How Elon Achieves the Impossible - Eric Jorgenson

0:00 How many copies of the Naval Ravikant have you sold now?

0:02 It's tough to know, but I think we're coming up on 2 million.

0:06 How's that feel?

0:07 I'm still the word I like to use is gobsmacked.

0:10 Like I really thought I was doing fan service for a few thousand Naval nerds.

0:14 And the fact that it's like 40 languages and millions

0:17 of people and we've given away a few million more, right?

0:20 Like I don't even really know.

0:21 Oh, so that's how many was sold cuz

0:22 it was available for free through the website.

0:24 Yeah, which is another like 5 million plus.

0:27 Really hard to track.

0:28 I think it's my most suggested book.

0:31 When people say where should I start with personal development?

0:34 Essentialism by Greg McKeown or the Naval Ravikant.

0:37 That's incredible.

0:38 And and that's I mean I had no idea how many people

0:41 were going to resonate with it and recommend it and you know,

0:44 I think the highest compliment a gift the highest

0:46 compliment a book can receive is to be gifted.

0:49 And so much of what we read comes from what's recommended.

0:52 Like how often you see an ad for a book and buy it?

0:54 Like almost never.

0:55 Yeah.

0:55 The bars are just too high.

0:56 Yeah.

0:57 And the subtitle of this new one is a guide to purpose and success.

1:02 About Elon.

1:03 Why pick that?

1:04 Why purpose specifically?

1:06 It was it's emergent.

1:07 I mean when I write these books I start

1:09 with millions and millions of words of source material

1:11 everything they've ever shared publicly and I try to figure

1:13 out like what is the essence of the person?

1:16 What is the thing that is most special about them that anybody can learn from?

1:20 And we all know that Elon is like massively productive.

1:24 I feel like the question everybody's asking is

1:25 kind of like how the hell did this happen?

1:27 Like how does he get so much done?

1:29 But what I didn't realize until way

1:33 into the process is that purpose was the other pillar.

1:35 So I knew I wanted to know like how does he win?

1:38 But I didn't know to the extent that purpose was a big part of why he

1:42 wins and that it's actually he has some

1:44 really incredible answers for what do I do?

1:48 What's important?

1:49 How do I choose what's important?

1:51 Mhm.

1:51 Yeah, I think everyone looks and just assumes tactics, raw tactics.

1:54 Yeah.

1:54 But if there's something bigger driving that.

1:57 Uh Thiel says about Elon,

1:59 he seems to know something that about risk that the rest of us do not.

2:04 What do you think that thing is?

2:06 Yeah, I mean, I think Elon is risk on.

2:09 Like, he takes risks that he shouldn't take.

2:11 He's inherently biased towards risk, but the number of times that that pays off,

2:15 I think, reveals and puts in Thiel's context.

2:18 Like, Thiel is a risk manager, and Elon is a risk taker.

2:21 And when you combine that with purpose,

2:23 the fact that like Elon is on these missions,

2:24 he's trying to accomplish something,

2:26 and he almost doesn't care how much risk it takes.

2:30 He'll just keep taking chances and keep taking chances until he breaks through.

2:34 And he's got this amazing quote,

2:37 um failure is irrelevant unless it's catastrophic.

2:41 Mhm.

2:41 And I think that's a really good way to sort of explain that attitude

2:45 towards risk of like I I just don't care how low my chances are.

2:48 I don't care how long the odds are.

2:50 I'm just going to keep going until I die

2:52 because this is important enough to keep working on.

2:54 And that explains why the purpose piece is

2:57 crucial because that's what would keep you pushing through.

2:59 Yes, there's so many times that he has done things

3:02 that seem insane from like a financial motivation point of view,

3:06 or I'm trying to build a business,

3:07 or it's because he's driven by these massive purposes,

3:11 and he has this risk tolerance.

3:13 And the combination of those things, I think, is what, you know,

3:15 pushes him like these two opportunities,

3:18 Tesla and SpaceX being the biggest, were were on nobody's radar.

3:21 He looked absurd when he undertook them,

3:23 and he put hundreds of millions of dollars on the line to achieve these things

3:27 because he was purpose driven even though

3:29 the odds were long and the risk was high.

3:32 Is he that singular of an individual?

3:35 Obviously, SpaceX impressive, Tesla impressive, Doge kind of cool,

3:40 being on stage, Trump campaign, Twitter X, rah rah.

3:45 You know, how just how impressive is he or how singular is he as an individual?

3:49 I I think he's pretty singular.

3:51 Like, do you not?

3:52 Yeah, I do.

3:53 But a lot of people that are detractors have found a way to say, "Actually,

3:59 it's more to do with leverage and ridiculous risk tolerance

4:02 and just sort of blowing through the boundaries that other people wouldn't.

4:05 It's to do with lack of uh scruples and being

4:11 able to push through ethics that other people might find squirrely.

4:15 Uh where do you see the big competitive advantages for him coming from?

4:20 I mean, I think he's the greatest living entrepreneur.

4:23 Hard stop.

4:25 And maybe the greatest of all time.

4:27 Uh the fact that he did Tesla and SpaceX,

4:31 which are both would both be singular accomplishments and put

4:35 him on like top 10 if not Mount Rushmore.

4:37 The fact that he did them both at the same time is unbelievable.

4:42 That's after PayPal and after Zip2 as a young young guy.

4:46 Like and then just like sort of on the side xAI, Boring Company, Neuralink.

4:52 Like Doge if you want to include that as like a project.

4:56 Um absolutely singular.

4:58 I mean and and lots of game left, right?

5:01 Like he's only 55.

5:03 Not quite.

5:04 Mhm.

5:04 Like he might have 20 more years.

5:06 Like where does this go in 20 more years?

5:08 Um it's unbelievable.

5:10 I mean, the combination of traits that I think he has

5:13 and this is not to like I know that I will be accused

5:16 like through this book and this episode and everything of like lionizing

5:20 and overlooking the bad traits that that you listed and there are plenty.

5:23 Like there's dark sides to every advantage.

5:25 Mhm.

5:25 Um but he's got like the intensity of David Goggins.

5:30 Like just raw Yeah, not not quite the physique.

5:34 Or the skin tone.

5:36 There are many differences between Elon Musk and David Goggins.

5:39 He's got the intensity of David Goggins,

5:41 the sort of unconventional but natural physical brilliance of Richard Feynman.

5:45 And then the like I like Napoleon for strategic brilliance

5:50 and bias to action and just like will to win.

5:53 When you combine those things, absolutely singular.

5:56 Um it would be like if Zuckerberg had also started Google.

6:00 Like I feel like that's kind of the order

6:02 of magnitude thing and they started Google and Facebook in parallel.

6:06 And SpaceX, I think when it goes public, this will be more obvious to people,

6:09 but he'll he will have almost founded, but certainly funded, led,

6:14 and driven two of the top 10 companies in the world,

6:16 if not two of the most important companies in the world,

6:18 in parallel at the same time.

6:20 While doing a bunch of other[ __] And having 14 kids.

6:24 How?

6:25 Singular.

6:26 is Okay, that's that is that is pretty singular.

6:28 After a few million words of looking through his life,

6:33 what it is that he's said and done,

6:35 what is the What are the component parts of his success?

6:38 What are the biggest drivers for how he's been so productive?

6:40 I think there's a few and I think the thing

6:42 that people miss is the combination of those factors.

6:45 So, I think people talk a lot about and it's correct to talk

6:47 about the bias towards or the the intense urgency towards the limiting factor.

6:54 Right?

6:54 He's always looking for the bottleneck and attacking the bottleneck.

6:57 He works with maniacal urgency.

6:59 Those are the words he uses um and instills in people all around him.

7:03 There is also this ability to sort of uh think from first principles.

7:07 It's become this like keyword that he talks about

7:11 and that he has a bunch of great examples for.

7:13 But when you combine all of those things, it's not a 10% or a 50% improvement.

7:18 It is like a two order of magnitude improvement.

7:20 If you are working on the right thing

7:22 with the right vision at the right time immediately,

7:25 all the time, you're not twice as productive,

7:27 you're a thousand times more productive.

7:29 And then you do that for 30 years, 40 years,

7:33 and the the way that sort of head start

7:37 accrues and compounds and the way the leverage builds

7:40 on itself and the way the allies show up

7:41 and the way that capital piles in behind you,

7:43 and the way that wins turn into additional wins,

7:46 and then you he has this sort of mystique

7:48 now that people rightly criticize as a mystique.

7:51 Like it feels unreal, and it feels like people don't critique it.

7:56 Um but he hasn't lost.

7:59 Like and that becomes self-perpetuating.

8:02 That was when he put the uh Tesla bonus structure in place for himself.

8:09 Yeah.

8:10 The trillion-dollar compensation package?

8:12 Yeah.

8:12 Yeah.

8:13 That There's a lot of criticism that was thrown around.

8:15 Like this is ridiculous.

8:16 What an insane amount of money.

8:17 No one person is supposed to do that.

8:19 But his pushback was, "Well,

8:23 look at what I need to do in order to be able to achieve

8:26 that." Can you just explain like why

8:27 that was so ridiculous and what it constituted?

8:30 Yeah.

8:30 I mean, this is the second time he's done it, actually.

8:33 Um so, he had an insane all-or-nothing, like I will make $0 unless I 10x Tesla.

8:40 I don't remember the exact number, but he had he had some number of years

8:42 to like turn Tesla into a massive unprecedented success.

8:45 And everybody said it was absurd,

8:47 but the shareholders were all kind of like, "All right, we'll vote for it.

8:49 What do we have to lose?

8:50 Like if he doesn't do it,

8:51 we don't pay him." And he achieved this impossible bar.

8:55 And then these and then that the whole Delaware court thing happened

8:58 where people were like suing him because trying to like retract that money,

9:02 and it's a whole That's a whole mess that like I'm not

9:04 qualified to tell the story of in great detail, but it worked.

9:09 And he did the impossible,

9:10 and he has been doing the impossible over and over again.

9:12 And so, when he comes and says,

9:13 "I think I can take Tesla from a $1 trillion company to a $10 trillion company,

9:18 and you don't have to pay me anything unless I do,

9:20 but if I do, maybe throw me a trillion dollars." Like who is that hurting?

9:26 Like it's helping all the shareholders who own it.

9:28 They agreed to it.

9:31 It's supposed to be impossible, right?

9:32 Like it's all upside.

9:36 Um but he's made all these impossible leaps before.

9:39 Not always right, but like the way he says he's like,

9:41 "I've lost many battles, but I've never lost a war." He's never lost a company.

9:45 Mhm.

9:45 He's never missed a huge target.

9:46 He misses deadlines all the time.

9:48 Mhm.

9:49 But almost by design.

9:51 Because he's pushing the limit so quickly.

9:53 Yeah, he he just articulated this really well,

9:55 of course, after I finished writing the book.

9:58 Uh, cuz he's always dropping new stuff,

9:59 but he says he chooses deadlines that he thinks

10:02 has a he has a 50% chance of making.

10:05 And he's like, "I don't want to be making 100% of my deadlines.

10:08 That means they're way too conservative.

10:09 That means things will get moved, things will get missed.

10:12 So, I set a deadline that I think we have a 50/50 chance of making,

10:15 and sometimes we'll be wrong.

10:16 Sometimes we'll miss it, but a lot of the time we will make a deadline

10:18 that we didn't think was possible because we chose to be really,

10:22 really aggressive with schedules." You had 69 core Musk methods.

10:26 So, let's go through some of them.

10:27 Funny how that works out.

10:29 If we don't make stuff, there is no stuff.

10:32 He said this on the Joe Rogan podcast.

10:34 It was one of the few things that hit me so hard I was like,

10:38 "This book has to happen, actually." And it was in this era

10:41 where everybody was going like, "Just print money,

10:43 just send it out, just like help us,

10:45 help us." Like looking to sort of the government as Big

10:48 Brother to just take care of us no matter what,

10:50 even though nobody was doing any work during COVID.

10:53 And he's like, "That's not how this works.

10:55 Like if we are not making stuff, if we're not building stuff,

10:58 if we're not providing services, like the whole economy collapses.

11:01 Like that is what holds up the money." Um, and he's a great example,

11:05 I think, of the bias to build and serve and improve things.

11:11 Um, you know, the example like Tesla's

11:13 the only car company trying to drive prices down.

11:17 Have you seen another car company lower their prices in the last 40 years?

11:20 Tesla's prices have gone down.

11:21 Yeah, they're actively lowering the price on the models.

11:24 As they add volume, they lower the price.

11:26 And as they simplify the car, they lower the price.

11:28 Um, but I looked this up, Ford F-150, if you just follow inflation,

11:33 it used to be like five or six grand.

11:35 And if you just follow inflation, it should be like 15,000 today.

11:37 But they're like 40 or 50 grand.

11:39 And you feel like, yes, there's more features and more safety,

11:42 but like three, four times more?

11:45 And I feel like every car company on earth

11:47 is just trying to figure out how to charge more.

