Elon Musk: Stanford eCorner

Fix The Price, Elon!

The price. Get it below 30K.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) November 9, 2018

Tesla, Uber, Lyft, Waymo, Hyperloop, Bullet, Boring

It might only take 30 minutes to go from DC to NYC, city center to city center, but how do you get to that city center? LA to San Francisco might only be half an hour, but who takes you to the train station. Your cousin is busy.

Self driving cars turn small cars into buses, in that you get a public transport ring. You take the driver out, and the ride is cheap. It is bus rate, cheaper actually. This is not just a revolution in engineering, it also is a revolution in ownership. New financial instruments have to be thought up. Instead of buying a house to rent, maybe you want to buy a car to rent.

Transport is point A to point B. It makes sense for the Hyperloop pod to talk to the Tesla self-driving car. You should be able to pick point A, and your point B, and let them crunch the details. You don't get off the pod and call a cab. The cab is already waiting for you and two other people. You will be dropped off at your point B.

Tesla becomes more viable when it starts doing better numbers, which means mass production. The more you produce the cheaper you can go, wider your horizons. Tesla today is a PC in the mid-90s. The price will look expensive in five years.

China's bullet trains pack a punch. But Musk takes point A to point B to a whole new level. There is even vertical take off. And that is 30 minutes from any point to any other point on earth. Vertical also goes in another direction. There is no limit to how many lanes you can have underground. Solving LA traffic? That entrepreneur deserves a gold medal. LA traffic is a living, breathing nightmare.

Tesla 'obviously' plans to take on Uber and Lyft, says CEO Elon Musk

Elon Musk Tesla Speech

Elon Musk: Myths And Legends: Be That As It May

Tech’s Enduring Great-Man Myth

The idea that particular individuals drive history has long been discredited. Yet it persists in the tech industry, obscuring some of the fundamental factors in innovation. ...... usk is the CEO of Tesla Motors, which produces electric cars; the CEO of SpaceX, which makes rockets; and the chairman of SolarCity, which provides solar power systems. A self-made billionaire, programmer, and engineer—as well as an inspiration for Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark in the Iron Man movies—he has been on the cover of Fortune and Time. ....... Scholars are “eager to identify and give due credit to significant people but also recognize that they are operating in a context which enables the work.” In other words, great leaders rely on the resources and opportunities available to them, which means they do not shape history as much as they are molded by the moments in which they live. ...... Musk’s success would not have been possible without, among other things, government funding for basic research and subsidies for electric cars and solar panels. Above all, he has benefited from a long series of innovations in batteries, solar cells, and space travel. He no more produced the technological landscape in which he operates than the Russians created the harsh winter that allowed them to vanquish Napoleon. ...... the man’s repeated “willingness to tackle impossible things” has “turned him into a deity in Silicon Valley.” ...... Born in South Africa in 1971, Musk moved to Canada at age 17; he took a job cleaning the boiler room of a lumber mill and then talked his way into an internship at a bank by cold-calling a top executive. After studying physics and economics in Canada and at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, he enrolled in a PhD program at Stanford but opted out after a couple of days. Instead, in 1995, he cofounded a company called Zip2, which provided an online map of businesses—“a primitive Google maps meets Yelp,” as Vance puts it. Although he was not the most polished coder, Musk worked around the clock and slept “on a beanbag next to his desk.” This drive is “what the VCs saw—that he was willing to stake his existence on building out this platform,” an early employee told Vance. After Compaq bought Zip2, in 1999, Musk helped found an online financial services company that eventually became PayPal. This was when he “began to hone his trademark style of entering an ultracomplex business and not letting the fact that he knew very little about the industry’s nuances bother him,” Vance writes. ............ When eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion, in 2002, Musk emerged with the wherewithal to pursue two passions he believed could change the world. He founded SpaceX with the goal of building cheaper rockets that would facilitate research and space travel. Investing over $100 million of his personal fortune, he hired engineers with aeronautics experience, built a factory in Los Angeles, and began to oversee test launches from a remote island between Hawaii and Guam. At the same time, Musk cofounded Tesla Motors to develop battery technology and electric cars. Over the years, he cultivated a media persona that was “part playboy, part space cowboy,” Vance writes. ...... Those who survive under Musk tend to be workhorses willing to forgo public acclaim. ..... Musk’s success at Tesla is undergirded by public-sector investment and political support for clean tech. For starters, Tesla relies on lithium-ion batteries pioneered in the late 1980s with major funding from the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. Tesla has benefited significantly from guaranteed loans and state and federal subsidies. In 2010, the company reached a loan agreement with the Department of Energy worth $465 million. (Under this arrangement, Tesla agreed to produce battery packs that other companies could benefit from and promised to manufacture electric cars in the United States.) In addition, Tesla has received $1.29 billion in tax incentives from Nevada, where it is building a “gigafactory” to produce batteries for cars and consumers. It has won an array of other loans and tax credits, plus rebates for its consumers, totaling another $1 billion

Be that as it may. But there is something to Elon, and there was something to Steve Jobs. One example. Americas' original mission is a total spread of democracy. The Internet can help. Just beam the Internet everywhere and you have it. But the US government is not doing it. Elon is.

