John HollarWelcome ladies and gentlemen to the Computer History Museum. I'm John Hollar, the CEO, and it's my pleasure to welcome you tonight on behalf of our trustees, our staff, our members, our amazing volunteers, all the people involved in making the museum a great place. Thank you, thank you for being here tonight for the kickoff of our Revolutionaries speaker series for 2013. We have major funding for the Revolutionaries speaker series from Intel. We're delighted to have Intel support for the fourth year running now, and it's just fantastic because it enables everything that we do to make these Revolutionaries programs possible. We also get additional funding from the William K. Bowes Foundation.女士们先生们，欢迎来到计算机历史博物馆。我是 CEO John Hollar，很荣幸代表我们的理事会、工作人员、会员、出色的志愿者，以及所有为把博物馆打造成美好场所而付出努力的人们，欢迎大家今晚莅临。感谢大家出席今晚的活动——这是我们 2013 年度 Revolutionaries 演讲系列的开幕场。Revolutionaries 演讲系列的主要赞助来自 Intel。我们非常高兴 Intel 已连续第四年给予支持，这真的太棒了，正是这份支持让我们得以举办这些 Revolutionaries 系列活动。我们还获得了 William K. Bowes 基金会的额外资助。
John HollarI want to say a special thank you to Tesla for arranging to have a Model S here this evening. I hope you had a chance to see the Model S downstairs. We've been looking forward for years to an event when we could have the Motor Trend Car of the Year at the museum, and we have it here tonight, so thank you to Tesla. We asked SpaceX for a rocket. That proved to be a little more challenging, but maybe someday. And now for tonight's program.我要特别感谢 Tesla，安排了一辆 Model S 今晚亮相于此。希望大家已经在楼下见到了那辆 Model S。我们期待了很多年，终于能在博物馆里迎来一辆《Motor Trend》年度车型，今晚它就在这里，所以感谢 Tesla。我们也向 SpaceX 要了一枚火箭，但那证明难度颇大——也许将来有一天吧。现在，让我们正式开始今晚的节目。
John HollarHere's a thought exercise. If you compiled a list of the 75 most influential people of the 20th century, who would be on your list? Or if you compiled perhaps a list of the hundred people who most affected the world in the 20th century, who would be on that list? Now think of the same list that you might start compiling for the 21st century so far. And if all of that proves to be a little too much, I can offer some help. Elon Musk has been on every single one of those lists that has been compiled for the 21st century to date. No matter who seems to be drawing the lists up, few scientists, entrepreneurs, or industrialists of the last century could stake a claim to a career as boldly ambitious as the one Elon Musk is fashioning now.来做一个思想练习：如果你列出 20 世纪最具影响力的 75 个人，你会选谁？或者列出 20 世纪最影响世界的 100 个人，名单里会有谁？再想想，如果为 21 世纪迄今也列这样一张名单，又会是哪些人？如果这一切都太费脑筋，我可以给点提示——Elon Musk 出现在迄今为止所有关于 21 世纪的此类名单上，不管是谁在编这些名单。上个世纪的科学家、企业家或工业家中，几乎没有人能像 Elon Musk 现在所走的路一样，声称拥有如此大胆雄心的职业生涯。
John HollarTransforming a large measure of the world's commerce and payment systems as co-founder and chairman of PayPal in 1999 might be enough for anyone for one lifetime, but Elon Musk has gone on from there to pursue his passion for solving business, environmental, and scientific problems on a global scale. He may be best known for his work at Tesla, where he serves as CEO and head of product design. The path-breaking Tesla Roadster and now the Model S have changed almost all of the assumptions that the automotive world has made about what the styling, performance, and future of a new generation of electric cars might be. Simultaneously he serves as chairman and principal shareholder of SolarCity, the nation's leading provider of solar power systems.1999 年作为 PayPal 的联合创始人兼董事长，推动了全球大量商业与支付体系的变革，这对任何人来说都足以称得上是一生的成就了。但 Elon Musk 继续追逐他的激情，致力于在全球范围内解决商业、环境和科学问题。他或许最为人所知的是在 Tesla 的工作——他担任 CEO 兼产品设计总监。开创性的 Tesla Roadster，以及现在的 Model S，几乎颠覆了汽车界对新一代电动车在造型、性能和未来走向上的全部预设。与此同时，他还担任 SolarCity 的董事长及主要股东，SolarCity 是美国领先的太阳能系统提供商。
John HollarBut perhaps his most ambitious and intriguing work is taking place at SpaceX, where he is CEO and chief designer. SpaceX is erasing the boundaries between space flight and private enterprise. It has a multi-billion dollar, multi-year agreement with NASA to be a workhorse for cargo flights to and from the International Space Station, and in 2015, that is the company's stated goal, it will begin manned space flight. What is the source of Elon Musk's revolutionary thinking? How has he been able to do what he's done with the investors he's attracted and the teams that he's built? Exploring these questions and more tonight with Elon is Alison van Diggelen, who is a very notable and noteworthy journalist here in Silicon Valley, a contributor to KQED, The Huffington Post, and one of the best interviewers in the field. Through her series Fresh Dialogues, we're delighted to have Alison here tonight. This is her first time on stage. She's going to be terrific, as will Elon. Please join me in welcoming Elon Musk and Alison van Diggelen.然而他最雄心勃勃、最令人着迷的工作或许发生在 SpaceX——他在那里担任 CEO 兼首席设计师。SpaceX 正在抹平航天飞行与私人企业之间的边界。公司与 NASA 签有数十亿美元、历经多年的合同，承担往返国际空间站的货运任务，并计划于 2015 年——这是公司公开宣布的目标——开始载人航天飞行。Elon Musk 革命性思维的源泉是什么？他如何能够凭借吸引到的投资者和他建立的团队做成这一切？今晚与 Elon 一起探讨这些问题的是 Alison van Diggelen——她是硅谷极具声望的记者，为 KQED、《赫芬顿邮报》等媒体供稿，也是这个领域最出色的采访者之一。通过她的系列节目 Fresh Dialogues，我们很高兴今晚能请到 Alison。这是她第一次登上这个舞台，她一定会表现精彩，Elon 也一样。请大家热烈欢迎 Elon Musk 和 Alison van Diggelen。
Alison van DiggelenSo I'd like to start. You grew up in South Africa, right? And I heard a wonderful story of when you were six years old and you started breaking the rules even then. So you were six years old and you were invited by your cousin to a birthday party, but there were two problems with that. One, you were grounded, and two, it was on the other side of town. So can you explain, tell the audience how you got there?那么我想先从这里说起——你在南非长大，对吗？我听说过一个精彩的故事，说你六岁时就开始打破规则了。当时你六岁，你表哥邀请你去参加他的生日派对，但有两个问题：第一，你被禁足了；第二，派对在城的另一边。能不能给现场观众讲讲，你当时是怎么去的？
Elon MuskAll right, well, I mean this was when I was six, so the memories are a little fuzzy at this point, but as I recall, yeah, I was grounded for some reason. I don't know why, but I think I felt that was unjust. And I really wanted to go to this party, my cousin's party, who was five, you know, so this like kids party. So at first I was going to take my bike, but then I told my mom this, which is a mistake, and she told me some story about how you needed a license for a bike and the police would stop me. So I wasn't 100% sure if that was true or not, but I thought I'd better walk just in case.好吧，那时候我才六岁，记忆已经有点模糊了。但我记得，对，我因为某个原因被禁足，具体原因我不记得了，不过我当时觉得很不公平。我非常想去表哥的派对——他那时才五岁，就是个小孩子的生日会。一开始我打算骑自行车去，但我告诉了妈妈，这是个错误。她跟我说骑车需要驾照，警察会把我拦下来。我不是百分之百确定那是不是真的，但想着还是走路保险一点。
Elon MuskSo yeah, I sort of thought I knew the way, but it was clear across town, so I don't know, it was 10 or 12 miles away, it's really really quite far, further than I realized actually. And so I just started walking to my cousin's house. I think it took me about four hours. And just as my mom was leaving that party with my brother and sister, she saw me walking down the road and freaked out. And then I saw she saw me, so I then sprinted to my cousin's house, and I was just about two blocks away, and then climbed a tree and refused to come down.我大概以为自己知道路，但其实横穿了整座城，大概有 10 到 12 英里，比我以为的远得多。于是我就开始走去表哥家，大概走了四个小时。就在妈妈带着弟弟妹妹要离开那个派对的时候，她看到我走在路上，整个人吓坏了。然后我看见她看到我了，我就冲刺跑向表哥家——那时候离目的地只剩两个街区——然后爬上一棵树，死活不肯下来。
Alison van DiggelenOh, so the first of many rule-breaking adventures for Elon Musk. So by the time you were 12, you're already an entrepreneur and making a profit. I understand you earned $500 equivalent in Rand for creating a video game. Can you tell us about that and what the inspiration was?哦，这是 Elon Musk 众多打破规则的历险记之第一篇章。到了 12 岁，你已经是一个创业者，而且在盈利了。我了解到你制作了一款电子游戏，赚了相当于 $500 的兰特。能跟我们聊聊那段经历吗？当时的灵感是什么？
Elon MuskYeah, sure. So when I was about 10, I walked into a computer store in South Africa and saw an actual computer. I previously had some early sort of precursors to the Atari system, and then I got the Atari system, which I'm sure a lot of people here have played. But then I saw you could actually have a computer where you can make your own games, and it was a Commodore VIC-20. So that was the first computer I bought. And then I got some books on how to teach yourself programming, and this was like the coolest thing I'd ever seen. So I was just like, this is super awesome. And so started programming games and then selling games in order to actually buy more games, so bit of a circular thing. So, more games and better computers and that kind of thing.当然可以。大概 10 岁的时候，我走进南非的一家电脑店，第一次看到了真正的电脑。在那之前我玩过一些 Atari 的早期前身，后来也有了 Atari 系统，相信在座很多人都玩过。但那天我看到，原来你可以有一台电脑，可以自己做游戏——那是一台 Commodore VIC-20，那是我买的第一台电脑。然后我买了几本自学编程的书，那是我见过最酷的东西，我当时想，这也太牛了吧。于是开始编游戏，然后卖游戏去买更多的游戏，有点循环——买更好的游戏，买更好的电脑，就这样。
Alison van DiggelenRight, so the money wasn't the end goal for you, it was more a means to an end.也就是说，钱对你来说不是最终目的，而是达成目的的手段。
Elon MuskYeah, basically I'd spend money on better computers and Dungeons and Dragons modules and things like that.对，基本上我会把钱花在更好的电脑上，还有《龙与地下城》的模组之类的东西。
Alison van DiggelenNerd Master 3000 basically. So I understand at that time you were heavily into comics. I'm curious to know, did you love Iron Man, the comic, Iron Man?基本上就是 Nerd Master 3000 嘛。我还了解到你那时候非常迷漫画。我很好奇，你喜欢 Iron Man 吗，就是漫画版的 Iron Man？
Elon MuskI did kind of like Iron Man, yeah.我确实挺喜欢 Iron Man 的，是的。
Alison van DiggelenYou did. Did you ever imagine that you would be the inspiration for the movie version?你喜欢。你有没有想过，有一天你会成为电影版 Iron Man 的灵感来源？
Elon MuskI did not, no. That was pretty much, I would say, 0%. I would have said 0% chance.完全没有想过，不。那个概率我会说……0%。我当时会说有 0% 的可能。
Alison van DiggelenWhat kind of kid were you? I mean, can you look back and see yourself? Were you a bit of a loner kid, bookish kid?你是个什么样的孩子？回望过去，你怎么看当年的自己？你是比较孤僻的那种，还是书虫型的？
Elon MuskI certainly wasn't all that much of a loner, at least not willingly. But I certainly was, I was very very bookish. I was reading all the time. So I was either reading, working on my computer, reading comics, playing Dungeons and Dragons, that kind of thing.我并不是那种特别孤僻的人，至少不是出于本意。但我确实非常非常爱看书，一直在读书。要么在读书，要么在鼓捣电脑，要么在看漫画，或者玩《龙与地下城》，诸如此类。
Alison van DiggelenAnd I understand Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, that wonderful book by Douglas Adams, that was a key book for you. What was it about that book that fired your imagination?我还了解到 Douglas Adams 那本精彩的《银河系漫游指南》对你来说是一本关键的书。那本书里是什么点燃了你的想象力？
