Last night Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors joined me in conversation for the Revolutionaries Series at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley. We explored his journey from South Africa to Silicon Valley and beyond and he was exceptionally candid about his entrepreneurial highs and lows. He also shared a fascinating glimpse into the future…flying cars, hyperloops and Mars, oh my! His eyes welled up as he spoke with deep emotion about Neil Armstrong, the need for space exploration and the impassioned vigils after the death of the EV1. But he also displayed a great sense of humor throughout the interview. Did you know he plans to die on Mars? Just not on impact.
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Here is the transcript of our conversation:
Here’s the podcast from KQED:
On the chances of a SpaceX IPO this year
Not likely. Elon explained that he’s not in a hurry to make SpaceX a public company because the short term desires of shareholders would conflict with the company’s longer term goals (which included manned space flights to Mars).
On flying cars
He anticipates the production of flying cars in the near future (and he wasn’t talking about the acceleration of Tesla’s Model S). In response to my question: will it be an Elon Musk production? he demurred. But when I asked, is someone going to do it? He replied: someone *is* doing it.
On the inspiration for Tesla Motors
Musk had the audience roaring with laughter when we discussed the wailing and gnashing of teeth that occurred after the forced recall of the EV1. He said, “How often do customers have candlelight vigils for the end of life of a product? Especially a GM product?”
On being an entrepreneur @38.0 on video
Remember that failure is the most likely outcome. Only do it, if you’re compelled to do it and are willing to eat glass and stare into the abyss.
“If you don’t eat glass you are not going to be successful,” Elon Musk
On the importance of sleep
Musk recommends getting a good night’s sleep, as you’ll be more productive. Despite running two companies and having five children, he averages 6 hours a night. Less than that and he admits to getting grumpy and achieving much less.
On the environment @55.0-1.00.00 on video
He says putting hydrocarbons into the atmosphere is “the world’s dumbest experiment“…We’re playing a lethal game of Russian roulette with the atmosphere and every year, we’re adding another bullet.
The hour long interview will appear on the Computer History Museum YouTube channel next week and air on KQED TV in April. Check back soon for more photos and more details on inspiration, innovation and SolarCity. Check out #CHMElonMusk on Twitter for more audience reaction.
What do Elon Musk, SolarCity and Burning Man have in common? The answer is illuminating for those seeking climate friendly solutions to our energy needs.
Elon Musk is well known in Silicon Valley as founder of luxury electric vehicle maker Tesla Motors and SpaceX, the space transport company. But what’s less known is Musk’s contribution to SolarCity, the solar installer and energy efficiency auditor. Not only did Musk inspire the creation of the San Mateo based solar company, but he’s working closely with the founders on a futuristic clean energy storage solution, coupling lithium-ion batteries with rooftop solar power.
When you discover that SolarCity cofounders, Lyndon and Peter Rive and Elon Musk are first cousins, such ambitious collaborations make more sense, but where does the inspiration come from and how does Musk have the time to keep all these projects moving forward? SolarCity’s Lyndon Rive shared some family insights in a recent Fresh Dialogues interview.
Last week, SolarCity company confirmed that it’s working on stage two of a collaboration to couple Tesla lithium-ion storage batteries with SolarCity’s residential and commercial PV solar arrays. Stage one involved $1.8 M funding from the California Public Utilities Commission to fund a research program in 2010. Stage two seeks to commercialize the program on a modest scale, with over 7o applications pending under the California Public Utility Commission’s Self-Generation Incentive Program (SGIP), which provides incentives for distributed energy generation. The strategy seeks to leverage funding from the federal investment tax credit (ITC) for clean power and subsidies from SGIP, up to 60% of the system cost.
As Chairman of SolarCity, Elon Musk is not involved in the day to day running of the solar company but CEO Lyndon Rive admits that his cousin only contributes “maybe two hours a month” to the company – by phone – and three hours a quarter for board meetings. Not many minutes to have a significant impact on a company, for your average chairman. But Musk appears to have a rare gift for strategy.
“Elon is a phenomenal genius,” says Rive. “So when he gives you the time and you lay out the plan, he can quickly identify the hole in the plan… this is the true definition of quality vs quantity. .. you can fix whatever potential pot-hole you might run into, just in a ten minute discussion with Elon.”
So you can only imagine the ambitious discussions Musk and Rive had in 2004 on a road trip to Burning Man, the weeklong cultural event held annually in Black Rock Desert, Nevada. It was en route that Rive shared his desire to do something that had a larger environmental impact (than enterprise software) and Musk “came up with the initial idea” for SolarCity.
