Some things are very important in order to have a bright future. If we don't do it, there will be big trouble, so how big is the risk?

Because if we don't take these actions, we won't have a bright future. In my opinion, the riskiest thing is to take no action.

一、Accept failure, but not accept itGive up

If one does not experience several failures in his life, he will miss the opportunity to challenge himself to the limit.

People are too afraid of failure. People exaggerate their fear of failure. Imagine what will happen if you fail?

You may be hungry and lose your home, but I think you have to have the courage to try.

Sometimes, people limit their abilities by themselves, and they don't actually realize how much they can do.

The course of life is always accompanied by countless successes and failures.

Now that we have chosen to innovate, we should not be afraid of failure, but chew the essence of things from each failure.Through constant experiment, we can succeed in the end.

As far as I'm concerned, I'll never give up, I mean, Never!

Accept failure, but not give up.

Your goal is important: if I simply want to optimize my wealth, I will not choose these companies. I would be in real estate or finance, or, frankly, in oil.

But what we need to consider is, what do people live for? What is the meaning of living? What we are doing, are we expanding the map of human wisdom?

When I was in college, I always thought about what would most affect the future of mankind.

In fact, the only meaningful thing to do is to strive to improve the wisdom of all mankind and work hard for a higher level of collective civilization. This is the meaning of living.

All the way from PayPal Holdings Inc, I have been thinking: "well, what are the factors most likely to affect the future of mankind?" "instead of thinking about" what is the best way to make money? "

For me, what I want to do is something meaningful and try my best to make the world a better place. This is what I want to do.

I want to change the world. I hope I can try my best to create a new world so that people can enjoy life. This is what I want to do.

For this reason, I don't mind taking risks. I hope what I do can have a profound impact on people's life. Either you don't do it, or you do it historic.

Finally, what is worrying is that today's motivation for children to learn and progress comes almost entirely from external pressure and rewards. As a result, they will have neither ambitious goals nor perseverance. I don't want to imagine such a future.

I believe that as long as there is enough internal drive, ordinary children can also achieve extraordinary achievements. All my achievements today come from the words of the author of "2001 Space Odyssey": "any sufficiently advanced technology is no different from magic." "

Second, no matter how beautiful PPT is, it can't be compared.It is persuasive to come up with the actual product.

In 1995, I came to California (to do my PhD at Stanford University) to find ways to increase the energy density of electric cars, for example, whether there are better capacitors that can be used as a substitute for batteries.

But at that time, with the rise of the Internet, I was faced with two choices: continue to study capacitor technology, which has little chance of success, or join the Internet career.

Finally, I chose to drop out of school and take part in online entrepreneurship, one of which was PayPal Holdings Inc.

The most important understanding in founding PayPal Holdings Inc comes from its birth process.

We originally planned to use PayPal Holdings Inc to provide integrated financial services, which is a very large and complex system.

As a result, people are not interested every time they introduce the system to others. When we introduce it, there is a small function of e-mail payment in the system, and everyone becomes very interested.

So we decided to focus on e-mail payment, and PayPal Holdings Inc became a hit.

However, if we hadn't noticed the reactions of others and made changes, we might not have been so successful.

Therefore, it is important to collect feedback and use it to revise your previous assumptions.

After PayPal Holdings Inc's success, I began to think, what are the immediate problems that are most likely to affect the future of mankind?

I think the biggest problem facing the planet is sustainable energy, that is, how to produce and consume energy in a sustainable way. If this problem cannot be solved in the 21 century, disaster will come to us.

Another big problem that may affect human survival is how to emigrate to other planets.

The first question prompted me to set up Tesla, Inc. and SolarCity, the largest supplier of rooftop solar systems in the United States. The second question led me to start SpaceX, a space technology company.

In 2002, to solve the problem of space transportation, I founded SpaceX. All the people I talked to at that time advised me not to do it, and a friend went to find a movie about the rocket explosion to show me.

In fact, he is also right. I have never made a physical product, so it was really difficult at first. The rocket launch failed three times in a row, which was very painful.

But we learned from each failure and finally succeeded in the fourth launch in 2008, putting Falcon one into Earth orbit. By that time, I had used up all my money, but luckily I succeeded.

After that, our transport rocket went from Falcon I to Falcon 9 and developed the Fei long spacecraft. Recently, Fei long successfully connected with the International Space Station and returned to Earth after launch.

I really pinched a cold sweat. I can't believe we did it.

