Speaker A
When you had that third failure in a row, did you think, "I need to pack this in"?
Elon Musk shares his relentless work ethic, overcoming failures, and vision for a multiplanetary future in this motivational speech compilation.
Key Takeaways
- Relentless hard work and long hours are essential for entrepreneurial success.
- Leadership by example motivates teams to give their best effort.
- Failure is part of the journey and must be met with perseverance.
- Visionary goals like space exploration inspire innovation and progress.
- Balancing optimism with realism helps navigate crises and challenges.
Summary
- Elon Musk emphasizes the importance of working extremely hard, often 80-100 hour weeks, to increase the odds of success.
- He shares personal stories of sleeping in offices and factories to lead by example and inspire his teams.
- Musk discusses overcoming multiple failures and near-death financial crises while building Tesla and SpaceX.
- He reflects on his childhood curiosity and passion for invention inspired by the idea that advanced technology is like magic.
- Musk highlights the importance of optimism and perseverance despite setbacks and skepticism from others.
- He explains the critical choices he made in 2008 to split remaining funds between his companies to keep them alive.
- Musk talks about the physical and emotional toll of intense work but stresses the necessity of dedication.
- He addresses criticism from spaceflight pioneers and hopes they will see the progress made by SpaceX.
- Musk envisions a future where humanity becomes a multiplanetary species and explores space among the stars.
- He advocates for a mindset focused on creating value and growing the economic pie rather than competing destructively.
Chapters
- 00:00Facing Failure and the Need to Persevere
- 01:05The Power of Working 80-100 Hour Weeks
- 01:55Early Startup Struggles and Sacrifices
- 03:49Realizing Differences in Mindset from Childhood
- 04:48Inspiration from Advanced Technology and Magic
- 07:42Balancing Time Between Tesla and SpaceX
- 08:47Living in Factories and Leading by Example
- 11:47Critical Financial Decisions in 2008
- 13:36The Emotional Toll and Physical Exhaustion
- 16:59Vision for Space Exploration and the Future
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
Never.
Speaker A
Why not?
Speaker A
I don't ever give up. I mean, I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated. Work like hell. I mean, you just have to put in, you know, 80-hour, 80 to 100-hour weeks every week. All those things improve the odds of success.
Speaker A
Okay. Um, I mean, if other people are putting in 40-hour work weeks and you're putting in 100-hour work weeks, then even if you're doing the same thing, you know, in one year you will achieve what they achieve. You will achieve in four months what it takes them a year to achieve. You need to work super hard.
Speaker A
So what does super hard mean?
Speaker A
Well, 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.
Speaker A
And we showered at the YMCA.
Speaker A
And we were so hot up, we had just one computer, so the website was up during the day, and I was coding at night, seven days a week, all the time.
Speaker A
So I briefly had a girlfriend in that period, and in order to be with me, she had to sleep in the office.
Speaker A
So I work hard, like every waking hour.
Speaker A
That's the thing I would say, particularly if you're starting a company.
Speaker A
And I mean, if you do the simple math, say like, okay, if somebody else is working 50 hours and you're working 100, you'll get twice as much done in the course of a year as the other company.
Speaker A
I think when I was, I don't know, five or six or something, I thought I was insane.
Speaker A
Why did you think you were insane?
Speaker A
Because it was clear that other people did not. Their mind wasn't exploding with ideas all the time. They weren't expressing it. They weren't talking about it at all.
Speaker A
And you realize by the time you were five or six, like, oh, they're probably not even getting this thing that I'm getting.
Speaker A
No, it was just strange. It was like, hmm, I'm strange.
Speaker A
When I was young, I didn't really know what I was going to do when I got older.
Speaker A
People kept asking me.
Speaker A
And then eventually, I thought that the idea of inventing things would be really cool.
Speaker A
And the reason I thought that was because I read a quote from Arthur C. Clarke, which said that a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Speaker A
And that's really true.
Speaker A
If you think, if you go back, say, 300 years, the things that we take for granted today, you'd be burned at the stake for, you know, being able to fly.
Speaker A
That's crazy.
Speaker A
Being able to see over long distances, being able to communicate, having effectively, with the internet, a group mind of sorts, and having access to all the world's information instantly from almost anywhere on the earth.
Speaker A
This is stuff that really would be considered magic in times past.
Speaker A
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.
Speaker A
So it actually goes beyond that.
Speaker A
So I thought, well, you know, if I can do some of those things, basically if I can advance technology, then that's like magic, and that would be really cool.
Speaker A
You have to apply a lot of hours to actual working, actually working.
Speaker A
So the way I generally do it is I'll be working at SpaceX on Monday and then Monday night fly to the Bay Area, spend Tuesday and Wednesday in the Bay Area, then at Tesla, and then fly back on Wednesday night.
