2020 Air Warfare Symposium Day 2 - Fireside Chat: Elon Musk
Please. Welcome a FAs, Central. Florida, Martin, hCAP, Harris. Chapter, president, Todd, freeze. Thank. You. 36. Years ago our, chapter established, this great symposium. And has been working closely with AFA. To, keep it one of the premier professional, development, events for Airmen, today. Is our honor to participate, in continuing, that great tradition by hosting this session I am. Pleased in a Druce our keynote, event to, include and conclude our symposium. Lieutenant. General John Thompson. Is. Responsible, for approximately 6,000. Airmen worldwide. He. Commands an annual budget of over seven billion dollars to. Support the research design. Development. Launch, acquisition. And sustainment. Of satellites, and their associated, command, and control systems. Accompanying. General Thompson is global innovator Elon. Musk, in. 1980. In, 1993. He taught himself computer. Programming, at the age of 12 sold. The code for a basic, based video game called, blaster. For, approximately, 500, dollars and, in. 1990, in. 1995. He started zip to a web. Software company, later renamed, PayPal. In 2001. But. More recently you might know him for, revolutionizing. Electric. Cars as. CEO, and product architect of, Tesla Motors. Development. That's. All the Tesla owners. Development. And manufacturing, advanced rockets, and spacecraft for. Missions to and beyond. Earth orbit as founder, of Space Exploration Technologies. SpaceX. And. Conceptualizing. High-speed. Transportation, known. As Hyperloop. And. If you haven't heard some. Of these quotes by Elon Musk or musk isms let me introduce this one, here's. My first one when I first read it I thought. While. It applies to innovation, it's. Also written into the contract of every. Airman in this room and. Every man and woman he was served, the. Quote is if. Something is important, enough even. If the odds are against you you should. Still do it. Now. Looking back to. Our speech this morning by dr. Roper and he talked about innovation. One. Of the musk ISM quotes is failure. Is an option here. If. Things are not failing, you, are not innovating, enough. But. My favorite quote I. Would. Like to die on Mars just. Not on impact. General. Thompson mr. musk over to you thank you welcome. Well. Ilan thanks so much for being here today as, you know and many people in the audience know we we're. Reprising. A. Fireless. Fireside, chat that. We did at air force space. Pitch day back. In November. I ran. Into a general, Goldfein the chief of staff of the United States Air Force this morning and, maybe. I was being a little bit too confident. But I said hey I I think, that. We did such a good job together, at space pitch day that. Elon. And I got invited back for a much, bigger audience higher. Stakes and everything like that and general. Goldfein looked at me and went no, JT you, guys are gonna do it until you get it right so. So. We're gonna talk a little bit today about. Innovation. For. Those of you in. The audience that. Nothing. That was introduced, about Elon. Made. It to the prefrontal, cortex and.
You're Like I still don't know who this guy is. You may remember. Him from the movie role in Iron, Man 2, or, the TV show, The. Big Bang Theory. You. May remember, him if you're old like me when you used to have to do dial, in modems. You, may remember, how. PayPal, actually. Worked over, a dial in modem yeah, and. If, just, in case you've had your head in the sand for, the, last decade you absolutely. Have to know him for Space Exploration Technologies. SpaceX. A tremendous. Partner of the United States Air Force in, in. The space business, and. For Tesla, so. For, just just. For grins. This. Fastest-growing. Auto company. On the planet most. Amazing. Capability. And when Elon pulled up he, pulled up he. And his entourage in, three, different Tesla's, this morning, how, many Tesla, owners do we have in the, audience. Stand. Up stand up if you're a test loner. All. Right. Very. Nice. So Ilan. You and I have talked about whether the Air Force is. The most, innovative, service. The. Department, of the Air Force now and the last time we interviewed it was it was just the Air Force now we're the Air Force and the space force as part of the department the Air Force most. Those people who stood, up were in the front row we have a lot of first adopters, here. In the front of the audience apparently, or maybe those are the folks that just make the most money who knows, okay. So, again. Today's, today's. Discussion, is about, innovation. And. How. We can, make the Department of the Air Force the. Most innovative. Department. Within the Department of Defense and perhaps. Across, the United States government, so Ilan, question number one. When. You put a weapon, system or, a product, into, production. And you. Start delivering, it to your customers, very. Very frequently there, is a, pushback. Within, the production organization that. You. Know, we. Don't want, to change that product, too much it's, successful. We have a lot of legacy systems that were responsible, for in the Department of the Air Force, there. Is