But there are more goals to be achieved if humans are to emigrate to other planets. So, I want you to join SpaceX or other space exploration companies.

This is not to be pessimistic about the earth. In fact, I am quite optimistic about the future of the earth. I think there is a 99% chance that human beings will be able to live comfortably for a long time.

However, even if the earth has only 1% of the future risk, it is enough to stimulate us to prepare ahead of time and do a "planetary backup".

In 2003, in order to prove the potential of electric cars, I founded Tesla, Inc. Company. In the past, many people thought that electric cars were too slow, could not run far, and were ugly, just like golf carts.

In order to change people's impression, we have developed Tesla, Inc. Roadster, an electric sports car with high speed, long distance and cool shape.

So, to start a company, you have to actually make a product prototype. Because,No matter how wonderful the paper homework and PowerPoint reports are, they are not as convincing as the actual products.

After the introduction of the Roadster, someone said, "even if you can make an expensive limited-edition sports car, do you have the ability to make a real mass-produced car?" "No problem, we will launch the four-door RV Model S and prove it to everyone.

This is my entrepreneurial process along the way.

Third, you can't just be a little better than othersIt's much better.

Later I found that my friend's criticism of everything I did was as valuable as gold.

Usually your friends know what is wrong, but they do not want to tell you, because they do not want to hurt you, this does not mean that your friends are right, but many times their criticism is the most sincere.

It's true.

When you talk about your ideas, the people closest to you usually want to encourage you. The last thing they want to do is let you down.

But these people are also a valuable resource: they can tell you in depth where your weaknesses are and what you need to improve.

Of course, it's painful when you hear the criticism that you or what you create is not perfect.

But anyone with wisdom can understand what kind of feedback this is-it's an opportunity for improvement.

You have to try methods that can go wrong, and then your goal is to make as few mistakes as possible.

When you start a business for the first time, you are likely that everything is fine, your happiness index is very high, and then you will encounter all kinds of problems, happiness will continue to decline, and then you will experience the harm of the whole world.

If you enter any existing market, in the face of those strong competitors, your product or service must be much better than them, it can not just have a little advantage, because when you stand in the position of consumers, you will always buy a brand that you can trust, unless the product is very different.

So, you can't be a little better, but much better.

You have to have innovative thinking, not better identity.You don't just need to be 10% better, you need to create 10 times the value.

Think about how iPod replaced the Walkman, or how iPhone replaced BlackBerry, or how iPad replaced Palm Pilot.

IV. Scientific methodsIt's really effective in figuring out the truth.

Ask a question, collect as much evidence as possible, formulate axioms based on the evidence, and try to set a probability value for each axiom.

Draw conclusions based on validity in order to determine whether these axioms are correct, whether they are relevant, whether they inevitably lead to this conclusion, and what are the probabilities?

Try to overturn the conclusion, seek rebuttal from others, and further help break your conclusion. If no one can invalidate your conclusion, then you may be right, but you may not be right.

This is the scientific method, and it is really helpful in figuring out the tricky things.

But most people don't use it, they prefer wishful thinking, they ignore retorts, and they draw conclusions based on what others are doing and what they are not doing.

Such reasoning leads to "it's true, because what I'm saying is true," but not because it's objectively true.

I am naturally good at engineering, a gift I inherited from my father, and it is easy for me to do things that are difficult for others. There was a time when I thought things were so simple and clear that everyone must know them.

Like how the wires in the house work. And how circuit breakers work, what are alternating current and direct current, what amperes and volts are, and how to mix fuel and oxidizer to make explosives.

I thought everyone knew this knowledge, but it wasn't.

My advice to these people is that if you want to understand the nature of things, you should read a book and occasionally visit the Reddit, because I grew up on books.

Fifth, the first principleIt's extremely important to understand new things.

To understand new things that are counterintuitive, I think physics provides an ideal research framework.

For example, quantum mechanics is counterintuitive, the real world does not seem to work that way, and the fact is that it can be verified with high precision through experiments.

Physics has been able to make progress in these counterintuitive fields because it splits things into the most basic substance and pushes them up.

I think this is a very important method, and in fact it is the only effective way to understand new things and explore unknown areas.

In our daily life, we are very good at using analogy. We do what others are doing and make minor adjustments. Analogy provides a shortcut without a lot of thinking, which is fine in daily life.