11:48 And as Jeff Bezos said, like there's two kinds of companies.

11:50 There's companies that try to charge work hard to charge more,

11:52 and there's companies that work hard to charge less.

11:54 And Amazon is a like we're driving cost down business.

11:57 And Tesla is the same.

11:58 He says like, if we can't figure out if we charge something,

12:01 it's because we can't figure out how to charge less.

12:03 Because he's like, the mission,

12:05 the purpose I want as many people as possible driving an electric car.

12:08 I want as many people as possible driving an autonomous car.

12:10 Like that is what solves the climate change problem.

12:13 That's what makes our cities quieter and cleaner and better.

12:15 Like why not lower the price as we increase

12:17 the volume and make it accessible to more people?

12:19 Fear of failure is the biggest cause of failure.

12:23 Yeah.

12:24 It's not a good one?

12:25 It's[ __] pithy.

12:27 Uh is fear of failure the biggest cause of failure,

12:31 not a lack of skill or understanding or foresight?

12:35 The way I hear that quote is it's because it kills something in the crib.

12:39 Like fear of failure is why people don't even set out.

12:43 Mhm.

12:44 Yeah, the far more people have not attempted

12:47 anything than have attempted something and failed at it.

12:50 can't fail due to skill or fail due to stamina if you never even try.

12:54 Or start it.

12:55 Yeah.

12:55 And any of you just think of like how many things

12:57 you've any of us have dreamed of doing but never tried.

13:00 Like it's 99 to 1.

13:02 Well, lots of things that you dream of, you probably shouldn't try.

13:06 So, fear of I guess the interesting small

13:12 print here is it's not necessarily fear of failure,

13:14 it's fear of that is not worth my time.

13:17 I shouldn't be spending my time on that thing.

13:19 Not that I could do it and it wouldn't work,

13:21 but if I did it, it wouldn't be worth it.

13:24 I think that's It's very optimistic and enlightened maybe view of why people

13:28 rationalize not doing things that they that they do deeply want to do.

13:32 Presumably, Elon must have lots of dreams that he hasn't pursued.

13:36 Presumably, unless he unless he's also able to[ __] program his own dreams.

13:40 It's like, "Oh, that would be cool.

13:41 That would be cool." I mean, he's like the most leveraged man on Earth.

13:45 And I feel like he does indulge these random I mean,

13:47 the Boring Company was kind of a like sitting in traffic being like,

13:50 "Fuck this." And he just picked up the phone and picked up the phone,

13:53 called one of his engineers, he's like, "Start making a hole.

13:56 Start researching uh drilling machines.

13:58 I'm going to call you back in 2 hours.

14:00 By the way, that was at 2:00 a.m.

14:01 Okay, bye." Like That was when he did it?

14:04 Yeah.

14:04 At 2:00 a.m.

14:05 Yeah.

14:06 Rang one of his engineers and said It's

14:08 the guy who's still running the Boring Company today.

14:10 He's like, "Do it.

14:11 I'll call you back." And then the guy comes back and says like,

14:13 "All right, I found this and this about the drilling machines.

14:15 I think they could be improved in this and this way."

14:17 And then he goes to Tesla Tesla headquarters and he's like,

14:19 "We're going to start digging a hole

14:20 in the parking lot." And they're like, "Cool.

14:22 We think we can get permits and do it in 2 weeks." And he's like, "Nope.

14:26 Move all the cars.

14:28 Start right now.

14:28 I want to see a hole in the parking lot at midnight.

14:31 It's 6:00 p.m.

14:31 Go." And like It it is that level of bias to action.

14:36 Like, I think maniacal urgency,

14:38 the words don't really sink in until you hear story after story after story

14:42 of him doing something that most people take 2 weeks to do in 4 hours.

14:45 What are the most maniacal agency stories about Elon?

14:48 I mean, a small one that I think drills it home is like,

14:52 he was interviewing for his head of machining at a SpaceX uh at a SpaceX site.

14:57 And it was like a 20-minute interview.

14:59 He's just like, "Tell me about your work.

15:00 Tell me about your background.

15:02 All right, you're qualified.

15:04 Come to an agreement.

15:05 Somebody's standing behind him is like, "Here's a job offer.

15:07 Fill in the blanks.

15:08 Sign it.

15:08 Sign it.

15:09 Go to work." Like, 6:00 p.m.

15:11 on Saturday.

15:13 Like, time just doesn't exist.

15:14 It's irrelevant.

15:15 It is like the whatever is the most important thing to get done in this hour,

15:19 get it done immediately and keep going.

15:21 Like, there is no work-life separation.

15:24 There is no like do it later.

15:26 There is like if it is the most important thing to do,

15:29 do it immediately, even if it's irrelevant.

15:31 Like, there's some There's stories in the Isaacson

15:34 biography of him ordering You call them like surges,

15:37 even when they don't need to be done.

15:38 He just He loves urgency for urgency's sake.

15:42 Like, one of these pushes of like stack the Starship or build that part.

15:46 And someone says like,

15:46 "We don't This part is not the bottleneck." He's like, "I don't care.

15:49 I don't feel enough urgency for you.

15:51 Like, I'm giving you a deadline.

15:52 I don't care that it's arbitrary.

15:53 Like, I want you to feel the kind of urgency that I feel." Hard stop.

15:58 Like, that's how we work.

16:00 It's basically speed training like you'd give to an athlete,

16:02 but being done out of season.

16:04 Yeah, and all the time.

16:06 Um and and this is not always there are times when this has saved,

16:11 you know, months or years or weeks or millions of dollars,

16:14 but there's also times when it's like burned people out

16:16 and pissed them off and caused good people to quit.

16:18 I have to imagine that the blast radius of this work rate is pretty huge.

16:22 That the the churn of people working for him is is pretty insane.

16:26 For sure.

16:26 There are some people who are who are very long-tenured.

16:31 Um but he also I mean, I think that's part of the strategy.

16:33 Like, churning through relatively young,

16:36 brilliant engineers, no work-life balance.

16:38 This is This is your This is your time in the wild

16:41 of like you're going to be here all the time,

16:44 here at the drop of a hat.

16:46 Um but he's been doing this forever.

16:47 He did this PayPal.

16:49 He decided would uh when it was before they merged,

16:52 but he was going to launch x.com on Thanksgiving weekend.

16:57 Like, and people were like, "That doesn't make any sense.

16:59 Nobody's going to be paying attention.

17:00 Everybody's with their families." He's like, "Don't care.

17:02 We're launching it on Sunday on Thanksgiving.

17:03 I want everybody in here all the time." People are like,

17:07 "Can I go see my family?" "Nope." You're not dedicated if you're

17:10 not in here working 20 hours a day trying to make this deadline.

17:15 It is It is urgency for urgency's sake all the time on everything.

17:20 And the people This goes back to purpose is like only you only get that out

17:24 of people if you have this incredible mission

17:26 that people feel like they're on, that they're like, "Yes, I want to show up.

17:29 I want you to put the pedal down.

17:31 I want to be used for all I'm worth.

17:33 I want to see what I'm capable of.

17:34 I want to work as hard as I can

17:35 with other brilliant people on this incredibly powerful mission.

17:38 Then I can't do it for 40 years, but I can do it for two or four,

17:42 10." Does Elon do any kind of self-care, morning routine, meditation, therapy?

17:50 Not that there's much evidence of, which I think is interesting.

17:53 Like, the most productive man on Earth barely sleeps,

17:58 like lives on his private jet, works maniacally all the time.

18:01 Uh No No discernible good habits from what I can tell.

18:06 Like, not abstaining, like eats donuts,

18:12 like not a lot of meditation, not a lot of introspection.

18:17 Um just like gets up, grabs his phone,

18:19 draws a knife, and like goes to war every single day.

18:21 Like, that is just Just shivs someone.

18:23 Like, that is the I got a My friend

18:26 Brent Beshore describes like operating business as a knife fight.

18:29 And it's like an operator who's in it, like you wake up,

18:31 you have a knife off the bedstand, and like you go to work.

18:34 And I That's actually probably how it feels with Elon.

18:36 You ask him his daily routine, he's like, "I wake up,

18:38 I check my phone, I look for an emergency.

18:40 There's always an emergency.

18:41 Um And sometimes if there's not, he creates one." How so?

18:46 Uh this is also like from the Isaacson book.

18:47 He's like, "There is a lot of times when there's not objectively an emergency,

18:53 but there is sufficient cause to be like, 'We can increase the pace.

18:56 We can increase the pace.' Like,

18:57 let's figure out how to create a situation that maybe gets things moving faster,

19:02 maybe doesn't, but it is a bias for urgency all the time." Hm.

19:07 But this And I'm not advocating this.

19:10 Like, I don't live this way.

19:12 Even like you you can see the recipe and not want to cook the dish.

19:17 Um but the the takeaway that I think that is

19:20 useful and generalizable for everybody is very David Goggins.

19:22 It's like you're capable of a lot more than you think.

19:25 And the people who are like massively

19:27 orders of magnitude more productive are working

19:31 at a pace and an intensity that is like very foreign to most people.

19:37 Um and I think you're a good example of this.

19:38 Like, I don't think people appreciate how hard

19:40 you work to like do the things that you

19:42 do and cover the amount of ground that you have to do 800 episodes in 5 years.

19:46 Like, you're an intense[ __] Like, you cover a lot of ground.

19:51 Um you work really hard to do it.

19:53 It's um but everybody is capable of 10% more, 50% more.

19:58 Just like give the throttle a push and see what breaks.

20:01 Might not be anything.

20:02 So, given the lack of self-care, does he care about his subjective experience?

20:08 The happiness, fulfillment, joy, things?

20:14 It does um I don't think that's what he's optimizing for.

20:17 Like, I don't think he's a particularly happy person.

20:20 I don't think he he even doesn't really seem

20:22 to take joy or pride in his past accomplishments.

20:26 He's just always looking forward.

20:28 Um and it's I mean, I feel like it's

20:30 a great gift to us and a burden to him, right?

20:32 Like, I the people around him talk about

20:34 like wishing that he would celebrate his accomplishments,

20:37 wishing he would take a break, wishing he would be happier.

20:39 Um but he's just on to the next, on to the next.

20:42 And like I think when you have a glimpse into his childhood,

20:45 that makes a little more sense.

20:47 Um you Also, I mean, his as David Sender says, like,

20:53 the story of the father is embedded in the story of the son.

20:55 Um his dad was certainly abusive.

21:01 Like, there's verbally abusive.

21:03 Imagine like standing there as an 8-year-old boy

21:06 for hours while your dad like screams in your face,

21:09 drill sergeant calls you worthless, calls you useless, calls you stupid.

21:12 Um when Elon was young he got absolute[ __] kicked out of him,

21:16 like gang stomped, not like lost a fight with one guy.

21:21 Hospitalized for a while.

21:23 His brother said he was like so swollen he was unrecognizable.

21:27 And his dad sided with the bullies.

21:29 And like called him stupid for picking a fight that he would lose.

21:31 Like what does that do?

21:34 Like that creates this furnace in you that like will never stop.

21:40 Um and so I think there's there's a lot of he's not comfortable with peace.

21:44 Like he likes he is he is always at war and he's

21:47 looking for the next war and that just like drives him always.

21:51 Um and you know that is one part.

21:54 Like you know, always the debate between clean fuel and dirty fuel,

21:57 like which is better.

21:58 You know, if you're if you're like mean to yourself internally you're like

22:01 such a piece of[ __] I got to I got to get more done.

22:03 I can do more.

22:03 I can accomplish more.

22:04 I can be better.

22:05 Versus like I'm building this great thing and I can do it and this is going

22:08 to be awesome and people are going to love

22:09 it or I'm really proud of what I've done.

22:11 I'm achieving this powerful mission and Elon does both.

22:14 Like he burns clean fuel and dirty fuel it seems.

22:17 He's achieving these these missions that are important to humanity that so

22:20 many people dream of that everybody thought was impossible and he's

22:22 got this incredible string of successes but he also has

22:25 this this like internal angst I think that that seems to drive him.

22:32 Definitely a tolerance for pain.

22:34 It almost seems like he deliberately creates suffering for himself.

22:37 He did the the tiny home thing.

22:40 He sold all of his stuff at one point.

22:42 Thinks may still have no possessions basically and sleeps on the factory floor.

22:47 Yes.

22:48 Which I mean the the possessions thing was part like

22:50 he's like I'm not I'm not like a bad billionaire.

22:53 Like I'm a billionaire cuz I built valuable companies.

22:55 Like I'll sell all my stuff.

22:56 I don't care.

22:57 I don't need fancy things.

22:59 Cuz people were like dragging him.

23:00 He's like I want I want you to understand

23:01 that like I'm in it for the right reasons.

23:03 Um but I'm glad you asked about sleep.

23:08 Okay.

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23:43 No, not my heart, dude.

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24:20 That was really great.

24:21 I really am a huge fan of Eight Sleep.

24:23 I am too.

24:24 There's no one that's used it that doesn't get completely[ __] insane about it.

