Hi, I'm Dave from Boyinaband,
Sometimes you come across people who
completely change your perception of what a human being is capable of
Today, I'm going to show you one of those people
someone who is basically a real life Iron-Man
but less of a douche and with slightly fewer glowing blue fusion reactors embedded in his chest
Or at least he hides it well
I'll set the scene of my discovery
After commiting to the imminent destruction of my diurnal sleeping pattern,
I was browsing through the internet until I happened to come across an article about Tesla
A company developing electic cars
Now, I know less about cars than I do about spotting continuity errors,
But this article mentioned the owner of Tesla had just been asked if he would pay for a museum
of the company's namesake, Nicola Tesla, an inventor who's as badass as he is dead
The owner of the company gave a million dollars to fund the museum
And I thought "That's a lot of money for a random internet publicity stunt"
"This guy seems frickin' cool"
"I wonder what other cool stuff he's done"
"Oh wow, his company has forced all the massive car manufacturing companies towards practical electric vehicles"
"Ah, but wait, the powerplants would still have to burn those fossil fuels in the first place-"
"Oh wow, he's chairman of another company that's put more solar panels on people's houses than any other"
"But wait, what if it's already too late to cure climate change and the planet is doomed-"
"Oh wow, he's made another company that is single-handedly pushing humanity towards colonizing mars -
- To avoid the accidental extinction of the human race"
So who is this superhero that's saving us from the brink of collapse?
There WAS a genius billionaire in that picture
but it wasn't Robert Downey Jr.
The dude chilling with Tony Stark was Elon Musk
Who Robert Downey Jr. actually based the character of Iron Man on
By analyzing Elon's mannerisms, talking to him, and adding a healthy scoop of douche
God damn, that's a nice phase to say
(in rhythm) Scoop of douche, scoop of douche, scoop of -
So I was like "Holy crap! This guy is literally fixing the world, how did I not know about him?"
"Is he famous?"
Okay, phew, he's got over a million Twitter followers
that seems like a lot, right?
Oh, okay Nicki, I guess you do sing some pretty catchy -
Oh, okay Kim, I guess you do have a pretty good-looking -
Oh, okay Pewds, you do have some pretty funny videos
and make an incredibly satisfying way of pronouncing of the words "haters" -
Oh
Well, okay, Pitbull, you do shout your name very effectively in a lot of songs,
But I think it would be more beneficial if people were aware of the fate of the planet
Rather than your favourite number
(echo and music) 305! (⌐■_■)
Dale! (⌐■_■)
Dale! Dale!
What is- What the hell is- What's 'dale'?
How is this possible?
How does someone frickin' come out of nowhere and found three world-changing companies?
Well, they weren't his first world-changing companies
And he didn't actually come out of nowhere
unless South Africa is 'nowhere' to you, in which case you're a silly billy
It's right here! It's right over here, you silly billy
And in terms of business too, he didn't just pop into existence with multi-millions of dollars
(incoherent mumbling)
He started pretty early
When he was twelve, he taught himself to program -
- programmed a game, and sold it for five hundred dollars
Know what I was doing at age twelve?
Getting told by my school that long hair was for girls and I had to cut it or get suspended
Well SCREW YOU, Mrs. Cheshire, who's laughing now?
When he was seventeen he moved to Canada
and after casually getting two degrees, moved to America
and started a company with his brother to make the Internet's first yellow pages
And bear in mind, at this point the majority of people thought the Internet was a fad
like Tamagotchi or Five Nights at Freddy's,
or caring about debilitating diseases
They didn't actually have enough money for a dedicated computer to host the website on,
So Elon became nocturnal, and coded it at night,
then used the same computer to host it during the day
That concept just makes me laugh so much
like, imagine if Facebook was suddenly like
"Oop! sorry guys, it's nighttime now, and I've gotta fix the messaging system"
"See you in twelve hours, Zuckie <3"
But the work paid off.
In January '96, they got three million dollars in funding to grow the company.
Just gonna stop there for a sec,
That's quite the jump for less than a year.
But you can't change the world on a measley 3 million dollars
Fortunately, that amount paled into comparison when the company was sold three years later
for three hundred and seven million dollars
The most money ever paid for an internet company at the time
And Elon got twenty-two million of that
Instead of buying an island and carving his own face into it, the same year he started a company "X dot com"
Which, as we all know, is the most awesome letter of the alphabet
It's so goddamn futuristic oh my god
X.com was an internet payments comany, but they were against some pretty big competition
so they ended up merging with another company with a product called [mumbles slightly] oh, what has it? oh, yeah,
PayPal.
He wasn't just some random manager. Not only was he the CEO that ran thaaangs,
He was the guy who figured out how to make people use PayPal
Think about it: How would you get millions of people to trust this random website they've never heard of?
