Elon MUSK
episode 1
Broadcast date: June 5, 2017
The Moonshots Podcast delves into the man with no boundaries, Elon Musk. One of the greatest visionaries of our time. He currently leads six ambitious companies and has amassed a personal wealth of over $16 Billion.
Join Mike and Chad as they deconstruct how Elon does it. From thinking big, branching possibilities, to his courage in the darkest hours.
The episode goes deep into how we can use the same tools as Elon. And we'll ask why it all matters.
Elon Musk INTERVIEWS
Elon Musk: How I Became The Real 'Iron Man'
Bloomberg
Published on Jun 10, 2014
Wait But Why - The Elon Musk Post Series
eBook format -
By Tim Urban
Published May 7, 2015
Books + articles Mentioned IN THE SHOW
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future - Ashlee Vance
Ashlee Vance
Powers of Ten
Eames Office
Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030
Within 13 years self-driving cars will dominate the roads, representing some 95% of all car miles driven
Eager Sellers and Stony Buyers: Understanding the Psychology of New-Product Adoption
John T. Gourville
TRANSCRIPT
Mike Parsons: welcome to the moonshots podcast. I'm your host, Mike Parsons. And I am joined by the one and only Chad Owen. Good evening, New York. Good morning, Sydney. How are you, Mike? I'm great. I'm sitting here nestled in, uh, the beginning of winter and Sydney, and I'm assuming it's, uh, entering into those glorious late springtime afternoons in New York.
Chad Owen: Oh, summer is here. Summer is definitely here and I'm enjoying it. Great. Well, I'm glad to see that summer has here the lovely city of New York, and it feels like, okay, very appropriate time for us to jump on an adventure into the world of innovation. Um, we're gonna do, uh, a lot of investigations of some of them, the, the greatest innovators of our time, and we're going to decode what they're up to and hopefully, hopefully you and I, and all the listeners.
Can grab a little inspiration along the way. And today, uh, on this episode, we're going to be unpacking a conversation between Chris Anderson of Ted, and one of our favorites, uh, innovators, Elon Musk, and hopefully listening to this conversation and unpacking it. We can. Learning the skills and behaviors, uh, that Elan has used so that we can learn and develop radically new ways of building things, uh, in similar ways that, that he has.
Yeah. And he's done, he's done so many amazing things. He's a great, great innovator to start with. And it feels very timely because as we are recording this podcast, Chad. He has literally just three hours ago. Elon has announced that he's actually withdrawing from the advisory councils with, uh, the president of the United States because, uh, America has just decided to, um, pull out of the climate, uh, agreement that was founded in Paris.
So a timely choice, indeed. I'm not surprised to be honest. I mean, Just given what Elan shares in this conversation on the Ted stage, it's very clear that that action taken by the current administration kind of flies in the face of the future that he envisions. Well, yeah, you couldn't, you couldn't go more opposite ways.
Really. So he tried, uh, in fact, in, in this talk that we're going to deconstruct, he actually talked about the whole reason for being on those cancels was to give a voice. Uh, to the things that matter to him rather than not be at the table and not be heard. So I think he's been very, very much heard now.
Be very interesting to see what the fallout is over the next couple of years. It's because you've got Ilan who has, you know, a huge following, um, And path you're really charging towards the future and, uh, uh, contrasting that with, uh, an administration, which is, you know, going back, uh, to some very old school, uh, thinking in terms of how to drive the economy and how to think about the environment.
So, yeah. I can't, I can't wait to get into, to this Ted talk. So I would love to open things up with my first clip. Um, so what we do here is we're going to play a clip from this Ted talk that happened very recently with Chris Anderson and Elon Musk. And the first clip we're going to listen to, uh, is really about, um, the boring company, which is one of Elan's current.
Uh, companies, he has six of them because he's just not busy enough. He has six. And uh, this company is all consumed with, uh, building a network of tunnels under major cities that have terrible congestion problems due to traffic. And this clip is, uh, him getting immediately into the detail of the, uh, the tunnel network he plans to build.
So let's listen to that. Just to sort of show what we're talking about. So there's a couple of key things that are important in having, um, uh, 3d Tom, that work. First of all, you have to be able to integrate the entrance and exit of the tunnel seamlessly into the fabric of the city. So by having a, an elevator is sort of a car skate that's on, on an, uh, an elevator.