24:27 Did Matteo put you up to that?

24:29 Cuz they've just got listed for 1.5 bill on the stock exchange.

24:33 Yeah.

24:32 I don't know them at all.

24:33 I just actually love Eight Sleep and I wanted it to like

24:36 I thought it would be really funny to make you do it.

24:37 What?

24:37 You've saved us from having to do the ad read, eh?

24:40 Isn't that nice?

24:40 That's one fewer ad read I need to do this week.

24:42 like you've been working really hard.

24:43 I just wanted to pick up a little bit of the slack.

24:45 I feel like the guests just show up and you have to do everything.

24:48 That's true.

24:49 You need to pay for yourself now.

24:50 That's it.

24:50 Oh, this isn't cheap to put on, you know?

24:53 You need to pay for yourself.

24:54 And I have an authentic loving relationship

24:56 with my Eight Sleep and Elon needs one because Well,

25:00 he doesn't have any possessions, so it's going to be hard.

25:01 Oh, that is That is true.

25:03 if they could fit it to the factory floor.

25:06 Just[ __] laying EightSleep on the ground.

25:08 Be like, "Ah, this sort of works, I guess." Yeah,

25:11 he was he was sleeping What's that story?

25:13 It's from the Isaacson book, but I think it's pretty telling.

25:15 What's that story about when he needed to do

25:18 an investor meeting and the COO came in and found

25:23 him like catatonic under his under his desk

25:26 and basically had to like force him to get up.

25:28 Yeah, he was he was doing an earnings call

25:30 and um I do I think this is like 2018.

25:34 This is like the end of a really long stretch of just like miserable stuff and I

25:38 think he was in a really tough spot psychologically

25:40 and he was just like lying on the floor.

25:42 Um and yeah, this guy to his credit like he's like

25:47 has experience with psychological illnesses in his family and challenges and so

25:53 he kind of knew what to do and he like went

25:54 and laid on the floor next to him and was like,

25:57 "How you doing, buddy?" Dude, just went got under the desk.

26:00 Yeah, like laid down next to him and was like, "How you doing?

26:03 Like I know it's hard.

26:05 Going to take a couple more minutes and we got to get up and we got to do

26:08 this and do our best and um I it's hard

26:12 like I think I think he puts himself through a lot.

26:14 Like Elon burns the boats and challenges himself and But he does have limits.

26:21 Yeah, I mean I if you're lying under your desk catatonic, that's a limit.

26:24 Yeah, I dude, he uh in the 2008 crisis,

26:28 he was Talulah Riley talks about him like having night terrors.

26:30 He's like sitting up all night,

26:33 um he's throwing up, he's having like screaming nightmares.

26:37 Um but that goes back to like I like I don't want to live that experience, hm,

26:42 but it gives you a sense of how far people

26:46 can push themselves and how far I don't I look,

26:48 the way that I see uh Elon is not too dissimilar

26:52 to the way that I see Brian Johnson and also David Goggins,

26:55 which is there are people who will go to the 99.999% of anything and everything.

27:02 Yeah.

27:03 And it's useful to have them around because they teach you all

27:06 of the lessons that you learn by going to the absolute edge,

27:09 but that doesn't mean that you should try

27:10 and follow what it is that they're doing.

27:12 It doesn't mean that it's a good strategy for anybody else to do,

27:15 but if you're going to try and say that Brian Johnson going basically being like

27:20 a scout in a He's he's essentially the same thing as a scout in an army.

27:25 He goes up to this crazy high ridge and it's all

27:28 treacherous and maybe he's going to fall and oh my god.

27:31 And then he finds out some[ __] about what's

27:33 over there and then comes back and tells us all.

27:36 I'm like I don't want to be a scout and I don't want an army filled with scouts,

27:39 but it's[ __] useful to have a few.

27:41 Yeah.

27:42 Well, in particular like this scout who is like

27:44 building so many things that benefit so many people.

27:47 And I think I mean all this comes

27:49 back to like Elon is being authentically himself.

27:51 Mhm.

27:52 Like who he is is this like insanely driven technical

27:56 genius boy who is infused with sci-fi and military history

28:01 like dreaming of making an impact on the world um

28:05 in part because of this like traumatic childhood he had

28:07 and in part because of like it's this grand

28:09 dream and grand adventure and um I don't think it's

28:12 an an insult to say he's like a little bit

28:14 of a hero complex of like I can I can do this.

28:17 I can make a difference.

28:18 I can make this huge impact on the world and thank god he did, right?

28:22 Like this type of person in the past would just become like a conqueror.

28:26 Mhm.

28:26 But like thanks to the miracle of modern capitalism and technology,

28:30 he's building[ __] that benefit all of us

28:32 and we're going to have this huge evol-

28:34 evolutionary leap hopefully as we go to another

28:36 planet and we get to live through it.

28:38 How[ __] awesome is that?

28:39 Do not separate yourself from the pain of your decisions.

28:43 Mhm.

28:43 Yeah, th- this one is uh comes from like

28:47 the manufacturing process and the structure of the organization,

28:49 but I think it's a very generalizable rule.

28:52 Um it this version is like you want the designers

28:55 and the engineers and the manufacturers like they all work

28:58 in the plant so they can see the downstream effects

29:01 of the decisions that they make in the design process.

29:03 Um it's very it's very easy to try

29:06 to break your feedback loop and not sense when

29:10 you're doing something harmful or even not missing

29:12 an opportunity to do something great that could benefit you.

29:17 I think that uh the idea of not insulating yourself

29:23 from the outcomes of your decisions uh is probably a good idea.

29:25 I mean, there has to be sometimes where he

29:27 just gets other people to do stuff on his behalf,

29:29 but I know what's that you have to locate you

29:32 have to physically move yourself to wherever the problem is immediately.

29:35 Yes.

29:35 Basically the same rule.

29:36 Yeah.

29:37 He and in the on the production line it's like walk to the red.

29:39 There's a green or red everywhere on the production

29:42 line and it's like if something is red, there's a problem, go there immediately.

29:45 Um there's there's a couple versions of it.

29:47 Physically move yourself immediately where the product He's You

29:50 should see his like if you track his private jet,

29:52 it's like all over the world constantly on the move.

29:56 Um and so it's not just like locally

29:58 move yourself to wherever the problem is immediately,

30:00 call the people, get them in the room, go there.

30:03 Like it's an underrated thing to be physically where the problem is.

30:07 And whatever the most important this goes back to the kind of like

30:09 the original multiplying things of like whatever

30:11 the most important thing to do is, whatever the limiting factor is,

30:15 attack it immediately in the most effective way possible,

30:18 which is usually going physically to where the problem is and seeing it

30:21 for yourself directly or pulling in all the people that have a hand in it.

30:25 Do things in parallel.

30:27 Yeah, George and I were talking about

30:28 this this morning cuz I think there's like conventionally

30:31 good wisdom that is focus and this was one of the things I was surprised by.

30:37 Um Warren Buffett's the perfect quote to like

30:40 explain this concept at a high level,

30:41 which is like you can't get a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.

30:46 Elon's tried.

30:50 So, you you just there are some

30:52 things that there's an incompressible amount of time.

30:54 And if you put those in sequence,

30:56 now all of a sudden your timeline is this long,

30:58 but if you can plant all the seeds

31:00 at the same time and they're growing in parallel,

31:03 all of a sudden your timeline is shrunk by a third.

31:06 And I was like, at the grandest scale,

31:08 it's kind of like most normal people would start an electric car company,

31:12 grow it, make it successful, and then start their space company.

31:15 And he was like, "Nah, I think I can do both at once.

31:19 We just give it a try.

31:20 Um because we might be able to move

31:22 the total timeline of success up dramatically.

31:26 And it's harder and it's riskier, but it also generates returns sooner.

31:31 Um and I think there's only some problems that are like this is

31:34 the right approach for." And he talked about in PayPal, he was like,

31:36 "We were developing the product and trying to do all these integrations

31:39 and trying to get um like regulatory coverage." And he was like,

31:42 "We did all of them all at once and it was[ __] chaos,

31:45 but we launched in a year instead of the three

31:48 years that would have been conventional wisdom of like,

31:49 "It doesn't make sense to invest in the product until we have the permission

31:52 and we don't have the integrations until

31:53 we have the product." He was like, "Nope.

31:55 Do it all at once.

31:57 Launch immediately." Wild.

32:00 Wild.

32:01 Uh we should not be afraid of doing something important

32:04 simply because some amount of tragedy is likely to occur.

32:07 This is more of that bias for action, this sort of disregard of fear.

32:11 And even even further than that, it's it's a I think that's

32:15 comes from his study of history in in a lot of ways.

32:17 He says, I think the extended version of that quote is like,

32:20 "If we did If you If you never take a risk,

32:24 like the the United States wouldn't exist.

32:26 Like every great adventure involves risk and people

32:29 will die and we have to accept that.

32:31 We are The pendulum has swung too far towards like,

32:35 'Oh my god, nobody can ever be harmed in any way.

32:37 Nobody is allowed to risk their life.

32:39 Nobody's allowed to take experimental treatments.

32:41 He's like, we can't make progress like this.

32:43 You know, colonizing Mars is a grand adventure.

32:46 It involves risk.

32:47 Like, not everything is going to go right.

32:49 But, especially if people choose to take those risks

32:54 or risk their life to accomplish this great feat for humankind,

32:58 there's something inherent about humans sort of feeling

33:01 fulfilled sacrificing themselves to further humanity as a whole.

33:04 And I think to me that quote is like, yeah, damn the torpedoes.

33:09 Uh like, let's do it.

33:11 What do you think's the most misleading narrative about Elon's success?

33:16 It depends which camp you're kind of coming from.

33:18 I think there are die hard fanboys that have

33:20 just like total blindfold to the the negatives.

33:24 Um and I think there's a lot of people,

33:25 especially after his sort of political chapter,

33:28 that have just a whole bunch of ideas

33:30 that are factually incorrect that they believe as deep truths.

33:33 Um I mean, like anybody who is I was

33:37 one of the most famous people on Earth, right?

33:38 Like, and past a certain level of fame,

33:41 I think there's like a derangement syndrome about everybody.

33:43 Mhm.

33:44 Um so, I think it's actually kind of hard to find

33:46 a neutral or a like well-rounded set of opinions on him.

33:51 That's a good point.

33:52 I I was thinking about Elon in comparison with Mark Zuckerberg.

33:55 And um sure, there's some people that don't like Mark.

33:59 And people of Kawaii aren't massive fans of him buying

34:03 up a ton of land and there's other bits and pieces.

34:06 But, I don't think people have like insane

34:09 fervor against him or insane fervor for him.

34:13 Yeah.

34:13 Uh but, Elon seems to be much more barbell-y, right?

34:16 If you were to draw a graph, it's just a pair of boobs Uh whereas,

34:20 you know, most most people are kind of a bell curve.

34:22 Whereas, Elon's managed to completely clear the middle.

34:25 Yeah.

34:25 I don't think that used to be true.

34:26 Like, is that is that Do you think

34:27 that's a byproduct of him having a political chapter?

34:30 Uh yeah, I guess so.

34:32 And then that creates the foundation and on top of that is wealth,

34:38 huge amounts of wealth, this potential IPO thing.

34:41 Yeah.

34:41 Um He's spiky.

34:42 I mean, he's he is like he's a an unrefined

34:46 sense of humor that he like puts out there.

34:49 What do you if he's so concerned about the bias to action,

34:53 working on the biggest problem, the bottlenecks, etc.

34:56 Why have such a public presence?

34:59 Like why tweet a lot?

35:01 I mean, yeah, you own the platform or whatever,

35:02 but podcasts and interviews and stuff like that.

35:08 If you're the I compare him with someone like James Dyson, right?

35:12 Who kind of from some areas of his skill set is not massively different.

35:16 Yeah.

35:17 Sam Harris told me about when he sat down with James Dyson.

35:19 James Dyson's done thousand, maybe tens of thousands of prototypes.

35:22 He said he was looking at James Dyson's hands.

35:24 Said James Dyson's hands were like Alex Honnold's hands,

35:27 these gnarled you you could the the sinewy,

35:31 tough, thick things, these[ __] chodes on the end of his the end of his arms.

35:35 And um I don't know.

35:37 The that that element, for instance,

35:41 what's the role that that level of exposure is playing,

35:44 I think is an interesting one.

35:46 Yeah, he's had a he's had sort of a taste for that for a long time, I think.

35:50 Um he's like dated actresses and kind of living in LA.

35:55 Um but there's an element to which like having

35:57 that personal presence and talking about what you're doing.

36:00 Like he needs to rally support.

36:02 Like you need a great team, you need investors, you need popular support.

36:08 Like think about how hard it was to convince people

36:11 that electric cars were not just not stupid, but[ __] awesome.

36:15 Mhm.

36:16 Like that took a lot of repetition of that message.

36:19 you when you roll back the clock that the Prius

36:22 was like the eminent preeminent[ __] electric car.

36:26 It was a just a hybrid.