We can't use the first principles of physics in everything. It takes too much calculation. But the first principle is extremely important for understanding new things.

Now, the teaching method of physics class is not right. We usually ask students to memorize all kinds of boring formulas, but do not convey the basic meaning of the formula.

What do these formulas represent in reality? The wonderful real world that can be described by a formula is incredible. The beauty and magic of physics are not passed on through the classroom.

In addition, I think our teaching should focus on problems rather than tools.

For example, if we want to understand how the internal combustion engine works, the best way is to take it apart, study each part, and then assemble it.

What tools do we need in the process? We need screwdrivers, wrenches, and other tools. When you take the internal combustion engine apart and assemble it, you know what these tools do.

But if, on the other hand, you are asked to take a lesson on screwdrivers and wrenches, the effect will be very poor, and it will be difficult for you to remember.

The way our brains evolve is to remember things that are relevant to us, so be sure to establish correlations, otherwise the process of memory will be painful and difficult because it seems too abstract to matter.

Therefore, there must be relevance and importance, to understand the causes of things, in order to naturally absorb knowledge.

I think we should dabble in as many subjects as possible. Many innovations are the result of interdisciplinary work. Our knowledge reserves are getting bigger and bigger, so we must be able to integrate them.

There are people who are proficient in one field but not others, and if you can combine knowledge from different areas, you will have the opportunity to create extraordinary results, and there are plenty of opportunities for innovation.

So I encourage you to learn as many subjects as possible. For engineering students, I suggest studying economics, literature, or other fields.

I suggest that if you are interested, you can learn the basic knowledge of each field, and then think about how to integrate the knowledge of different fields. In this way, it is easy to have wonderful ideas.

6. Four suggestions for young people

1. Work with all one's strength

First of all, you need to do your best at work, especially for the founders of the company, you have to work super hard.

What do you mean, super hard?

When my brother and I started our first company, we were too poor to rent an apartment, and then we just rented a small office. We all slept on the sofa, we bathed at the YMCA, and we were strapped for money.

We can only afford one computer, so during the day we run the website, and at night I write code, seven days a week, without sleep.

During that time, I briefly dated a girlfriend who had to sleep in the office in order to be with me.

I work hard almost when I'm awake, and that's my first piece of advice especially for people who want to start a company.

You can simply calculate that if others work 50 hours and you work 100 hours, your company will do twice as much as other companies within a year.

two。 Choose the right person.

Another point I want to say is that if you want to start a company, or join a company, the most important thing is to attract outstanding people; if you join a team, you have to choose an outstanding team that pleases you; if you start a company, you have to gather a group of outstanding people.

You know, a company is a group of people who come together to create products or services. Therefore, the talent of this group of people, the degree of hard work and the strength of cohesion determine the success of the company.

If you want to start a company, you must do your best to recruit outstanding people.

3.Get to the point and don't be blinded by noise

The next point is, get to the point and don't be blinded by noise.

Many companies fail to see the point and spend their money on areas where they can't improve their products. So take Tesla, Inc. as an example, we never spend money on advertising, we spend all our money on research and development, manufacturing and design, and try our best to make cars better.

I think this is how the company should operate.

Therefore, for any company, it is necessary to always think about whether what people put their energy into making products or services better, and if not, stop these attempts immediately.

4. Don't drift with the current.

Last but not least, don't go with the flow.

You may have heard me say that you might as well adopt the "first principles" of physics.

In other words, do not blindly drift with the current, everything should return to the most basic truth. To infer from this, this is a good way to judge whether things have a future or just a trend.

It's not easy. You can't think about everything in this way. It takes a lot of effort.

But if you're going to try to innovate, this is the best way of thinking, and this is the way physicists use to deduce non-intuitive theories such as quantum mechanics.

Therefore, this is indeed a very useful method.

Conclusion

Maybe you've heard of this, but there are really no shortcuts.

For discovering the needs of society, if you find that this is really what everyone needs, you can find some like-minded people to study and solve it.

In my opinion, the most suitable time to do these things is when you are in college or just graduated from college, because you have less responsibility and do not need to support your family.

As time goes by, the burden on you becomes heavier and heavier, and you need to take more risks. The older you get, the more responsibilities you have to take on.

When you face the risk of failure, you often have to consider other people around you and become hesitant.

So, I will encourage you, now is the best time to take risks, if you have a dream, let it go and make sure you won't regret it!

Aim at the moon, and if you fail, you can at least land on the clouds.