Speaker A
It's been Thursday and Friday at SpaceX in the last several months.
Speaker A
Then I would fly back here on a Saturday and either spend Saturday and Sunday at Tesla or spend Saturday at Tesla and Sunday at SpaceX.
Speaker A
I was living in the factory in Fremont and the one in Nevada for three years straight.
Speaker A
It was my primary residence, not kidding.
Speaker A
Literally, I actually slept, well, slept on a couch at one point in a tent on the roof.
Speaker A
And then, but for a while there, I was just sleeping under my desk, which is out in the open in the factory.
Speaker A
And for an important reason.
Speaker A
And I was damn uncomfortable sleeping on that floor.
Speaker A
And I always, when I woke up, I'd smell like metal dust.
Speaker A
But actually, I stopped using the couch in the little conference room and couch there.
Speaker A
I stopped using the couch and I just slept on the floor under my desk.
Speaker A
So during shift change, the entire team could see me.
Speaker A
If they think that their leader is off somewhere having a good time, you know, drinking Mai Tais on a tropical island, which I could definitely have been doing and would much have preferred to do, but the thing is that since the team could see me sleeping on the floor during shift change, they knew I was there.
Speaker A
And that made a huge difference.
Speaker A
And then they gave it their all.
Speaker A
One of the most difficult choices I have ever faced in life was in 2008.
Speaker A
And I think I had maybe 30 million or 30 or 40 million left in 2008.
Speaker A
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.
Speaker A
But if I split it between the two companies, then both might die.
Speaker A
And when you put your blood, sweat, and tears into creating something, you're building something. It's like a child.
Speaker A
And so it's like, which one am I going to let starve to death? I can't bring myself to do it.
Speaker A
So I split the money between the two.
Speaker A
Fortunately, thank goodness, they both came through.
Speaker A
Were you a little naive when you thought, "I can easily build an electric car and a rocket"?
Speaker A
I didn't think it would be easy.
Speaker A
I thought they would probably fail.
Speaker A
But, you know, creating a company is almost like having a child.
Speaker A
So it's sort of like, how do you say, your child should not have food.
Speaker A
Once you have the company, you have to feed it and nurse it and take care of it, even if it ruins you.
Speaker A
Yeah, but there were some tough times in 2008, end of 2008.
Speaker A
How did you get through that period of crisis?
Speaker A
[Music]
Speaker A
Yeah, can we just break for a second?
Speaker A
Of course.
Speaker A
Well, I mean, Tesla really faced a severe threat of death due to the Model 3 production ramp.
Speaker A
Essentially, the company was bleeding money like crazy.
Speaker A
And just if we didn't solve these problems in a very short period of time, we would die.
Speaker A
And it was extremely difficult to solve them.
Speaker A
How close to death did you come?
Speaker A
Within single-digit weeks, 22 hours a day.
Speaker A
Like what, how many hours?
Speaker A
Yeah, so seven days a week, sleeping in the factory.
Speaker A
I worked every day. I worked in the paint shop, general assembly, body shop.
Speaker A
You ever worry about yourself imploding, like it's just too much?
Speaker A
Absolutely.
Speaker A
No one should put this many hours into work. This is not good.
Speaker A
People should not work this hard.
Speaker A
I'm not saying they should not do this. This is very painful.
Speaker A
Painful in what sense?
Speaker A
It hurts my brain and my heart.
Speaker A
You know, there are American heroes who don't like this idea.
Speaker A
Neil Armstrong, Gene Cernan have both testified against commercial space flight in the way that you're developing it.
Speaker A
And I wonder what you think of that.
Speaker A
I was very sad to see that because those guys are, yeah, you know, those guys are heroes of mine.
Speaker A
So it's really tough.
Speaker A
I wish they would come and visit and see the hardware that we're doing camp, and I think that would change their mind.
Speaker A
They inspired you to do this, didn't they?
Speaker A
Yes.
Speaker A
And to see them casting stones in your direction, it's difficult.
Speaker A
Did you expect them to cheer you on?
Speaker A
Solely hoping they would.
Speaker A
Well, for SpaceX, the first three launches failed, and we were just barely able to scrape together enough parts and money to do the fourth launch.
Speaker A
If that fourth launch had failed, we would have been dead.
Speaker A
So multiple failures along the way.
Speaker A
I tried very hard to get the right expertise in for SpaceX.
Speaker A
I tried hard to find a great chief engineer for the rocket, but...
