What is the Purpose of Life?
Elon Musk experienced the same thought. Read what he has to say.
I want you to apply for a job at Solar City or Tesla or SpaceX, and if that doesn’t work for whatever reason then apply to jobs at other companies in that arena or try starting a company.
That’s what Elon said.
If you study engineering and you figure out how to design new things then it’s relatively easy to start a company. You just need to get a few like-minded people with you.
I have to say that the space business is quite hard because it’s such a capital-intensive business. So it may be better to do something in Solar power or if you’re going to do it in cars, do it in, as kind of a component supplier for cars or something like that.
How did you get the expertise to be the chief technology officer of a rocket ship company?
Well, I do have a physics background, that’s helpful as a foundation and then I read a lot of books and talked to a lot of smart people.
Don’t just follow the trend. You may have heard me say that. It’s good to think in terms of the physics approach of first principles.
You boil things down to the most fundamental truths you can imagine then you reason up from there. This is a good way to figure out if something really makes sense or if it’s just what everybody else is doing.
You know that’s what makes you different because you don’t think like most of them.
But It’s hard to think that way. You can’t think that way about everything.
It takes a lot of effort but if you’re trying to do something new, it’s the best way to think and that framework was developed by physicists to figure out counterintuitive things like quantum mechanics. So it’s really a powerful method.
One thing that has surprised you about your life?
Well, simply I’m surprised about the whole thing. I just wanted to be involved in technology and the only reason I started an internet company back in 95 was because I couldn’t get it. There were only a few internet companies and I couldn’t get a job at any of them.
I tried to get a job at Netscape and I sent my resume and I tried hanging out in the lobby, but I was too shy to talk to anyone and it was like okay “Well, I guess I’ll have to start a company cause I can’t get a job anywhere”.
I wouldn’t say I’m fearless. I think I feel fear quite strongly but if what I’m doing is important enough then I just override the fear. It’s not like I don’t fear, I feel fear like more stronger than I would like.
I also think people tend to be overweight risk on a personal level. If you’ve got a mortgage to pay and kids to support and you were to deviate from your job. Then well, how are you going to feed your family and pay the rent?
Okay, that’s understandable. But let’s say you’re young and you’re just coming out of college or coming out of high school.
What do you risk?
You know you’re not going to starve.
It’s so easy to earn enough money just to live somewhere and eat food.
I don’t know what other people are afraid of. They are mostly afraid of failure I think.
People should be less risk-averse when there’s not much at risk.
What is education like?
You’re basically downloading data and algorithms into your brain and it’s actually bad in conventional education. It shouldn’t be like this huge chore, the more you can gamify the process of learning the better.
I always had sort of a slight existential crisis because I was trying to figure out what it all meant.
Like what’s the purpose of things?
And I came to the conclusion that if we can advance the knowledge of the world, if we can do things that expand the scope 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.
What drives you? What is it that when you wake up in the morning?
The thing that drives me is that I want to be able to think about the future and feel good so that, we’re doing what we can to have the future be as good as possible. To be inspired by what is likely to happen and to look forward to the next day. So that’s what really drives me.
How do we make sure that things are great?
The unlined principle behind Tesla and SpaceX is that I think it’s pretty important to accelerate the transition to sustainable generation and consumption of energy. It’s inevitable, but it’s a matter of time.
And then SpaceX is about helping make life multi-planetary and doing what we can to continue the dream of Apollo and ultimately make a contribution to life becoming multi-planetary.
I think everyone is very interested when you say making life multi-planetary
It is exciting
So what’s your vision there?
I think particularly America is a nation of explorers! People came here from other parts of the world. Choose to give up the known in favor of the unknown. So I think exploration like the United States is a distillation of the human spirit of exploration.
When there was a shuttle tragedy and seven people died and that’s terrible but, you know a lot of people die all the time. but why do we care so much? Because it was the dream of exploration that was dying along with those people
That’s why.
I mean I thought both Tesla and SpaceX would fail at the beginning. I expected to lose it, and what I thought was
I’ll take half the money from PayPal and if I lose half of it, that’s okay
But then of course the companies encounter difficulties and then, I have a choice of either letting the company die or putting all the money into the companies and so I really don’t want the companies to die so I put all the money in the companies.
Then I had to borrow money from friends to pay living expenses.
You know just looking for evidence of exceptional ability and if there’s a track record of exceptional achievement then it’s likely that will continue into the future.
Well, it really depends on the stakes. If the stakes are high, if it’s really important then one should overcome the fear and just do it anyway.
I essentially mean just drive overrides fear, but I feel the fear is kind of annoying, I wish I felt it less.
