Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with
Elon Musk his third time on this The Lex
Friedman
podcast yeah make yourself
comfortable oh wow okay do you don't do
the headphones thing no okay I mean how
close do I get each to get this thing
the closer you are the sexier you sound
hey baby up Can't Get Enough Le you up
baby I'm going to clip that out anytime
somebody messages me
about body and you think I'm sexy come
right out and tell me
so so good okay serious mode activate
all right serious Mode come on you're
Russian you can be serious everyone see
us all the time in Russia yeah yeah
we'll get we'll get there we'll get
there yeah it's gotten
soft allow me to say that the SpaceX
launch of human beings to orbit on May
30th
2020 was seen by many as the first step
in a new era of human space
exploration these human space flight
missions were a Beacon of Hope to me and
to Millions over the past two years as
our world has been going through one of
the most difficult periods in recent
human history we saw we see the rise of
division fear cynicism and the loss of
common Humanity right when it is needed
most so first Elon let me say thank you
for giving the world hope hope and
reason to be excited about the future oh
it's kind of you to say I do want to do
that Humanity has uh obviously a lot of
issues and and uh you know people at
times do do bad things but you know
despite all that um you know I I love
humanity and I think we should
uh make sure we do everything we can to
have a good future and and an exciting
future and one where that maximizes the
happiness of the people let me ask about
uh crew Dragon demo 2 so that that first
flight with humans on board um how did
you feel leading up to that launch were
you scared were you excited was going
through your mind so much was at
stake yeah no that was extremely
stressful no question um we obviously
could not um let them down in any way um
so extremely stressful I'd say uh to say
the least but we did I was confident
that at the time that we launched that
no one could think of
anything uh at all to do that would
improve the probability of
success um and we we racked our brains
to think of any possible way to improve
the probability of success we canot
think of anything more and and nor could
NASA and
so that that's just the best that we
could do so then we we had we went ahead
and
launched now I'm not a religious person
um but I nonetheless got on my knees and
prayed for that
mission were you able to
sleep
no how did it feel when it was a success
first when the launch was a success and
when they returned back home or back to
Earth it was a great
relief yeah it it's for for high stress
situations I find it's it's not so much
Elation as relief
um and um you know I think once as as we
got more comfortable and proved out the
systems because you know we
really um you know you got to make sure
everything works um I was it was
definitely a lot more uh enjoyable with
the subsequent uh astronaut missions and
I thought the the inspiration mission
was was actually very inspiring um
inspiration for Mission um I I'd
encourage people to watch the
inspiration documentary on Netflix it's
actually really good um
and it really is I was actually inspired
by that um and I I I so that one I felt
I I was kind of able to enjoy the the
actual Mission and not just be super
stressed all the time so for people that
somehow don't know it's the all civilian
first time all civilian out to space out
to orbit yeah and it was the I think the
highest orbit that uh in like I don't
know 30 or 40 years or something the
only one that was higher was the one
shuttle sorry Hubble uh servicing
Mission um and then before that it would
have been um Apollo in
72 it's pretty wild so it's cool it's
you know I think uh as you know as a
species like we want to be you know
continuing to do better and and reach
Higher Ground and and like I think it
would be tragic extremely tragic if um
Apollo was the high watermark for
Humanity you know and that and that's as
far as we ever got um and it's um it's
concerning that here we are um 49 years
after the last mission to the moon and
so almost half a
century uh and we've not been back um
and that's that's worrying it's like is
that does that mean we've peaked as a
civilization or or what
so like I think we we got to get back to
the moon and build a base there you know
a science base I think we could learn a
lot about the nature of the universe if
we have a proper science base on the
moon um you know like we have a science
base in Antarctica and you know many
other parts of the world and um so that
that that's I think the next big thing
we've got to have like a a serious like
moon base um and then get people to Mars
and you know get get out there and be a
space faing civilization I'll ask you
about some of those details but since
you're so busy with the hard engineering
challenges of everything that's involved
are are you still able to Marvel at the
magic of it all of space travel of every
time the rocket goes up especially when
it's a crude Mission or you're just so
overwhelmed with the all the challenges
that you have to
solve and actually sort of to add to
that the reason I I wanted to ask this
question of May 30th it's it's been some
time so you can look back and think
about the impact already it's already at
the time it was an engineering problem
maybe now it's becoming a historic
moment like it's it's a moment that how
many moments will be remembered about
the 21st century to
me that or something like that maybe
inspiration for one of those would be
remembered as the early steps of a new
age of uh space
exploration yeah I mean during the
launches itself so I mean the thing I
think maybe some people know but a lot
of people don't know he like I'm
actually the chief engineer of SpaceX so
um the you know I've signed off on
pretty much all the design decisions um
and
you know so if there's something that
goes wrong with
that vehicle it's it's fundamentally my
fault you know so
um so I'm really just thinking about all
the things that like so so when I see
the rocket I see all the things that
could go wrong and the things that could
be better and the same with the dragon
spacecraft it's like other people will
see oh this is a a spacecraft or a
rocket and that's this looks really cool
I'm like i' I've like a readout of like
this is the these These are the risks
these are the pro problems that's what I
see
like so it's not what other people see
when they see the product you know so
let me uh ask you then to analyze
Starship in that same way I know you
have you'll talk about in more detail
about Starship in the near future
perhaps you we talk about it now if you
want um but just in that same way like
you said you see when you see a uh when
you see a rocket you see a sort of a
list of risks and that's same way you
said that Starship is a really hard
problem so there many ways I can ask
this but if you magically could solve
one problem perfectly one engineering
problem perfectly which one would it be
on Starship on on sorry on Starship so
is it maybe related to the efficiency
the uh the engine the weight of the
different components the complexity of
various things maybe the controls of the
the crazy thing has to do to land no
it's actually the by far the the biggest
thing absorbing my time is uh engine
production not not the design of the
engine the i i how I've often said
prototypes are are easy production is
hard
um so we have the most advanced rocket
engine that's ever been designed
um the cuz I say currently the best
rocket engine ever is probably the Rd
180 or Rd
170 um
that that the Russian engine basically
um and um and still I think an engine
should only count if it's gotten
something to orbit um so our engine has
not gotten anything to orbit yet um but
it is it's the first engine that's
actually better than than the the the
Russian R engines which were amazing
design so you're talking about Raptor
engine what makes it amazing what what
are the different aspects of it that
make it like what are you the most
excited about uh if the whole thing
works in terms of efficiency all those
kinds of things well it's bar raptor is
a a full flow uh staged combustion
um engine and it's at operating at a
very high chamber pressure so one of the
key figures mer perhaps the key figure
of Merit is um what is the chamber
pressure at which the engine can operate
that's the combustion chamber pressure
um so a Rapter is uh designed to operate
at 300 bar possibly maybe higher that's
300 atmospheres
so um the record right now for
operational engine is the Rd engine that
I mentioned the Russian Rd which is I
believe around
267 bar um and the the the difficulty of
the chamber pressure is increases on a
nonlinear basis so 10% more chamber
pressure is more like uh 50% more
difficult um but that that chamber
pressure is that that that is what
allows you to get a very high uh Power
density for uh for the engine um so uh
enabling
um a very high thrust to weight ratio um
and um a very high specific impulse so
specific impulse is like a measure of
the efficiency of a rocket engine or um
it's it's really the the the uh exhaust
the effect of exhaust velocity of of the
gas coming out of the engine
um so
uh with with a very high chamber
pressure you can have um a a compact
engine that nonetheless has a high
expansion ratio which is the ratio
between the uh um exit nozle and the uh
throat so you know engine's got like you
see rocket engine's got like sort of
like a like a hourglass shape it's like
a chamber and then it next down and
there's a nozzle and the ratio of the
the exit diameter to
the the throat expansion ratio so why is
it such a hard engine to manufacture at
scale uh it's very complex so a lot of
what do complexity mean here is a lot of
components involved there's a lot of a
lot of components and a lot of
uh unique materials that uh so we had to
invent a um several Alloys that don't
exist in order to make this engine
work um so a materials problem
too it's a materials problem and um in a
in a stage combustion full flow stage
combustion there there are many uh
feedback loops in the system so you uh
basically you've got uh propellent and
and and uh Hot Gas
flowing um simultaneously to so many
different places on the engine um and uh
they they all have a recursive effect on
each other so you change one thing here
it has a recursive effect here changes
something over there and and it's it's
it's it's quite hard to control um like
there's a reason no one's made this
before
um but um and the reason we're doing um
a stage
combustion full flow is is because it it
has the highest the highest uh
theoretical possible uh
efficiency um so in in order to make a
fully reusable rocket um which that's
the really the Holy Grail of orbital
rocketry
um you have to have everything's got to
be the best uh it's got to be the best
engine the vest airframe the vest heat
shield um extremely light uh
avionics um very you know very clever
control mechanisms um you've got to shed
mass in in any possible way that you can
um for example we are instead of putting
Landing legs on the booster and ship we
are going to catch them with a tower to
save the weight of the landing legs legs
so that's like I mean we're talking
about catching the largest flying object
ever
made uh with on a giant Tower with with
Chopstick arms it's like Cy kid with the
fly but much
bigger I mean pulling something like
this probably won't work the first
time uh anyway so this bananas this is
banana stuff so you mentioned that you
doubt well not you doubt but there
there's days or moments when you doubt
that this is even possible it's so
difficult
the possible part
is well at this point we'll I think we
we'll get Starship to work
um um there's a question of timing how
long will it take us to do this uh how
long will it take us to actually achieve
uh full and Rapid
reusability um because it will take
probably many launches before we are
able to have full and Rapid
reusability um but I can say that that
the physics pencils out like the like
we're not
uh like at this point I'd say we're
confident that that s like let's say I'm
very confident s success is in the set
of all possible
outcomes right it's not set of for for
for a while there I was not convinced
that success was in the set of possible
outcomes which is very important
actually but so
um um you're saying there's chance I'm
saying there's a chance exactly
um uh just not sure how how how long it
will take uh but we have a very very
talented team they're working night and
day to make it happen um and uh and like
like said the the the critical thing to
achieve for the revolution in space
flight and for Humanity to be a space
Frank civilization is to have a fully
and rapidly reusable rocket opal rocket
um there's not even been any op rocket
that's been fully useful ever and this
has always been the the the the Holy
Grail of rocketry um and uh many smart
people very smart people um have tried
to do this before and they've not
succeeded so um because it's such a hard
problem what's your source of belief in
situations like this when the
engineering problem is so difficult
there's a lot of experts many of whom
you admire who have failed in the past
yes
and um a lot of
people you know the a lot of experts
maybe journalists all the kind of you
know the public in general have a lot of
doubt about whether it's
possible and you yourself know that even
if it's a non-n set non-empty set of
success it's still unlikely or very
difficult like where do you go to both
personally um intellectually as an
engineer as a team like for source of
strength needed to sort of persevere
through this and to keep going with the
project take it to
completion a source of strength h i i
justes really not how I think about
things um I mean for me it's simply this
this is something that is important to
get done um and we we should just keep
doing it um or die trying and I I don't
need a source of strength so quitting is
not even like um that's not it's not in
my nature okay and I I don't care about
optimism or
pessimism fuck that we're going to get
it done GNA get it
done can you uh then Zoom back in to
specific problems with Starship or any
engineering problems you work on can you
try to introspect your particular
biological neural network your thinking
process and describe how you think
through problems through different
engineering and design problems is there
like a systematic process you've spoken
about first principles thinking but is
there kind of process to it well
um you like saying like like physics is
a law and everything else is a
recommendation um like I've met a lot of
people who can break the law but I
haven't met anyone who could break
physics so uh so first for you know any
kind of Technology problem you have to
sort of just make sure you're not
violating physics
um
and you know uh first principles
analysis I think is something that can
be applied to really any Walk of Life uh
any anything really it's just it's it's
really just saying um you know let's
let's boil something down to the most
fundamental uh principles the things
that we are most confident are true at a
foundational level and that sets your
your sets your axiomatic base and then
you reason up from there and then you
cross check your conclusion against the
the axiomatic
truths um
so um you know some basics in physics
would be like are you violating
conservation of energy or momentum or
something like that you know then you
it's not going to work um
so uh that's you know so that's just to
establish is is it is it possible and
then another good physics tool is
thinking about things in the limit if
