Phrases

01. Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.

02. When you struggle with a problem, that’s when you understand it.

03. When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.

04. I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.

05. Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.

06. Many things are improbable, only a few are impossible.

07. People should pursue what they’re passionate about. That will make them happier than pretty much anything else.

08. For me it was never about money, but solving problems for the future of humanity.

09. I would like to die on Mars. Just not on impact.

10. What I’m trying to do is to maximise the probability of the future being better.

11. Constantly seek criticism. A well thought out critique of what you’re doing is as valuable as gold

12. I could either watch it happen or be a part of it.

13. Persistence is very important. You should not give up unless you are forced to give up.

14. Life is too short for long-term grudges. Elon Musk

15. Starting and growing a business is as much about the innovation, drive and determination of the people who do it as it is about the product they sell.

16. Work like hell. I mean you just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week. [This] improves the odds of success. If other people are putting in 40 hour work weeks and you’re putting in 100 hour work weeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing you know that you will achieve in 4 months what it takes them a year to achieve.

17. I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.

18. Most people can learn a lot more than they think they can. They sell themselves short without trying.

19. With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon.

20. Focus on something that has high value to someone else, be really rigorous in making that assessment, because natural human tendency is wishful thinking, so the challenge to entrepreneurs is telling what’s the difference between really believing in your ideals and sticking to them as opposed to pursuing some unrealistic dream that doesn’t actually have merit, be very rigorous in your self analysis, certainly being extremely tenacious, and just work like hell. Put in 80-100 hours every week. All these things improves the odds of success

21. Patience is a virtue, and I’m learning patience. It’s a tough lesson.

22. The first step is to establish that something is possible; then probability will occur.

23. Any product that needs a manual to work is broken.

24. The biggest mistake, in general, I’ve made, is to put too much of a weighting on someone’s talent and not enough on their personality. And I’ve made that mistake several times. I think it actually matters whether somebody has a good heart, it really does. I’ve made the mistake of thinking that it’s sometimes just about the brain.

25. 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.

26. Great companies are built on great products.

27. You want to have a future where you’re expecting things to be better, not one where you’re expecting things to be worse.

28. Actively seek out and listen carefully to negative feedback.

29. You want to do things you’re passionate about but also are useful to other people.

30. What most people know but don’t realize they know is that the world is almost entirely solar-powered already. If the sun wasn’t there, we’d be a frozen ice ball at three degrees Kelvin, and the sun powers the entire system of precipitation. The whole ecosystem is solar-powered.

31. I read books and talked to people. I mean that’s kind of how one learns anything. There’s lots of great books out there & lots of smart people.

32. Physics is a good framework for thinking. … Boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there.

33. You have to be pretty driven to make it happen. Otherwise, you will just make yourself miserable.

34. 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.

35. We need to figure out how to have the things we love, and not destroy the world.

36. I started SpaceX with the expectation of failure.

37. Funded by the government just means funded by the people. Government, by the way, has no money. It only takes money from the people. Sometimes people forget that that’s really what occurs.

38. When Henry Ford made cheap, reliable cars people said, ‘Nah, what’s wrong with a horse?’ That was a huge bet he made, and it worked.

39. If something’s important enough, you should try. Even if you – the probable outcome is failure.

40. It’s OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.

41. The extension of life beyond Earth is the most important thing we can do as a species.

42. Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.

43. For my part, I will never give up, and I mean never.

44. You shouldn’t do things differently just because they’re different. They need to be… better.

45. You should be innovating so fast that you’re invalidating your prior patents.

46. I don’t create companies for the sake of creating companies, but to get things done.

47. As a child I would just question things.

48. When I was in college, I wanted to be involved in things that would change the world.

49. I think it matters whether someone has a good heart.