You can integrate the entrances and exits to the total network just by using two parking spaces. Um, and then the car gets on escape. There's no speed limit here. So, uh, we're designing this to be able to operate at 200 kilometers an hour, about 130 200 kilometers an hour, or about 130 miles per hour. So you should be able to get from say.
Uh, Westwood to Lex in six minutes, five, six minutes.
Okay. So what was to put this into context for the listeners? What was interesting is Elan went straight into a very detailed user centric approach, but he has the use case worked out. And what was very interesting about this observation is that. He pinpointed that what was important is to be able to access this tone that worked from normal ground level through using it.
Uh, what is it, what looks like a cast based just on the side of the street. Yeah, just like a, I think it's like a spot and a half or two card, correct. Right. So instantly, uh, not, not disruptive. It's not like they need to build this huge tunnel entrance and have all these drama. He's actually thinking about it in terms of just using car spots.
That would be the access points. Imagine lifts going up and down and just the car comes up a bit like a, uh, a jet does on an aircraft carrier. And, um, what was really important for us to learn from this is how well thought out the user case was here and how he was really, uh, very specific in terms of the planning that they had done the design aspects, so that it would really work in tune with the behaviors of.
People who are living, working and getting around in cities and not making one of those kind of classic blenders of building some ugly unfriendly, unused piece of infrastructure. I think he's attention to, to the use case here was. Incredibly strong. And remember, he's like, he's like 90 seconds into his talk and he's already deep in those, those details.
I found that a great reminder of how important it is to, to, to know the use case. I found the contrast of this between Hyperloop really interesting, because I think a lot of people just initially wrote off his idea for the Hyperloop, but with what he's doing. And how he's explaining what the boring company is doing with these tunnel networks, you know, within and between cities.
It seems like, just like you said, he's I thought it through much further, uh, from the user point of view. And I think that just makes it more real to people to envision and see, Oh yes, that is something that we need. That's something that we should do too, alleviate traffic and, um, and to make travel times that much shorter.
Yeah. Yeah. He also in this talk, um, actually makes the connection between his tunneling effort, which he refers to as the boring company and, uh, he's other efforts. And you actually start to see that there's a hidden connection between all of these, um, which is really exciting. So you sort of start to see how Hyperloop works with a Tesla, which works with the boring company.
So there's really a master plan here. I think we're going to go to the, this next clip. And this is again, a great focus on detail and he actually, Ilan is now breaking down how he's going to cause a huge saving in making tunneling much because it's enormously expensive and just let's listen to how he's really broken down what it's going to take to make these, uh, networks of tunnels.
10 X cheaper. And this is one of my favorite clips too. It's very, very illuminating into how Elon thinks about tackling big challenges like this. I think we need to have at least a tenfold improvement in the cost per mile of tunneling. And how could you achieve that? I think there's actually, if you just do two things, you can get to approximately an order of magnitude improvements.
Uh, and I don't think you can go beyond that. So the first thing to do is to cut the tower tunnel diameter. Uh, you drop the, uh, the diameter by a factor two and the cross sectional area by, by a factor of four. So, uh, and the tunneling cost scales with the cross sectional area. So that's roughly a half order of magnitude improvement right there.
If you sign that machine instead to do continuous tunneling and reinforcing, that'll give you a factor of two improvement, combine that and some factor of eight. Uh, also these machines are far from being at their, their power or thermal limit. So you can Jack up the power to the machine substantially. I think you can get at least a factor of two, maybe a factor of four or five improvements on that, on top of that.
So I think the there's a fairly straightforward series of steps to get, uh, somewhere in access, an order of magnitude improvement and the cost per mile. Wow. Okay. So. At the heart of what he's just done here is a very clear breakdown of what it's going to take to he, I think he wrote, what does he call it?
Orders of magnitude better. That's his key word, right? Yeah. I think Elan, when it comes to numbers, thinks of everything in terms of powers of 10 or orders of magnitude, essentially adding a. You know, 10 to the power of one or two, three, essentially. He doesn't want to just multiply. Uh, he doesn't want to have like a multiple.
He wants the changes to be exponential, you know? So that's why he's thinking in terms of orders of magnitude and powers. In fact, you know, after selling his first company zipped too, he actually complained that it wasn't a 10 X business, meaning it wasn't making things 10 times better than they are today.