Burning Man has been described as a seven day experiment in community, art, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance and culminates in the burning of a wooden effigy. Perhaps it was the profusion of attendees using free standing solar panels to power their RVs; the atmosphere of radical creativity or witnessing all that carbon going into the desert air, but whatever sparked the conversation has had profound impact on the US solar market. SolarCity has the largest share of solar installations in the US and is growing so rapidly, it’s hiring four new employees a day nationally, 10 a month in the Bay Area. Rive’s ambitious goal is world domination in the energy market, no less.
Burning Man may yet become the Mecca for clean tech entrepreneurs as well as the counter culture set; a journey worth emulating for other entrepreneurs seeking clean tech solutions to the world’s energy needs. Past attendees from the business world include Amazon C.E.O. Jeff Bezos, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Google C.E.O. Eric Schmidt.
For more Fresh Dialogues interview with SolarCity click here
This week, Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager, stole the show at the United Nations General Assembly. Thanks to her, climate change is on the minds of the world. I was invited to discuss climate change action on the BBC World Service this month and we explored the role of activists like Thunberg, indigenous people, and technology pioneers like Elon Musk.
With visible rage, Thunberg described the urgency of action in stark terms on Monday.
”People are suffering, people are dying, entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth.”
Then Thunberg made a passionate plea to each one of us, especially political leaders, to examine our consciences.
“How dare you continue to look away? The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.”
Greta Thunberg’s fury was evident to everyone who watched her, but she ended on a positive note:
“Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.”
BBC host, Jamie Robertson led a lively discussion exploring the urgency of climate change action and we were joined by ABC Australia’s Clare Negus. I took the opportunity to praise Thunberg’s tenacity.
The program started with a soulful report by the BBC’s Frey Lindsay. He reported on a gathering of indigenous community leaders from around the world who met at University College London to listen, exchange ideas and build solidarity in the fight against environmental degradation and climate change.
Listen to the podcast at the BBC World Service (environmental discussion starts at 10:40)
Here’s a transcript of conversation highlights (edited for length and clarity):
Jamie Robertson: In California, you’re very much on the front line, we think of the wildfires…do indigenous people have a role to play here?
Alison van Diggelen: It’s important for us in California, and around the world, to listen to the indigenous people. What we do over the next ten to twenty years is going to determine the fate of humanity. We need to remember environmentalist, John Muir, who said:
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
Technology plays a role in this by increasing transparency. Almost everyone has a mobile phone (and can take photos of environmental abuses), so multinationals can’t get away with what they used to.
Jamie Robertson: How high up the news agenda are questions about environmental problems and climate change?
Alison van Diggelen: Greta Thunberg, bless her heart, is keeping it on our agenda, but I wish it were higher. Looking at the Democratic Party Presidential debates, climate change was there, but I wish we could raise the issue more. People are concerned about what’s impacting them on a daily basis. There’s not enough of a long term view. We need more people like David Attenborough (and Greta Thunberg and Bill McKibben) speaking up for the environment.
Jamie Robertson: Clare ?
Clare Negas: It’s a major criticism of ABC Australia that we do too much on climate change and not enough on cost of living stories!
Jamie Robertson: I want to take the conversation on to the Frankfurt Motor Show and the extraordinary confrontation between the “Lords” of the auto industry and ordinary citizens worried about climate change, worried about cars and what they’re doing to the environment.
Alison, you’re in California at the forefront in the development of electric vehicles and things which could actually make a difference. Is there a sense of optimism that these things will work?
Alison van Diggelen: Absolutely. California is where Elon Musk jumpstarted this electric vehicle revolution. Tesla is doing phenomenally well. They’re due to sell about half a million electric cars this year. California is a state that is doing all it can to boost the sales of electric vehicles (EVs). It accounts for half of all U.S. sales of EVs thanks to rebates and state government policies. It has a goal of getting 5 million EVs on the road by 2030 and it does things like fast tracking permissions for charging infrastructure; that’s a key part of making EVs the number one form of transport.
Elon Musk has predicted that within 10 years, the majority of cars produced will be electric. Others like Morgan Stanley say it’s more like 20 years. It may be somewhere in the middle.
Jamie Robertson: Clare, do you have such faith?
Clare Negas: I do! I think globally electric cars will be the future. In Australia it’ll be a bigger battle because there is such a cultural identity around petrol and diesel fueled engines. We’re a strong car culture and that will continue. A few years ago, we drove a Tesla hundreds of kms to prove it wouldn’t run out of energy. There were no problems. Check out Clare’s fascinating report here.
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Extra: The program included a discussion about the college admissions scandal and I made a shout out to the hard working team and students at Breakthrough Silicon Valley who arguably have the most to lose. Their leader John Hiester recently wrote a moving oped about his outrage at cheaters like Felicity Huffman.
Find out more about clean tech and technology’s role in climate action at Fresh Dialogues.