a lot of. Reticence. At times, to, incrementally. Improve or add new capabilities to, those systems from. The context, of Tesla, and SpaceX. How. Do you, motivate. Your, workforce, how do you work with your customers, how. Do you work, with technologists. In. Your ecosystems, your various eco systems to, try and make sure that. Products. Don't become, stagnant and they continue. To implement, incrementally. Improve over, time. Sure. Well first, of all thanks for having me here it's an honor to be here, with you and with with everyone else from, the. Space. Slash Air Force. And. Our. Santa long long relationship with the air force and very much appreciate the supporter of the year so I just wanna make sure I just say that and. Look. Forward to doing. A lot of interesting things in the future I. Think. It's actually. It's. Cool that look, there is you. Think that the creation of the space forces is. Happening, I think. It there's you. Know it makes sense that there's a a, major. Branch for every domain you. Know with that and, and. So. The domain, of space in. The domain of air are both, important, but I, think, space. Spaces, is. Certainly. A medium of its own. And. I. Think. There's some. Very exciting things that are possible. If. I may just say like what, worked you. Know what the public wants. I think and depression, pretty confident, that the, public does want this is. Starfleet. Academy you, know like. Yeah. Like, how do we make start how do we make Star Trek real you know that'd. Be pretty, amazing, I'd. Love that. Hey. You know, and. So. I think like the fastest we can make, sort. Of Starfleet, real. Then we. Should try to do that. Well. So Elon speaking. Speaking. For the, United States space force there. Already is a Starfleet, Academy it's, the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Sure. But. I've. Been there I give it a talk and, you. Know the, first launch of Falcon, one we had a child. Concept from the the. Air Force Academy. That. Rocket blew up but. But. But but, then the funny thing is that it blow up it, like he's this truth, estranged in fiction the. The. Satellite. Was. Shot through. The fairing, walked. Through the air a couple. Hundred meters and then plunged. Through the roof of a toolshed, and. Then, landed on the floor. And. What's. Actually in reasonably good shape I mean for crashing. Through the ceiling but, you. Know you're like recognizable. You know and. And, we gave we get to give it back and so we lost, one of your satellites. So. So, from a SpaceX perspective, of it up a partial, mission, success. It's. Not lost I'm just saying. It's. A little the worse for a there's a little worse, for wear of it you know very bit here, but. Then we look subsequently launched a future, Falcons that's to actual orbit that. Was great. So. So. I, think there's I. Think. We can make go a long way towards making Starfleet. Real and, making these. Sort. Of. Utopian. Or semi or semi, utopian, future, is real, if.
But, It will definitely, require radical, innovation. One. Can't. Get there by incrementally. Innovating. Expendable. Boosters there's just no way yeah so. The. I. Think, we we, need to push for radical. Breakthroughs. And. If you don't push for radical breakthroughs you're, not going to get radical outcomes. And. That. That does mean taking risks and. If. Common. Sense that the, the if, you take a big risk in order to have. A big reward there must be a big risk it's most. The time you. Cannot find your, big. Reward for small risk that's, a little rare. So. You're gonna have some proportionality, or the risk and reward. But. If like if if the goal is important, enough. And. I think increasingly. The, goal is important, for for. Many reasons. The. Only good the goal of having, the. Best technology, in. Space. That. That is I think gonna, become increasingly important, and I'll be increasingly increasingly. Important for the, United States to use what. I think is its. Greatest attribute, which is. Invention. And. Innovation. To. To. Create space technology, that is. The. Best in the world. And. In fact I think if the United States does not use. Breakthrough. Innovation, it. Will fall behind. So. I think this is the. This is not something that was a risk in China's past but I think is a risk now okay. So. Yeah. Do. You characterize that, risk in terms of peer. Adversary, conference, competition. Around the planet are you are you are. You. Suggesting that, it's, our adversaries. That require. Us to be that. Those, radical, innovators, or is, it just we. Can't become complacent, and stay. Incremental. E improving, our systems, we must take those giant leaps forward as. A nation regardless, of the competition, I. Think. There's this little I've. Zeroed out that if the United States does not take that, does not seek. Great innovations, in space it. Will be second in space. With. Sure as night follows day. So. It is a big deal. But. This. This. Is I, mean. A very innovative that you know there's no country more innovative, an inventive. Than the United States so, it's. Just important to use that attribute, that's, that's the ace card okay. And. Since so, since