Elon MuskYeah, so I guess when I was around 12 or 13, I had kind of an existential crisis and I was reading various books on trying to figure out the meaning of life, and well, like what does it all mean, because it starts seeming quite meaningless. And then we happened to have like some books by Nietzsche and Schopenhauer in the house, which you should not read at age 14, is bad. It's really negative. So but then I read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is quite positive I think, and sort of highlighted the important point, which is that a lot of times the question is harder than the answer. And if you can properly phrase the question, then the answer is the easy part.大概在 12 岁或 13 岁的时候，我经历了某种存在主义危机，一直在读各种书，想搞清楚生命的意义——这一切究竟有什么意义，因为一切开始感觉非常虚无。家里恰好有几本尼采和叔本华的书，我告诉你，14 岁读那些真的不行，太负能量了。但后来我读了《银河系漫游指南》，感觉很正面，书里点出了一个重要的道理——很多时候，问题本身比答案更难。如果你能把问题正确表述出来，答案反而是容易的那部分。
Elon MuskAnd so to the degree that we can better understand the universe, then we better know what questions to ask, and then whatever the question is that most approximates what's the meaning of life, you know, that's the question we could ultimately get closer to understanding. And so I thought, well, to the degree that we can expand the scope and scale of consciousness and knowledge, human knowledge, then that would be a good thing.所以，我们越能了解宇宙，就越能知道该问什么问题，而那些最接近「生命意义是什么」的问题，也就是我们最终能更接近答案的问题。于是我想，既然如此，我们能够扩展意识的广度与深度，扩展人类的知识，那就是一件好事。
Alison van DiggelenWow, so you're having these deep thoughts at what age, 10, 14?哇，你是在多大年纪就有这些深刻的思考了？10 岁，还是 14 岁？
Elon MuskYeah, sort of in the puberty I guess, was 13, 13 through 15, probably the most traumatic years.差不多是青春期吧，13 岁，大概 13 到 15 岁，那应该是最折磨人的几年。
Alison van DiggelenRight. And so by the time you were 17, you were ready, you actually left, right? I assume you hatched the plan earlier, when you were around 14, 15?好的。那么到 17 岁的时候，你已经准备好了，实际上你离开了南非，对吗？我猜你更早就开始谋划了，大概在 14、15 岁？
Elon MuskI did hatch the plan earlier actually. I tried to hatch several plans, which they did not hatch.我确实更早就开始谋划了。我其实尝试了好几个计划，但那些计划都没有孵化成功。
Alison van DiggelenRight, but by 17 you were on a plane from South Africa. You had enough of South Africa, you were ready to seek new pastures. Now why was it the United States was your destination? Why not Europe or somewhere else in the world?好，但到了 17 岁你已经登上了从南非飞出的飞机。你受够了南非，想要开辟新天地。为什么目的地是美国？为什么不是欧洲或者世界其他地方？
Elon MuskWell, just whenever I'd read about cool technology, it would tend to be in the United States, you know, or more broadly North America, or including Canada. So I kind of wanted to be where the cutting edge of technology was. And of course within the United States, Silicon Valley is where the heart of things is. So although at the time I didn't know where Silicon Valley was, it sounded like a mythical place, really great. So yeah, I wanted to come to the US. I tried to convince my mother or father, who were divorced, if either one of them would move to the United States, then I could get there. At one point I convinced my father, but then he reneged unfortunately.嗯，每次我读到酷炫的科技，往往都发生在美国，或者更广义地说是北美，包括加拿大。所以我想去科技最前沿的地方。而在美国，硅谷是一切的核心。虽然当时我不知道硅谷在哪里，它听起来像一个神话中的地方，真的很了不起。所以我想来美国。我试着说服我妈妈或者我爸爸——他们已经离婚了——其中一个搬到美国，这样我就能过去了。有一次我说服了我爸，但他最终食言了，很遗憾。
Alison van DiggelenSo you had him convinced and then he changed his mind. He did say yes and then he changed his mind. Why?所以他答应了你，然后又改变了主意。他确实说过「好」，然后变卦了。为什么？
Elon MuskI don't know. I guess he was sort of fairly established. He's an engineer. He was sort of established in South Africa and didn't want to have to go through that again in another country.我不知道。我猜他在南非已经很稳定了。他是工程师，在那里安了家，不想在另一个国家重来一遍。
Alison van DiggelenRight, so you got on that plane all by yourself at 17.好，所以你 17 岁一个人登上了那架飞机。
Elon MuskYeah, so I actually got, my mother was born in Canada, and actually her father was American, but unfortunately she didn't get her American citizenship, so then that broke the link and I couldn't get my American citizenship. But she was born in Canada, so I could get, I actually filled out the forms for her and got her a Canadian passport and me too. And then within three weeks of my getting my Canadian passport I was in Canada.是的。其实是这样——我妈妈出生在加拿大，而且她父亲是美国人，但不幸的是她没有拿到美国国籍，这就断了链条，我也就没办法获得美国国籍了。但她出生在加拿大，所以我可以——我实际上帮她填好了表格，给她办了加拿大护照，我也顺带办了一个。拿到加拿大护照后不到三周，我就已经在加拿大了。
Alison van DiggelenRight, and then you ended up at University of Pennsylvania, you did a degree in physics and business.好，然后你去了宾夕法尼亚大学，读了物理和商业双学位。
Elon MuskYeah, so I was in Canada for a few years at Queen's University, got a scholarship to go down to University of Pennsylvania, because one of the downsides of coming to a university in North America was that my parents said they would not pay for college if it was, well, my father said he would not pay for college unless it was in South Africa. So it was either, I could have free college in South Africa, or find some way to pay it here. And fortunately I got a scholarship at Penn. And so did business under dual undergraduate business and physics at Penn, Wharton.是的，我在加拿大的 Queen's University 待了几年，然后拿到奖学金去了宾夕法尼亚大学。来北美读大学的一个缺点是，我父母说不会帮我出学费——我爸爸说，除非在南非读，否则不会付学费。所以要么在南非免费读，要么自己想办法在这边解决费用。幸运的是我在宾大拿到了奖学金，于是在那里读了商科与物理的双学位，学校是宾大沃顿学院。
Alison van DiggelenAnd it was there that you came up with this idea of three main areas that you felt were most important to humanity. Can you describe how you came upon them? Was it just one day you had a flash of inspiration, these are the three areas that are important and I want to concentrate on? Or how did that inspiration come to you?就是在那时候，你提出了三个你认为对人类最重要的领域。你是怎么想到这些的？是某天灵光一闪，还是这样的灵感是慢慢汇聚而来的？
Elon MuskWell, I think I was thinking about it for a couple years during sort of freshman and sophomore year at Queen's and then also at Penn. And I was trying to think what would most influence the future, you know, what the problems that we have to solve. And I actually talked a lot to friends and my housemates and that kind of thing, and dates, which is maybe not the best thing.我想我是在 Queen's 读大一大二，以及后来在宾大的时候，花了好几年都在思考这个问题。我试图想清楚什么会最深刻地影响未来，我们必须解决的那些问题是什么。我和朋友、室友还有……约会对象聊了很多，后者也许不是最佳场合。
Elon MuskSo yeah, actually I met a woman I dated briefly in college, who now works at Scientific American as a writer, and she related the anecdote that we went on a date and all I was talking about was electric cars. That was not a winning conversation.对，我大学的时候短暂地约会过一个女生，她现在是《Scientific American》的撰稿人。她提到我们曾经约会，而我整场都在谈电动车。那绝对不是什么制胜的聊天方式。
Alison van DiggelenSo it was a bit of a monologue, was it?所以那基本上是一场独角戏？
Elon MuskYeah, she said the first question I asked her was, do you ever think about electric cars? No, she never does.是的，她说我问她的第一个问题是：「你有没有想过电动车？」——她从来都没有。
Alison van DiggelenSo you learned from that, that wasn't the best chat-up line, wasn't great.所以你从中吸取了教训，那句开场白不好用。
Elon MuskIt has recently, it's been more effective.最近效果好多了。
Alison van DiggelenThere you go. I know this, man, that's wonderful. We'll get on to Tesla soon, but I want to go from University of Pennsylvania, you ended up in Silicon Valley, and you've described Silicon Valley as Darwinian. Can you talk about what it was, in the most positive sense really, and was positive, can you elaborate on what that means and why it had to be Silicon Valley? What drew you to Silicon Valley?哈，说得好，太棒了。稍后我们会聊到 Tesla，但我想先从宾大讲到硅谷这段。你曾把硅谷描述为「达尔文式的」。你能聊聊这是什么意思吗——主要是正面意义上的，确实也是正面的——能展开说说，为什么一定要是硅谷？是什么吸引你来到硅谷的？
Elon MuskWell, I was at Penn, and there was a professor who was chairman of a company in Silicon Valley that was working on advanced capacitors for use in electric cars, or potentially for use in electric cars, as it turns out they're way too expensive. But I thought, well, this is really awesome, because then I asked if I could get a summer job, because it was in Silicon Valley and working on technology for electric cars. I thought, well, that's pretty much as good as it gets. So I got a summer job, it was in Los Gatos actually, at Pinnacle Research, doing electrolytic ultracapacitors.嗯，我在宾大的时候，有一位教授是硅谷一家公司的董事长，那家公司在研究用于电动车的先进电容器，或者说潜在用途，事实证明成本太高了，没法用。但我当时想，这太厉害了，我能不能去那里实习？因为那家公司在硅谷，而且在做电动车技术——我想，这差不多是最好的组合了。于是我在 Los Gatos 的 Pinnacle Research 找到了一份暑期实习，研究电解超级电容器。
Elon MuskThe problem was that they used ruthenium tantalum oxide, and there was, I think only a few tons of ruthenium mined in the world, so not very scalable. And they'd sell it to you by the sort of milligram, so that's a problem. But it had a pretty high energy density, sort of roughly equivalent to a lead acid battery, which for a capacitor is huge.问题是它用的是钌钽氧化物，全球钌的年开采量大概只有几吨，可扩展性极差。而且卖给你的时候是按毫克计量的，这就很成问题了。但它的能量密度相当高，大致与铅酸电池相当，对电容器来说已经非常了不起了。
Alison van DiggelenBut you ended up then after that at Stanford.但后来你去了斯坦福大学。
Elon MuskYeah, so then I thought, well, Stanford is in Silicon Valley, sort of epicenter, and so that's where I wanted to come. It was Stanford or Berkeley, and Stanford sort of sunny air, so I like the sunny air.是的，我想，Stanford 在硅谷，差不多是核心地带，所以我想去那里。当时是 Stanford 还是 Berkeley 二选一，Stanford 那边阳光明媚，我喜欢那种阳光的气息。
Alison van DiggelenThat's great. And I understand you were at Stanford University for a whole two days before you decided, no, it's time, I'm going to do my first startup.很好。我了解到你在斯坦福大学只待了整整两天，就决定：不行，时机到了，我要去做第一个创业项目了。
Elon MuskYeah, I figured, well, so this is the summer of '95. And I've been working on some internet software, because the three things I thought would pick the world, well, with internet, sustainable energy, and space exploration making life multiplanetary. But on the internet thing, I just couldn't figure out how to make enough money to feed myself, you know, because if I didn't make money then I would like run out of food and die, so that was not good.对，当时是 1995 年夏天。我一直在研究一些互联网软件，因为我认为有三件事会改变世界——互联网、可持续能源，以及让人类成为多星球物种的太空探索。但在互联网这件事上，我怎么也想不出怎么赚到足够的钱来养活自己——如果赚不到钱，就会断粮，然后饿死，这可不行。
Alison van DiggelenSo basic needs, right?就是最基本的生存需求，对。
Elon MuskYeah, literally. So whereas, you know, if I was a student then I could be a teaching assistant and do various things and do research on electric vehicle technologies. That was my default plan. But then I also thought that if I did a PhD at Stanford, then I would spend several years watching the internet go through this incredibly rapid growth phase, and that would be really difficult to handle. It really, I really wanted to be doing something.对，字面意义上的。如果我是学生，我可以当助教，做各种事情，还可以研究电动车技术，那是我的保底方案。但我也想到，如果在 Stanford 读博，就要花好几年时间眼睁睁看着互联网经历这场极速增长，那真的很难熬。我真的很想做点什么。
Alison van DiggelenSo you saw the wave growing.所以你看到了那道浪潮正在升起。