36:27 Like the real electric cars were even worse.

36:28 Mhm.

36:29 Yeah, it was it was really I think it's difficult now

36:32 to understand how stupid and insane it seemed when he started Tesla.

36:37 And the same thing with the rocket.

36:38 Like, there were no space startups.

36:39 Like, space economy was not a thing.

36:42 And NASA had been on this like slow decline for like 50 years.

36:45 We were paying Russia to take our astronauts up to the space station.

36:47 Like, these were by no means these were not just not obvious,

36:51 but like very consensus insane things to do.

36:57 Mhm.

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37:55 Talk to me about SpaceX.

37:56 What's the What do most people not understand about that that project to where

38:01 how he sort of got it to where it is in his plans?

38:04 Yeah.

38:04 I mean, SpaceX, I think most people don't

38:06 realize started as like a pure philanthropy project.

38:10 He was looking at the NASA website saying, "When are we going to go to Mars?

38:14 We went to the moon 50 years ago.

38:16 Why haven't we been back and when are we going to go to Mars?

38:17 Surely there's a plan." And there was no plan.

38:20 And he was coming off of his first exit with PayPal.

38:22 Um so he had $200 million or something in the bank and he's like,

38:27 "I'll just spend $100 million to like see if

38:29 I can increase NASA's budget." It was pure philanthropy.

38:31 He's like, "I'm going to buy a rocket.

38:33 I'm going to make a little greenhouse.

38:34 I'm going to ship it to Mars and I'm going to get

38:36 a photo of a little baby plant on the red planet.

38:40 It'll be the first life on another planet

38:41 and that'll catalyze this movement and inspire people this popular

38:45 That was the That was the origin story.

38:47 Yeah, it was called Mars Oasis.

38:48 That was the thing.

38:49 And to do this he like went around trying to buy a rocket.

38:52 He's like, "Why are these rockets so[ __] expensive?" He

38:54 went to Russia and tried to buy an intercontinental ICBM.

38:59 And they laughed at him and spit on him

39:01 and like[ __] him around and he got pissed.

39:03 And so he's like, "Maybe the problem is that space launch costs are so high.

39:09 How Why are rockets so expensive?

39:11 Can't they be done better?" And so he gathered

39:13 a bunch of rocket engineers who had experience at his house.

39:15 I think this is a interesting part of the story.

39:17 He's like did a series of like Saturday sessions of like first principles,

39:23 let's look at all the historical things,

39:25 but let's also say like how good could good be with all the modern technology,

39:28 modern design, like is there a design that we can come up with that would

39:31 be a massive improvement in space launch costs such that this would be possible.

39:35 And he realized like the market for space launch that was the bottleneck.

39:40 That was the real problem that like he couldn't get stuff

39:42 off the planet cheap enough because all we had was space shuttle,

39:45 which is this like massive bloated government program.

39:48 There's not particularly capital efficient.

39:50 They weren't iterating.

39:50 They weren't doing volume.

39:52 Um they were away overspending on basic parts

39:55 because they were all like aerospace grade or whatever.

39:58 And so as soon as the PayPal thing sold he's like, "All right.

40:01 I'm going to go I'm going to hire some rocket engineers and like let's see if

40:04 we can do this." Wasn't the original like

40:06 the Apollo 11 blueprints available just free online?

40:12 Wasn't that part of it that you were able to get rocket blueprints?

40:15 You could just download them, I think.

40:17 Or maybe he made his available for free.

40:19 Maybe.

40:19 I mean, he's like when you He's not a rocket scientist.

40:22 So, he's like, "How did you learn how to do this?" And he's like,

40:25 "I just read books and I talked to people.

40:26 I read all the textbooks on rocket science that I could find.

40:28 I borrowed them, and I started talking to experts." And his his rocket

40:32 propulsion engineer was a guy who was

40:33 like the the foremost like rocket hobbyist.

40:36 He had built the single largest like rocket engine

40:39 as just a dude in his garage, Tom Mueller.

40:41 And that was his propulsion engineer.

40:45 Yeah.

40:44 He he[ __] hired Uh okay, and then what about now?

40:48 Like what obviously the cost has come down by some insane factor.

40:52 I know that was orders of magnitude,

40:54 which is is driven Starlink and is going to drain drive even

40:57 more um and now he's talking about like building a Dyson sphere,

41:03 which is like solar but in space so we can capture

41:05 more energy than even hits the the Earth from the Sun.

41:09 And then hasn't he been talking about putting compute in space as well?

41:13 Yeah.

41:13 Yeah, he's like big flat sheets that are

41:14 like solar panels with compute and then like Oh, it's not insane with lasers.

41:19 Yeah.

41:19 Oh, okay.

41:19 I didn't realize that the Dyson sphere would power the compute.

41:24 Yeah, it's just like a bunch of like solar panels with computer chips

41:27 on the back that like can communicate

41:29 with each other floating all around in space.

41:31 Um which is insane and wild.

41:34 But then that's not the mission.

41:35 Like that is a that is the cargo that makes

41:39 Starship economic to build hundreds or thousands of them.

41:43 But the actual mission is to make life multi-planetary.

41:46 And this goes back to like zoomed all the way out his altruistic,

41:52 philanthropic things.

41:52 He's like, "Look, we should all agree that we do not want

41:58 the only form of life that we know in the universe to die.

42:03 Like we are the only conscious beings we know.

42:05 Earth is the only planet with life that we know of.

42:10 Can't we all agree that like it would be

42:11 great to have life move just just next door?

42:14 Just get some on Mars.

42:15 Just get a couple, you know, maybe a million people.

42:18 Get some plants.

42:19 Like, if a comet hits Earth or we

42:22 blow ourselves up or there's a catastrophic pandemic,

42:24 like, we've got another horse in the race.

42:27 Like, whether you're an environmentalist or a humanist or anything, like,

42:32 this is a thing that we should universally agree is good.

42:34 Um, and why not go for it?

42:37 Like, he's a this is the window that is

42:39 for the first time in not just human history,

42:42 but Earth's history, we have the ability to make life redundant,

42:47 to get it to another planet.

42:48 Um, and isn't that like one of the grandest missions that we can conceive of?

42:52 And he puts it on this evolutionary time scale, right?

42:54 So, like, there was suddenly single-celled life, then multi-celled life.

42:59 And then there was uh fish, and then the fish came on land,

43:02 and then they split into like plants and animals, um, different forms of life.

43:07 And going from Earth to our first new planet is this massive step

43:12 function in basically how successful life is

43:15 and its resilience to whatever comes next.

43:21 How successful do you think SpaceX is going to be long-term?

43:24 Unbelievably.

43:25 They have an essentially a monopoly on the toll booth off the planet.

43:30 And like, They're They're 90 if not 95% go.

43:35 Do not go to the moon.

43:36 Give me $200.

43:38 They could have been the great one of the greatest

43:39 companies on Earth even if they never built Starship.

43:41 Even if they just like cash flowed off of Falcon

43:44 9 and they were the only reusable rocket company.

43:47 They would have been an unbelievably successful company,

43:49 but they are reinvesting into Starship,

43:52 um, trying to build compute and a and um energy in space.

43:56 They're trying to build a I think he's been talking now about like a mass driver

43:59 on the moon that'll build these like von

44:01 Neumann probes and all kinds of other crazy stuff.

44:04 But if you the historical analogy that he talks about

44:06 is like this is when the new world was discovered.

44:08 Like, we all existed around the Mediterranean

44:11 for like most of Western human history.

44:13 Mhm.

44:14 And then all of a sudden Columbus discovered the new world and it's like,

44:16 all right, we need new shipping technology.

44:18 We have a taste for all of the finer things of this new world.

44:22 So many people want to pay for passage.

44:23 It's like this economic bonanza.

44:25 And just zoom all the way out again and like,

44:28 where are most of the raw materials in the solar system?

44:32 Let alone the galaxy.

44:33 Not on Earth.

44:34 We have this bias to the only raw

44:36 materials that matter are like wood and farmland.

44:40 But, there are raw materials,

44:42 atomic raw materials on every other world and in the asteroid

44:45 belt and just like floating around in space.

44:47 Um, and getting the technology, the Starship,

44:51 to go access them is going to be an unbelievable boon for humanity.

44:55 But, it does take that like leap of imagination to get there.

44:57 Mhm.

44:58 What about Tesla?

45:00 Tesla is I think going through like these startups are stacked S curves, right?

45:05 And so, electric cars was one very fundamental innov- innovation.

45:09 Um, autonomy is a whole 'nother one.

45:11 And so, a big question mark is this leap to autonomy.

45:15 And then he's already looking around this corner to do humanoid robots.

45:18 And That's going into Tesla?

45:20 Yeah, humanoid robots are in Tesla.

45:22 He's he's just shut down um the Model X and the Model

45:27 S production lines and switched them over to build humanoid robots.

45:31 So, like, that is coming quickly.

45:33 Um, he's going from he starting to build robo

45:36 taxis that are like fully autonomous, no steering wheel.

45:40 Um, so thinking that the autonomy kind of curve is there.

45:43 And he talks about this being one of the biggest markets of all time.

45:45 And that Optimus is even bigger.

45:47 He's also now, I think this is underrated because it's a not a consumer product,

45:52 but he's building they are building an unbelievable amount of batteries, um,

45:56 which is powering the kind of like solar to battery grid conversion, uh,

46:01 which is going to speed up energy

46:03 that drives all the compute for the AI revolution.

46:06 Um and then there's a whole 'nother

46:09 kind of They They are backwards vertically integrated.

46:11 Like they're producing They just built a new lithium refinery.

46:15 And so they're like, "We We We are supply constrained in many cases." And so

46:18 they're like working backwards um further and further into their supply chain.

46:22 literally to the point where they're looking to go

46:24 to new planets so that they can get more raw materials.

46:26 Yeah, he has said did say he thinks Tesla's going to have a factory on the moon,

46:29 which really I don't know.

46:30 I don't know if these companies all end

46:31 up kind of smash together eventually or what,

46:33 but um he did X is now owned by XAI, which is now owned by SpaceX.

46:37 So, there's some sort of congealing.

46:39 Mhm.

46:40 But I don't know if Tesla and and SpaceX will will merge at some point.

46:43 What about these humanoid robots?

46:46 I mean, I don't know.

46:49 It's either going to be one of the biggest markets of all time

46:52 that totally like breaks the economy and ushers in this crazy era of abundance.

46:57 Um but I I think it'll be slow adoption just cuz people are slow

47:01 to adopt things that are in particular when they're like in the uncanny valley.

47:04 Mhm.

47:05 So, commercial uses,

47:07 I think they'll be like a ton of them in factories and stuff like that.

47:10 But also some of the robotics engineers coming and say like,

47:12 "Humanoid is sure, it's generalizable, but like there's almost always a better,

47:16 more specific form function robot to use for a use case." Um Right.

47:21 Yeah, why would we constrain this general

47:23 purpose robot to have our like dimensions Mhm.

47:28 when you could get one that cracks eggs

47:30 and one that cleans the dishes and one that etc.

47:33 Yeah, you might just need like two arms

47:34 on a rail in your kitchen and that's your kitchen robot.

47:35 Yeah, you might just need like two arms

47:36 on your washer and that's your laundry robot.

47:38 And like you might not actually want one that can

47:40 like walk around your house and feel like a person.

47:43 Have you seen What was the super widely publicized one

47:47 that kind of had a knitted jumper and a knitted face?

47:50 I think that was Optimus.

47:51 No, it wasn't.

47:52 It wasn't.

47:52 It's already shipped.

47:53 It's already out and floating around.

47:55 Uh there was an advert There was a billboard on uh like East 6th Street

48:00 for it and I thought it was just such a funny place to put it.

48:02 Anyway, there was this video that someone had put of it trying

48:05 to load dishes into the dishwasher and it's got this weird position.

48:12 It's sort of leaning like this and somebody had

48:15 captioned it as me every time that it's 6:00 a.m.

48:18 at Academy and after party.

48:19 It literally looks like it's done too much ketamine and it's like all contorted.

48:23 It's like in a really[ __] weird position.

48:26 Um but yeah, I I don't know.

48:27 I You're right to say as soon as you step outside of the existing bucket

48:34 of what people use things for, like going

48:38 from driving F-150 to a Prius to a Tesla,

48:42 uh you know, I can kind of see how it works a little bit.

48:45 People were nervous about full self-driving,

48:47 but after a while, okay, there we go.

48:49 There we go.

48:52 There no one has No one's looking at the fact,

48:54 "Oh well, I already have a dishwasher." Mhm.

48:57 And this robot is basically an on its feet multi-purpose dishwasher.

49:01 It's not quite the same thing.

49:03 Yeah.

49:03 Here it is.

49:04 Look at this.

49:07 It's trying to close the door.

49:23 If you're standing there watching that, this would be very painful.

49:26 Yeah.

49:27 But it just go away and the dishes are done.

49:28 Cool.

49:29 Yeah, I mean, are they done?

49:30 No.

49:31 No.

