You will never forget what is going on in the world when you think about when your child is born. You will know for the rest of this child's life, you were born during a weird time.
That is for sure. The probably the weirdest that I can remember.
Yeah, yeah. And he was born on May the 4th.
And that's hilarious, too.
Yeah, it's great. May the 4th be with him.
Perfect. I mean, that was the perfect day for you. And then what? How do you say the name?
Well, uh... Is it a placeholder?
Yeah, first of all, my partner is the one that actually mostly came up with the name.
Yeah, yeah, she's great at names. So, I mean, it's just X, the letter X. Um and then the AE is like pronounced ash. Um... Yeah. And then A-12, A-12 is my contribution.
Archangel 12, the precursor to the SR-71. Coolest plane ever.
I I I agree with you. I don't know I'm not familiar with it. I know what the SR-71 is.
Yeah, I know what that is, but...
So, the SR-71 came from a CIA program called Archangel. Archangel project.
Oh, wow, what a dope-looking plane.
Well, as a person who's very much into aerial travel as you are, that's perfect.
Yeah, pretty great. Um so, does it feel strange to have a child while this craziness is going? Does it feel... You've had children before. Is this any weirder?
Uh it's actually I think it's better being older and having a kid. I appreciate it more.
Yeah. Kids, babies are awesome.
Yeah. When I didn't have any of my own, I would see other people's kids and I didn't not like them, but I wasn't drawn to them. But now when I see little people's kids, I'm like, I think of them as like these little love packages.
Yeah, they're little love bugs.
Yeah, it's just you think of them differently when you see them come out and then grow and then eventually start talking to you. Like your whole idea of what a baby is is very different.
So now as you, you know, get older and get to appreciate it as a mature fully formed adult, it must be really pretty wonderful.
Yeah, but wonderful, it's great. But babies are awesome. I love... Yeah, that's great. Um... Yeah, um... I mean also I've spent a lot of time on AI and neural nets and so you can sort of see the kind of the brain develop which is, you know, what an AI neural net is trying to simulate what a brain does, basically. Um and you can sort of see it learning very quickly. Uh you know, it's just wow.
See, things far... So you're talking about the neural net, you're not talking about an actual baby.
I'm talking about an actual baby.
Yes, but the word neural net comes from the brain. It's like a net of neurons. So, you know, it's like the... Yeah. Humans are the, you know, original gangster of the neural net.
That's a great way to put it.
So when you're programming artificial intelligence or you're working with artificial intelligence art, are they specifically trying to mimic the developmental process of a human brain?
In a lot of ways. There's some ways that are different. Um you know, an analogy that's often used is like, you know, we don't make submarines from like a fish. Um but we take the principles of hydrodynamics and apply them to a submarine.
I've always wondered as a layperson, do you try to achieve the same results as a human brain but through different methods or do you try to copy the way a human brain achieves results?
I mean the essential elements of an AI neural net are really very very similar to human brain neural net. Yeah. It's having the multiple layers of neurons and um you know, back propagation all these things are what your brain does. You know, it's sort of... Yeah. Um... Yeah, you have a layer of neurons that goes through a series of intermediate steps to ultimately cognition. And then it'll reverse those steps and go back and forth and go all over the place. Um... It's interesting. Very interesting.
Yeah, I would imagine like the thought of programming something that is eventually going to be smarter than us, that one day it's going to be like, 'Why did you do it that way?' Like when artificial intelligence becomes sentient, they're like, 'Oh, you tried to mimic yourself. Like this so much better process. Cut out all this nonsense.'
But like I said, there are elements that are the same. But just like almost like an aircraft does not fly like a bird.
It doesn't flap its wings. Uh but the wings, the way the wings work and generate lift is the same as a bird.
Now, you're in the middle of this... this strange time where you're selling your houses. You say you don't want any material possessions and I've been seeing all that and I've been really excited to talk to you about this cuz it's an interesting thing to come from a guy like yourself. Like why are you doing that?
I'm slightly sad about it actually. But...
Well, then if you're sad about it, why are you doing it?
I think that I think possessions kind of weigh you down. Then they're kind of an attack vector. You know, they'll say, 'Hey, billionaire, you got all this stuff.' Like what... Now I don't have stuff. Now what are you going to do?
