We we met a number of years ago in part I was writing a movie I was going in to pitch a movie called interstellar
at the time Steven Spielberg was the director and he wanted to do a
grounded
Movie about the future of space travel so I came in to my pitch was very short
I said the movies gonna be 10 minutes long because it's not happening it was about 10 years ago
We're not going there's no money left
This is not a priority for us anymore
And then in the course of and somehow. I got the job in the course of
Writing the movie working with Kip Thorne a physicist invited me in a physics conference one night
And I got seated next to Ilana
We've been friends ever since the irony of that being I wound up becoming friends with a guy who I think personally is
moving the needle back in the other direction
And up by himself at this point
More than more than anyone. I can think of so the net result is I think we are going back to the moon
I think we are going to Mars, and I think a lot of it is because of you
So one of the questions we got here today
One of the questions that you guys have submitted the night that I love is simple Mars how can we help?
What see so
In the short term Mars is really about getting a spaceship built
We're we're making good progress on this on the on the ship and the booster
Codenamed PFR
What is this tan for again well, it's like sort of a roar shy yes an acronym form
And
It is very big and
I gave a presentation on this at the
International Astronautical Congress in Australia last year
And that design is evolving rapidly we're actually building that
That should but that ship right now
The I
Think right now that like the biggest thing. That would be helpful is just general support and encouragement
and a good goodwill I
Think once we build it there will be
Well it will have a a
Point of proof something that
the
Companies and countries can then go and do like they currently don't think it's possible so if we show them that it is
then I think they will
Fill up their game, and they will build
Interplanetary transport vehicles as well
Now once that has been built, and there is a
There's a means of getting. I'll go and people to and from Mars as well as turn from the moon
other places in the solar system and I think
That's that's really where
There's a matter of
entrepreneurial entrepreneurial resources that are needed
because you got to build out the entire base of Industry everything that allows your human civilization to exist and
it's gonna be harder a
Lot harder in a place like Mars or the moon
We need some volunteers to be colonists do we have any comments pollen tears here?
I'm actually not many hands raised by the way
I
Mean the moon of Mars often thought of is like is this some escape ski escape hatch for rich people
but I it won't be that at all, it's
In anyone who look for the only people that go to
Better Mars. It'll be far more dangerous. I mean really it's it kind of reads like Shackleton's ad full
Antarctic explorers, you know it's like
Difficult dangerous good chance you will die
Excitement for those who survive
That kind of thing
and
I think there's not many people who actually want to go in the beginning because all those things I said are true
but there'll be some who will for whom the excitement of the frontier and exploration exceeds the concern of danger and
And it will start off building the first elementary infrastructure just a base to create propellant
a power station
Blast domes in which to grow crops
All the sort of fundamentals without which we you cannot survive
and then and then really there's gonna be an explosion of
entrepreneur opportunity because mas will need everything from
Iron foundries to pizza joints to like pizza joints
Like oh, I should really have great bars
The Mars bar right
Like I would love dad
What do you think the timeline for this is
so
I'm feeling pretty optimistic about the timeline although
I'm I can't be a little sometimes my timelines are a little you know
People have told me that
My timelines historically have been optimistic and
So trying to recalibrate to some degree here
But I can tell you what what I know currently this case is that where we are building the first ship the first Mars
Orange over interplanetary ship
Right now, and I think we'll be able to be able to do short flights short sort of up and down flights
Probably sometime in the first half of next year. This is a very big
Booster in ship the liftoff thrust of this would be about twice that of a seven-five
So it's it's capable of doing 150 metric tons to to orbit it and be fully reusable
So the the expendable payload is around around double that number so
What it'll what's amazing about the ship assuming we can make
Pulling wool and rapid reusability work is that we can reduce the cost marginal cost per flight?
Dramatically by orders of magnitude compared to where it is today
But this
this question of reusability is so fundamental to
rocketry it is the it is the fundamental fundamental breakthrough that's needed if you consider aircraft for example the
You can
Lease a 747 and do a return flight from Cal Bullock. Ah go from
California to Australia
For half a million dollars, that's what it cost to Lisa
747 fully round trip to Australia which is far
To buy a single agent to have a prop plane a good one would
Would be about one and a half million dollars, and that can't even reach, Australia
and it's and it's tiny compared to a 747 so what that means is like a
it cost less to
- take it - use a giant plane with huge cargo for a long trip then at
Night that costs way less than buying a small plane
for a short trip in the aircraft world and the same actually is true of rocketry the
be
a
VFR flight will actually cost less
then then our Falcon one flight bit back in today that
Was about a five or six million dollar marginal cost per flight they were confident that VFR will be less than that
So that that's profound and that is what will enable the creation of a
affirmative base on the moon any city on Mars
And that's the Equality of like the Union Pacific Railroad or or having
Ships that work across the oceans
Until you can get there, there's no way for
all of the
entrepreneurial energy to
Do you can't you can't do anything there's no way for the flowers to bloom
Once you can get there the opportunity is immense and
So we're gonna do our best to get you there, and then make sure that there's an environment in which
Entrepreneurs can Laura, SH and
And then I think it'll be it'll be amazing a big part of that and we've talked about this
is
Inspiring people to look again like this. You know we talked about this yesterday
It was our grandparents who went to the moon, and we have not gone back since you know in my lifetime
No one's gone to the moon
You and I were having a conversation last year about what to put in Falcon Heavy?
and and the kind of
What's the cargo?