it seems like we're going down the geopolitical, path, here on the, on the questions, how. Does the United States as a nation, maintain. That innovative, edge that, that. Ability. To invest, in things and take those risks. What, kind, of. Governmental. Policies. Or, processes. Do we have to encourage the. Right kinds of behavior in your view. Well. I think having. Outcome. Based. Procurement. Is actually, very important. So. You say like this is the outcome that is sought and. Whoever, can achieve, this outcome or. Achieve. This outcome to a greater degree that. That company will. That, that's who Air Force will do business with and will will. Procure the thing that is that is. Radically. Innovative as measured. By the. What what is important, for leadership in space. So. I. Mean. I do think it's it's absolutely. Fundamental to, achieve full, reusability in. Access to space this, is this. Is the holy grail of space. At. The point at which you have full reusability for. Openal. Rockets then you have, a. Profound. Advantage. Over anyone. Else is profound. It, would be like if, in. The Air Force if if, you if, you have planes that could be used once and. Or. If, you had, multi-use planes that, can be flown over and over again like. Normal and. All. Your adversary's, had single-use, planes, that. Would be no contest. It's. The same thing in space ok, yeah, this is extremely fundamental. So. The. Like the cost of a propellant. Is. Typically, on the order of. One. Percent of the cost of the, bit. Of the vehicle or less. So. If. You, have a vehicle that is say. I. Don't. LOX. Kerosene like, Falcon high or something like that. It's. The. Oxygen. And the, fuel are, yeah. Maybe. Half. A million dollars or something like that but. Then depending upon the mission the. Admission, price can be anywhere from like 68 or 100 million dollars so. The. Falcon, 9 is a partially reusable vehicle, but not fully, the. Vehicle, are working on right now. We're. Quite, difficult is, starship. And. Yeah. That, that has the potential for full reusability. But. But. I think it would be great to have other companies as well that are doing full reusability I think competition, is, a good thing. It. May seem at times that, you. Know shouldn't we. Focus. All our. Efforts on on one, system, and, brought. Rather than divide them and have two. Competing systems.
Like. You know not to cause controversy Oh. Bit, like in, my opinion like, Joint. Strike Fighter. Sure. This should be a competitor, to Jaso. That. That's a controversial. Subject but, you. Know. I think. It's it's not it's not good to have one. One provider. It's. Good to have competition where that competition is meaningful and somebody. Can actually lose but like. You. Know. So. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So in. Radical. Innovation. Obviously. The, workforce, is a. Really, key, component of that I mean, as I, mean during, your PayPal days you, were actually doing coding, right, but in, SpaceX. And Tesla they. Are so, large that Elon. Can't do everything, what. Sort of things do you think about in terms of motivating. A workforce. Like. Like. We have in the department of the air force that. Will help them become more, radically. Innovative what. Sort of things do you look for in people or. In processes. That make the workforce better. Sure. Well I think, the. Massive thing. That can be done is to make sure your incentive, structure is such that. Innovation. Is rewarded and lack, of innovation is punished there, got to be a characteristic, so. If. Somebody is, innovating. And. Doing. Making. Good progress then. They. Should be promoted sooner, and. If somebody is completely. Failing, to innovate not. Every role requires innovation but if. They're in a role where innovation, is. Should. Be happening and it's not happening then they should either. Not be promoted or exited, and. Let me tell you you'll get promoted you could don't, you you'll get innovation, real fast okay. Let's. Stick yeah oh it's like how much do you want yeah. So. Does that does that carrot and stick approach help. Do. You think people, be, more. Risk-averse. Or. Less. Risk-averse. Well. Before, when. When. Trying different things you, got to have, some acceptance, of failure as, you're learning to earlier failure. Must be an option if failure is not an option it's gonna result in extremely conservative choices, and. You. May not get, something even worse than lack, of innovation things may go backwards. So. If. What. You really want is. Risk. Risk it's related, to you what you want reward, and Punishment, you to, be proportionate, to the actions that you see, so. If. If. What you're seeking is innovation. Then, you should reward success. And innovation, and. Only. There. Should be minor. Consequences. For lack of minor. Consequences, for trying, and failing. There. Should be minor. With. A significant, rewards for trying and succeeding. Minor. Consequences. For trying, and not, succeeding and. Big and. Major. Negative consequences, for not trying. Ok, so. If. You have that instead, of structure you will get innovation, like, you can't believe okay. So. You've, you've.