Elon Musk continues to make ambitious plans for Tesla Motors, some even call them “ludicrous.” Not content to make a niche product for electric vehicle enthusiasts, he now wants to conquerthe mass market, competing in the major leagues against GM, BMW, Ford et al. Musk is promising an annual production of 1 million cars by 2020, a staggering increase from last year’s paltry: 76,000. Is he insane?
On a conference call with Musk and media colleagues this week, Alison van Diggelen, host of Fresh Dialogueslearned that Musk is still calm and laser-focused on executing his “Tesla Master plan.” This year is crunch time for Tesla. The future of the company rests on the timely and efficient production of the Model 3, Tesla’s smaller, mass market car. Will demand stay strong, despite intense competition and reservation holders threatening to cancel due to his position on Trump’s economic advisory team? Musk seemed to flounder a bit on this question and refused to disclose the latest reservation numbers, for fear of analysts “reading too much into them.”
During the discussion of Tesla’s 2016 financial results, some anomalies arose. Despite continuing to make massive losses (due to capital investment in the Tesla Factory and the Gigafactories), its share price is still in the stratosphere. Tesla might produce a small fraction of GM and Ford’s output, but the company is valued on par with them. What gives?
“The recent run-up in Tesla stock has less to do, in our view, with anything around the near-term financials, and more to do with the nearly superhero status of Elon Musk,”Barclays analyst, Brian Johnson.
Superhero status? More ludicrousness…The superheroes Tesla is focused on are the mighty robots on the factory floor. Musk has named them after X-men superheroes, like Cyclops and Thunderbird (see photo above); and they’re the ones that’ll have to earn their superhero status as manufacturing goes into top gear in the next few month.
“Tesla is going to be hell-bent on becoming the best manufacturer on earth.” Elon Musk
The BBC’s Fergus Nicoll invited me on Business Matters to help explain more.
Here’s a transcript of our conversation (edited for length and clarity):
BBC Host, Fergus Nicoll: Tesla stock has hit record highs, soaring 50% since December. With investor confidence growing that Tesla will deliver its Model 3 on time. Let’s explore this with Alison in Silicon Valley. Before we get into the nitty gritty of Model 3, and the other numbers, I know you watched Elon Musk do the webcast that go with the Q4 figures. What kind of presentation did he come up with?
Alison van Diggelen: I listened to the (live conference call) podcast. Elon Musk was on the podcast with his (retiring) CFO, answering questions from the media. They were generally upbeat. Elon Musk always over-promises how soon his vehicles will be delivered, but he is confident that they’re going to start deliveries of their Model 3 in July of this year, for employees first…beta testing for employees. He’s hoping for the mass rollout starting in September of this year. They’re pretty bullish about that.
Fergus Nicoll: Here’s the thing: Tesla has a valuation pretty close to Ford. But compared to Ford it makes about five cars! So what are we seeing? A massive future priced into that?
Alison van Diggelen: That’s right. Last year, Tesla delivered 76,000 vehicles (compared to Ford’s 2.5 million), but Elon Musk is very bullish. He’s aiming for the factory to produce 500,000 cars by the end of 2018, and one million a year by 2020. He’s ludicrously ambitious. Brian Johnson, who’s an analyst with Barclays, called this run up in the Tesla stock more “Elon Musk superhero status” than short term financials. What Elon Musk says, he often delivers….eventually.
Tesla merged with SolarCity, the rooftop solar provider, so that is also giving an upside. They’ll be able to cut costs: Tesla showrooms will also become showrooms for the SolarCity solar panels. They’re also doing the other side of the equation: energy storage….
Fergus Nicoll: The household and business batteries.
Alison van Diggelen: Exactly.
Fergus Nicoll: The thing is, Americans drive insane distances. Electric cars have to go a long way….the infrastructure has to catch up with the company?
The new Elon Musk biography by Ashlee Vance will “likely serve as the definitive account” of the most successful entrepreneur in the world, writes Jon Gertner in the New York Times. But it can also be read as a manual of how to succeed in business. Here are six big lessons for entrepreneurs, young and old:
1. Think Big
While Musk was at college, he decided the three things that would have the biggest positive impact on the human race were: sustainable energy, the Internet, and making life multi-planetary.
Here’s how Vance describes Musk’s big thinking:
“What Musk has developed that so many of the entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley lack is a meaningful worldview. He’s the possessed genius on the grandest quest anyone has ever concocted. He’s less a CEO chasing riches than a general marshaling troops to secure victory. Where Mark Zuckerberg wants to help you share baby photos, Musk wants to…well…save the human race from self-imposed or accidental annihilation.”
