- What's up, believe nation?
I started the Did You Know
series to learn a little bit
more about some of our
famous entrepreneurs,
our favorite ones, to
learn what makes them tick,
to find a couple of surprising facts
that maybe you haven't heard before.
And so, today we're going to
learn nine surprising facts
about Elon Musk.
(electronic music)
(bell rings)
Fact number one, he almost went broke
trying to save Space X and Tesla.
We used up all the,
invested 100 million, then
still needed more money.
And then there was a big
recession of 2008 and '09
and in the end, I had
to invest everything.
And I actually was
borrowing money from friends
to pay the rent.
- You were on the edge of actually
bankruptcy.
- I didn't even own a house.
- [Man] You could have bought an island.
- Yes.
- And you could have sipped cocktails
for the rest of your life.
Why did you want to
take the risks involved
in these businesses
that you've gone in to?
- Well, I have to say
at times I've wondered.
(laughs) I wondered if it
was really the right choice.
But it has actually been
a very difficult journey,
I have to say.
But I think, there's
certain important things
that we must do in order
for the future to be good.
We must have sustainable energy.
If we don't have that, the
future's going to be terrible.
- Were you a little
naive when you thought,
I can easily build an
electric car in a rocket?
- I didn't think it would be easy.
Like, I said, I thought
they would probably fail.
But creating a company is
almost like having child.
So it's sort of like,
how do you say your child
should not have food?
- So once you have the
company, you have to feed it
and nurse it and take care of it,
even if it ruins you.
- Yeah.
- But there was some tough times in 2008.
End of 2008.
How did you get through
that period of crisis?
- Yeah.
Could we just break for a second?
- [Man] Sure, sure, sure.
Of course, yeah, yeah.
- Did you think, I need to pack this in?
- Never.
- Why not?
- I don't ever give up.
I mean, I'd have to be dead
or completely incapacitated.
(bell rings)
- Fact number two, Steve
Jobs was rude to him.
- Steve Jobs was and is a
wonderful Silicon Valley icon.
Is he someone that you've admired
and what have you learned
from Steve's life and work?
- Well, he's certainly
someone I've admired.
Although I did try to talk
to him once at a party,
and he was super rude to me.
(host and audience laugh)
But I don't think it was me.
I think it was par for the course.
- [Host] I think you
weren't the first one.
- Yeah, not the first, no.
But, yeah, it's actually,
Larry Page is an old friend of mine.
I've known since before he got
venture funding for Google.
And Larry was the guy that
introduced me to Steve Jobs.
So it's not like I'm going
and tugging on his coat,
like, please talk to me.
(host and audience laugh)
So, I was introduced by Larry
Page, that's not bad, so.
But, I mean, obviously
he was an incredible guy
and made fantastic products that,
and there was a certain,
the guy had a certain magic about him.
That was really inspiring.
So I think that's really great.
- Is it that magic that
you try and emulate?
- No, I think Steve Jobs is
way cooler than I am, so.
(bell rings)
- Fact number three, he once shredded
a $1 million uninsured F1 McLaren.
- Not really, no,
actually, and I never did.
Although that was one of
the things that was sort
of talked about at one
point, but I never did.
In fact, I've never raced
anyone with the MClaren.
I had it for several years.
I put 11,000 miles on it,
and I drove it from L.A.
to San Francisco, and
it was my daily driver,
which is crazy car to
have as a daily driver,
particularly on the 405.
- So, but I understand when you got it--
- [Elon] Yeah.
- You're driving down 280
and you wrecked it.
- [Elon] No, well--
- Let me just tell the story,
and then you can correct it.
- All right.
(audience laughs)
- 'Cause the story's great,
and I hope it's true.
- Yeah, let's see if
the story that you tell
is actually how that
compares to the reality,
'cause the reality is pretty messed up.
(audience laughs)
- Hopefully the reality's better.
So, you wreck the car.
You get out of the car.
You're doubling over with laughter.
- [Elon] (laughs) Oh, really?
- And the person with you said,
"Why are you laughing that
you just wrecked this car?"
And you said, "No, you
don't know the funny part.
"It wasn't insured."
(both laughing)
- Well, the punch line's correct.
(both laughing)
Yeah, so I was actually, I
was driving up Sand Hill Road
with Peter Thiel, one of
the co-founder's of PayPal.
We're actually driving
to see Michael Rits.
This is in 2000.
And so we're driving up Sand Hill Road.
Didn't really know how to McLaren.