you if you take a particular thing and
you uh scale it to a very large number
or to a very small number how does how
does things change um both like tempor
like in number of things you manufacture
or something like that and then in time
yeah like let's say say take an example
of like um like manufacturing which I
think is just a very underrated problem
um and
and uh like I said it's much harder
to take a an advanced technology product
and bring it into volume manufacturing
than it is to design it in the first
place my ERS magnitude so um so let's
say you're trying to figure out is um
like why is this this uh part or product
expensive is it um because of something
fundamentally foolish that we're doing
or is it because our volume is too low
and so then you say okay well what if
our volume was a million units a year is
it still expensive that's what I mean
like thinking about things in the limit
if it's still expensive at a million
units a year then volume is not the
reason why your thing is expensive
there's something fundamental about
design and then you then can focus on
the reducing complexity or something
like that in the design change the
design to change change the part to be
something that is
uh uh not fundamentally
expensive but but like that's a common
thing in tree cuz the the unit volume is
is relatively low and so a common excuse
would be well it's expensive because our
unit volume is low um and if we were in
like Automotive or something like that
or consumer electronics then our cost
would be lower I'm like I'm like okay so
let's say we SK now you're making a
million units a year is it still
expensive if the answer is yes then uh
economies of scale are not the issue do
you throw into manufacturing do you
throw like supply chain you talked about
resources and materials and stuff like
that throw that into the calculation of
trying to reason from first principles
like how we're going to make the supply
chain work here yeah yeah and then the
cost of materials things like that or is
that too much exactly so um like another
like a good example of thinking about
things uh in the limit is um if you take
any
uh you know any any product any machine
or whatever um like take a rocket or
whatever and
say um if you've got if if you look at
the raw raw materials in the rocket um
so you're going to have like uh I know
aluminum steel titanium
inconel uh special specialty Alloys um
copper and and you say what are the how
what what what's the weight of the
constituent elements of of each of these
elements and what is their raw material
value and that sets the ASM totic limit
for
how uh low the cost of the vehicle can
be unless you change the the materials
so and then when you do that I call it
like maybe the magic wand number or
something like that so that would be
like if you had the you know like just a
a pile of these raw materials here and
you could wave magic wand and rearrange
the atoms into the final shape um that
would be the lowest possible cost that
you could make this thing for unless you
change the materials so then and that is
always a US almost always a very low
number um so then the the what's
actually causing things to be expensive
is how you put the atoms into the
desired
shape yeah I actually if you don't mind
me taking a tiny tangent had uh I often
talk to Jim Keller who's somebody that
work with you as as a friend Jim was
yeah did great work at Tesla so um I
suppose he carries the flame of the same
kind of thinking that you're you're
talking about
now um and I I guess I see that same
thing at Tesla and and uh SpaceX folks
who work there they kind of learn this
way of thinking and it kind of becomes
obvious almost but anyway I had um
argument not
argument uh he educated me about how
cheap it might be to manufacture Tesla
bot we just we had an argument what is
how can you reduce the cost of scale of
producing a robot because so I gotten a
chance to interact quite a bit um
obviously in in the academic circles
with robots and then my bosson Dynamics
and stuff like that and they're very
expensive to to build and then uh Jim
kind of schooled me on saying like Okay
like this kind of first principal
thinking of how can we get the cost of
manufactur down um I suppose you do that
you have done uh that kind of thinking
for Tesla bot and for all kinds
of all kinds of complex systems that are
traditionally seen as complex and you
say okay how can we simplify everything
down yeah I I mean I think if you if you
are really good at
manufacturing you can basically make at
high volume you can basically make
anything for a
cost that ASM totically approaches the
raw raw material value of the
constituents plus any intellectual
property that you need to license
anything
right but it's hard it's not like that's
a very hard thing to do but but it is
possible for anything anything in volume
can be made of like I said for a
that ASM totically approaches as raw
material constituents plus intellectual
property license rights so what'll often
happen in trying to design a product is
is people start with the tools and and
parts and methods that they are familiar
with um and then and try to create a
product using their existing tools and
methods um the other way to think about
it is uh actually imagine the try to
imagine the platonic ideal of the
perfect product or technology whatever
it might be um and say what is this what
is the perfect arrangement of atoms that
would be the the best possible product
and now let us try to figure out how to
get the atoms in that
shape I mean it's it sounds
um uh it's almost like Rick a Morty
absurd until you start to really think
about it and it you really should think
about it in this way cuz everything else
is kind of uh
uh if if you think uh you you might fall
victim to the momentum of the way things
were done in the past unless you think
in this way well just as a function of
inertia people will uh want to use the
same tools and methods that they are
familiar with um they just that's what
they'll do by default yeah um and then
that that will lead to an outcome of
things that can be made with those tools
and methods but is unlikely to be the um
platonic ideal of the perfect product um
so then so that's why it's good to think
of things in both directions so like
what can we build with the tools that we
have but then but but also what is the
what is the perfect the theoretical
perfect product look like and and that
that theoretical perfect product is
going to be a moving Target because as
you learn more the definition of or for
that perfect product will will change
because you don't actually know what the
perfect product is but you can
successfully approximate uh a a a more
perfect product um so the thing about it
like that and then saying okay now what
tools methods materials whatever do we
need to create in order to get the atoms
in that
shape but people very rarely think about
it that way but it's a powerful tool I
should mention that the brilliant
Siobhan zillis is hanging hanging out
with us uh in case you hear a voice of
uh wisdom from uh from from outside from
up
above okay so let me ask you about Mars
you mentioned it would be great for
science to
put um a base on the moon to do some
research
but the truly big leap again in this
category of seemingly impossible is to
put a human being on Mars when do you
think SpaceX will land a human being on
Mars h
best case is about 5 years worst case 10
years what are the determining factors
would you say from an engineering
perspective or is that that not the
bottlenecks uh you know it's it's
fundamentally um you know engineering
the the the vehicle
um I mean Starship is the
most complex and advanced rocket that's
ever been made
by I don't know order of magnitude or
something like that it's a lot it's
really Next Level
so um and the fundamental optimization
of Starship is minimizing cost per ton
to over it and ultimately cost per ton
the surface of Mars um this may seem
like a mertile objective but it is
actually the thing that needs to be
optimized um like there is a certain
cost per ton to the surfice of Mars
where we can afford to establish a self-
sustaining uh city um and uh and then
above that we cannot afford to do it um
so right right now you couldn't fly to
Mars for a trillion dollars doesn't no
amount of money could get you a ticket
to Mars so we need to get that above uh
you know to get that like something that
is actually possible at all
um um but but then but that's that's we
don't we don't just want to have you
know with Mars flags and Footprints and
then not come back for a half century
like we did with the moon uh in order
to pass a very important great filter I
think we we need to be a multiplet
species
um that's sounds somewhat esoteric to to
a lot of people but uh like eventually
given enough time uh that something
the Earth is likely to experience some
Calamity um that could
be yeah something that humans do to
themselves or an external event like
happened to the dinosaurs um and um but
but you know
eventually and and if if n if none of
that happens and somehow magically we
keep going uh then the sun will the Sun
is gradually expanding um and will
engulf the Earth um and probably Earth
gets too hot for uh life in uh about 500
million years it's a long time but
that's only 10% longer than Earth has
been around and so if you think about
like
the the current situation is really
remarkable um and kind of hard to
believe
but uh Earth been around 4 and a half
billion years and this is the first time
in 4 and a half billion years that it's
been possible to extend life beyond
Earth and that window of opportunity may
be for a long time and I hope it is but
it also may be open for a short time and
we should uh I think it was wise for us
to
uh act quickly while the windows open
just in case it it closes yeah the
existence of nuclear weapons
pandemics all kinds of threats yeah
should uh should kind of um give us some
motivation I mean civilization could get
um
could die with a bang or a whimper you
know if it's a if it dies a demographic
collapse then it's more of a whimper
obviously um but and if it's World War
III it's more of a bang um but but these
are all risks um I mean it's important
to think of these things and just you
know think of things like probabilities
not certainties um there's a certain
probability that something bad will
happen at on Earth I like I think most
likely the future will be good um but
there's like let's say for AR M sake um
a 1% chance per Century of of a
civilization ending event like that was
Stephen Hawkings
estimate um I think he's he might be
right about that uh so
then
uh you know we should basically think of
this like being a multiplan species as
like taking out insurance for life
itself like life insurance for
life um W this turned into infomercial
real quick life insurance for Life yes
um and you know we can bring the the the
creatures from you know plants and
animals from Earth to Mars and breathe
life into the planet um and and have a
second planet with with life um that
would be great um they can't bring
themselves there you know so if we don't
bring them to Mars then they will just
for sure all die when the sun expands
anyway and then that'll be it what do
you think is the most difficult aspect
of building a civilization on Mars
terraforming Mars like from engineering
perspective from a financial perspective
human perspective to
get to get a large number of folks there
who will never return back to Earth uh
no they could certainly return some will
return back to Earth they will choose to
stay there for the rest of their lives
yeah many will
um but uh you know
we we need the space sh back like the
ones that go to Mar meet them back so
you can hop on if you want you know it's
like but we can't just not have the
spaceships come back those things are
expensive we need them back like to come
back and do another trip I mean do you
think about the terraforming aspect like
actually building you're so focused
right now on the spaceships part that's
so critical to get to it's just we
absolutely if you can't get there
nothing else matters yeah so and like
said you we can't get there with at some
extraordinarily high cost I mean the
current cost of um let's say one ton to
the surface of Mars is on the order of a
billion
dollars so because you don't just need
the rocket and the launch and everything
you need like heat shield you need you
know guidance system you need uh deep
space Communications uh you need some
kind of Landing system so like rough
approximation would be uh a billion
dollars per ton to the surface of Mars
right now um this is obviously
um way too expensive to create a
self-sustaining
civilization um so we need to improve
that
by at least a factor of a thousand a
million per ton yes ideally less much
less than a million ton but if it's not
like it's got to be you have to say like
what well how much can Society afford to
spend or want to just want to spend on a
self-sustaining City on Mars the self-
sustaining part is important like it's
just the the key
threshold um the the great filter will
will have been passed when the city and
Mars can survive even if the spaceships
from Earth stop coming for any reason
doesn't matter what the reason is but if
they stop coming for any reason will it
die out or will it not and if there's
even one critical ingredient missing
then it still doesn't count it's like
you know if you're on a long sea voyage
and you've got everything except vitamin
C it's only a matter of time you know
you're going to die so so we got to get
Mars a Mars City to the point where it's
self
sustaining um I'm not sure this will
really happen in my lifetime but I I
hope to see it at least have a lot of
momentum and and then you could say okay
what is the minimum tonnage necessary to
uh have a self-sustaining
city um and there's a lot of uncertainty
about this you could say like I don't
know it's probably at least a million
tons um because you have to set up a lot
of infrastructure on on Ms um like I
said you can't be missing any anything
that in order to be self- sustained you
can't be Miss like you need you know
semiconductor Fabs you need iron or
refineries like you need all lots of
things you know uh
so um and Mars is not super hospitable
it's it's the least inhospitable Planet
but it's definitely a fixer oper of a
planet outside of Earth yes Earth is
pretty good Earth is like easy yeah and
also I should we should clarify in the
solar system yes in the solar system
there might be nice like vacation spots
there might be some great planets out
there but it's h too hard to get there
yeah way way way way way too hard to say
the least let me push back on that not
really a push back but a quick uh
curveball of a question so you did
mention physics as the the first
starting point so
um general relativity allows for warm
holes uh they technically can exist do
you think um those can ever be leveraged
by humans to travel fast in the speed of
light
well are you the thing is is debatable
the we currently do not know of any
means of going faster than the speed of
light
um there there is
like
like there there are some ideas
about having space like so
so you can only move at the speed of
light through through space but
if you can make space itself
move that that that's like that that's
Waring
space um space is is capable of moving
faster than the speed of light right uh
like the universe in the Big Bang the
universe expanded at much much more than
the speed of light by a lot yeah um
so um but
the if this is possible the the amount
of energy required to Wolf space is
so gigantic it's boggles of mind so all