This passage comes early in the book, and feels as though Vance has been drinking Musk’s Kool Aid. By the last page, however, he’s painted a vivid and balanced picture of a driven man, focused intently on changing the world in a big way, no matter the cost to himself or his family (see No.6 below). So, if you want to succeed like Elon Musk, don’t waste time building a widget that’ll be 10% better than the competition:
Think big, really big, and go for it.
2. Learn to be a Better Boss
Elon Musk was ousted as CEO from two early startups Zip2 and X.com (the precursor to PayPal) because he was a bad boss. In his early days, Musk was a controlling, micro-manager whose “one upmanship” tactics were brutal.
Vance writes,
“Musk’s traits as a confrontational know-it-all and his abundant ego created deep, lasting fractures within his companies.”
According to a colleague at Zip2, he’d rip into junior and senior executives alike, especially when employees told him that his demands were impossible.
“You would see people come out of the meetings with this disgusted look on their face…You don’t get to where Elon is now by always being a nice guy, and he was just so driven and sure of himself.”
These days, he’s still very demanding but has got better at being a decent boss at Tesla and SpaceX and his longtime employees are fiercely loyal.
Of course, part of being a good boss is inspiring your team with an awesome mission (see No.1 above) and articulating that clearly. Early employees of SpaceX were told that “the mission would be to emerge as the South-west Airlines* of Space.” More recently of course, the Mars mission dominates the company’s focus. Who wouldn’t be on board with the mind-blowing goal of making humans a multi-planetary species?
So don’t fret if you’re not getting “Boss of the Year” awards in your early days, but learn from your mistakes, and motivate your team with a grand vision.
3. Hire with Care, Fire fast
Musk is renowned for hiring top talent and for several years, he even insisted on personally interviewing employees fairly low on the totem pole. For key technical hires, once he decides he wants someone, he’ll go above and beyond to hire them. He even cold-calls them himself. A SpaceX employee recalls receiving a call from Musk in his college dorm room and thinking it was a prank call.
But on the flip side, if you’re not a fit for the team, then you’ll soon know about it, according to Steve Jurvetson, a Tesla, SpaceX board member and close ally to Musk.
“Like (Steve) Jobs, Elon does not tolerate C or D players. He’s like Jobs in that neither of them suffer fools. But I’d say he’s nicer than Jobs and a bit more refined than Bill Gates.”
The lesson: hire strategically with great care, and if an employee doesn’t fit, don’t wait.
Some of his “bombastic counteroffensives” worked, others were arguably counter productive and alienated potential allies and supporters.
Yet Vance also offers a more sympathetic interpretation of his tirades as “a quest for truth” as opposed to pure vindictiveness. As Vance writes,
“Musk is wired like a scientist and suffers mental anguish at the sight of a factual error. A mistake on a printed page would gnaw at his soul – forever.”
Although taking things personally and seeking war has generally worked for Musk, it’s a highly risky strategy. Setting the record straight is one thing, but how many bridges can you burn? One key consideration is this: going to war demands a lot of time and energy which might be better spent on getting your mission accomplished.
Choose your battles carefully.
5. Have a trusted assistant
Ashley Vance describes Musk’s long-time assistant Mary Beth Brown as:
“A now-legendary character in the lore of both SpaceX and Tesla….establishing a real-life version of the relationship between Iron Man’s Tony Stark and Pepper Potts. If Musk worked a twenty hour day, so too did Mary Beth…She would emerge as the only bridge between Musk and all of his interests and was an invaluable asset to the companies’ employees.”
Sadly for Musk, she’s now moved on, but having worked with her briefly in 2012/13 (to arrange an in-depth interview with Musk), I can attest that she was very charming and an excellent surrogate for Musk. She represented him well in a professional and personal capacity.
Read more about her in the biography and try find someone as loyal, talented and hard-working to be your right-hand man or woman. Good luck!
6. Work hard, very hard
Not only does Musk lead two hard-driving companies (which are 300 miles apart) – SpaceX (L.A.) and Tesla (Silicon Valley) – he’s chairman of SolarCity, and has five boys, two ex-wives and a tight circle of friends, that includes Google’s Larry Page. He claims to sleep an average of six hours a night, but almost every waking hour is devoted to his businesses. His ex-wife Justine Musk, describes his work ethic like this:
“I had friends who complained that their husbands came home at seven or eight. Elon would come home at eleven and work some more. People didn’t always get the sacrifice he made in order to be where he was. He does what he wants, and he is relentless about it. It’s Elon’s world, and the rest of us live in it.”
The only regular downtime he allows is to indulge in long showers, but even then, it’s really work. He says that’s when he has most of his innovative ideas.
So, the lesson for you is the same as that espoused by pioneering giants like Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie: there’s nothing like good old fashioned hard work.
Note: Although Musk comes over as a hard-driving maniac in this biography, he does have a more sensitive side. You can see this for yourself in this candid interview. He comes close to tears several times.