And the idea was to to use that as an opportunity to inspire people
again Carl Sagan had a beautiful thought many many years ago there if you just get enough people to look at the Earth from a
distance that if we get them to focus on the problems here and on the possibilities of
space exploration I
Was fortunate enough to be with you at launch control when Falcon Heavy?
Launched a few weeks back and we made a little movie. We've called it a trailer
That that sums up that experience we have it we have it here. We thought we'd play it you guys again
This is two minutes that that does a pretty good job of giving you the feeling of what it was like
To be there when fucking everyone
Yeah
We really want we wanted to get the public year to warranty of getting excited about the possibility of something
new happening in space of the space frontier getting pushed forward
the goal of this was to inspire you and
Make you believe again. Just as people believed in the Apollo era that anything is possible
That picture at the end is a picture of one of the circuit boards inside the Roadster window
But we tried confused the aliens as much as possible
As if you look carefully there's also a little Hot Wheels version of the Roadster
With a tiny little astronaut in the hot wheels roadster on the dashboard
How was just by a basketball Nora
Norse just that and
so if you guys have any suggestions let us know I
Think for me watching those two boosters
Come down side by side it felt like a transformative moment it felt like a oh we can do anything
and that's the culmination I was really struck there by the culmination of you know a singular vision and
hundreds or thousands of very talented people working together to make sure
Every sitting in launch control and looking at the sheer amount of variables that you guys are clocking in those moments before the launch
Wind speed at different altitudes and the status of all the different 27
engines and then
How do you manage how do you?
Your very hands on with the details, but you're also looking at the bigger bigger picture
How do you manage your time? How do you how do you how do you parse you know?
How do you zoom in and zoom out and make sure that all these things are coming together?
Well at at SpaceX almost all my time is spent on
Engineering and design, it's probably 80 and 90%
And then Gwynne Shotwell who's president chief operating officer takes care of the business operations the company, which is what allows me to do that?
Yeah, I think in order to make the right decisions you have to understand something you need to understand something you add a detailed level
You cannot make good decision
So
But I'd like to just probably like the you know where you saw there as a result of an incredible team and that's base X
Super talented people who really work like crazy. They make that happen you
Know I think my role is to make sure that they have an environment where they can they can
really where the talents can really come to the floor and
You know and but I can't tell you how honored and grateful I am to work with such a great team
Everyone in this room is inspired by you. Who are you inspired by what Kanye West obviously?
Today
Me too fred astaire fred astaire. You know you should see my dance moves
We may we may see some dance moves unless you love Fred Astaire. He's amazing if you haven't watched his movies. They're amazing. Yeah, I
Think for me when I look at all of all of the things you've undertaken to do the the commonality is
With Tesla with SpaceX shoulder city now with the boring company
It feels like you're seeing a firmly established a mature
Industry
That is ripe for sort of a quantum shift that there's there's an opportunity there for you know in the case of
cars its electrification
Which drastically changes? You know the complexity of an automobile and potentially down down the line the?
Expense of it with rockets it's the usability of it
With with solar it's about a firmly established energy system. That's about to be massively disrupted. This is having
And with the boring company
it's about looking at infrastructure projects would typically take decades and billions of dollars and looking to to reduce the
Complexity that is that is that how you is that how you?
You know is that how you see the world. Do you see the things that don't work and can be made better?
No
but I mean I
Don't like look at things that say. Okay. What's the rank ordered?
You know
business opportunity
From a financial standpoint or anything like that
It's a it's really just like these are the there's some things that are that don't seem to be working
that are important for the
You know for our life and for the future to be good
and
I've said that if
If you're before me to say like where is the
One way to do or a suggestive rate or return estimate on various industry opportunities I would put
Arrows like basically building rockets and cars pretty close to the bottom of the list
But there would have to be the dumbest things to do
just just because you know look at the auto industry and
In the US auto industry the only two companies that haven't gone bankrupt
At least at some point are Tesla and Ford every other company got bankrupt, or was failing and got acquired
There's only two companies that have gone bankrupt, and there's a big graveyard of companies that did so and engineering up against entrenched competitors
There's no
III gave basically both SpaceX and Tesla from the beginning a
probability of less than 10% of likely likely to succeed
So why do it?
Well in the case of SpaceX I just kept wondering why we were not making progress towards
Sending people to Mars
Why we didn't have a base on the moon
Here where we're at the sort of space hotels that were promised in 2001 the movie
It's like
You know it's uh. It. Just wasn't happening year after year. Yeah, I was getting me down. I look at the NASA website
I was like
Does where does it say when we go to Mars isn't?
so
Initially for SpaceX for example I thought well
The genesis of SpaceX was not to create a company
But but really had it how do we get NASA's budget to be bigger that was initially to go so?
I came up with this little small philanthropic mission, which would be to send a small greenhouse to the surface of Mars?