Talked At Tesla. Shareholder. Meetings and in various interviews that, you consider. The. Machine, that, builds the machine, to. Be just. As important if not more important. Than the machine itself yeah so we talked about the workforce aspects, are, there, processes. That. You use within your company that, are parts of that machine, that, you think are particularly, valuable for. Innovative. Radical, change. Well. What I mean by the machine that pulls the machine is that the. The. Production. The. Designing, the production system, of a new. Product. Is I. Think. At least an order of magnitude or. Two. Magnitude, hotter than designing the, initial prototype yeah. The. And. I think like in. America there's been let less, of. The. Less importance in modern, times placed on manufacturing, and. I think this is this is a mistake. I'd. Like at this point I really. Classify and in fact I sent an, email to the SpaceX. Just saying this like at. This point I think designing, a rocket is trivial, just. Trivial there's, like tons of books that'll you read them you know. You. Can understand equations you can design a rocket. Real. Real easy. Yeah. But if, you say like to. Stage, two. And two percent of your lift with master orbit. From. It just to design, something like that piece cave. They, say you wanna go, into production with, that or if you want you want to actually make let's, say the next type is you want to make even one of those things okay now making even one of those things and getting, it to orbit is hard. But. The designing of it is not hard the. Making of it is even one is hard the making of a production, line that builds. And launches may need is extremely. Hard, and. Then the next level beyond that would be. A. Creating. A fully, reusable system and having, that be in volume, production and volume launch that's. That that's super. Super hard, so. That's. It. So be a part but by building machine had Bulls machine I mean I mean creating the production, system and. I. Keep. Emphasizing. To, SpaceX. The. Hard part is making it and. Making. Lots of them and launching. Frequently. Because. Reuse. Must not just be, me. It can't be reused like the shuttle it's got to be rapid. And complete reuse, so. The shuttle was a case where the. Reuse, was very, slow and it, was not. Complete. The. Main tank was lost every time and. Revoking. The shuttle between flights was extremely, expensive. It's. Not even clear whether it was worth recovering. Was the booster, shells from the ocean. So. So. Just, like an aircraft you, the. The rocket must be rapidly and completely, reusable, and then, you need lots of them. And. Then. I've been sort, of just, that doing, back kind of back of the envelope watch, what's needed to establish a, self-sustaining.
City, On Mars and. These. Are like, big numbers but I think. You need. On the order of a million tons to. The surface of Mars useful payload something. Like that mm-hmm. Because. We sit on the top of a massive, basic. Infrastructure, or the. Economy. Is you. Think. Of all the things that are mined and then refined and then and then just many steps in the refinement and in. Order to produce like your phone or, your, toaster even there's. There's. A vast base of industry that was required to produce even. A simple household item yeah, it's. Very difficult so. So. You got to recreate that on Mars. So. Million tons on Mars means. You've. I, mean we're just talkin orders magnitude here hopefully. It's not ten million tons and hopefully. Maybe. It's less than a million tons but probably. Not, 100,000, tons so. That. Means you need to, get. About. About. Five million tons to. Earth. Orbit of useful, payload. So. You're talking in like them a bit like you so essentially unless you have a launch system, that, is somewhere, in the. Mega, ton per year range twelve. It. It's. Not relevant okay. Yeah. So. StarLink. As. You're. Scaling, to. Build more and more Starling, satellites, to go on more, and more reusable, rockets, what, are some of the challenges you've had to overcome in, Starling. Production, so, that you can perfect. That machine, machine, that builds the machine. Yes. The celling production is going well actually but that's, the. That. Was a hard. That's. A hard thing get right. We. Made many, had. Many iterations on, the Starling prototypes, and. Then as I said the been, pulling the Starling production line was a. Thousand. Percent harder than designing, the satellite to begin with. But. But it is important to have like a. Tattoo. Design for manufacturing, and have a quote a tight feedback loop between the design of the object and the. Manufacturing, system so. As you when people when when, you design the object, at first you realize, all the parts that are really difficult to make manufacture, and. So. Having. The. Manufacturing, system and the, design, bring. Those up at the same time so. That you're actually in the beginning making, a thing that you know is wrong but, you're actually figuring out what's hard to manufacture and ask, the real problem so. We. Brought up these the, stalling. Production. Line before we actually. Had the design finalized, which. Which is actually the right thing to do and then we discover others well, there's all these things that in. The design that are very difficult to make, and. So therefore we must change the design. And. The. Satellite, ended up having the same capability, but just was. Very easy to make. And. Launch so. Or, real I should say very easy it's. Sort. Of hard but. It. Is but. But it's being done and what we or the. Satellites, are being, produced at a rate now faster, than we can launch them, so. And. And the cost of the satellite has dropped below the, cost of transporting. It to orbit so. Even when taking, the. Falcon. 9 in the most reused configuration, which, is to get the booster back and you get the bearings back. The. Cost. Of the Trent of transporting, the satellite, to. Orbit exceeds. The cost, of the satellite hmm. So the satellites in a good good situation, okay and the cost that satellite will keep coming down as. We ramp up rates and make design improvements. But. So we, really need starship. To carry, star light in. Order to get, the total. Delivered. Cost to orbit. To. Be much. Better than it is today okay I'm still very good. When. You when, you so. In terms, of deciding. What to build. You. Can take feedback from customers and let customers whole, to you what they want or, you, can be. Radically, innovative within, your company or you know a small set of individuals, and develop, something and push it into the industrial, base so customer.
