Kimbal Musk on Tesla early days | Lex Fridman Podcast Clips

you invested in

x.com uh that eventually merged with

PayPal that's a fascinating story there

also fascinating on many levels

including the fact that the the current

social media company formerly known as

Twitter is now called X there's a

history has like a has a rhyme to it

like it's kind of all hilarious in a

certain kind of way uh you invested in

and help sell a lot of the initial

products for

Tesla yeah I still still on the board of

Tesla Tesla is 20 years now is that

amazing 20 years yeah from the Roadster

the initial Roadster to I still have the

the first business plan so I didn't join

as a Founder I join as a as a founding

board member and so I actually I didn't

write the business plan I I got to read

it and I still have that I still have it

as a part of History did you see the

future at that time like the company

that Tesla is today could you have

possibly could you Jon imagine it no no

I I um I certainly didn't what I what I

saw in it

was a real for me personally I was

really upset that the General Motors had

killed the their EV car there's even a

movie called who killed the electric car

and I and I knew that the physics of of

um of electric is perfectly fine I mean

there's no reason why you couldn't use

electric car to drive around what what I

what resonated with me with the with the

business plan

was take an electric motor which is

really a high performance motor and put

it in a sports car and sell it at a high

price as a way to enter into the market

whereas what what others had been doing

at least General Motors had done is you

put it into a really crummy car and you

you sell it as a commuter vehicle that

doesn't really work that well and looks

ugly as well like they really did

everything they could to make that thing

as ugly as Sin and and then um I was

like okay I get it we're we're going to

take a an appropriate technology and put

it in an appropriate car so that when

you have because electric motors are

they have constant torque you incredible

power put it in a car that that looks

like a sports car you know so we so so

the idea was to put it in the Lotus

Elise redesigned it a bit um and um I

even at that point I was like this is

theoretically good so I'm going to join

and help build it but I was not

convinced that it would work because

because General Motors had done such a

terrible job of making everyone think

that these things are terrible but but I

was curious and the time that I fell in

love with the company and and its

mission was I was driving in in a in a

what's called a mule where we we take a

a uh a car and we take the engine out

and we put put in a electric Drive Trin

and I drove it you know even the

dashboards there's no dashboard it's

just like you got you got a steering

wheel and it's just like wires and

everything around and I remember there's

a street we were on in the Bay Area

called Bing Street and I was just like

no no no no traffic so I'm just going to

drive this from the floor it see what

happens and it was it was a feeling I'd

never experienced before so it's not

gasoline cars have an inertia to them so

you yeah this is just was like being

shot out of a Canon mhm and I okay this

is going to be real it's a very

spaceship like feeling yeah it's like

whoa it's like the the G the G4 pulls

you back yeah so so I was like okay this

is uh this is going to be great this

going be this is going to be an

interesting we're going to create

something interesting here I think the

real transformative thing for Tesla was

the the model

3 uh when we were able to get the price

down for um the world and that was also

one of the most challenging

oh my God periods for Tesla and we were

borderline bankrupt like two or three

times that year I mean it's was just

every and everyone was hating on us

about whether we'd get that

done the model 3 today is incredibly

affordable car like a 300 bucks a month

kind of lease and $3,000 down that's

where you get the scale that's where you

get people who and by the way it's a

great car it's even a better model 3 now

than it was 5 years ago we we don't

function the way car companies function

right we we function more like how an

iPhone company Apple works so our model

3 today is it's this year is better than

last year it's like it's way better and

like it's we just keep getting better

yeah and the software is a fundamental

part of the car and the software keeps

improving exactly and we can we upload

over the air which was one of the things

that people don't often acknowledge it's

the overthe a updates it's like a

revolutionary thing it's not just the

autopilot to me it's like the over the

updates is even bigger thing than

autopilot at least in this like moment

of History because you you basically

turned the car into the iPhone exactly

it's an iPhone with wheels um but

actually talking about autopilot like

right after this interview I'm going to

go test out the latest model 3 you're

going to get driven around by the robot

I'm going to get driven around by the

car I'm going to say I want to go to

this barbecue joint MH take me there and

park me there and um I'm going

see how it is and this is our the the

latest model 3 that we have out into

production anyone can buy it and it's

super affordable and it's like okay um

uh it's not you know full stop driving

is is a is a journey right it's it's

it's not like there's a destination it's

a journey forever so let's see where we

are on the journey today and there's

been a bit of a push and pull between

you and Elon in terms of levels of

optimism about deadlines and so on

timelines about when we'll arrive the

destination I like that you said it's a

journey yeah for Elon there's a

destination exactly and that destination

is

tomorrow yesterday I think that's that's

that's a really good Insight I I

actually live with this concept of a

growth mindset versus a fixed mindset

and and it's a I don't know

philosophical term where where fixed

mindset is about the destination and a

growth mindset is about learning on the

journey and I think that I'm a happy

person because I take that learning on

the journey

approach whereas it's really frustrating

if you're always it has to be about the

destination every time the nice thing

about destination at least from my

personal perspective as like a

programmer engineer is like it's it puts

a little fire under you to get done

like if there's a clear deadline of a

destination you feel theet I would say

that I still do that but I call those

forcing functions instead of

destinations sure

because you're just forcing people to

crank on on some code or cookbook or

whatever because you have a date and and

if you really and often times there's a

reason I mean this 20th anniversary you

wanted to get the cookbook out we have a

reason is we didn't make this up out of

thin air um and so you yeah that does

push you but just because we have the

cookbook doesn't mean it's a

destination it means it was a forcing

function to get it out there now we're

on the

journey