And it was too marginal. It wasn't having enough impact. So is it, it's obviously it's an enormous driver for him. For, for, for the audience. What I want to point out here is this 10 X thinking is something that they may have heard, uh, mentioned before. Um, it's been really pioneered by Google and at the heart of this thinking is let's make things that are 10 times better, not just 10% better.
And this is essential. Not only in your view of the world when you want to actually bring a new product or service to market. When you want to innovate is great for entrepreneurs because it's, you know, it's mathematically proved even that if you bring a product, a service, a solution to market that's 10 times better, it has enormous odds of success.
It's based on, uh, the work of John Gonville from Harvard and in the show notes. We'll include, um, his article, uh, that really I started, uh, and sort of the whole 10 X thinking has snowballed out of this. We'll put that into the show notes and it is in fact, John actually went and spoke at Google, uh, many years ago now and inspired them into, into really getting into this 10 X thinking.
And I think for anyone who's really wanting to do something. Uh, that has big impact in the world, understanding the nature of why 10 X matters and how to actually do it. Um, this article is fantastic. So that'll be in the, in the show notes that you can get at moonshots dot I O now. Yeah, go for it. I think just how much Elan uses this orders of magnitude, a mental model or powers of 10.
Not just in this talk, but anytime he's speaking about anything that he's doing, um, is really illustrative of how he thinks about what he's doing. And if it's not 10 X or even more to him, it doesn't, it doesn't matter. Really. It's not worth, it's not worth the time and investment because it's not going to move the needle as much as he wants.
And my biggest takeaway from. From that, that kind of thinking is so much of what we do is just an incremental improvement. Um, whether that's, you know, putting the final touches on a creative project that we have, or, you know, trying to do work for a client, it's usually incremental work. And so I think what Elan.
Inspires with this line of thinking is how, how can we go beyond that? And how can we really 10 X. Yeah, I think that, and you see this 10 X thinking coming out in the next clip because, uh, this is a re really we're going to segue over into, into the, the Tesla part of the interview that he did with Chris Anderson.
And now we're gonna get into, um, where we are. What's the state of the nation, where the Yuan and autonomous vehicles, and just have a listen to how he explains where they're at.
Um, I think the w w we're still on track for being able to go F um, cross country from LA to New York, by the end of the year, fully autonomous. Um, and so by the end of the year, you're saying, yeah, someone's going to sit in a Tesla without touching the steering wheel, tap in New York off. It goes, yeah, we don't have to ever touch the wheel, but at the end of 2017, Yeah, essentially November or December of this year, we should be able to go from yeah.
All the way from the parking lots in California to a parking lot in New York. No controls touched at any point during the entire journey.
Okay. So for me, it's a little different take on this is, um, Yeah, it's very easy with these sorts of projects to get caught up in engineering, talk, uh, data zeros and ones and, and, and so forth. What is so powerful full about what Elan just did is he told a story and he gave us a great metaphor of Hey coast to coast in the U S of a, and we're going to do it this year.
And. You could hear from the reaction of the audience and the host was spelldown. Chris is like, Whoa, hang on. Um, Hmm. And this year when I told my wife this and she, she did not believe it at all. And what's very interesting is when I speak to executives and the energy and automobile industry even vague.
Find it hard to grasp. So when I'm, you know, waving the flag for urgency because of the transformation that is coming due to. Autonomous vehicles and electric vehicles, even the industries that this is directly affecting are struggling to come to terms with this, but this metaphor, when he says from a parking lot in California, all the way to New York city, this just is so powerful.
And it really is. It is important for us to remember that when we are on a mission to create something that is. Truly remarkable and disruptive in the world. You know, we can get caught up. Um, uh, what, what, well, in the U S talking inside baseball, and a lot of people are finding that industry talk hard to relate to.
Elon just does a great job here of putting it in our own terms and capturing our imaginations. And actually what's interesting is that the science of storytelling is such as when you have that. Well, a feeling actually that mocks the information in your brain. So it actually makes it more memorable and you can retrieve that information down the track.
So to me, great storytelling, uh, is at the heart of it, what all entrepreneurs do, because it's not only how they, uh, how they win the hearts and minds of customers. It's also how they, they, they get people on board, uh, to do the impossible mission with them, which is something Elon does very well. Yeah, and it reminds me a lot of Steve jobs, iPod reveal.