Elon MuskIt sort of really seemed like things were going to take off, although nobody made any money on the internet at the time in '95. There was really nobody was making any money on the internet. And in fact, even on Sand Hill Road, people were like, what's the internet? They, amazingly, when we tried to get funding for a company in, I think it was November or something of '95, thereabouts, October November, more than half of the venture capitalists we met with did not know what the internet was and had not used it.当时感觉事情真的要腾飞了，尽管 1995 年的时候没人靠互联网赚到钱。真的，那时候没有人在互联网上赚到钱。甚至在 Sand Hill Road 那边，人们会问：互联网是什么东西？令人惊讶的是，我们在 1995 年大概 10 月、11 月前后去找融资，结果遇到的风险投资人里超过一半都不知道互联网是什么，从来没用过它。
Alison van DiggelenThat's amazing.这真的太惊人了。
Elon MuskYeah, literally, it's like, isn't that, they literally ask, isn't that something that the government and universities use, like for now? But you know, yeah. But then Netscape went public in late '95 I think it was, and then after that, even though a lot of venture capitalists still didn't understand it and still hadn't used it, somebody had made money on it. So now that was on the radar. So when we went to get funding the second time we tried to get funding, everyone was interested.对，字面上的——他们真的会问：那不是政府和大学在用的东西吗，就是现在这样？但后来 Netscape 在 1995 年底上市了，之后即便很多 VC 还是不懂互联网、也没有用过，但总算有人靠这个赚到钱了。所以互联网开始进入大家的视野。等我们第二次去找融资的时候，所有人都感兴趣了。
Alison van DiggelenRight, so this company was Zip2, that's right. And terrible name. Yeah, what was the reason for that name?好的，所以那家公司就是 Zip2——名字确实很烂。这个名字是怎么来的？
Elon MuskWell, we were just incredibly stupid at the time, I think that's the main reason for that name. And because we got some ad agency, because we thought, well, we don't know anything about names, so we'll get some ad agency to suggest a bunch of options. And then Zip2 seemed kind of speedy. I don't know what the hell why we chose that stupid name. And it has a digit, it's like, why would you pick it? Because it could be Zip2, could be Zip-T-W-O, it could be Zip-T-O-O. So like people literally spelled the name every variation, which is bad if you got a URL and you don't have the other ones.嗯，我们当时就是傻，这是最主要的原因。我们找了一个广告公司，觉得自己不懂起名，就让他们给我们推荐一堆选项。然后 Zip2 听起来有点速度感？我也不知道我们当初为什么选了这个蠢名字。而且里面有数字——你为什么要选有数字的名字？因为 Zip2 可以是 Zip-2，可以是 Zip-T-W-O，可以是 Zip-T-O-O。人们真的把这个名字拼成了各种变体，这很糟糕，因为你有一个 URL，而其他变体你都没有注册。
Elon MuskSo Zip2 started off as basically, like I said, we're trying to figure out how to make enough money to exist as a company. And so since there wasn't really any advertising money being made, we thought we could help existing companies get online, bring their stuff online. So we developed software that helped bring a lot of the newspapers and media companies online, because a lot of them just didn't, they also didn't know what the internet was.Zip2 一开始的思路是，如我所说，搞清楚怎么让公司活下去。那时候互联网上基本没有广告收入，我们就想能不能帮现有的公司把业务搬到网上。于是我们开发了软件，帮很多报纸和媒体公司上网，因为它们很多也不知道互联网是什么。
Alison van DiggelenBig customers didn't, did they?大客户也不知道，对吗？
Elon MuskYeah. And even the ones that were aware of the internet didn't have a software team, so they weren't very good at developing functionality. And so we had as investors and customers the New York Times Company, Knight Ridder, Hearst. And so we were able to get them to pay us to develop software for them to bring them online, so online publishing stuff. And we did maps and directions and yellow pages and white pages and various other things. And we developed quite sophisticated technology actually, but it wasn't actually being employed super well by the media companies. Like we would suggest ways to use it, and then it would not be used as effectively as it could be. It was very frustrating.是的。即使那些听说过互联网的公司也没有自己的软件团队，功能开发能力很弱。我们的投资方兼客户包括《纽约时报》公司、Knight Ridder、赫斯特集团。我们让他们付钱给我们来开发软件，把他们的内容搬到网上——在线出版那类的东西。我们做了地图、导航、黄页、白页以及其他各种功能。我们其实开发了相当精密的技术，但它并没有被这些媒体公司很好地利用。我们会提出使用建议，然后他们就不按我们设想的方式用，非常令人沮丧。
Alison van DiggelenRight, but you did sell that company successfully to Compaq, right? And that allowed you to go on and create x.com, that's right.对，但你最终成功地把那家公司卖给了 Compaq，对吧？然后那笔资金让你得以继续创建 x.com。
Elon MuskYeah, exactly. So Compaq had AltaVista, so their thought was combine AltaVista and a bunch of other technology companies and see if that would work, which it did not. But nonetheless they were pretty nice guys and bought the company, and that gave me the capital to do another company. And I wanted to do another company in the internet because I thought we hadn't really reached the potential that we could have with Zip2, because we had really sophisticated software. Our software was sort of at least comparable to what Yahoo or Excite or others had. In fact, I mean I thought in some ways it was better. But it wasn't, because it was all filtered through these partners, it wasn't getting properly used.是的，就是这样。Compaq 当时有 AltaVista，他们的想法是把 AltaVista 和一堆其他科技公司合并，看看能不能搞出什么，最终没成。但不管怎样他们是挺好的人，把公司收购了，这给了我资本去做另一家公司。我想在互联网上继续做，因为我觉得 Zip2 还没发挥出应有的潜力——我们有非常精密的软件，某种程度上至少不亚于 Yahoo 或 Excite 这类公司，我甚至觉得在某些方面还更好。但因为一切都要经过合作伙伴来过滤，没有被恰当地利用起来。
Elon MuskSo I thought I want to do something that could be a more significant contribution to the internet. And so the initial thought was with financial services, because money is digital, it's low bandwidth. At the time there was, you know, most people were on modems still, and because this was late '98, early '99. So x.com was a precursor to PayPal basically.于是我想做一件能对互联网做出更重大贡献的事。最初的想法是金融服务，因为钱是数字的，带宽需求低。那时候大多数人还在用调制解调器，那是 1998 年底、1999 年初的事。所以 x.com 本质上是 PayPal 的前身。
Alison van DiggelenYou merged with Confinity and it became PayPal, major success.你们和 Confinity 合并了，变成了 PayPal，大获成功。
Elon MuskYeah, so it worked out better than we expected. So yeah, Confinity, initially Confinity and x.com started out from slightly different directions and then converged to the same point. With x the thought was to create an integrated set of financial services, so you could go to one place and do all of your financial anything. And then as a feature we had the ability to transfer money or securities or anything simply by entering a unique identifier, so like a, you know, email address or phone number or something like that. But when we demoed the system, the hard stuff, which was the integration of all the financial services, people would not be interested in. But they'd be really interested in being able to transfer money using an email address, even though that was actually quite easy. And so we focused our energy on that.是的，最终的结果比我们预期的要好。Confinity 和 x.com 最初从略有不同的方向出发，然后走到了同一个点。x.com 的想法是打造一套整合的金融服务，你只需去一个地方就能处理所有金融事务。作为其中一个功能，我们可以通过输入一个唯一标识符——比如邮件地址或电话号码——来转账或转移证券，什么都行。但演示系统的时候，那些难的部分，也就是整合所有金融服务，大家根本不感兴趣。他们真正感兴趣的是用邮件地址转账这件事，尽管那其实很容易实现。于是我们就把精力集中在这上面了。
Elon MuskAnd although it's easy in principle, what gets really hard is adding security while still keeping it easy to use. Because, you know, it's like the Willie Sutton quote, like why do you rob banks? Because that's where the money is. So why do people rob PayPal? The same reason. And so you can dial up the security to a really high level, but then you're going to make it very hard to use. And so that was one of the toughest things we wrestled with.虽然原理上很简单，真正难的是在保持易用性的同时增加安全性。就像 Willie Sutton 那句名言，为什么你去抢银行？因为那里有钱。那为什么有人要抢 PayPal？同样的道理。你可以把安全级别调到很高，但那样会让使用变得非常麻烦。这是我们当时最难解决的问题之一。
Elon MuskAnd then Confinity originally started as kind of software for Palm Pilots, and then they had a demonstration application which was the ability to beam money from one Palm Pilot to another using the infrared port. People remember that one. That was big at one point. And then they had a website sort of parallel to that, where, because once you beamed the infrared tokens you had to still then synchronize your Palm Pilot and do the transfer via the website. So but then people weren't that interested in the Palm Pilot stuff, but they were interested in the website. So we kind of converged to the same point, and we're quite close together, so we decided to merge the companies, in I think January or so of 2000.Confinity 最初是做 Palm Pilot 软件的，然后他们有一个演示应用，是通过红外接口在两台 Palm Pilot 之间传送钱——大家应该还记得那玩意儿吧，那东西曾经很火。同时他们也有一个平行的网站，因为用红外传了代币之后，你还要同步 Palm Pilot，再通过网站完成转账。但人们对 Palm Pilot 那套不怎么感兴趣，倒是对网站很感兴趣。我们就这样走到了同一个点，两家离得也够近，于是决定合并，我记得是 2000 年 1 月前后。
Elon MuskIt was a very, sort of toiling period. And the growth in the company was pretty crazy. Like at the end of the first sort of four or five weeks we had 100,000 customers.那是一段非常艰苦的时期。公司的增长速度很疯狂，头四五个星期结束时，我们已经有了 100,000 个用户。
Alison van DiggelenIt's incredible, incredible growth. Did you anticipate that when you started?太惊人了，增长速度真是惊人。你一开始就预料到了吗？
Elon MuskDefinitely did not. And it wasn't all good, because we had some bugs in the software, and you know what, even if the bug only occurs one in a thousand times, still, you have 100,000 customers, you have 100 very angry customers, like where's my money, that would be a reasonable concern that people would have. And then we had customer service on University Avenue in Palo Alto, there were five people. So when something went wrong, customer service phones were basically exploding. And so we had many challenges. And then the various financial regulatory agencies were trying to shut us down. Visa and Mastercard were trying to shut us down, eBay was trying to shut us down, FTC was trying to shut us down, there were a lot of battles there.完全没有预料到。而且增长并不全是好事，因为软件有一些 bug——你知道吗，即使只有千分之一的概率出错，100,000 个用户里就有 100 个非常愤怒的客户，「我的钱呢」——这是很合理的担忧。当时 Palo Alto 的 University Avenue 上我们的客服团队只有五个人。所以一旦出了问题，客服电话基本上要被打爆。我们面临了很多挑战。然后各种金融监管机构要关掉我们，Visa 和 Mastercard 要关掉我们，eBay 要关掉我们，FTC 要关掉我们，当时的战役非常多。
Alison van DiggelenWow, it's quite incredible. With all that adversity you conquered and you came out with a hundred million, right? Yeah. And what was the reason for that success? What would you put it down to in that case? How did you overcome?哇，真的很不容易。面对所有这些逆境，你们还是胜出了，赚到了上亿，对吧？那么你认为成功的原因是什么？你如何做到的？
Elon MuskWell, you know, I think we had a really talented group of people at PayPal. And a lot of those people have actually gone on to start many other companies. You know, YouTube, LinkedIn, Yelp, Yammer, it's like quite a long list actually.我觉得 PayPal 有一群非常有才华的人。其中很多人后来都去创立了其他公司——YouTube、LinkedIn、Yelp、Yammer，名单其实相当长。
