Challenges and Success in Entrepreneurship

22 hours a day or like what? I mean, yeah, so if somebody's weak sleeping in the factory

Worked every from the I worked in the paint shop general assembly body shop. You ever worry about yourself imploding like it's just yeah

Yeah, absolutely. No one should

Put this many hours into work

This is not good

And people should not work this hard. I'm not they should not do this. This is very painful

Painful in what sense?

It's because my hurts my brain and my heart

so it's

This is not recommended for anyone. I just did it because if I didn't do it then Tesla

Good chance has it would die. I don't think you'd necessarily want to be me

It's very hard to turn it off all the time

and stop

When I was young, I didn't really know what I was gonna do when I got older

I think when I was I don't know five or six or something. I thought I was insane

Because it was clear that other people do not

Would their mind wasn't exploding with ideas? It was just strange

it was like

Hmm, I'm strange. Eventually. I thought that the idea of inventing things would be really cool

The reason I thought that was because I read a quote from Odyssey clock which said that

Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic and and that's really true

If you go back say 300 years the things that we take for granted today

Would be you'd be burned at the stake for you know being able to fly

That's crazy

Being able to see over long distances being able to communicate

This is stuff that that really would be considered magic in times past if I can do

Some of those things basically if I can advance technology, that's like magic and that would be really cool

Were you a little naive when you thought I can easily build build an electric car and a rocket. I

Didn't think it would be easy

Like I said, I thought there would probably fail

But you know like creating a company is almost like having a child. So it's sort of like how do you say your child?

Should not have food

So one once you have the company you have to feed it and nurse it and

Take care of it, even if it it ruins you. Yeah

But supposing there were some tough times in

End of 2008. How did you get through that period of crisis?

Yeah

2003 just break for a second. Sure. Sure. You want to wait a little while?

And I sure but was worth it

Sure, but was worth it. One of the most difficult choices I have ever faced in life was in 2008

I think I had maybe 30 million dollars left 30 or 40 million dollars left in 2008

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 and

But if I split it between two companies, they're both like that and you know when you put your blood sweat and tears into creating something

Building something. It's like a child. And so it's like which one am I gonna let one starve to death?

I couldn't bring myself to do it. So I put

Fortunately, thank goodness

You know with Tesla we're like trying to make things that people love how we how many things can you buy that you really love that

Really give you joy

So rare so rare. I wish there were more things

That's what we try to do, just make things that somebody loves.

Yes, doing something useful for other people that I like doing.

Generally, starting a business, I'd say, number one is have a high pain threshold.

But that's it.

There's a friend of mine who's got a good saying, which is that starting a company is like eating glass and staring into the abyss.

That's generally what happens.

Because when you first start a company, there's lots of optimism and things are great.

So happiness at first is high.

Then you encounter all sorts of issues, and happiness will steadily decline.

And then you'll go through a whole world of hurt.

And then eventually, if you succeed, and in most cases you will not succeed,

and Tesla almost didn't succeed, came very close to failure.

Then if you succeed, then after a long time, you will finally get back to happiness.

And I want to know, what is the one thing that has surprised you about your life?

Well, I'm surprised about the whole thing, honestly.

I certainly didn't expect any of these things to happen, honestly.

In fact, the only reason I started a company back in 1995, an internet company,

was because there were only a few internet companies and I couldn't get a job at any of them.

So I tried to get a job at Netscape and sent my resume in.

I tried hanging out in the lobby, but I was too shy to talk to anyone.

And I was like, OK, well...

I guess I'll have to start a company because I can't get a job anywhere.

Really liking what you do, whatever area that you get into,

given that even if you're the best of the best, there's always a chance of failure.

So I think it's important that you really like whatever you're doing.

If you don't like it, life is too short.

If you like what you're doing, you think about it even when you're not working.

It's something that your mind is drawn to.

And if you don't like it, you just really can't make it work, I think.

What you want to do, particularly if you're starting a company, you need to work super hard.

So what does super hard mean?

When my brother and I were starting our first company, I didn't have any money.

In fact, I had negative money. I had huge student debts.

In fact, I couldn't afford a place to stay and an office.

So instead of getting an apartment, we just rented a small office and we slept on the couch.

And we showered at the YMCA.

And there was an ISP on the floor below us, just a little tiny ISP.

And we drilled a hole through the floor and connected a null motor cable.

That gave us our internet connectivity for like $100 a month.

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.

And I briefly had a girlfriend in that period.

And in order to be with me, she had to sleep in the office.

So work hard every waking hour.

That's the thing I would say, particularly if you're starting a company.

It's very important to actively seek out and listen very carefully to negative feedback.

And this is something that people tend to avoid because it's painful.

When friends get a product, I say, look, don't tell me what you like, tell me what you don't like.

Otherwise your friend is not going to tell you what he doesn't like.

He's going to say, oh, I love this and that.

And leave out the, this is the stuff I don't like list.

And sometimes even your enemies give you good negative feedback.

So I actually went to Russia three times to look at buying a refurbished ICBM.

I can tell you it was very weird going there in late 2001, 2002.

Going to the Russian rocket forces and saying, I'd like to buy two of your biggest rockets.

They thought I was crazy, but I did have money.

So that was, that was okay.

One good friend of mine collected a whole series of videos of rockets blowing up and made me watch those.

He just didn't want me to lose all my money.

For SpaceX, the first three launches failed.

We're just barely able to scrape together enough parts and money to do the fourth launch.

If that fourth launch had failed, we would have been dead.

I tried very hard to get the right expertise in for SpaceX.

I tried hard to find a great chief engineer for the rocket.

But the good chief engineers wouldn't join.

And the bad ones, well, there was no point in hiring them.

So I ended up being chief engineer of the rocket.

So if I could have found somebody better, then we would have maybe had less than three failures.

When you had that third failure in a row, 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.

You know, there are American heroes who don't like this idea.

Neil Armstrong, Gene Cernan have both testified against commercial spaceflight in the way that you're developing it.

And I wonder what you think of that.

I was very sad to see that because those guys are, yeah, you know, those guys are heroes of mine.

So it's really tough.

You know, I wish they would come and visit and see the hard work that we're doing here.

and I think that would change their mind.

They inspired you to do this, didn't they?

Yes.

And to see them casting stones in your direction.

It's difficult.

Did you expect them to cheer you on?

Certainly hoping they would.

When critics say you can't do this,

your answer to them is, we've done it.