One thing I really like about you is you are unusually fearless and willing
to go in the face of other people telling you something is crazy. And I
know a lot of pretty crazy people. You still stand out. Where does that come
from? Or how do you think about making a decision when everyone tells you this
is a crazy idea? Or where do you get the internal strength to do that?
Well, first of all, I'd say I think I feel fear quite
strongly. So it's not as though I
just have the absence of fear. I feel it quite strongly.
But there are just times when something is important
enough, you believe in it enough that you do it in spite
of fear. So, speaking of important things, like people shouldn't think.
People shouldn't think, well, I feel fear about this, and therefore I shouldn't
do it. It's normal to feel fear.
You'd have to do something mentally wrong if you didn't feel fair.
So you just feel it and let the importance of it drive you to do
it anyway. Yeah. You know, actually, something that can be helpful is fatalism
to some degree. If you just accept the probabilities,
then that diminishes fear.
So, starting SpaceX. I thought
the odds of success were less than 10%,
and I just accepted that. Actually, probably I would just lose.
Lose everything, but that
maybe we'd make some progress if we could just move the ball forward.
Even if we died, maybe some other company could pick up
the baton and keep moving it forward. So that would
still do some good. Yeah,
same with Tesla. I thought the odds of a car company succeeding were extremely
low.