Poll Would be Tesla. Tesla. Owners wanting. New features, on, the. Existing, fleet. Push. Would be you, know a, company, push would be something like, when. Apple push the iPad to everybody and nobody knew what an iPad was until they touched it and went wow so, everybody. Wants an iPad now what. Do you all think about, in terms of that balance, between. Customer. Poll and company. Push, well. In beginning, nobody wanted a Tesla oh my god. That. We. Were made the original sort. Of roads to sports car. If. You were like why would I want electric car that's my. Gasoline car. Works fine, like. No electric cars better I should try it. And. It. Was what you know hard, to get people to do. A test drive first. Of all nobody knew who we were and then ruthless company and, like yeah we're named after Nikola Tesla you know that guy nope. So. For. Sure we were doing push in the beginning because people said there, was no one telling us that they wanted an electric car so, it was not it was not out of like you. Know. It was like lots, of people coming up to me saying hey I really, want electric car and I heard, that zero times. Something. Like it's like man we're gonna make an electric car and show that these things can be good and. Then people want them. You. Know it's like because like Henry Ford said like, the you, know we're. So about the Model T is like if you ask the public what they wanted bet say a faster. Horse mm-hmm. So if you did like a big survey and say what hey public, before. Automobiles. What. Would you like it's like well I'd like my horse to go three miles an hour faster and, eat less food and. You. Know be stronger and. Live. Longer and like I think. There'll. Be a basically is a bunch, of incremental improvements, on horse. Because. You want me, to say like what about it automobile, like car drives itself like what are you talking about that sounds. Crazy. But. When, you actually make an automobile. And give it to people and say okay now. This is a horse where you can keep it in the bond and if you leave for a month it's still alive. So. Carry more weight more weight than a horse and go further and that kind of thing so. The. It's. Like when, when it's a radically a new product people, don't know that they want it because it's just not in their in. Their in their scope I think, when, they first started. Making TVs. They. Did a nationwide survey I think. It's might have been like. 46. Or 48 I was like famous nationwide. Survey will, you ever buy a TV, now. I was like 96, percent of respondents said, no. Hmm. Something. Some crazy number like. Basically everyone's like would you buy a TV and, really put a price in there something but, it was. Famously. Almost. Everyone said they would not buy a TV but, they didn't know what they're talking about, so.
The Big game-changing. Stuff, at the beginning is a, company, push, kind of a thing most of the time but. Then changes. To the product over, time can, be a lot, more customer, pull kind, of a focus yeah. Change changes the product over time can be. Incremental. Changes. Then. The, can, certainly tell you it's good to customer feedback to, say how, can we improve the product and. Once. They're using it they can say okay I like this thing about, it I don't like this other thing and then we can improve the product over time customer. Feedback after, they they have the. Fundamental, thing is is. Great okay, okay. So in. The, audience here we have a, lot, of air and space war fighters we have, so. People who use systems. We, have a lot of developmental. Teams on both the government, and the industry, side and we, have the the air and space leadership. Of the nation so. I got a little lightning round here for you great to, try and influence maybe, some of those younger folks in the back who are looking for the for, the next big thing so. In terms, of different kinds of technology, whether, it's artificial, intelligence. Or, medical. Or. Batteries. Or whatever in the, next five years, what. Technology. Do you think will see the most, advancement. Well. It's awful to assess. Most in those contexts. Because they're very different but I think the probably. The most transformative. Most fundamentally transformative, will be ai ai. Okay, and if. You were recommending. To some of the young officers, and. Enlisted. Troops, in the room what. Sort of degrees, to pursue, at. College, or what sort of education, that they should, prioritize. For themselves in the modern, era what would you recommend. Computer. Science and physics, computer. Science and physics okay how, many computer science people do we have out there, how. Many physics people. Okay. We, need more apparently. Okay. It's, essentially an information, theory and physical theory, if. You want understand the nature of the universe and. How these. Have an. Very. Good predictive power, physics. And computer. Science okay. Yeah okay. As a nation, that is, interested. In radical, innovation, to maintain, its competitive, edge what. Are the things that the Department, of the Air Force should, be investing. More in other. Than reusable, rockets from, your perspective. Again. I can't emphasize enough, how important, reasonable rockets are. I. Love. It. It's. Great, so. Right. And I think that you could actually do point-to-point on earth with. You. Know to go in long distances, and. Be much better than aircraft, because. I mean basically. Just think of like ICBM. -, the nuke Aadland you. Know so. It's, just sort of in the option package just, yeah, uncheck, nuke and then. Add landing. System. And. And.