Alison van DiggelenAnd so for you personally, there you were with several hundred million, were you not tempted just to go on, buy an island? Really, what was it that drove you? What I'm getting at, because I know you didn't, but what I'm getting at is why were you so driven to jump into the next thing?那么对你个人来说，当时你手里有好几亿了，难道没有想过就此去买个岛？我真正想问的是，是什么驱动着你？你为什么那么迫切地想要跳入下一件事？
Elon MuskWell, I was, um...嗯，我当时……
Alison van DiggelenDid you take any time off?你有没有休息过一段时间？
Elon MuskI did take a bit of time off, because after PayPal, I did reasonably well from PayPal, I was the largest shareholder in the company. And we acquired for about a billion and a half in stock, and then the stock doubled, so it did reasonably well. But the idea of lying on a beach as my main thing, just sounds like the worst, that sounds horrible to me, just the boredom factor. I would go bonkers. I would have to be on serious drugs. I mean, just, or serious piña coladas.我确实休息了一阵，因为从 PayPal 退出后我的情况还不错——我是公司最大的股东。公司被以大约十五亿的股票收购，然后股价翻倍，所以结果相当不错。但「躺在沙滩上」当作我的主业？那听起来是最糟糕的事情——那对我来说听起来太可怕了，就是无聊死了。我会发疯的。我得靠吃重药才能撑住，或者说是靠大量的椰林飘香。
Alison van DiggelenRight, exactly.哈，确实。
Elon MuskI mean, it's just, I'd be super duper bored. So I like high intensity. I mean, I like going to the beach for a short period of time, but not much longer than like, you know, a few days or something like that.就是，我会无聊到极点。我喜欢高强度的状态。我倒是可以去海滩待一小段时间，但不会超过几天左右。
Alison van DiggelenRight, so let's talk about the seeds of SpaceX. I understand it started not as the idea of let's start a rocket ship company. You had a philanthropic idea. You were really surprised when you found out that NASA didn't have any plans to go to Mars, and you came up with this idea of let's put a greenhouse on Mars. So can you explain how that whole idea came into being for SpaceX?好，那我们来聊聊 SpaceX 的起点。我了解到最初不是「我要创立一家火箭公司」这样的想法，而是从慈善出发的。你发现 NASA 根本没有去火星的计划，让你大为吃惊，于是你想出了要在火星上放一个温室的主意。能解释一下 SpaceX 整个创意是怎么形成的吗？
Elon MuskSure, well, so when I was thinking of what I thought would affect the world as a student, it wasn't really from the standpoint of those are the things I'll get involved in, it was kind of more in the abstract, these are the things I think will happen that will affect the world, but not that I will be involved in them. As it turns out I have. But I always thought that we would make much more progress in space, and it just didn't happen. It was really disappointing. So yeah, I was really quite bothered by it.当然。其实我还是学生的时候，思考会影响世界的事情，并不是从「我要亲自去做」这个角度出发，更像是比较抽象地想，这些事情会发生、会影响世界，但不一定是我来做。结果我还是做了这些事。我一直以为我们在太空方面会取得更大的进展，但那并没有发生，这真的令人非常失望。所以，对，我对此非常不满。
Elon MuskSo you know, when we went to the moon, we were supposed to have a base on the moon, we're supposed to send people to Mars, and that stuff just didn't happen. We went backwards. We got the space shuttle, but the space shuttle could only go to low Earth orbit, where a Saturn V could go to the moon. Now the space shuttle is gone. And so that just seemed like a really bad thing. So I thought, well, maybe it was a question of there not being enough attention or will to do this, but this was a wrong assumption.你看，当年我们登月之后，本应该在月球上建基地，本应该把人送上火星，但这些都没有发生。我们反而在倒退。我们有了航天飞机，但航天飞机只能到达近地轨道，而 Saturn V 可以飞到月球。现在航天飞机也退役了。这让我觉得是件很糟糕的事情。所以我想，也许是因为关注度和意愿不够，但这个判断是错的。
Elon MuskSo that's the reason for the greenhouse idea. The thought was, if there could be sort of a small philanthropic mission to Mars, you know, so I was expecting to lose all the money that I invested in that. But if we could send a small greenhouse to the surface of Mars with seeds in dehydrated nutrient gel, then hydrate them upon landing, and you'd have this great shot of, you know, a little greenhouse with little green plants on a red background, I thought that would get people excited.这就是温室计划的由来。想法是这样的：能不能有一个小型的慈善性火星任务——我预期为此投入的钱会打水漂——但如果我们能把一个小温室送到火星表面，里面装着种子和脱水营养凝胶，着陆后补水，然后你会看到一张绿色小植物在红色背景下茁壮生长的照片，我觉得那会激励人心。
Alison van DiggelenSo you literally imagined a photograph inspiring a new generation.所以你字面意义上想象的是，一张照片能激励新的一代。
Elon MuskYeah, you got to sort of imagine the money shot, if you will. So yeah, I think, you know, green plants on a red background would be that. And people tend to get interested and excited about precedents and superlatives. So this would be the furthest that life's ever traveled, the first life on Mars, as far as we know. And I thought, well, maybe that would result in a bigger budget for NASA, and then we could sort of resume the journey. That was the basic idea. And I spent several months on this actually, and went to Russia three times, because I was able to figure out how to get the cost of the spacecraft low, and the communications and the greenhouse and all that, to a reasonable number, reasonable meaning several million dollars.是的，你要想象那个「关键镜头」，就是那种震撼人心的画面。我认为，红色背景上的绿色植物就是那个画面。人们往往会被「第一次」和「之最」所激励。这将是生命旅行距离最远的一次，是我们所知范围内第一次在火星上出现生命。我想，也许这能促使 NASA 获得更多预算，然后我们能重新踏上探索的旅程，这就是基本想法。我为此花了好几个月，还三次前往俄罗斯，因为我算出了如何把飞行器的成本降下来，包括通信、温室这些，控制在一个合理的数字——所谓合理，就是几百万美元这个量级。
Alison van DiggelenAnd did you actually physically draw out a greenhouse of how you imagined?你有没有真的在纸上画出你想象中的温室？
Elon MuskYeah, yeah, actually I hope we got that somewhere.有，有，我希望我们还保存着那些图纸。
Alison van DiggelenThat would be amazing to see.那一定很有意思。
Elon MuskYeah, I mean I'm sure it looks pretty goofy in retrospect, but that's the idea that we had. And so I spent several hundred thousand just kind of getting the design worked out and engaging some companies to come up with the design specifications for the subsystems. And then, but then it came to buying the rocket, and the problem was that the cost of rockets is really high. And the lowest cost rocket in the US at the time was the Delta II, Boeing Delta II, and that would have been about $50 million. And then you still need to have like an upper stage, so probably $60 million all in.是啊，现在回头看可能显得挺笨拙的，但那就是我们当时的想法。我为此花了好几十万，用来推进设计，并委托一些公司来确定各子系统的设计规格。但当涉及到购买火箭的时候，问题就来了——火箭的成本真的非常高。当时美国成本最低的火箭是 Delta II，波音的 Delta II，要花大概 $50 million。再加上上面级，大概合计 $60 million 左右。
Elon MuskAnd I wanted to do two of these missions, because I thought if it did just one and it didn't work, then that could have like the opposite effect, like, look how dumb it is to try, all this money down the drain, what an idiot. So I wanted to do two, and I just didn't have enough money to do two complete missions.而且我想做两次任务，因为我觉得如果只做一次，失败了的话反而会有反效果——「你看，尝试这件事有多蠢，这些钱全打了水漂，真是个蠢货。」所以我想做两次，但我没有足够的钱来完成两次完整的任务。
Alison van DiggelenSo you had a budget of about 100 million, something like that?所以你大概有 1 亿美元左右的预算？
Elon MuskWell, I was hoping it would be less than that, but not more than that. I mean, I couldn't spend much more than that. So roughly on that order is about the most I'd be, I mean I couldn't spend much more than that.我希望能低于那个数字，但不能超过。我的意思是，我花不了比那多太多——大概就在那个量级上，那差不多是我能花的上限了。
Alison van DiggelenSo the Russians didn't help you out?所以俄罗斯人没有帮上你？
Elon MuskYeah, had three quite interesting trips to Russia to try to negotiate purchase of two Russian ICBMs.是的，我为此进行了三次相当有意思的俄罗斯之行，试图谈判购买两枚俄罗斯洲际弹道导弹。
Alison van DiggelenYeah, and did they think you had evil intent?他们有没有觉得你居心叵测？
Elon MuskNo, they just thought I was crazy. But I mean, that's not good either, if you're buying ICBMs, but minus the nuke. I mean, I think that would have been a lot more.不，他们只是觉得我疯了。但我是说，那也不妙——如果你在买洲际弹道导弹，只不过是去掉核弹头的版本……我觉得那样的话就麻烦大了。
Alison van DiggelenSo you didn't talk nukes? No.所以你没有谈到核弹？没有。
Elon MuskI mean, I didn't, I got slightly the feeling that that was on the table, if I, which was very alarming. But yeah, that was uh, those were very weird meetings, with the Russian military and whatnot. I mean, I think they thought I was a bit crazy, but then they thought, they read about PayPal, and okay, it was crazy, he's got money, he did something right.我的意思是，我没有，但我隐约感觉那个选项似乎是摆在桌面上的，这让我非常警觉。不管怎样，那些会面非常奇异，跟俄罗斯军方打交道之类的。我想他们认为我有点疯，但后来他们查了一下 PayPal，好吧，虽然这家伙是个疯子，但他有钱，他肯定做了些什么对的事。
Alison van DiggelenWell, and more importantly, I could pay him.更重要的是，他确实付得起钱。
Elon MuskRight, yes. So that's really, I mean, yeah, it was remarkably capitalist, was my impression of the Russians.对，是的。所以，我对俄罗斯人的印象就是——他们出乎意料地有资本主义精神。
Alison van DiggelenYeah, right. I have heard that before, yep. So tell me, what was the turning point from, you know, talking with the Russians and then deciding, okay, I'm going to do this, I'm going to set up a company? What was that turning point for you?哈，是的，我也听别人这么说过。那么告诉我，从跟俄罗斯人谈判，到决定自己创立一家公司，这个转折点是什么？你是在哪个关键时刻做出这个决定的？
Elon MuskWell, I guess I came to a conclusion that my initial premise was wrong, that in fact there's a great deal of will, you know, that there was not such a shortage, but people don't think there's a way. And that if people thought there was a way, or at least something that wouldn't, you know, break the federal budget, then people would support it. Which in retrospect I think is actually kind of obvious, because the United States is a distillation of the human spirit of exploration. People came here from other places. I mean, there's no nation that's more a nation of explorers than the United States. But people need to believe that it's possible, and that it's not, you know, they don't have to give up like healthcare or something important. It's got to be that that's important.我想我得出的结论是，我最初的前提是错的——事实上，人们是有很强的意愿的，并不缺乏意志力，但人们觉得没有路。如果人们觉得存在一条路，或者至少不会让联邦预算崩溃，那大家是会支持的。回头来看，我觉得这其实挺显而易见的，因为美国是人类探索精神的凝炼。人们从世界各地来到这里，没有哪个国家比美国更是一个探索者的国家。但人们需要相信这是可能的，而且不至于牺牲医疗保健或其他重要的东西——这件事本身得足够重要才行。
Elon MuskSo I thought, okay, well then it's not a question of will, it's a question of showing that there's a way. And I started reading quite a bit about rockets to try to understand why they're so freaking expensive. You know, is there something where, where does this $60 million go for the Delta II? And subsequently now Delta II I think is $100 million, even, some crazy number. And Delta II is a relatively smaller rocket. So if you go to like a really, you know, one of the bigger rockets, it's anywhere from $200 to $400 million.所以我想，好，那问题不在于意志，而在于要证明存在一条路。于是我开始大量阅读关于火箭的资料，试图理解为什么它们他妈的这么贵。Delta II 的 $60 million 都花哪里了？顺便说一句，现在 Delta II 已经涨到 $100 million 了，还是什么疯狂的价格。而 Delta II 还算是比较小的火箭，如果换成更大的那种，价格从 $200 million 到 $400 million 都有。