Elon Musk is no Isaac Newton. But there is one theory that says Calculus would have showed up around the time it showed up, with or without Isaac Newton. What does that take away from Isaan Newton? One trait of the entrepreneur is to be in his/her time but also beyond it. The entrepreneur floats in the time dimension, and helps us do the same.

The entrepreneur has a role. The receptionist has a role. The receptionist can always drop out and become an entrepreneur.

An entrepreneur is not CFO, or COO, or an engineer. Like someone on his team once asked Steve Jobs, "What do YOU do?"

"You play musical instruments, I play the orchestra," he replied.

This is not to say government is not important. And it is not just about cutting edge research it funds (and it, in turn, is funded by the people). It is also about basic law and order. And that is no small thing. There are a lot of countries out there that don't have that. It is about things like free speech. And that is a really big thing.

China did double digit rates for three decades. But America has always had the free speech advantage. China has been playing catch up. To dream up the industries of tomorrow, you need a culture of free speech. That is political innovation.

I have said somewhere, if India is to some day surpass America, it will be because India beat America at free speech and diversity. But first it has to do the China thing of getting the basics right.

Just like there are 100 Senators and one Barack Obama in Washington, there are 1,000 entrepreneurs and one Elon Musk in Silicon Valley. Technically he is in LA.

The entrepreneur is the life force inside a company. And there is no one else right now who is attempting the big sweeps.

And glory is to government R&D. Let's double that budget. And let's keep the pickpockets away.

Oracle was an itty bitty company, and then it snatched a contract from the CIA, and then there was no looking back for Larry Ellison. Elon Musk was dead, almost dead, and then NASA called with a billion dollar check. And he lived to see another day. Who says government does not have a role? Of course it does.

Also, Elon was a grown man when he showed up in America. He has said only in America is this even possible. How many times does he need to say that? Once is enough. Now on to Mars.





Not Mars
Musk's Cross Pollinating Ways
Elon Musk And Tesla Shareholders
Elon Musk: Pando Interview
Elon Musk: Funny Or Die
Elon Musk: Satellite Internet
Hyperloops And Self Driving Cars
Hyperloop
A Touch Of Asperger's
1% of 1% of 1%
Musk Magic
Musk Wisdom
Elon Musk: Internet Satellites
What Could Be A New Product Line For Tesla?
Elon Musk And Larry Page
Jack Ma And Elon Musk

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Elon Musk And Tesla Shareholders

Elon Musk: Funny Or Die

Musk Magic

I have never bought an Apple product in my lifetime. I do appreciate Steve Jobs' excellence. But he did not directly touch me. Elon Musk is a whole different story. I am looking at this guy's battery and I am thinking, this battery could do for energy for the dollar a day people what cellphones have done for communication. And lack of energy is easily the number one reason for poverty. The first computers also cost thousands of dollars. But now you can get a Chromebook (an idea Google stole from me -- I pitched to Google Ventures, bad idea) for 200 dollars. This battery needs to go down in price from 3500 dollars to 350 dollars. You can light up hospitals and schools across the world with this. Kudos Elon!

I actually was one of the first users of X.com --- but I did not hear about Elon Musk until at least 10 years later. Actually I heard of Peter Thiel before I heard of Musk. And I never connected with Thiel at any level.

What Could Be A New Product Line For Tesla?

Major new Tesla product line -- not a car -- will be unveiled at our Hawthorne Design Studio on Thurs 8pm, April 30

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 30, 2015

Elon Musk created nearly $1B in value today with a single tweet



What could it be? My first reaction is, it will be something 100% electric. Something green and clean. What?

@elonmusk motorcycle? Plane?

— Jimmy Johenning (@jimmyjohenning) March 30, 2015

@elonmusk home battery pack!

— Gabriel Phillips (@gabzqc) March 30, 2015

@elonmusk Elon Musk Cologne?

— pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee) March 30, 2015

@elonmusk unless it's a Iron Mask suit we don't want it.

— 8Figures (@AkeelCaffrey) March 30, 2015

@elonmusk Tesla Vibrator. #wishlist

— Kat (@Kat_Olenska) March 30, 2015

@elonmusk home battery pack with solar city. Right?!

— Alex McRoberts (@webtwozero) March 30, 2015

@chriseyin @elonmusk battery-powered home

— Sunny Manivannan (@voteforsunny) March 30, 2015

They're building an MP3 player. “@elonmusk: Major new Tesla product line -- not a car -- will be unveiled at our Hawthorne Design Studio"

— Chris F. Nicholson (@chrisFnicholson) March 30, 2015

@elonmusk Electric scooter I always wanted one... Car, bike, rail and space craft.. You have covered it all :)

— Ramanath Bhat (@ramnathbhat) March 30, 2015

EV Unicycle! “@elonmusk: Major new Tesla product line --not a car --will be unveiled at our Hawthorne Design Studio Thurs 8pm, April 30

— jason (@Jason) March 30, 2015

@elonmusk Tesla is a transportation company, right? It will be a people mover of some sort.

— Adam M. Girod (@amg503) March 30, 2015

@elonmusk This would be home storage battery that would be used along with @solarcity's solar panel installation. It'll STILL be disruptive!

— Just A. Tinker (@John_Gardi) March 30, 2015

Nobody seems to be saying trucks!