Well, he started by offering twenty dollars to everyone that made an account
- and twenty dollars for every friend they referred
This one interview when he was talking about it makes me laugh, where he was like
[Elon] I think it probably ... sixty or seventy million dollars
[Interviewer] oh, okay, so we're not talking peanuts here, this is-
[Elon] Yeah, it depends on your relative scale
[Interviewer] well, yeah, I ...
[hip-hop music]
My frickin' G!
But things weren't easy for him during this time
there was a lot of disagreements with how PayPal should be run
because people who make sucessful companies tend to be pretty opinionated and driven
Like, imagine if Nicki Minaj, Kim Kardashian and Pewdiepie had to get together and make a group and agree on a direction
Actually that's a really bad analogy because they'd very quickly conclude huge amounts of twerking and become more sucessful than anything in history
So, after he ran the company as the CEO for like a year,
he went on this two-week roadtrip to meet some possible investors, and when he got back
the rest of the people on the board of the company fired him
So that was pretty crap.
Things weren't all bad for him, because he kept his share of the company even though he was fired
You might know that in 2002, PayPal was bought by eBay
you might not remember that it was for 1.5 billion dollars
his share of that got him a hundred and sixty five million
Instead of buying several islands and carving his entire anatomy into them, he -
[Interrupts self] Oh, wait,  he did buy an island at this point
that's when he created his company that -  hang on
SpaceX?
I thought Google X was a frickin' cool name, but SPACE X?
That's literally like my eight-year-old self was asked: "what is the absolute coolest name possible for a company"
[8-year-old Dave] SPACE-X! :D
[Dave] What do they do?
[Eight-year-old Dave] Go into space!!  :D :D
[Normal Dave] how is that financially feasible?
[Eight-year-old Dave] ...SPACE!!! :DDDDD
[Normal Dave voiceover] This is where ol' Elon is a slightly better rocket engineering CEO than my eight year old self
He funded SpaceX with a hundred million dollars of his own money
Because, funnily enough, most people didn't think pouring money into a space company was a sound investment
I guess they thought a company fronted by someone with no prior practical rocket science experience couldn't be more efficient than NASA
Pffft, idiots.
Well, he had a degree in physics, but everyone that's taken a degree knows exactly how prepared it makes you for the real world
So, how did he learn enough about rocket science?
He taught himself.
He read a lot of books, talked to some rocket scientists and watched some youtube tutorials or something
and after calculating that he thought he could do things better than NASA -
- founded SpaceX with just enough money for three attempts at launching a working rocket
Guess which attempt the rocket launched on?
That's right, the fourth.
We're gonna come back to that in a sec, because one world-changing company wasn't enough
This is where he made Tesla Motors in 2003 with twenty million dollars
You know, just some leftover cash
[Hip-hop music]
Because, as he explained it, "climate change needs to be dealt with, and the biggest consumption of that is cars"
He did it because it was important
So he just casually challenged the entire car industry by being like:
"Yeah, I know you're a multi-billion dollar industry, but I think I can do better"
AND THEN HE DID BETTER.
Tesla made the first production line electric car that went over 200 miles on one charge
and also didn't make the car look STUPID.
Meaning it was the first practical AND cool electric car
By the way, when I was trying to find a way to prove to you with data that people weren't a fan of the style of electric cars
I typed in "electric cars look" into google and yes, that is actually the top result
There's all kinds of stories about the big car companies getting the government to try to restrict Tesla in all kinds of ways, but
Basically, they failed, Tesla won - trap dance!
{the same hip-hop music from before}
Around 2008 though, you might remember the financial crisis happened
Which was not a good year if you happened to own multiple cutting-edge technology companies
Tesla was about to go under
so Elon injected the rest of his money into it
And I mean all of it, he had to borrow from his friends in order to support his family at that point
No matter HOW rich you are it's frickin' scary to put everything you own into something
And again, to clarify, he wasn't doing this to make the most money
it's not like he sat down and after careful consideration mused "hmm, yes, SPACE is where the money is"
he would have gone to like, the financial sector or real estate or something for that
He was doing it because it was important to progress humanity
So he sank all of his money into Tesla
all three rocket launches failed
and he had a frickin' divorce in the same year
but at the end of that year
[countdown voice] three ... two ... one ...  zero
[overlapping voices] And we're flying 
[cheering]
[countdown voice] we have lift off
[Dave] Yay! On the third launch, he said that he knew why it failed, fixed it, and successfully launched soon after with the last drags of funds the company had
This single human being had organized and helped design what most governments are not capable of doing
And the American government noticed
NASA gave Space-X a 1.6 billion dollar contract to fly stuff to the international space station
So to my eight-year-old self, THAT is how a space-travel company can be financially feasible
[8 year old Dave] ZELDA IS A FUN GAME! :D
[Normal Dave] it defined a generation
soon after the sky rocketing success - [monotone] ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha - of Space-X, Elons other company, Tesla, began to pay off
Its model S car was released, and out of a possible five-star safety rating, it got 5.4 stars
potentially because there wasn't an explosion happening in front of the driver at all times
they started selling shares and made two billion dollars
and all the other car companies started making electric cars because they realized "holy crap, we can't be lazy anymore!"