Attack vector meaning like people target it.
Mhm, interesting. Yeah. But you're obviously going to... So you're going to rent a place?
Okay. And get rid of everything except clothes?
No, I said like almost everything. So it's like keep a couple Teslas. Yeah, sure. Teslas kind of have to test product and stuff. Yeah, there are things that have sentimental value for sure. I'm keeping those, you know. Um... Yeah.
I mean, what's worse that could happen? I mean, we'll be fine.
Yeah, you can always buy more stuff if you don't like it.
Yeah, I mean, from the money that you sell all your stuff, you could buy new stuff. But do you feel like people define you by the fact that you're wealthy? And that they define you in a pejorative way?
For sure. I mean, not not everyone, but you know, there's... it for sure in recent like years, billionaire...
become a pejorative like it's a pejorative.
It's like that's a bad thing. Um which I mean, I think doesn't make a lot of sense in most cases. If you've done... If you're basically organized a company like what... So, like how does this wealth arise? It's if you organize people in a better way to produce products and services that are better than what existed before, and you have some ownership in that company, then that essentially gives you the right to allocate more capital. So, it is... There's a conflation of consumption and capital allocation. So, I mean, take Warren Buffett for example. And to be totally frank, I'm not his biggest fan, but uh you know, he does like capital allocation. Um and he reads a lot of annual reports of companies and all the accounting, and it's pretty boring really. Um and he's trying to figure out does Coke or Pepsi deserve more capital? I mean, that's... I mean, it's kind of boring job if you ask me. Um but you know, it's still a thing that's important to figure out like which company is deserving of more or less capital. Should that company grow or expand? Is it making products and services that are better than others or worse? And you know, if a company is making compelling products and services, it should get more capital. And if it's not, it should get less or go out of business.
Well, there's a big difference too between someone who's making an incredible amount of money designing and engineering fantastic products versus someone who's making an incredible amount of money by investing in companies or moving money around on the stock market or doing things along those lines. It's a different thing and to put them all in the same category seems it's very simple and as you pointed out it's an attack vector.
I mean I think it's really... I do think there in the United States especially there's an over allocation of talent in finance and law. Basically too many smart people go into finance and law. Um so you know, this is both a compliment and criticism. Uh we should have fewer people doing law and fewer people doing finance and more people making stuff.
Well, that would certainly be better for all involved if they made better stuff.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um and you know, manufacturing used to be highly valued in the United States and these days it's just not... it's often looked down upon which I think is wrong.
Yeah. Well, I think that people are kind of learning that particularly because of this whole pandemic and this relationship that we have with China that there's a lot of value in making things and making things here.
Yes, somebody's got to do the real work.
You know, and um you know like making a car, it's an honest day's living. That's for sure. You know, or making anything really or providing valuable service. Um like providing, you know, good entertainment, good information that these are all valuable things to do. Um you know, but so yeah, there should be more of it.
Did you have a moment where... is this something that this idea of getting rid of your material possessions is something that built up over time or did you have a moment of realization where you realized it?
Yeah, I've been thinking about it for a while. Um you know, part of it is like I have a bunch of houses, but I don't spend a lot of time in most of them, and um that doesn't seem like a good use of assets. Like somebody could probably be enjoying those houses and get better use of them than me. So.
Don't you have Gene Wilder's house?
Yeah, it's uh... It's exactly what you'd expect.
Did you request that the buyer not fuck it up?
Yeah, that's a requirement.
Oh, a requirement. That's a good requirement.
In that case, in that house.
Yeah, it'll probably sell for less, but still let it go.
Uh he's a legend. You'd want his soul. You'd want his essence in the building.
It's and it's there. It's a real quirky house, yeah.
What makes you say it's there? Like what do you get out of it?
Um I mean all the cabinets are like handmade, and they're like odd shapes, and there's like doors to nowhere, and strange like car doors and tunnels, and odd paintings on the wall, and um yeah. Quirky.
I did live in it briefly, yeah.
But why do you buy houses? Like if you own all these houses, do you just get bored and go, 'I think I'd like to have that.'