49:32 __] go back, dude.

49:34 Yeah.

49:35 It's uh There's work to be done.

49:38 I think it It's a It's a It is a really interesting question of like

49:41 where where and how are humanoid robots going to show up over the next 10 years.

49:44 I think it's like one of the big questions.

49:46 Um and like I would probably go to a laundromat staffed by humanoid robots.

49:50 Great.

49:51 Makes total sense.

49:52 Like, a coffee shop?

49:55 Maybe, maybe not.

49:56 Maybe washing dishes, but not like at the counter or making a latte,

49:59 just cuz Yeah, just cuz like you partly go there for the human interaction.

50:03 Um I don't know.

50:05 I think it it'll be really interesting to like see how it all plays out.

50:07 plan is What is this?

50:08 One in every home within the space of basically no time at all?

50:11 Yeah, I mean, like tons of demand.

50:15 Especially if it is smart and helpful.

50:17 Um it's kind of like Rosie from The Jetsons, right?

50:19 Like, do all the stuff I don't want to do.

50:21 Go get the trash cans, take out the trash.

50:22 Presumably powered by XAI in some regards.

50:25 So, that is going to have to start to cross over the Tesla to XAI thing.

50:29 So, that would suggest a natural sort of convergence.

50:33 Well, Tesla has its own amazing AI team.

50:34 They're building their own chips.

50:36 Um but, he does say like Tesla, because of all of the like real-world

50:39 AI stuff that Tesla's done to create self-driving,

50:41 that's actually very analogous to making really smart humanoid robots.

50:45 And he he talks about having like

50:47 a this crazy training center full of humanoid robots

50:49 basically doing stuff like that, looking like idiots

50:51 trying to like figure out the training data.

50:53 And then getting rewards.

50:54 Oh, you did it well.

50:55 You closed it without looking like you're on camera, man.

50:57 Congratulations.

50:58 Who was I speaking to?

50:59 __] I was talking to someone I was talking to someone at dinner the other night,

51:02 and they were saying that basically they think a lot of people I got Oh,

51:06 it was uh my friend Austin.

51:08 Um people are going to have to wear little cameras

51:12 that show them going about their daily business to train robots.

51:17 This is a thing?

51:18 Yeah, I mean Dude, I've only just for This is[ __] blown my mind,

51:21 cuz obviously that's how Tesla's full self-driving was uh trained, right?

51:25 They took the top 1%, 10% of drivers on Tesla and used

51:30 their driving style to reverse engineer what humans do

51:33 so that the robots that drive your Tesla can drive in the manner that you would.

51:38 And it means that you've got more aggressive driving,

51:40 you've got the ability to overtake and undertake,

51:42 which if you ever get into a[ __] Waymo,

51:44 it does not have the capacity to do that.

51:46 It's at the most tentative grand mar of all time because that's being

51:49 created from first principles as opposed to the flow of traffic is other humans.

51:55 I as a human am able to detect that and adjust appropriately.

52:00 Therefore, if I if you become me, robot, then you can also be kind of a human.

52:04 Yeah, and it is cool in a Tesla you can have it set like

52:07 you can set like I want to chill drive or like I'm[ __] late.

52:10 Like let's go.

52:11 Okay.

52:11 Um This is funny because are going to wear[ __] cameras that just they're

52:18 going to crack eggs and iron clothes and Yeah, yeah.

52:22 I mean training data has already been a huge like part of the economy.

52:24 It's mostly like digital training data and companies are making

52:26 a ton of money like selling training data to models digitally.

52:29 But yeah, the the ability to like collect

52:32 massive massive massive amounts of data and train

52:34 AI and now in the real world train AI to like do all these jobs

52:38 wearing one of those, you know, chest harness things with a DJI on it and yeah,

52:44 they're going about that they're already working at Starbucks

52:47 or doing whatever they're a mechanic and you go,

52:50 well, do you want to earn an additional however many dollars per hour Yeah.

52:54 to submit your life to our training data and you need to, you know,

52:57 it's basically like being an Uber driver but for your own life

53:01 and then sending that digitally up to whoever needs to be trained.

53:05 Did you see the thing about the meta glasses recently?

53:09 This is like I'm not sure if this is

53:11 in the press or I just read this in a tweet,

53:13 but it's like those are always recording even if they're like not

53:16 Oh, and some some like African[ __] AI labelers were

53:22 able to see the faces weren't blurred out or something.

53:24 Yeah, but somebody just like puts the glasses

53:25 on the nightstand and then like, you know,

53:27 the spouse comes in and starts changing and there's

53:29 like Nigerians like sitting there tagging data of like,

53:32 yep, that's your wife changing clothes

53:35 because this thing doesn't stop recording.

53:37 Like, you know, I'd rather wear it, you know,

53:40 on my chest where I know[ __] put it put it in the lock

53:43 box at night or put it down when I'm not on my Yeah.

53:45 Yeah.

53:46 Well, get back to talking in just 1 second,

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55:13 What's underappreciated about Elon's skill sets, do you think?

55:17 What are the things that people don't realize?

55:19 I think the the breadth of his skill set is is quite interesting.

55:22 Um I think if you try to emulate just one or two of these traits like

55:30 either make some mistakes or be an[ __] depending on like how you went about it.

55:34 Um but I think he's like he's a I don't know,

55:38 micromanage but he's like in the technical details because he has

55:41 technical expertise and like a strong intuition around the physics of things.

55:45 Um, he has a deep fluency across not just the the physics and the engineering,

55:51 but also the finance and the economics.

55:53 Like he he double majored in economics and physics in college.

55:56 Um, and so from the very beginning he's like he's a great

55:59 line like to truly control the product you have to control the company.

56:02 And he does not share power well, but there's been many times where he's made

56:06 like a a risky or a technical decision

56:08 based on his sort of economic and opportunity

56:12 cost of view of the future of the business.

56:14 And so even early in SpaceX he was he was driving with a high level

56:17 of urgency cuz he's like the future

56:18 of this business is $10 million in revenue a day.

56:21 And every day we[ __] around like every time you burn a day,

56:24 every time you burn 12 hours,

56:26 you burn half of our future $10 million a day run rate.

56:29 So like let's go, let's go, let's go.

56:32 Um So that mix of like really big picture and deep in the details,

56:37 understanding the limiting factor, attacking it,

56:40 which is a mix of like that's technical skill,

56:42 that's economic fluency, that's like a sense of project management, actually.

56:48 Um And the ability to know how and when to like push push people.

56:53 Like if if really really smart rocket

56:55 scientists are telling you that's impossible no.

56:59 And he's like do it anyway.

57:02 Like it is possible.

57:03 I I'm telling you it's possible.

57:04 Go do it anyway.

57:05 And you're seven out of 10 times,

57:07 even like even five out of even one out of 10 times.

57:10 Cuz every time that you're right about that, you've gained a like

57:13 a jewel that will pay off for the whole rest of your company.

57:16 And the nine times that you were wrong, like Oh, oh, I guess you were right.

57:21 Impossible didn't mean impossible in that sense.

57:22 Or maybe we'll revisit it next year.

57:24 Or what made it impossible, maybe we can we can break that down further.

57:28 Um, and so it's this the George Bernard Shaw

57:31 quote like all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

57:36 Like, he's unreasonable.

57:39 The unreasonable man.

57:40 What about memory?

57:41 It seems like he's got a pretty good memory.

57:42 Yeah, that was one of the things um he he picked up really y- early in life.

57:47 He like read one of those memory trick books,

57:48 one of the guys who like memorize a whole deck of cards.

57:51 Um and so I think he's been using memory tricks, um which you know,

57:54 one of the things of like, how the hell does he do what he does?

57:57 He's like five companies,

57:59 many projects in all of them, taking technical reviews.

58:03 Like, it'd be hard to remember all these people's names,

58:04 let alone like what they're doing week over week

58:07 and where the bottlenecks are and all this stuff.

58:08 And he's got, you know, he he practiced those as a kid.

58:11 Um and so I think he still uses like memory palaces and some of these tricks,

58:16 which are one of those things that like that seems

58:18 superhuman if if you don't know how it works.

58:22 Um and there's a lot of stories of him

58:25 one of the ways he builds loyalty with his team, actually, is people are like,

58:28 "Holy[ __] when he he knows a specific technical

58:31 detail like of somebody's project that is like, you know,

58:34 a a re- has a direct report who has a direct report,

58:38 and he like is like, "You're the bottleneck.

58:40 What's going on?" And they're like, "This, this, and this." And he's like,

58:42 "Try this." They're going to like, "Holy[ __] that worked.

58:45 Like, how how did you know that?

58:47 You haven't like spent time in here, and it's just a mix of

58:49 I live with this every single day, and you just came in and and had it.

58:52 Yeah.

58:53 Yeah.

58:53 Like, that's a mix of memory and intuition and incredible

58:58 like uh recall and and depth feeling for that, like, the physics of the thing.

59:05 Presumably, risk and pain tolerance have to be two Yeah.

59:09 big skills.

59:10 immersed in it.

59:11 Like, absolutely immersed in it.

59:12 And and back like, I think this is a place where

59:15 the kind of the Asperger's is a going to be an advantage.

59:17 Like, just lives in it over and over and over again.

59:21 Lives in what?

59:22 The details of these products and these people

59:24 and where the bottlenecks are, like,

59:26 That wouldn't suggest why pain and risk are more palatable.

59:31 Uh maybe it would.

59:32 I don't know.

59:32 Maybe people who are a little spectrumy don't have the same detection of risk.

59:36 They certainly don't have the same detection of other stuff.

59:39 Well, I think it it really helps to set aside social risk,

59:41 which I think we blend a lot of, right?

59:42 Like I'm going to look like a failure.

59:44 People are going to think I'm wrong.

59:45 It's going to ruin these relationships.

59:46 Like he doesn't have any of that.

59:47 And he says like it is a huge weakness to want to be liked and I do not have it.

59:51 Um a huge weakness to want to be liked and I do not have it.

59:55 He He tries to like Weakness to want to be liked.

59:57 You don't think that he wants to be liked?

59:59 I do think he wants to be liked in a in a general sense.

1:00:01 A huge weakness to think that you want to be liked.

1:00:04 Yeah.

1:00:05 The the willingness to enter into dislike I maybe is the thing.

1:00:08 Like um I think uh You know, he he he tries to coach his managers.

1:00:13 And then within the company versus outside the company,

1:00:16 like are you willing to be misunderstood by the general public?

1:00:19 And I that's an interesting question.

1:00:21 Like if you had the chance, pick your pick your divisive opinion, right?

1:00:25 Like are you pro-choice or pro-life?

1:00:27 Are you open borders or closed borders?

1:00:29 Whatever.

1:00:29 Like if you had the chance to like flip the switch and make that decision,

1:00:35 but the catch is everybody knew it was you.

1:00:38 Like are you willing to make a hundred million enemies who will do like lie,

1:00:43 cheat, steal, fabricate, twist your words, like attack your family,

1:00:48 do anything because like they hate the decision that you made?

1:00:51 Like are you willing to do that?

1:00:53 I mean, most people are not.

1:00:54 And agree with or disagree with any particular decision like I respect

1:01:00 the the commitment and the courage that it takes to go do that.

1:01:05 What do you think you learned about Elon that most biographies miss?

1:01:09 What did doing this kind of a book teach you that biographies don't get at?

1:01:16 I think I got way deeper in the tactics.

1:01:18 Like I try I try to My North Star for these books is usefulness to the reader.

1:01:23 Like I try to collect all the most useful things that person has ever said.

1:01:26 And the I want to simulate the feeling of being at dinner with Elon Musk.

1:01:29 Like it's it's written as a dialogue.

1:01:31 I keep it all in exactly his words as tightly as I can.

1:01:34 I edit out anything that's doesn't feel like

1:01:38 you would be curious about it from a sense

1:01:39 of like how do I improve my own life and how do how did this happen?

1:01:42 Didn't the Naval Almanac isn't that per word

1:01:45 the most highlighted book in Kindle history or something?

1:01:48 Is that stat that I made up?

1:01:50 Maybe I was trying to make it that.

1:01:51 I don't know.

1:01:52 I don't think Kindle will like give me that.

1:01:53 Readwise said it's like in their top whatever.

1:01:56 Yeah.

1:01:57 But that would be also including distribution, probably not per word.

1:02:00 Like it what you want is for people who read

1:02:03 this book how much of the book is highlighted on Kindle.

1:02:06 Yes.

1:02:07 And I want I want to see like I love when

1:02:09 people show me like beat to[ __] copies of their book.

1:02:11 Like it's been in and out of a sauna, their backpack, their everything.

1:02:14 It's so satisfying.

1:02:15 Just wring it out.

1:02:16 Yeah.

1:02:17 Okay, so that like biography miss the tactic.

1:02:24 I I just go deeper into how.

1:02:25 Like how does that person accomplish what they do?

1:02:29 What are their What is their secret sauce?

1:02:31 I feel like biographers kind of come at this from like

1:02:35 how comprehensive and correct can I be about their whole history?