"Stupid Elon Musk with his space rockets and your occasional relatable tweets. >:("
Seriously, his Twitter makes me laugh SO much, like, who else can credibly get away with saying
"By the way, we're actually working on a charger that automatically moves out from the wall and connects like a solid metal snake"
"for realz"
For REALZ! What frickin' billionaire uses superfluous zeds!?
Probably Dr. Dre, actually.
I guess the kind of billionaire that went choosing the vehicle names to trademark for his car company chooses the models
S, 3, X and Y
Because, and I quote: "There's not much humour in copyright law"
Brilliant
His sense of humour is so deadpan
One that got me particularly strongly was in an interview where he was asked about his plans to build rockets that fly to mars
[Interviewer] You want to be on that flight?
[Elon] I'd like to go to mars, absolutely. I think it would be great to be born on earth and die on mars
[Elon] just, eh, hopefully not at the point of impact
[interviewer laughs]
Amazing. And he's one of the only people in the world that could pull that one off
because he's joking, but simutaneously, he's going to Mars
But what does he do when he isn't working?
Surely, his brain can't be on all the time
He actually has time to play video games occasionally, including kerbal space program, which made me laugh.
but more often, he invents new things
Like one weeked after hearing California's government was about to have the dubious honour of building the most expensive and slowest bullet train
He got annoyed, so he met with a few friends, had a few coffees
and developed design documentation for an entirely new method of transport
cheaper than trains, faster than planes, that works like an air hocket table
called - prepare your inner eight-year-old-self - the Hyperloop
[8 year old Dave] (Delighted gasping) :D
He just made it! Then put the document out on the internet, for FREE
Because he didn't have the time to do it
y'know, multiple world-changing companies already
Got a bit on my plate
and three other ideas he suggested potentially working on were:
One: an electric plane, which, because of the lack of oxygen required because there's no jet engine, it can fly way higher -
- meaning less air-restistance, meaning
Getting from London to shanghai in seven and a half hours;
Two: A way to add a double-decker element to roads to reduce traffic and rush hour
PLEASE make this one! D:
and third; he actually said in an interview
[Elon] one of them, the third one would be, I [slight stutter] I think I could make fusion work
[Elon] ehm
[laugher]
[Elon] and, eh,
[Dave] You know, just casually
And I believe him!
So his companies have continued to go from strength to strength, which brings us to now
[Gangster Dave] Ay, yo, Dave, how much he worth?
[Normal Dave] eight point three billion dollars
[Gangster Dave] Damn! :O
Keep in mind that 'point three' is enough to buy multiple islands
And unlike many other billionaires like the Wal-mart family for instance
who have a tendency to sociopathically keep it all to themselves
- despite having literally enough money to cure world hunger
I have the stats to back that up
Elon is invested in making businesses that will save the world
He realizes that people who deny climate change as a world-ending threat are idiots
And instead of getting involved in that kind of debate
found a way to make it financially beneficial for the world to work towards not destroying the planet
I just can't believe that Elon is not more people's hero
but all that said, the coolest thing is not the achievements he's done, but why he does them
He didn't go into these businesses purely for profit
he sat down and thought logically about what the world needed the most, then found a way to make it work
He cares about people in a way so few people with his ability do
and he's smart enough to make an impact bigger than governments
because he's not afraid to choose a direction that could fail, against everyone's convetional advice
and work a hundred hours a week to prove them wrong
Elon Musk is probably the guy I respect the most in the world
People tend to find it a lot easier to have that level of respect for dead people like Nicola Tesla, Elon's company's namesake
but I keep thinking, imagine what this guy could do if enough people were aware of his intentions and achievements
And gave him that level of respect while he was still alive
so even though he isn't as world famous as some rappers or TV stars
That's the the kind of person with the kind of mindset I think more people should know about
And if you're interested in Elon's achivements, you'll probably also be insterested in what Google has been doing with their secret research facility, Google X
and you can check that video out here or linked in the description
Bye!
OH, and Elon!
PLEASE be a rapper
You have the perfect 'came from nothing now I'm something'-story
You frickin' could film your video, with a rocket taking off in the background, from your OWN ISLAND
And, all the best rappers are from South Africa, it would just be amazing
I'll, I'll make you the song, please, please, please
Tweet me