It's called Mars oasis
and
And they were one landing the seats were being dehydrated nutrient gel
Hydrate upon landing, and and then you have this little greenhouse
And then the money shot would be you know green plants against the right background
Recently learned that money shot has a meaning that
That I didn't aware of but
The the you know, I think that that would get people excited about
Rekindles the spirit of a follower essentially and as I thought it more more into what it would take to do that I learned that
The fundamental issue is actually the cost of access to space
Rockets were super expensive and the cost has per pound to kilogram to orbit had actually gone up over the years not down
and it was like okay, well if you it won't matter if we are able to do this philosophic mission and
It generates a lot of will to go to Mars. That's not going to matter if there's no way
So at my second or third trip back from Russia I was like whoa there's got to be a way to build rockets
There's gotta be a way to solve the rocket falling
I missed our reading a lot of books and rockets and
They're better sort of a first principles analysis of a varrock. It just broke down the materials that are in a rocket
what would it cost to buy those materials what verses the price the rocket and there's a gigantic difference between the
Raw material cost the rocket and the finish cost the rocket so there must be something
wrong happening in
Going from the constituent atoms to the final shape
and
Found that certainly to be true and then and then why won't people trying to make reusability work
It was very difficult to make rocket reusability work
and then unfortunately the the Space Shuttle ended up being a counter example of don't don't try to make reusability work because
spatial data ended up costing more per flight than an expandable vehicle of equivalent capability
So for a long time people used in the space shuttle as an example of why reusability is dumb
You can't take a single case example and make an entire theory out of it
so
There's no question in my mind that if you could read the Rockets effect
It has to be true reuse which means
Rapid and complete reuse the problem with the space shows
only a portion of the
System came back like the big orange tank which was also the primary airframe was discarded every time and the parts that were used were
incredibly difficult to refurbish
So they kind of reached the only country reuse that matters is if it's rapid and complete
It's that the only thing you're changing between flights far from scheduled maintenance is
the propellant
So we embarked upon that journey to create SpaceX in 2002
and
In the beginning I wouldn't actually wouldn't let my friends invest because I don't want to lose their money. I thought it was like you
Know I really lose my own money, so
And then
We almost did die at SpaceX actually so we I budgeted four or three flights
I mean technically I did have a plan where I had to have the money from PayPal
I had like 180 million from PayPal. I thought you know
I'll allocate half of that to SpaceX and Tesla and SolarCity and
That should be fine. I'll have 90 million Lexus plots. You know
But but then what happened is
Things cost more and took longer than and I thought so I had a choice of either
Put the rest of the money in or their companies are going to die
and
It's like set up putting all the money in and firing money or rent from friends
2008 was brutal if you
Yeah, 2008 we had the third consecutive failure of the Falcon rocket for SpaceX
Tesla
Almost went bankrupt. We closed our financing around
6 p.m.. Christmas Eve 2008 it was the last hour of the last day that it was possible
We would have gone back up two days after Christmas otherwise
And I've got divorced I was like rough, man
Governor Scott yes
You do wait it. It poses a question or maybe you just answer the question of why is no one else doing these things
What's your pain threshold yeah, well, it's real high
So yeah SpaceX is alive, but it's kind of at sea so is Tesla
If things have just gone a little bit the other way
Both companies would be dead, and I'd like one of the most difficult choices. I have ever faced in life was
was in 2008 and
I
think I had I
think
Maybe thirty million dollars left
thirty or forty one dollars left in 2008 I had two choices I
Could put it all into one company, and then the other company would definitely die
Or split it between the two companies and but if I split it between two companies then both might die
And you know when you put your blood sweat and tears into creating something a bully something. It's like a child
And so it's like which one am I gonna let one starve to death I
Can bring myself to do it surprised. I split the money between two
Fortunately, thank goodness they both came through
We've got a question for the audience that builds on that. What was your biggest failure, and how did it change you?
What was your biggest failure and how did I change you?
Have to really think hard about that failure
There's your answer well, there's a ton of failures along the way, that's for sure
Like I said as a support for SpaceX the first three launches failed and
We were just barely able to scrape together enough
Parts and and money to do the fourth launch that both launch should fail who would have been dead so multiple failures along the way
I
Tried very hard to get the right expertise in for for SpaceX
I tried hard to to find a great chief engineer for the rocket
but in that
the good Chief Engineers wouldn't join and
The bad ones well there was no no point in hiring him so I ended up being chief engineer of the rocket
So if I could have found somebody better, then we would have maybe had less than three failures
How do you how do you plan a business where you know?
The rocket business, you know some of these things are gonna blow up on the launch pad
How does the business plan work I?
Don't really have a business plan
Yeah, I haven't had it, but I had a business by her way back in the zip two days
But but these things are just always wrong so I just just been father's business plans after that
Yeah
I mean, I think you know wishful thinking for sure is a
Source of many problems and in many walks life a
Business or personal business or personal wishful thinking
Causes a lot of a lot of trouble you really have to ask you know whether something
It is true or not that
Doesn't make sense and if it ever feels like
Too easy it probably is
You know the yeah
But for the drama of SpaceX I think Tesla's actually
Been probably 2,000 might old little problem a dose of overtime
Practices drama magnet, it's crazy
How do you I mean a lot of people want to know you
know you're managing three or four companies now each of them trying to do something revolutionary each of the
a business that has historically been regarded as
Impossible to challenge or disrupt. How do you how do you prioritize? How do you how do you how do you prioritize between?