1:02:38 Not what's the most useful thing that you would pull out of the biography?

1:02:43 Like that I think that's why like David Senra's episodes are amazing cuz

1:02:45 he takes the biography and distills it and kind of boils it down.

1:02:49 And that is like my approach is like take a million

1:02:52 words and turn it into 50,000 of the most useful ones.

1:02:55 Um and to pull out the things that he

1:02:58 would teach you if you were sitting across from him.

1:03:02 It's like actually a really interesting kind of test for material to go

1:03:07 through and how timeless can it be and how universally can it be applied?

1:03:10 Like I think anybody on Earth can take something useful out

1:03:13 of this and I over and over again kind of sift it through that filter.

1:03:17 It's like almost like a version of writing fiction because in fiction

1:03:20 you're trying to bring a character to life and in this you're

1:03:23 trying to be that person briefly to try and condense down what

1:03:27 would they want to say of their own words that they've already said.

1:03:32 What would they what would their top 50,000 be out of this million and a half?

1:03:35 If they were trying to be as helpful as possible, like their best selves, right?

1:03:39 So that's the other the other difference is like I'm

1:03:42 not trying to build a comprehensive view of the person.

1:03:45 I'm not trying to put them in historical context.

1:03:47 I'm trying to be as useful as possible and I

1:03:49 don't I don't dwell on any of the personal stuff,

1:03:51 any of the political stuff, like we don't talk about his family.

1:03:54 It's just like what would he teach if he set out

1:03:56 to teach all of the ideas that he had the most conviction in?

1:03:59 It's an interesting challenge with somebody who is as uh

1:04:04 widely regarded and hated as Elon because almost everything

1:04:08 that everybody wants to talk about is not to do

1:04:12 with the tactics and the principles and the purpose.

1:04:15 It's to do with the intention, it's to do with the drive,

1:04:18 it's to do with the ethics and the scruples and Almost every conversation

1:04:23 I hear people have casually about Elon is them projecting their own opinion.

1:04:26 They're using Elon as a foil to be like,

1:04:29 I think it's great that we're going to Mars and doing

1:04:31 these things or I think it's terrible that he made this decision about,

1:04:35 you know, the US aid.

1:04:37 And that's fine.

1:04:39 Like you can agree or disagree with anything that this person does.

1:04:42 But like you're using that to project your values.

1:04:45 You're not asking like what can I learn from this person?

1:04:48 And to pick somebody as an exemplar is

1:04:50 not to say that everything they do is correct.

1:04:52 Like I I very much believe in model traits, not people.

1:04:55 And so my aspiration is to collect the most useful traits

1:04:59 of some of the most accomplished people and make them accessible and useful.

1:05:04 Mhm.

1:05:05 One of the most interesting ideas is the idiot index.

1:05:08 What's that?

1:05:09 The idiot index he uh it's kind of an outcropping

1:05:12 uh it's a it's downstream of the first principles thinking.

1:05:15 And so the idiot index applies to a particular part or a particular product,

1:05:19 and it's the difference between the raw material cost and the price.

1:05:24 And so the an example,

1:05:25 he he absolutely roasted an engineer in a meeting who like didn't

1:05:29 know what the stupidest parts in his product were in his composite.

1:05:35 Cuz that shows you where you're massively overpaying.

1:05:37 So there's a part um that was they were

1:05:39 paying $13,000 for that was like one piece of steel.

1:05:44 And if you just weighed it, the weight of that steel was worth like $200.

1:05:47 And so he's like you multiply the price of the raw

1:05:50 material or divide that out of the total price,

1:05:54 and like I don't know what that is.

1:05:56 I'll tell you what I'm at.

1:05:57 A big number.

1:05:58 Like that's[ __] stupid.

1:05:59 We're overpaying by like 50x for that thing.

1:06:03 So like how cheaply can you get the steel and then get it into that shape?

1:06:09 And you get those insane idiot indexes,

1:06:11 especially in aerospace because people outsource

1:06:12 and then outsource and then outsource.

1:06:14 And so there's like layers of delegation and profit Everyone is arbitraging

1:06:17 that profit off the top of this final thing that ends up coming down.

1:06:21 There's Rolls-Royce that make the engine,

1:06:22 but before that the turbine is milled in this place,

1:06:25 and before that the raw materials are mined out of Yeah,

1:06:29 there's like five subcontracts before you get to like

1:06:31 one guy who's like welding a thing together.

1:06:33 And you're like, "Oh, just bring that guy over here,

1:06:34 and then the part is like 400 bucks.

1:06:37 Great.

1:06:38 We just saved $12,000.

1:06:40 I guess asking the question why is this so expensive 100%

1:06:44 becomes quite a powerful question.

1:06:46 power ranking the things, like what is most expensive?

1:06:48 Like we're attacking that one.

1:06:50 What's the second most expensive?

1:06:51 We're attacking that one.

1:06:53 And this is how I mean, this is how he's able to make these huge cost

1:06:56 breakthroughs that then make things more and more and more available.

1:06:58 What have been the biggest cost breakthroughs?

1:07:00 What have been the ones that have completely unlocked SpaceX, Tesla?

1:07:03 I I think it's a million little ones all stacked up.

1:07:07 Right?

1:07:07 So, like they're that that one example like $13,000

1:07:10 to 200 is like more than two orders of magnitude.

1:07:14 You know, 500 x or something.

1:07:17 Um there's there's a story about like a latch

1:07:20 that was supposed to be a thousand dollars or something

1:07:22 and a guy just like looked at it and was

1:07:24 like kind of looks like a bathroom stall latch.

1:07:26 And so, he like went to Home Depot,

1:07:27 bought a bathroom stall latch and was like did

1:07:29 a little did a little magic magic on it.

1:07:31 He's like, "Okay, did it 50 bucks.

1:07:33 Boom." Um it's do do does that scrappiness over

1:07:36 every single part every single part every single part.

1:07:39 And you know, it's it's just the simple things done

1:07:42 over and over and over again with like ruthless intensity.

1:07:45 And really it it goes back to the the kind of the quote

1:07:49 that you brought up about like feeling the pain of your decisions.

1:07:51 Like if there's a company making money by selling a part that they bought

1:07:56 from a subcontractor for a hundred dollars

1:07:58 and then selling it at 500, like who cares?

1:08:00 And if the ultimate buyer is the government

1:08:02 who like can just have a black box budget, like fine, doesn't matter.

1:08:06 But if Elon comes in and says like, "I need to drop the cost of space launch

1:08:11 by two orders of magnitude in order to accomplish

1:08:13 this thing and then two more orders of magnitude

1:08:15 because we need to get to[ __] Mars, then like now the goal the bar is

1:08:19 so much higher and you start asking questions like, "How cheap can it get?

1:08:23 How cheap can it get?

1:08:23 Can't we do this cheaper?

1:08:24 Do we need that part at all?" Like simplifying, eliminating, reducing costs.

1:08:29 Um and and that's you know, when it when it's SpaceX,

1:08:32 it feels more abstract because like none of us are consuming rockets.

1:08:36 But we're buying a Tesla, we care a lot whether it's $20,000 or $30,000.

1:08:41 That's massive and that changes by a huge number the number of people

1:08:45 who can access a nice car that's safe that doesn't pollute, right?

1:08:50 And so, like if in five or 10 more

1:08:53 years we keep doing these things we keep eliminating parts,

1:08:55 we keep increasing scale,

1:08:56 we keep uh lowering the idiot idiot index of every part,

1:09:01 then like now the car's $10,000 and it's like an absolute no-brainer.

1:09:05 Um and the the world is quieter and calmer and cleaner.

1:09:08 As you move forward, allies will assemble around you.

1:09:11 Yeah.

1:09:12 I mean, there's no better example than Chris Williamson.

1:09:16 Because of all of my allies?

1:09:18 Yeah, I mean, you think think this like

1:09:19 this started with you and a microphone, right?

1:09:21 Like what, 7 years ago?

1:09:23 Eight.

1:09:23 Eight years ago?

1:09:24 Like a thousand episodes later, there's there's like an army at your back.

1:09:29 You got an incredible team here, you got millions of listeners,

1:09:31 you got people all around the world who are like excited to see you tour.

1:09:35 But you didn't wait for a million people

1:09:36 to like demand for you to create a podcast.

1:09:39 You started.

1:09:40 And you had one fan and then two and then four and then eight.

1:09:42 And you know, thousand episodes later, like here you are.

1:09:46 You just have to start carrying that flag.

1:09:49 Do you think cuz when people think about Elon,

1:09:51 when they talk about him a lot of the time it is this it's quite cantankerous,

1:09:55 it's adversarial, there is this super aggression,

1:09:58 the bias for action and the urgency.

1:10:00 All of this would make you think difficult to work for, hiring and firing.

1:10:05 Maybe there is a runway for each individual member of staff.

1:10:08 I reckon I can get on average, I would love to know what the average tenure is.

1:10:12 You know, I get 9 months out of people,

1:10:15 but I get 9 months of 100 hours a week or something like that, let's say.

1:10:19 You go, "Okay, well, that and that is just a cost of doing business.

1:10:22 In order to push people at the pace that I want to, I need to have

1:10:25 a bigger staff base in order to do

1:10:26 that." Have you got any idea about how he hires,

1:10:29 about what his hiring process is like?

1:10:30 He must have just the most insane HR department

1:10:33 that is constantly trying to put out fires at People Yeah,

1:10:37 they're permanently permanently people just like[

1:10:40 __] exiting the business because I've

1:10:41 I can't like It's like a Leonardo DiCaprio dating someone who's 25.

1:10:46 You're like, "Fucking the day that she Yeah, exactly.

1:10:48 Like, 26, you're out." Like, you know?

1:10:51 Yeah.

1:10:51 Well, Elon talks about his like phony and rich of like people have

1:10:54 a certain level of success and then he's like, "You you got soft.

1:10:56 Like I'm not getting we're not getting enough out of you anymore,

1:10:59 you're not dedicated enough.

1:11:00 Um and people like it.

1:11:02 His hiring process is you know, at least he speaks about it very simply.

1:11:05 He's like, I'm looking for evidence of exceptional ability.

1:11:09 And he wants to hire young, brilliant engineers,

1:11:12 even if they're not necessarily like super trained,

1:11:14 but they have the capability to solve problems in this really quick way.

1:11:17 And the culture, I think, is such he's done a amazing job of like

1:11:22 building that intensity and the decision-making process into the culture

1:11:24 such like people who come in are kind of brought

1:11:27 along and swept up in it and carried through.

1:11:32 Like they they you do go through that machine.

1:11:35 Um but those allies assembling around you,

1:11:36 like people have to choose to come work

1:11:38 for you and it's because you chose these giant purposes.

1:11:40 Um but you know, it's easy to forget

1:11:42 that these started really small and really crazy.

1:11:44 And he had to paint these big pictures to get people

1:11:46 to be excited and show up and give their all for it.

1:11:49 The most common mistake of smart engineers

1:11:51 is to optimize something that should not exist.

1:11:54 Yeah.

1:11:54 This is he likens this to like school teaches

1:11:58 us to solve the problem in front of us.

1:12:00 Like you can't reject a question on a test.

1:12:03 But actually is a stupid question.

1:12:04 I don't know answer it.

1:12:05 Yeah.

1:12:06 Dumb.

1:12:06 Don't like it.

1:12:07 Take it back.

1:12:07 Oh, 100% Yeah.

1:12:08 Congratulations.

1:12:09 Here's your A.

1:12:09 Doesn't happen.

1:12:10 Um so, the piece that he the first step of the algorithm,

1:12:15 this is his like five-step engineering process, is to question the requirements.

1:12:19 And then the second is to try very, very hard to delete the part or process.

1:12:22 You know, the best part is no part, the best process is no process.

1:12:26 So, if something can be deleted, the product gets simpler.

1:12:30 And simplicity, as he says, delivers both reliability and low cost.

1:12:35 And so, I think it is this we spend so much time

1:12:38 doing things or optimizing things that that truly don't need to exist.

1:12:44 And if you look at, you know, the complexity of plenty of products around us,

1:12:47 it's like, did nobody try to put these parts together?

1:12:50 Um but when you're trying to build a car out of 10,000 different parts,

1:12:54 you're like, all right, every time I can put I can combine these two things,

1:12:58 it's one less thing to attach to another,

1:12:59 and then it's four less parts because I don't

1:13:02 need these two screws to connect these two parts together.

1:13:05 And it's less tolerance.

1:13:07 Like, it's it's less things that can space to show up in the thing.

1:13:11 There's less things that can fall apart if they're one unit instead of two.

1:13:15 So, it is part of the process to just revisit and revisit and revisit.

1:13:18 If you don't eat the glass, you're not going to be successful.

1:13:21 Oh, yeah.

1:13:22 His I think this is originally a Bill Lee quote, who's a friend of his.

1:13:25 And entrepreneurship is like eating glass and staring into the abyss.

1:13:30 And I think the follow-up is like,

1:13:31 eventually you start to like the taste of your own blood.

