Elon Musk Caltech Commencement Speech Big English Subtitles HD

I’d like to thank you for leaving crazy

person out of the description so I

thought I try to think what is the most

useful thing that I could what could I

say that could actually helpful or

useful to you in the future and I

thought perhaps tell the story of how I

sort of came to be here how did some of

these things happen and and maybe

there’s some lessons there because I

often find myself wondering how did this

happen

so when I was young I I I didn’t really

know what I was going to do we’re not

when I got older people kept asking me

and and but but then eventually I

thought the idea of inventing things

would be would be really cool and the

reason I thought that was because I read

a quote from Earthsea clock which said

that a sufficiently advanced technology

is indistinguishable from magic

and and that’s really true if you think

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 having

effectively with with the internet a a

group mind of sorts and having access to

all the world’s information instantly

from almost anywhere in the earth this

is this is stuff that that really would

be magic it would be considered magic in

times past 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

so that it actually goes goes beyond

that so I thought well you know if if I

can do some of those things basically if

I can advanced technology then that

that’s like magic and I would be really

cool and the the I also had sort of a

slight existential crisis because I was

trying to figure out what does it all

mean like what’s the purpose of things

and I came to the conclusion that if we

can advance the

there’s the knowledge of the world if we

can do things that expand the scope and

and scale of consciousness then we’re

better able to ask the right questions

and become more enlightened and and

that’s really the only way forward so so

it’s oh I studied physics and business

because I figured in order to do a lot

of these things you need to know how the

universe works and you need to know how

how the economy works and you also need

built bringing a lot of people together

to work with you to create something

because it’s very difficult to do

something as as an individual if it’s if

it’s a significant technology so I

originally came out to to California to

try to figure out how to improve the

energy density of electric vehicles

basically to try to figure out if there

was an advanced capacitor that could

serve as an alternative to batteries and

that was in 95 and that’s also when the

internet started to happen and and that

III thought well I can either pursue

this tech this technology where success

maybe may not be one of the possible

outcomes which is always tricky or

participate in the internet and and be

part of it so I decided to drop out and

obviously you unfortunately we’re past

graduation so I can’t be accused of

recommending that to you and so did some

internet stuff you know there’s been a

few things here and there what one of

which was PayPal and and maybe it’s

helpful to say one of the things that

was important than in the creation of

PayPal was which was kind of how it

started because initially the initial I

thought was with PayPal was to create an

agglomeration of financial services so

if you have one place where all your

financial services needs would be

seamlessly integrated

and and work smoothly and then we have

like a little feature which was to do

email payments and whenever we’d show

that show the system off to someone

would show the hard part which was the

the agglomeration of financial services

which was quite difficult to put

together nobody was interested then we’d

show people email payments which was

actually quite easy and everybody was

interested so this is a I think it’s

important to take feedback from your

environment no it’s it you want to be as

closed-loop as possible and so we focus

on email payments and really try to make

that work and and that’s what really got

things to take off but if we hadn’t if

we hadn’t responded to what people said

then we probably would not have been

successful so it’s important to look for

things like that and and focus on them

when when you when you see them and

you’re correct yeah your your prior

assumptions and then the going from

PayPal I thought well what are some of

the the other problems that are likely

to most affect the future of humanity

it really wasn’t from the perspective of

what what’s the rank or did best way to

to make money which which is which is

okay but it was really what I think is

going to most affect the future humanity

so the I think the biggest terrestrial

problem we’ve got is sustainable energy

but the production and consumption of

energy in a sustainable manner if we

don’t solve that this the century is the

century we’re we’re in deep trouble and

then the other one being the extension

of life beyond Earth to make life

multiplanetary so that’s that that’s

that’s the basis for that the latter is

the basis force for SpaceX and the

former is the basis for Tesla and

SolarCity and when I started SpaceX I

actually initially I thought that well

is there’s no way one could possibly

start a rocket company I wasn’t that

crazy

but but then I thought well what is a

way to increase NASA’s budget that was

actually my initial goal so I thought

well if we can do a low-cost mission to

Mars so we called Mars oasis which would

land seeds with with dehydrate would

receive some dehydrated nutrient gel and

you hydrate them upon landing and then

you’d have this great sort of money shot

of green plants on a red background and

the yeah the public tends to respond to

presidents and superlatives and this

would be the first life on Mars the

farthest that life’s ever traveled as

far as we know and and I thought well

that that would get people really

excited and and and therefore increase

that NASA’s budget so so obviously the

financial outcome from such a mission

would probably be zero so anything

better than that was on the upside and

so I actually went to I went to Russia

three times to look at buying a

refurbished ICBM because that was the

best deal and I can tell you it was very

weird going there in 2000 late 2001 2002

going to the Russian rocket forces and

saying I’d like to buy two of your

biggest rockets but you can keep the

nuke that’s a lot more and that was 10

years ago I guess so

they they I think they they thought I