Well, I you know, I had one house, and then the Gene Wilder house was right across the road from my main house, and it was going to get sold and then torn down and turned into a construction zone for 3 years, and I was like, 'Well, I think I'll buy it and preserve the spirit of Gene Wilder and not have a giant construction zone.' And then you know, I started having some privacy issues where people would come to my house and start climbing over the walls and stuff. So, I'm like, 'Man...' Um so then I started buying some of the houses around my house, and then I thought at one point, 'Well, you know, it'd be cool to build a house, so then I acquired some properties at the top of Sumero Road which has a great view and it's like, okay, well, these are some bunch of small older houses, they're going to get torn down anyway. I was like, well, you know, if I collect these little houses, then I can build something, you know, I don't know, artistic, like a dream house type thing.'
What's a dream house for Elon Musk? Like some Tony Stark type shit?
Yeah, you got to have the dome that opens up with the stealth helicopter and that kind of thing, you know.
Yeah, fuck yeah. Um, but then I was like, man, do I really want to... does it really make sense for me to spend time designing and building a house and I'd get all like OCD on the little details and the design, or should I be allocating that time to getting us to Mars? I should probably do the latter. So, you know, like what's more important, Mars or a house? I like Mars. Okay.
Is that really how you think? Like that I'd be better off planning on a trip to Mars or getting people to Mars?
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, that... you can only do so many things.
Right. So how you going... I don't know how you do what you do anyway. I don't understand how you can run the Boring Company, Tesla, SpaceX, all these different things you doing constantly. I just don't understand. I mean, you explained last time you were here how you sort of allocate your time and how hectic it is. It's insane. I still don't... the productivity is baffling. Just doesn't make sense how you can get so much done.
Well, I think I do have high productivity, but even with that, there's still some opportunity cost of time and allocating time to building a house, even if it was a really great house, still is not a good use of time relative to developing the rockets necessary to get us to Mars and helping solve sustainable energy. Uh, SpaceX and Tesla are by far the most amount of brain cycles. Um, you know, boring company does not take... it's like less than 1% of brain cycles and um and then there's Neuralink, which is I don't know, maybe it's like 5%.
And then 5%? That's a good chunk.
It's a good chunk. Yeah, yeah.
We were talking about that last time and you were trying to figure out when it was actually going to go live, when it's actually going to be available. Are you testing on people right now?
No, we're not testing on people yet, but I think it won't be too long. I think we may be able to implant a Neuralink in less than a year in a person, I think.
And when you do this, is there any test that you have to do before you do something like this to see what percentage of people's bodies are going to reject these things? Is there a potential for rejection?
It's a very low potential for rejection. I mean, you can think of it like people put in heart monitors and things for epileptic seizures and deep brain stimulation. Um, I'd say like, you know, artificial hips and knees and that kind of thing. So, the probability of... it's well known what will cause rejection and what will not. Um, it's definitely harder when you've got something that is reading and writing neurons, that's generating a current pulse and reading current pulses. That's a little harder than say a passive device, but it's still preferable and um yeah, there are people who have primitive devices in their brains right now.
Uh like the deep brain stimulation is primarily for Parkinson's has really changed people's lives in a big way. Um which is kind of remarkable because it kind of like zaps your brain. Um it's like kicking the TV type of thing. Um and you think like man, kicking the TV shouldn't work.
My grandpa used to slap the top.
Yeah, so this deep brain stimulation implanted devices in the brain that have changed people's lives for the better like fundamentally.
Well, let's talk about what you can talk about to what Neuralink is cuz the last time you were here really couldn't discuss it. And then there was a press release or something that sort of outlined. Yeah, that happened quite a bit after the last time you were here. So, what exactly is it? How do you do... what happens if someone ultimately does get a Neuralink installed, what will take place?
Well, for version one of the device it would be... it basically is implanted in your skull. So, but it would be flush with your skull. So, you basically take out a chunk of skull, replace it with the Neuralink device. Um you put the electrode threads very carefully into the brain. Um and then you stitch it up and um and you wouldn't even know that somebody has it. Um and then it can interface basically anywhere in your brain. Um so, it could be something that helps cure eyesight, like give you returns your eyesight even if you've lost your optic nerve type of thing.