When he says a thousand CDs or a thousand songs in your pocket, it, you immediately understand, wow. What the transformation in your own life will be because of this new product. Or service. And I don't think a lot of people in my wife included really understood what Tesla is trying to do and imagining yourself in a Tesla in California, not touching the controls and 24 30 hours later you're in New York.
Like it is a really powerful image that he conjures with that. Um, but I know you have another clip that goes even further into just simply how this autonomous, uh, fleet of vehicles will, will just will disrupt the entire industry. Right? So this, this next clip is Ilan, um, exploring the implications of autonomous fleets of cars.
Um, have a listen to this and then we'll, we'll, we'll explore what this, what implications this really has. So there will be a shared autonomy fleet where you buy your car and you can choose to use that car exclusively. Um, you could choose to, um, have it be used only by friends and family only by, uh, five-star other drivers who are rated five star.
You can choose to share it sometimes, but not other times. Um, that's, that's that's 100% what will occur. It's just a question of when. Right. So this, this is one of those clips where, when you, and you hear him taking you on this journey of, I just immediately imagine Chad, that, that I have this, I go to a meeting, my car drops me off, and then I turned around to the cat and say, okay, you pick me up into hours, go have some fun, give me a call if you need anything.
And then it goes off and drives all these other people and then comes back and picks me up. It, it, it has such, um, such dramatic implications, uh, to the way we get around to, to mobility or all that kind of, uh, activity. But I, it also makes me my mind just exploded with the possibilities of how this redefines everything from the gas station to the way we.
Um, to the way we get around to, to, to the way we insure our cars and, and even to think of, well, what are we going to do with it all of this time, that's no longer occupied with driving. Um, so the, the scale of this disruption as if, if everybody who has a job in the Western world, that commutes. Okay. So let's say that's a couple of billion people now have an extra hour a day.
What could happen with that time? Yeah, that, that was my, my wife's first, uh, thought was, Oh my gosh, I have 90 minutes back in my day. What am I going to do with that? That's that's, that's definitely, um, I mean, you can imagine the cause, uh, we'll no longer have seats necessarily facing forward to a steering wheel, but it could be like an office desk or a lounge room, or, I mean, it just redefines this, this, this huge part of your day.
Um, but some people will do for 40 or 50 years spending an hour and a half. Each, uh, each and every Workday is now open for new experiences and new activities. Um, and to, to, I really think that coming off the back of that, there was a recent, very recent it's brand new it's called rethinking transportation, 20, 20 to 2030.
We've put it in this year show notes so you can grab them@moonshots.io. Um, they predict that within 13 years, 95% of all miles driven in the U S will be autonomous and electric driven miles. Now, if you think about what this means, if you think about what this means, uh, it's changing well within our own lifetime.
I think the big takeaway for me in this is. To not be caught flatfooted in whatever industry you're working in, because there are going to be people like Elon Musk that are inventing entirely new paradigms. And I think a lot of us can be very comfortable in our routines and the way we do things. And if we just continue with that mindset, we're going to be completely disrupted.
By this, by this new, I mean, in this, in the transport, it's not just the transportation industry. I mean, it, it, it goes so much further beyond that. Oh yeah. It, it, it affects, um, I mean, T to think about what an hour, if it just assumed that it's redefining one hour of your day, um, it, once you've gone to, once you've actually done work, And some sleeping.
You actually don't have a lot of hours I left in your day. So the fact that you're going to get an extra one, it proportionally is actually an enormous impact on people's lives and all of the economies that work around transportation or which are really big business, obviously automobile and energy industries are some of the biggest ones, but.
What's what's actually revealed in yours for a clip coming up now is whilst Tesla is very exciting. Some argue that actually it's the, that Ilan is very much like James Dyson, the vacuum designer, who is very much the master of how to make a move. Some say that really Elan's big thing is understanding.
Battery life and energy itself. So why don't you set the scene for this, for your first clip? Yeah. So he's kind of talking about the necessity in order for us to go to a completely or nearly complete electric electric power system. We simply just need more batteries. The world's output is not enough to meet this new electric need to power, to power, everything.
