Last week, Joe Rogan, the comedian, and UFC color commentator interviewed Elon Musk on his podcast: the Joe Rogan Experience. Following the interview, the media highlighted the meeting’s lowest common denominator (in typical fashion):
“Musk smokes pot and drinks whiskey on-air”
And then, they proceeded to jump on Tesla’s immediate stock price dip of 6% and untimely departure of several key executives.
Now, for the business owners and executives who actually listened to the podcast (versus skim headlines)…you all know there was a lot more to be gained.
Keep It Simple:
The interview kicked off with Rogan and Musk discussing another headline related to Musk’s hobby business: “The Boring Company.” Boring Company was recently featured in the news for selling a flamethrower gun.
When The Boring Company originally launched, Musk and his team sold only one item in the merchandising section of the site, a company hat. They sold 50,000 hats in a few days and made a million dollars. Their next thought was:
how do we turn this million dollars into ten million? How do we 10X…
One of Musk’s favorite movies growing up was Spaceballs, and in that movie, the kid’s favorite item in the merchandising section was a flamethrower. Musk and his team decided their next move was obvious. They made 20,000 flamethrowers at $500 a piece which sold out in 4 days grossing $10M in sales. Musk and team also had the foresight to get ahead of legal loopholes associated with shipping flamethrowers to other countries by conveniently labeling the product “not a flamethrower” (and reducing its strength to a mere propane torch).
“not a flamethrower” (and reducing its strength to a mere propane torch).
The Boring Company’s mission is actually to build underground tunnels in highly congested areas to relieve traffic as our global population expands. The inspiration for the idea came from the fact that Elon Musk and his family have lived in Los Angeles for 18 years, which has some of the worst traffic congestion in the world. Musk and his team have started a test tunnel in Hawthorne, California — which is already one mile long.
Rogan pressed Musk on how he approaches these crazy ideas and how he gets approval. Musk simply replied that they…
submitted a form to obtain a permit for digging a big pit.
Musk repeated it ten times as if to unmask the obviousness of how easy it was to get started with this idea.
Rogan went on to press on the constraints and side-effects of sending cars at high speed through integrated tunnel systems 100 stories underground (i.e., earthquakes).
Musk, as usual, was 20 steps ahead. Earthquakes, as it turns out, are actually surface phenomena he said, and his engineers designed the tunnels to be snake-like with interlocking segments that would move and conform like a snake if the ground did move that deep. Got it!
What I learned from this part of the interview was refreshing. In order to solve complex problems, sometimes we have to think in the most simple terms. How do we build a huge tunnel to transport cars 100 stories under LA? Shit, let’s start by getting a permit to dig a big pit. Or if you sell $1M worth of hats in 4 days and then want to turn that $1M into $10M with the same scheme, you build 20,000 cool flamethrower guns.
Keep it Simple.
A.I. Is The Future — Get Ready:
Rogan and Musk talked in depth about how Musk has publically warned against A.I. and projected its roadmap for the future. The scary thing is, A.I. pervades society more than anyone realizes.
“We are already a node on the system”.
Musk referred to the current human population with cell phones as already being cyborgs. We go everywhere with our phones and use them to connect with others, interact with everyday life, look up information, etc. We are vastly smarter with our phones than without. They are by their nature, an extension of us.
Beyond individual instances, A.I. already exists on a global scale in large organizations, which Musk entitles “Cybernetic Collectives.” Think about the amount of data that companies like Google and Facebook have.
We are all opting in, all sharing, and unaware of the consequences he proclaims.
It turns out the more limbic resonance there is within a platform (e.g., think Instagram with its pictures/videos and high-resolution media), the more engagement users have with the platform — thus sharing more information, perceptions, thoughts, expressions, purchases, etc. Facebook is already cooking up something called FBLearner Flow that is truly terrifying. It can accurately implement predictive analytics, knowing which advertisements to show, and to which users, for maximum sales uplift. Yes, before we even know we’re looking for a particular product/service…
Musk said he likes to think positively about the future and sees two scenarios for a future with A.I.
Option A: A.I. realizes human beings are stupid creatures who pollute the earth, kill each other, and wipe out our own food supply, and they kill us.
Option B: We integrate with A.I. to essentially tap our brains into the power of the internet to advance our own civilization.
Summary:
Human input and our ability to communicate have slowed down with the move to mobile (2 thumbs vs. 10 fingers). The last project Musk spoke about on the podcast is likely the immediate future for A.I., because Musk is creating it.
Neurolink is a project Musk is working on where humans will be able to merge with A.I. through a tertiary cognition layer. Imaging plugging your brain into the internet. Musk says this technology will empower nearly all humans with superhuman cognition, leading to rapid advancement and better choices for planet earth and humanity at large.
Long story short, Elon Musk and Joe Rogan never put on a bad show and this podcast is highly recommended. What this podcast confirmed for sure is that Elon Musk is either an Alien or an A.I. robot basically just playing with us and trying to show us the way. Either way, he is an amazing inventor and the world is in a better place for having him.
Maybe a little pot isn’t all that bad after all if you’re trying to save the world.
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