Elon Musk: The Scientist Behind the CEO (and How He Teaches Himself) Documentary
some say that he is an alien others say
that he is an artificial intelligence
robot
but when it comes down to it elon musk
is a scientist
one who is conquering the business world
elon musk has become a futuristic
industrialist
a person who took his coding skills to
start building machines
most people don't realize that elon musk
is a scientist
even his own friends ask him who is the
chief engineer for spacex
not realizing it is elon himself this
video takes a look at how elon musk sees
the world through a scientific mind and
how his scientific way of life
fuels his businesses we take a look at
the two techniques that elon musk uses
to teach himself about new subjects and
industries
from picking up books such as a soviet
rocket manual that taught him about
rockets when he was starting spacex
to surrounding himself with experts and
people working in the field that can
teach him about the subjects he wants to
get into
this is the reason why he moved from
silicon valley to l.a
so he could get close to people working
in the space industry
elon musk is a scientist and physicist
on the inside
and an engineer on the outside so we
will also take a brief look at the
thinking process behind physics and the
techniques that anyone can use to view
the world
elon musk says that he approaches things
with a physics framework
even when it comes to understanding the
future saying that if you want to
understand or predict the future
then look to physics
[Music]
when elon musk was a kid he was scared
of the dark
but then he understood that dark just
means an absence of photons in the
visible wavelength
and that it is silly to be afraid of a
lack of photons
that is how he viewed and explained
darkness to himself when he was just a
kid
and elon musk does this with maybe
everything that he thinks about
breaking everything down even down to
the fundamental laws of physics
here are some other examples of the
different ways elon musk views the world
through the mind of a physicist and
scientist when describing schools and
education
he says that learning is the downloading
of data and algorithms into our brains
and that schools are doing a bad job of
it so
he started his own school on the joe
rogan podcast when talking about the
birth of his son
elon musk compares the baby to the work
he has been doing on artificial
intelligence and
neural nets saying that an ai neural net
is trying to copy what a human brain is
doing
and you can see it learning quickly just
like a baby
when it comes to happiness the equation
is reality minus
expectations in describing our way of
thinking and using devices
elon musk compares us to an operating
system with bandwidth
saying that while computers can talk to
each other at a trillion bits per second
we use our thumbs to interact with our
phones at 10 to 100 bits
that is why he started neuralink to
connect our brains to computers
it might be the reason why elon musk
likes memes so much
since a lot of information gets passed
along in just one
image he even tweeted saying who
controls the memes
controls the universe elon musk says
that the best piece of advice
is to keep thinking about how you could
be doing things better and keep
questioning yourself
and he uses the engineering term of
creating a feedback loop
where you take what you have done and
adjust how you could be doing it better
as people will tell you what you want to
hear not what is best
there are two techniques that elon musk
uses to teach himself
new subjects one is through simply
picking up books
and the other is surrounding himself
with smart people
let's first quickly take a look at how
he has used books to form the wisdom and
fuel for the businesses he has built
when he was a kid elon musk would read
up to 10 hours a day
saying he was raised by books he even
read two sets of encyclopedias which
gave a good view of how different things
could be connected
elon musk's formal education includes a
degree in physics and one in economics
there was also the phd in material
sciences and physics that he dropped out
from
yet his first startups out of college
were all based on him
coding and programming during the early
days of the internet
elon saw a computer for the first time
when he was 10 years old
the first computer he got came with
workbook lessons on programming in a
language called
basic which would take six months to
finish elon stayed up for three days
straight and finished the whole six
month course
when it came time to bring banking
online which elon was working on when
starting x.com which would later become
paypal
elon did not have much experience in
banking so elon bought a book on the
banking industry to understand how it
worked
when it came to starting spacex elon
would study a soviet rocket manual
and from friends he would borrow books
such as rocket propulsion elements and
the fundamentals of astrodynamics
and he would study for months elon musk
figures out what he needs to study
so that he can become an expert and get
started working on new projects
this is the same method he used when he
was a kid in school
elon did not always get good grades
especially in subjects where he couldn't
see the point of learning them
these would be mandatory subjects such
as afrikaans
for those subjects he would work the
minimum to get a passing grade
saying that he would rather spend his
time playing video games