the work you've done with propulsion how
much Innovation is possible with rocket
propulsion is this um I mean you've seen
it all and you're constantly innovating
in every
aspect how much is possible like how
much can you get 10x somehow is there
something in there in physics that you
can get significant Improvement in terms
of efficiency of engines and all those
kinds of things well as I was saying
like the really the Grail is a a fully
and rapidly reusable orbital system um
so uh right now uh the falcon9 is the
only reusable rocket out there but it
but the the booster comes back and lands
you've seen the videos uh and we get the
nose coal fairing back but we do not get
the upper stage back
so uh that means that we have a minimum
cost of of building an upper stage um
you can think of like a two-stage rocket
of of sort of like two airplanes like a
big airplane and a smaller airplane um
and we get the big airplane back but not
the small airplane and so it still costs
a lot you know so that upper stage is
you know at least $10
million um and then the degree of the
booster is not as reuse is not as
rapidly and completely reusable as we'd
like in order of the fairings so you
know our kind of minimum marginal cost
our counting overhead for per flight is
on the order of 15 to $20 million maybe
um
so uh that's that's extremely good for
it's by far better than any rocket ever
in history um but uh with full and Rapid
reusability we can reduce the cost per T
to orbit by uh a factor of
100 just think of it like um like
imagine if you had an aircraft or
something or
a
car um and if you had to buy a new car
every time you went for a drive there
would be very expensive every silly
frankly but um but you in fact you just
refuel the car or recharge the car and
that's uh makes your
trip like I don't know a thousand times
cheaper so it's the same for Rockets uh
if
you very difficult to make this complex
machine that can go to all it and so if
you cannot reuse it and have have to
throw even any part of any significant
part of it away that massively increases
the cost
so you know Starship in theory could do
a cost per launch of like a million
maybe $2 million or something like that
um and uh and put over 100 tons in
orbit which is crazy yeah so that's
incredible so you're saying like it's uh
by by far the biggest bang for the buck
is to make it fully reusable versus like
some kind of brilliant breakthrough in
theoretical physics no no there's no
there's no bring break no there's no it
just got to make the rocket reusable
this is an extremely difficult
engineering problem got it uh but no no
new physics is
required just brilliant engineering let
me ask a slightly philosophical fun
question got to ask I know you're
focused on getting to Mars but once
we're there on Mars what do you what
form of government economic
system political system do you think
would work best for an early
civilization of humans is I mean the the
interesting reason to talk about this
stuff it also make helps people dream
about the future I know you're really
focused about the short-term engineering
dream but it's like I don't know there's
something about imagining an actual
civilization on Mars that gives people
really gives people hope well it would
be a new frontier and opportunity to
rethink the whole nature of government
uh just as was done in the creation of
the United States
so
uh I mean I would suggest
um having uh direct democracy like
people vote directly on things as
opposed to representative democracy so
uh representative democracy I think is
too uh subject to special interests
and you know a coercion of the
politicians and that kind of thing um so
I I'd recommend
uh that that there's
just um direct democracy people vote on
laws the population votes on laws
themselves and then the laws must be
short enough that people can understand
them yeah and then like keeping a
well-informed populace like really being
transparent about all the information
about what they're voting for absolute
transparency yeah and not make it as
annoying as those cies where you have to
accept accept cookies like always like
you know there's like always like a
slight amount of trepidation when you
click accept cookies like I I feel as
though there's like perhaps like a like
a very tiny chance that it'll open a
portal to hell or something like that
it's exactly how I feel why why do they
why do they keep wanting me to accept
what do they want with this
cookie like somebody got upset with
accepting cookies or something somewhere
who cares like so annoying to get keep
accepting all these cookies to me this
is just great trying accept yes you can
have my damn cookie I don't care
whatever you heard it from meon first he
accepts all of your damn cookies
yeah and stop asking me it's annoying
yeah it's uh it's one example of um
implementation of a good idea
done really horribly yeah it's it's
somebody who was like there's some good
intentions of like privacy or whatever
but now everyone just has to accept
cooking and it's not you know you have
billions of people who have to keep
clicking except cookie it's super
annoying then we just accept the damn
cookie it's fine there is like um I
think a fundamental problem that we're
because we've not really had a a
major uh like a world war or something
like that in a while and obviously we
would like to not have C Wars um there
there's not been a cleansing function
for rules and regulations um so wars did
have uh you know some sort of lining in
that there would be a a reset on rules
and regulations uh after a war um so
World Wars 1 and 2 there were huge
resets on rules and regulations um now
as if the society Society does not have
a war and there's no cleansing function
or garbage collection for rules and
regulations then rules and regulations
will accumulate every year because
they're Immortal there's no actual
humans die but the laws don't uh so the
we need a garbage collection function
for rules and regulations they should
not just be immortal um
because some of the rules and
regulations that are put in place will
be counterproductive done with good
intentions but counterproductive and
sometimes not done with good intentions
so um if you just if rules and
regulations just accumulate every year
um and you get more and more of them
then eventually you won't be able to do
anything you're just like guliver with
you know tied down by thousands of
little strings and we we see that in um
you
know us and like like basically
economies that uh have been around for
for a while uh and and regulators and
legislators create new rules and
regulations every year but they don't
put effort into removing them and I
think that's very important that we put
effort into removing rules and
regulations um but it gets tough because
you get special interests that then are
dependent on like they they have a you
know a uh vested interest in that
whatever Rule and Regulation and they
then they fight to not get it
removed um
yeah so it I mean I guess the problem
with the Constitution is it's it's kind
of like C versus Java cuz it doesn't
have any garbage collection built in I
think there should be I I when you first
said the the the metaphor of garbage
collection I love from coding standpoint
from the coding St yeah yeah I it would
be interesting if the laws themselves
kind of had a built-in thing where they
kind of die after a while unless
somebody explicitly publicly defends
them so that that's sort of it's not
like somebody has to kill them they kind
of die them themselves they disappear
yeah
um not to defend Java or anything but
you know the C++ you know you could also
have great garbage collection in Python
and so on yeah so yeah something's
something needs to happen or or just the
the civilization arteries arteries just
Harden over time and and uh you can just
get less and less done because there's
just a rule against everything um so so
I think like I don't know for Mars or
whatever I'd say or even for you know
obviously for Earth as well like I think
there should be an active process for
removing rules and regulations and
questioning their existence just um like
if we've got a function for creating
rules and regulations because rules and
regulations you can also think of it's
like they're like software or lines of
code for operating uh civilization
that's the rules and regulations um so
it's not we shouldn't have rules and
regulations but the you you have code
accumulation but no code removal um and
so it just gets to be become basically
archaic bloatware after a while um and
and it's just it makes it hard for
things to progress so I don't know maybe
Mars you'd have like an you know any
given law must have a sunset you know
and and and uh and require active voting
to keep restore to keep it up there you
know um and actually also say like and
these are just I don't know
recommendations or thoughts
um ultimately will be up to the people
on Mars to decide but I I think um it
should be easier to remove a law than to
add one because of the just to overcome
the inertia of laws so maybe it's like
uh for argument sake you need like say
60% vote to have a law take effect but
only a 40% vote to remove
it so let me be the guy you you posted a
meme on Twitter recently where there's
there there's like a a row of urals a
guy just walks all the way across sure
yeah and he tells you about
crypto list I mean that's happened to be
so many times I think maybe even
literally uh yeah do you think
technologically speaking there's any
room for ideas of smart contracts or so
on because you mentioned laws um that's
an interesting Implement use of things
like smart contracts to implement the
laws by which governments function
like something built on ethereum or
maybe a dogcoin that enables smart
contract somehow I don't I don't quite
understand this whole smart contract
thing um you
know I
mean so I'm too downtown down smart
contracts um that's a good
line I mean my general approach to any
kind of like deal or whatever is just
make sure there's Clarity of
understanding that's the most important
thing right um and and just keep any
kind of deal very very short and simple
plain language um and just make sure
everyone understands this is the deal
does everyone is it clear um and uh and
and what are the consequences if various
things don't happen um but usually deal
deals are um you know business deals or
whatever are way too long and complex
and overly lawyered and
pointlessly you mentioned that uh doge
is the people's coin
um and you said that you were literally
going SpaceX may consider literally
putting uh a do coin on the moon is is
this something you're still considering
uh Mars perhaps uh do you think there's
some chance we've talked about political
systems on Mars that uh Dogecoin is the
the official currency of Mars at some
point in the
future well I I think Mars itself will
need to have a different y because you
can't synchronize due to speed of light
or not easily um so it must be
completely Standalone from
Earth well yeah cuz the the Mars is at
closest approach it's four light minutes
away roughly and then at furthest
approach uh it's roughly 20 light
minutes away uh maybe a little more um
so you can't really have uh something
synchronizing you know if you got if if
you got a 20- minute speed of light
issue if it's got a 1 minute blockchain
uh it's not going to synchronize
properly um so Ms need would I don't
know if Ms would have a cryptocurrency
as a thing but probably seems likely um
but it would be some kind of localized
thing on Mars
um and you let the people
decide yeah
absolutely the future of Mars should be
up to the Martians um yeah so
um I mean I think the cryptocurrency
thing is an inter
approach
to reducing the
um error in the the database that is
called
money
um you know I think I have a pretty deep
understanding of the of what money
actually is on a practical day-to-day
basis because of PayPal
um you know I really really got in deep
there
um and right now the system actually for
practical purposes is is is really a
bunch of heterogeneous uh main frames
running old
cobal okay you mean literally that'sit
that literally what's happening in batch
mode okay in patch mode yeah pretty the
poor bastards who have to maintain that
code okay that's a as a pain that's pain
not even Fortran it's Cobalt yep that's
Cobalt like and they still the B banks
are still buying mainframes in 2021 and
running ancient Cobalt code uh and uh
you know the the Federal Reserve is like
probably even older than the what the
banks have and they have an old Cobalt
main
frame and so now and so the the
government effectively has editing
privileges on the on the money
database um and they use those editing
privileges to um make more money when if
they want and this increases the error
in the database that is money so if I
think money should really be viewed
through the lens of information Theory
and uh and so it's U you kind of like uh
like an internet connection like what's
the bandwidth uh you know to Total bit
rate uh what is the latency jutter uh
packet drop uh you know errors errors in
the network uh
communication just money like that
basically um I think that's probably
right way think of it and and then say
what what system uh from an information
Theory standpoint allows an economy to
function the best uh
and you know um Krypto is an attempt to
reduce the the error uh
in uh in money that is contributed by uh
government's uh diluting the money
supply as basically a pernicious
pernicious form of
taxation so both policy in terms of with
inflation and actual like technological
Cobalt like cryptocurrency takes us into
the 21st century in terms of the actual
systems that allow you to do the
transaction to store wealth all those
kinds of
things like I said just think of money
as information people um often will
think of money as having power in and of
itself um it does not money is uh is
infation
and it it does not have power in and of
itself uh like you applying the the
physics tools of thinking about things
in the limit is helpful if you are
stranded on a tropical island um and
uh you have a trillion dollars it's
useless because there's no there's no
resource allocation money is a database
for resource allocation but there's no
resource to allocate except for yourself
so money is useless
um uh if you're tring on desert island
with no food you uh all the Bitcoin in
the world
will not stop you from starving yeah so
um so like I just just think of money as
as
a database for resource allocation um
across time and
space and um and then what what what
system uh is what what in what form
should that that database or data
system what what what would be most
effective now there's a there is a
fundamental issue with um say Bitcoin in
its current
form uh in that it's the transaction
volume is very
limited um and uh the latency it's the
the latency for for a properly confirmed
transaction is to is too long much
longer than you'd like so it's not it's
actually not great from um transaction
volume standpoint or latency standpoint
um uh so it is perhaps useful as as to
to solve an aspect of the money database
problem uh which is a sort of store of
wealth or an an accounting of relative
obligations I suppose um but it is not
useful as a currency as a day-to-day
currency but people have proposed
different technological
solutions yeah lightning Network and the
layer two technologies on top of that I
mean it's it's all it seems to be all
kind of a trade-off but the point is
it's kind of brilliant to say that just
think about it information think about
what kind of database what kind of
infrastructure enables that exchange
like you're operating an economy um and