Speaker A
is like you'd rather be I think rather I'd rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right like what are the set of things that can be done to make the future better I think that a future where we are a space fairing
Speaker A
civilization and out there Among the Stars this is very exciting this makes me look forward to the future this makes me want that future there need to be things that make you look forward to waking up in the
Speaker A
morning you wake up in the morning you look forward to the day forward to the future in a future where we are a space fairing civilization and out there Among the Stars I think that's very exciting that is a thing we want
Speaker A
whereas if if you knew we would not be a space foring civilization but forever confined to Earth this would not be a good future that would be very sad I think I mean we got to be excited about
Speaker A
the future we got to do things that make us want to live you know it cannot always be about problems every day I mean do you want to wake up every morning everything's just a problem well what what inspires you and what makes
Speaker A
you excited about the future there's got to be something things like that you know I put a lot of stock and certainly have a lot of respect for someone who puts in an honest day work uh to do
Speaker A
useful things and and just generally to have like not a zero some mindset um or or a like have have more of a grow the pie mindset when we see people like perhaps um including some very smart people kind of taking an attitude of U
Speaker A
like like like doing things that seem like morally questionable it's often because they have at at a base sort of acatic level a zero some mindset without realizing it they don't realize they have a zero some mindset or or at least
Speaker A
that they don't realize it consciously um and so if you have a zero some mindset then the only way to get ahead is by taking things from others if the pie is fixed then the only way to have
Speaker A
more pie is to take someone else's pie but this is false like obviously the pie has grown dramatically over time the economic pie so you really want to make sure you don't you're not operating um without realizing it from a zero some
Speaker A
mindset where where the only way to get ahead is to take things from others then that's going to result in you take trying to take things from others which is not not good it's much better to work on uh adding to the economic pie I think
Speaker A
that a lot of times people think like creating companies going to be fun I would say it's not it's really not that fun I mean there are periods of fun and then there are periods of where where the store for and particularly if you
Speaker A
see of the company um you actually have a distillation of all the worst problems in the company there's no point in spending your time on things that are going right so you only spend on things on your time on things that are going
Speaker A
wrong and and there are things that are going wrong that other people can't can't take care of so you have like the worst you have a filter for the craftst problem in the company the most pernicious and painful
Speaker A
problem so I wouldn't say it's it's I think you have to feel quite compelled to do it and have a a fairly High pain threshold I think um if somebody is doing something that is useful to the rest of society I think that's a good
Speaker A
thing like it doesn't have to change the world like you know um if you're doing something that has high value to to people um and and frankly even if it's something if it's like um just a little game um or some improvement in photo
Speaker A
sharing or something if it if it if it has a small amount of of good uh for a large number of people um that's I mean I think that's that's fine like stuff doesn't need to change the world just to
Speaker A
be good but you know in terms of things that I think most likely to affect the the future of humanity I think AI is probably the single biggest item in the near term that's likely to affect uh Humanity so it's very important that we
Speaker A
have the Advent of AI uh in a good way that that uh is something that um if you if you could look into the cryst bable and and see the future you would like you would like that outcome because it
Speaker A
is something that could go um could go wrong um as we've talked about many times um and so we really need to make sure it goes right what's your mission life why you do whatever you do when when I was a kid I was wondering kind of
Speaker A
what's the meaning of life like why are we here what's it all about and um I came to the conclusion that uh what what really matters is trying to understand the right questions to ask and the more that we can increase the scope and scale
Speaker A
of uh human consciousness the better we are able to ask these questions so so I think that there's certain things that are NE Neary to ensure that the future is good some of those things are in the long term having long-term sustainable
Speaker A
transport and sustainable energy generation and to be a space bearing civilization and for Humanity to be out there among the stars and be a multiplanetary uh species being a multiplan species and being out there Among the Stars is important for uh the
Speaker A
long-term survival of humanity and uh that's one reason kind of like life insurance for Life collectively Life as we know it um but then the part that I find personally most motivating is that it creates a sense of
Speaker A
adventure and it makes people excited about the future well I mean my priority right now is to try to add some more U management uh bench strength to Tesla in particular so that um I can take a vacation you know in the last 12 years
Speaker A
I've only try to take a week off twice the first time I took a a week off the orbital science's rocket exploded and Richard Branson's rocket exploded in that same week second time I took a week off my rocket
Speaker A
exploded the lesson here is don't take a week off you know my goal is like try to do useful things try to maximize the probability the future is good um make the future exciting something you look forward to you
Speaker A
know you know with uh you know with Tesla we like try to make things that people love how many how many things can you buy that you really love that really give you Joy so rare So Rare I wish there were more
Speaker A
things that's what we're try to do just make things that somebody loves this may sound corny but love is the answer wouldn't hurt to have more love in the world I think people should be nicer to each other and give people and give give
Speaker A
more credit to others and don't assume that they're mean until you know they're actually mean it's easy to demonize people you're usually wrong about it people are nicer than you think give people more credit
Topics:Elon Muskmotivationentrepreneurshiphard workTeslaSpaceXfailureperseverancespace explorationmultiplanetary future
