Elon Musk
A visionary engineer and entrepreneur who founded SpaceX, co-founded Tesla, Inc., and has made significant contributions to electric vehicles and space exploration.
Most quoted
"If you go back a few hundred years, what we take for granted today would be considered magic—being able to talk to people instantly across vast distances, to see pictures and hear sounds from anywhere, to fly, to access immense amounts of information from a small device. These are things that would have been considered magic a short time ago."
— from TED Talk, 2017
"If you go back a few hundred years, what we take for granted today would seem like magic - being able to talk to people over long distances, to transmit images, flying, accessing vast amounts of data like an oracle. These are all things that would have been considered magic a few hundred years ago."
— from TED Talk
"I think it's very important to have a feedback loop, where you're constantly thinking about what you've done and how you could be doing it better. I think that's the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself."
— from Interview with Kevin Rose, 2013
All quotes by Elon Musk (280)
When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.
Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.
I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.
If you're trying to create a company, it's like baking a cake. You have to have all the ingredients in the right proportion.
The first step is to establish that something is possible; then probability will occur.
Engineering is the closest thing to magic that exists in the world.
I could either watch it happen or be a part of it.
Any product that needs a manual to work is broken.
You want to be extra rigorous about making the best possible thing you can. Find everything that's wrong with it and fix it. Seek negative feedback, particularly from friends.
It's OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.
We're going to make it happen. As God is my witness, I am not giving up.
I don't create companies for the sake of creating companies, but to get things done.
The only way to do great work is to love what you do.
People work better when they know what the goal is and why. It is important that people look forward to coming to work in the morning and enjoy working.
I think we have a duty to maintain the light of consciousness to make sure it continues into the future.
The value of a company is the sum of the cash flows from now to the future, discounted to the present.
Starting a company is like staring into the abyss and chewing glass.
If you get up in the morning and think the future is going to be better, it is a bright day. Otherwise, it's not.
I don't spend my time pontificating about high-concept things; I spend my time solving engineering and manufacturing problems.
The path to the future is not a straight line. It's a series of curves and detours.