you need to have some thing that it uh
allows for the efficient to to to have
efficient uh value ratios between
products and services so you got this
massive number of products and services
and you need to you can't just bar
barter just like that would be extremely
unwieldy uh so you need something that
gives you the
the a a ra ratio of exchange between
goods and services um and and then
something that allows you to uh shift
obligations across time like de debt and
Equity shift obligations across time
then what does what what does the best
job of that um part of reason why I
think there some um Merit Dogecoin even
though it was obviously created as a
joke um is that it it actually does have
a much higher uh transaction volume
capability than Bitcoin um and the you
know the the cost of doing a transaction
the the the Dogecoin fee is is very low
like right now if you want to do a
Bitcoin transaction the price of doing
that transaction is very high so you
could not use it effectively for most
things um and nor could it even scale to
a high volume
um
uh and when Bitcoin was you know started
I guess around 2008 or something like
that um the internet connections were
much worse than the rday like order of
magnitude I mean there's the way way
worse you know to in 2008 so so like
having us you know a small uh block size
or whatever is you know and a long
synchronization time is made sense in
2008 but to you know 2021 or fast
forward 10 years it's like it's it's
like economically low you know it's uh
so
um and I think there's some value to
having a linear increase in the amount
of currency that uh is generated um so
because some amount of the currency like
like if if if a if a currency is too
deflationary or or like uh or should say
if if if a if a currency is expected to
increase in value over time there's
reluctance to spend it because you're
like oh I if I I'll just hold it not
spend it because it's scarcity is
increasing with time so if I spend it
now then I will regret spending it so I
will just you know hle it MH um but if
there's some dilution of the currency
occurring over time that's that's more
of an incentive to use it as a currency
so um those coin somewhat randomly has
uh a um just a fixed a number of of sort
of coins or hash strings that uh are
generated every year so this there some
inflation but it's not a percentage base
it's it's so that the it's a fixed
number so the percentage of inflation
will necessarily decline over time
um so just I I'm not saying that it's
like the ideal system for a currency but
I think it actually is uh just
fundamentally better than anything else
I've seen just by
accident um so I like how you said um
around 2008 so you're not uh you know
some people suggested you might be
Satoshi Nakamoto you previously said
you're not let let me ask you're not for
sure would you tell us if you were yes
okay uh do you think it's a feature a
bug that he's anonymous or she or
they it's an interesting kind of Quirk
of human history that there is a
particular technology that is a
completely Anonymous
inventor or creator
well I mean you can you can look at the
um evolution of
ideas um before the launch of
Bitcoin and see who
wrote you know about those
ideas um and then like I don't know
exact obviously I don't know who who
created bitcoin for practical purposes
but the evolution of idea is is pretty
clear before that and like it seems as
though like Nick zavo uh is probably
more than anyone else uh responsible for
the evolution of those ideas so yeah he
claims not to
be Nakamoto but I'm not sure that's
that's neither here nor there uh but he
he seems to be the one more responsible
for the ideas behind Bitcoin than anyone
else so it's not perhaps like singular
figures aren't even as important as the
the figures in involved in the evolution
of ideas that led to a thing so yeah
yeah it's you know most perhaps it's sad
to think about history but maybe most
names will be forgotten anyway what is a
name anyway it's a name a name attached
to an
idea what does it even mean really I
think Shakespeare had a thing about
roses and stuff whatever he said rose by
any other name would smell of
sweet I got to on to quote Shakespeare I
feel I feel like I accomplished
something today shall I compell you to a
sum
day I going to clip that
out um not more tempered and more
[Laughter]
fair
autopilot Tesla
autopilot
um Tesla autopilot has been through an
incredible journey over the past six
years um or perhaps even longer in the
minds of in your mind in the minds of
many involved
uh yeah I think that's where we first
like connected really was the autopilot
stuff autonomy and the whole journey was
incredible to me to watch I was
um because I knew well part of is I was
at MIT and I I knew the difficulty of
computer vision yeah and I knew the
whole I had a lot of colleagues and
friends about the Dara challenge I knew
how difficult it is and so there was a
natural skepticism when I first drove a
Tesla with uh the initial system based
on mobile eye I thought there's no
way so first when I when I got in I
thought there's no way this car could
maintain um like staying Lane and create
a comfortable experience so my intuition
initially was that the lane keeping
problem is way too difficult to solve oh
L keeping yeah that's relatively easy
well like uh but not the but solve in
the way that we just we talked about
previously is prototype versus a thing
that actually creates a pleasant
experience over hundreds of thousands of
miles Millions yeah so I was we had to
wrap a lot of code around the mobile eye
thing it doesn't doesn't just work by
itself yes I mean there there's part
that's part of the story of how you
approach things sometimes sometimes you
do things from scratch sometimes at
first you kind of see what's out there
and then you decide to from scratch that
was one of the boldest decisions I've
seen is both on the hardware and the
software to decide to eventually go from
scratch I thought again I was skeptical
whether that's going to be able to work
out cuz it's such a such a diff problem
and so it was an incredible journey what
I see now with um everything the
hardware the compute the sensors the uh
the things I maybe care and love about
most is the the stuff that Andre kathi
is leading with the data set selection
the whole data engine process the neural
network architectures the the way that's
in the real world that network is tested
validated all the different test
sets um you know versus the imag Net
model of computer vision like what's in
Mia is like real world artificial
intelligence so um Andre is awesome and
obviously plays an important role but we
have a lot of really talented people
driving things so um and aoke is
actually the the head of autopilot
engineering
um Andre is so director of ai ai stuff
yeah yeah so yeah there's I'm aware that
there's an incredible team of just a lot
going on yeah I just uh you know OB
people people will give of will give me
too much credit and they will give under
too much credit so and people should
realize how much is going on under the
under the a lot of really talented
people
um the Tesla autopilot AI team is
extremely talented it's like some of the
smartest people in the world um so yeah
we're getting it done what are some
insights you've gained over those five
six years of autopilot about the problem
of autonomous driving so you leap in
having some sort of first principles
kinds of intuitions but nobody knows how
difficult the the like the I thought I
thought the self-driving problem would
be hard but it's it was harder than I
thought it's not like I thought it would
be easy I thought it would be very hard
but it was actually way harder than than
even that so I what it comes down to at
the end of the day is disolve
self-driving uh you have to
solve uh you you basically need to
recreate
um what what humans do to drive which is
humans drive with Optical sensors eyes
and biological
neuronet um and so in order to that
that's how the entire Road system is
designed to work with with a p basically
passive Optical and neural Nets um
biologically um and now that we need to
so for actually for full driving to work
we have to recreate that in digital form
um so we have to um that that means
cameras with
uh Advanced uh neural Nets in Silicon
form uh and and then you it will
obviously solve for full sell driving
that's that's the only way I don't think
there's any other way but the question
is what aspects of human nature do you
have to encode into the machine right so
you have to solve the perception problem
like
detect and then you first well realize
what is the perception problem for
driving like all the kinds of things you
have to be able to see like what what do
we even look at when we drive there's uh
I just recently heard Andre talked about
at MIT about like car doors I think it
was the world's greatest talk of all
time about carard doors yeah um the the
you know the fine details of carard
doors like what what is even an open car
door man so like the the antology of
that that's a perception problem we
humans solve that perception problem and
Tesla has to solve that problem and then
there's the control and the planning
coupled with the perception you have to
figure out like what's involved in
driving like especially in all the
different edge cases um and and then the
I mean maybe you can comment on this how
much game theoretic kind of stuff needs
to be involved you know at a four-way
stop sign you know our as humans when we
drive our actions affect the world like
sure it changes how others behave most
autonomous driving if you you're usually
just responding
um to the scene as opposed to like
really um asserting yourself in the
scene do you
think I think this I think I think these
these sort of control logic conundrums
are not are not the hard part um the you
know let's see
um what do you think is the hard part of
in this whole um beautiful complex
problem it's a lot of freaking software
man a lot of smart lines of code um
uh for sure in order to have um create
an accurate Vector space uh so like
you're you're coming from image space
which is like this this flow of um
photons you're going to the camera
cameras
and and then uh so you have this massive
bitstream um in an image space uh and
then you have to uh effectively compress
uh
the a massive but
stream uh corresponding to photons that
knocked off an electron in in a camera
sensor uh and and turn that putstream
into into Vector space
um by by Vector space I mean like uh you
know you've got cars and and humans and
uh Lane lines and curves
and uh traffic lights and that kind of
thing um once you uh have an accurate
Vector space um the control problem is
similar to that of a video game like a
grand theft order of cyberpunk um if you
have accur accurate ve Vector space it's
the control problem is it's I wouldn't
say it's it's trivial it's not trivial
but it's
um like it's it's it's a it's not like
some insurmountable thing it's just a
it's but but having accurate Vector
space is very difficult yeah I think we
humans uh don't give enough respect to
how incredible the human perception
system is to to mapping the raw photons
to the vector space representation in
our heads your brain is doing an
incredible amount of processing um and
and and giving you an image that is a
very cleaned up image like when we look
around here we see like you see color in
the corners of your eyes but actually
your eyes have very few uh uh cones like
the cone receptors in the peripheral
vision your your your eyes are painting
color in the peripheral vision you don't
realize it but their eyes are actually
painting color and your eyes also have
like there's blood vessels and all sorts
of gnarly things and there's a blind
spot but do you see your blind spot no
your your your your brain is painting in
the missing the blind spot you're going
to do these like see these things online
where you look look here and look at
this point and and then look at this
point and it's if it's in your blind
spot it it your brain will just fill in
the the missing bits cool the peripher
vision is so cool makes you realize all
the Illusions for vision science is so
it makes you realize just how incredible
the brain is the brain is doing crazy
amount of post-processing on the vision
signals from your eyes um it's
insane so um and then and then even once
you get all those Vision signals uh your
your brain is constantly trying to Fig
to to forget as much as possible so
human memory is perhaps the weakest
thing about the brain is memory so
because memory is so expensive to a
brain and so limited your brain is
trying to forget as much as possible and
distill the things that you see into uh
the smallest smallest amounts of
information possible so your brain is
trying to not just get to a vector space
but get to a vector space that is the
smallest possible Vector space of only
relevant objects
um and I think like you can sort of look
inside your brain or at least I can like
when you drive down the road and and try
to think about what your brain is
actually doing consciously and it's it's
cons it's it's it's it's it's like
you'll see a car that's because you're
you don't have cameras you you don't
have eyes in the back of your head or
the side you know so you say like you
you're basically your your head is like
a you know you basically have like two
cameras on a slow gimbal um and and
what's your and eyesight's not that
great okay human and eyes are you know
like um and people are constantly
distracted and thinking about things and
texting and doing all sorts of things
they shouldn't do in a car changing the
radio station
so having arguments you know is like um
so so then like say like
like uh like when was the last time you
looked right and left and you know or
and rare word um or even diagonally you
know forward to actually refresh your
vector space so you're glancing around
and what your mind is doing is is is
trying to distill um the relevant
vectors basically objects with a
position and motion uh and and and then
and and then uh editing that down to the
least amount that's necessary for you to
drive it does seem to be able to uh edit
it down or compress it even further into
things that Concepts so it's not it's
like it goes beyond the human mind seems
to go sometimes Beyond Vector space to
the sort of space of Concepts to where
you'll see a thing it's no longer
represented spatially somehow it's
almost like a concept that you should be
aware of like if this is a a school zone
you'll remember that as a concept which
is a weird thing to represent but
perhaps for driving you don't need to
fully represent those things or maybe
you get those kind of
um well you indirectly you you need to
like establish Vector space and then
actually have predictions for uh that
those Vector spaces so like um you know
like if
uh you know like you drive past say
say a a bus and and you see that there's
there's people before you drove past the
bus you saw people crossing like or some
just imagine there's like a a large
truck or something blocking site um
but you before you came up to the truck
you saw that there were some kids about
to cross the road in front of the truck
now you can no longer see the kids but
you you you need to be able but you
would now know okay those kids are
probably going to pass by the truck and
cross the road even though you cannot
see them so you have to have
um memory uh you need to remember that
there were kids there and you need to
have some forward prediction of what
their uh Position will be it's a really
hard problem relevance so with
occlusions and computer vision when you
can't see an object anymore even when it