That's Definitely gonna get you wherever you want to go the, fastest. That's. Why they made a ICBMs, they get there the fastest. So. I think. That that's gonna be pretty exciting. Yeah. I think. Okay. Once, you have a dramatically, lower cost access to space then. Then. Many things are enabled. You. Think of like once. You got the Union Pacific Railroad then. You know getting to the west coast was. Much. Faster and much less dangerous yeah. You know I'd like you to sort of end up eating your, compatriots. In a snowy. Situation. You. Know so. You. Just take the train. So. So. You. Know it'd be getting they thought why, they hate cuz they're building a stupid railway there's, nobody there's, nobody there. And. They're, like, but. Once you build the railway they're like okay now, it's easy to get to the west coast and. Now, a huge, portion of the US population is, on the west coast, and. You actually California. Is the most popular state in the nation but. It, it, used to be well. Least. Populous I suppose for pretty low. So. Many. Things are possible once, you once the transport. Problem. Is solved. So. That's, why I think it's a fundamental. Bouquet. But if you can't get there or getting. There is takes a long time and you can't risk and. Ever every mission has got to work then, it's very hard to innovate yeah. It's. Got to be that okay some missions Ward, work and they are the cost, of running the experiments, as low that's. Why I'm hot I'm harping, so much on the cost of transport. So. You. Know once. You're there I think like. Say establishing, a base on the moon or base on Mars, there's. Just a tremendous amount of work work, that's needed to, create. A self-sustaining. Base, on the Moon or Mars and it. Opens up a tremendous amount of opportunity, just as the Union Pacific, Railroad did. By. Making, access to the, west coast. Not. Much easier okay. Yeah. I mean. Outside, of the space space, realm I think there's a lot. Of opportunity, and in tunnels, I've, been, saying that for a long time. So. Tunnels. Are great. They're really great. And. The. Boring company's about to finish its supposed tunnel in Vegas ironheart. I encourage people to copy please, copy the boring company, or. Do better that'd be great. There's. So. In terms of domains you, have subterranean. Yeah obviously, Tesla, Tesla, covers. The ground domain. As, capabilities. You've got the space domain covered. With, SpaceX. And StarLink. Capabilities. I think, this is, the air warfare, symposium. Folks might not in the audience might be interested in if, you have any ideas for the air domains specifically. For. The air domain I. Think. Things. Like things are definitely. Gonna go into, kind of, autonomous. Oh, locally. Autonomous, drone. Warfare is, where it's at where the future will be I'm. Just saying look, was not I want, the future to be this it's, just this is what the future will be okay, is autonomous, drone warfare. And. At. A. Local local, level. The. You. Know. Can't. Believe I'm saying this because this, is like dangerous but it simply what will occur is is, sort, of a. Drones. Locally. Being. Autonomous, and. But. I think we still want to retain. So. You. Know. Authority. To, damage. Or destroy or. Anything, that that, isn't an autonomous, drone, keep. That authority back here with, the bullet person and loop. But. It's it's. We fighter jet era has passed that. Is. It's. Just. Yeah. Why did you arrest past okay, so it was drugs. Let's, go back to failure, for a minute and. And. And. The mindset, that, that you have you and your leadership team at Tesla and SpaceX have on failure I mean the, SpaceX, blooper reel that. You guys did, and I think as 2017, timeframe. Was. Definitely. Hey we embrace, this learning, that occurs. More. Recently with the the Tesla truck and the and the, ball through, the window.
Also. That. Night that. Think. That that, mindset. That, embraces. Failure, how do you personally, I mean that, it, that, those kinds, of failures would drive a lot of us in this room nuts. But, doesn't seem to drive you nuts seems, like you're very comfortable. With it can you talk about the mindset that requires. For you to be that accepting. Of that kind of failure so we. Roll the video no. We're. Not no we should not roll the video not yet okay okay. Okay. Well. I think if the these, things is just there's. A certain amount of time and within. That time you. Want the. The. Best net outcome so. For. You. Know all the set of actions that you can do there's. Going. To be, and. Some of which will fail, some of which will succeed and you. Want that the the, net, useful. Output. Of your set, of actions to be the highest. So. We. Have to use like a baseball, analogy like, you. Know baseball I don't let you just sit there and wait for the perfect, pitch until. You, get a really easy one there, you didn't give you three, shots no a third one they say, okay and they get. Off though they go back to the, put. Somebody else put their, so. These few three strikes on baseball. Look. Bad. Anymore so. And. See what you what you're really looking for is like what's the batting average, you. Know how, you doing on. On. Score. And. And just if. There's gonna be some amount of failure. But. You want, your net output. Net. Useful output to maximized, failure. Is essentially. Irrelevant unless. It is catastrophic, okay. Okay. Intellectual. Property. Obviously. Tesla. SpaceX Solar, City have. Amazing. Capabilities. That they're bringing to the to. The public and to the government every, day how, do you protect, your intellectual property in a world where it, seems like the. Cloud and servers, and things are constantly, under, attack from people wishing. To free, you of their. Your intellectual property. Yeah. Well actually at Tesla we just opens. Host our patents some, years ago so, anyone can use our patents, so. We really have not been tried. To protect intellectual property in. That sense, we've. Tried, to actually, smooth, the path. Because. The the, overarching goal of Tesla is to accelerate the advent of sustainable, energy and, so. If we. Created. A patent portfolio. That. Discouraged, other companies from making, electric cars that would be inconsistent with our mission so, we open. Sourced all the patents in, order to help the other anyone. Else who wants to make an electric car so. I, guess.