So rather than kind of look at that and, and be discouraged and be like, well, you know, the world just simply can't make enough batteries. He decides to build his own battery factories. And so here he is explaining these new Gigafactory that are churning out tens of thousands of lithium ion batteries.
One of your, one of your core ideas about what makes exciting futures, the future web no longer feel guilty about energy. Um, how help us picture this? I mean, how many gigafactories if you like, does it take to get us there? Uh, it's about a hundred, roughly. It's not 10, it's not a thousand, most likely a hundred.
See, I, I kind of find this amazing, like you can actually picture if that's right, you can picture what it would take to. Move the world off this vast fossil fuel thing. It's like, you're building one costs, $5 billion, maybe the next one or whatever, five to $10 billion. Like it's, it's kind of cool that you can picture that, that project you're planning to do a Tesla or at least another two announce another two this year, I think.
And what we'll announce locations for somewhere between two and four gigafactories later this year. Yeah, probably four. Wow. I love Chris Anderson's Whoa. At the end of that, well, I mean, at a certain point you go, Oh my gosh, it did Elan. Just say we could all be off carbon based energy if we just had a hundred gigafactories and that's that's what he was saying, right?
Yeah. Yeah. They're the first ones going to cost 5 billion and then. You know, I'm building the first few, but he's hoping that there are more entrance into the market, but yeah, he essentially has. He's done the math and he's so well researched and all of the subjects in which his companies are working.
He's he's, he's done the math and figured out that he just needs a, a hundred of these gigafactories and we can be completely off of, off of fossil fuels and. It's it's incredible to me to see how he just breaks down a seemingly insurmountable task. Like how do we, we, in ourselves, off of unsustainable, fossil fuels.
And then figures out, yeah, the numbers a hundred or around a hundred, we just need a hundred of these gigafactories and then we'll have enough batteries to power, to power, everything. So I think when, when we think about embarking on our own missions to create new things in the world, I think what we can take out of this one, Was again, he demonstrates do the math, know what it takes.
Um, and I think that, um, that's a recurring theme in the, you know, the techniques that he is using, uh, across the six active companies that he has at the moment. It, it, the math always is, uh, super, super logical. Now, what else have you got in your, uh, in your clip goody bag? I just, I wanted to say one more thing is he breaks it.
He does the math and breaks it down and he chooses something that's like just barely feasible and might not work. So like when he, I mean, this Gigafactory is enormous. And when he first started to build it, he didn't know that it would work out, that he'd be able to, to in fact, make as many batteries as, as they needed.
So he's not going into it with certainty. He still kind of taking a little bit of. You know, a chance and experimenting with it. Um, but it's just far enough out there where if he hits the Mark, he can really, you know, get that 10 X return that he's looking for. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. He's, he's solving such a massive problem, which is, you know, a big pot of innovation is tackling big problems that even if he's only like 80% ride on his hypothesis, he's already in the strike zone anyway, of something that really matters.
So. Um, a lot of, a lot of takeouts on that one. So, so what's the next, uh, next little one you've gotten that goodie bag. This one again is kind of about his personal philosophy and just, I think why he is driven so much to innovation. So I'll just let him speak for himself. I think I look at the future from a standpoint of, of the probabilities.
It's like, it's like a branching stream of probabilities and their actions. That we can take better effect those probabilities or that accelerate one thing or slow down. Another thing I make, you know, introduce something new to would probably be stream sustainable energy will happen no matter what, if there was no Tesla teller that it never existed, it would have to happen out of necessity.
It's tautological that the fundamental value of a company like Tesla is the greeter, which it, it accelerates the advent of sustainable energy, uh, faster than it would otherwise occur. So when I think of like, what is the fundamental good of coming? Like tells it, I would say hopefully it does. If it, if it accelerated that by a decade, potentially more than a decade, that would be quite a good thing to occur.
That's what I consider to be the fundamental sort of aspirational goal of Tesla. And so in, in that line of thinking, Ilan is. Putting innovation at the heart of the mission of everything that he's doing. He's saying I went to go down the branch, you know, have a positive potential future, not a stagnant or a negative potential future.
Yeah, the, the, the idea. So when you hear what he does with these branching, uh, probabilities, he's touching on this theme of inevitability and, um, to kind of learn how we can do this. I would actually give the example of Google's thinking around. Their own autonomous vehicle unit, which was driven out of sorry, out of Google X.