Elon MuskAnyway, so I came to the conclusion that there wasn't really a good reason for rockets to be so expensive, and that there could be a lot less, and even in expendable format there could be less. And that if one could make them reusable like airplanes, then the cost of rocketry would drop dramatically, the cost of space travel would drop dramatically, because the cost of the fuel was maybe anywhere from 0.2 to 0.5% of the cost of the rocket. You know, it's kind of like a plane, I mean, how much is the cost of the fuel in the plane versus the plane itself? It's at least two orders of magnitude difference. But nobody had really been able to make a reusable rocket work. So I thought, okay, if we can do that, then that would really be the key breakthrough for space travel.不管怎样，我得出的结论是，火箭这么贵其实没有充分的理由，成本本来可以低很多，即便是一次性的形式也可以更便宜。而如果能像飞机一样实现可重复使用，那火箭的成本会大幅下降，太空旅行的成本也会大幅下降——因为燃料成本大概只占火箭总成本的 0.2% 到 0.5%。有点像飞机，飞机的燃料成本与飞机本身相比，至少差两个数量级。但没人真正做到过可重复使用火箭。所以我想，如果我们能做到这件事，那就是太空旅行真正的关键突破。
Alison van DiggelenRight, but you also said that so far we have not succeeded, I should point out. You've also said that failure was the most likely outcome. Can you talk about failure in that sense, and in a broader sense of being an entrepreneur and an innovator, why is failure so important?是的，但你也说过，迄今为止我们还没有成功——我需要指出这一点。你还说过，失败是最可能的结果。能聊聊这里说的失败吗？从更广泛的意义上，作为一个企业家和创新者，为什么失败如此重要？
Elon MuskWell, I think failure is bad. I don't think it's good. But if it's important enough, then you do it even though the risk of failure is high. And so I think my advice if somebody wants to start a company is they should bear in mind that the most likely outcome is that it's not going to work, and they should reconcile themselves to that strong possibility. And they should only do it if they feel that they are really compelled to do it, you know. Because the way starting a company works is, usually in the very beginning it's kind of fun, and then it's really hellish for a number of years.嗯，我觉得失败是坏事，我不认为它是好事。但如果一件事足够重要，那么即便失败风险很高，你也应该去做。所以我给想创业的人的建议是：要牢记，最有可能的结果是它行不通，要先想清楚这个强烈的可能性。只有当你感到自己是真的被某种力量驱使去做这件事的时候，才去做。因为创业的方式通常是，一开始会很有趣，然后会有好几年极其煎熬。
Alison van DiggelenYou talked about chewing glass.你说过「吃玻璃」。
Elon MuskYeah, there's a friend of mine who's a successful entrepreneur, and是的，我有个朋友，是一位成功的企业家，
HostHe started actually his career around the same time as I did and he has a good phrase. His name's Bill Lee. He said, yeah, starting a company is like eating glass and staring into the abyss. And you agree with that generally?他创业的时间跟我差不多，他有一句很好的话。他叫 Bill Lee。他说，创业就像一边吃玻璃，一边凝视深渊。你总体上同意这个说法吗？
Elon MuskYeah, and if you don't eat the glass, you're not going to be successful. That's tough medicine.是的，而且如果你不吃那块玻璃，你就不会成功。这是一剂苦药。
HostTough medicine. So let's move along. We're going to get down into innovation and motivation shortly, but I want to just go through your whole business career first. So shortly after founding SpaceX, you then got interested in electric vehicles, and I understand you watched the visuals for the death of the EV1 when they were all smashed. Talk about that and why you felt even after founding SpaceX, I have to get involved with Tesla.苦药。好，让我们继续往下走。稍后我们会深入聊创新和动力，但我想先把你的整个商业生涯梳理一遍。创立 SpaceX 后不久，你开始对电动车感兴趣，我了解到你看了 EV1 被全部压毁的画面，对此深有感触。请聊聊那段经历，以及为什么你在创立 SpaceX 之后，还觉得必须加入 Tesla。
Elon MuskYeah, well, as I said, my interest in electric vehicles goes back a long time. It goes back 20 plus years. And in fact, the original reason I came to Silicon Valley was to work on electric vehicle energy storage technology. And I thought that the big car companies would develop electric cars, because obviously the right move. And I thought that was vindicated when General Motors and Toyota announced their... General Motors was doing the EV1, Electric Vehicle One. Toyota did the electric RAV4, the original one. And they made those announcements and then they brought those to market and I thought, okay, well, this is great. We're going to have electric cars. GM's going to obviously do the EV2 and three, and then they just keep getting better and everything would be cool.是的，如我所说，我对电动车的兴趣可以追溯到很久以前，超过 20 年了。事实上，我当初来硅谷，最初的原因就是想研究电动车的储能技术。我当时以为大型汽车公司会开发电动车，因为那显然是正确的方向。当通用汽车和丰田宣布他们的计划时，我觉得我的判断得到了印证——通用在做 EV1，电动车一号；丰田在做最初版本的电动 RAV4。他们发布公告，然后推向市场，我想，好啊，我们要有电动车了。通用肯定会接着做 EV2、EV3，然后越来越好，一切都会很棒。
Elon MuskAnd then when California relaxed its regulations on electric cars, GM recalled all of the EV1s and crushed them into little cubes, which seems kind of nutty.然后加州放宽了对电动车的监管，通用汽车把所有 EV1 都召回，然后压成了小方块，这看起来有点疯狂。
HostSo in fact, the people didn't want their EV1s recalled.事实上，那些车主并不希望他们的 EV1 被召回。
Elon MuskYeah, and in fact they tried court orders to stop the cars from being recalled. They held a candlelit vigil at the yard where the cars were crushed.是的，他们甚至申请了法院禁令来阻止召回。他们还在那些车辆被压毁的停车场举行了烛光守夜。
HostDid you attend that vigil?你有没有参加那次守夜？
Elon MuskNo, I did not.没有，我没有去。
HostWere you moved by it?那件事有没有触动你？
Elon MuskWell, certainly. I mean, it's crazy. When is the last time you heard about any company's customers holding a candlelit vigil for the demise of that product, particularly a GM product? I mean, what bigger wake-up call do you need? It's like, hello, the customers are really upset about this. They would really prefer it if it didn't get recalled. So that kind of blew my mind. So I was like, wow, okay.当然。这很荒谬，你什么时候听说过有哪家公司的客户会为某款产品的消亡举行烛光守夜，尤其还是通用的产品？你还需要什么更大的警醒？这就好像在说：「嘿，客户为此非常心痛，他们真的不想让车被召回。」这让我震惊，我当时就想，哇，好的。
Elon MuskAnd then we had the advent of lithium-ion batteries, which really helps make electric cars work. It's still nothing. And so in 2003, I actually had lunch with one of the other co-founders of the company, JB Straubel, who was actually working, I think, on like a hydrogen airplane or something. And he mentioned to me the tzero car that was done by AC Propulsion. AC Propulsion, I think, consisted of guys, some of whom had actually been on the EV1 program, and they took a gasoline sports car, kind of a kit car, and outfitted it with lithium-ion batteries, sort of consumer-grade cells, and they created a car which is essentially the precursor of the Roadster.然后锂离子电池出现了，这真的让电动车变得可行。即便如此，差距还是存在的。所以 2003 年，我和公司的另一位联合创始人 JB Straubel 共进午餐，他当时好像在研究氢动力飞机之类的东西。他跟我提到了 AC Propulsion 做的 tzero 车。AC Propulsion 我觉得里面有一些人是从 EV1 项目出来的，他们取了一辆汽油驱动的跑车，一种套件车，装上锂离子电池——那种消费级电芯——做出了一辆本质上是 Roadster 前身的车。
Elon MuskAnd in fact it had very similar specifications: sub-four-second zero to 60 miles per hour, 250 mile range, and also two-seater, sort of sports car. But it was quite primitive. It didn't have a roof. One thing at all, and in fact I don't know if it had doors, but it didn't have any safety systems, no airbags, it wasn't homologated, so you couldn't sell it. So in order to sell that car, in order to create a commercial version of the car, something that a manufacturer could produce and sell to people, there was a fair bit of work that was required.它的参数非常相似：零到 60 英里每小时不到四秒，续航 250 英里，而且也是双座跑车。但它非常简陋，没有车顶，而且——实际上我不确定有没有车门——没有任何安全系统，没有安全气囊，也没有通过认证，所以不能销售。要卖这辆车，要把它做成一辆厂商能生产、能卖给消费者的商业版本，需要相当大的工作量。
Elon MuskBut anyway, I kept trying to get AC Propulsion to commercialize the tzero, and I said, look, I'm going to fund the whole effort. You really need to do this. And they just sort of refused to do it. They didn't want to do it. They wanted to make an electric Scion, which in principle sounds good, except that it would have cost $75,000, and nobody wants to buy a $75,000 Scion. And the technology just was not ready. There was just no way to make a good value-for-money proposition.不管怎样，我一直想让 AC Propulsion 把 tzero 商业化，我跟他们说，我来资助全部工作，你们真的应该做这件事。但他们就是拒绝，不想做。他们想做一辆电动的 Scion，原则上听起来不错，但成本要 $75,000，而没有人会想买一辆 $75,000 的 Scion。这项技术当时就是不成熟，根本没有办法做出让人觉得物有所值的产品。
HostAnd what was it that compelled you to say, I have to be CEO here and lead this company? Why not say, you know, I'll help you, JB, get this ruling?是什么让你说，我必须在这里当 CEO、领导这家公司？为什么不说，好，我来帮你，JB，先解决这个问题？
Elon MuskWell, I really didn't want to be CEO of two companies. I tried super really hard not to be, actually. So anyway, AC Propulsion finally said okay. I actually told AC Propulsion, look, if you're not going to do this, I'm going to create a company to do this. And they said, well, there's some other guys who are also interested in doing that, and you guys should combine efforts and create a company. And that's basically how Tesla came together.嗯，我真的不想同时担任两家公司的 CEO，我是真的非常努力地不想这样。AC Propulsion 最终说，好吧。我其实告诉了他们：如果你们不做这件事，我就创立一家公司来做。他们说，好，有一些其他人也对这件事感兴趣，你们应该合并力量创建一家公司。这基本上就是 Tesla 诞生的经过。
Elon MuskAnd then we had like a lot of drama. But since I provided like 95% of the money, I could have been the CEO from day one, but really, you know, the idea of being CEO of two startups at the same time was not appealing, and shouldn't be appealing, by the way. If anyone's thinking that's a good idea, it's really a terrible idea.然后我们经历了很多戏剧性的事。但因为我提供了大约 95% 的资金，我本可以从第一天就是 CEO，但同时担任两家初创公司 CEO 的想法真的不吸引我——顺便说一句，任何人有这种想法都是不对的，那真的是个很糟糕的主意。
HostBut then again, going back to your trajectory here, not only did you take on two, you took on three. You had an epiphany at Burning Man, I understand, and decided you have to... you watch those epiphanies at Burning Man, not necessarily what you should pursue. And you came up with the idea.但话说回来，沿着你这条人生轨迹看，你不只接手了两家，而是三家。我听说你在 Burning Man 有过一次顿悟，决定了你必须……好吧，在 Burning Man 的顿悟，不一定是你该追求的东西，但你确实产生了一个想法。
Elon MuskYeah, well, solar is kind of part of the whole sustainable energy thing. So sustainable energy: you have to have sustainable means of producing and consuming energy. And so even if you have electric cars, you have to have the other side of the equation: how do you produce energy in a sustainable way? And I think solar is the obvious primary means of sustainable energy generation. In fact, the Earth is almost entirely solar-powered today. The only reason we're not a frozen ice ball at sort of 3 degrees Kelvin is because of the sun. And the sun is responsible for all precipitation, it's responsible for the vast majority of the ecosystem, apart from sort of creatures at the bottom of the ocean.是的，太阳能在某种程度上是整个可持续能源故事的一部分。可持续能源意味着你必须有可持续的方式来生产和消耗能量。所以即使你有电动车，方程的另一边也得解决：如何以可持续的方式生产能量？我认为太阳能显然是可持续能源发电的主要方式。事实上，地球今天几乎全靠太阳能运转。我们之所以不是一个在大约 3 开尔文环境下的冰冻星球，完全是因为太阳。太阳负责了所有的降水，负责了绝大部分的生态系统——除了深海底部的那些生物。
Elon MuskThere's just a tiny amount of energy that people consume to power civilization. It's actually a very tiny amount of energy relative to the amount of energy that the sun sends in our general direction. And so in order to deal with that, we could in fact power the entire world with solar power quite easily. This is maybe not super obvious to people.人类用来驱动文明的能量，相对于太阳向我们这个方向发送的能量来说，真的是极其微小的一部分。完全用太阳能为整个世界供电，其实轻而易举。这对很多人来说也许不是那么显而易见。