The different companies how do you prioritize? How do you spend your time?
Yeah, absolutely actually could trouble you for a water
I've got a bit of a cult my voice is a bit hoarse
Too it tells a top priority
For
business time almost all of it is really dedicated to SpaceX and Tesla it may sound like I've got a lot of different endeavors, but
It's overwhelmingly SpaceX and Tesla in terms of try of allocation
So it's a
and then for non-business stuff, it's
Almost entirely kid stuff my kids are here here today actually put them on to South by Southwest everything a good time
But they went so the West world
Exhibit or it's just really amazing very haven't seen the West world
What do you call it exhibit or a I don't know what you just call it. It's a
theme park
It's really incredibly well done, and I took the kids they yesterday to had a great time
together
I
Think probably one the the biggest of us are standing is that I'm actually not an investor
I'm so much fielding investor invested things. I don't actually don't miss anything back the only
Public security that I would have any kind is Tesla
and then the next biggest is SpaceX and
and then
The boring company Hennis Tata. It more as a joke because there will be a funny name for a company
You know we put we put the zero and bring I mean it's like
Doesn't make any sense
When we when we talk about everyone you first told me that you were thinking about tunnels
And I must tell you about that years ago, okay, it's like a long time ago. Like I thought you're joking yeah
It was I was joking but
It's not because of some epiphany that I had one day
Driving on the 405
That's how it gets called translated, so now I was talking four tunnels for years and years
for probably five years or four years at least
Whenever I'd give a talk and people would ask me about what opportunities you do see in the world
I'd say tunnels can someone please build tunnels
so after four or five years of begging people to build tunnels and
Still no tunnels. I was like okay. I wanna build a tunnel
Have missing something here
So
Yes, I was like basically talking fuels Arizona for tunnels right for several years, and then said well
let's find out what it takes to build a tunnel and
Yeah, so started digging a tunnel I wanted to start the tunnel
From where I could see it from my office at SpaceX it so stuff. I said well
Let's just cobble for part of the parking lot across the road so I can see if it's if anything's happening or not
And then we named our first boring machine Godot because I kept waiting for it no it came
Finally did and and we got it going and
now we're making good progress and
We were finding the company for merchandise sales
So, thank you for anyone who's bought a flamethrower
You will not be sorry or maybe you will
Won't be boring
We have a video I think here of the latest vision for the boring company it turns a Howard
You know this great
Attitude
I
Think you know when we were first talking about the concept, you know tunnels feel like a resolutely old-school
Solution to approach that that I invented tunnels
And I always tell holding out hope for the flying car that you asked me one simple question that
Answered the question for me about flying cars kind of forever
Which was would you want your neighbor to have a flying car. Yes, exactly? This is exactly the question
Oh you want to fly car how about everyone around you has a flying car too? Oh?
That doesn't sound so good
Yeah, and I think one of the interesting things about tunneling is it's one of these things that you know there's no a lot of
More competition there. It's not a you know. It's it's something that's right for change, so how do you yeah?
You talked about the philosophy with godot was to just keep running. It basically until you figured out. Why it can't run any faster
Yes
The point coming to be clear is it's a it's like literally 2 percent of my time. It's probably
20 percent of my tweets
The tweets do not correlate to actual time spent
The I mean, I sort of just have fun with the boring company
But my time allocation is about especially about 2%
Talk about your time allocation. I think one of the things you spend an awful lot of time thinking about I know
Is artificial intelligence and something that you and I have a shared interest and it's something that our audience is interested in as well
The question here is a lot of experts in AI don't share the same level of concern that you do about the danger off pools
What what's yours last words what's what specifically do you believe that they don't?
Well the biggest issue I see with so-called AI experts is that they they think they know more than they do
And they think they're smarter than they actually are in general
We are all much smarter than we think we are but much less smart dumber than we think you out
by a lot so
This is this tends to plague plague smart people like you just can't that they define themselves by their intelligence
And they they don't like the idea that a machine can be way smarter than them so they discount the idea which is
Fundamentally flawed that's the wishful thinking situation
I'm really quite close to I'm very close to the cutting edge in AI and it scares the hell out of me
It's capable of vastly more than almost anyone knows and the rate of improvement is exponential
But you can see this in things like alphago which went from in the span of maybe
Six to nine months it went from being unable to beat even a reasonably good go player
So then beating the European world champion who was ranked 600 then beating Lisa doll for five
What been world champion for many years then beating the current world champion, then beating everyone while playing simultaneously then
Then there was alpha zero
which crushed alphago a hundred to 0 and
alpha zero just learnt by playing itself and
It can play basically any game that you put the rules in for if you whatever rules you give it
Just literally read the rules play the game every superhuman
for any game
Nobody expected that great of improvement to guess those so those same experts
Who think AI is not progressing at the rate that I'm saying? I think you will find that their predictions for things like go and
and other AI advancements have
Therefore their batting average is quite. Weak. It's not good
That we'll see this also with with self-driving I
think probably by
intermixture
self-driving will be
well encompass essentially all modes driving and be
At least a hundred to two hundred percent
Safer than a person by the end of next year we're talking like maybe 18 months from now
Netsertive study on on Tesla's autopilot version 1 which is relatively primitive and found that it was a
45 percent reduction in highway accidents
And that's despite. What a pilot one being just version 1
Version 2. I think will be
At least 2 or 3 times better. That's the current version that's running right now
So the rate of improvement is really dramatic we have to figure out some way to
ensure that
The advent of digital super intelligence is one which is
Symbiotic with humanity, I think that's the single biggest existential crisis that we face and the most pressing one
And how do we do that I?