coding or reading books when it came to
subjects that were important to him
such as physics and computers elon would
get the highest grade
he focuses on studying what is needed
here are some of the books that elon
musk recommends
there is the hitchhiker's guide to the
galaxy a book called
ignition which is about rockets and the
biography of benjamin
franklin by walter isaacson one book
that elon musk highly recommends is
called structures
or why things don't fall down this book
gives an easy to understand explanation
of structural engineering terms based on
how day-to-day objects hold together
which can include anything from bridges
to eggshells
links are in the description below for
all of those books
the foundation books are a sci-fi series
set in a future where human civilization
is a space-faring society
it is a book series that elon recommends
people read
he learned from reading them that you
should work on things that will prolong
civilization and reduce the probability
of there being a dark age
elon's way of thinking about pushing
humanity forward
and doing what is best for humankind
comes from books
and not just through the foundation
books but also from reading comic books
when he was younger
as the stories in them were always about
saving the world
even though elon musk was raised by
books and used them when he started to
teach himself new subjects
he was not afraid to get his hands dirty
and figure things out by experimenting
for kids these days who are inspired by
space and rockets
it wouldn't be so hard for them to get
their parents to go on amazon
and buy a rocket kit that they could
then build and launch
but for elon musk growing up in south
africa they didn't have the rocket kits
that were available in the us
so elon broke down the parts of a rocket
kit and figured out how to build his own
mixing different chemicals that would
fuel his homemade rocket kits
in his college days to make some money
elon would sell computer parts out of
his dorm room
he would also build pcs and fix issues
this built up his computer hacking
background
as he was not afraid to just go and
figure things out
the second way that elon musk teaches
himself about a subject and an industry
is by surrounding himself with smart
people even if that means moving cities
after selling paypal elon musk moved
from silicon valley down to la
this was because la would bring musk
closer to the space industry which was
the next adventure that he wanted to
tackle after paypal
around la you had organizations that had
set up their space efforts
from howard hughes and the us air force
to nasa
they all developed a lot of their
aeronautical work here
this meant that there were a lot of
experts that elon could talk to
one of the first things elon did was to
join the mars society whose goal was to
settle on mars
the society already had experiments
underway and even had a research center
in the arctic
through the society elon also got to
meet scientists who were working on mars
missions for nasa
some of them would later become hired
consultants that would teach and coach
elon for his jump into the space
industry
the books and being surrounded by
experts is how elon taught himself about
the space industry
it is the same method that his cousins
used to learn about the solar business
elon's cousins spent two years studying
solar technology and the industry
they went to events studied research
reports and interviewed people
all before starting solarcity which
tesla later bought
they used the same techniques that elon
had used to become an
expert in the space industry as elon
musk started to hire engineers and build
spacex
the knowledge the new employees brought
would then get transferred into elon's
own brain
these spacex employees would be experts
in their fields
and elon figured he could absorb their
knowledge which he did by quizzing each
engineer about every specific part of
the rocket that they were working on
one employee said that elon musk would
quiz you until he had learned
90 of what you knew this made elon musk
an aerospace
expert beyond what most people had seen
when it comes to hiring people for his
companies elon musk surrounds himself
with the best people
he is able to do this because of the
futuristic tech that he keeps pushing to
develop but for someone who wants to
work at tesla or spacex
they not only have to be an expert in
their specific field they also need to
know how the other parts on the machines
they are building work as well
elon musk expects everyone to be a chief
engineer
they need to have at least a basic
understanding of how the whole rocket or
car works
just because an engineer has a deep
expertise in their specialized area of
the rocket or car
they won't be able to tell if the work
that they are doing the ideas
and the improvements they come up with
are for the good of the product
as a whole unless they know how the
whole machine works
mistakes and design flaws happen when
people don't understand the systems
working in the whole machine
spacex hires people who have been
building physical things in their
personal or professional life
regardless of their job position gwen
shotwell who is the president and ceo of
spacex
has a degree in mechanical engineering
and a master's in applied mathematics
elon says that most of his time about 80
percent of it
is on engineering and design not media
or business related things
it is gwen shotwell who handles the