just walks behind a tree and reappears
that's a really really I mean at least
in academic literature it's tracking
through occlusions it's very difficult
yeah we're doing it um I understand this
yeah so some of it it's like object
permanent like same thing happens with
the humans with neural net like we're
like a toddler grows up like there's a
there's a point in time where uh they
develop they have a sense of object
permanence so before a certain age if
you have a ball uh or a toy or whatever
and you put it behind your back and you
pop it out if they don't before they
have object permanence it's like a new
thing every time it's like whoa this toy
went poof disappeared and now it's back
again and they can't believe it and that
they can play peekaboo all day long
because peekaboo is fresh every
time but then we figure out object
permanence then they realize oh no the
the object is not gone it's just behind
your back um sometimes I wish we never
did figure out
per yeah so that's uh so that's an
important problem to solve yes so so
like an important evolution of the
neural Nets in the car is
uh um memory C memory across both time
and space um so uh now you can't
remember like you have to say like how
long do you want to remember things for
and and it there's there's a cost to
remembering things for a long time so
you you you know like run out of me
memory to if you try to remember too
much for too long um and and then you
also have things that are stale if if if
they're remember them for too long and
then you also need things that are me
remembered over time so even if you like
say have like fragant like 5 Seconds of
memory uh on a Time basis but like let's
say you you parked at a light and you
and you
saw use a pedestrian example that people
were waiting to cross the cross the road
and you can't you can't quite see them
because of an occlusion uh and but they
might wait for a minute before the light
changes for them to cross the road you
still need to to remember that that that
that's where they were um and that
they're probably going to cross the road
type of thing um so even if that exceeds
your your your timebase memory it should
not exceed your space
memory and I I just think the data
engine side of that so getting the data
to learn all the concepts that you're
saying now is an incredible process it's
this iterative process of just it's this
this hydronet many
hydronet we're changing the name to
something else okay I'm sure it'll be
equally as Rick and Morty like there's a
lot of there yeah we've rearchitecturing
the cars so many times it's crazy also
every time there's a new major version
you'll rename it to something more
ridiculous or uh or memorable and
beautiful sorry not ridiculous of
course if you see the full the full like
array of neural Nets that that that are
operating in the car it's it kind of
boggles the Mind there so there's so
many layers it's crazy um
so yeah um but and we we started off
with uh simple neural Nets that were uh
basically image recognition on a single
frame from a single camera uh and then
uh trying to knit those together with
you know it with the c I should say we
we're really primarily running C here
because C++ is too much overhead and we
have our own C compiler so to get
maximum performance we actually wrote
Our Own C compiler and are continuing to
optimize our C compiler uh for uh
maximum efficiency in fact we've just
recently uh done a new Rev on a on a c
compiler that will compile compile
directly to our autopilot Hardware um so
you want to compile the whole thing down
and with your own compiler like so
efficiency here because there's all
kinds of comput there CPU GPU there's
like basic types of things and you have
to somehow figure out the scheduling
across all those things and so you're
compiling the code down that does all
okay this is so that's why there's a lot
of people
involved there there's a lot of hardcore
uh software engineering at a very sort
of bare metal level uh cuz you we're
trying to do a lot of compute uh that's
constrained to
the you know our fullof driving computer
so and we want to try to have the
highest frames per second um possible um
with with in a s very finite amount of
compute um and power
so um we really put a lot of effort into
the efficiency of our compute um and and
uh so there's actually a lot of work
done by some very talented software
engineers at Tesla that uh at a at a
very foundational level to improve the
efficiency of compute and how we use the
the trip accelerators uh which are
basically
um dot you know doing Matrix math do do
products like a Brazillian do products
you it's like what what what are new
orlet it's like computer wise like 99%
dot
product so
you know um and you want to achieve as
many high frame rates like a video game
you want full
resolution High frame rate high frame
rate low
latency
um low Jitter uh
so
um I I think one of the things we're um
moving towards now is no post-processing
of the image through the um uh the image
signal processor so um like for what
happens for cameras is that almost
cameras is
they um there's a lot of post-processing
done in order to make pictures look
pretty MH um and so we don't care about
pictures looking pretty um we we just
want the data we we so we we're moving
to just Ro Photon on counts so the
system will like the image that that the
computer sees is actually much more than
what you see if you represented it on a
camera it's got much more data uh and
even in very low light conditions you
can see that there's a small Photon
count difference between you know this
spot here and that spot there which
means that so it can see in the dock
incredibly well um because it can detect
these tiny differences in photon
counts like much better than you
possibly imagine um so and and then we
also save uh 13 millisecond
on a latency uh so um from removing the
postprocessing on the image yes yeah
it's like
um because we've got you know eight
cameras and and then there's
uh roughly I don't know one and a half
millisecs also maybe 1.6 milliseconds of
latency um for for each camera and So
like um going to just uh basically
bypassing the image processor uh gets us
back 13 milliseconds of latency which is
important um and and we track latency
all the way from you know Photon hits
the the camera to you know all the steps
that it's got to go through to get you
go through the um the various neural
Nets and the the C code and there's a
little bit of C++ there as well um well
I maybe a lot but it the core stuff is
the heavy duty Compu is len see um
and uh and so so we track that latency
all the way to an output command to the
um Drive Unit to accelerate uh the
brakes just to slow down the steering
you turn left or right um so CU you got
to Output a command that's going to go
to a controller and like some of these
controllers have an update frequency
that's maybe uh 10 Hertz or something
like that which is slow that's like now
you lose 100 Mill seconds potentially so
um so then we want to update the
the drivers on the like say steering and
braking control to have um more like uh
100 HZ instead of 10 htz and you got a
10 millisecond latency instead of 100
milliseconds worst case latency and and
actually J Jitter is more of a a
challenge than than than latency because
latency is like you can you can you can
anticipate and predict but if you but if
you've got a stack up of things going
from the camera to the to the computer
through then a series of other computers
and finally to an actuator on the the
car if you have a stackup of uh uh of
tolerances of timing tolerances then you
can have quite a variable latency which
is called jedar and and that makes it a
hard to to to anticipate exactly what
how you should turn the car or
accelerate because you know if you got
maybe 100 50 200 milliseconds of Jitter
then you could be off by you know up to
02 seconds and this could make this
could make a big difference so you have
to interpolate somehow to to to uh deal
with the effects of Jitter so that you
can make like
robust control
decisions yeah have to so the Jitter is
in the sensor information or the Jitter
can occur at any stage in the pipeline
you can if you have just if you have
fixed latency you can anticipate um and
and like say okay we know that uh our
information is for argument sake 150
millisecond stale like
so 150 I say 150 milliseconds from
Photon second camera to um where you can
measure a change in the acceleration of
the vehicle
um so then uh then you can say okay well
we're going to and we know it's 150
milliseconds so we're going to take that
into account and uh and compensate for
that latency however if if you've got
then 150 milliseconds of of latency plus
100 milliseconds of Jitter that which
could be anyway from zero Z to 100
milliseconds on top so so then your
latency could be from 150 250
milliseconds now you got 100
milliseconds that you don't know what to
do with and and that's basically
random so getting rid of J is extremely
important and that affects your control
decisions and all those kinds of things
okay um yeah the car is just going to
fundamentally maneuver better with lower
Jitter um got it and the cause will
maneuver with superhuman ability and
reaction time much faster than a
human I mean I think over time the it
tell autopilot full driving will be
capable of Maneuvers that um you know
uh you know are far more than what like
James Bond could do in like the best
movie type of thing that's exactly what
I was imagining in my mind as you said
it um it's like impossible Maneuvers
that a human couldn't do you know
so well let me ask sort of uh looking
back at the six years looking out into
the future based on your current
understanding how hard do you think this
this full self-driving problem when do
you think Tesla will solve level four
FSD I mean it's looking quite likely
that it will be next
year and what does the solution look
like is it the current pool of FSD beta
candidates they start getting greater
and greater as they have been degrees of
autonomy and then there's a certain
level Beyond which they can they they
can do their own they can read a
book yeah so uh I mean you can see
anybody who's been following the full
driving beta closely um will see that
the um the rate of disengagements has
been dropping rapidly so like a
disengagement be where where the driver
intervenes to prevent the car from doing
something right uh dangerous potentially
so
um um so the
interventions you know per million miles
has been dropping uh dramatically at
some point
the and and that Trend looks like it
happens next year is that the
probability of an accident on FSD uh is
uh less than that of the average human
and then and then significantly less
than that of the average human um
so it certainly appears like we will get
there next year um then then of course
that that then there's going to be be a
case of okay we now have to prove this
to regulators and prove it to you know
and and we we we want a standard that is
not just equivalent to a human but uh
much better than the average human I
think it's got to be at least two or
three times uh higher safety than a
human so two or three times lower
probability of injury than a human um
before before we would actually say like
okay it's okay to go it's not going to
be equivalent it's going to be much
better so if you look uh 10 FSD 10.6
just came out recently 10.7 is on the
way maybe 11 is on the way somewhere in
the future yeah um we were hoping to get
11 out this year but it's
uh 11 actually has a whole bunch of uh
fundamental rewrites on the neural
neural net architecture um and and some
fundamental improvements uh in creating
Vector space uh
so um so there is a some fundamental
like leap that really deserves the 11
that's a pretty cool number yeah you
know uh 11 would be uh a single stack
for all yeah one stack to rule them all
um and
uh but but there there're just some
really
fundamental uh neural net architecture
changes that are that that will allow
for U much more capability but but you
know at first they're going to have
issues so like we have this working on
like sort of alpha software and it's
it's good but it's
uh it's it's basically taking a whole
bunch of cc++ code and and and leading a
massive amount of C++ code and replacing
it with the neural net and you know
Andre um makes this point a lot which
is's like neural Nets a kind of eting
software you know over time there's like
less and less conventional software more
and more neural net which is still
software but it's you know still comes
out the Lin of software but uh let's
more more neural net stuff uh and less
uh you know heris stics basically um if
if you're uh more more more uh Matrix
based stuff and less uh htics based
stuff
um and
um you know like like like one of the
big changes will be
um like right now the neural Nets uh
will um deliver a giant bag of
points to the C++ or CN C++ code yeah um
we call it the giant bag of points yeah
uh and it's like so you go to pixel and
and and and something associated with
that pixel like this pixel is probably
car this pixel is probably Lan line um
then you've got to assemble this giant
bag of points in the C code and turn it
into uh V
um and uh does a pretty good job of it
but it's it's uh it's we want to just we
need another layer of neural Nets on top
of that to take the the giant bag of
points and distill that down to uh
Vector space in the in the neural net
part of the software as opposed to the
heuristics part of the software this is
a big Improvement um NE on that's all
the way down is what you want it's not
all NE net but it's it's it's uh this
will be just a g this is a game changer
to not have the bag of points the giant
bag of points that has to be assembled
with um many lines of C C++ uh and and
have the and have neural net just sample
those into vectors so so that the the
neural net is
outputting
um much much less data it's it's it's
it's outputting this this is a lane Line
This is a curb this is driveable space
this is a c this is a you know
pedestrian or cyclist or something like
that it's
outputting um it's it's really out
outputting um prop proper vectors to the
the cc++ control control code as opposed
to the sort
of constructing the the
vectors uh in Inc um which we've done I
think quite a good job of but it it's
it's a
we're kind of hitting a local maximum on
the how well the SE can do this um so
this is this is really this really big
deal and and just all of the networks in
the car need need to move to surround
video there's still some Legacy networks
that are not surround video um and all
of the training needs to move to
surround video and the efficiency of the
training uh needs to get better and it
is uh and then we need to move
everything to uh raw uh
counts as opposed to um processed images
okay so which is which is quite a big
reset on the training because the
systems trained on post-processed image
images so we need to redo all the
training uh to train against the the RO
Photon counts instead of the
postprocessed image so ultimately it's
kind of reducing the complexity of the
whole thing so uh reducing reducing
lines of code will actually go go lower
yeah that's fascinating
um so you're doing Fusion of all the
sensors so reducing the complexity of
having to deal with these cameras
cameras really right yes
um same with humans I guess we got ears
too okay yeah well we'll actually need
to incorporate um sound as well um
because you know you need to like listen
for ambulance sirens or you know fire
tracks you know uh somebody like you
know yelling at you or something I don't
know just there's there's a little bit
of audio that needs to be incorpor as