Mean if we take it that it's inevitable at this point that some version of AI is coming down the 1
How do we how do we steer through them well?
I'm not normally an advocate of
Regulation and oversight I mean I think it's once you generally go inside minimizing those things
But this is a case where you have a very serious danger to the public and it's therefore there needs to be a public body
that
Has insight and then oocytes on to confirm that everyone is?
developing AI safely
This is extremely important I
think a danger of AI is much greater than the danger of nuclear warheads landlocked and
Nobody would suggest that we allow anyone to just build nuclear warheads if they
That would be insane and mock my words AI is far more dangerous than nukes
Far so why do we have no regulatory oversight, this is insane
Which question you've been asking for a long time. I think it's a question
That's coming to the forefront over the last year where you begin to realize that it doesn't necessarily
I think if we we've all been focused in on the idea of artificial superintelligence
Right which is clearly a danger, but maybe you know a little further out?
What's happened over the last year is you've seen the artificial what I would be calling artificial stupidity
You're talking about you know algorithmic manipulation of social media like we're in it now. It's starting. It's starting to happen
How do we how do we is it what's the intervention at this point?
I'm not really all that worried about the short-term stuff things that are
Like narrow AI is not a species level risk
It will it will result in dislocation in lost jobs and
You know that sort of better weaponry and that kind of thing, but it is not a fundamental species level risk
Whereas digital super intelligence is?
So it's really all about laying the groundwork to make sure that
if humanity collectively your science that
Creating digital super intelligence is the right move then?
We should do so very very carefully
Very very carefully
This is the most important thing that we could possibly do
Building on that other other than AI and
The the other issues that you're you're tackling
Transportation energy production aerospace. What issues should our next generation of leaders be focused on solving what else is coming down the line
Well I mean there there are other things that are on a longer time scale
The obviously the things that I believe in like extending life beyond Earth making life multiplanetary
No a big believer in a sort of Asimov's Foundation series or the principle that you you really want to
You know I
recommend reading the foundation series, but
It's like if you if you know that there's a there's likely to be you don't know
But there's likely to be another Dark Ages, which
It seems my guess is the fall there will be at some point
I'm not predicting that we're about to enter a Dark Ages
But that there's some probability that we will particularly if there's a third world war
Then we want to make sure that there's enough of us of a seed of human civilization somewhere else
to bring civilization back and perhaps shorten the length of the dark ages I
Think that's why I said that it's important to get a self-sustaining base
Ideally on Mars because Mars is far enough away from Earth that I caught that
a
Warrant earth the Mars base might survive is more likely to survive than a moon base
But I think a moon base and a Mars base
That
That could perhaps
Help regenerate life back here on earth. It would be really important, and I'd get that done before a possible World War 3
You know that's the century we had
two massive world wars three if you count the Cold War I
Think it's unlikely that we'll never have another
The Poli will be at some point or if we have another one it'll be the last
Yeah, it it. Just could be radioactive rubble. Yeah
so
Again, I'm not predicting
This seems like well, if you say given enough time will it be most likely given him of time because this is
This is has been our pattern in the past
so
Like you really believe in the zeroth law of
Asimov zeroth law you take the set of actions most likely to support
the humanity of the future
But I think that sustainable energy is also obviously really important, that's tautological if it's not sustainable its unsustainable
Yeah, how close early to solving that problem?
Well, I think that the core technologies are are there with the wind solar
with with batteries
The the fundamental problem is that there's an unprocessed own allottee in the cost of of co2?
