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