You may have heard of the new app I'm spending too much time on called Clubhouse. It's basically like a 24/7 conference with endless rooms you can drop in and out of and get on stage to speak at any time. By the way, we've created the Regeneration Club and Discord message board. If you're not on it yet, ask me and maybe I have an invite to share or can get you in through the back door. Ask me how !
You may have heard Elon Musk joined Clubhouse last night 1/31 at 10pm PST. I stayed up to listen in. I estimate maybe 30k people were on the app and heard it was also streaming on YouTube. We were in rooms of 5k maxing out overloading their system. I could see Satya Kamdar, Ali Katz, Bryan Talebi, Tony Lillios, Rebecca Schultz, Aaron Berger there. Who else was there?
Suddenly it was on. We were in the room with Elon Musk. Sriram Krishnan @sriramk and Aarthi Ramamurthy @aarthir of the Good Time Club snagged this special interview. It felt like we were I person. Just hanging out thinking about Mars and joking around about #memedealers.
This is the best summary I've seen via @shaanVP: https://twitter.com/shaanvp/status/1356121622264963080?s=21&fbclid=IwAR2ZRebxX5BDrfyYq6gCtPy35ANsbLUyOjQgBYO-ffRkvO7t2w68rBlvtpU
But here are the three things that I was most impressed about.
1) The grittiness... this guy is tough ! He literally sleeps on his factory floor.
@sriramk. Do you still sleep on the floor at the factory?
@elonmusk. Only if there's like a crisis situation. And when we're asking other people to work really hard. They come to work at 4am and walk past me sleeping on the floor. I want them to think if he's willing to take this much pain. I can too. I slept on the floor so people can see me. Seeing is believing. It was rough. But I was asking people to really go all out.
They literally had step over him as they went about their business. Musk felt that if he was asking them to work their asses off, he needed to be right there with them doing it too. I can respect that.
Case in point.
@elonmusk. People ask me - what encouraging words do you have for people who want to do a startup? My answer is - if you need words of encouragement, don't do a startup.
2) The truth mattered to him. He put the CEO of Robinhood in the hot seat in front of all of us.
This was not planned. I was surprised he actually did it. That seat was hot enough that I felt bad for Vlad. Elon was informal af. He had witty comebacks and asked him the same question multiple times drilling him like on due diligence. He was once even asking if Vlad was being held hostage (joking sort of) and directly whether any shady stuff had gone down. Elon spoke for the people... we want answers!
Vlad may not have admitted to anything but it wasn't a good look. It didn't sound right to me either and I have a background in banking and finance. Something felt suspect to me at least. It’s one thing to repeat talking points to news pundit all day long. It’s another thing to step into the public square facing Elon Musk grilling you in front of 30k people. Awkward !
But it looks like someone's got his back. Robinhood raised another $2.4 billion in funds from investors between then and this morning.
3) This guy thinks big and likes a nearly impossible challenge.
Elon Musk started out just like all of us. Don't give me too much credit I heard him say. He talked about how he waited in the lobby trying to get a job at Netscape after deciding not to pursue a PHD at Stanford. Then he started writing code. Someone asked me today... "how does he compare to Steve Jobs? Is he similar?"
I don't think so. Here's why.
Refresh yourself with his companies.
Neurolink, https://neuralink.com
Developing ultra high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces to connect humans and computers.
Short-term: solve brain/spine injuries
Long-term: telepathic communication and human/AI symbiosis
Space X, https://www.spacex.com
Design, manufacture, and launch commercial rockets and spacecrafts.
Ref; Mars. @elonmusk "It will start as just a remote outpost. Not a fun, luxurious place.// Gotta go there, build a propellent plant. Get food production going.. iron ore refinery.. build the fundamentals until it's self sustaining."
Tesla, https://www.tesla.com
Tesla is accelerating the world's transition to sustainable energy with electric cars , solar and integrated renewable energy solutions for homes and businesses. By the way, I can't wait to buy a cyber truck and have it Uber around for me autonomously making coin !! It's coming soon. :)
Unlike Steve Jobs who I totally love in a different way, Elon seems to be driven by social cause.
The world is paying attention to wicked problems whether it's the natural disasters destroying lives (and people's P & L's) or the massive opportunities ahead. Yes it is risky but Elon is living proof of the upside scenario.
And he's still giving. He just announced a $100 million prize for CO2 Air Capture technology with X Prize. I only wish they would have asked him a question about that. @sriramk, can you get that in next time?