Elon Musk on Millennials and How To Start A Business

people want to be more like you and
therefore the fate of humankind I think
it would be great to have more Elon
Musk's so what do we need to do to
become more like Elon I think maybe
sounds better than it is yeah I mean
honestly like like there's a friend of
mine he's got a great saying about
creating a company which is creating
trying to pull the company and have it
succeed is like eating glass and staring
into the abyss so I mean what tends
happen is it sort of quite exciting for
the first several months of starting a
company and then then reality sets in
things don't go as well as planned
customers aren't signing up the
technology of the park isn't working as
well as you thought and and then can
that can sometimes be compounded by a
recession and it can be very very
painful for several years so I think
frankly starting a company you I would
advise people to have a high pain
tolerance and thanks for reminding us
that the harsh very harsh and brutal
reality of launching a start-up there is
that Elon Musk / Tony Stark mystique you
know people think you know you are
Robert Downey jr. modeled his character
Tony Stark Iron Man on you it's it's
easy it's fun you're a superhero Titan
of industry but it's really hard it's
it's really difficult and it's something
that requires perseverance and grit do
you fear that maybe an in this
generation or the the younger generation
that they don't have that perseverance
in grit to take on these really tough
challenges I think some people do yeah
and but but I think it was definitely
sure that I mean maybe there are
occasionally companies that get created
where where there's not an extended
period of extreme pain
but but I'm not aware of you know very
many such instances yeah
and so but I do think that the the new
great entrepreneurs are gonna have
everyday and will continue to see
amazing companies get built so yeah but
I thought I would definitely advise
people there's not any company to expect
a long period of quite high difficulty
yeah but I mean so long as people stay
super focused on creating absolute best
product or service that really delights
their end customer like if they stay
focused on that then if you get it such
that your customers want you to succeed
then then you probably will all right
you have to focus on the customer
delivering for them yeah make sure if
your customers W you will your odds of
success are dramatically higher all the
entrepreneurs in this were in this room
they're listening to that message and
you know we're running out of time so
this is the final question
this is for the budding entrepreneurs in
the room who could take an Elon Musk
idea and run with it I mean quite
famously Hyperloop is a idea that you
had to give away because you just don't
have enough time to to deal with it what
what are the other ideas that you have
that you would love to see another
entrepreneur just take on and go well I
think there's a lot of opportunity in
general in electrification of transport
so electric aircraft I think there's
there's a lot of opportunity there I
think in in genetic so it's it's that's
sort of a thorny area but I think that's
in terms of solving some of the more
intransigent urgent diseases genetics
are really key to to solving those
something that I think people may be
only beginning to look at is
establishing some kind of brain computer
interface so a brain computer interface
yeah at the neuron level so this is sort
of in
intelligence augmentation as opposed to
artificial intelligence and I think that
that is that has a lot of potential you
mentioned to me this to me yesterday
I really had kind of no idea what you
were talking about and then I looked up
Ian banks neural lace that's right
and so it's this concept of you know
wiring the brain so it's either weak
dude there could be a brain internet and
it could also mean that we can upload
our thoughts to the cloud you would
never forget anything you wouldn't need
to take photographs yeah it's incredible
I mean it's you would never forget
anything you would expand your ability
to process information to remember
information right the denial of service
attack happens it can also be used to
fight degenerative diseases like
Parkinson's - yeah absolutely yeah yeah
and I think it actually would be quite
quite an equaliser as well
because I think the the Delta between
you know like it would sort of even
things out I think you mean humankind it
would be there would be no education
disadvantage everyone would are starting
at the same level yeah so there would be
no meritocracy no there would there
would be but it would be the differences
would be smaller the Delta would be
smaller probably Wow and you really
welcome that kind of world welcome that
you asked for predictions okay the same
as references so I mean do I think
something like that is likely occurred I
think probably Wow yeah well it's
incredible we could go on and on
fortunately have to wrap and leave it
that let's let's give it a for yelling -
that was really awesome thank you so
much
thank you