And here's the interesting theme that I see with, with Ilan and other grade, um, inventors and innovators of our time is they ask us, they ask themselves what is truly inevitable. Now when you take autonomous driving, the reason it's so powerful as an idea is that. A computer. Can drive so much better than a human, because you can have multiple cameras, uh, with multiple sets of data when humans just have two eyes and ears to drive with.
So we have such a limited view. And so. Both Ilan and other great entrepreneurs. There's always seem to have this thing of what's inevitable. What is the most likely thing? Of course, it makes so much sense. You know, um, electric cars, autonomous cars, or all these things make so much sense. They are inevitable.
The benefits are so big. That they, they make it worth going on this journey. And this is at the heart of how, how we can all put this kind of thinking into action is in your room perspective field, what are the inevitable develop that are going to vastly improve a situation and bet on be part of those?
Because actually, if you look at these six companies, Elan is making big, big bets, but on very inevitable ideas, such as cities. Getting overwhelmed with traffic, uh, homes, being energy, independent, uh, the need for space travel, um, the, the need for a smarter, more intuitive, uh, artificial intelligence at every point there.
So inevitable and he's, so he's almost halfway to victory just by betting on the right type of race, but they're not inevitable, Mike. Because like in the science fiction world. Sure. Like it, you can write it down. And it sounds like a really cool future to live in the catch that Elan says beautifully in this next clip is that we still have to choose to create that, that new inevitable future.
And so here he is talking about the history of the U S space program and why we're not destined. Automatically, you know, to beat, to become a multi-planetary species, becoming a multiple species in space, Frank civilization. This is not inevitable. If you look at, uh, at the progress and space in 1969, we're able to send somebody to the moon 1969.
Um, then only had the space shuttle. The space shuttle could only take people to lower earth orbit. Hmm, then the space shuttle retired and the United States could take no one to open it. So that's the trend is trend is like down to nothing. This is not if I'm mistaken, when they think that technology just automatically improves, it does not automatically improve it.
It only improves if a lot of people work very hard to make it better. And actually it will. I think by itself, degrade actually. You look at great civilizations, like ancient Egypt, and they're able to make the permits and they forgot how to do that. And the Romans, they built these incredible aqueducts.
They forgot how to do it. See, so it's this interesting paradox that we're caught in, right. Great point. Great point. Yeah, the, the, I mean, how sad was it when he starts to roll out the decline of the U S space program and you just like, Oh my gosh, you're so right. I mean, it's happening in front of us. But he presents, he presents that, um, and in such a such a dry way, but I think the take hat really here is he's, uh, he's like seizing the day.
He's like, well, just because, uh, maybe yeah, the, the federal authorities and are driving space travel, like they used to, he's just jumping in right. Yeah, because I think he, he understands that to close that, like to solve the paradox, like he has to insert himself and his ability to bring the right people on the right resources, you know, to create these, uh, these positive potential futures.
I think if you take a look at everything that he's done, it is. Bridging this gap between this kind of science fiction future that we know we could have, or maybe even should have had at this point. And then, yeah. You know, what, what is actually happening on the ground to make that possible? You know, because we thought we'd have flying cars a hundred years ago, but we, but we don't, we thought there would be, you know, Android replicants.
Uh, roaming the streets of, you know, new Shanghai or whatnot, you know, today, you know, none of that has come to pass because no one has taken the time and the resources to see if that is something that you know, would work and, and, and can become a viable business and a viable service. What, why do you think he's so.
I'm confident and to go where others will never go. Why, where does he get that confidence from? I don't know that. I know. I don't know that that anyone knows, um, some very great resources for, for people to check out is the wait, but why series by Tim urban? I would highly recommend it. It's a blog series, a kind of a biographical or, uh, Company biographical, um, essays on what Elan is working on Ashley Vance's book on Elon Musk is also a great resource, uh, in between those two.
I think you can get a better picture, but I don't know that I actually know why, uh, my sense of it. Yeah. Is that after applying his thinking some of the mental models that we've been talking about, the branching possibilities, the 10 X, the storytelling. I'm guessing that in his mind, he's so familiar with the use case.
He's broken it down. You know, how he's seen. He kind of seems very clinical and logical. He just breaks it all down into these set of issues or steps or improvements that need to happen. I think that down to first principles I think is kind of what he says. I I'm betting that that's where his confidence is coming from.