well do you need to C bath a break yeah
let's true let's take a break okay
honestly
frankly like the ideas are are the easy
thing and the implementation is the hard
thing like the idea of going to the Moon
is is the easy part but going to the
Moon is the hard part is the hard part
um and there's a lot of like hardcore
engineering that's got to get done at
the hardware and software level uh like
I said optimizing the C compiler and the
just you know uh cutting out latency
everywhere like this is if we don't do
this the system will not work properly
um so the work of the engineers doing
this they are like the unsung heroes to
some you know but they are critical to
the success of the situation I think you
made it clear I mean at least to me it's
super exciting everything that's going
on outside of what Andre is doing yeah
just the whole infrastructure of the
software I I mean everything is going on
with data engine uh whatever whatever
it's called the whole process is is just
the sh scale of it is is boggles to mind
like the training the amount of work
done with like we written all this
custom software for training and
labeling um and to do auto labeling Auto
labeling is
essential um because especially when you
got like surround video it's very
difficult to like label surround video
from scratch is extremely difficult um
like take a human such a long time to
even label one video clip like several
hours or the aut
labeler basically we just apply he like
heavy
duty uh like a lot of compute to the to
the video clips um to preassign and
guess what all the things are that are
going on in the surround video and then
there's like correcting it yeah and then
all the human has to do is like tweet
like say you know CH adjust what is
incorrect this this is like increase
increases productivity by effect 100 or
more yeah uh so you've presented Tesla
bot as primarily useful in the factory
first of all I think human robots are
incredible from a a fan of Robotics I
think uh the Elegance of movement that
human um that humanoid robots that
bipedo robots show are just so cool so
it's uh really interesting that you're
working on this and also talking about
applying the same kind of all the ideas
of some of which we've talked about with
data engine all the things that we're
talking about with Tesla autopilot just
uh transferring that over to the just
yet another robotics problem
I have to ask since I care about human
robot interaction so the human side of
that so you've talked about mostly in
the factory do you see it uh Al do you
see part of this problem that Tesla bot
has to solve is interacting with humans
and potentially having a place like in
the home so interacting not just not
replacing labor but also like I don't
know being a friend or or an assistant I
think the the possibilities are you know
endless
yeah I me it's it's obviously like a
it's not quite in Tesla's primary
Mission direction of accelerating
sustainable energy but uh it is a an
extremely useful thing that we can do
for the world which is to make a useful
humanoid robot um that is capable of
interacting with the world and um
helping in in many different ways uh so
soly in factories and and really just I
mean I think if you say like uh
extrapolate to you know many years in
the future it's like I I think uh work
will become
optional so like there's a lot of jobs
that if you if people weren't paid to do
it they they wouldn't do it like it's
not it's not fun you know necessarily
like if you're washing dishes all day
it's like H you know even if you really
like washing dishes you really want to
do it for eight hours a day every day
probably not so
um and then there's like dangerous work
and basically if it's dangerous boring
uh it has like potential for repetitive
stress in injury that kind of thing um
then that's really where human right
robots would add the most value
initially um so that's what we're aiming
for is is to um for for the human to
drove us to do jobs that people don't
don't voluntarily want to do um and and
then that we'll have to pair that
obviously with some kind of universal B
basic income in the future uh so I think
um so DC world when there's like
hundreds of millions of Tesla
Bots doing different performing
different tasks throughout the
world yeah I haven't really thought
about it that far into future but I I
guess that there may be something like
that um
so ask a wild question so the the number
of Tesla cars has been accelerating
there's been close to 2 million produced
many of them have autopilot I think
we're over 2 million now yeah do you
think there will ever be a time when
there will be more Tesla Bots than Tesla
cars yeah I I you know actually it's
funny you asked this question because
normally I do try to think pretty far
into the future but I haven't really
thought that far into the
future with the with the Tesla bot or
it's code named op Optimus I call I I
call it Optimus
subprime because it's not it's not like
a giant you know transformer robot um so
uh but it's meant to be a general
purpose help health Orbot
um and and basically like like the
things that we're basically like like
Tesla I think um is the has the most
advanced real world AI uh for
interacting with the real world which we
developed as a function of to to make
self-driving work um and so along with
custom hardware and like a lot of you
know uh hardcore low-level software to
have it run efficiently and be you know
power efficient because you know it's
one thing to do neural Nets if you got a
gigantic subo room with 10,000 computers
but now let's say you just you have to
now distill that down into one computer
that's running at low power in a
humanoid robot or a car um that's
actually very difficult a lot of
Hardcore software work is required for
that
um so so since we're kind of like
solving the N navigate the real
world with neural Nets problem for cars
which are kind of like robots with four
wheels then it's like kind of a natural
extension of that is to put it in a
robot with arms and legs uh and act you
know actuators um so
um like like the the the
two like hard things are like you
basically need to make the have the
robot be intelligent enough to interact
in a sensible way with the
environment um so you need real real
world Ai and you need to be very good at
um manufacturing which is a very a hard
problem TS is very good at manufacturing
and also uh has the real world AI so
making the human or robot work is uh
basically means developing
custom uh Motors and sensors uh that
that are different from what a car would
use um but we we we also we have
um I think we have the the the best
expertise in developing Advanced
electric motors and Power Electronics so
it it just has to be for a humanoid
robot application not a
car still you do talk about love
sometimes so let me ask this isn't like
for like sex robots or something like
that love is the answer yes uh there is
something compelling to us not
compelling but we connect with um
humanoid robots or even legged robots
like with a dog and she shapes with dogs
it just it seems like you know there's a
huge amount of loneliness in this world
all of us seek companionship and with
other humans friendship and all those
kinds of things we have a lot of here in
Austin a lot of people have
dogs um there seems to be a huge
opportunity to also have robots that
decrease the uh the the amount of
loneliness in the world or help us
humans connect with each with each other
so in the way that dogs can um do you
think about that with testot at all or
is it really focused on the problem of
of Performing specific tasks not
connecting with
humans um I mean to be to be honest I
have not actually thought about it from
the companionship standpoint but I think
it actually would end up being it could
be actually a very good
companion um and it could I you develop
like a
personality uh over time that is that is
like unique like uh you know it's not
like they're just all the robots are the
same and that personality could evolve
to be you know uh
match match the the the owner or the you
know I guess the owner uh well whatever
you want to call it uh the other the
other half right uh in the same way that
friends do see I think that's a huge
opportunity I think yeah know that's
interesting like
um the because you know like there's a a
Japanese phrase are like the wav saavi
you know uh the subtle imperfections are
what makes something
yeah and the subtle imperfections of the
personality of the robot mapped to the
subtle imperfections of the robot's
human friend I don't know owner sounds
like maybe the wrong word but
um could actually make an incredible
buddy basically and in that way the
imperfection R2D2 or like a C3PO sort of
thing you know so from a machine
learning
perspective I think the flaws being a
feature is really nice you could be
quite terrible at being a robot for
quite a while in the general home
environment or all the in the general
world and that's kind of adorable and
that's like those are your flaws and you
fall in love with those flaws so it's
it's a it's very different than
autonomous driving where it's a very
high stakes environment you cannot mess
up and so it's yeah it's more fun to be
a robot in the home yeah in fact if you
think of like C3PO and R2-D2 yeah like
they actually had a lot of like flaws
and Imperfections and silly things and
they would argue with each
other and um were they actually good at
doing anything I'm not exactly sure they
definitely added a lot to the story
um but but but there's there sort of
quirky elements and you know that they
would like make mistakes and do things
like it was like uh it made
them relatable I don't know um
endearing so
so yeah I think that that could be
something that uh it probably would
happen um but our initial focus is just
to make it useful uh so so um I'm
confident we'll get it done I'm not sure
what the exact time frame is but uh like
we'll probably have I don't know a
decent prototype towards the end of next
year or something like that and it's
cool that it's connected to Tesla the
car so so like it's using a lot of you
know would use the autopilot inference
computer and um a lot of the training
that we've done for the four cars in
terms of recognizing real world things
could be applied directly to the to the
robot um so it but but there's there's a
lot of custom actuators and sensors that
need to be developed mhm and an extra
module on top of the vector space uh for
love yeah that's
me okay we can add that to the car too
that's true um yeah it could be useful
in all environments like you said a lot
of people argue in the car so maybe we
can help them out uh you're a student of
History fan of Dan Carlin's Hardcore
History Podcast yeah that's great
greatest podcast ever yeah I think it is
actually ites it almost doesn't really
count as a podcast it's more like a
audio book yeah so you were on the
podcast with Dan I just had a chat with
him about it he said you guys want
military and all that kind of stuff uh
yeah it's uh it was basically
um uh I it should be titled engineer
Wars uh essentially like like when
there's a rapid change in the rate of
Technology then um engineering plays a
pivotal role in in Victory and battle um
do you how far back in history did you
go did you go World War II it was mostly
well it was supposed to be a deep dive
on Fighters and bomber uh technology in
World War II um but that ended up being
more wide- ranging than that um because
I just went down the total rout hole of
like studying all the the the fighters
and bombers World War II and like the
constant rock paper sciss this game that
like you know uh one country make this
plane then make a plane to beat that and
that try make plane to beat that and
then and really what matters like the
the pace of innovation um and also
access to highquality uh Fuel and uh raw
materials so like Germany had like some
amazing designs but they couldn't make
them uh because they couldn't get the
raw materials uh and uh they they had a
real problem with the oil and and and uh
fuel basically the fuel quality was
extremely variable so the design wasn't
the bot neck it was uh yeah like the the
US had kickass fuel uh that was like
very consistent like the problem is if
you make a very high performance
aircraft engine um in order to make high
performance you have to um
the the the
the the fuel the aviation gas uh has to
be a consistent mixture and uh uh it has
to have a high high octane um like high
octane is the most important thing but
also can't have like impurities and
stuff uh because you you'll fou up the
engine and and and Germany just never
had good access to oil like they try to
get it by invading the cuses MH um but
that didn't work too
well never works well C of him
umet everybody nice to meet you so there
always was Germany was always struggling
with SH with basically shete oil um and
so they could not uh they couldn't count
on a on high quality fuel for their
aircraft so then they had to add all
have all these additives and and stuff
uh so
um uh where whereas the US had awesome
fuel um and they provided that to
Britain as well um so that allowed the
British and the Americans to design
aircraft engines that were uh super high
performance better than anything else in
the
world Germany Germany could could design
the engines they just didn't have the
fuel and then also the like the the uh
the quality of the aluminum Alloys that
they were getting was also not that
great and so you know did you is this
like uh you talked about all this with
Dan y
awesome broadly looking at history when
you look at Jenis Khan when you look at
Stalin Hitler the darkest moments of
human
history uh what do you take away from
those moments does it help you gain
insight about human nature about human
behavior today whether it's the wars or
the individuals or just the behavior of
people any aspects of
History yeah I find history
fascinating
um um there's a lot of incredible things
that have been done good and bad
um that
they help just help you understand the
nature of civilization um and
individuals
and does it make you sad that humans do
these kinds of things to each other you
look at the 20th century World War II
the cruelty the abuse of power talk
about communism Marxism and Stalin um I
mean some of these things do I mean if
if you
like there's a lot of human history um
Mo most of it is actually people just
getting on with their lives uh you know
and and it's not like human history is
just uh non-stop war and disaster those
are actually just those are intermittent
and rare if they weren't then you know
humans would soon cease to exist
um uh but there just that Wars tend to
be written about a lot and whereas like
uh
something being like well a normal year
where nothing major happened was doesn't
get written about much but that's you
know most people just like farming and
kind of like living their life you know
um being a villager somewhere
um and every now and again there's a war
and so
um and um yeah I have to say
like there aren't very many books that I
where I just had to start reading
because it was just too too dark but uh
the book about Stalin the cour of the
red
Zar I could I had to stop reading it was
just too too bad dark
rough
yeah um the
30s uh there's a lot lot of lessons
there to me it in particular that it
feels like humans like all of us have
that Theo soit in line
um that the line between good and evil
runs through the heart every man that
all of us are capable of evil all of us
are capable of good it's almost like
this kind of responsibility that um all
of us have to to to tend towards the
good and so like to me looking at
history is almost like an example of