The the market economics works very well, if things are priced correctly
But when there's when things are not priced correctly
And something that has it has a real cost that has zero cost then that's where you get distortions in the market that
inhibit the progress of of other technologies so
Essentially anything that
That produces cop, and it will push push cotton into the atmosphere which includes rockets by the way. I'm not excluding rockets from this
It has to be a price and then
You sawed off with a low price
but then that price and then depending upon whether that price has any effect on the past a million a
Possibility of co2 the atmosphere you can adjust that price up for down
But in the absence of a price we sort of pretend that digging
trillions of tons of
Fossil fuels
from deep and
Under the earth and putting it into the atmosphere who were pretending that that had that that that has no probability of a bad outcome
And the entire scientific community is saying obviously
It has it's gonna have a bad outcome
obviously you just you're changing the chemical constituents in the atmosphere so
So it's really up to people and governments to put to put a price on
Carbon, and and then automatically the right thing happens
It's really straightforward
What do we do with the carbon Center I actually think we can manage with the current carbon level or even a little bit higher
It's and this is gonna sound
It sound like I'm backtracking, but there's actually an argument that
More carbon in the atmosphere is is actually good, but up to a point
So
We might actually arguably have been a little carbon starved if you go back 200 years ago
And say okay, well furio's go with like we had like turning
890 parts per million of carbon we're probably a little carbon stuff now we're about 400 just past 400 mark I
think somewhere in the 400s
probably okay
We don't have to worry about to question carbon or anything like that
But now if this momentum keeps going and we start going up to six hundred eight hundred a thousand fifteen hundred
That's where things get really squirrely and
The sheer momentum of the world's energy infrastructure is leading us in that direction
It's very so it's just very important that the
The public and the governor's pushed to ensure the correct price of carbon is paid
So that that will be the thing that matters
Yeah our audience is very interested in knowing how many hours of sleep you got last night. Oh
I don't know about six five or six. I think right I
Feel like we know part of the answer this cuz you were trapped in West well for a while
But, but how do I mean on a
Regular day for you, or you are you are you sleepy you're not sleeping a lot right geez do I look that bad?
You look great
Okay, just imagine with the amount of responsibilities with the amount of you know with what you've got going on to these problems still keep
You up at night, or do you think we're on our way to solve it?
Well right now the only things that are really stressing me out in a big way or AI obviously that's like boys there and and
working really hard on Tesla Model 3 production
and
who making good progress, but it's
Usually hard work, but those are the two most stressful things my life right now
Yeah
Our audience really wants to know
What do you hope the world will look like for children born today when they're your age
Right, what do you hope for the world to look like? What's the best-case scenario say? We solve these problems? What's that world look like?
Let's see so I
Think the a good picture would look like
You know we're really
substantially transferred to sustainable generation and consumption of electricity
So that the
Does the co2 risk and the ocean rising risk is mitigated?
and we're not looking at like you know having, Florida and
And sort of large portions to the world underwater, that'd be great
that not
But to have addressed that risk that'll be there. You know us
For us to have a base on the moon face a mirage big out there exploring the solar system so welding industry on
it essentially having a human civilization go out there and
And and have you such that anyone can?
go
the moon of Mars or the solar system if they want to making it really affordable I
Do think it's important that this competition of their multiple companies doing this not just a sex
and
And that a I risk is that
I guess there's the sort of a benign AI and that were able to achieve a symbiosis with that AI
Ideally the AI
There's somebody who
can members name but had a good a
suggestion for what the
Optimization of the AI should be what's its utility function?
You have to be careful about this because you say maximize happiness and the AI concludes that happiness is function of dopamine and serotonin
So just captures all humans and jacks your brain with large amounts of dopamine serotonin
Like okay, so holy mint
It sounds pretty good though. I'll you beloved
Well I like the definition of like the I should try to maximize the freedom of action of humanity
Maximize the freedom of action maximize freedom essentially I
like that definition
But we do want to close coupling between collective human intelligence Digital intelligence
And a newer link is trying to help in that regard by
Creating a an interface between
a high bandwidth interface between AI and your and human brain
There were already we're already a sidewalk in a sense that
That your phone and your computer a kind of extension of you
Just low bandwidth input-output exactly. It's just low bandwidth
Particularly output, I mean two thumbs basically
So how do we solve that problem?
Give it the bandwidth bandwidth thing it's a bandwidth issue
And we've all we've also come to it now
We're all we're all cyborgs were just low efficiency cyborgs, so how do we how do we make it better?
I think we've got above a
We've got opposed interface
Like we didn't evolve to have a communications Jack
You know some
So there's gonna be
essentially the vast numbers of
tiny electrodes
That are able to read right for your brain of course. You know security is pretty important in the situation say the least
I was just saying I'm not coming with I'm keeping my brain air-gapped. Yeah well
I think a lot of people will choose to do that
But it's a bit like Ian banks is new or lace, but not but in the case of relation sort of that
that's there from when you're born or it's sort of it's not a
Sort of I'm sorry to back them yackin over back up this would be this there's a digital extension of you
That is an AI the AI extension of you a tertiary layer of intelligence
So you've got your limbic system your cortex, and and the tertiary layer
Which is the digital AI extension of you and that high bandwidth connection is what?
achieves the tights and meiosis I
think that's the best outcome I I
Hope so if you know he's got better ideas
And
Talking about another project that you're working on that her audience wants to know a little bit more about sterling. Oh
Can you tell us anything
Doing Skynet hopefully not Skynet its internet in the sky
Well we
We don't talk that much about StarLink
But essentially it's intended to provide low latency high bandwidth Internet connectivity throughout the world
That actually will not be enough cognitive processing car onboard the satellite system to to
in any way be a Skynet thing like it's
Digital AI requires a lot of super intelligence requires a lot of big servers on the ground just to power intensity
But this antenna to be to provide people with
Who don't have any internet connectivity with Internet connectivity?
and it's very good for sparse and
sparsely populated in moderate moderate least mostly quiet populated areas and forgiving people in cities
a choice of
in your low-cost choice of internet access
But I do think it's gonna be important the Starling system will be important in providing the funding necessary for SpaceX to develop
interplanetary spacecraft
And at the same time yeah helping people who have even though or super expensive connectivity and giving people in urban areas
more of a competitive choice
very cool I
have to ask you because it's the number one question just
Going back to Mars
What kind of government do you envision for the first Martian colony?