He's he's basically broken it down as such. And he's like, this is not so hard. You just need to do all these things. And, you know, step one looks like this. I have a feeling that that's where, where some of he's. He's uh, underlying determination and courage come from, but I know you've got some clips that speak to some more of his, uh, his behavioral things that he does.
So why don't you hit us with one of those? This is just one of the more inspiring things that he said while he was on stage. And, um, I think it kind of hints as to why he does these, these grand projects. Um, You know, to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. Why Ellen cause this cause what, like, why do we need to build a city on Mars with a million people on it to have a future that is inspiring and appealing?
I mean, I just think that they're like, that'd be reasons that you get up in the morning and you want to live, like, why do you want to live? What's the point? What, what inspires you? What, what do you love about the future? And if, if we're not out there, if a future's not include being out there among the stars and being a multi planet species, I find that it's incredibly depressing.
If that's not the future that we're going to have. And I know this, this clip may seem a little out of context cause he's, he's talking about a million people living on Mars, um, which again is something that he sees it as inevitable. And it's the reason why space X exists. Um, But I don't want to gloss over the fact that he gets up in the morning and he looks at the work that he's doing and he's happy.
You know, he sees that as his mission. He has something. That he considers meaningful to do. And he, he set his bar very high, right? It's like, you know, 10 X or more in each of these industries and for him, I think that's, that's what it takes. Yes. And he wants to do it at great scale because as I mentioned, he wasn't happy, just, you know, uh, Providing a very successful company that did mapping and location services for newspapers online.
Yeah. And that wasn't nearly enough for him. And I think why this really Matt is, is this is a source of, and G for him. And I would reflect on, uh, any B project, um, that we work on. I think we often find when we really care about. The vision gives us purpose and helps us overcome, you know, what we call the Valley of darkness when everything is going wrong.
And I know that he's strong on this because. He faced a time when both solar city and Tesla were not in good shape, uh, it was around the 2008 recession and no one would invest, the prototypes were not going well. And he wrote a check to both companies, one space X, too. Don't forget space. That's right. And it was the last of his dollars.
And. After their first successful test, he funded cause they did several unsuccessful ones on space X, something that, uh, uh, Allison's mother, I don't know, they actually got a car. So the next day, the next day, after their first successful launch and NASA and foreman that they had won a billion dollar.
Contract. And then the company was off to the races. Yeah. Everything looks great in hindsight, but I think it is easy for us to forget, um, how much, uh, Elan had to had to experiment and test all of these ideas out to see if they would actually actually work right. And, and underlying his determination to do that.
Is, he has a very strong, uh, sense of not only inspiration, but, but why he he's looking forward so much sometimes. So let's, let's listen to this clip. That's coming now towards the very end of the interviews. So his Ilan talking about the future and inspiration, I think, I think that the value of getting inspiration is pretty much underrated.
No question. Um, but I want to be clear. I'm not trying to be anyone's savior. Uh, that is not the, I, I'm just trying to think about the future and not be sad. So isn't that, isn't that a, it's such a, uh, almost melancholy or like he doesn't want to be in that, that world where the future is full of, uh, mediocracy or unrealized PIP.
Potential. I think he is being brutally honest and Frank here. And in fact, um, one of the things that I think we can take from this is for all of the logic and problem solving that we applied to two opportunities in the world to create something. We also need a little bit of. Kind of emotional juice in the tank.
And, uh, I found that, um, uh, you know, the greatest. Leaders of, of, uh, innovative companies often have this pairing of inquiry, intense logic and acumen, but also, um, some real, real fire in the belly. You know, they believe in what they're doing. They believe in their mission and the positive impact that it can have in the world.
Um, so I thought that was a great way for us. Uh, to, to wrap up on, on the, the clips. So, Chad, I want to ask you, you know, having listened to these clips and talked about them together, what are the, the big themes that you're walking away with? And you'd ask our, our listeners to, to really reflect on it's hard for me.
To be exposed to, you know, a great window into, into Elon. Musk's thinking with this conversation he had with Chris Anderson on the Ted stage. And not want to just go even deeper into learning more about him and his history with his companies, what his companies are doing and trying to figure out what he's doing behind the scenes even.