That's The opposite of protecting, the IP. Now. The real way I think you you actually achieve intellectual. Property protection, right is by, innovating, fast enough if, your rate of innovation is, high, then. You. Don't need to worry about protecting the, IP. Because. Other. Companies will be copying, something that you did years ago mm-hmm. And that's fine you, know. Just. Make, sure your your. Rate of innovation is fast. Speed. Is really the speed of innovation is what is what matters and. I. Do have you say this is my team's like a. Quite. A lot that, innovation per unit time as I go innovation per year if you wanna, say like is is what matters not innovation. Absent. Time because. If, you wanted to make say. 100. Percent improvement in something and that, took a hundred years or one year that's. Radically. Different so. It's. Like what is your rate of innovation that. Matters. And is the rate of innovation. Is. That accelerating. Or, decelerating. And. A weird thing happens when companies get big is that most, companies or. Organizations the, bigger they get they, tend to get. Less, innovative. Not. Just lets the innovative on a per person basis, but less innovative in the absolute. And. I, think this is probably because the incentive structure is not. It's. Not there. For innovation. If. It's. Not enough to use. Words to encourage innovation the. Incentive structure must be aligned, with that that's. Fundamental. So. Taking. That from a business level to a national, level in, terms of obviously, United States largest economy, in the world China. The, second, largest economy in the world currently and gaining, fast, what. Sort of things that could you share with the audience here that, are. Your thoughts on the. Competition. Economic. Or military. Between. The United States and China. Sure. Well. I think China's, a real, interesting country I have to say. The. Thing. To appreciate, about China it's just that there's a lot of really smart really hard-working people. There and. They're. Gonna do a lot of great. Things. This. Is sort, of you. Know independent of, Chinese. Going policy they're just gonna do a lot of interesting things.
The, Thing that will be that will feel pretty strange is that the Chinese economy is going. To be probably, at least, twice as big as the US economy. Maybe. Three times, but. At least twice. So. That is here's a GDP, per capita so. Less, than the, US but. Since. They have about. Four. Or five times the population. Then. It, would only require getting to a GDP, per capita of half. The United States for. Their economy to twice the size of ours. And. As. I'm sure people in this room know the, foundation, of war is economics, and. So. If you. If. You have half the resources. Of. The. Counter party then. You better be real innovative, if, you're not innovative you're gonna lose. I'm, not sure whether that's a cyberattack that's, ongoing, or not here so. The. Clock says I have 11 minutes left is that not true. Smooth. Jazz Hollande. That's. Coming through the house system, we're working to get it shut off thank. You. Yes, well. Right. So. You. Say yeah with. Respect to China China's, economy is it's gonna be. Two. To three times the size the US economy at. Least at least double. Its. Therefore, in order for us to be competitive, on. Military. Level the, innovation, has to overcome a gigantic, gap, in, economic. Output okay. So. In the absence of radical innovation, the US will be militarily. Second. Okay. Basic. Basic. What. From. The standpoint of. Radical. Innovation. We, already talked about workforce, we talked about processes. We talked about. Protecting. Intellectual. Property rights let's. Talk about, overall. Culture. That. Culture, that you try and push, into your companies, that, makes them successful. Any, of us and I sat right next to one of your SpaceX, employees, on the plane here yesterday a, young, engineer. It. Was, motivating. For me just. To talk to her about what, she was doing every day and how important, her job was and I, just felt like the. Only other place I've seen that, kind of culture is frankly. In the, Department of the Air Force with. Some of our young folks that are sprinkled, around the back of the room how, do you create that culture at SpaceX, and Tesla to. To, make employees, like that. Well. The smooth, jazz honest. Look, with a vengeance. I feel. Like we're in a big elevator. So. First. When, we interview people we, we do ask for some, evidence of exceptional. Ability which. In most cases includes. Innovation. This. Is not said everyone, needs to be innovative its but. We certainly need those, that are doing advanced, engineering to, be innovative and. Ideally. Everyone is at least some to some degree innovate innovative, so. At the interview. Point. We. Select. For it for people who want to. Create. New technology, and then. The, incentive structure is. Set. Up that such that. Innovation. Is rewarded. Making. Mistakes, along. The way does not come with a big penalty. And. But-but-but, failure to try, to innovate mm-hmm, at all comes, with a big penalty you'll. Be fired okay. Yeah. All, right the carrot and stick yes, the steak if you don't even try or. Somebody. Doesn't even try to innovate or the, innovation. Aspirations. Are very. Are. Not. Very, good then. Yeah. They will no longer be at the company okay. All. Right so we, got about five minutes left and, what, I'd like to do is just turn. It over to you Ilan to talk about whatever you'd like to talk about if, you have a message. For the audience here you, have you. Know a thousand. Plus air and space professionals. And the greatest air. And space force on the planet so what do you want to tell them I think. We got to make Starfleet, happen. So. We, were like our. Real. Big spaceships, that can go far places and. I'll. Probably get me it's the most trouble of all I think this should be a new uniform that's. That. That's like I don't know cool. Uniforms cool spacious yeah I.