Blitzer and what's your title yeah? Yeah exactly Emperor Oh goddamn friar? I don't know
Might be too much
If you're what I should watch my jokes yeah, not everyone gets irony must remember
So I think the I think most likely the the form of government on Mars would be somewhat of a direct democracy
where
You vote on issues where people vote directly on issues instead of going to representative government in
When the United States was formed
Representative government was the only thing that was logistically feasible
Because people there's no way it was or evil to communicate instantly a lot of people's didn't even have really access to
Mail boxes or there wasn't even the post office is very primitive a lot of people couldn't write
So you had to have some form of representative democracy
Or things just wouldn't work at all. I think my mas most likely. It's gonna be people at everyone votes on every issue and
That's how it goes. I've a few things. I'd recommend which is keep blowers short
long laws it's like that's
That's something suspicious is going on if there's long though
You know if you if the size of law exceeds the word count of Lord of the Rings
Which it does
Amazingly, then it's like something's wrong
So there should be a limit to the size of the law that I should be able to digest it like
how come you can read the Constitution and all of the amendments like you can read those and maybe an hour and
And and we govern so much of a civilization by that and yet modern law is this obtuse?
Super boring tome. That's indecipherable to almost anyone so I think
direct democracy
Lowers lows that are comprehensible
I
think having some kind of
hysteresis on
Like it should be easier to remove a law than
Create one because things just get to a no-show you have to have something that's gonna come inertia
So probably I don't want the right number of you, maybe it's like 60/40
Maybe you require a 60% to get a law in place, but any number above 40% can remove a little
Otherwise you just get lowers just accumulate over time they cure their time and it's sort of like
Gulliver where you just get trapped by all these tiny strings, and you can't move
You get hardening of the arteries of civilization with law with rules and rules rules rules
So it should be just easier to get rid of rule then let's put one in
Maybe they should even have like a some kind of sunset clause
So that they just automatically expire unless there's enough of an impetus to keep them around
I
Know I know there's an affirmative, it's just I'm interested in hearing a little bit more about the very early days
with
Tesla, and how I came together brother Kimble is here, I thought we'd bring him out you guys could talk a little bit about it
You guys might get lucky tonight, I noticed you have a guitar. I'm gonna ignore that
It had some good guitar
But I guess there are a fair number of entrepreneurs here today and a fair number of people interested looking at Tesla, which now
extraordinary extraordinary success of it
You know how did how did this come together and when you in when you guys were looking at I know famously?
You know and you guys were you were looking at problems you could solve
How those conversations look like?
Yeah, so the
C2e back in well, thanks coming on
About the things that I thought would be most important to work on for a long time. We'll look back to college days
and
Electric cars are something I've been here since and so is 1819
When do you first recall here when we talk about electric cars that's correct first time was well you talk about a lot
We we used to brainstorm a lot randomly even in we were 20 20 years old and the first thing. I remember us brainstorming was
solving connectivity amongst doctors
and we were on a road trip from
We a lot of doctors in the family so we had the information
But the idea was really to solve that problem where we from Silicon Valley to Philadelphia
Brainstorming how you do it. This is before the internet, so we you know in our minds designing Network computers doctors talking
This is all happened of course over 25 years, but it's one of the sort of the first time I remember us
Really trying to solve a world problem and unless it was a world problem. That was really important. It. Just wasn't that interesting to us
Electric cars you talked about for a long time, but I remember walking into your house once it
this is in Polly 2002 or 2003 and
You had these plans laid out that
The team of Tesla had or the earlier guys had basically said you know we're gonna take this Lotus Elise
We're gonna convert it in electric car and you know we sat down and talked about it for a bit
And and it wasn't so much that it
Could be done. I think we all believe it could be done. It was more just the attitude that it should be done
And then from there
Yeah, well the the first internships that I had that were
Interesting were on ultra capacitors were used in electric cars, so that's what why I first came out to Silicon Valley in
Like 93 or made to something that was to work at a company called political research on
advanced ultra capacitors with the idea that this could be a solution to the energy storage problem in electric vehicles and then
When I graduated from Penn the I was gonna be doing a PhD at Stanford
in material science and and
invent physics
Try to figure out if there's a way to solve for an ultra high density
solid-state capacitor that would have enough range to power an electric vehicle, so
I
said impact it so that's that's a that's a 95 and then I
Wasn't sure there's one of those things where you could work in it for a long time and discover that there's no
Actually, no. Good solution you you publish a paper and
You get a PhD in a lab, but it would be academic in its value so
In 95 I had a choice of either
work on this energy storage system for electric vehicles or
Try to play a role in building the internet
But the internet stuff was happening right then and there
Whereas the electric electric vehicle technology was going to progress slowly on its own?
