basically if i can advance technology then that that's like magic and that would be really cool um and the the i always had sort of a slight existential crisis because i was trying to figure out what does it all mean like what's the purpose of things and um i came to the conclusion that if if we can advance the the the knowledge of the world if we can do things that expand the scope and and scale of consciousness then we're better able to ask the right questions and become more enlightened and and that's really the only way forward so uh so so i i studied the physics and business because i figured in order to do a lot of these things you need to know how the universe works and you need to know how how the economy works and you also need to be able to bring a lot of people together to work with you to create something because it's very difficult to do something as as an individual if it's if it's a significant technology so i i originally came out to to california to try to figure out how to improve the energy density of of of electric vehicles basically to try to figure out if there was an advanced capacitor that that could serve as an alternative to batteries and um that was in 95 and that's also when the internet started to happen and and i i thought well i can either uh pursue this tech this technology where success maybe may not be one of the possible outcomes which is always tricky um or uh participate in the internet and and be part of it so i decided to to drop out um obviously you unfortunately we were past graduation so i can't be accused of recommending that to you and um so did some internet stuff um you know they've did a few things here and there um what one of which was paypal um and i think maybe it's helpful to say one of the things that was important then in the creation of paypal was uh was kind of how it started because initially the initial thought was with paypal was to create an agglomeration of financial services so if you have one place where all your financial services needs would be seamlessly integrated and um and and work smoothly and then we had like a little feature which was to do email payments and whenever we'd show show the system off to someone we'd show the hard part which was the um the agglomeration of financial services which was quite difficult
2022-06-16 14:55