Think. That's what window, when the public hears space, force that's what they think it's like okay we're gonna have like some sweet. Spaceships, and like, free, look, good, uniforms, of stuff and that'll be just what the public wants. So. Yeah. Why don't we want the sci-fi futures, but. The, good, sci-fi futures to be real and ideally. To, become real while we're still alive, you. Know and ever want to see it happen and so. I think. We really. Need to drive the rate of innovation to, be such that we, would see, a. Big, big. Breakthrough his big improvements, in space. Technology, in. You. Know in the years to come. So. Yeah. It's. Like just try to make stuff happen as. Soon, as humanly possible and definitely. Why was that while we're still alive, yeah. So. I'm. Not sure about wolf Drive but we, can other stuff I think can be done yeah. Wolf Drive and teleportation, probably, not but, big, spaceships I can go far places definitely. That could be done understood. All, right ladies, and gentlemen Elon. Musk. Ladies. And gentlemen please welcome back to the stage AFA. Chairman, of the board Gerald, Murray. All. Right what, is exciting, just. Absolutely, incredible and. So. I see a lot of you exiting. I probably got, to go someplace I, would ask that if you could that you might want to hold on I mean it's, not completely, at the end right now but, I recognize. People have flights and everything, listen. As we close out this year's air, warfare symposium. I'd be remiss if I didn't recognize our, great Air Force leaders again, that. Are here and. Especially for. A couple, that are here for. Their last time in the capacity. And. So for that reason I'd. Like to ask Orville. And if. You would and general. Go fein and she. Flashed started the airforce right if you would please join me on stage. So. We've. Had no to greater, leaders, had to lead our force as a team together, sir. You came in to the Air Force in, 1983. And. So to remember. Your. Air Force and our, Air Force Association, Orville. Has a book for you. That, was, the Air Force magazines, all, put together in, this book from 1983. She. Messr the Air Force right you, came in in 1989. And it's my great pleasure to be able to present you also the. Almanacs, of our in, magazines, of the, 1989. For, you. Well. What. A great two days of, rich discussion. Of, the challenges, and issues that are facing our air force I hope. You have been enjoyed, this time as much as I the. Excitement. The, lessons, that we have learned the messages, that have been brought by the senior, leadership, of. Our Air Force and. Today, the SPARC tank just. The innovation, that is coming from you our Airmen, across, this airforce the future of our forces, here one. Of my former. Colleagues Master. Sergeant. That. Is now in Junior ROTC has, his class back, here in the back that got to witness all of this and and every, one of them said that they plan to join the United States Air Force when they graduate, from high school either through their come through going on to college and the Commission or directly into our Air Force our, future, that, is here and we couldn't be happier. And prouder for, the opportunity. To be supporting. You we also want to thank the. Cadets, of the University, of Central Florida for, their assistance. Our. Industry, partners now I thank all of you for joining us as well as always, we appreciate your continued, support we, hope you've learned a lot about this press a table at this professional, education, program, sponsored. By your association if. You like what you've seen here I invite. You again to. Be a member, of this great association, so, we may continue to support our Air Force and, be the force behind the force now. And into the future again. Thank you for joining us we, hope to see you in September the 14th, through the 16th put that on your calendar and the National, Harbor and Washington. DC for the a phase air space and cyber safe space, conference, safe. Travels, to all of you god bless you ladies and gentlemen this includes, a FAs 36th. Air Warfare symposium.
2020-03-07 11:34