look you have some charismatic leader
that uh convinces you of things it's too
easy based on that story to do evil onto
each other onto your family onto others
and so it's like our responsibility to
do good um it's not like now is somehow
different from history that can happen
again all of it can happen again and yes
most of the time you're right I mean the
optimistic view here is mostly people
are just living life and as you've often
memd about uh the quality of life was
way worse back in the day and keeps
improving over time through Innovation
through technology but still it's
somehow notable that these blimps of
atrocities happen
sure yeah I mean life was really
tough for most of History um I mean
really for most of human
history um a good year would be one
where not that many people in your
village died of the plague starvation
freezing to death or being killed by a
neighboring
Village it's like well it wasn't that
bad you know it was only like you know
we lost 5% this year that was uh yeah
you know that would be part of the
course like just just not starving to
death would have been like the primary
goal of most people in through
throughout history just making sure
we'll have enough foods to last through
the winter and not get not freeze or
whatever
so
um now food is is plentiful I have an
obesity problem um you know so well yeah
the lesson there is to be grateful for
the way things are now for for some of
us
we've spoken about this
offline I'd love to get your thought
about it
here if I sat down for a long form
in-person conversation with the
president of Russia Vladimir Putin would
you potentially want to call in for a
few minutes uh to join in on a
conversation with him moderated
translated by me sure yeah sure I'd be
happy to do
that you've shown interest in the
Russian language is this grounded in
your interest in history of linguistics
culture General curiosity I think it
sounds cool sounds cool not looks cool
so uh well it's it's you know it's it's
a it takes a moment to read
cilic um once you know what the cic
characters stand for actually then
reading Russian becomes a lot easier
because there are a lot of words that
are actually the same like bank is Bank
mhm
um and uh so find the words that are
exactly the same and now you start to
understand cic yeah you if if you can
sound it out then uh it's much there's
at least some commonality of words what
about the
culture you uh you love grade
engineering physics there's a tradition
of the Sciences there you look at the
20th century from rocketry so you know
some of the greatest Rockets some of the
space exploration has been done in the
Soviet in the former Soviet Union yeah
so do you draw inspiration from that
history just how this culture that in
many ways mean one of the sad things is
because of the language a lot of it is
lost to history because it's not
translated all those kinds of because it
it is in some ways an isolated culture
it flourishes within its within its
borders um yeah so do you draw
inspiration from those folks from from
the history of science engineering there
I mean the sovet Union Russia and um and
Ukraine as well and uh have a really
strong history in space flight like some
of the most advanced and impressive
things in history were done
uh you know by the Soviet Union um
[Music]
so um one can cannot help it admire the
impressive rocket technology that was
developed
um you know after the sort of fall of
the Soviet Union the there there's the
the there's much less that that that
happened um but
uh still things are happening but it's
not not quite at the um frenetic Pace
that was happening uh before the Soviet
Union kind
of dissolved into separate
republics yeah I mean I I you know
there's Ros Cosmos the Russian agency I
um
I look forward to a time when those
countries with China are working
together the United States are all
working together maybe a little bit of
friendly competition but I think
friendly competition is good um you know
governments are slow and the only thing
slower than one government is a
collectional
governments so yeah the Olympics would
be boring if everyone just crossed the
finishing line at the same time yeah
nobody would watch yeah uh and and
people wouldn't try hard to run fast and
stuff so I think friendly competition is
a good
thing uh this is also a good place to
give a shout out to a video titled the
entire Soviet rocket engine family tree
by Tim Dodd AKA everyday astronaut it's
like an hour and a half it gives a full
history of Soviet rockets and people
should definitely go check out and
support Tim in general that guy is super
excited about the future super excited
about space flight every time I see
anything by him I just have a stupid
smile on my face cuz he's so excited
about stuff I love people like that is
uh really great if you're interested in
anything to do with space um he's in
terms of uh explaining rocket technology
to your average person he's awesome the
best I'd say um and um I should say like
the PARTA reason like uh I switched us
from like rafter at one point was going
to be a hydrogen engine um but but
hydrogen has a lot of challenges it's
very low density it's a it's a deep
cryogen so it's only liquid at a very
you know very close absolute zero
requires a lot of insulation it's um so
there's lot a lot of challenges there um
and um and I was actually reading a bit
about uh Russian rocket engine
development and um at least the
impression I had was that that uh or
Soviet Union Russia and Ukraine uh
primarily
were uh actually in the process of uh
switching to meth
methyls um and there were some
interesting test stand data for ISP like
they were able to get like up to like a
3802 ISP with a meux engine and I was
like w okay that's that's actually
really impressive
so um so I think we could you could
actually
get um a much lower cost like in
optimizing cost per ton to over cost per
ton to Mars um it's uh I I think um
methane oxgen is the way to go um and I
was partly inspired by the Russian work
on the test stands uh with methalox
engines and now for something completely
different do you mind doing a uh bit of
a meme review in the spirit of the great
the powerful PewDiePie let's say 1 to 11
just go over a few documents printed out
we can try let's try
this I present to you document numer
Uno I don't okay Vlad palor discovers
marshmallows yeah that's not
bad
so you get it because uh heing things
yes I get I don't know three whatever um
oh that's not very
good this is um grounded in some
engineering
some
history uh yeah give this an eight out
of 10 what do you think about nuclear
power U I'm in favor of nuclear power I
think it's
uh in a place that is not subject to
extreme natural disasters I think it's a
nuclear power is a great way to generate
uh
electricity um I I don't think we should
be shutting down nuclear power
stations yeah but what about
chobble
exactly
um
so uh I think I think people there's
like a lot of fear of radiation and
stuff
um and it's I I guess the problem is
like a lot of people just don't un they
didn't study engineering or physics so
they it's just the word radiation just
sounds scary you know so they don't they
they can't calibrate what radiation
means um but radiation is much less
dangerous than than you think
um so
um like for example Fukushima you know
um when the Fukushima uh problem
happened
uh to the tsunami
the I got people in California asking me
if they should worry about radiation
from Fukushima and I'm like definitely
not not even slightly not at all that is
crazy um and just
to show like look this is
how like the danger is so much
overplayed compared to what what it
really is that I actually flew to
Fukushima and I actually I donated a a a
solar power system for water treatment
plant and uh and and I made a point of
eating locally grown vegetables
um on TV in
Fukushima like I'm still alive okay so
it's not even that the risk of these
events is low but the impact of them is
is impact is greatly exaggerated it's
just great human nature it's people
people don't know what radiation is like
I've had people ask me like what about
radiation from cell phones quoting quing
brain cancer I'm like when you say
radiation do you mean photons or
particles like that don't know what what
do you mean photons particles do you
mean uh let's say photons what what
frequency or wavelength and they're like
I have no idea um like do you know that
everything's radiating all the time like
what do you mean like yeah everything's
radiating all the time photons are being
emitted by by all objects all the time
basically so um and if you want to know
what it's it's what it means to stand in
front of nuclear fire go outside the sun
is a
gigantic you know thermonuclear reactor
you're staring right at it yeah are you
still alive yes okay
amazing yeah I guess radiation is one of
the words that can be used as as a tool
to to fear Monger by certain people
that's it and I think people just don't
don't understand so I mean that's the
way to fight that uh that fear I suppose
is to understand is to learn yeah just
say like okay how many people have
actually died from nuclear accidents
since like practically nothing and uh
say how many people have have died from
you know coal plants and it's a very big
number MH
so like obviously we should not be
starting up coal plants and shutting
down nuclear plants just doesn't make
any sense at all coal plants like I
don't know 100 to a thousand times worse
for for health than nuclear power plants
uh you want to go to the next one this
really
bad it's uh that uh 90 180 and 360
degrees everybody loves the math nobody
gives a shit about 270 it's not super
funny I don't like 20 three yeah um this
is not uh you know LOL
situation
yeah uh that's pretty good the United
States oscillating between establishing
and destroying dictatorships it's like a
Metro is that a Metro what is yeah yeah
yeah it's uh I know 7 out of 10 it's
kind of true oh yeah this is uh this is
kind of personal for me next one oh man
is this Leica yeah well no this is or
it's like referring to Leica or
something as leica's uh like uh husband
husband yeah yeah hello yes this is dog
your wife was launched into space and
then the last one is him with his eyes
closed and a bottle of AA yeah Lea
didn't come back no they don't tell you
the full story of you know what
what the love the impact they had on the
loved ones true that one gets an 11 for
me just the Soviet Shad out oh yeah it
this keeps going on the Russian
theme first man in space nobody cares
first man in the moon well I think
people do care no I know but
um there is yar's names will will will
will be forever in history I think there
is something special about placing like
stepping foot onto another totally for
on land it's it's not the journey like
uh people that explored the oceans it's
not as important to explore the oceans
as to land on a whole new
continent yeah yeah this is about
you oh yeah I'd love to get your comment
on this Elon Musk after sending $6.6
billion to the UN to end world hunger
you have three
hours um yeah I mean obviously $6
billion is not going to end world hunger
so
um so I mean reality is at this point
the world is producing uh far more food
than it can really consume like we don't
have a caloric uh constraint at this
point so where there is hunger it is
almost always due to um like like Civil
War or Strife or some like um it's it's
it's not a thing that
is extremely rare for it to be just a
matter of like lack lack of money it's
like you know it's like some there's a
Civil War in some some country and and
like one part of the country's literally
trying to starve the other part of the
country
um so it's much more complex than
something that money could solve it's
Pol it's geopolitics it's it's a lot of
things it's human nature it's
governments it's money monetary systems
all that kind of stuff yeah food is
extremely cheap uh these days it's like
it's
um I mean the US at this point um you
know among low-income families obesity
is is actually another the problem it's
not like obesy it's not hunger it's it's
like too you know too many calories uh
so it's not that nobody's hungry hungry
anywhere it's just it's just this is
uh not not a simple matter of adding
money and solving
it what do you think that one
gets just I don't know two
just going after Empires world uh where
did you get those artifacts the British
museum shout out to Monty Python we
found them yeah the the museum is it's
pretty great I mean yeah in Middle
Britain did take uh these historical
artifacts from all around the world and
put them in London but uh you know it it
it's not like people can't go see them
uh so it is a a convenient place to see
these uh ancient artifacts is is London
for
you know for for a large segment of the
world so I think you know unbalance the
British museum is a net good although
I'm sure the a lot of countries would
argue about that yeah it's like you want
to make these historic artifacts
accessible to as many people as possible
and the British museum I think does a
good job of
that even if there's a darker aspect to
like the history of empire in general
whatever the empires however things were
done it's it is the history that happen
you can't sort of erase that history
unfortunately you could just become
better in the future it's the
point yeah I mean it's like well how how
are we going to pass moral judgment on
on these these things like it's like if
uh you know uh one is going to judge say
the British Empire you got to judge you
know what everyone was doing at the time
and how were the British relative to
everyone um and I think there brtish
would actually get like a relatively
good grade
relatively good grade not in absolute
terms but compared to what everyone else
was doing
um they were not the worst like I said
you got to look at these things in the
context of the history of the time um
and say What were what were the
Alternatives and what are you comparing
it against yes and I I I I do not think
it would be the case that um Britain
would get a uh a bad grade in in when
looking at history at the time now if
you judge history from
you know from what is morally acceptable
today you're basically going to give
everyone a failing grade yeah I'm not
clear it's not I don't think anyone
would get a passing grade um in in their
morality uh of like you go back 300
years ago like who who is getting a
passing grade basically no
one and we might not get a passing grade
from Generations that uh that come after
us uh what does that one get uh sure uh
six seven for the Monty Python maybe I
always love Monty Python they're great
uh Life of Brian and the quest of Holy
Grail are incredible yeah yeah D those
serious
eyebrows
BR you how important you think is facial
hair to to great
leadership well you got a new haircut is
that is that is does how does that
affect your leadership I I don't know
hopefully not it doesn't um is that the
second no one yeah the second is no one
first there is no one competing with no
one too those are like epic
eyebrows
so
sure it's ridiculous give it six or
seven I don't know uh I like this like
Shakespeare analysis of memes my he had
a he had a flare for drama as well like
you know Showmanship yeah yeah it must
come from the eyebrows all right um
invention great engineering look what I
invented that's the best thing since
ripped up bread yeah cuz they invented
they're just sliced bread am I just
explaining memes at this
point this is what my life has
become um he's a m m explainer I'm a
meme what it like a you know like a
scribe that like runs around with the
Kings and just like writes down memes I
mean when was a cheeseburger inventor