1:13:34 Yeah.

1:13:34 Yeah.

1:13:34 Yeah.

1:13:36 I think that it is a sad lesson for people who are on the outside of business

1:13:42 that like the idea of running a business

1:13:44 that at some point all of the problems will go away.

1:13:47 But you are the person in charge of the problems.

1:13:50 Yeah.

1:13:50 Like, that's your your job is to find the biggest problem

1:13:53 and to always be at the vanguard of trying to fix that problem.

1:13:56 And at no point throughout your entire career will there be no problems.

1:14:00 And given that you are ultimately the problem

1:14:02 solver that the buck stops with, Yeah.

1:14:05 guess what?

1:14:05 It's going to be on you, and it's going to be on you for the rest of time.

1:14:07 And if the business is in decline, that is a problem.

1:14:10 And if the business is in ascendancy,

1:14:12 you will have new bigger problems as you push new frontiers.

1:14:15 Yeah, so you better fall in love with solving problems.

1:14:17 Yeah.

1:14:17 Um It's a very interesting Uh he he didn't originally set out as CEO of Tesla.

1:14:23 And he didn't He says he didn't want to become CEO of Tesla.

1:14:26 And he just felt like compelled to do

1:14:28 it at a certain point because if he didn't,

1:14:29 he felt like it the company would have failed.

1:14:31 Mhm.

1:14:31 And the the sense of like internalizing responsibility

1:14:34 of like the the outcome of the mission

1:14:36 is more important than my desire for for comfort or my desire to avoid problems.

1:14:40 So, like, as CEO, you are dealing

1:14:42 with a a distillation of the worst problems in the company.

1:14:45 And that's the chewing glass piece.

1:14:46 Like, you're not going to the hard part,

1:14:50 if you're not tackling the hardest thing, then you know,

1:14:53 that denial or that lack of urgency or that willful blindness is

1:14:58 going to catch up with you and the company is going to suffer.

1:15:00 Well, yeah, because ultimately that is the biggest bottleneck, right?

1:15:03 That is the thing that is holding everything else up.

1:15:05 And if you're the leader, where you direct that attention is where

1:15:08 the organization sort of chooses to focus.

1:15:10 You know, what's that thing that Formula 1 drivers talk about?

1:15:12 Don't look at the wall.

1:15:14 Like, the car goes where you look.

1:15:15 goes where you look.

1:15:15 Yeah.

1:15:16 And the bit the company will go where you look

1:15:17 and presumably all of the staff that work for you as well.

1:15:19 Yep.

1:15:21 Yeah, which is I think is another part of like

1:15:22 his this comes from the military history of like being a battlefield general,

1:15:26 always being at the front, your troops fight harder when you're there.

1:15:29 This is why he sleeps in the factory.

1:15:30 This is why he physically goes to wherever the problem is immediately.

1:15:33 Like, that leading from the front is a part of how

1:15:37 he gets so much out of the people that he works with.

1:15:41 I'm doing it.

1:15:42 I'm in the trenches.

1:15:42 I'm sleeping on the factory floor.

1:15:44 Yes.

1:15:44 You can do it.

1:15:45 We are we are suffering together.

1:15:46 Like, for a good cause, it's worth it.

1:15:48 We can do it.

1:15:49 Well, also, that's the way that he's constructed, right?

1:15:51 That's the way that he's built.

1:15:52 I do think that's authentic to him.

1:15:54 Yes.

1:15:54 Um and he he leans into it and he, you know, he says I'm like I'm wired for war.

1:16:00 Like, I find comfort in like those kind of challenges, those kind of

1:16:04 So much so that you construct wars that don't even exist.

1:16:08 You create chaos and discomfort when you don't need to.

1:16:10 Yeah.

1:16:11 But, I think he would rather err on the side

1:16:13 of like over over uh overdosing on anxiety,

1:16:20 overdosing on effort, making sure that nothing slips,

1:16:23 making sure that he's always making as much progress as they possibly can.

1:16:26 What do you think the inside of his mind's like?

1:16:28 Do we exist in there?

1:16:29 He calls it a a storm or a non-stop explosion.

1:16:34 All right, those are like the two ways he's described it.

1:16:36 And then somebody was like, "Is it a happy storm?" He's like,

1:16:39 "No." I I don't know that he's been formally diagnosed,

1:16:42 but I think he has talked about either tendencies towards not just Asperger's,

1:16:45 but also some bipolar tendencies and that's a hard

1:16:51 hand with especially with you know a traumatic childhood um

1:16:55 and the the stresses that he deals with you know

1:16:59 publicly and privately and like he's carries a heavy load.

1:17:02 Mhm.

1:17:03 Do you think he's actually a genius or is he just someone who's

1:17:06 consistently applying a handful of sort

1:17:08 of brutal principles over and over again?

1:17:10 I think he's both.

1:17:11 Um I think he's I think there's sufficient evidence that he is

1:17:16 certainly above average if not like way up there in in IQ.

1:17:20 Um you know he's precocious.

1:17:22 He was like ahead of his class as a kid and um coding video games when he was

1:17:27 12 and like you know had a patent his name on a patent when he was like 20.

1:17:31 So like I think people who go around being like Elon's an idiot everybody else

1:17:34 does all the work is like that is just not an informed opinion at all,

1:17:38 but I don't think he's a thousand times

1:17:41 smarter than any other human who's ever lived.

1:17:42 And so the difference between like all right he's

1:17:45 smart he's probably you know certainly smarter than me,

1:17:48 but like he's not that doesn't have explain

1:17:53 the difference in order of magnitudes of the outcome.

1:17:55 It seems like level of smart tolerance for risk

1:18:02 bias for action and work rate at least from what

1:18:07 we've been talking about those seem to be four

1:18:09 of the big drivers and grand quests I think.

1:18:15 I think that's a that is a key piece of actually like what makes him special.

1:18:19 I think if he if he applied like you know massive

1:18:21 work ethic and first principles and ingenuity to like reinventing insurance

1:18:25 it just like wouldn't wouldn't have the same zest and zeal

1:18:29 and it wouldn't have the same like level of outlier results.

1:18:34 What is the purpose piece?

1:18:35 How does that sort of factor in?

1:18:37 I think it's an interesting I think he

1:18:38 cares very deeply about humanity as a whole.

1:18:43 I think it's is it interesting interesting paradox where he's like people

1:18:48 who criticize him for like being cruel or whatever to people he

1:18:52 works with and like coming down hard on them or having really

1:18:55 high expectations or um being mean or firing people capriciously or whatever.

1:19:02 But as he explains it's like I am yes, I push people really hard.

1:19:07 I sometimes step on toes,

1:19:09 but I do that in service of this mission that serves all of us,

1:19:12 which is making life multi-planetary or electrifying transport,

1:19:17 um advancing clean energy.

1:19:19 If it's Neuralink, it's like helping paraplegics

1:19:21 or quadriplegics like control computers or eventually walk again.

1:19:24 That also has some AI alignment components to it.

1:19:27 Um He's there's a chapter in the book like my company's our philanthropy.

1:19:31 Every everything that he starts or all

1:19:32 the technologies that he tries to advance come

1:19:34 from this inherent love of humanity and the desire

1:19:36 to solve problems that make collectively our lives better.

1:19:40 Or preserve consciousness itself.

1:19:42 So your first book is on my list of 100 books to read and there's a top

1:19:47 five at the top which are the ones

1:19:48 that everybody should start with and it's in that.

1:19:50 One of the other ones that's in there is The Precipice by Toby Ord.

1:19:53 And that's all about existential risk, how humanity could go extinct from super

1:19:57 volcanoes to supernova explosions to nanotechnology

1:20:03 and engineered pandemics and natural pandemics and AI and all the rest of it,

1:20:07 but you did a section on X risk as well.

1:20:09 Yeah.

1:20:10 Why is that important?

1:20:13 I I almost early stages of this book I didn't have it in there

1:20:18 and it wasn't until the purpose piece kind of clarified itself that I was like,

1:20:21 oh, this is actually like the frame through which he is so motivated.

1:20:27 Um as what I'm sure that deep that book goes into great detail about it but like

1:20:30 there's been many extinction events in human history

1:20:33 or not in human history but in Earth's history.

1:20:36 Like many species most species were wiped out multiple times,

1:20:38 entire continents destroyed like asteroids have hit Earth in the past.

1:20:42 We don't know if things have like evolved and then

1:20:44 been killed but his big motivation is like make life multi-planetary,

1:20:48 preserve the only form of consciousness that we're aware of that exists

1:20:52 in the world in the universe which is ourselves and we're going

1:20:58 to feel pretty stupid if we destroy ourselves before we before we back

1:21:03 ourselves up like back up the hard drive and his point is like,

1:21:06 you know, we've been around Earth has been around a really long time.

1:21:09 Humanity has not been around so long.

1:21:12 Civilization is very young.

1:21:13 Like we're only 10,000 years into what could be a million

1:21:16 year civilization but we've got to take this first step off

1:21:20 the planet and into the solar system and if we[ __]

1:21:26 this up before we get off the planet like big L.

1:21:31 Yeah.

1:21:32 Well, I think what's fascinating to me is I wonder about uh people who are

1:21:38 very singular in the modern world and what

1:21:40 that person would have done in ancient times.

1:21:43 Yeah, it's so funny that you assuming that you weren't

1:21:47 born a slave and you couldn't have raised out of anything.

1:21:49 If there's some sort of egalitarian meritocracy and you

1:21:51 can just like toss them into the Roman Empire

1:21:53 or toss them into the middle of the War

1:21:55 of the Roses or something and just watch what happens.

1:21:58 Yeah.

1:22:01 I don't know, man.

1:22:02 It It certainly seems like it's the time to have

1:22:04 somebody that's like that um regardless of what is going

1:22:08 on personally or what you think about ethics and all

1:22:10 the rest of it um I remember he gave this interview.

1:22:14 It was probably about three or four years ago and he said something

1:22:16 to the effect of what I care about is doing good not the appearance of it.

1:22:20 Yeah.

1:22:21 And there are a lot of people around

1:22:24 who are doing bad while trying to appear good.

1:22:29 They have no interest in that.

1:22:31 And um it's kind of the move fast break things I

1:22:35 don't give a[ __] what you think of me type approach,

1:22:38 even if that's untrue in some part, like an ability to be disliked,

1:22:43 a preparedness to not care so much about optics in the way that other people do.

1:22:49 Um it's a[ __] big unlock.

1:22:52 Peter Thiel's a very interesting observation of like

1:22:55 how high a percent of the successful founders,

1:22:58 especially in tech, seem to be somewhere on the spectrum.

1:23:02 And he's like, what does it say about our society

1:23:05 that the people who are like have a biological

1:23:08 advantage in de-emphasizing the opinions of others are the ones

1:23:14 who more reliably seem to achieve an outlier success.

1:23:17 Mhm.

1:23:18 Have you heard Jonathan Bee's approach?

1:23:19 He says there's only three types of founders that are going to be successful.

1:23:22 Number one is megalomaniac.

1:23:25 Mhm.

1:23:25 Uh number two is autist.

1:23:28 And number three is revenge fantasy.

1:23:31 And megalomaniac, Adam Neumann from WeWork.

1:23:34 Autist, Elon Musk.

1:23:36 And revenge fantasy, Palmer Lucky.

1:23:37 Mhm.

1:23:38 Um although I think Palmer actually kind of has a bit of all three.

1:23:41 And I think Elon probably has a bit of all three as well.

1:23:43 Like you know, trying to alchemize some slight that occurred earlier on.

1:23:47 But uh I look, I think in order to do different things,

1:23:51 in order to make changes and to push

1:23:54 the limits in ways that people haven't seen before,

1:23:56 obviously, obviously you're going to need but by design you're going to have

1:24:01 to get comfortable with people doubting you and making judgments about it.

1:24:06 The the disregard for the way things are done Yes.

1:24:11 is completely crucial.

1:24:12 Yeah.

1:24:13 And I think so many of us forget that we you know,

1:24:16 it's almost like we're in the matrix unless we

1:24:18 make the willful effort to break out of it.

1:24:21 And we have this bias to defend the status quo,

1:24:23 no matter what it is, without even really ever thinking critically about it.

1:24:27 And so most of us when you hear

1:24:29 something like somebody's disrupting and radically innovating something new,

1:24:33 we're just going to be like, "Ah, do we really need that?

1:24:35 Isn't it fine the way it is?" especially as we

1:24:37 get older or as we get comfortable with that thing.

1:24:39 You know, there's that great like Douglas Adams line of like,

1:24:41 "Everything invented before your 30 is like a new miracle

1:24:46 and to be appreciated and everything invented after your 30 is

1:24:49 like a crime against humanity and a sin and should

1:24:51 be not be created." I swear there's a line about driving.

1:24:54 Everybody driving slower than you is an idiot

1:24:56 and everyone driving faster than you is a maniac.

1:24:58 Yeah.

1:24:59 Uh every There's one about women as well.