And Peter says, "So, what
can this do?" (laughs)
And then I'm probably number one
on the list of famous last words.
I said, "Watch this."
(both laughing)
So I floored and did a
lane change on Sand Hill.
And the McLaren has no
traction control or anything.
It's just massive power to the wheels.
So 640 brake horsepower
and it only ways a ton.
So it has massive power to weight.
It can break wheels free
at 80 miles an hour.
So I broke the rear end
free and started spinning.
And I sort of,
let's see, I think it was sort of,
I was going straight and then turned.
And I remember seeing the
cars coming towards me
while I was going backwards.
And then we hit an embankment,
sort of a 45 degree
embankment on Sand Hill,
which tossed the car into
the air like a discus,
and it kept rotating with about
three foot of air clearance
according to witnesses.
(audience and host laugh)
And then slammed down on the ground
going the original direction.
And it blew the suspension out.
Now, it didn't actually wreck the car.
The core which chassis
and the engine were okay.
- Thank God.
- But all the glass and the wheels
and everything was shredded.
And there was massive body
damage to the front and rear.
And, yeah.
(bell rings)
- Fact number four.
He has an idea for aal
fifth mode of transport,
the hyperloop.
- I know that there are various
companies that are trying
to create the hyperloop.
And honestly I think it's a
lot easier than people think.
- The blueprints are pretty complicated.
- Well, blueprints are
always kind of complicated,
and, I mean, yes, there's math.
But it's really not that hard.
- It still sounds pretty
complicated, Elon.
- It's like a tube with
an air hockey table.
It's just a low-pressure
tube with a pod in it
that runs on air bearings, on air skis,
with an with an air
compressor on the front
that's taking the high pressure
air build-up on the nose
and pumping it through the air skis.
It's really, I swear, it's not that hard.
(bell rings)
- Fact number five,
he considered buying intercontinental
ballistic missiles from Russia.
- Speaking of crazy things.
Went to Russia three
times to negotiate a deal
to buy a couple of the largest
ICBMs in the Russian fleet.
(host and audience laugh)
A strange experience.
- (laughs) How do you even
get into that negotiation?
- Well, you talk to
people who know people,
and pretty soon you're talking
to the Russian rocket forces,
and they,
turns out Russia's quite
a capitalist society.
(host and audience laugh)
And,
but I've definitely
had some weird meetings
in places I swear that look
like a sanitarium or something,
I don't know.
It was very odd.
- We keep coming back
to the theme of crazy.
- Yeah, seriously, this
place had padded walls.
(both laughing)
Why do you have padded walls?
It was weird.
And, yeah, then I had
some sort of Russian guy
who was missing a front
tooth started yelling at me.
(laughs) Because one of his
front teeth was missing,
it was like spit flying at me
in a place with padded walls.
I'm like this is really bizarre.
- What happens to my life?
- Right.
- And that was the
moment when you thought,
I'm going to build my own rocket?
- Yeah.
(bell rings)
- Fact number six.
Reading "The Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy"
was a major turning point in his life.
- Basically, I sort of
was thinking about this
when I was bored as a
kid, and trying to find
some meaning in life, like
what's the meaning of life?
And I got quite sort of
sad about it, actually,
when I was a teenager.
And then I read the "Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy".
(audience laughs)
Which basically said the real,
basically the universe is the answer.
And you just need to
figure out the questions.
So I think,
that's, if I can help kind
of figure out the questions,
then I'd consider that to be meaningful.
Maybe for the name of the first trip
that goes to Mars, not
the name of the whole,
sort of the ship line or
whatever, necessarily,
but the first trip that goes to Mars,
my current favorite is Heart of Gold,
from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
(audience claps and cheers)
So I think probably
we'll name the first ship
that goes to mars Heart of Gold,
and I like the fact that
it's driven by infinite
improbability because I think our trip
is also extremely impossible.
So, I like the infinite
improbability drive.
(bell rings)
- Fact number seven, he taught
himself computer programming
at a young age and sold his first program
Blast Star for $500.
- I was went into a store in South Africa
and saw a Commodore VIC-20.
And
I think I was nine
years old, I don't know,
somewhere around that time.
And I thought this was
the most awesome thing
I had ever seen.
And you could write computer
programs and make games
and I played Atari and other things,
other game consoles
from when I was maybe six or seven.
So the idea of being able to create games
I thought was really exciting.
I taught myself how to program
computers when I was a kid,
and bought my first
computer when I was 10,
and sold my first commercial
program when I was 12.
