when i was young i didn't really
know what i was going to do
when i got older um people kept asking
me and and um
but but then eventually i thought that
the idea of inventing things
would be would be really cool and
the reason i thought that was because um
i read a quote from
author c clock which said that a um
efficiently
advanced technology is indistinguishable
from magic
and and that's really true if you think
if you go back
say 300 years the things that we take
for granted today
uh would be you'd be burned at the stake
for
um you know being able to fly being able
to see over long distances
being able to communicate and having
access to all the world's information
instantly from almost anywhere in the
earth this is
this is stuff that that really would be
magic it would be considered magic
in times past in fact i think it
actually goes beyond that because there
are many things that we take for granted
today
that weren't even imagined in times past
they weren't even in the realm of magic
so that it actually goes goes beyond
that so i thought well
you know if if i can do some of those
things basically if if i can advance
technology then that that's like magic
and that would be really cool
um and the the
i always had sort of a slight
existential crisis because i was trying
to figure out
what does it all mean like what's the
purpose of things and
um i came to the conclusion that if if
we can advance the
the the knowledge of the world if we can
do things that expand the scope and
and scale of consciousness then we're
better able to ask the right questions
and become more enlightened and that's
really the only way forward
i think about what's what technology
solution
is necessary in order to achieve the
particular goal
and then try to make as much progress in
that direction as possible i think the
being a multi-player species and being
out there among the stars is important
for
the long-term survival of humanity
but then the part that i find personally
most motivating is that it creates a
sense of adventure
and it makes people excited about the
future
if you consider two futures one where we
are forever confined to earth
until eventually something terrible
happens
or another future where we are out there
on
many planets maybe even going beyond the
solar system
um i think that second version is
incredibly exciting
and inspiring and there need to be
reasons
to get up in the morning you know life
can't just be about solving problems
otherwise what's the point there's got
to be things that people find inspiring
and make life worth living
when my brother and i were starting our
first company
instead of getting an apartment we just
rented a small office
and we slept on the couch and we
showered at the ymca
and uh we're so hot up we had one
computer so
the the website was up during the day
and i was coding at night seven days a
week all the time
and i i so briefly had a girlfriend in
that period and in order to
be with me she had to sleep in the
office so
i work hard like
in it i mean every waking hour that's
that's the
thing i would i would say if you're
particularly if you're starting a
company
a natural human tendency is wishful
thinking um
so a challenge for entrepreneurs is to
say well what's the difference between
really believing in your ideals and
sticking sticking to them
versus pursuing some unrealistic dream
that
doesn't actually have merit and it's
it's that is a that is a really
difficult thing to
to tell you can you tell the difference
between those two things you know so you
need to be sort of
very rigorous in self self analysis
um i think certainly extremely tenacious
and then just work like hell i mean you
just have to put in
you know 80 hour 80 to 100 hour weeks
every week
that all those things improve the odds
of success
or how do you think about making a
decision when everyone tells you this is
a crazy idea or where do you get the
internal strength to do that
well first of all i'd say i actually
think i i think i feel feel fear quite
strongly
um so it's not as though i just have the
absence of fear i've
i feel it quite strongly um but
there are just times when something is
important enough
you believe it enough that you do it in
spite of fear
people should think well i feel fear
about this and therefore i shouldn't do
it
um it's normal to be to feel fear so you
just feel it and let the importance of
it
drive you to do it anyway um if you just
if you just accept the probabilities
um then that diminishes fear
drive overrides fear it's about
believing in the future
and thinking that the future would be
other than the past
and i can't think of anything more
exciting than going out there and being
among the stars
you