Um, so we've compiled a lot of resources for all of you listeners in the show notes. Um, I think the biggest takeaway for me is Elon Musk thinks about the world. Differently than most people. And what are some of the mental models that he's created for himself? I'm pretty sure, you know, for his entire adult life, you know, how, what are those models and how can I work to incorporate those in my own?
In my own line of work and in my own life. Um, and the one that, that sticks out the most is his idea of thinking of innovation in terms of orders of magnitude or powers of 10. So how can I use my time and talents and effort to make a 10 X change, not a 10% change. And that's, that's really tough. Because there's not a lot of areas in our life where we can do that.
But if we find that area, then we need to double down on it. And I think that's what Elan has done. He's, he's recognized his own talents and what they're best and resources and what they're best used for. And. And just double down on that because he knows he can get that, that 10 X return. Yes, I found it great.
Um, I found it, um, very helpful to remind myself of the, you know, being deep into the details of the use case and almost being mathematical like a human calculator in processing and crunching it down. And pairing that with that tenant sinking that you, that you mentioned thinking really big, it comes so natural to team.
I think it's right to say that for most of us, we don't think that big, but he really does. So I think really expanding on your, on your inventions or your business ideas and, and, and really trying to get to a point where your view. And your vision is to create something that's 10 times better. I think it's something we can all take out of this.
I found that I found that, uh, really, really powerful and a, um, what a great way, uh, to get an insight into an entrepreneur who is actively working on six D I mean, can you believe six different companies right now? All of which having. Really significant, uh, impact, uh, on the world. So, um, but he's not the only one who are some other people that, that you've been thinking about, uh, exploring and investigating.
Yes. Yes. So let's, so let's talk about the next show. Um, I think we definitely want to get lots of feedback from friends and listeners. Um, I tell you, um, some people that come to my mind, I think the obvious person. Who is on an Elon Musk, a Lee right now has to be Jeff Bezos. I think he is having an enormous impact on the world.
Not only with Amazon, but, but like Ian, he's got his own space projects as well. I think Jeff is, is a, is a big one. Could you, could you do a little bit of Jeff Bezos, Chad? Oh, yeah. I have been an Amazon prime subscriber for as long as it's existed. And in fact, I think I had three packages arrive, arrive today.
Um, I'm a big believer, uh, and user of, of what he's doing. I am, I actually came across, um, and an email from a mentor of mine, Gary Hoover, who, uh, founded Hoovers and. He was making the case, um, that the F the founder and still CEO of FedEx, Fred Smith, is arguably the greatest active living entrepreneur in terms of just longevity and impact.
Um, so I'm, I'm taking a, you know, a more traditional, um, approach and, and thinking about who we should talk about, but. Um, we've got a lot more, uh, people in mind to, to speak about too. So we wanna, we want to hear from, from, uh, from you, the listeners, um, and who you'd be interested in. In, in unpacking conversations and pieces of media.
Yeah. Yeah. Can I just say I'm going on a, just looking at other different types of entrepreneurs beyond the tech sector? Um, I really think Oprah Winfrey is someone we should. Um, take a look at, I also think brand new relative to some of these other entrepreneurs is the honest company that was founded by Jessica Alba, the, the actress.
I think that's a really, really interesting company and I think it's quite remarkable, uh, what she's done, but I'm sure that the listeners have got a ton of suggestions as well, right? Yes. So you can find all of the show notes. Um, That we've talked about today, every know, every mention of media and articles and books and things that you should check out.
Um, you can find that@moonshots.io, um, also you can leave feedback there for us. And of course, we'd appreciate a rating and review, um, w at your pod catcher of choice. Yes. And, um, We, we really want to, uh, build not only, uh, the moonshots podcasts into something that's okay and inspiring, but insanely useful.
So we need a, our listeners to tell us what they, what they need and, uh, and whom they would like us to deconstruct. So I'm going to wrap up, uh, here from a very, uh, Sunny, but wintery, uh, at the same time Sydney and I'm looking forward to, to being with our listeners again, next month, when we deconstruct a famous innovator and entrepreneur and good night from New York city, Mike, I look forward to our next conversation.
Yes, me too. And just so you know, the warriors are leading the calves in the, in the NBA finals. So, uh, my heart is still with that golden state, so it's a strong way to rap. So take care, Chad. Cheers mate. Alright.