(bell rings)
Fact number eight, he
believes that we're possibly
living in a simulation.
The strongest argument for
us being in a simulation,
probably being in a simulation,
I think is the following.
40 years ago, we had pong.
Like two rectangles and a dot.
That was what games were.
Now 40 years later, we have
photo-realistic 3D simulations
with millions of people
playing simultaneously
and it's getting better every year.
And soon we'll have virtual reality,
augmented reality.
If you assume any rate
of improvement at all,
then the games will become
indistinguishable from reality.
Indistinguishable.
Even if that rate of
advancement drops by 1,000
from what it is right now.
Then you just say, okay,
well, let's imagine
it's 10,000 years in the future.
Which is nothing in
the evolutionary scale.
So,
so given that we're
clearly on our trajectory
to have games that are
indistinguishable from reality
and those games could be
played on any set top box
or on a PC or whatever.
And they would probably
be billions of such
computers or set top boxes.
It would seem to follow that the odds
that we're in base reality
is one in billions.
Tell me what's wrong with that argument?
- Is the answer yes?
- The argument is probably,
is there a flow in that argument?
I'm not sure what the error.
- No, the argument makes sense.
So the assumption then is that
somebody beat us to
it, and this is a game.
- No, there's a one in billions
chance this is base reality.
- Oh, okay.
- What do you think?
- Well, I think it's one in billions.
- Okay.
(audience laughs)
- Yeah, I guess.
- That seems to be like clearly
what it suggests.
And, actually, I mean,
arguably we should hope
that that's true because otherwise
if civilization stops advancing,
then that may be due to
some calamitous event
that erases civilization.
So maybe we should be hopeful
that this is a simulation
'cause otherwise--
- 'Cause they could reboot it.
- Well, otherwise, either we're
going to create simulations
that are indistinguishable from reality
or civilization will cease to exist.
Those are the two options.
(bell rings)
- And fact number nine,
he once made a guest experience
on the Big Bang Theory.
- Here you go.
- Thanks.
- You got to be kidding me.
- Sorry?
- You're Elon Musk.
- I am.
(audience laughs)
- What are you doing here?
- I'm washing dishes.
(audience laughs)
Well, I was on the turkey line,
but I got demoted for being
too generous with the gravy.
(audience laughs)
- Oh, man,
what an honor to meet you.
I'm such a fan of Tesla and Space X,
all your companies.
Howard Wolowitz, Caltech.
- Nice to meet you, Howard.
It feels great to come down here
and help the less fortunate, huh?
- Oh, yeah.
(audience laughs)
Nothing better than helping people.
(audience laughs)
Which is something I realized
when I was viewing Earth
from the deck of the
International Space Station,
where I spent two months
as a payload specialist,
a job I was qualified for because I'm
an MIT trained engineer.
(audience laughs)
- And I thought I ladled
the gravy on thick.
(audience laughs)
- Sorry, it's just, you're you.
(laughs) And I really
want you to adopt me.
(audience laughs)
- Well, you're here on Thanksgiving,
so you're probably a good person.
- Oh, I made my wife come down too.
(audience laughs)
- You think you might ever
get back out into space?
- Is that a job offer?
Because I really want to go to Mars.
Assuming I can bring my wife.
She hardly takes up any room.
She's basically a carry on.
(audience laughs)
- Well, we're not quite there yet.
But we're always looking for engineers,
so let me give you my
e-mail, we can stay in touch.
- Thank you.
- Oh, look.
Someone hardly touched their pumpkin pie.
Want to share it with me?
(audience laughs)
- A partially eaten piece of pumpkin pie
from a homeless shelter with Elon Musk?
You bet I do.
(audience laughs)
- So thank you guys so much for watching.
I hope you enjoyed.
I'm super curious to figure
out which surprising fact
was most interesting for
you, most surprising for you.
Leave it down in the comments below.
I'm going to check it out.
Also, what do you think of this series?
This is one of our series
that's on the bubble.
We've done Tony Robbins,
we've done Bill Gates.
We've done Kanye West.
And this is Elon Musk.
And we're not sure if we're going to
continue the series or not,
so I'd love to know what
did you like about it?
Do you like it?
How can we make it better?
Share your thoughts down below.
Maybe the series will continue
or maybe we'll replace
it with something better.
Let me know.
Thank you guys again for watching.
I believe in you.
I hope you continue to believe in yourself
and whatever your one word is.
Much love.
I'll see you soon.