HostSo was that the epiphany you had at Burning Man, was it a vision?那你在 Burning Man 的顿悟是这个——是一种愿景吗？
Elon MuskNo, I knew that long, long... I knew that in college.不，这个我很久很久以前就知道了……我在大学就知道了。
HostBut what was the key vision that came to you at Burning Man? We all want to imagine you there. Vision.那在 Burning Man 触发你的那个关键愿景是什么？我们都想象你在那里的样子。说说你的愿景。
Elon MuskNo, it was more... I wouldn't say it was a particular epiphany. It was more that I was at Burning Man with my cousins, two of my cousins, Lyndon and Peter, Lyndon and Peter Rive, who are awesome guys, and they were sort of trying to think what should they do after their first startup. So they did a company called Everdream, which did large-scale management of computers. So if you've got like 60,000 computers, it's kind of hard to manage them, so they created a software that enables companies to do that. And that company actually got sold to Dell.不，那更多是……我不会说是某种特别的顿悟。更多是这样的：当时我在 Burning Man 和我的表哥们在一起，他们是 Lyndon 和 Peter，Lyndon 和 Peter Rive，都是很棒的人。他们当时在想，完成第一次创业后接下来做什么。他们之前做了一家叫 Everdream 的公司，专门做大规模的电脑管理——如果你有六万台电脑，管理起来很麻烦，他们就做了软件让企业能够管理这些电脑。那家公司后来被 Dell 收购了。
HostSo they were looking for a new venture and looking for your ideas.所以他们在寻找新的方向，也在听你的想法。
Elon MuskWell, initially looking for my ideas, but I actually was trying to convince them that they should do solar, because I just thought it was an area that needed people like them, who are really good entrepreneurs. And since I was somewhat overcommitted, to say the least, I thought, well, I said, look, if you guys will do a solar company, I'll find you all the funding and whatever guidance or help I can provide, I'd do that. And I thought it was really important that there be good entrepreneurs like them in solar, because it just wasn't doing very well as an industry.嗯，最初是在听我的想法，但我其实在努力说服他们去做太阳能，因为我觉得那个领域需要像他们这样真正优秀的创业者。而我当时可以说是过度承诺了，保守地说——所以我告诉他们：如果你们愿意做一家太阳能公司，我来帮你们找所有的融资，能给的指导和帮助我都会给。我觉得太阳能行业真的很需要像他们这样的优秀创业者，因为那个行业发展得不太好。
Elon MuskAnd I thought people were focusing on not the... they weren't focusing on the right problem. Everybody sort of thought that the panel was the problem, but actually it's not. It's a problem, but it's not the most important problem. And the panel is somewhat commoditized at this point. So making standard-efficiency solar panels is about as hard as making drywall. It's really easy. In fact, I'd say drywall is probably harder.我觉得大家都把注意力放在了错误的地方——每个人都以为太阳能电池板是问题所在，但其实不是。这是个问题，但不是最重要的问题。而且电池板这件事在一定程度上已经商品化了。做标准效率的太阳能电池板，差不多就跟做石膏板一样简单，真的很容易，甚至我会说石膏板可能还更难一点。
Elon MuskBut what is a thorny problem is trying to figure out how to get solar on tens of thousands, eventually hundreds of thousands of rooftops.真正棘手的问题是如何把太阳能部署到几万个、最终几十万个屋顶上。
HostRight, the logistics part.对，是物流的部分。
Elon MuskYeah, it's kind of like you've got to re-roof millions of buildings, and then figure out how the grid interconnects work, and then manage all those systems. So if you've got hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of systems eventually, you've got to manage all these distributed systems. You have this really complex distributed utility effectively, which I think actually plays to their strengths in creating really scalable software for managing hundreds of thousands of computers in a distributed fashion. And that's kind of what they did, and did an awesome job. It was just like I basically would show up at the board meetings to hear what's the good news this time. We had like maybe a couple of bad-news board meetings. Well, late 2008 there were some bad-news board meetings, but for the most part, apart from a few times when the macroeconomic conditions were really terrible, they just did an amazing job with almost no help from me.是的，这有点像要重新翻修数百万座建筑的屋顶，然后还要搞清楚电网互联是怎么运作的，再管理所有这些系统。如果你有几十万个、最终可能是数百万个系统，你要管理所有这些分布式系统——实际上是一个超级复杂的分布式公用事业网络。我觉得这恰恰发挥了他们的优势，就是为管理分布式环境中几十万台电脑而打造的高度可扩展软件。他们就这么做了，做得非常出色。基本上我去参加董事会会议，就是去听听这次又有什么好消息。我们大概只有几次坏消息的董事会——2008 年底有几次比较糟糕——但大多数时候，除了少数宏观经济特别艰难的时期，他们在几乎没有我帮助的情况下就做得非常出色。
HostSo you've been able to leave it in their good hands.所以你能够把它放心地交到他们手里。
Elon MuskYeah, they deserve the vast majority of the credit for the success of that company.是的，那家公司成功的绝大部分功劳要归属于他们。
HostAwesome. So I'd like to move on to innovation and motivation. There's been a lot of talk lately about the fact that innovation is leveling off, we're not making the dramatic increases or improvements in innovation like we did when the plane was invented. Do you agree with that?太棒了。那么我想聊聊创新和动力。最近有很多人在讨论创新正在趋于平缓，我们再没有像飞机被发明时那样跨越式的进步了。你同意这个观点吗？
Elon MuskNo, I don't agree with that. I don't think that's true. I think we've seen, well, and I'm not sure what time period that is exactly, but we've seen huge improvements in the internet and new things. I mean, even in recent years, Twitter and Facebook being pretty huge when people kind of thought the internet was done. And some of the things that we're doing, like electric cars, are a new thing. And I do think there's a pretty significant breakthrough, I mean, in genomics. We're getting better and better at decoding genomes and being able to write genetics. I think that's going to be a huge area. I think there's likely to be some breakthroughs in artificial intelligence. And I suspect we will even see the flying car.不，我不同意，我觉得那不是真的。我们在互联网方面看到了巨大的进步，还有各种新事物——就算在最近几年，Twitter 和 Facebook 也相当巨大，而那时人们都觉得互联网已经差不多了。我们正在做的一些事情，比如电动车，就是一件新事物。我确实认为在基因组学方面会有相当重大的突破——我们在解码基因组和编写遗传密码上越来越强，我认为那将是一个巨大的领域。我认为人工智能方面也可能会有一些突破。而且我猜我们甚至还会看到飞行汽车出现。
HostAll right, is that going to be an Elon Musk production? No, you're going to let someone else do that?好，那是 Elon Musk 的产品吗？还是你打算让别人做？
Elon MuskYeah, I think someone else is doing that.我想那件事别人在做了。
HostAll right, okay, that's another conversation. Do you feel the government is standing in the way of innovation at all?好的，行，那是另一个话题了。你觉得政府有没有在阻碍创新？
Elon MuskWell, sometimes. I don't think the government tends to stand in the way of innovation, but sometimes it can. Over-regulation becomes very difficult. I mean, the auto industry used to be a great hotbed of innovation at the beginning of the 20th century, but now there's so many regulations that are intended to protect consumers. I mean, the body of regulation for cars could like fill this room. It's just crazy how much regulation there is, down to like what the headlamps are supposed to be like. And they even specify some of the elements of the user interface on the dashboard. And some of these are completely anachronistic because they're relating back to the days when you had like a little light that would illuminate an image.嗯，有时候会。我不认为政府一般倾向于阻碍创新，但有时候确实会。过度监管会变得非常困难。比如汽车行业，20 世纪初是伟大的创新温床，但现在有太多本意是保护消费者的法规了。汽车相关的法规文本可以填满这个房间，数量之多令人咋舌，细到车头灯应该是什么样的都有规定。它们甚至规定了仪表盘上用户界面的某些要素，而且其中一些已经完全过时了——因为它们追溯到了那个年代，你只有一盏小灯来照亮一个图像的时候。
Elon MuskSo like we have to reserve space on the instrument panel of the Model S for where all of the indicators that a car would have... you know, you've got like these little lights like check engine or whatever, all these little things, there's like a whole bunch of them, and we can't have anything else in that space.比如 Model S 的仪表板上，我们必须给所有那些车辆指示灯留出专属空间——就是那些小灯，发动机故障灯之类的，一堆那种小东西——而且那个空间里不能有其他任何东西。
HostWell, how would it... create one space and render a different graphic?那能不能就用一块区域，显示不同的图形呢？
Elon MuskOh no, because people are expecting to see it in that space. Nobody is expecting to see it in that space.不行，因为规定就要求它出现在那个位置。其实根本没有人期望在那个位置看到它。
HostYeah, so you feel you can't argue with these regulations, you just have to...好的，所以你觉得这些法规你没法辩驳，只能接受……
Elon MuskWell, you can argue with them, but not with great success. And you can actually get these things changed, but it takes ages. Like one of the things we're trying to get is, like, why should you have side mirrors if you can have say little video cameras, tiny video cameras, and have them display an image inside the car? But there are all these regulations saying you have to have side mirrors, and I went and met with the Secretary of Transportation, like, can you change this regulation? Still nothing has happened. That was like two years ago.嗯，你可以辩驳，但成效不大。实际上这些东西是可以改变的，但需要很长时间。比如我们正在推动的一件事：既然可以装微型摄像头，在车内显示影像，为什么还要有后视镜？但各种法规规定必须有后视镜，我去见了交通部长，说能不能改一下这个法规？那已经是两年前了，到现在什么都还没动。
HostYou know, so your head against a wall here a little bit. It's not easy to get these regulations changed. So, talking of government, President Obama is obviously trying to do what he can. If you had five minutes with President Obama, what would you advise him for, one, stimulating the economy and entrepreneurship and creating jobs? Is there one thing that if he could successfully get through, that would be a big stimulus, do you think?你知道，你在这件事上有点像在用头撞墙——要改变这些法规真的不容易。说到政府，奥巴马总统显然在尽力而为。如果你有五分钟和奥巴马总统面对面，你会就刺激经济、鼓励创业精神、创造就业这几件事给他什么建议？有没有一件事，如果他能成功推进，你认为会是一个重大的刺激？
Elon MuskWell, I think actually I think the reality of being president is that you're actually like the captain of a very huge ship and have a small rudder. Because obviously if there was a button that a president could push that said economic prosperity, you'd be like, they're hitting that button real fast, full steam ahead. You'd measure the speed of light by how fast they press that button, because that's called like the re-election button. So I'm not sure how much the president can really do.我觉得，作为总统的现实是，你更像是一艘巨大船只的船长，但只有一支小小的舵。因为显然，如果总统桌上有一个按钮叫「经济繁荣」，他们会以光速按下去——那就是连任按钮嘛，全速前进。所以我不确定总统真的能做多少。
Elon MuskBut I think, you know, I'm generally a fan of like minimal government interference in the economy. Like the government should be kind of like the referee but not the player, and there shouldn't be too many referees. But there is an exception, which is when there's an unpriced externality, such as the CO2 capacity of the oceans and atmosphere. So when you have an unpriced externality, then the normal market mechanisms do not work, and then it's government's role to intervene in a way that's sensible. And the best way to intervene is to assign a proper price to whatever the common good is that's being consumed.但我想，总体而言，我是政府尽量减少干预经济的支持者。政府应该像裁判，而不是球员，而且不应该有太多裁判。但有一个例外，就是当存在未被定价的外部效应的时候，比如海洋和大气的碳容纳能力。当存在未被定价的外部效应时，正常的市场机制就不起作用了，这时候政府的职责就是以合理的方式介入——最好的介入方式是对那个被消耗的公共品给出合理的定价。