Whether I was there or not so I thought well put the rat studies on hold and do something
To help out the internet or do something useful on the Internet
and that's
when I talk to Kimbo
You're working in Canada at the time
and
Said hey, why don't we try to do this this company in Silicon Valley?
pretty cool
We bought that we were we were the first to see maps and door-to-door direction it had been built by a company Knapp tech they
Never burn have never been on the Internet, and it was was so cool to be the first two humans to see it
You can draw a map type in an address get directions
Things you probably all dead about 50 times today each
And we were the first to see that put it on the internet. It was really cool
She was the first maps and directions
Yellow pages and white pages on the internet, yeah
so
And then we ended up helping bring a lot of publications online
So it as investors and customers the New York Times Company knight-ridder or Hearst in a number of others?
and
Yeah, but I always wanted to get back to electric vehicles because that that was a
primary interest of mine
from undergrad and grad days and
And so
After us up to still took one more Internet company because thought it's up to you had not achieved its its full potential
We built this incredible technology, but it wasn't being used by the customers in the right way
It's a bit like building you know
F-22 fighter jets and then and then you selling to people and they roll them down the hill at each other
Not the way to use it, okay, I
Think that's that's where decide you really want to go to?
The end consumer if you've got a great technology you want to go all the way to the end consumer
Don't tell it this to to some bonehead legacy company that doesn't understand how to use it
So yeah
So with with excel comb which
became PayPal
That's what that's what we try to do something significant with the with the internet
And and it got sort of part of the way towards its its objective
after a PayPal
I
Went went public and and they've got bought by eBay in 2002
that actually freed up me and a bunch of other people so you go and create companies and
I start debating between
Either solar electric car or space
I thought space was like the least likely to have somebody, but at least likely to attract
Entrepreneurial times, I don't like like nobody is gonna. Be crazy enough to do space so I better do space
So I started off with with space first and
And
Then about a year and a half later in 2003. I had lunch with JB Straubel and Hal Rosen and
It was that it's like fish restaurant in El Segundo
And Hal Rosen had been involved in space and electric vehicles
and
And jb was had just got just graduated from college was working with him and the conversation turned to
electric vehicles
Because
Howard had done something called Rosen Motors, which was like an attempted evie startup, and I said well
I've always been super interested in electric vehicles. I was gonna do my PhD on
an advanced and reduced energy storage
I
Was gonna do grad studies on on advanced energy storage techniques for electric vehicles and
And so JB said well have you heard of this company called AC propulsion because they had created
It the t zero electric sports car as a prototype
I was like wow that's great like lithium-ion batteries had really achieved a level of energy density that
For the first time could allow you to have significant range in an electric car
And they had a sports car that had zero to 60 in under four seconds at 250 mile range
And it's pretty cool, and that was just made of it's just a kit car so it didn't have a roof or airbags or
Thermal control system, and it was extremely unreliable it wasn't productized, but it was a proof of concept
So I got the test drive from AC repulsion and I was like wow
You guys should really commercialize this this would show people what electric cars can do
and I tried for months to get AC propulsion to
Go into production with the T 0 and
Like they just were not interested in doing that
Amazingly they wanted to do an electric Scion, you know like that boxy car
But the problem is like the electric saundra could cost $70,000 or
You could build a sports car for $100,000. Okay, but like nobody's gonna buy the electric silent
But fuel might fight electric sports car
So
After hounding them for months. I finally said like look if you guys are not going to
Commercialize the T zero, would you mind if if I did that?
They said no no problem. Go ahead. It's like great
So I'm gonna do that with JV, and I said, but if you're if you're gonna do
If you're gonna go and try to productize t zero there's some other teams you should talk to that also interested in doing that
So that's where
Whatever hard macht hopping and Ian Wright came in
and
No, I think that was probably the biggest mistake of my career quite frankly I
The I I think whatever you think you can have your cake and eat it, too
That's something you're probably wrong
So I thought I can keep running SpaceX I'll dedicate 20% of my time to Tesla and that'll be fine
but actually
It didn't
things really melted down
Went through hell we're to recapitalize the company the Kimmel was there singing time
So Silicon Valley accurate or not accurate that's the show yeah
The it starts to get very accurate around around Episode four
So took a few episodes to kind of get get grounded the first few episodes struck me as
Hollywood making fun of Hollywood's idea of Silicon Valley which is like not you know not on point
But then by about but the fourth or fifth episode season one it really starts get good and then by season two it's amazing
in fact
reality
But the truth is stranger than fiction all the crazy stuff you see in that show Silicon Valley the reality is way crazier than that
Yeah, you've seen the two right yeah, I'm just like wow
What will have to be a story for another time for says? We've been asked to wrap it up
I got one last question for the audience. It is what is your favorite song from the movie three amigos?
Well we don't need we don't need to do it if if you guys willing to sing along
Okay
So so Jonah actually is the dancer of the three?
Of
Us have been we've been playing and singing and dancing this song since we were kids
And so we're gonna do that on the stage and you guys can sing along well
We'll do the first verse and then you guys can sing along on the second verse
This is gonna be a real bad
Yeah, I said terrible I'm mixing the dancing thing
Come with me when moombas hits the sky
You'll walk with me along the biome bye
Okay all together now
Bye little boat you
Smile my little buttercup, what do you say a while?
Bin's me to the sky
And you and I walk the wild by well, this is really winning
You