that's like an epic invention yeah like
like wow you know that versus just like
a burger or or Burger I guess a burger
in general is like you know um then
there's like what is a burger what's
what's a sandwich and then you start
getting it's a pizza sandwich and what
is the original it's it's it gets into
an ontology argument yeah but everybody
knows like if you order like a burger or
cheeseburger whatever and you like you
get like you know tomato and some
lettuce and onions and whatever and you
know mayor and ketchup and mustard it's
like epic yeah but I'm sure they've had
bread and meat separately for a long
time and it was kind of a burger on the
same plate but somebody who actually
combine them into the same thing and
bite it and hold it make makes it
convenient it's a materials problem like
your hands don't get dirty and whatever
yeah it's
top well that is not what I would have
guessed but everyone knows like you if
you order a cheeseburger you know what
you're getting you know it's not like
some obtuse like I wonder what I'll get
you know um you know uh fries are I mean
great I mean they're the devil but Fries
Are Awesome um and
uh yeah Pizza is incredible um food
Innovation doesn't get enough love yeah
I guess is what we're getting at great
um uh what about the uh Matthew mccon
austinite here uh President Kennedy do
you know how to put men on the moon yet
Nas no President Kennedy be a lot cooler
if you
did pretty much sure 66 or something I
suppose and this is the last
one that's
funny someone drew a bunch of dicks all
over the walls cistin Chapel boys
bathroom sure I'll give it nine it's
super it's it's really true all right
this is our highest ranking meme for
today I mean it's true like how did they
get away with that lots of nakedness I
me dickpics are I mean just something
throughout history uh as long as people
can draw things there's been a dickpic
it's a staple of human history it's a
staple consistent throughout human
history you you tweeted that you aspired
to Comedy your friends with Joe Rogan
might you uh do a short standup comedy
set at some point in the future maybe um
open for Joe something like that is that
is that really standup actual just full
on standup full on standup is that in
there or is that I've never thought
about that um it's extremely difficult
if at least that's what uh like Joe says
and the comedians
say huh I wonder if I could um I mean
only one way to find out you know I I
have done stand up for friends just uh
impromptu you know I'll get get on like
a roof uh and they they do laugh but
they're are friends too so I don't know
if if you got to call you know like a
room of strangers are they going to
actually also find it funny but I could
try see what happens I think you'd learn
something either way um yeah I kind of
love um both the when you bomb and when
when you do great just watching people
how they deal with it it's it's so
difficult it's so you're so fragile up
there it's just you and you you think
you're going to be funny and when it
completely Falls flat it's just it's
beautiful to see people deal with like
that I think I might have enough
material to do stand
up I've never thought about but I might
have enough material
um I don't know like 15 minutes or
something oh yeah yeah do do a Netflix
special Netflix special sure um what's
your favorite Rick and Morty concept uh
just to Spring that on you is there
there's a lot of sort of scientific
engineering ideas explored there there's
the there's the butter robot it's great
uh it's a great show you yeah Dr Mor is
awesome somebody that's exactly like you
from an alternate Dimension showed up
there El
yeah that's right that you voiced yeah
RI Mor certainly explores a lot of
interesting
Concepts uh like what's the favorite one
I know the butter robot certainly is uh
you know it's like it it's certainly
possible to have too much sentience in a
device um like you don't want to have
your toaster be like a super genius
toaster it's going to hate hate life cuz
all it could just make is toast but if
you know it's like you don't want to
have like super intelligence stuck in a
a very limited device um do you think
it's too easy from a if we're talk about
from the engineering perspective of
super intelligence like with Marvin the
robot like is it it seems like it might
be very easy to engineer just a
depressed robot like it it's not obvious
to engineer robot that's going to find a
fulfilling existence same as humans I
suppose but um I wonder if that's like
the default if you don't do a good job
on building a robot it's going to be sad
a lot
well we can reprogram robots easier than
we can reprogram
humans
so I I guess if you let it evolve
without tinkering then it might get sad
uh but you can change the optimization
function and have it be a chery
robot you uh like I mentioned with with
SpaceX you give a lot of people hope and
a lot of people look up to you millions
of people look up to you uh if we think
about young people in high school maybe
in
college um what advice would you give to
them about if they want to try to do
something big in this world they want to
really have a big positive impact what
advice would you give them about their
career maybe about life in
general try to be useful um you do
things that are useful to your fellow
human beings to the world it's very hard
to be
useful um
very
hard um you know are you contributing
more than you consume you know like uh
like can
you try to have a positive net
contribution to society
um I think that's the thing to aim for
you know not not to try to be sort of a
leader for for the sake of being a
leader or whatever
um a lot of time people who a lot of
time the people you want as leaders are
the people who don't want to be
leaders
[Music]
so
um if you can live a useful
life that is a good life a life wor
having
lived um you know and I like I said I I
would I would encourage people
[Music]
to use the mental tools of physics and
apply them broadly in life they are the
best tools when you think about educ
ation and self-education what do you
recommend so there's the university
there's uh
self-study there is a Hands-On sort of
finding a company or a place or a set of
people that do the thing you're
passionate about and joining them as
early as possible um there's uh taking a
road trip across Europe for a few years
and writing some poetry which uh which
which trajectory do you
suggest for in terms of learning about
how you can become useful as you
mentioned how you can have the most
positive
impact what i' encourage people to read
a lot of
books just read like basically try to
ingest as much information as you
can uh and try to also just develop a
good general knowledge um so so you at
least have like a rough lay of the land
of the the knowledge
landscape um like try to learn a little
about about a lot of things um cuz you
might not know what you're really
interested how would you know what
you're really interested in if you at
least aren't like doing it peripheral
exp exploration of broadly of of the
knowledge
landscape
um and and you talk to people from
different walks of life and different uh
Industries and professions and skills
and OCC occupations like try
you learn as much as
possible man search for
meaning isn't the whole thing a search
for
meaning is yeah what's the meaning of
life and all you know but just generally
like I said I I would encourage people
to read broadly um in many different
subject areas
um and and and then try to find
something where there's an overlap of
your talents and and what you're
interested in so people may may be good
at something but or they may have SK
skill at a particular thing but they
don't like doing it um so you want to
try to find a thing where you have
you're that's a good a good uh
combination of of your of the things
that you're inherently good at but you
also like doing
um and um and reading is a super fast
shortcut to to figure out which where
are you you both good at it you like
doing it and it will actually have
positive impact well you got to learn
about things somehow so read
reading a broad range I just really read
it you know at one point when as a kid I
I kind I read through the encyclopedia
uh so that's pretty helpful um and uh
also things I didn't even know existed
all lights obviously and it's like as
broad as it gets encyclopedias were
digestible I think uh you know whatever
40 years ago go um so um you know maybe
read through the the condensed version
of the encyclopedia veranica I'd
recommend that um you can always like
skip subjects where you read a few
paragraphs and know you're not
interested just jump to the next one so
read the encyclopedia or skim through it
um and
um but you know I put a lot of stock and
certainly have a lot of respect for
someone who puts in an honest day's work
uh to do useful
things and and just generally to have
like a not a zero some mindset um or or
a like have have more of a grow the pie
mindset like
the if if you sort of say like when when
we see people like perhaps um including
some very smart
people kind of taking an attitude of U
like like like doing things that seem
like morally questionable it's often
because they have at at a base sort of
aaic level a zero some
mindset um and and they without
realizing it they don't realize they
have a a a zero some mindset or or at
least they don't realize it consciously
um and so if you have a zero some
mindset then the only way to get ahead
is by taking things from
others if it's like if the if the pie is
fixed then the only way to have more
piie is to take someone else's pie but
but this is fult like obviously the pie
has grown dramatically over time the
economic pie um so the real in reality
you can
have overuse this analogy you can have a
lot of you can have there lot of
pie yeah P Pi is not fixed um uh so you
really want to make sure you don't
you're not operating um without
realizing it from a zero some mindset
where where the only way to get ahead is
to take things from others then that's
going to result in you take trying to
take things from other which is not not
good it's much better to work on uh
adding to the economic P may you know
so you know
creating like I said create creating
more than you consume uh doing more than
you yeah um so that that's a big deal um
I think there's like you know a fair
number of people in in finance that uh
do have a bit of a zero some mindset I
mean it's all walks of life i' I've seen
that one one of the one of the
reasons uh Rogan inspires me is he
celebrates all there's a lot there's not
not creating a constant competition like
there's a scarcity of resources what
happens when you celebrate others and
you promote others the ideas of others
it it uh it actually grows that pie I
mean it every like the uh the resource
the resources become less scarce and
that that applies in a lot of kinds of
domains it applies in Academia where a
lot of people are very uh see some
funding for academic research is zero
some it is not if you celebrate each
other if you make if you get everybody
to be excited about AI about physics
above mathematics I think it there'd be
more and more funding and I think
everybody wins yeah that applies I think
broadly yeah yeah exactly so last La
last question about love and
meaning uh what is the role of Love In
The Human Condition broadly and more
specific to you how has love romantic
love or otherwise made you a better
person a better human
being better
engineer now you're asking really
perplexing
questions
um it's hard to give
up I mean there are many books poems and
songs written about what is love and
what is what exactly you know
um you know what is love baby don't hurt
me
um that's one of the great ones yes yeah
you you've earlier quoted Shakespeare
but that that's really up there
yeah love is a many Splender thing uh I
mean there's um because we've talked
about so many inspiring things like be
useful in the world sort of like solve
problems alleviate suffering but it
seems like connection between humans is
a source you know it's U it's a source
of Joy it's a source of meaning and that
that's what love is friendship
love I I I just wonder if you think
about that kind of thing when you talk
about preserving the light of human
consciousness and us becoming a multi
multiplanetary
species I mean to me at
least
um that that means like if we're just
alone and conscious and intelligent it
it doesn't mean nearly as much as if
we're with others right and there's some
magic creat when we're together the uh
the Friendship of it and I think the
highest form of it is love which I I
think broadly is is much bigger than
just sort of romantic but also yes
romantic love and um family and those
kinds of things well I mean the reason I
guess I care about us becoming multiplet
species in a space Fring
civilization is foundationally I love
Humanity
um and and so I wish to see it prosper
and do great things and be happy
and um and if I did not love Humanity I
would not care about these
things so when you look at the whole of
it the human history all the people has
ever lived all the people alive
now it's pretty we're we're
okay on on the whole we're pretty
interesting uh Bunch yes all things
considered and I've read a lot of
history including the darkest worst
parts of it and uh despite all that I
think on balance I I still love
Humanity you joked about it with the 42
uh what what do you think is the meaning
of this whole
thing is like is there a non-numerical
representation yeah well really I think
what Douglas Adams was saying in hedg
guide of the Galaxy is that um the
universe is the
answer and uh what we really need to
figure out our what questions to ask
about the answer that is the universe
yeah um and that the question is the
really the hard part and if you can
properly frame the question then the
answer relatively speaking is easy uh so
so so therefore if if you want to
understand what questions to ask about
the universe you want to understand the
meaning of life we need to expand the
scof and scale of Consciousness so that
we're better able
to understand the nature of the universe
and
and understand the meaning of life and
ultimately the most important part will
be to ask the right
question yes uh thereby elevating the
role of the
interviewer yeah as the most important
human in the room AB inter good
questions are you know it's a hard it's
hard to come up with good
questions absolutely um but yeah like
it's like that that is the foundation of
My Philosophy is that um I I I am
curious about the nature of the universe
and uh you know and obviously I will
die I don't know when I'll die but I
won't live forever
um but I would like to know that we are
on a path to understanding the nature of
the universe and the meaning of life and
what questions to ask about the answer
of that is the
universe and um and so if we expand the
scope and scale of humanity and and
Consciousness in general um which
includes silicon Consciousness then
you know they were that that seems like
a fundamentally good
thing Elon like I said um I'm deeply
grateful that you would spend your
extremely valuable time with me today
and also that you have given millions of
people hope in this difficult time this
divisive
time in this uh cynical time so I hope
you do continue doing what you're doing
thank you so much for talking today oh
you're welcome uh thanks for your
excellent questions thanks for listening
to this convers ation with Elon Musk to
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let me leave you with some words from
Elon Musk himself when something is
important enough you do it even if the
odds are not in your
favor thank you for listening and hope
to see you next time