HostAnd then so you're saying there should be a tax on gas, there should be a tax on carbon?那么你的意思是应该对汽油征税，应该有碳税？
Elon MuskYou know, if the bad thing is carbon accumulation in the atmosphere, then there needs to be a tax on that. And then you get rid of all subsidies and everything else. And it seems logical that you should tax things that are most likely to be bad rather than... like that's why we tax cigarettes and alcohol, because those are probably bad for you, certainly cigarettes are. So you want to err on the side of taxing things that are probably bad and not tax things that are good.如果问题在于碳在大气中积累，那就需要对此征税，然后取消所有补贴和其他一切。从逻辑上讲，你应该对那些最可能有害的东西征税——这就是我们对香烟和酒征税的原因，因为那些东西可能对你有害，香烟肯定是。所以应该倾向于对可能有害的东西征税，而不要对好的东西征税。
Elon MuskAnd so I think, given that there is a need to gather tax to pay for the federal government, we should shift the tax burden to bad things and then adjust that tax of that bad thing according to whatever is going to result in the behavior that we think is beneficial for the future. I mean, I think currently what we're doing right now, which is mining and burning trillions of tons of hydrocarbons that used to be buried very deep underground, and now we're sticking them in the atmosphere and running this crazy chemical experiment on the atmosphere.所以我认为，鉴于需要征税来维持联邦政府运转，我们应该把税负转移到坏的事情上，然后根据我们认为对未来有益的行为来调整对那件坏事的税率。我的意思是，我们现在正在做的事是，开采并燃烧数以万亿吨计的烃类物质——那些曾经深埋地下的东西——把它们塞进大气层，在大气上进行一场疯狂的化学实验。
Elon MuskAnd then you've got the oil and gas companies, which have ungodly amounts of money, and you can't expect them to just roll over and die, like they don't do that. So actually what they much prefer to do is spend enormous amounts of money lobbying and running bogus ad campaigns and that kind of thing to preserve their situation. It's a lot like tobacco companies in the old days. I mean, they used to run these ads with doctors, like a guy pretending he's a doctor, essentially implying that smoking is good for you, and like having pregnant mothers on the ad smoking.而那些石油天然气公司掌握着难以置信的财富，你不能指望它们自己躺平认输——它们不会这么做。所以它们实际上宁愿花大量的钱去游说，打广告，搞各种虚假宣传活动，来维护自身的处境。这很像早年的烟草公司——它们过去会投那些有医生出镜的广告，里面那个人假装是医生，暗示吸烟对你有好处，甚至让孕妇出镜吸烟。
HostDo you have a message for the climate change skeptics and the Big Oil people?你对气候变化的怀疑者和大型石油公司有什么想说的？
Elon MuskWell, as far as climate change skeptics, I like to... I believe in the scientific method, and one should have a healthy skepticism of things in general. And if you're first... from a scientific standpoint, you always look at things probabilistically, not definitively. And so I think a lot of times if somebody's a skeptic in the science community, what they're really saying is that they're not sure that it's 100% certain that this is the case. But that's not the point. The point is, look at it from the other side. What do you think the percentage chance is of this being catastrophic for some meaningful percentage of the Earth's population? Is it greater than 1%? Is it even 1%? If it is even 1%, why are we running this experiment?对于气候变化的怀疑者，我倾向于……我相信科学方法，人们对事物抱有合理的怀疑是应该的。从科学的角度，我们始终以概率的方式而非确定性的方式来看待事物。所以我认为，科学界的怀疑者很多时候真正想说的是，他们不确定这件事是百分之百肯定的。但这不是重点。重点是，从另一个角度看：你认为这件事对地球上某个有意义的人口比例造成灾难性后果的概率是多少？这个概率超过 1% 了吗？就算是 1% 呢？如果连 1% 都有，我们为什么还要进行这个实验？
HostRight, you called it a Russian roulette. We're playing Russian roulette with the atmosphere.对，你把它叫做俄罗斯轮盘赌。我们在用大气玩俄罗斯轮盘赌。
Elon MuskWe're playing Russian roulette, and as each year goes by, we're loading more rounds in the chamber. It's not wise. And what makes it super insane is that we're going to run out of oil anyway. It's not like there's some infinite oil supply. We're going to run out of it. So we know we have to get to a sustainable means of transportation no matter what. So why even run the experiment? It's the world's dumbest experiment.我们在玩俄罗斯轮盘赌，而且每过一年，我们就往枪膛里多压一发子弹。这不明智。而且让这件事变得格外疯狂的是，我们反正也会把石油用光的——石油不是无限的。我们知道无论如何都必须走向可持续的交通方式。那又何必进行这个实验呢？这是世界上最蠢的实验。
HostSo let's move on to focus on Silicon Valley. Steve Jobs was and is a wonderful Silicon Valley icon. Is he someone that you've admired, and what have you learned from Steve's life and work?那我们来聊聊硅谷。Steve Jobs 是硅谷一个伟大的标志性人物。他是你所钦佩的人吗？你从 Steve 的人生和工作中学到了什么？
Elon MuskWell, he's certainly someone I've admired, although I did try to talk to him once at a party and it was super rude to me. But I don't think it was me, I think it was sort of, you know, par for the course.当然，他确实是我钦佩的人，尽管我曾经在一个派对上试图跟他搭话，然后他对我极为无礼。但我觉得不是针对我个人，他就是那种风格。
HostI think you weren't the first.我想你不是第一个有这种经历的人。
Elon MuskYeah, not the first, no. It was... but, yeah, and I was actually there with like Larry Page. He's an old friend of mine. I've known Larry since before he got venture funding for Google, and Larry was the guy that introduced me to Steve Jobs. So it's not as like I'm going and tugging on his coat like, please talk to me. But, you know, so I was introduced by Larry Page, it's not bad. But he obviously was an incredible guy and made fantastic products. And I know there was a certain... the guy had a certain magic about him, you know, that was really inspiring. So I think that's really great.是啊，不是第一个。但话说回来……我当时其实是跟 Larry Page 在一起，他是我的老朋友，我认识 Larry 的时间早于他为 Google 拿到风投，就是 Larry 把我介绍给 Steve Jobs 的。所以并不是我凑上去扯他衣角说「求你跟我说说话」。我是由 Larry Page 引荐的，这已经很不赖了。不过他显然是个了不起的人，做出了令人惊叹的产品。他身上有某种魔力，真的很鼓舞人心。所以我认为那非常了不起。
HostIs there that magic that you try and emulate?你有没有试图去效仿那种魔力？
Elon MuskNo, I think Steve Jobs is way cooler than I am.不，我觉得 Steve Jobs 比我酷多了。
HostSo, okay, so I'd like to get inside your head a little bit about, you know, when you come up with an idea, do you doodle it on a pad of paper, or do you get your iPad out and take notes? I mean, when you come up with something new, you know, a new rocket design or whatever it is, how does that manifest itself? Could we see you being creative?好，那么我想走进你的内心世界聊聊——当你冒出一个新想法，你会在记事本上乱画，还是拿出 iPad 记下来？当你想到新东西的时候，比如一个新的火箭设计，它是怎么呈现出来的？我们能看到你创意涌现的样子吗？
Elon MuskI mean, it's somewhat cliched, but it happens a lot in the shower. I don't know what it is about showers.这听起来挺老套的，但很多时候是在洗澡的时候。我不知道洗澡时有什么特别的。
HostYeah, exactly, get the camera.对对对，赶紧拿摄像机来。
Elon MuskNo, I'm just... no, I do, I just kind of stand there in the shower.不，我只是……我就站在那里。
HostSo you have long showers?所以你洗澡洗很久？
Elon MuskI do, actually, long showers. Sounds wrong, but yeah, I do. And there's, not to mention the Burning Man epiphanies. Those are huge. So yeah, I think that's... and then there are sometimes like late at night, if I've been thinking about something, then I can't sleep and I'll be up for several hours thinking about, sort of pacing around the house and thinking about things, and occasionally I'll sketch something or send myself an email or something like that.确实，洗很久。这听起来不太对，但确实如此。还有，更不用说在 Burning Man 的那些顿悟了，那可是重量级的。所以我觉得就是这样——还有时候夜深了，如果我一直在想某件事，就会睡不着，然后好几个小时在屋子里踱步、思考，偶尔会画张草图，或者给自己发封邮件之类的。
HostRight, so we have a question from the audience. Who inspires you, or do you have a mentor?好的，我们来接一个观众提问——是谁启发了你，或者说你有没有导师？
Elon MuskWell, I don't have a mentor per se, although I try to get feedback from as many people as possible. And so I have like friends and I ask them what they think of this, that, and the other thing. And, you know, as mentioned, Larry Page is a good friend of mine, value his advice a lot, and have many other good friends. And so I think it's good to get feedback, in particular negative feedback, actually, because obviously people don't love the idea of giving you negative feedback, unless it's like some, you know, on blogs they do that.我没有固定的导师，不过我会尽量从尽可能多的人那里获取反馈。比如我有一些朋友，会问他们对这件那件事怎么看。如我前面提到的，Larry Page 是我的好朋友，我非常重视他的建议，还有很多其他好朋友。我觉得获取反馈很好，尤其是负面反馈——因为显然大家都不太喜欢给你负面反馈，除非是在网络博客上，那上面倒是很愿意。
HostHow do you deal with negative feedback? Because you got some tough criticism, especially with SpaceX. You had incumbents like Neil Armstrong even speaking out and saying this is wrong, we don't want commercial companies in space, it's not a place for commerce. So how did you deal with that, and how do you deal with it in general, because you've had a lot?你是怎么应对负面反馈的？因为你受到了一些严厉的批评，尤其是关于 SpaceX 的——就连 Neil Armstrong 这样的人都公开说，这是错的，我们不希望商业公司进入太空，那里不是商业的地方。你是怎么应对的？总体上你受到了很多批评，你如何处理？
Elon MuskYeah, that was kind of troubling, because, you know, growing up Neil is kind of a hero. So it kind of sucks, you know. That's a bit of a blow, yeah. So, but I think in his case he was somewhat manipulated, you know, by other interests. So I don't think he quite knew what he was saying in those congressional hearings.是的，那还挺令人难受的，因为从小 Neil 就是我的英雄。所以那确实有点像是一记重拳。但我认为，就他的情况而言，他某种程度上是被其他利益集团操纵了。我不觉得他在那些国会听证会上完全清楚自己在说什么。
HostOkay, and talk about, you know, it's one thing to have these wonderful ideas in the shower at Burning Man, but there's another thing to build, motivate, and retain a team of excellent people. Can you talk about some tips and some things you've learned that obviously work for you?好的。说到这里，在洗澡时或者在 Burning Man 灵光一闪是一回事，但建立、激励和留住一支优秀团队是另一回事。能不能聊聊一些心得，和你学到的、显然对你有效的东西？
Elon MuskYeah, well, I mean, if you think about a company, a company is a group of people that are organized to create a product or service. That's what a company is. So in order to create such a thing, you have to convince others to join you in your effort. And so they have to be convinced that it's a sensible thing, that there's at least some reasonable chance of success, and if there is success that the reward will be commensurate with the effort involved. And so I think that getting people to believe in what you're doing and in you is important.是的，如果你想想一家公司，一家公司就是一群人组织起来创造产品或服务，那就是公司的本质。所以要创造这样的东西，你必须说服别人加入你的事业。他们需要被说服：这件事是有道理的，至少有合理的成功概率，而且如果成功了，回报会与付出相匹配。所以我认为，让人们相信你在做的事情，以及相信你这个人，这一点非常重要。
Elon MuskSo in the beginning there will be few people who believe in you or what you're doing. But then over time, as you make progress, the evidence will build and more people will believe in what you're doing. So I think it's a good idea when creating a company to create it to have a demonstration, or if it's a product to have like a good mockup, or even if it's software to have good demoware, or to be able to sketch something so people can really envision what it's about. Try to get to that point as soon as possible, and then iterate to make it as real as possible as fast as possible. Yeah, if that makes sense.所以一开始相信你或者你所做之事的人会很少，但随着时间推移，随着你取得进展，证据会越来越多，相信你的人也会越来越多。所以我认为创建公司的时候，最好有一个演示——如果是产品的话，有一个好的模型，哪怕是软件也要有好的演示版本，或者能够画出来让人真正能想象这是什么。尽快做到这一步，然后尽可能快地迭代，让它越来越接近真实。有道理的话，就是这个意思。