day-to-day workings of spacex
this lets elon focus on designing the
rockets and motivating the engineering
teams
elon states that the path to the ceo
office should not be through the finance
or marketing departments
but through the engineering and design
but even the financial people at his
companies have engineering backgrounds
the cfo of tesla has degrees in
economics and mechanical engineering and
applied mechanics
continuing with elon hiring and
surrounding himself with the best
some other notable mentions include in
2011
spacex hired garrett reisman a retired
nasa astronaut
even investors come with engineering
backgrounds
one of tesla's first investors was valor
equity
who specialized in making manufacturing
more efficient
the managing director of operations tim
watkins was sent to tesla to work on the
roadster production
watkins has degrees in electrical
engineering and industrial robotics
everyone is an engineer
if you want to understand and predict
the future
then learn the thinking behind physics
this is what elon musk advises people
when it comes to jobs in the future
and choosing what to learn elon says
that he tries to use the tools of
physics as much as possible and that
using
physics is a good framework for thinking
let's take a look at the main physics
principle that shapes elon musk's
thinking
earlier we showed how elon broke down
being afraid of the dark into its most
basic elements
and this same way of thinking was used
when it came to building battery packs
for tesla and launching his spacex
business
it's called reasoning from first
principles
the idea is not to follow trends for
example being scared of the dark because
others have said that there are monsters
but instead breaking it down into the
fundamental truths
there is just a lack of photons when it
came to starting his own space
rocket company the problem was that
rockets were too expensive
and they have always been that way but
if you break it down into first
principles
you then ask yourself what is a rocket
made up of
there is aerospace aluminum alloys
titanium
some copper and carbon fiber you can't
really
break it down any further than that
after breaking a rocket down into its
most basic elements
elon asked himself what is the cost of
those materials on the commodity market
the cost ended up being only two percent
of the normal price of a rocket
and this also included the cost of fuel
the reason why rockets are so expensive
is that there are so many companies
involved in making the different parts
of the rocket
and each company needs to make a profit
for themselves
there are even companies supplying the
companies who are supplying the parts
the cost just keeps adding up breaking
things down like this using first
principle reasoning
does take greater effort as you need to
understand the subject on a deep level
but you will end up with better results
as you'll be able to create
new knowledge and solutions from scratch
spacex
is a next-gen rocket company because
they build their own rockets in-house
not relying on outside suppliers elon's
advice
is to take the position that to some
degree you are wrong
and your goal is to work on being less
wrong over time
try and predict the future and then make
adjustments based on the errors you find
from your previous predictions
elon didn't think that the boring
company would work he said they were
going to dig a tunnel
and that maybe it will work or maybe it
won't they ended up
figuring it out as they went along
experimenting and correcting along the
way
and their first self-driving tunnel is
almost complete under las vegas
elon says that the toughest thing to do
is to figure out what questions to ask
saying that once you have the right
questions then the best answers become
available
a good book for understanding the basics
of physics and understanding the
thinking behind it
is six easy pieces the essentials of
physics explained by its most
brilliant teacher the link is in the
description
in the first piece feynman points out
that things must be learned only to be
unlearned again
or more likely to be corrected saying
that the definition of science is that
the test of all knowledge is experiment
and that imagination is needed and it is
key in coming up with the ideas and
theories to experiment with in the first
place
this can all be seen with spacex's
public test launches
as they keep trying out new things that
pushes innovation in the space industry
seeing what works pushing until their
prototypes fail on purpose
and exploring ways on how to improve
their designs
elon musk says that too many smart
people go into finance
law and internet-based companies and
wants more people going into making
things
and innovating in manufacturing too many
smart minds are working on making people
click on ads
there is a lot of progress that needs to
happen in manufacturing things
whether it is for high-tech products
such as electric cars and space rockets
or for more everyday items that can help
push humanity forward
the old ways of doing things need to be
broken down into their most
basic parts using the thinking methods
of physics
and then built back up with the
experimental mind of an engineer
on the next episode of venture city we
take a look at the solar-powered city of
the future
exploring ideas from sci-fi solar punk
to more everyday innovations that we can
already see today
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