1:25:01 Every girl who's got smaller titties than me is flat-chested

1:25:04 and every girl who's got bigger titties than me is a fatty.

1:25:13 That was in your episode about uh female like Intersexual competition.

1:25:17 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:25:17 Small titties, big titties.

1:25:19 That was It all comes down to titties.

1:25:20 So, you're lucky, dude.

1:25:21 This Coming to the book process, which I think is fascinating.

1:25:24 Obviously, you write the Naval Ravikant and then that kind of springboards

1:25:28 you into this pretty much the forefront

1:25:30 of the self-published like pioneer space.

1:25:35 What What is this book like what are these books?

1:25:38 Is it a new kind of biography?

1:25:41 Is it a compendium?

1:25:43 It's It's a very strange type of book

1:25:46 to read even though it's obviously been super popular.

1:25:49 So, is it a new genre?

1:25:50 I I I truly don't know what to call it.

1:25:53 Like it's kind of weird.

1:25:54 I even feel weird saying like I write this book because I feel like I build it.

1:25:57 Like it feels like doing a jigsaw puzzle to me.

1:25:59 And it's much more about removal.

1:26:01 Yes.

1:26:01 Right?

1:26:02 Once you've got everything This is everything that this person has ever said.

1:26:05 Yeah.

1:26:05 Now, how much of this block of marble do I need to remove before David's left?

1:26:10 Yeah, and just organizing and finding the thread

1:26:13 so that it feels like each question is sort

1:26:14 of a natural byproduct of the the previous idea

1:26:18 and it's just like a clean like Oh yeah,

1:26:20 and then weave it the the the weaving as well, I suppose.

1:26:22 Yeah.

1:26:22 It's maybe more akin to clay than it is to marble.

1:26:25 Yeah, there's just um it is a weird thing.

1:26:28 And it like it came out of loving I mean I'm I'm a big

1:26:31 fan of Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett and like they never wrote books,

1:26:34 but a lot of people built books out of their talks,

1:26:37 their lectures, their letters.

1:26:40 And I never knew what to call those either,

1:26:42 but I just found myself asking like who do I wish had written books?

1:26:45 And then realizing that the raw materials out there and I've been lucky to get,

1:26:48 you know, permission from Naval and Balaji and Elon to like build these things.

1:26:53 Um And I don't know what to call them and I

1:26:55 don't know how to talk about it, but I like I mean

1:26:58 That's what you can call it, dude.

1:26:59 I think it's really really good.

1:27:00 Um what what have you learned about the scale of the internet since obviously

1:27:06 the Naval Almanac was a a huge

1:27:08 rip-roaring success and really sort of catapulted you.

1:27:10 You weren't already that small before,

1:27:12 but that really sort of put you at the forefront.

1:27:14 What did it taught you about leverage online and that experience?

1:27:18 Yeah, it's easy I feel like um anybody who's into podcasting, YouTube,

1:27:22 social media knows intellectually that like the internet is

1:27:25 vast and the niches are bigger than you think.

1:27:27 Um but it sometimes takes a like palpable human

1:27:30 experience to like be like oh[ __] No, really.

1:27:33 Like they are much bigger than you think.

1:27:35 And I was really um I'm just surprised and delighted to like see that book take

1:27:39 on a life of its own and see how

1:27:40 many people recommended it and see how many people resonated.

1:27:43 Like I thought I was writing a book is

1:27:45 like building a lighthouse where you're like you you

1:27:47 it has this ability to kind of like attract

1:27:48 your people and a podcast I'm sure is the same.

1:27:50 You're like you you kind of put your values out there

1:27:52 and people who resonate with it are like man, I really like that.

1:27:54 I was like then we probably get along great.

1:27:57 Like that's super cool and fun.

1:27:59 Um and it's a great it's a great life

1:28:01 on the other side of that creating something like that.

1:28:04 Um and the relationships that come out of it, right?

1:28:07 The thing the scale still blows to away.

1:28:10 Like I just can't believe that we're, you know,

1:28:12 this sells so well in China and India and all

1:28:15 around the world and across so many different demographics.

1:28:18 India India makes a little more sense.

1:28:20 That's fair.

1:28:20 Um but yeah, I just I didn't it was not on my like vision board that like

1:28:26 yoga instructors in Bali were going to be like

1:28:28 reading the Almanac of Naval and that like Mhm.

1:28:31 you know, it was going to be so

1:28:32 popular among like high school and college students.

1:28:35 Well, we've been talking about that.

1:28:36 Me and George have been talking about this a lot

1:28:37 and obviously we spoke about it last night.

1:28:38 That the TAM for the Book of Elon is way bigger than it is for Naval,

1:28:44 but the potential hurdle of ideological disagreement is also greater.

1:28:50 So again, it's the boobies on the on the like popularity graph, Yeah.

1:28:54 right?

1:28:54 Lots of people that go ah, I've got to.

1:28:57 And then lots of people who go never as opposed I

1:29:00 don't know how many people have a fervent dislike of Naval.

1:29:04 Most people probably didn't know.

1:29:05 Yeah.

1:29:05 You should really read this.

1:29:07 No one's going to go Yeah, exactly.

1:29:08 No one's going to go you should really read

1:29:10 this and someone say who is the book about?

1:29:12 Yeah.

1:29:13 Yeah, so I I'm prepared I spent I did spend a lot

1:29:15 of time being able to like answering the question who is Naval.

1:29:18 Um but I think once it's it's just such a weird book.

1:29:21 Like it's a weird title, it's a weird book,

1:29:23 it was like crafted for a niche and just like broke out.

1:29:27 But Elon is one of the most famous people on Earth, right?

1:29:30 Like um and I think he's he's not a polished presenter the way Steve Jobs is.

1:29:36 I don't think people necessarily think of him

1:29:37 as a like font of wisdom or like deep introspection,

1:29:41 but he has[ __] incredible ideas.

1:29:43 Like when you can really access them,

1:29:47 like and he's his life story is just so so many ups and downs,

1:29:52 so many hard lessons, and he is a really good communicator actually.

1:29:56 Like he's he's got a gift for distilling things and bringing

1:29:59 people along and finding a key metric like honing a team,

1:30:02 organizing people around a mission.

1:30:04 And you know, some of these ideas in this book,

1:30:06 you know, about being multi-planetary, he's been talking about for 20 years.

1:30:09 But we still there's still so much to learn from them.

1:30:14 Um you should just they're battle-tested ideas, I think, in a lot of cases.

1:30:18 What are the tactical principles of what what are the ways that you've

1:30:23 changed your life having gone through the process of writing this book?

1:30:28 I think the first would be my focus on hydration.

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1:30:36 And hydration is more than just drinking water.

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1:30:55 for a sample pack by going to drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom.

1:31:00 If you don't like it for any reason,

1:31:02 they will return your money and you can keep the box.

1:31:06 That's drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom.

1:31:09 he did it again.

1:31:10 Is he doing all four?

1:31:11 Is he doing all of them?

1:31:14 Okay, yep, there you go.

1:31:16 Oh, wow.

1:31:16 Showing the product as well.

1:31:18 Holy[ __] Thank you, dude.

1:31:19 That's a that's a wonderful that's a wonderful gift.

1:31:22 That's the best gift that you could have given me is

1:31:24 a free ad read because now I don't need to do it.

1:31:26 How fun how[ __] fantastic.

1:31:28 I am also a deep personal fan of Element.

1:31:30 I drink it after every workout and every sleep session.

1:31:33 It's[ __] great.

1:31:34 Uh I don't know who the other sponsors are.

1:31:35 You're off the hook.

1:31:35 That was the right Thanks[ __] Beyond I feel

1:31:39 I'm getting getting jump scared by my own ad reads.

1:31:42 Um what have you applied to your life beyond eight sleep and Element?

1:31:47 What have you applied to your life after learning about Elon?

1:31:51 I think it is uh the most meta is

1:31:53 this sense that I'm capable of more than I think.

1:31:55 Um it has encouraged me to do more things in parallel,

1:31:58 back to that like parallel gestation thing.

1:31:59 Like I'm trying to run Tribe Media, which is a publishing company,

1:32:03 and write a book, actually work on three at the same time,

1:32:06 and podcast, and invest.

1:32:08 So, like, there's it gave me some fuel in the fire to be like, "No,

1:32:15 this is this is doable and sane,

1:32:17 and if these things are all sort of like stacking and compounding,

1:32:20 it is sane to do them all in parallel over

1:32:22 a long period of time." Um the bias to urgency,

1:32:26 I'm not working 100-hour weeks and running around the world on my private jet,

1:32:31 but I do have a much stronger discipline around like, "Where is the bottleneck?

1:32:35 What's the most important problem to solve?

1:32:37 How What is the most effective way to solve it?

1:32:39 How can I physically go to the problem?

1:32:41 How can I pull in the right people?" Um I think like

1:32:44 the idea of a war room is kind of underrated of like, "What's the bottleneck?

1:32:47 Gather the people, like attack it,

1:32:50 the rest will kind of take care of itself." Um

1:32:52 is not how a lot of companies are run, frankly.

1:32:54 Like, a lot of them are like,

1:32:55 "I'm on a weekly meeting, do this, do that." Like, standard schedule.

1:32:58 as opposed to tactical.

1:33:00 Yeah.

1:33:00 What is the issue?

1:33:01 Let's go after that.

1:33:02 Let's go through it.

1:33:03 You know, when I I I think about this, it makes

1:33:05 me think about the difference between watching a UFC and boxing.

1:33:09 When you watch boxing, does it's this weird It's almost ceremonial.

1:33:13 This sort of monarch-like weird vestige of the people doffing their caps.

1:33:18 We must remember that today is a grand entry for the 45th anniversary.

1:33:24 And you're like, "What the fuck?" Whereas,

1:33:26 it's just at the UFC, it's rock music,

1:33:29 and the guys are in the middle of the octagon, they start hitting each other.

1:33:32 Um and it kind of feels a little bit like that, that when

1:33:34 you have Why do we Why do we have an agenda?

1:33:37 Why do we always have the same agenda for each of these meetings?

1:33:40 Why can't it just be what is the problem,

1:33:42 given that the rate limit is constrained by the slowest

1:33:46 moving heart or person or department or whatever it might be?

1:33:50 And if you continue to open those up,

1:33:52 the total like capacity of the pipeline increases.

1:33:55 Yeah.

1:33:55 I think most leaders are by default delegating

1:33:59 the pace of the entire organization to someone or something,

1:34:04 but they don't exactly know who.

1:34:07 Mhm.

1:34:07 But also, by doing that, by delegating by it not being them,

1:34:11 even if they're not purposefully delegating it or whatever,

1:34:14 they're off the hook.

1:34:15 Yeah, I don't need to be moving that fast.

1:34:17 I don't, you know, and it's a really good point

1:34:19 to say if you've worked super hard for a good while,

1:34:23 like that's the point at which you get to kick

1:34:25 back and Matthew McConaughey with your feet up on the table.

1:34:29 Like that's the point.

1:34:30 The point of working that hard was to get to escape velocity.

1:34:32 Which is perfectly fine, depending on like what you're optimizing for.

1:34:34 Again, like I'm This is not a blueprint that like everybody should follow.

1:34:38 It is a like explanation of how one

1:34:41 person who is unique and special happens to operate,

1:34:45 and take whatever works for you and leave the rest.

1:34:48 __] yeah.

1:34:49 Eric Jorgenson, ladies and gentlemen.

1:34:50 Where should people go to check out everything you've got going on?

1:34:52 Uh ejorgenson.com is my personal site.

1:34:55 elonmuskbook.org has everything for this book.

1:34:58 Um you can read it for free or listen to it for free if you want to.

1:35:01 If you want to buy it on Amazon, rock on.

1:35:03 Um check out the Naval book and the Naval episode.

1:35:06 We did 800 episodes 5 years ago.

1:35:10 Wow, that is a good one.

1:35:12 I saw that you just released on Smart Friends,

1:35:14 the 4-hour conversation on the guy's YouTube.

1:35:16 Yeah, we just updated Naval and I updated the audiobook.

1:35:19 So I got to like spend a day deep conversation and kind of be like,

1:35:22 all right, which of these ideas hold, which are refined, which have you changed?

1:35:26 Um it was a really cool like full circle kind of experience.

1:35:29 Unreal.

1:35:29 Uh what are you doing next?

1:35:31 Can you say?

1:35:33 Um I The one I can say is I'm doing a book with David Senra

1:35:37 for distilling some of the maxims

1:35:38 and the key stories from the like Founders Archive.

1:35:41 That will[ __] rip.

1:35:42 Which I think will be is so fun to work on.

1:35:44 I think will be amazing.

1:35:45 Um The other one I don't have like a thumbs up yet,

1:35:47 so I don't want to say that one publicly.

1:35:49 Uh well, I'm looking forward to getting you

1:35:50 in the center in here and we can have a chat.

1:35:52 That'll be amazing.

1:35:53 __] yeah.

1:35:54 Appreciate you, man.

1:35:54 Thank you.