HostOkay, so you're running, you're CEO of two companies, you're chairman of Solar City. Talk about time management. How on Earth do you do this? Do you get any sleep?好，你同时担任两家公司的 CEO，还是 SolarCity 的董事长。聊聊时间管理——你究竟是怎么做到的？你有睡眠吗？
Elon MuskSometimes not enough. Sleep is really great, because if I don't get enough sleep then I'm quite grumpy. I mean, obviously I think most people are that way. And also, like, I try to figure out what's the right amount of sleep, because I found I could drop below a certain threshold of sleep, and although I'd be awake more hours and I could sustain it, I would get less done because mental acuity would be affected. So I found generally the right number for me is around six to six and a half hours on average per night.有时候不够。睡眠真的非常重要，因为如果睡得不够，我会很暴躁——我想大多数人都这样吧。另外，我试图弄清楚合适的睡眠量是多少，因为我发现睡眠低于某个阈值，虽然醒着的时间更长、也能坚持，但效率反而会下降，因为精神敏锐度受到了影响。所以我发现，对我来说合适的睡眠时间大概是每晚平均六到六个半小时。
HostThat's not too bad. Any other tips on average, though? Any other tips on just managing to run two companies simultaneously? I mean, do you find... I know you're up here Monday, Tuesday. Is it all Tesla when you're up in Silicon Valley, and all SpaceX Wednesday, Thursday?那还不算太少。还有其他技巧吗——关于同时管理两家公司？我知道你周一、周二在这边，你在硅谷的时候是全程 Tesla，周三、周四全程 SpaceX 吗？
Elon MuskHaving a smartphone is incredibly helpful, because that means you can do email during interstitial periods. Like if you're in a car, you're walking, in the bathroom, everywhere you can do email practically when you're awake. And so that's really helpful to have email for Space and Tesla integrated on my phone.有智能手机帮助极大，因为你可以在各种间隙时间处理电子邮件——坐车、走路、在卫生间，只要醒着，几乎随时随地都可以。所以能把 SpaceX 和 Tesla 的邮件整合在手机里处理，真的很有帮助。
Elon MuskAnd then it's just you have to apply a lot of hours to actually working. So the way I generally do it is I'll be working at SpaceX on Monday, and then Monday night fly to the Bay Area, spend Tuesday and Wednesday at Tesla, and then fly back on Wednesday night, spend Thursday and Friday at SpaceX. In the last several months, then I would fly back here on a Saturday, and either spend Saturday and Sunday at Tesla, or spend Saturday at Tesla and Sunday at SpaceX.然后就是你必须花大量时间实际工作。我通常的安排是：周一在 SpaceX 工作，周一晚上飞到湾区，周二和周三在 Tesla，周三晚上飞回去，周四周五在 SpaceX。最近几个月，我还会周六飞回来，要么周六周日都在 Tesla，要么周六在 Tesla、周日在 SpaceX。
HostAnd where do the boys fit in? You have five sons. Did they tag along with Dad on some of these trips?那你的几个儿子呢？你有五个儿子。他们有没有跟着爸爸出差？
Elon MuskI do drag them along on a lot of things, actually. They're remarkably unimpressed. Yeah, I wish they would be sort of more interested, but I mean, they're only... the twins are eight and the triplets are six, so maybe they'll get more interested later.我确实会带着他们一起去很多地方。他们对此显然毫无印象——是的，我希望他们能更感兴趣，但他们才……双胞胎八岁，三胞胎六岁，也许以后会更感兴趣吧。
HostBut do you see one day grooming one of them or several of them to take over your companies?你有没有想过有一天会培养他们其中一个或几个，来接管你的公司？
Elon MuskWell, I mean, I think if they're inclined to, I mean if they're really interested in working at Tesla or SpaceX, then I'd help them do that. I'm not sure I want to necessarily try to insert them into the CEO role at some point. It's kind of like, if the rest of the team and the board kind of felt that they were the right person, then that would be fine. But I wouldn't want people to feel like I kind of installed my kid there, and I don't think that would be good for either the companies or the kid, really.嗯，我的意思是，如果他们有这个意愿，如果他们真的对在 Tesla 或 SpaceX 工作很感兴趣，我会支持他们做到这一点。但我不确定我是否想刻意把他们推进 CEO 的位置。有点像是，如果整个团队和董事会都觉得他们是合适的人选，那当然没问题。但我不希望人们觉得我是把自己的孩子硬塞进去的，我认为那对公司和孩子都不好。
Elon MuskBut I was actually at one point of the school of thought that, you know, it's best to give away kind of like 99% or more of one's assets, kind of like the Buffett school of thought. And I'm still mostly inclined in that direction, but after seeing what happened with Ford and GM and Chrysler, where GM and Chrysler went bankrupt but Ford did not, and Ford seemed to make better long-term choices than the other two companies, and that's in part because of the influence of the Ford family, and I thought, well, okay, there may be some merit in having some longer-term family ownership, at least a portion of it, so that it acts as a positive influence.不过我曾经有段时间持有这样的观点：最好是把自己 99% 甚至更多的资产捐出去，有点像巴菲特的思路。我现在大体上仍然倾向于这个方向。但在看到福特、通用和克莱斯勒发生的事情之后——通用和克莱斯勒破产了，但福特没有——福特似乎做出了比另外两家更好的长期决策，这在一定程度上是因为福特家族的影响力。于是我想，好吧，也许让家族在公司中保持一部分较长期的持股，作为一种积极影响，是有一定道理的。
Elon MuskThis is still something I'm thinking about, but acting as a positive influence in the long term, so the company kind of does do proper long-term things. And, like, you know, if you look at what happened also in Silicon Valley with HP, I think it's quite sad. And that to some degree is because there was much diminished influence by the Hewlett and Packard families. I think they should have prevailed in their... you know, where they were opposed to the merger that took place at one point, and I think they were right, actually.这仍然是我在思考的问题，但这种长期的积极影响，能让公司真正做出正确的长期决策。比如，看看硅谷的 HP 发生了什么，我觉得相当令人心痛。这在一定程度上是因为 Hewlett 和 Packard 两个家族的影响力大幅减弱。我认为他们应该坚持反对那次合并——他们当时是反对的——我觉得他们是对的。
HostRight. And keeping and looking to the future for SpaceX, is there an IPO plan for this year?好的。那展望 SpaceX 的未来，今年有 IPO 计划吗？
Elon MuskNo, there's no IPO plan, no. Let's say running a public company does have its drawbacks.没有，没有 IPO 计划。说来，管理上市公司确实有它的弊端。
HostSo you're not in a hurry.所以你并不着急。
Elon MuskNo. I mean, in the case of Tesla and SpaceX, we had to raise capital, and we had kind of a complex equity structure that needed to be resolved by going public. And so I thought we kind of needed to do that in those two cases. We don't have to do that in SpaceX. I think there's a good chance we will at some point in the future, but SpaceX's objectives are super long-term and the market is not. So I'm a bit worried that if we did go public, certainly if we went public too soon, that the market pressure would force us to do short-term things and abandon kind of long-term projects like going to Mars.不着急。我的意思是，在 Tesla 和 SpaceX 的情况下，我们当时需要融资，而且有复杂的股权结构需要通过上市来解决，所以我觉得那两个情况下是有必要的。但 SpaceX 不需要这样做。我认为将来某个时候很可能会上市，但 SpaceX 的目标是超长期的，而市场不是。所以我有点担心，如果上市——尤其是上市太早——市场压力会迫使我们做短期的事情，而放弃像去火星这样的长期项目。
HostRight, going to Mars, very long-term, yes. That's an important one. So you do have other projects on the back burner. You've talked about the Hyperloop, a way of getting people from downtown LA to downtown San Francisco in under half an hour, an electric supersonic airplane. Which of those two are bubbling up that we might hear more about in the near future?好的，去火星，非常非常长期，是的，那很重要。你还有一些其他项目在酝酿中——你谈到过 Hyperloop，一种能在不到半小时内把人从洛杉矶市区送到旧金山市区的方式，还有一架电动超音速飞机。这两件事哪个更快会有动静，让我们近期有所耳闻？
Elon MuskWell, I did promise that I'd do some paper on the Hyperloop idea. And things got a little hectic towards the end of last year, because I had committed to make these milestones at Tesla to the public markets, and I had to stay true to that obligation, which required just an insane level of work and attention. And then we also had the Solar City IPO, which was a very difficult IPO to get done. I mean, that IPO occurred just by the skin of its teeth. I mean, that was such a tough one.嗯，我确实承诺过会写一篇关于 Hyperloop 想法的论文。去年年底事情变得有些忙乱，因为我向公众市场承诺了 Tesla 的里程碑目标，必须信守那份承诺，这需要极其密集的工作和专注。然后还有 SolarCity 的 IPO，那真的是一次非常艰难的 IPO——勉强才完成，真的是差一点点。
HostWere you just determined it had to be in December?你是否坚持一定要在 12 月完成？
Elon MuskWell, if it wasn't in December it would mean pushing it out quite a bit, and the problem is that we'd already pushed it out quite a bit. So if we didn't go public, we'd have to do a private round, and then the whole thing wouldn't feel right. You know, it's like you're sitting at the... it's like you're at the altar and you don't do the wedding. It's like, what, a bit awkward, you know, to say the least. So we really needed to do it. And I think if we hadn't done it, people would have looked at it as a failure, and it wouldn't have been good, because there's just been too many failures in the solar... or too many, not enough success, let's say, in the solar arena. There needed to be... we need to chalk up the success.嗯，如果不在 12 月完成，就意味着要推迟相当长的时间，而问题是我们已经推迟了很多次了。如果当时不上市，就得做一轮私募，然后整件事就感觉不对劲了。有点像……就像你在祭坛前站着却不举行婚礼，说至少有点尴尬吧。所以我们真的必须完成它。而且我认为，如果当时没做成，大家会把它视为一次失败，那会很糟糕——因为太阳能行业已经有太多……或者说，太阳能行业成功案例太少了。我们需要积累一次成功。
HostIt's a rare piece of sunshine for the solar year, ironically, for a solar industry that does not have a lot of that.这是太阳能年中难得的一抹阳光，讽刺的是，一个本该充满阳光的行业偏偏不太阳光。
HostYes, so it's time, unfortunately, for the last question. You've come a long way since you were that six-year-old little boy breaking the rules. You turned 42 this year, right? What is on the cards? Where do you see yourself in 10 years' time, 20 years' time, 40 years' time? Because you famously said you want to die on Mars, just not on impact, right? Exactly. Tell us about that dream.是的，时间到了，很遗憾，要来最后一个问题了。从那个六岁的小男孩打破规则走到今天，你走了很长的路。你今年 42 岁了，对吗？未来是什么样的？你看到 10 年后、20 年后、40 年后的自己是什么样的？因为你那句著名的话——你想死在火星上，只是不要在撞击的时候，对吧？就是这样。说说那个梦想吧。
Elon MuskYeah, well, actually I was asked by a journalist, do you want to die on Mars, and I said yes, and I was like, but wait, not on impact, just to be clear. That's one of the possibilities. So, yeah, I mean, I'd like to be able to go to Mars while I'm still able to manage the journey reasonably well. So I think, like, I don't want to be like 75 and go to Mars.是的，其实是一个记者问我，你想死在火星上吗？我说想，然后补了一句：等等，不是在撞击的时候，说清楚一下——那是其中一种可能。所以，是的，我的意思是，我希望能在自己还能把旅途应付得不错的时候去火星。我不想 75 岁才去火星。
HostYou don't want to take your Zimmer frame with you, right?你不想带着助行架一起去，对吧？
Elon MuskYou know, it could be, at least in the beginning, could be, you know, mildly arduous. So I'd like to get there. I don't know, I mean, ideally in my 50s, that would be kind of cool.你知道，至少在最初阶段，可能会有些……怎么说，略显艰辛吧。所以我希望能去到那里。我不知道，理想的话，是在我五十多岁的时候，那会很酷。
HostSo you see that happening in the next...那你觉得这会在接下来……
Elon MuskWell, I mean, I aspire to make that happen, and I can see the potential for that happening. I'm not saying it will happen, but I think it can happen. I'll try to make it happen.嗯，我是说，我渴望让这件事发生，我也看到了它发生的可能性。我不是说它一定会发生，但我认为它可以发生。我会努力让它实现。
HostGreat. Ladies and gentlemen, Elon Musk, thank you very much.太棒了。女士们、先生们，Elon Musk，非常感谢你。