was crazy but but I did have money so

that was that was okay and after making

several trips to to Russia

I came conclusion that that actually my

initial impression was was wrong about

because my initial thought was well that

that there’s not enough will to explore

it and expand beyond Earth and have a

Mars base and that kind of thing but I

can’t cushion that that that was wrong

in fact there’s plenty of will

particularly in the United States

because the United States is a nation of

explorers of people

here from from other parts of the world

and I think the United States really a

just distillation of the spirit of human

exploration so but if people think it’s

impossible then or it’s gonna completely

break the federal budget then they’re

not going to do it so after my third

trip I said okay well what we really

need to do here is try to solve the

space transport problem and and started

SpaceX and this was against the advice

of pretty much everyone I talked to what

one friend made me sit down and watch a

bunch of videos of rockets blowing up

let me tell you he wasn’t far wrong

it was it was tough going there in the

beginning because I’d never built

anything physical I mean I’d both like

little model rockets as a kid and that

kind of thing but I never had a company

that built in any physical so I figure

out how to how to do all these things

and and bring together the right team of

people and and and so we we did all that

and and then failed three times it was

tough

tough going because thinking about a

rocket is that the passing grade is a

hundred percent and you don’t get to

actually test the rocket in the real

environment that is going to be in so I

think so the best analogy for for rocket

engineering is it’s like if you want to

create a really complicated but a

software you can’t run the software as

an integrated whole and you can’t run it

on the computer it’s intended to run on

but the first time you put it all

together and write it on that computer

it must run with no bugs that’s that’s

basically the essence of it so we missed

the mark there that the first launch I

was picking up bits of rocket near the

launch site was but sad and but we

learned with with each successive flight

and and were able to with eventually

with the fourth flight in 2008 reach

orbit and that was also with the last

bit of money that we had

so they thank goodness that that

happened I think the sayings fourth

time’s the charm so that’s we got the

Falcon one to orbit and then began to

scale that up to two the Falcon nine

which is about an order of magnitude

more thrust it’s around a million pounds

of thrust and we managed to get that to

orbit and then developed Dragon

spacecraft which recently it was able to

dock and return to Earth from the space

station that was

Thanks I was a white-knuckled event so

yeah it’s a huge relief

slow can’t quite believe it actually

happened but there’s a lot more that

must have him beyond this in order for

Humanity to become a spacefaring

civilization ultimately a multi-planet

species and that’s something I think

it’s it’s it’s vitally important and and

I hope that that some of you will

participate in in that either at SpaceX

or at other companies because it’s just

really one of the most important things

for the preservation and extension of

consciousness I mean it’s worth noting

as I’m sure people are aware that the

earth has been around for four billion

years and civilization at least in terms

of having writing has been around for

ten thousand years

and that’s being generous so it’s it’s

really it’s sort of a tenuous existence

that that’s a civilization and and

consciousness as we know it has has been

on earth and I think I’m actually I’m

actually fairly optimistic about the

future of Earth so I don’t want to I

don’t want to sort of people to have the

wrong impression that I think we’re all

about to die I think I think well I

think things will most likely be okay

for a look for a long time on earth but

not not for sure but most likely but but

even if it’s if it’s sort of 99% likely

one a 1% chance it’s still it’s still

worth spending a fair bit of effort to

ensure that we have we’ve backed up the

biosphere in a planetary redundancy if

you will and so I think I think it’s

really really quite important and in

order to that there’s a breakthrough

that needs to occur which is to create a

rapidly and completely reusable

transport system to Mars which which is

one of those things that’s right on the

borderline of of impossible but that

that’s sort of the the thing that we’re

we’re going to try to achieve that with

with with SpaceX

and then on the on the on a Tesla front

the goal with Tesla was really to try to

show that what electric cars can do

because people had the wrong impression

we had to change people’s perception of

an electric vehicle because they used to

think of it as something that was slow

and ugly and had low range can like a

golf cart and so that’s why we created

the Tesla Roadster to show that you can

be fast attractive and and long-range

and it’s amazing how even though you can

show that something works on paper and

you know and the calculations are very

clear until you actually have the

physical object and they can they can

drive it it doesn’t really sink in for

people and so that that I think is is

something worth learning if you’re going

to create a company the first thing you

should try to do is create a working

prototype

you know everything everything looks

great on PowerPoint you can make

anything work on PowerPoint but if you

have a if you have an actual

demonstration article even if it’s in

primitive form that’s much much more

effective for convincing people so so we

made the Tesla Roadster and now we’re

coming out soon with the Model S which

is a four-door sedan because after we

made the Tesla Roadster people said oh

sure sure we always knew you could make

a car like that it’s an expensive car

and it’s low volume and it’s small and

all that but you couldn’t make a real

car like okay fine you got to make that

too so that that’s coming out soon and

yeah so that that’s that that’s that’s

the I think the the word where things

are and and and hopefully that there are

some lessons to be to be drawn there but

I think the overarching point I want to

make is that you guys are the magicians

of the 21st century you know don’t like

anything hold you back imagination is

the limit and go out there and create

some magic thank you

you